Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T12:20:12.323Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Censorship or self-control? Hate speech, the state and the voter in the Kenyan election of 2013*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Warigia M. Bowman  and
J. David Bowman
Warigia M. Bowman*
Affiliation:
University of Arkansas, Clinton School of Public Service, 1200 President Clinton Avenue, Little Rock, AR 72201, USA
J. David Bowman*
Affiliation:
Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 2013, the Kenyan government adopted a hybrid censorship strategy that relied on regulation, the presence of a strong security state, and the willingness of Kenyans to self-censor. The goal of this censorship strategy was to ensure a peaceful election. This study examines two issues. First, it investigates steps taken by the Kenyan government to minimise hate speech. Second, it explores how efforts to minimise hate speech affected citizen communications over SMS during the 2013 election. An initial round of qualitative data was gathered (n = 101) through a structured exit interview administered election week. A statistically significant, representative sample of quantitative data was gathered by a reputable Kenyan polling firm (n ≥ 2000). Both sets of empirical data indicate that Kenyan citizens cooperated in large part with efforts to limit political speech. Yet speech was not always completely “peaceful’. Rather, voters used electronic media to insult, offend, and express contentious political views as well as express peace speech. This study argues that the empirical evidence suggests hate speech over text messages during the Kenyan election declined between 2008 and 2013.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 495 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We wish to express our deepest gratitude for the work of our colleagues on the Kenya Information Communications Technology List (‘Kictanet’). Specifically, we would like to thank our colleagues Michael Kipsang Bullut, Grace Githaiga, Wambui Ngugi, Brian Munyao Longwe, Mwendwa Kivuva, Abraham Mulwo, Muchiri Nyaggah, and Norbert Wildermuth for helping to collect the data that form the foundation of this paper. Thank you also to the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service for funding part of the research upon which this paper is based. We would also like to thank participants of the Kenya Elections Workshop held in June 2013 for their comments, which helped improve this paper. We are particularly grateful to Tom Wolf of IPSOS Synovate. We would also like to thank Dorina Bekoe, Fodei Batty, Paola Cavallari and Florence Muema as well as two anonymous reviewers from JMAS for their valuable insights. Finally, my thanks go to Kimani Njogu of Twaweza Publishing, for his elegant Kiswahili translations.

