Hybrid rallies and a rally-centric campaign: the case of Kenya’s 2022 elections

Abstract

ABSTRACT Scholars tend to present either face-to-face or mediatised audiences as the principal target for election campaign rallies. However, a close eye on the staging of, and popular engagement with, campaign rallies during Kenya's 2022 elections reveals that they constituted a hybrid form of political communication that simultaneously targeted face-to-face and mediatised audiences with tailored messages. Not only were rallies at all levels characterised by such hybridity but also at the presidential level, rallies came to dominate candidates' diaries and the traditional and social media coverage of them leading to what I coin a rally-centric campaign. This paper analyses these empirical realities and the implications for how we should study and conceptualise election rallies and campaigns. It does so by focusing on the relationship between rallies, media coverage and popular engagement with a particular focus on social media.