Abstract
Fake news has long been used in propaganda, but the proliferation of digital media reinvigorated it. In Zimbabwe, fake news peaks during elections and on the eve of international summits the country’s leadership will be attending. The ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC-A), which re-branded to Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), deploy fake news against each other. These two are the main contestants for power, and they dominate Parliament and Senate. ZANU-PF has the majority in the legislature whilst the opposition CCC dominates Urban Councils. They are permanently engaged in a battle for hegemony. Informed by the three dimensions of fake news as a genre, a label and dramaturgia, the paper interrogates how, when, where and why ZANU-PF and MDC-A deployed fake news in the post-Mugabe era. Data were gathered through archival research and virtual ethnography, and the findings show that both parties used the three dimensions of fake news in intra-party and inter-party struggles, and the battle to influence regional and global public opinion. Fake news was used to confuse the public and discredit the opponent.
Introduction
(Political) communication is central in the struggle for hegemony (see Chibuwe, 2016 1 ) or rule by consent (Strinati, 1997) 2 . It is a key feature of political processes such as democracy and electoral politics (Maarek and Wolfsfeld, 2003, 1 3 ) which have always provided a need for promotional communication or political communication (Kaid, 2012) 4 . It is also deployed by dictators to spruce up their images or to sustain a façade of democracy (see Menon, 2008) 5 and ‘combatants struggling for international attention and sympathy…’ (Maarek and Wolfsfeld, 2003) 6 . Political communication is the production and distribution of political messages by creators targeting a specific audience (Graber, 2005) 7 . Fake of news and/or disinformation can be political in nature and media, including social media, play a crucial role in the distribution of such political messages. It was therefore inevitable that the advent of digital media technologies would have a profound effect on political communication (Maarek and Wolfsfeld, 2003, 1 8 ). In Zimbabwe social media, especially X has become a key platform for political battles between the opposition and ZANU-PF (Chibuwe, 2020) 9 . The President’s clarion call to ZANU-PF youths to engage and thrash the opposition on social media (see Chibuwe, 2020) 10 arguably accelerated the production and distribution of political communication including fake news and/or disinformation (see Ncube, 2019; Chibuwe, 2020) 11 . Besides the president’s call, the advent of digital media has, in Zimbabwe as elsewhere, reinvigorated fake news and/or disinformation (Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 12 as political communication. Fake news is largely associated and enabled by the proliferation of digital media (see Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017; Munoriyarwa and Chambwera, 2020) 13 . However, fake news pre-date digital media. Propaganda, a conceptual relative of fake news, was widely used to encompass fake news. In fact, disinformation, propaganda and fake news are viewed as synonyms and have shifting and overlapping meanings and definitions (‘Dealing with Propaganda’ nd; Guess and Lyons, 2020) 14 . Fake news, which, according to Allcott and Gentzkow (2017, p. 213 15 ), refers to ‘news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers’ is arguably a form of propaganda (see Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019; Hirst, 2017) 16 . As a result, these terms, especially fake news and disinformation, are used interchangeably in this article.
In Zimbabwe, mainstream media were the main platforms via which propaganda was executed. For example, during the colonial era the white minority government used mainstream media to produce and circulate anti-nationalist propaganda (Frederikse, 1982; Windrich, 1981) 17 . Post-independence the new black government used mainstream state-controlled media to produce and circulate anti-opposition and anti-white propaganda (Moyse, 2009) 18 . But the advent of social media gave the opposition space to produce and circulate anti-establishment fake news. Fake news has been weaponised in political contests in Zimbabwe (see Chibuwe, 2020) 19 and elsewhere (see Hirst, 2017) 20 , and digital media provide fertile ground for it to blossom. But regardless of this, fake news as political communication remains under-researched in Zimbabwe and Africa in general. A Google Scholar search of articles that theorise fake news as political communication focussing on Zimbabwe and Africa yielded nothing. Similarly, a search of articles focussing on disinformation as political communication in the African context yielded nothing. The search only yielded one article by Freelon and Wells (2020) 21 , an article that does not focus on Africa. Studies of fake news, and fake news and elections in Zimbabwe and Africa do exist (see Chibuwe, 2020; Ncube, 2019; Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019) 22 , but these do not explicitly conceptualise fake news as political communication. The present work seeks to complement available literature on fake news and/or disinformation by explicitly conceptualising fake news as political communication. The present work seeks to answer the following questions: What are the types of fake news or disinformation deployed by both ZANU-PF and MDC-A and relayed via social media? How was fake news or disinformation deployed as political communication and in which contexts? Why was fake news deployed? Put conversely, what were the intentions of the [political] fake news creators? It is hoped that the study will help provide insights on how fake news as political communication is deployed via social media in repressive environments where the opposition’s access to mainstream media platforms is restricted.
