Tweeting Democracy: An Ethnographic Content Analysis of Social Media Use in the Differing Politics of Senegal and Ethiopia’s Newspapers
Published in Journal of African Media Studies, 2016
This article compares how print newspapers in Senegal and Ethiopia used Twitter and Facebook in two sharply different political and media environments. Using content analysis of 60 days of posts from ten newspapers, the study examines how social-media adoption intersected with press freedom, newsroom practice, and political context.
The findings show that Ethiopian newspapers lagged substantially in Twitter activity, while newspapers in both countries posted to Facebook at more similar rates. In both settings, journalists generally used social media to link readers back to newspaper websites rather than to live-tweet events or fully exploit the participatory affordances of the platforms.
The article contributes to early comparative research on African journalism and social media by showing how political systems and newsroom routines shape the uptake of digital communication tools.
Recommended citation: Lemke, Jeslyn, & Chala, Endalk. (2016). "Tweeting Democracy: An Ethnographic Content Analysis of Social Media Use in the Differing Politics of Senegal and Ethiopia’s Newspapers." Journal of African Media Studies, 8(2), 167–185. https://doi.org/10.1386/jams.8.2.167_1
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