Digital repression refers to using digital technologies, such as internet censorship, surveillance, and cyber-attacks, to suppress free speech, dissent, and oppositional voices. Digital repression can be used by governments, corporations, and other entities to control information and limit individual freedoms, such as freedom of expression and privacy. Digital repression can be defined as “actions directed at a target to raise the target’s costs for digital social movement activity and the use of digital or social media to raise the costs for social movement activity, wherever that contestation takes place” ( Earl, Maher, and Pan 2022 AU107: The citation "Earl, Maher, and Pan 2022" matches multiple references. Please add letters (e.g. "Smith 2000a"), or additional authors to the citation, to uniquely match references and citations. ).
Published in Chapter:
X-Raying Digital Activism in Selected Countries: New Frontiers for Mobilization
Copyright: © 2024
|Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-9467-7.ch012
Abstract
The spectacle of digital activism has taken the world by storm as silent voices manipulate the advantages or opportunities provided by social networking sites (SNSs) to organise protests by engaging their audiences using a panoply of digital technologies. The efficacy of such novel engagement as part of social action movements has become common worldwide, and Africa is no exception. The proliferation of digital media spaces has often made authoritarian resilience costly, but it continues to oil the surveillance economy, data capitalism, and global information manipulation. The chapter presents classical case studies reflecting how this phenomenon has engulfed African states. A qualitative research approach unpacks this phenomenon, as it has become deeply rooted in Africa's drive for social change. The chapter enquires about epistemological reasons such platforms have become a threat to the legacy media.