Propaganda and/or Fake News: From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe
Fake news is increasingly becoming central in the struggle for hegemony in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. But the concept has a shorter history in Zimbabwe than its conceptual relative propaganda. Consequently, this article locates the history of fake news in the history of propaganda since these concepts are viewed as synonyms or as related (see ‘Dealing with Propaganda’ nd; Guess and Lyons, 2020; Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019; Hirst, 2017) 23 . Specifically, fake news and disinformation are considered as the same thing and as variations of propaganda.
However, these three terms are all considered as part and parcel of political communication. Political propaganda is arguably a component of political communication. This is because propaganda is designed to manipulate the target into behaving in a certain way. The information may be true (see Tucker, 2020 as cited by Guess and Lyons, 2020) 24 or false. From this point of view, disinformation – which is deliberate lies meant to deceive (Guess and Lyons, 2020; Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019) 25 – is a subset of propaganda and is fake news. Similarly, fake news is another type of disinformation (Guess and Lyons, 2020) 26 and can function as propaganda (‘Dealing with Propaganda’ nd) 27 . This implies that fake news and disinformation are types of propaganda whilst propaganda can be both disinformation and fake news. The view that these three are related or variations of the same thing is also held by several other scholars (Freelon and Wells, 2020; Guess and Lyons, 2020; Munoriyarwa and Chambwera, 2020) 28 . For Guess and Lyons (2020), 29 these terms can be used as synonyms (see also Hirst, 2017) 30 . According to Freelon and Wells (2020, 146 31 ), disinformation is a conceptual relative of fake news, and it is munition ‘in campaigns of information warfare, non-lethal weapons intended to subdue adversaries rather than reason with them’. Disinformation is a variation of fake news (Munoriyarwa and Chambwera, 2020) 32 . It is knowingly sharing false information with the intention to cause harm or make political or commercial gain (see Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019; ‘Dealing with Propaganda’ nd) 33 . Disinformation is harmful to democracy (see Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019; Freelon and Wells, 2020) 34 . It is arguable that propaganda, fake news and disinformation are political communication because they are political messages. This is because political communication is ‘primarily concerned with the production and transmission of politically relevant message(s) from the creator(s) to the target audience’ (Graber, 2005 as cited by Chibuwe, 2017a, 6 35 ). The goal is to gain favour and votes at the expense of the opposition (see Maarek and Wolfsfeld, 2003) 36 . Propaganda, fake news and disinformation of a political nature seek to attain political gain (see Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 37 .
Propaganda in Zimbabwe can be traced back to the colonial era. The White settler minority regime made extensive use of propaganda during the 1970s liberation struggle that pitted it against the nationalist armed groups (see Frederikse, 1982; Windrich, 1981; Saunders, 1991 38 ). The Rhodesian Army’s Psychological Unit and the Ministry of Information were the producers of the Rhodesian War propaganda (Frederikse, 1982; Windrich, 1981) 39 . The 1980 independence elections also witnessed widespread use of propaganda by the white-backed Abel Muzorewa’s party (see Frederikse, 1982) 40 . But they relied heavily on pamphlets, posters and mainstream media especially radio which was widely accessible amongst the black population.
