Digital technologies are changing how data is produced, accessed and used by governments and citizens in Africa. This panel considers disruptions and connections in how data production, dissemination and use are implicated in political competition.
Long Abstract:
Digital technologies are changing how data is produced, accessed and used by governments and citizens in Africa. Social media, e-government and 'data for development' approaches threaten to disrupt prevailing power inequalities and reconfigure state-society relations, potentially increasing transparency and accountability, enhancing service delivery and decision-making and enabling new connections conducive to 'development'. However, continuities are also apparent in how production, access to and use of data is implicated in political competition, whereby governments have sought to control digital dissemination of information, to frame dissenting interpretations of data as 'fake news', to use social media data in their electoral campaigning, and to extend digital surveillance of political opposition and other marginalised groups. Furthermore, connections with international actors, such as development organisations, data analytics firms, social media platforms and other corporations may perpetuate inequalities in access to and control over data. This panel will consider the politics of production of, access to and use of data in Africa. Topics addressed may include, but are not limited to: use of data by governments, political parties, civil society and other actors within political strategies; disruptions and connections in surveillance of digital spaces; the role of international actors in shaping production of, access to and use of digital data; accountability, transparency and service delivery; tensions between narratives and ethics of openness and data privacy; citizenship and state-society relations; expansion of biometrics; digital data and elections; the role of the law and security providers in the politics of data; and implications for conducting research in Africa.
This article seeks to explore digital surveillance in countering the terrorist threat in Kenya in relation to intrusiveness, proportionality, indiscrimination and effectiveness amidst the complex surveillance-privacy rights context.
Paper long abstract:
The need for surveillance and the focus on mass surveillance have had implications in the indiscriminate nature of the construction of suspect communities based on ethnic and religious nature, due to the nature of countering religiously aligned fundamentalist ideologies. Further, the need for an increase in surveillance has negatively affected the privacy rights of individuals and curtailed efforts of institutions mainly working with human rights. In Kenya, the balance between state surveillance and individual privacy rights is greatly impacted due to an increase in surveillance attributed to a series of terrorist attacks in Kenya and the impetus to join the GWOT. The existing counter-terrorism policies attest to the fact that the Kenyan public security strategies involve the strong surveillance role. Complexities and an increase in modern transnational crime and terrorism within a global technologically fluid environment obligate the law enforcement officials to ensure greater public security under unpredictable circumstances of preventive law enforcement. These new and emerging surveillance practices as a result of digital techniques and technologies have brought in a change in the power, intensity, and scope for surveillance. This article explores digital surveillance in countering the terrorist threat in Kenya in relation to intrusiveness, proportionality, indiscrimination, and effectiveness amidst the complex surveillance-privacy rights context. Based on a qualitative study, the article comprises of an exploratory analysis of the nature of digital surveillance in Kenya in relation to the trends of online radicalization and recruitment; and, individual privacy concerns of individuals in relation to privacy rights and civil life.
This paper explores the policing of data production, dissemination and analysis in Tanzania and situates this within the broader securitisation of social media use and criminalisation of online political dissent.
Paper long abstract:
Developments such as increased use of social media by Members of Parliament and activists and regular public opinion surveys conducted by mobile phone gave reason for optimism that digital technologies would enable Tanzanian citizens to produce, share and use data to enhance the transparency, accountability and responsiveness of government. Since 2015, however, the government has sought greater control over what constitutes legitimate data and how data can be disseminated, as part of a broader intensification of constraints on political freedoms under President Magufuli. A Statistics Law (2015) effectively criminalises publication of interpretations of official statistics that differ from those preferred by the government and other legislation regulating online communication prohibits dissemination of 'false' information. This paper situates these developments within the broader securitisation of social media communications in Tanzania, whereby, like other forms of political dissent expressed online, data and interpretations of data that do not conform to official narratives regarding government performance and Tanzania's development are framed as 'seditious' threats to unity, peace and development. This narrative is contested, however, by civil society and the political opposition and the paper concludes by considering the way in which high profile arrests, leaked letters, court challenges, international interventions and the idea that development depends on data have made data production, dissemination and analysis in itself an important and dynamic point of contestation in Tanzanian politics.
Since the 2014 general elections, Mozambique has been experiencing a multiplicity of spaces that allow interaction between political actors and society, specially with the introduction of digital communication platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp.
Paper long abstract:
This paper aims to understand the political impact of social networking platforms on the general elections in Mozambique, held in October 15, 2014. It focuses on how electoral observation was carried out in Mozambique using online tools. The study is based on an ongoing research project exploring political of young people in politics through the Internet in Mozambique. It will adopt a qualitative approach (interviews and digital ethnography) to sketch out the landscape of online electoral observation in Mozambique. The positions here are the result of abstraction and generalization - the particular positions of individuals or groups will only ever approximate such generalized positions, which are reconstructed from the complexity of everyday situated experience. As a preliminary conclusion, we have noted that the Internet allows the 'emergence of new perspectives' in the case of the political participation in Mozambique, despite the reduced access to the Internet.
Keywords: political participation, electoral observation, social networks sites
This paper explores the ways in which viral Internet content circulates in and across Congolese communities. It discusses the overlap between print cartoons, and digital viral videos and memes, and highlight the new potentials online content offers in the way of political critique.
Paper long abstract:
Over the past decade, looming threats of political protest have led the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to quell civil unrest by periodically suspending Internet services. Referred to as "blackouts," periods of Internet restrictions point to the impending concerns of a president who was reluctant to cede power and hold elections. Social media has indeed become a prominent medium through which to communicate opinions and views—ones which would otherwise be violently repressed. The digital domain in the Congo offers people a new vital outlet through which to critique and comment on some of the larger social forces that inform their lives.
Like mobile phone users worldwide, Congolese people now chronicle their daily lives through images—which thereby become an archive of the popular. From the mundane selfies, to sobering depictions of political power abuse, people are strengthening and forge new networks of communication through the circulation of digital images. Seemingly banal content posted on social media often carries with it political meaning. Photoshopped images of politicians in compromising situations offer a carnivalesque commentary of the arbitrariness of power. Viral content also interacts with other modes of communication such as rumour, which itself intersects with contemporary threats of biological virus outbreaks, most notably Ebola. This paper argues that since notions of contagion and virality carry with them their own ontological baggage, a consideration of cultural context is required for a deeper understanding of Internet participation in Congo.
has 1 download
1