References

REFERENCES

Bailard, C.S. 2012. ‘A field experiment on the internet's effect in an African election: savvier citizens, disaffected voters, or both?’, Communication 62: 330–44.Google Scholar
Barkan, J.D. 2004. ‘Kenya after Moi’, Foreign Affairs 83, 1: 87–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batty, F. 2015. ‘For ethnic group or country, evaluating post-conflict elections in Africa’, Civil Wars 17, 3: 379–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bekoe, D., ed. 2012. Voting in Fear: electoral violence in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Benesch, S. 2014a. Countering Dangerous Speech to Prevent Mass Violence during Kenya's 2013 Elections. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Benesch, S. 2014b. Countering Dangerous Speech: New Ideas for Genocide Prevention. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.Google Scholar
Best, M.L. & Meng, A.. 2015. ‘Twitter democracy: policy vs. identity politics in three emerging African democracies’, ICTD ‘15, 15–18 May, 2015, Singapore.Google Scholar
Bimber, B. & Davis, R.. 2003. Campaigning Online: The Internet in US elections. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brison, S. 1998. ‘The autonomy defense of free speech’, Ethics 108, 2: 312–39.Google Scholar
Brown, S. & Raddatz, R.. 2014. ‘Dire consequences or empty threats? Western pressure for peace, justice, and democracy in Kenya’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, 1: 43–62.Google Scholar
Bowman, W.M. & Camp, L.J.. 2013. ‘Protecting the internet from dictators: technical and policy solutions to ensure online freedoms’, The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal 18, 1: 3.Google Scholar
Charmaz, K. & Belgrave, L.. 2012. ‘Qualitative interviewing and grounded theory analysis’, in Gubrium, J.F., Holstein, J.A., Mavasti, A.B. & McKinney, K.D., eds. The Sage Handbook of Interview Research: the complexity of the craft. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 348–64.Google Scholar
Chaturvedi, A. 2005. ‘Rigging elections with violence’, Public Choice 125: 189–202.Google Scholar
Cheeseman, N. 2008. ‘The Kenyan elections of 2007: an introduction’, Journal of East African Studies 2, 2: 166–84.Google Scholar
Chisango, T. & Gwandure, C.. 2011. ‘Delegitimisation of disliked political organisations through biased language and acronyming’, Journal of Psychology in Africa 21, 3: 455–8.Google Scholar
CHRIPS 2013. Report of the Experts’ Meeting on ‘Addressing the Challenge of Hate Crimes on the Internet in Kenya’. Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies (CHRIPS) and Centre for Human Rights and Peace (University of Nairobi).Google Scholar
Communications Authority of Kenya. 2014. Quarterly Sector Statistics Report, 6. Retrieved from http://ca.go.ke/images/downloads/STATISTICS/Q4SectorStatisticsReport2014-2013FINAL.pdf on 19 December 2014.Google Scholar
Cramér, H. 1999. Mathematical Methods of Statistics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Crooks, D.L. 2001. ‘The importance of symbolic interaction in grounded theory research on women's health’, Health Care for Women International 22, 1–2: 11–27.Google Scholar
Dale, A. & Strauss, A.. 2009. ‘Don't forget to vote: text message reminders as a mobilization tool’, American Journal of Political Science 53, 4: 787–804.Google Scholar
Deibert, R. and Rohozinski, R.. 2010. ‘Liberation vs. control: the future of cyberspace’, Journal of Democracy 21, 4: 43–57.Google Scholar
Delgado, R. & Yun, D.H.. 1995. ‘‘The speech we hate’: first amendment totalism, the ACLU, and the principle of dialogic politics’, Arizona State Law Journal 27: 1281–300.Google Scholar
Docksai, R. 2013. ‘Kenya's youth take charge’, The Futurist 47, 4: 8.Google Scholar
Dowden, R. 2008. Africa: altered states, ordinary miracles. London: Portabello Books.Google Scholar
Etzo, S. & Collender, G.. 2010. ‘Briefing: the mobile phone ‘revolution’ in Africa: rhetoric or reality’, African Affairs 109: 659–68.Google Scholar
Feezell, J.T., Conroy, M. & Guerrero, M.. 2016. ‘Internet use and political participation: engaging citizenship norms through online activities’, Journal of Information Technology and Politics.Google Scholar
Fowler, F. 2008. Survey Research Methods, Fourth Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Glaser, B. & Strauss, A.. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Goldstein, J. & Rotich, J.. 2008. ‘Digitally networked technology in Kenya's 2007–2008 post-election crisis’, Berkman Center Research Publication No. 9. Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Technology and Society.Google Scholar
Golkar, S. 2011. ‘Liberation or suppression technologies: the internet, the green movement, and the regime in Iran’, Emerging Technologies and Society 9, 1: 50–70.Google Scholar
Howard, P.N. & Parks, M.R.. 2012. ‘Social media and political change: capacity, constraint, and consequence’, Journal of Communication 62, 2: 359–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
I-Hub Research. 2013. Monitoring Online Dangerous Speech. Retrieved from http://www.ihub.co.ke/uploads/default/files/umati/Umati_Report_Oct-Jan_2013.pdf.Google Scholar
Kapur, R. 1996. ‘Who draws the line: feminist reflections on speech and censorship’, Economic and Political Weekly 31, 16/17.Google Scholar
Kelly Garrett, R. 2006. ‘Protest in an information society: a review of literature on social movements and new ICTs’, Information, Communication & Society 9, 2: 202–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klopp, J.M. 2001. ‘Ethnic clashes’ and winning elections: the case of Kenya's electoral despotism’, African Studies 35, 3: 473–517.Google Scholar
Klopp, J.M. & Zuern, E.. 2007. ‘The politics of violence in democratization: lessons from Kenya and South Africa’, Comparative Politics 39, 2: 127–46.Google Scholar
Krueger, B.S. 2006. ‘A comparison of conventional and internet political mobilization’, American Politics Research 34, 6: 759–76.Google Scholar
Ligaga, D. 2012. ‘Virtual expressions’: alternative online spaces and the staging of Kenyan popular cultures’, Research in African Literatures 43, 4: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, G. 2014. ‘Electing the ‘alliance of the accused’: the success of the Jubilee Alliance in Kenya's Rift Valley’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, 1: 93–114.Google Scholar
Malhotra, N., Michelson, M.R., Rogers, T. & Valenzuela, A.A.. 2011. ‘Text messages as mobilization tools: the conditional effect of habitual voting and election salience’, American Politics Research 39, 4: 664–81.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. 2001. When Victims Become Killers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mueller, S. 2014. ‘Kenya and the International Criminal Court (ICC); politics, the election and the law’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, 1: 25–42.Google Scholar
Osborn, M. 2008. ‘Fuelling the flames: rumour and politics in Kibera’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 2, 2: 315–27.Google Scholar
Postmes, T. & Brunsting, S.. 2002. ‘Collective action in the age of the Internet mass communication and online mobilization’, Social Science Computer Review 20, 3: 290–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodan, G. 1998. ‘The internet and political control in Singapore’, Political Science Quarterly 113, 1: 63–89.Google Scholar
Roessler, P.G. 2005. ‘Donor-induced democratization and the privatization of state violence in Kenya and Rwanda’, Comparative Politics 37, 2: 207–27.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, M. 2012. ‘Hate speech in constitutional jurisprudence’, in Herz, M. & Molnar, P. (eds), Context and Content of Hate Speech. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ruteere, M. & Wairuri, K.. 2016. ‘Explaining and mitigating elections-related violence and human rights violations in Kenya’, in Njogu, K. & Wekesa, P.W. (eds), Kenya's 2013 General Election: stakes, practices and outcomes. Nairobi: Twaweza Publishing.Google Scholar
Rodan, G. 1998. ‘The internet and political control in Singapore’, Political Science Quarterly 113, 1: 63–89.Google Scholar
Shirky, C. 2011. ‘The political power of social media’, Foreign Affairs 90, 1: 28–41.Google Scholar
Somerville, K. 2011. ‘Violence, hate speech, and inflammatory broadcasting in Kenya: the problems of definition and identification’, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies 32, 1: 82–101.Google Scholar
Tolbert, C.J. & McNeal, R.S.. 2003. ‘Unraveling the effects of the Internet on political participation?’, Political Research Quarterly 56, 2: 175–85.Google Scholar
Tufekci, Z. & Wilson, C.. 2012. ‘Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: observations from Tahrir Square’, Journal of Communication 62, 2: 363–79.Google Scholar
Weber, L.M., Loumakis, A. & Bergman, J.. 2003. ‘Who participates and why? An analysis of citizens on the Internet and the mass public’, Social Science Computer Review 21, 1: 26–42.Google Scholar
Whitman, J.Q. 2000. ‘Enforcing civility and respect: three societies’, Yale Law Journal 109, 6: 1279–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xenos, M. & Moy, P.. 2007. ‘Direct and differential effects of the internet on political and civic engagement’, Journal of Communication 57, 4: 704–18.Google Scholar

