How is social media facilitating xenophobia in sub-Saharan Africa?

The broad aim of my research is to examine the effects of social media on citizens' behaviour during low-intensity, but deadly intergroup conflicts. I will employ a mixed method, combining network and content analyses with focus group, to specifically investigate how Twitter might be facilitating ethnic othering in the Nigeria's farmers-herders conflict. The selected case bears profound relevance with the potential to enrich our understanding of social media culture and its impact on violent conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. Such understanding is crucial to help us move beyond sustained discussions about social media and electoral politics in the OECD world. In non-OECD countries, however, the magnitude in which social media shape political behaviour is beyond elections, and noticeably evident in its violent character - inflaming ethnic hatred and fear, aggravating human insecurity and often raising the stakes for collective violence. Notably, our understanding of this adverse relationship between social media and armed conflict is poorly developed.

The proposed research promises to develop a theory of connective violence as a framework to address the research questions. I base this theory on the assumptions that conflict-rich narratives hoards the potential of converting public segments into active participants of ongoing (or future) conflicts. In this regard, I will conduct a content analysis of Twitter narratives about the farmers-herders in Nigeria and then examine the flow and impact of such narratives on online media consumers. One intellectual expectation of the proposed research is that the theory of connective violence can fruitfully enhance ongoing academic and policy debates on social media use during crisis. Such contribution may prove viable in identifying sources of xenophobic narratives, and invariably serve to facilitate appropriate media regulations, early warnings of tensions, and counteracting measures to control or mitigate the conflict. Moreover, the theoretical relevance of the proposed study can exceed the geographical scope of the research project and may be useful in other contexts that requires a paramount need to understand the connective behaviour of information flow and consumption.