The final speaker in this session at the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore is Dorothy Njoroge, whose focus is on youth protests in Africa – these have been occurring around the world over the past decades, although African protests have been less visible in global media coverage than similar events in America, Asia, or Europe.
Africa has a very substantial youth population, but very limited socio-economic perspectives for its youth; they are politically marginalised, in a stage of ‘waithood’ where adulthood is suspended due to a lack of economic opportunities, but also better-educated and more technologically literate than earlier generations. This changes cultural dynamics, and youth protests are therefore an expression of dissent from this societal group.
Past youth protests often focussed on specific issues; current protests tend to call for a more fundamental overhaul of prevalent political systems. This is facilitated also through self-managed communicative practices on social media, where youth are starting online social movements and using communication technologies creatively to overcome communicative inequalities.
In Kenya this was seen for instance in youth protests against the 2024 Finance Bill, which was eventually withdrawn by the President; this was the result of a concerted protest campaign utilising memes, slogans, videos, art, music, and other elements on social media platforms. On 25 June, some 2.3 million Kenyans engaged in street protests across the whole country.
Protests can be classified as dutiful (operating within existing frameworks), disruptive (seeking to change the system), or dangerous (uprooting the system altogether). Their slogans may make demands, proclaim views, mobilise and build cohesion within a movement, and bear witness to personal testimonials or key messages.
The Kenyan protests drew on short and memorable slogans, simplifying complex issues to memorable phrases that could trigger action, and this study sought to categorise these slogans and analyse how these were discursively constructed. Key themes included a demonisation of the President, belittling and disparaging him through mockery and insults; a lionisation of the protesters as patriotic, strong, and bold; the making of demands, which continued to escalate over time from demands about the bill to demands for the President to resign; a mobilisation of citizens; and a witnessing of collective activity and power.
This sought to create a split between ‘us’ and ‘them’, protesters and the government, in order to present a counterhegemonic vision. These actions are a political performance building on slogans as performative speech acts in order to change power relations but elevating the people above the leaders. Overall, then, these protests can be classified as disruptive rather than destructive, seeking changes to the system, but as a result also attracted violent government suppression which included abductions and killings. Such polarising approaches from protesters and government also limit the potential for finding and presenting new alternative approaches, however.
