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THE TWITTER/X REVOLUTION: GEN Z'S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN KENYA'S DIGITAL AGE
Mwangi, Edith
Mwangi, Edith
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2025-08
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Communication Sciences
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https://doi.org/10.34944/5h7t-ye50
Abstract
The youth of Kenya have historically served as outspoken advocates for democratic accountability, frequently challenging state authority and questioning the status quo. With a comparatively high level of education and digital literacy, they actively articulate political viewpoints, often substantiating their critiques of government policies while openly challenging the actions of political leaders, administrations and parties. In the last decade, Twitter (now X) has emerged as a key platform for these discussions, enabling Kenyan youth to consistently voice concerns about governance, corruption, and social injustice. The 2024 Gen Z movement serves as a powerful case study of youth-led digital political engagement. Originating on Twitter/X in response to the proposed Finance Bill, the movement rapidly expanded into nationwide physical protests. These demonstrations resulted in numerous fatalities, injuries, arrests, and disappearances, underscoring the high stakes of youth activism in contemporary Kenya. This thesis explores the relationship between Twitter/X use and political participation among Kenyan youth aged 18 to 35. Employing a mixed-methods approach that combines digital ethnography with structured survey data, the study examines how online political expression correlates with offline civic action. This study queries for example, to what degree Twitter/X is effective in channeling the political participation of Kenyan Genz’s. The findings contribute to ongoing debates about the role of social media in facilitating political engagement in Africa and shed light on the online and offline strategies used by young people to challenge state power and demand accountability.
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