Engaging in Polarized Society: Social Media and Political Discourse in Ethiopia

Focusing on two online campaigns – one initiated by the Ethiopian blogging collective known as Zone9 and demanding the Ethiopian government to #RespectTheConstitution, and the other asking to #FreeZone9Bloggers, once some of the bloggers were arrested and accused of terrorism – this chapter examines opportunities and contradictions of digital activism in closed regimes. After having analysed the content of the two campaigns, their local and global ramifications, and the reactions they provoked among national and international actors, we explain how 1) the framing of digital media as powerful and potentially revolutionary political agents may act as a ‘self-impairing prophecy’, reducing the chances they may actually serve to produce lasting political change. At the same time, the comparative analysis of the two campaigns also indicates how 2) the recurrent accusations moved by the government to political opponents to act on behalf of ‘external agents’ and use digital media to threaten national stability, may act as ‘self-fulfilling prophecies’, creating a network of global solidarity around digital activists who, despite having begun their journey to promote change locally, are progressively brought into the ambit of a more global (and often Western) discourse of ‘digital activism’.

1. 1.

   It must be noted that in 2005 Internet penetration in Ethiopia was just 0.22 %, and mobile penetration was just 0.55 %, but as Wilson and Dunn pointed out (2011), at the time of the protest in Egypt the twitter population was 0.001 %, and this did not prevent some international media talking about a social media revolution.

2. 2.

   An account of the origins of the name Zone9 can be found in the Zone9’s acceptance speech for the 2015 International Press Freedom Award (https://cpj.org/awards/2015/zone-9-bloggers-ethiopia.php)

3. 3.

   http://www.zoneniners.com/. Accessed on 14 May, 2016

4. 4.

   Two members of the collective, Endalkachew Chala and Soliana Shimeles, were charged in absentia.

5. 5.

   https://trialtrackerblog.org/2014/08/12/full-translation-of-zone9ers-charge-sheet/. Accessed on 14 May 2016.

6. 6.

   See http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-272124728. Accessed on 14 May 2016.

7. 7.

   We used Eigenvector centrality algorithms to measure the influence of a node in a network, indicated by their size in the social network.

8. 8.

   Modularity algorithms measures the strength of division of a network into groups, clusters or communities. We coloured different communities based on this to illustrate the complex relationships behind the #FreeZone9Bloggers campaign.

9. 9.

   When we interviewed the organizers behind #FreeZone9Bloggers, lobbying John Kerry was the key strategic aim in the first few days of the campaign when it exploded in popularity

10. 10.

    There was also anecdotal evidence that the arrests themselves reflected a lack of consensus within the Ethiopian government about how to control social media in preparation for the 2015 elections. It is still unclear who authorized the arrests even if there are unverified accounts that this was carried out by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) without the explicit knowledge of the Office of Government and Communication Affairs (OFGCA) who is usually in charge of media policy.

11. 11.

    A translation of some of the most important writings of Zone9ers before the arrest can be accessed at http://trialtrackerblog.org. A counterargument could be that while acting locally, the bloggers could have been funded or directed by external actors. Given the transparency that has always characterized the work of the Zone9 bloggers, and the information we collected through interviews with a number of individuals that who close to, but also wrote in opposition to the Zone9bloggers, we feel confident to rule out these types of hypotheses. An additional indication of the absence of external influencers is the fact that the prosecutor himself has consistently failed to provide evidence of such links during the trials.

12. 12.

    Once released, many of the bloggers sought to fend off the power of this strategy, and, while they accepted some of the awards offered to them by influential international NGOs, they also decided to keep a low profile, rather than posing as darlings of Western-based organizations.

13. 13.

    Hailemariam Desalegn, quoted in Fortin (2014)

Authors and Affiliations

1. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

   Iginio Gagliardone

2. Africa’s Voices Foundation, Cambridge, United Kingdom

   Matti Pohjonen

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Iginio Gagliardone .

Editors and Affiliations

1. Department of Social Sciences, Media Research Group, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

   Bruce Mutsvairo

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