Digital Disinformation in Africa: Hashtag Politics, Power and Propaganda

Tony Roberts and George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane have produced the first book-length comparative study of disinformation across the African continent — a significant gap in a field dominated by analysis of North American and European contexts. The volume brings together case studies from a dozen African countries, examining how disinformation has operated in electoral contexts, conflict zones, and health crises, and how the specific political, economic, and media conditions of different African contexts shape both the production and the reception of false information.

The book makes several contributions that challenge assumptions formed in the Western-dominated disinformation literature. The actors involved are not primarily foreign state operators but domestic political actors, often with sophisticated understanding of local information environments. The platforms through which disinformation spreads are not primarily Facebook and Twitter but WhatsApp and local messaging applications that are far harder to monitor and govern. And the structural conditions — fragile media institutions, low trust in government, high mobile penetration — create information environments with distinctive vulnerability profiles. For practitioners advising clients in African contexts, or seeking to understand the global dimensions of the disinformation challenge, this is essential and timely reading.