Relational function of social media and political contestation. Sociopolitical instability, framing and Facebook-mediated effects: the case of the popular uprising of October 30-31, 2014 in Burkina Faso
Author: Armel T.T. Zerbo, armelt.zerbo@gmail.com
Department: Political Science
University: University of Lisala, Democratic Rep. of the Congo
Supervisor: Joschka Philipps
Year of completion: In progress
Language of dissertation: French
Keywords:
Facebook
, 2014 popular uprising
, Balai citoyen
, framing
Areas of Research:
Social Movements, Collective Action and Social Change
, Political Sociology
Abstract
The complexity of highlighting the role of digital technologies during social movements in countries of the global South has been of little interest to the scientific world due to a key problem: low internet penetration. Hence the almost unexplored plural specificities of this field of study in sub-Saharan Africa.
In the face of this challenge, I try to understand the effects of the most widely used social media in Burkina Faso, i.e. Facebook, in the socio-political mobilization against the modification of constitutional article 37, an article that enshrines the limitation of presidential terms to two. Blaise Compaoré wanted to increase this to three terms to extend his presidential mandate. This mobilization is known as the popular insurrection of 2014. The political activism of a civil society player, Balai Citoyen, was crucial. This collective made a name for itself following in the militant footsteps of Thomas Sankara.
Despite an estimated internet penetration rate of 4.86% according to data from Digital Magazine Burkina and INSD in 2014, I am striving to understand the premises of the Balai Citoyen's political use of Facebook in the overthrow of the Compaoré regime in 2014.
In this sense, my research introduces the relational function paradigm of social media to explain the construction of a community intended for socio-political mobilization protest in both the physical and virtual landscape. This leads me to examine the sociogenesis of the insurrectionary movement from 1991, the year of adoption of the Constitution of the Fourth Republic, and also in consideration of relevant socio-political facts specific to the exceptional period 1987-1991. Then we will study the framing of the insurrectional movement, so as to grasp the interweaving of mobilization both online and in the physical space for the formation of a socio-political coalition against the Compaoré system. Finally, the effects of Facebook on the mobilization of Internet users will be examined. Through these lines of thought, my teleological conception is to root my research in the epistemological implications of Ball-Rokeach & DeFleur's (1976) theory of media dependence as a model of analysis.
Methodologically, I employ field survey, virtual ethnography, documentary review and archival sources with a view to collecting data processed primarily from a comprehensive perspective.
Preliminarily, the results suggest that the contradictions of the Compaoré system since 1987 and the need for democratic accountability and change have contributed to the shaping of the demand motives brandished to call for Blaise Compaoré's downfall, for the state no longer represented the plurality of popular aspirations. The descent into the streets was possible because Balai Citoyen had publicized frames such as the concept apatride (i.e. he who does not love his homeland and not he who has no homeland). This concept, inspired by the Sankarist discursive style, was used to identify the supporters of Blaise Compaoré who were opposed by patriots committed to the non-modification of article 37.
