Incivility in social media as agonistic democracy? : a discourse theory analysis of dislocation and repair in select government texts in Kenya

Abstract

In an era when adversarial politics is condemned for either being archaic or right-wing extremism, proposing that incivility can be used to counter existing hegemonies, despite its potential to incite violence, is proposing an unorthodox project. By rejecting foundationalist approaches to the current incivility crisis, this study sees an opportunity for it to act as a populist rapture that defies simple binary categorisation and deconstructs incivility, at an ontological level, to reveal the deep meanings and concealed causes that contrast the grand narrative of hate speech. After an overview in chapter one, the study continues with a theoretical review of literature on incivility, guided by the works of radical democracy theorists who universalise what seems particular to Kenya. This review is followed by the description of Bakhtin’s concept of carnivalesque as utani, a joking relationship common in East Africa. For its theoretical perspective, the study is guided by Mouffe’s theory of agonistic democracy and a research method developed by transforming Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) work in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic, into a method for Discourse Analysis. Various concepts from Laclau and Mouffe’s work are used to innovate an explanation of how political practices in social media, both linguistic and material texts, enhance incivility and the struggle to fix a regime’s preferred meaning. Guided by Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Analysis, the study describes how the government is using linguistic tools and physical technologies to repair the dislocation caused by incivility in social media in its attempts to re-create hegemonic practices. Without engaging in naïve reversal of the polarities between acceptable and unacceptable speech, and considering that at the ontological level politics is a friend—enemy relation, the study argues that incivility in social media is part of the return of politics in a post-political era, rather than simple unacceptable speech. While remaining aware of the dangers of extreme speech, but without reinforcing the anti-political rational consensus narrative, incivility is seen as having disruptive counterhegemonic potential, that is, if we consider the powerplay inherent in democracy. It means that binary opposition is blind to the way power produces, and is countered through unacceptable speech.