Women’s political participation in Zimbabwe: play and content creation on Twitter

Abstract

ABSTRACT Digital technologies and discursive spaces have become ubiquitous for political participation. This article analyses women’s political participation in Zimbabwe. The article uses play theory to analyse how women interact or communicate on social media. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyse political content extracted from a hashtag-based dataset. Follow-up interviews with female activists were also carried out through the Twitter direct message (DM) to ascertain the effectiveness of Twitter for political communication. The article notes that Twitter offers opportunities for political participation and provisions a visible back-up of digital followers which was previously invisible or indiscernible through traditional media and formal political structures. Through play, women amplify or downplay perspective by posting emotive personal photos, emojis, textual metaphors and other satirical items usable on Twitter. The article argues that play or counter-play generates a hyperbole of political realities. I define counter-play as an activity of creating content for and against.