Mobile Social Media and Digital Literacy in Namibia’s Rural Youth Political Participation

• In Event: EXTENDED SESSION PART 1: Global Communication and Social Change in African Contexts

Abstract

In the last five years, Namibia has experienced an increase in the presence of people on social media platforms, creating various debates on its impact on citizen engagement in the political sphere. Studies from the global north have established a vibrant scholarship about the transformative influence these digital platforms have on direct democracy with limited empirical evidence whether this applies to contexts beyond the west. This 7 months ethnography, explores how the youth in the Ohangwena Regional Youth Forum use mobile social media to participate in regional and local politics by using participant observations, semi-structured interviews and content analysis of seven Facebook pages and two WhatsApp groups. The findings reveal that the youth and political leaders use social media for digital skilling and literacy; digital political site for leisure entertainment and engagement; as affective publics; promote direct and indirect digital democracy, despite network connectivity issues and the high unemployment rate.
Key words: Namibia, youth, Africa politics, affective publics, digital literacy, social media, digital democracy

Authors

• SADRAG SHIHOMEKA, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Payal Arora, Payal Arora