ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aggregates the research of many well-regarded scholars from across the continent on social media dissidence in a variety of African countries and the legal and extra-legal efforts governments have invented to contain the vibrance of the social media scene. It traces the history and evolution of social media in Africa, explains the factors that aided the growth of social media on the continent, and argues that the progressive quotidianisation of social media in Africa signals a demotic turn in the media ecology of the continent. The book then takes a political economy perspective to show how the state can exclude marginal voices from the social media public sphere through collusion with neoliberal telecommunications companies, which are regulated by the government, to price data plans beyond the reach of economically dislocated but politically active citizens.
