‘We Will Never Forget’: Thematic Analysis of Digital Media Contents during the 2021 #EndSARSMemorial protests in Nigeria

Abstract

The thrust of the study was to appraise the influence of social media in contentious politics and solidarity building by interrogating themes from tweets and posts of digital activists during the 2021 #EndSARSMemorial protests in Nigeria. The content analysis of digital media posts and tweets (N=24,688) show that social media platforms were used as a vehicle for provoking solidarity contagion that ignited a memorial for fallen activists in Nigeria. Findings further demonstrate that protesters used social media platforms to reveal how vexed, and anguished they were as well as imprecating the authorities. Data reveal that there is a substantial relationship between celebrity posts and tweets and positive hedonic experiential valence about the 2021 #EndSARSMemorial protests. Finally, this study explicates and contributes to the theorisation of the affective theory.