Adoption of Hashtags in Social Media: Achieving Peace or Inciting Violence?

Abstract

The advent of social media platforms, specifically twitter, and the added feature of hashtags has had a way of contributing towards the dynamics of any political space and one of these political events is xenophobia which is discussed in this study. Social media have facilitated social and political change bringing about incidence of violence which has security implications. This study sought to assess the adoption of hashtags in social media and how they are used to achieve peace or incite violence. Public sphere and agenda-setting theories served as theoretical expositions for this study. The study adopted the qualitative research approach and data was sought from secondary sources in the period September 1, 2019, through to November 30, 2019, while purposive sampling technique was used to select 633 tweets. Further, the study adopted the exploratory research design, and individuals, non-state and state actors served as sources of information, while content analysis served as the mode of analysis. The study revealed that individuals are imbued with certain ethical, moral, and social values that speak against violent acts. The study further discovered that at a certain point in time given different conditions, individuals express misgivings in a form of violent messages towards a group of people or an event on media platforms. The study also revealed that non-state actors play a key advisory and advocacy role, while state actors play advocacy, social protection, advisory, and public awareness creation roles to promote social cohesion among individuals. The study recommended intensive state monitoring and engagement in productive online discourses of national importance.