Paper short abstract:

This paper critically analyzes selected African Twitter responses to the death of the Queen with the aim of demonstrating how the concept of global social media is a techno-capitalist adventure that is meant to promote Western hegemony, which invariably poses danger to minority cultures.

Paper long abstract:

The concept of “global social media” – a form of context collapse in cultural and media studies that is injurious to minority cultures – calls for interrogation, especially because of the neoliberal ideals it seems to propagate. The intended purpose of globalizing social media is tethered around the assumption that it homogenizes social media experiences across time and space. In other words, there is a universal experience of social media use among every user in the world. While this might be intended to achieve neoliberal freedom, it nevertheless undermines and craftily promotes Eurocentric ideas and Western cultures that underscore and foregrounds social media. Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Western media portrayed the Queen’s death on social media as a global loss, and as such, the world was expected to mourn the Queen. While the Queen’s death was a tragic loss, the subsequent social media theatrics that erupted, especially from former British colonies, begs for critical analysis. This paper is therefore aimed at critically analyzing selected African Twitter responses to the death of the Queen. By doing a qualitative analysis of these selected tweets, the overall goal of this paper is to demonstrate how the concept of global social media is a techno-capitalist adventure that is meant to promote Western hegemony, which invariably poses danger to minority cultures and people with colonial history.