Political scandals are rarely the focus of major academic research in Zimbabwe where tight control of the dominant state media by the ruling party ensures that scandals involving senior government officials are suppressed. Informed by Altheide and Snow’s media logic and Thompson’s concept of mediated political scandals, this article uses framing analysis to examine The Herald’s logic behind exposing the ZIMDEF scandal involving former Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Jonathan Moyo. We therefore view the scandal as a political power scandal within ZANU-PF as two main factions, the Lacoste faction led by then Vice-President and now President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the G40 faction fronted by the then Minister of Higher Education Jonathan Moyo, who fought a nail-biting contest over the succession of long-time ruler Mugabe as his reign entered the twilight. The article argues that the scandal evolved like a choreographed sting operation, in which the objective was not to expose public corruption, but to neutralise a formidable political foe as the race to succeed former president Robert Mugabe intensified.

Social networking and the individuated privacy of the virtual space have emerged as new forms of conflating social identities and free speech for most subaltern communities. While it is clearly accepted that the notion of social networking within most African communities has always existed as part of oramedia (orality), which also gained more positive value from grapevine as a notch of communication, current trends in communication, coupled with the rise of new media have brought normative and pragmatic values in the latter day communication culture. One social networking group from Matebeleland (a region of historical complexities in Zimbabwe), the "Forum", will be used to show how the virtual sphere has revolutionised the Habermasian public sphere. The new social networking sites enable participants to gather and connect through 'Internet portals.' We posit that these different fora define the extent to which engagement and free speech are practiced leading to changes in people's worldviews. Online fora now range from different Facebook and Whatsapp groups, such as; Inhlamba Zesintu, Luveve Ikasi Lami, Abammeli Mthwakazi, Not-Everyone-is-Zimbabwean, Thina AbaMpofu, to websites like iNkundla.net, Youtube, and other vibrant platforms created through mailing lists and listserv, such as Forum.

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Popular theatre occupies a special space in Matabeleland because it is situated in the everyday lives of ordinary people, and is able to articulate their experiences and to create spaces for them to ‘speak to power’. In the wake of the Gukurahundi massacres and perceived marginalization of Matabeleland in the 1980s, theatre groups used their plays to probe issues that were shunned by mainstream media. We argue that theatre has been used as part of radical citizen media in a context in which mainstream public spheres are restricted. We also demonstrate that theatre groups in Matabeleland have shifted between ‘Matabeleland particularism’ and addressing broader, ‘national’ concerns, reflecting historical context. However, theatre is not always used to express views that support the downtrodden against the establishment. In the Matabeleland case and also Zimbabwe as a whole, theatre has also been employed by the state and other pro-establishment groups for ideological mobilization.

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