Social Media and Emergence of Neo-Traditional Protests: Exploring Communicative Ecology of Oromo Protests in Ethiopia

Abstract

Entanglements of rituals and networks of the past with the present have not been sufficiently appreciated by studies of contemporary protest movements; instead, most emphasis the contrast between protest movements mobilized online and traditional offline platforms. This article adopts the holistic lens of communicative ecology to analyze the entanglements between the novel (online) and traditional (offline) communication repertoires and actors during the Oromo Protests in Ethiopia (2014–2018). We collected data from key Oromo Protests actors in five cities in Oromia, focusing on their engagement with social media and how that impacted the movement. This study reveals that traditional platforms and actors in the Oromo Protests were critically aided by online platforms; giving rise to a new dynamic of protests that can be characterized as ‘neo-traditional’ protests; protests in which majority of the activities and platforms are offline but complemented by online channels or platforms and activists.