2025/05/05 by Tinashe Mawere · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Computer Science · Engineering · #FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance #ICT Impact and Policies #ICT in Developing Communities
paper · doi:10.16997/12993670
openalex publication_date 2025/05/05 · openalex created_date 2025/05/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
FORTHCOMING online May 8 and in print June 12, 2025 This book provides case studies on the strategies used by African governments in monitoring and controlling digital and social media, as well as the implications of such actions for claims about media freedom and freedom of expression. Further, the book examines the human rights challenges posed by state control and monitoring of digital and social media forms of communication. In the context of a digital surveillance state, it questions how digital and social media can possibly enhance the democratisation of both the communicative and political spaces. The book focuses on questions of censorship and control of digital and social media in ‘supposedly’ democratic societies. It discusses regulation and how governments have imposed their state power by ‘switching off’ the internet and blocking social media sites under the guise of national security and order maintenance. “Digital and Social Media in Africa is a rich, timely and refreshingly original contribution that troubles the dominant conception of digital and social media as the harbingers of democracy in Africa.” —Blessing Makwambeni (PhD) is a senior lecturer and postgraduate coordinator in the Media and Communication department at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology “An important addition to studies of digital and social media, this book makes a significant contribution to debates on media freedom and media censorship in Africa. This essential resource invites us to question and reflect critically on the (hopeful) promises of digital and social media for empowerment, liberation and democracy. Drawing on a wide range of empirical case studies, the book explores how digital and social media are increasingly politicised, censored and controlled in Africa. This will be an essential resource for anyone researching digital and social media within Africa and provides an African perspective on critical media approaches to digital and social media globally.” —Professor Sarah Gibson, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban THE EDITORS Dr Henri-Count Evans is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Eswatini Ruth Teer-Tomaselli is Professor Emeritus and Research Fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Tinashe Mawere is a researcher at the University of Pretoria, South Africa