This book looks at how digital technologies are revolutionizing electoral campaigns and democratization struggles in Africa. Digital technologies are giving voice and civic agency to a cross section of African voters, providing important spaces for political engagement and debate. Drawing on cases from Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe amongst others, this book traces the shifts and tensions in this changing electoral communications landscape. In doing so, the book explores themes such as hate speech and disinformation, decolonisation, surveillance, internet shutdowns, influencers, bots, algorithms, and election observation, and looks beyond Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube to the increasingly important role of visual platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Particularly highlighting the contribution of African scholars, this book is an important guide for researchers across the fields of African politics, media studies, and electoral studies, as well as to professionals and policymakers in political communication.

This book offers an African perspective on how news organisations are embracing digital participatory practices as part of their everyday news production, dissemination and audience engagement strategies. Drawing on empirical evidence from news organisations in sub-Saharan Africa, Participatory Journalism in Africa investigates and maps out professional practices emerging with journalists' direct interactions with readers and sources via online user comment spaces and social media platforms. Using a social constructivist approach, the book focuses on the challenges relating to the elite-centric nature of active participation on the platforms, while also highlighting emerging ethical and normative dilemmas. The authors also point to the hidden structural controls to participation and user engagement associated with artificial intelligence, chatbots and algorithms. These obstacles, coupled with low digital literacy levels and the well-established pitfalls of the digital divide, challenge the utopian view that in Africa interactive digital technologies are the sine qua non spaces for democratic participation. This is a valuable resource for academics, journalists and students across a wide range of disciplines including journalism studies, communication, sociology and political science.

This book critically examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated digital innovation within higher education using case studies from Africa. Imagining a future for post-pandemic higher education, it analyses the challenges and opportunities of remote teaching and learning. The book explores the structural barriers around access to higher education and how these were reconfigured and amplified by technology-dependent teaching and learning. Case studies from countries across Africa provide unique insights into the challenges experienced by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, examining examples of emergent pedagogies such as online, mobile and social media-enhanced teaching, and blended learning. The chapters consider online assessment and teacher professional development, critically examining some of the benefits and structural challenges of digital technology integration in the context of pre-existing education disparities (such as students and teachers living in poverty-stricken and highly unequal societies). Offering invaluable insights into higher education in Africa, the book will be essential reading for researchers, scholars, and students in the fields of higher education study, digital education and educational technology, and African and comparative education. It will also be of interest to higher education managers and policymakers.

This book explores the role and place of popular, traditional and digital media platforms in the mediatization, representation and performance of various conflicts and peacebuilding interventions in the African context. The role of the media in conflict is often depicted as either 'good' (as symbolized by peace journalism) or 'bad' (as exemplified by war journalism), but this book moves beyond this binary to highlight the 'in-between' role that the media often plays in times of conflict. The volume does not only focus on the relationship between mass media, conflict and peacebuilding processes but it broadens its scope by critically analysing the dynamic and emergent roles of popular and digital media platforms in a continent where the semi-literate and oral communities still rely heavily on popular communication platforms to get news and information. Whilst social media platforms have been hailed for their assumed democratic and digital dividends, this book does not only focus on these positive aspects but also shines a light on dark forms of participation which are fuelling racial, gender, ethnic, political and religious conflicts in highly polarized and stratified societies. Highlighting the many ways in which traditional, digital and popular media can be used to both escalate conflicts and promote peacebuilding, this volume will be a useful resource for students, researchers and civil society groups interested in peace and conflict studies, journalism and media studies in different contexts within Africa.

This book critically examines the manifest and latent practices of surveillance in the southern African region, using case studies from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique. The book demonstrates the growing role of super-powers in the construction and normalization of the surveillance state. It traces the digitization of surveillance practices to the rapid adoption of smart CCTV, facial recognition technologies and EMSI catchers. Through predictive policing mechanisms, state security agencies have appropriated digital media technologies for sentiment analysis, constant monitoring of digital footprints of security targets, and even deploying cyber-troops on popular social media platforms. The authors argue that surveillance practices have thus been digitized with deleterious impact on the right to privacy, peaceful assembly and freedom of expression in the region. Furthermore, they argue that specific laws and regulations governing surveillance practices in the region are lagging behind. Finally, the book demonstrates how digital surveillance have significantly infiltrated the political, economic and social fabric of Southern Africa. This book provides much needed systematic, cutting-edge research into the trends, practices, policies and geo-political interests at the center of surveillance practices in the region, providing a crucial link between human rights, such as freedom of privacy and expression, and political authoritarianism.