{"id":216800,"date":"2022-02-16T20:45:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T18:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/twitter-in-kenyas-last-poll-a-great-way-to-reach-voters-but-not-a-game-changer\/"},"modified":"2022-02-16T20:45:36","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T18:45:36","slug":"twitter-in-kenyas-last-poll-a-great-way-to-reach-voters-but-not-a-game-changer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/twitter-in-kenyas-last-poll-a-great-way-to-reach-voters-but-not-a-game-changer\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter in Kenya’s last poll: a great way to reach voters, but not a game-changer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kenyans will head to the polls in August this year for what is expected to be a hotly contested presidential election. Opposition leader Raila Odinga is running for the fifth time, but on this occasion with the support<\/a> of his former rival, President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is ineligible to stand again. Significantly, Kenyatta has overlooked<\/a> his deputy, William Ruto. <\/p>\n

Ruto and Odinga will be the candidates to watch in the 2022 presidential elections. But there will also be hundreds of politicians campaigning for positions in Kenya\u2019s parliament and in local government. In addition to drawing on patronage networks and holding mass campaign events, Kenyan politicians will use social media to broadcast their policy messages, rally support and position themselves against their opponents.<\/p>\n

Social media\u2019s role in politics<\/a> and elections has grown significantly in the last decade. The most obvious examples are negative, like Russian Twitter propaganda<\/a> during the 2016 US elections. There were also misinformation<\/a> campaigns via WhatsApp in Brazil\u2019s 2018 presidential election, and the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are \u2013- as Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola writes<\/a> \u2013- reframing democracy and the way citizens engage and organise in digital space. Through these platforms, politicians can engage directly with voters, which is especially important for independent candidates, who may not have the backing of a major party. <\/p>\n

But how do politicians use digital media? To answer that question, we looked to Twitter, which is popular in Kenya. The platform allows users to broadcast messages of up to 280 characters.<\/p>\n

In our research<\/a>, we analysed 15,691 tweets by 86 Kenyan politicians during the 2017 elections. We evaluated the extent to which Twitter can \u201cdemocratise\u201d political communication by disrupting the hold that political parties have on the electoral market. <\/p>\n

We found that social media has the potential to allow for more direct communication between politicians and citizens. But our analysis of candidates\u2019 tweets in the 2017 election does not suggest that Twitter democratised political discourse and politics in Kenya. While we expect candidates in the upcoming election to continue to expand their reach and visibility through social media, Twitter may not yet replace patronage networks and traditional campaigning. <\/p>\n

Candidates who used Twitter<\/h2>\n

Our analysis of the 2017 tweets sought to answer three questions:<\/p>\n