Abstract
This study focuses on how the Baba Jukwa Facebook page has been appropriated as a potential counter hegemonic space for the circulation of public opinion during the run up till post 2013 harmonised elections in Zimbabwe. This current study wishes to explore the role played by social media in Zimbabwe in the run up to the 2013 election especially on Facebook through participation on the Baba Jukwa page. Focus will be on the nature of the discourses in the posts and how the participants on the page engaged in debates around these posts. I will also interrogate how the discourses in the posts on the Baba Jukwa Facebook page were taken up by the main stream media and how it also clashed with dominant political discourses as enshrined in government publications and web-sites. This will shed light on the impact of the page and how it enlarged the public sphere in the country as a counter hegemonic platform.
Highlights
Since the inception of independence in Zimbabwe in 1980, power has been in the hands of one political party and one president
In 1998, powerful opposition emerged in the form of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (Z.C.T.U) under Secretary General Morgan Tsvangirai who later formed the leading political party Movement for Democratic Change (M.D.C), a development which changed the political landscape
This project focuses on the role played by the Baba Jukwa page in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe which created a space for biting social media activism, so much so that some argue that one of the central political players in the elections was Baba Jukwa (Games, 2013) rather than the usual ZANU-PF and MDC-T political parties
Summary
This study focuses on how the Baba Jukwa Facebook page has been appropriated as a potential counter hegemonic space for the circulation of public opinion during the run up till post 2013 harmonised elections in Zimbabwe. I will interrogate how the discourses in the posts on the Baba Jukwa Facebook page were taken up by the main stream media and how it clashed with dominant political discourses as enshrined in government publications and web-sites. This will shed light on the impact of the page and how it enlarged the public sphere in the country as a counter hegemonic platform
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