Iginio Gagliardone
Biographic Data
| ID | 98616 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Iginio Gagliardone |
| GIVEN NAMES | Iginio |
| FAMILY NAME | Gagliardone |
| SIGNATURE | GAGLIARDONE I |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Witwatersrand |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2878-7963 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 47 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Tensions, Confrontations, and Consensus
Social media has enhanced culturally grounded debates and ethnicity-based exclusionism during Kenya's WhatsApp group deliberations. These practices are often more pronounced during elections when WhatsApp becomes a social media platform of choice for various groups. Exclusionism takes at least two vectors. On the one hand, tensions and confrontations emerge as electoral deliberations proceed. On the other hand, consensus on WhatsApp spaces also e…
Lock-out, lock-in, and networked sovereignty. Resistance and experimentation in Africa’s trajectory towards AI
The conception of digital sovereignty has been associated, especially in the early stages of the diffusion of the Internet, with efforts to keep specific data and information outside of a state’s jurisdiction. AI sovereignty responds to an almost opposite logic, indicating the ability of a state to access and make use of data that are produced within its jurisdiction. These two strategies –which I refer to as lock-out and lock-in sovereignty –sha…
Clones and zombies
This article investigates what is at stake in decolonising the study of conspiracy theories online. It challenges the confidence with which conspiracy theories are often dismissed as aberrations and negative externalities of digital ecosystems. Without reifying conspiracy theories, we identify as problematic how alternative forms of knowledge production are dismissed and colonial tropes reproduced. Contributing to conversations around ‘decolonisi…
Digital Hate
Demystifying the Covid-19 Infodemic
This article presents new empirical insights into what people do with conspiracy theories during crises. By suppressing the impulse to distinguish between truth and falsehood, which has characterized most scholarship on the COVID-19 'infodemic,' and engaging with claims surrounding two popular COVID-19 conspiracies-on 5G and on Bill Gates-in South Africa and Nigeria, we illustrate how conspiracies morph as they interact with different socio-polit…
A tale of two publics? Online politics in Ethiopia's elections
This article examines two apparently contradictory uses of digital media during elections: in 2005, when still nascent digital tools were employed by Ethiopians to contest power in ways that pre-configured tactics later adopted by protesters elsewhere in Africa and globally; and in 2015, when digital publics displayed disenchantment towards an election with a foregone outcome. Relying on a mixed-methods approach, combining interviews with some of…
Freer but not free enough? Chinese journalists finding their feet in Africa
The high-profile appearance of Chinese media organizations in Africa has attracted considerable attention. How Chinese correspondents in Africa actually go about their work is, however, little understood. A posting in Africa gives journalists at Xinhua News Agency or China Central Television a degree of freedom not experienced in China combined with greater local visibility than a posting in the West and more market opportunities. At the same tim…
Media, Conflict, and Political Transitions in Africa
There are significant parallels between media and democracy in Africa and Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in terms of political and institutional development. This chapter explores some of these parallels, as well as some of the major differences, through a focus on the role of the media in Africa’s broader democratization trends in three main areas: the media as political actors in conflict; the challenge of looking beyond the formal st…
Patronage, politics and performance
The role of media in promoting political accountability and citizen participation is a central issue in governance debates. Drawing on research into the interactions between radio station owners, journalists, audiences and public authorities during Somali radio call-in programmes we argue that these programmes do not simply offer a new platform for citizens to challenge those who are governing but that they are also spaces where existing power st…
Can you hear me?’ Mobile–radio interactions and governance in Africa
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…
New media and the developmental state in Ethiopia
Journal Article New media and the developmental state in Ethiopia Get access Iginio Gagliardone Iginio Gagliardone * *Iginio Gagliardone ([email protected]) is Research Fellow in the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and a member of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the University of Oxford. He is grateful to Naomi Creutzfeldt, Petra Mahy, Nicole Stremlau, and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments…
China as a persuader
China, in seeking greater engagement with African audiences, has dramatically boosted its potential to shape narratives in ways that can favour its image or interests abroad. Focusing on CCTV Africa, China's flagship efforts to win hearts and minds on the continent, the article explains how this strategy has been pursued not by directly offering an alternative image of China, but by advancing new ways of looking at Africa. The article offers insi…
New media and the developmental state in Ethiopia
Journal Article New media and the developmental state in Ethiopia Get access Iginio Gagliardone Iginio Gagliardone * *Iginio Gagliardone ([email protected]) is Research Fellow in the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and a member of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the University of Oxford. He is grateful to Naomi Creutzfeldt, Petra Mahy, Nicole Stremlau, and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments…
Freer but not free enough? Chinese journalists finding their feet in Africa
The high-profile appearance of Chinese media organizations in Africa has attracted considerable attention. How Chinese correspondents in Africa actually go about their work is, however, little understood. A posting in Africa gives journalists at Xinhua News Agency or China Central Television a degree of freedom not experienced in China combined with greater local visibility than a posting in the West and more market opportunities. At the same tim…
Can you hear me?’ Mobile–radio interactions and governance in Africa
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…
Demystifying the Covid-19 Infodemic
