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1. Covid-19 disinformation and social media manipulation trends

Author:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Abstract:
A range of actors are manipulating the information environment to exploit the Covid-19 crisis for strategic gain. ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre is tracking many of these state and non-state actors online and will occasionally publish investigative data-driven reporting that will focus on the use of disinformation, propaganda, extremist narratives and conspiracy theories. The bulk of ASPI’s data analysis uses our in-house Influence Tracker tool—a machine learning and data analytics capability that draws out insights from multi-language social media datasets. This report includes three case studies that feature China, Taiwan, Russia and Africa
Topic:
Internet, Social Media, COVID-19, and Misinformation
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, China, Taiwan, and Asia

2. Countering Misinformation Via WhatsApp: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Zimbabwe

Author:
Jeremy Bowles, Horacio Larreguy, and Shelley Liu
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
We examine how information from trusted social media sources can shape knowledge and behavior when misinformation and mistrust are widespread. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe, we partnered with a trusted civil society organization to randomize the timing of the dissemination of messages aimed at targeting misinformation about the COVID-19 virus to 27,000 newsletter WhatsApp subscribers. We examine how exposure to these messages affects individual beliefs about how to deal with the COVID-19 virus and preventative behavior. The results show that social media messaging from trusted sources may have substantively large effects on not only individual knowledge but also ultimately on related behavior.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Internet, Social Media, Pandemic, COVID-19, Misinformation, and WhatsApp
Political Geography:
Africa and Zimbabwe

3. Antinomies of Globalization in Contemporary African Migration: The nexus of Gender, Youth, Health, Remittances, Social Media, and Higher Education

Author:
Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration
Abstract:
Contemporary African migration continues unabated. It increasingly attracts media, state, expert, popular, and scholarly attention. The focus of most of the attention tends to respond to media reports of atrocities, tragedies, conundrums, xenophobic pronouncements and policy responses by powerful international actors, including decision makers in the most popular destinations of migrants. Today, the goings on in Europe, the United States of America (US), the countries of the European Union, the Gulf states, Israel, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Niger, and South Africa attract the most attention. Due to the catastrophic casualties and calamities experienced by migrants, the routes favored by migrants such as those through the Sahara Desert and Mediterranean Sea, are also the subject of such focus. Youth migration and the health of African migrants are a big part of the story. Gender and migration is receiving more scholarly interest but not to the same extent as other aspects of migration.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Health, Migration, Social Media, and Youth
Political Geography:
Africa

4. Transcultural Memory and Social Media in the Context of Migration: A Case Study from South Africa

Author:
Sabine Marschall
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration
Abstract:
Theoretically rooted in memory studies (notably the concept of "transcultural memory") and methodologically based on interviews with African migrants in South Africa, this paper explores the use of social media and Internet–based communication applications in the context of migration. Results indicate that participants use digital media platforms not only to exchange personal news, but also to engage in mnemonic practices. It is argued that conjuring up memories of home and fondly remembered episodes experienced with social groups deepens the sense of belonging for migrants in a context of alienation and isolation.
Topic:
Migration, Social Media, Memory, and digital culture
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

5. Losses and Potential Gains of a Would-Be “Maghrebi Union”

Author:
Anouar Boukhars
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
“The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) is dead,” thundered King Mohammed VI at the twenty-eighth Annual Heads of State Summit of the African Union (AU). Its flame has faded, he added, because faith in a common interest has vanished. Unless the Maghreb follows the good example of neighbor- ing African sub-regions, the king warned, the AMU will soon cease to exist. Stalwart integrationists fear that Morocco has abandoned the Maghrebi dream altogether. The depressing truth, however, is that the King’s lament on the demise of the AMU is simply a reflection of the mood of resignation increasingly palpable in the Maghreb. Everyone knows that the AMU is an empty shell, ensnared in decades of neighborly parochial animosities, petty jealousies, and perverse rivalries. The two countries consequential enough to anchor the Maghreb remain at each other throats. Morocco and Algeria see eye-to-eye on almost nothing, and their bickering and recrimination have only gotten worse.1 Sadly, the demons of their discord seem to grad- ually possess their respective publics who intermittently hurl insults at each other in social media forums and during sports and entertainment events.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Sports, Social Media, and African Union
Political Geography:
Africa, Algeria, and Morocco

6. The “Chief” and the New Baraza: Harnessing Social Media for Community Policing in Kenya

Author:
Duncan Mainye Omanga
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The exponential growth of social media use in Africa is not in doubt. The rapid rise in the use of mobile telephony, coupled with the spread of Internet-enabled gadgets, has made social media the latest catalyst of a grand transformation in Africa’s social and political complexion. This essay reveals how a local chief in Kenya has taken to using the microblogging website Twitter to radically transform the historical meeting place known as the baraza into a site of peacebuilding and community policing. In this study, the main aim is to show how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are used every day in Lanet Umoja and how they punctu- ate ordinary life to build, in a subtle yet effective way, a more cohesive soci- ety at a very local level. Without exaggerating the impact and place of ICTs in building peace in Africa, I intend to show how a local actor, using local social structures and infrastructures, has attempted, with varying degrees of suc- cess, to create predictable patterns—or routine forms—of consumption and use of ICTs that, in a sense, reproduce a communication “fabric” for fighting crime, responding to emergencies, and creating a virtual vigilante. His use of an ICT also acts as an experimental form of spiritual healing. As several other scholars have argued, caution is needed in making broad claims regarding the impact of ICTs in Africa and whether they are simply refashioning existing communication structures (Nyabuga 2008; Asiedu 2012; Berger 2012; Mudhai et al 2011). In pursuing this study, I had, therefore, to take note of three broad aspects of my research. One was the main actor (the chief), the second was his medium (Twitter; mobile telephony), and the third was his audience (residents of Lanet Umoja). Using Manuel Castells’s idea of the network and John Postill’s of concept actors or agents in a “networked community,” I attempt to show how these three components interact to reproduce the aforementioned “fabric.”
Topic:
Internet, Social Media, Police, and Community
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

7. Viral Voices: Revolutionary Song, Social Media, and Youth Culture in the Arab Spring

Author:
Victor A. Vicente
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bilgi
Institution:
Değişim Yayınları
Abstract:
Focusing on three popular “anthems” of the Arab Revolutions (“Rais Lebled” by El Général, “#Jan25 Egypt” by Omar Offendum, and “Yalla Erhal Ya Bashar” by “Ibrahim Qashoush”) this article critically assesses the ways in which song has come to serve as a force for instigating socio-political and cultural change in the contemporary Arab World, particularly in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria. The appeal and efficacy of these songs of the “Arab Spring,” as well as their characterization as “revolutionary,” are understood in aesthetic and technological terms. Hence, the article untangles a complex of interconnected, musically-related themes and issues at the core of the discourse on the recent uprisings; namely, those of self-expression and the power of the Arab youth “voice,” those of transitional dissemination via social media and information and communication technology, and those of documentation and representation through music, specifically through the genre of rap. Analysis of the songs and the themes surrounding them demonstrates substantive advancements in contemporary Arab musical, social, and political life, but also exposes serious shortcomings, naïve misconceptions, and willful exaggerations.
Topic:
Culture, Social Media, Arab Spring, Revolution, and Music
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, Syria, Tunisia, and Egypt