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China and the shaping of Africa's information societies --China as partner : financing Africa's information societies --Innovative democrats and developmental states --China as a model? The multiple faces of the Chinese internet --Is it really about China? The securitization of development and its influence on Africa's information societies --The future of the global internet.

Following Sahana Udupa and Matti Pohjonen's invitation to move the debate beyond a normative understanding of hate speech, this article seeks to build a foundation for conceptual and empirical inquiry of speech commonly considered deviant and disturbing. It develops in three stages. It first maps the public lives of terms that refer to online vitriol and how they have been used by different communities of researchers, politicians, advocacy groups, and national organizations. Second, it shows how different types of "haters" have been interpreted as parts of "swarms" or "armies," depending on whether their violent potential emerges around critical incidents or whether they respond to longer-term strategies through which communities and their leaders tie their speech acts to explicit narratives. The article concludes by locating "extreme speech" within this broader conceptual tapestry, arguing that the paternalistic gaze that characterizes a lot of research on online hate speech is tied to what Chantal Mouffe has referred to as the "moralization of politics," a phenomenon that cannot be matched by responses that are themselves moral.

"Social Media and Elections in Africa" published on by Oxford University Press.

The exponential diffusion of mobile phones in Africa and their ability to interact with other media have created new avenues for individuals to interface with power. These forms of engagement, however, have primarily been interpreted through the lenses of the 'liberation technology' agenda, which privileges the relationship between citizens and the state, neglecting the variety of actors and networks that intervene in shaping governance processes, alongside or in competition with the state. Through an ethnography of two local radio stations in Kenya, this article offers a more realistic picture of mobile–radio interactions and their repercussions on governance. The findings illustrate that (1) while these interactive spaces are open to all listeners with access to a phone, they are in practice inhabited by small cohorts of recurrent characters often connected to existing power structures; (2) even in places where basic services are offered by actors other than the state, including non-governmental organizations and criminal networks, the state continues to represent the imagined figure to which listeners address most of their demands; (3) in contrast to the expectations that authorities will act on claims and grievances made public through the media, other factors, including ethnicity, intervene in facilitating or preventing action.

Chinese authorities often frame their activities in the development sector as distinctive from those pursued by Western donors by stressing that they are not seeking to export a specific model but simply to help countries reach their potential. This demand-driven approach has applied to old and new development areas, from education to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and has appeared fairly consistent across countries. This pledge, however, has not meant that Chinese aid is neutral or without significant political implications. China's concessionary loans and support to development projects have tended to shift balances of power by favouring certain actors over others and have challenged existing development paradigms,revitalizing ideas of the developmental state. Building on fieldwork conducted in Ghana, Ethiopia,and Kenya this article explains to which extent China's entrance in the media and telecommunication sector actually challenges the dominant, Western-driven approaches to media development, promoting a state centred vision of the information society.

Through the lens of China in Africa, this paper explores the transformations in the relationship between the Internet and the state. China?s economic success, impressive growth of Internet users and relative stability have quietly promoted an example of how the Internet can be deployed within the larger political and economic strategies of developing states, moving beyond the democratization paradigm promoted in the West. New evidence suggests that this model is becoming increasingly popular, but it is not clear why and how it is spreading. Through a case study comparison of an emerging democracy, Kenya, and a semiauthoritarian country, Ethiopia, where China has recently increased its involvement in the communications sector, this paper investigates whether and how the ideas of state stability, development and community that characterize the strategies pursued by the Chinese government are influencing and legitimizing the development of a less open model of the Internet. It analyses how new ideas, technologies and norms integrate with existing ones and which factors influence their adoption or rejection. It is based on fieldwork conducted in Ethiopia and in Kenya between 2011 and 2013, where data was collected through mapping Internet related projects involving Chinese companies and authorities, analysing Internet policies and regulations, and interviewing officials in Ministries of Communication, media lawyers, Internet activists, and Chinese employed in the media and telecommunication sector in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Through the lens of China in Africa, this paper explores the transformations in the relationship between the Internet and the state. China's economic success, impressive growth of Internet users and relative stability have quietly promoted an example of how the Internet can be deployed within the larger political and economic strategies of developing states, moving beyond the democratization paradigm promoted in the West. New evidence suggests that this model is becoming increasingly popular, but it is not clear why and how it is spreading. Through a case study comparison of an emerging democracy, Kenya, and a semi-authoritarian country, Ethiopia, where China has recently increased its involvement in the communications sector, this paper investigates whether and how the ideas of state stability, development and community that characterize the strategies pursued by the Chinese government are influencing and legitimizing the development of a less open model of the Internet. It analyses how new ideas, technologies and norms integrate with existing ones and which factors influence their adoption or rejection. It is based on fieldwork conducted in Ethiopia and in Kenya between 2011 and 2013, where data was collected through mapping Internet related projects involving Chinese companies and authorities, analysing Internet policies and regulations, and interviewing officials in Ministries of Communication, media lawyers, Internet activists, and Chinese employed in the media and telecommunication sector in Kenya and Ethiopia. ; Desde la óptica de China en África, este artículo explora las transformaciones en la relación entre Internet y el estado. El éxito económico de China, el impresionante crecimiento de usuarios de Internet y estabilidad relativa ha promovido un ejemplo tranquilo de cómo Internet puede ser desplegado dentro de las más amplias estrategias políticas y económicas de los estados en desarrollo, más allá del paradigma de la democratización promovida en Occidente. Existen nuevas evidencias que sugieren que ...

This paper addresses how state actors in the developing world have influenced technology adoption and favoured the diffusion of certain uses of ICTs while discouraging others. Drawing upon extensive field research and looking at the evolution of ICTs in Ethiopia, it examines how a semi-authoritarian, yet developmentally oriented regime, has actively sought to mediate the – either real or imagined – destabilising aspects of ICTs while embracing them as a tool for nation-building. A constructivist framework as developed in international relations and history of technology is employed to understand how the introduction of the new ICT framework as promoted by international organizations has been mediated both by the results of the socialization of earlier technologies in Ethiopia and by the national project pursued by the local political elite.