Social Media Landscape in Africa

Abstract

Since the Arab Spring pro-democracy riots and upheavals that shook the Middle East and North African authoritarian regimes in 2010 and 2011 and the EndSARS protest against police brutality in Nigeria in 2020, the debate on the influence of social media in galvanizing youth to action has raged. The research was done to establish how social media has advanced the mobilization of youths for social-political change in sub-Saharan Africa in the last five years that countries in the region have witnessed successful general elections. Premised on the theoretical frameworks of media ecology and agenda-setting, the study explained how social media through improved affordable technology and democratization of media have aided and abetted the participation of young people in the transformation of society.