ABSTRACT
The centrality of social media in human communication, learning, and information dissemination in Kenya cannot be refuted. Mobile phones are increasingly becoming a necessity that even economically marginalized people in rural Kenya find useful. This chapter looks at how people in Kenya are using social media as an online court to aid women’s access to justice on matters of femicide and gender-based violence (GBV). The chapter draws on the theoretical lens of critical technoculture discourse analysis (CTDA) to analyze how online conversations can become cultural and discursive constructions that can give bearing to new identities and a change of behavior. I draw on the interpretivist paradigm, utilizing mixed methods; I purposely sampled Twitter posts debated in hashtags #TotalShutDownKe, #HerLifeMatters, and #EndFemicideNow. More data was obtained offline using a coded questionnaire, which was filled by ten female High Court judges in Kenya. The data was coded and thematically analyzed. The chapter finds that social media provides a powerful platform for the articulation of formally silenced voices. Social media in Kenya is helping victims get justice, because courts can no longer ignore these hashtags, and also, judges are using social media artifacts to strengthen the evidence used to prosecute cases.
