Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the online engagements around the #ZimbabweanLivesMatter campaign to understand the ways that different actors have used digital technology to open up and close civic space.

Paper long abstract:

In August 2020 the hashtag #ZimbabweanLivesMatter went viral on social media platforms. Zimbabweans and their allies, at home and across the world sought to bring global attention to the spiralling crisis of misgovernance. The hashtag gained traction due to the coincidence of a number of factors. These included the strict Coronavirus lockdown which channeled protest into digital spaces, the widespread crackdown on government critics in July, as well as the global #BlackLiversMatter protests sparked by the horrific killing of George Floyd by police in May, 2020. At its peak the hashtag was tweeted over 750 000 times a day. Significantly, it led to the activation of the government’s own information operation apparatus as pro-government actors frantically sought to counter the messaging of the government’s critics. The online engagements around the hashtag #ZimbabweanLivesMatter brings into sharp relief the two central dimensions of the political uses of twitter in contemporary Zimbabwe. On the one hand, the use of social media to ‘speak truth to power’, and on the other, its use to obfuscate the truth in order to retain power. This paper examines the online engagements around the #ZimbabweanLIvesMatter campaign to understand the ways that different actors have used digital technology to open up and close civic space.