This article presents new empirical insights into what people do with conspiracy theories during crises. By suppressing the impulse to distinguish between truth and falsehood, which has characterized most scholarship on the COVID-19 'infodemic,' and engaging with claims surrounding two popular COVID-19 conspiracies-on 5G and on Bill Gates-in South Africa and Nigeria, we illustrate how conspiracies morph as they interact with different socio-polit…
Patronage, politics and performance
The role of media in promoting political accountability and citizen participation is a central issue in governance debates. Drawing on research into the interactions between radio station owners, journalists, audiences and public authorities during Somali radio call-in programmes we argue that these programmes do not simply offer a new platform for citizens to challenge those who are governing but that they are also spaces where existing power st…
A tale of two publics? Online politics in Ethiopia's elections
This article examines two apparently contradictory uses of digital media during elections: in 2005, when still nascent digital tools were employed by Ethiopians to contest power in ways that pre-configured tactics later adopted by protesters elsewhere in Africa and globally; and in 2015, when digital publics displayed disenchantment towards an election with a foregone outcome. Relying on a mixed-methods approach, combining interviews with some of…
China as a persuader
China, in seeking greater engagement with African audiences, has dramatically boosted its potential to shape narratives in ways that can favour its image or interests abroad. Focusing on CCTV Africa, China's flagship efforts to win hearts and minds on the continent, the article explains how this strategy has been pursued not by directly offering an alternative image of China, but by advancing new ways of looking at Africa. The article offers insi…
New media and the developmental state in Ethiopia
Journal Article New media and the developmental state in Ethiopia Get access Iginio Gagliardone Iginio Gagliardone * *Iginio Gagliardone ([email protected]) is Research Fellow in the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and a member of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the University of Oxford. He is grateful to Naomi Creutzfeldt, Petra Mahy, Nicole Stremlau, and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments…
Media, Conflict, and Political Transitions in Africa
There are significant parallels between media and democracy in Africa and Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in terms of political and institutional development. This chapter explores some of these parallels, as well as some of the major differences, through a focus on the role of the media in Africa’s broader democratization trends in three main areas: the media as political actors in conflict; the challenge of looking beyond the formal st…
Patronage, politics and performance
The role of media in promoting political accountability and citizen participation is a central issue in governance debates. Drawing on research into the interactions between radio station owners, journalists, audiences and public authorities during Somali radio call-in programmes we argue that these programmes do not simply offer a new platform for citizens to challenge those who are governing but that they are also spaces where existing power st…
Can you hear me?’ Mobile–radio interactions and governance in Africa
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…
Freer but not free enough? Chinese journalists finding their feet in Africa
The high-profile appearance of Chinese media organizations in Africa has attracted considerable attention. How Chinese correspondents in Africa actually go about their work is, however, little understood. A posting in Africa gives journalists at Xinhua News Agency or China Central Television a degree of freedom not experienced in China combined with greater local visibility than a posting in the West and more market opportunities. At the same tim…
A tale of two publics? Online politics in Ethiopia's elections
This article examines two apparently contradictory uses of digital media during elections: in 2005, when still nascent digital tools were employed by Ethiopians to contest power in ways that pre-configured tactics later adopted by protesters elsewhere in Africa and globally; and in 2015, when digital publics displayed disenchantment towards an election with a foregone outcome. Relying on a mixed-methods approach, combining interviews with some of…
Digital Hate
Demystifying the Covid-19 Infodemic
This article presents new empirical insights into what people do with conspiracy theories during crises. By suppressing the impulse to distinguish between truth and falsehood, which has characterized most scholarship on the COVID-19 'infodemic,' and engaging with claims surrounding two popular COVID-19 conspiracies-on 5G and on Bill Gates-in South Africa and Nigeria, we illustrate how conspiracies morph as they interact with different socio-polit…
Clones and zombies
This article investigates what is at stake in decolonising the study of conspiracy theories online. It challenges the confidence with which conspiracy theories are often dismissed as aberrations and negative externalities of digital ecosystems. Without reifying conspiracy theories, we identify as problematic how alternative forms of knowledge production are dismissed and colonial tropes reproduced. Contributing to conversations around ‘decolonisi…
Lock-out, lock-in, and networked sovereignty. Resistance and experimentation in Africa’s trajectory towards AI
The conception of digital sovereignty has been associated, especially in the early stages of the diffusion of the Internet, with efforts to keep specific data and information outside of a state’s jurisdiction. AI sovereignty responds to an almost opposite logic, indicating the ability of a state to access and make use of data that are produced within its jurisdiction. These two strategies –which I refer to as lock-out and lock-in sovereignty –sha…
Tensions, Confrontations, and Consensus
Social media has enhanced culturally grounded debates and ethnicity-based exclusionism during Kenya's WhatsApp group deliberations. These practices are often more pronounced during elections when WhatsApp becomes a social media platform of choice for various groups. Exclusionism takes at least two vectors. On the one hand, tensions and confrontations emerge as electoral deliberations proceed. On the other hand, consensus on WhatsApp spaces also e…
Political science (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Politics (7 works) · Public relations (7 works) · Social Media and Politics (5 works) · African history and culture studies (4 works) · Business (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Media studies (4 works)