Media sources

Africa Confidential . 2008. Blue Lines 49, 4.Google Scholar
Africa Research Bulletin , 1 March 2013. ‘Kenya determined to avoid election violence’, https://africaresearchonline.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/kenya-determined-to-avoid-election-violence.Google Scholar
BBC News , 26 February 2013. ‘Kenya Cracks down on hate speech ahead of poll’. www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-21538412.Google Scholar
Business Daily, the Standard (Kenya) . 20 March 2012. CCK sparks row with fresh bid to spy on Internet Users.Google Scholar
Capital News , 7 February 2013. ‘Three words Kenya's politicans must avoid’, www.capitalfm.co.ke.news/2013/02/3-words-kenyas-politicans-must-avoid.Google Scholar
Daily Nation (Kenya) . 18 February 2016. Yoweri Museveni explains social media, mobile money shutdown.Google Scholar
Ighobor, K. 2013. ‘No SMS incitement to violence in Kenyan elections.’ Africa Watch. www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/january-2013/africa-watch/. Accessed 20.5.2016.Google Scholar
Kagwe, W. 17 May 2012. CCK Defends Plan to Monitor Private Emails. The Star (Kenya).Google Scholar
Mukinda, F. 28 March 2013. 14 bloggers linked to hate messages. Daily Nation (Kenya).Google Scholar
Musau, N. 13 February 2013. Kenya: NCIC May Ban ‘Code Words‘. The Star (Kenya). Available at http://allafrica.com/stories/201302081504.html.Google Scholar
Pflanz, M. 21 March 2013. In Kenya, social media hate speech rises as nation awaits election ruling. The Christian Science Monitor.Google Scholar
Sambuli, N., Morara, F. & Mahihu, C.. 2013. Umati: Monitoring Online Dangerous Speech in Kenya, January–November 2013. Retrieved from http://www.ihub.co.ke/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2013-report-1.pdf.Google Scholar

Interviews

Media non-governmental organization official. Nairobi, Kenya. 28 June 2013.Google Scholar
Written responses to questionnaire by Kenyan official of a media parastatal, 3 July 2013.Google Scholar
Written responses to questionnaire by Kenyan official of a prominent media NGO, 28 July 2013.Google Scholar