An exploration of online network societies of social movements, ideologies and the communication of united action in Kenya

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In recent years, social and political movements and protests have risen in striking numbersthroughout the globe, and much of their success may be attributed to the use of digital technologiesand new media (Selander, Young and Vaast, 2019). The studies into these movements, however,have been mostly interested in those that occur in the global north, and apart from the Arabuprising in North Africa, the mass resistance of activists in sub-Saharan Africa have not receivedsimilar attention (Aidi, 2018). The north African Arab Spring may have inspired other socio-political movements in some countries in the sub-Saharan region (de Waal and Ibreck, 2012).However, there is very little research available into how different movements of varying politicalideologies coordinate online activism and sustain a united resistance against the state. Thisresearch seeks to fill this gap, by examining the relationships between ideologies, how theexperiences and structures of oppression are connected in Kenya, and how activists collaborate,and form unified fronts against oppressive forces through the medium of digital communication.The successful efforts of recent western online movements like #BLM, for instance, is said to havebenefitted from the multiple sets of ideologies inherent in the movement, such as anti-policebrutality, racial equality, economic and social class, queer rights, anti-fascism, feminism andprogressive or Marxist political motivations (Cohen and Jackson, 2016; Ransby, 2015; Adams, 2020;Mattson, 2016). In the Kenyan context, human rights activists and social movements campaignagainst several issues that are prevalent in the country. These include suppression of speech/media(Abdi, 2019), anti-LGBT laws (Ghoshal, 2019), femicide and gender inequality (Ombuor, 2019;Nyabola, 2018), police brutality (Wabwire, 2020) and political/government corruption (Khalid andThompson, 2019), to name a few. Digital technology and social media are slowly broadening thelandscape for political dissent in the country (Admire, Bosch and Ncube, 2020; Ogenga, 2020),while also paving the way for social and political movements to form and find freedom in onlinespaces (Lim, 2012; Mbenga, 2013; Kamau, 2017). However, there are still institutional barriers tospeaking about certain anti-establishment causes and on-the-ground activities and offline protestsare sometimes stifled and may risk violence from opposition groups (Mutahi and Ruteere, 2019).This PhD is specifically interested in the bypassing of those institutional controls. How the freeflows of information in online spaces allows multiple strands of anti-establishment ideologies toform digital communities of activists, and the capacity to which this might lead to a cohesivemessage against state-imposed and institutionalised oppression. The study will investigate fivesocial movement groups in Kenya, which includes LGBT rights, women's rights, free speech/media,anti-government corruption and anti-police brutality. This research will explore the ways in whichthese movements use digital technologies, new and social media to exchange ideas, mitigatechallenges of online activism, and whether the internet plays a particular role in unifyingmovements. The selection of these particular groups is based on the idea that, although thesegroups are motivated by singular issues and that forms of oppression or repression are subjective,it can be argued that the principal adversary to each of their causes is primarily the Kenyan state,with regard to laws and policies, for example. Therefore, it provides a solid foundation on which tobegin a study into the formation of digital networks of activists and social movements, and how themerger of these ideologies may result in collective action.