Type of Resource:
Journal Article

Year of Publication:
2017

Indicators:
- Enablers
- Trends


Themes:
- Internet for Democracy
- Internet Or Digital Rights and Freedoms

Author(s): Manase Kudzai Chiweshe

This article questions the ability of social media to galvanize, organize and bring together youth in other parts of Africa to be actively involved in political processes within their own spaces. Using the example of urban youth in Harare, the article show that the most popular social networking site, Facebook, is anything but a site of deep political engagement. Rather, youth spent hours on the site discussing anything from fashion, gossip, sport, sex, relationships, religion and music. By removing youth from serious engagement with issues that affect their lives, social media is cultivating political apathy among Zimbabwean youth. There are little, if any, serious policy debates and discussions online.

URL
https://www.jstor.org/stable/90018194?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=internet&searchText=use&searchText=in&searchText=africa&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Fpagemark%3DcGFnZU1hcms9Nw%253D%253D%26amp%3BsearchType%3DfacetSearch%26amp%3Bsd%3D2013%26amp%3Bed%3D2019%26amp%3BQuery%3Dinternet%2Buse%2Bin%2Bafrica%26amp%3Brefreqid%3Dsearch%253A97760ede02154a00bac82f5e1f8845f6&ab_segments=0%2Fdefault-2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=search%3A099c69377d00f9a3cd277a7338c7014d&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Region of Study:
South Africa,

Country of Study:
Zimbabwe,

Study Quality
High