From Media Relations to Networked Contestation: Rethinking Political Communication in Kenya’s Hybrid Media System
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53819/81018102t7089Abstract
The transformation of political communication within hybrid media environments has fundamentally reconfigured the role and effectiveness of traditional media relations. This paper examines how political communication in Kenya has shifted from institutional, media-driven processes to decentralized and networked forms of contestation shaped by digital publics. Drawing on a qualitative desk-based review of scholarly literature and empirical developments across East Africa between 2022 and 2025, the study integrates hybrid media systems theory, framing theory, and symbolic interactionism to interrogate how political meaning is constructed, circulated, and contested. Using the Finance Bill 2024 protests in Kenya as a central case alongside comparative insights from Uganda’s pre-2026 electoral digital discourse and Tanzania’s 2025 general elections, the paper demonstrates that political communication is increasingly co-produced through interactions between state actors, media institutions, and citizens. The findings suggest that media relations no longer function as the dominant mechanism of agenda control; rather, it operates within a fragmented ecosystem characterized by rapid digital amplification, peer-to-peer influence, and meaning-making rooted in lived experience. This paper advances the concept of networked contestation as a theoretical contribution to political communication scholarship, particularly within African hybrid media contexts. It concludes that effective communication strategies must move beyond top-down approaches and instead engage networked publics as active co-producers of political meaning.
Keywords: Networked contestation, Media relations, Hybrid media, Political communication, East Africa
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