The white regime’s deployment of propaganda to maintain dominance was inherited by the black government that succeeded it. It uses mainstream government-controlled media as propaganda tools (Chibuwe, 2017a) 41 . The advent of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in September 1999 resulted in an intensification of the use of mainstream state-controlled media for propaganda purposes (see Chibuwe, 2017a) 42 . The opposition are characterised as Western puppets whilst characterising ZANU-PF as patriots (see Mazango, 2005) 43 . This is done under the oversight of the Ministry of Information which hires and fires editors at the state-controlled Zimpapers and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) (Rusike, 1990; Saunders, 1991 44 ). Zimpapers is the biggest newspaper company in the country which now also has several radio stations and a television station. The active role of the Ministry of Information in marshalling the media in their anti-opposition propaganda drive has its roots in Rhodesia (see Saunders, 1991 45 ). The rise of the internet and social media resulted in the proliferation of outright fake news in electoral campaigns in the country especially post-2010.
Fake News Moral Panic in Zimbabwe
The production and distribution of fake news usually flares up at specific points in time, for example, during elections, upcoming summits or visits to the country by foreign dignitaries (see Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020, 2 46 ). The November 2017 coup and the disputed 2018 election aftermath saw lots of fake news production and distribution on social media especially X. The result was increasing complaints by government officials and security chiefs about fake news and its threat to state security. For example, the late Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) commander Lt. General Edzai Chimonyo was quoted by NewsDay on 03 March 2020 complaining about the threat posed to state security by social media fake news (see Matendere, 2020) 47 . Similarly, government and ruling party officials complain about opposition fake news on the eve of important visits or summits. In response to the ‘threat’ posed by social media to state security, the government has, during demonstrations and/or riots by citizens post-2018, partially blocked or shutdown the internet (see Ncube, 2019; Chibuwe, 2020) 48 . First, in August 2018 government partially blocked the internet after citizens demonstrated in Harare against ‘delayed announcement’ of election results. Second, in January 2019 government shutdown the internet for 3 days after citizens rioted to protest a sharp fuel hike announced on national television by the President. The shutdown was arguably because during the August 2018 partial blockade that targeted platforms such as WhatsApp, Meta, X and YouTube people used VPN to bypass the blockade.
The authorities’ discomfort with social media emerged during Robert Mugabe’s rule with the government crafting a Cyber Crime and Data Protection Bill in 2016. But efforts to pass the Bill into a law meant to stem the production and distribution of fake news, circulation of people’s nude pictures or videos without their consent and inciting public violence etc. (see Altaadvisory, 2020) 49 , accelerated post-July 2018 election. The Bill sought to give the government the authority to snoop into people’s private communications. This is in addition to the already operational Interception of Communications Act (ICA) which also authorises government to intercept citizens’ private communications (see Munoriyarwa and Chiumbu, 2020) 50 . The crafting of the Bill was viewed by government critics as an attempt to muzzle social media which has given citizens a platform to speak truth to power. The Bill’s crafting in 2016 was arguably inspired by the #ThisFlagMovement and #Tajamuka/Sesijikile-led protests that started online before transitioning into offline protests (see Matendere, 2020) 51 . The term fake news, as Mare (2020) cited by Moyo, Mare, and Mabweazara (2020) 52 notes, has been used in political rhetoric by some African despots to justify their clamp down on freedom of the media and the internet. However, the social media moral panic (see Chatora, 2012) 53 is not supported by any empirical evidence. The impact of fake news, as Hwang (2020, 257 54 ) observes, ‘on political outcomes is still unclear’ despite claims that the 2016 USA election was influenced by fake news.
The use of fake news in electoral contexts has been studied (see Ncube, 2019; Chibuwe, 2020; Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 55 , but the theorisation of fake news as political communication is lacking in studies on digital media and fake news (see Ncube, 2019; Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019; Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 56 and digital media and politics or elections in Zimbabwe (Chibuwe and Ureke, 2016; Chibuwe, 2020) 57 . Furthermore, even though the studies note that fake news in Zimbabwe is not only deployed by the ruling party but also by the opposition especially MDC-A (Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020; Chibuwe, 2020) 58 , they neither interrogate how fake news is deployed as political communication nor the goal(s) the creators want fake news to achieve. This article thus seeks to examine how fake news has been deployed via social media as political communication in a repressive Zimbabwean context; the types of fake news that are deployed as political communication; and the work that the message creator(s) intend(s) them to do.
