Examining the role of social media and mobile social networking applications in socio-political contestations in Nigeria

Abstract

Social media platforms continue to flourish as practices encompassing them become deeply embedded in many cultures. As more people embrace social media platforms, their affordances and opportunities are leading to improved communication, and helping hold authorities to account. To further scrutinize the importance of these platforms, this study interrogates the role of digital media in socio-political contestations in Nigeria by examining the media used to mobilize, coordinate, and document the 2020 #EndSARS protests in Nigeria. Analyses of survey data collected in 2020 during the protests in Lagos and Port Harcourt, Nigeria (N = 391) show that demonstrators who were 30 years and older and used WhatsApp and Facebook to learn about the protests as well as coordinate their participation in the protests are more likely to report participating on the first day of the protests than protesters who are younger than 30 and used other media platforms. Findings further illustrate that digital enthusiasm facilitated by hedonic-experiential and epicurean communication on WhatsApp and Facebook eventuated a process of emotional contagion through connective repertoires that created propitious emotional conditions for mass collective protest actions. Finally, the article discusses how the use of WhatsApp and Facebook gave protesters strategic communicative power during the protests.

Social media, Keyboard Disruptors, and Fake Protesters during protest movements in Nigeria

“…Crucially, the 2020 #EndSARS protests have not been studied adequately with media reports stating that the protests were marshalled and organised online (BBC 2020b). Only a handful of studies have evaluated the hypothesis about the salience of online media during the 2020 #EndSARS protests (Dambo et al, 2022;Dambo et al, 2021;Uwalaka & Nwala, 2023). While these studies are vital to understanding some aspects of the hypothesis, it however, looked only at the dissemination of messages on twitter but failed to interface with the protesters on the streets or robustly discuss attempts at repressing, and disintegrating the protests as a means of thwarting the protests by those in authority as well as concealing the involvement of Nigeria authorities in the shooting of protesters during the protests.…”

“…It was in that twitchy period of utmost scepticism of law enforcement around the world that the SARS film appeared on the internet. The film revealed the highhandedness of SARS Officer as it displayed an unresponsive man on the floor and a paucity of compassion meted to the dying man by the absconding SARS officers (Uwalaka, 2023;Uwalaka & Nwala, 2023). Youths in Nigeria were enraged, protested in the streets of Nigeria and other countries such as the United States of America, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Hungary, Ireland, South Africa and Australia (Lawal & Olanrewaju 2020).…”