Tweeting in Precarious Times: Comparing Twitter Use During the 2013 General Election in Kenya and the 2012 Presidential Election in Egypt

Despite the emergence of several studies on Twitter’s network effect during election processes, there are only a few studies that take a comparative approach to examine the social media platform’s use in emerging democracies with high levels of political parallelism. This chapter helps bridge this gap by carrying out a thorough Twitter’s network analysis regarding two different presidential elections: the 2012 presidential election in Egypt and the 2013 Kenyan presidential election. The chapter shows that while the two case studies had intense activity levels, there are clear distinctions between them. In Egypt, it is found that mainstream media drove much of the interaction affirming their dominant traditional gatekeeper role. Kenya’s case however shows greater levels of citizen participation, stronger networks and less reliance on mainstream media, which show signs of ‘disintermediation’.