Digital Media, Political Contests and the Resurgence of Fake News
Fake news is an old phenomenon which has been reinvigorated by the advent of digital media (Wittenberg and Berinsky, 2020; Hwang, 2020; Moyo, Mar and Mabweazara, 2020; Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019; Horne and Adah, 2017; Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017) 59 . This is because the cost of entering or setting up and monetising social media and/or website content is very low (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017; Hirst, 2017; Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019) 60 even in economically troubled contexts such as Zimbabwe. For example, social media data bundles are relatively affordable. This makes social media more conducive than websites for the production and distribution of fake news in Zimbabwe. The absence of professional gatekeeping on social media enables fake news to thrive. As citizens become producer-consumers, lots of information that did not pass through professional gatekeepers is produced and circulated (see Wittenberg and Berinsky, 2020) 61 . In mainstream media, ethical considerations, fear of reputational damage and the potential cost discourage deliberate false reporting (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017) 62 . This is not the case in online spaces where anonymity or the use of ghost names (see Chibuwe and Ureke, 2016; Chibuwe, 2020) 63 enables netizens to say whatever they want, vulgar or false, without fear of reputational damage, lawsuits or arrest. This explains why social media, especially Meta and X, were ‘the primary incubators of misinformation during the 2016 US presidential election’ (Wittenberg and Berinsky, 2020, 163 64 ). Ironically, the widespread use of fake news in the 2016 USA presidential election won by Donald Trump is viewed as having magnified the fake news phenomenon (Hwang, 2020; Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019; Horne and Adah, 2017; Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017) 65 . It ignited lots of academic interest in fake news and saw fake news gaining traction in political contests beyond the USA. But scholars are not agreed on the impact of fake news on electoral outcomes with some saying fake news has a significant influence on electoral outcomes whilst others disagree (see Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017; Hwang, 2020) 66 .
In a semi-authoritarian Zimbabwe, the ease of entry and absence of barriers (e.g. requirement to get licenced) that the state can place in offline mainstream media have made digital media the preferred tool for the production and distribution by citizens, activists and opposition politicians of political fake news. This is, however, not to say the elite forces that restrict offline communicative spaces are absent online. The ruling elite has invaded the digital spaces to muddy the waters (Chibuwe and Ureke, 2016; Chibuwe, 2020) 67 . The rise of fake news and the decline in mainstream media in Zimbabwe, as elsewhere, ‘has contributed towards the “rise of the disinformation society,” where misleading and false information and narratives are deliberately weaponised for political, cultural, and economic gain’ (Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020, 1 68 ).
But despite these observations, studies of fake news and/or disinformation as political communication focusing on Zimbabwe and Africa remain scarce. Scholarship has largely tended to focus on the negative effects of fake news on mainstream media and journalism. Fake news and social media, it is argued, negatively impact mainstream media as audiences tend to trust and have confidence in fake news more than mainstream media news (see Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020; Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017; Horne and Adah, 2017) 69 . Similarly, it is also argued that fake news has negative consequences on democracy (see Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 70 . This conclusion, it is apparent, is based on fake news’ supposed negative impacts on the media which in turn negatively affect politics. For example, Hirst (2017) 71 argues that Trump’s tendency to accuse the media of having a fake news conspiracy against him makes it harder for the media to keep track of his lies. This in turn, arguably, affects the citizens’ ability to make informed political decisions. But regardless of this seemingly overwhelming agreement that fake news has negative impacts on politics and mainstream media’s role as sources of legitimate news, other scholars insist that the influence of fake news on electoral outcomes is not clear (Hwang, 2020) 72 . What is apparent in this scholarship, regardless of claims of fake news as damaging to democracy or politics, is that there is a dearth of research that focuses on fake news and/or disinformation as political communication in the African context. Most of the studies focused on non-African contexts (see Hwang, 2020; Hirst, 2017; Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017) 73 . Even these did not link fake news to political communication but instead focused on the genre of fake news. As Egelhofer and Lecheler (2019, 97 74 ) note, ‘while public worries about the use of the label by politicians [the use of the label fake news to delegitimise news media], scholarly interest is heavily focused on the genre aspect of fake news [creation of pseudojournalistic disinformation)’. They attempted to bridge this divide by connecting fake news to related political communication concepts through a literature review-based paper (Egelhofer and Lecheler, 2019) 75 . This present article seeks to complement these existing works by interrogating fake news produced and circulated by government officials, ruling party and opposition officials, their sympathisers and activists in post-2018 Zimbabwe. The fake news that is the focus of this study is the one produced for political reasons, that is, political fake news (see Hirst, 2017; Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017) 76 . The key defining feature is not whether the creator gets paid for producing and circulating the fake news, but whether the fake news or alleged fake news is political.
