Mbongeni J. Msimanga's Political Humour and Zimbabwean Identity on Social Media Platforms is a thoughtful, well-researched, and theoretically-sound volume that adds to knowledge about the deterritorialization of critical political communication from physical spaces dominated by monolithic, state-controlled media mouthpieces to social media platforms in cyberspace. By deploying humour as the main weapon of their "performative activism" and political communication, Magamba TV and Bus Stop TV opened up the monolithic, state-controlled space of political communication in Zimbabwe to a multiplicity of narratives of difference, national identity, and the very notion of "Zimbabweanness." These channels also use humor as a tool of subtle resistance against the static, shop-worn nationalistic and identitarian discourses of the authoritarian regime of Zimbabwe, resisting majoritarian ethno-nationalist marginalization, repression, erasure of the minority, political intimidation and perpetual climates of fear. Through this work, Msimanga demonstrates the reality that social media platforms have become arenas of counter discourses, spaces of contestation, and of speaking truth, albeit humorously and obliquely, to the powers that be.
Political Humour and Zimbabwean Identity on Social Media Platforms