Abstract

In recent years, social media have played an increasingly important role during conflicts in Africa. There is a plethora of studies on the impact of Facebook and Twitter on the 2011 Arab uprisings (see, e.g., Ahy 2016; Markham 2014; Khamis 2013); other scholars have looked into the role of Ushahidi, a Twitter and mobile based platform, during Kenya’s 2008 post-election violence (see, e.g., Wachanga 2012; Mäkinen and Kuira 2008). In most of the research, social media are portrayed as bottom-up phenomena opening up a new digital public sphere and providing a space for participatory and citizen journalism (Tellidis and Kappler 2016, 79).