Social Networking as Power Balancing in Tanzanian Politics

Abstract

Online social networks have made communication more accessible in many spheres; they have been used as an alternative political means of regaining or equalising power between a political opposition and a ruling party, when the former is functioning in the absence of a traditional political platform. Recently opposition politicians in Tanzania have utilised online social networks towards this end. Positioning theory draws out this political dynamic in operation. Historically, political communication using electronically transmitted networks in Tanzania was necessitated after the fifth-phase presidency (beginning in 2015) placed a ban on political activities reaching outside their official jurisdictions and naming specific candidates. This ban seemed to weaken opposition politicians because they were regarded as preferring to work in collectives. The analysis here focuses on a press conference involving a United Republic of Tanzania Member of Parliament from the opposition party, addressing the national and international communities in regard to secrecy that surrounded a late arrival of two new jets into Tanzania from Canada, late in 2016. The data suggests that online social networking has enabled opposition politicians to identify themselves as fellow sufferers and representatives of the ordinary citizen, demanding good governance and speaking against misappropriation and laxity in distribution and use of national resources. The opposition has gone further in utilising social media to present the nation’s presidential agenda as pitted against the ordinary citizen. Social media allows the opposition to represent the current government as an elite group responsible for the problems Tanzanians are facing, and therefore as untrustworthy. This limited case study reveals how electronic media re-introduces a potential for effective political opposition to the status quo at a national level.