Social Media Penetration, Party Politics and Elections in Tanzania: Emerging Practices and Challenges
Tanzania has witnessed an increased use of social media in political party
campaigning over the last decade. Use of social media was nonetheless
curtailed by a changing techno-political framework regulated by acts relating
to cybersecurity and statistics. This study was guided by two hypotheses:
firstly, that despite restrictive cybersecurity laws, social media in recent years
has been effectively institutionalised as a new civic cyberspace for political
party campaigns during elections. Secondly, increasing use of social media
in elections has had a transformative effect on the way party structure was
organised to conduct political mobilisation, promote party ideology and both
inter- and intra-party interaction, and for fundraising. The study interviewed
party members and leaders from five political parties which participated in
the 2015 and 2020 general elections and concluded that social media had a
transformative effect on core political party campaign activities.