There are paid cyber storm troopers on Zimbabwean X (see Chibuwe, 2020) 77 and fake news, as noted by scholars (Hirst, 2017; Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017; Guess and Lyons, 2020; Hwang, 2020) 78 , may be driven by commercial rather than ideological motives (see Egelhofer and Lecheler, 2019) 79 . For example, some of the USA 2016 election pro-Trump fake news was produced and circulated by the Russian state for ideological purposes (Hwang, 2020) 80 . This is reinforced by Moyo et al.’s (2020) 81 observation that fake news can be deployed for political and socio-economic reasons. It can also be deployed for entertainment purposes (see Egelhofer and Lecheler, 2019) 82 .
Conceptual Framework
Cognisant that fake news, propaganda and disinformation are used interchangeably, this article is premised on Egelhofer and Lecheler’s (2019, 97 83 ) theorisation of fake news as ‘a two-dimensional phenomenon of public communication: there is the (1) fake news genre, describing the deliberate creation of pseudojournalistic disinformation, and there is the (2) fake news label, describing the political instrumentalization of the term to delegitimize news media’. This approach acknowledges differences between what fake news is and what the term is used for (Egelhofer and Lecheler, 2019) 84 . This article also incorporates a third dimension, fake news as the Putinesque dramaturgia. This is ‘the staging of deliberate provocations to destabilize politics in order to take advantage of the resultant confusion’ (Hirst 2017, 85 85 ).
Fake news as a genre has been characterised by definitional difficulties (see Munoriyarwa and Chambwera, 2020; Hwang, 2020) 86 . However, it is generally agreed that fake news is deliberately false or misleading information (Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019) 87 or ‘news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false and could mislead readers’ (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017, 213 88 ). Fake news as a genre can also be classified as propaganda because politicians deploy it to deceive opponents for political gain. Similarly, the label fake news as a propaganda tool is an ‘attempt to control the media’s influence on the public’ (Egelhofer and Lecheler, 2019, 106 89 ). It is designed to discredit or delegitimise mainstream news media whose content challenges one’s ideological position (see Egelhofer and Lecheler, 2019) 90 . This negatively affects the public’s trust in news media (Fairhall et al., 2019) 91 and it affects their ability to shape public opinion through agenda setting. As a label or term, the ‘discourse of fake news is weaponized for political gain’ (Fairhall et al., 2019, 4354 92 ). It is used to describe any news item ‘you disagree with, or paints your cause, position, candidate, leader, or president in an unfavourable light’ (Hirst, 2017, 91 93 ). The term has been used by politicians to stigmatise and dismiss anything circulating in the public domain that one does not agree with (Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 94 .
This article interrogates whether the deployment of fake news in the hegemonic battle between ZANU-PF and MDC-A utilised the foregoing three dimensions of fake news. It explores how, when and how these dimensions were used. Finally, it examines any other fake news strategies that they utilised.
Even though fake news is generally viewed as mimicking journalism in form, in this article the genre of ‘fake news’ is not restricted to articles and reports that take the format of traditional news. As Horne and Adah (2017) argue 95 , the assumption that fake news is designed to look like news to fool audiences who do not check for authenticity of sources, is incorrect. Resultantly, this article considers self-produced and self-circulated X content as news. Tweets by activists, politicians, their sympathisers and government officials making political (fake news) announcements are considered as news. This is plausible considering that in Zimbabwe, judging by pronouncements by ruling party, government and opposition political party officials, fake news is broadly conceptualised to include false publications in mainstream media and on websites and false utterances on X, WhatsApp, Meta etc. News items and utterances that politicians do not like are also routinely dismissed as fake news (see Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 96 . Consequently, tweets that were proven to be false or that the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), other state institutions, ZANU-PF or MDC-A dismissed as fake news were considered as part of data for this present work.
Methodology
The study is qualitative, and it specifically utilises archival research for data gathering. Purposively selected X shared government press releases about fake news, tweets (and stories) by politicians, government officials and activists proven as or dismissed as fake news were archived. Tweets were purposively selected from the months of July 2021 to November 2021; however, most were gathered during the month of October 2021. This is because of increased fake news activity on X that coincided with the ruling ZANU-PF and government’s anti-sanctions march, the UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions Alena Douhan’s visit to the country and the COP26 Summit at Glasgow, Scotland, all in October 2021. In Zimbabwe, the production and distribution of fake news usually flares up during elections, upcoming summits or visits to the country by foreign dignitaries (Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 97 . Archival research was complimented by online ethnography. The observations stretch back to Zimbabwe’s July 2018 election. The researcher, who uses a phantom name, is embedded on Zimbabwean X and he made use of non-participant observation to gather data (see Driscoll and Gregg, 2010) 98 . Ethnography was adapted to the online space because the internet is a site of fieldwork (Bell, 2001 as cited by Driscoll and Gregg, 2010) 99 . The online ethnography approach deployed in this study does not replicate cultural anthropology but draws from it (Driscoll and Gregg, 2010; Bowler, 2010) 100 . In this article, the terms online ethnography, online observation, netnography and virtual ethnography are used interchangeably. This is because, ‘modifications of the term ethnography, online ethnography, and virtual ethnography...designate online fieldwork that follows from the conception of ethnography as an adaptable method. [However], these methods tend to leave most of the specifics of the adaptation to the individual researcher’ (Bowler 2010, p. 1270 101 ). The researcher lurked on X. He was not a participant observer but a ‘specialized type of lurker’ (Kozinets, 2010 as cited by Bowler 2010, 1271 102 ) who has been on X since January 2016. Lurking ‘…is where participants in social media adopt passive behaviors: they listen to, observe, and perhaps record the “conversations,” but do not engage with the contributors to the social media to any great extent, if at all’ (Goncalves and Cornelius Smith, 2018, 10 103 ). The researcher observed during work and leisure. This confirms the claim that in ethnographic research the work/life boundaries are inevitably blurred (Driscoll and Gregg, 2010, 16 104 ).
Specifically, the researcher monitored and gathered tweets from the handles of @Jamwanda2, @nickmangwana, @TafadzwaMugwadi, @advocatemahere, @PedzisaiRuhanya, @MDC_Nofficial and @ Welshman_Ncube. George Charamba, the former Ministry of Information Permanent Secretary and current Deputy Secretary Presidential Communications and Presidential Spokesman, is the one who used the name @Jamwanda2. The account has since been blocked by X for violating its policies. Nick Mangwana is the current Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. These two are pro-ruling party civil servants. Tafadzwa Mugwadi was the ZANU-PF Director of Information. Fadzai Mahere was the spokesperson for the MDC-A whilst @Welshman_Ncube was one of the party’s three deputy presidents. The MDC-A changed its name to CCC on 24 January 2022. Pedzisai Ruhanya is a media academic and a staunch sympathiser of ex-CCC President Nelson Chamisa. The handle @MDC_Nofficial ‘belongs’ to the Movement for Democratic Change-N that Welshman Ncube led prior to its merger with MDC-T and other parties to form the MDC-A. However, former MDC-N officials dismiss the account as fake. Data were gathered from handles of officials and sympathisers of both parties, and government officials.
The data gathered were analysed thematically. Pre-identified thematic distinctions were used to code the data. Specifically, pre-identified types of fake news – dramaturgia and disinformation – were utilised. The thematic distinctions were imposed on the data to check what fits and what does not fit in them. This precedes the interpretation. The data was interpreted mainly based on theory, literature review and personal experience. The context of production and distribution of the fake news was critical in the interpretation of the findings. This is because fake news, like any other text, is a product of context (see Metro-Roland, 2011) 105 . Context ‘...gives form and shape to the recurring challenge of fake news’ (Mare, Mawindi Mabweazara and Moyo, 2019, 2 106 ). The study also uses thick descriptions (see Langer and Beckman, 2005; Kozinets, 2010 as cited by Bowler, 2010) 107 to make the study dependable, credible, confirmable and transferable (Shenton, 2004; Trochim, 2006) 108 . This framework rejects the quantitative research criteria of rigour (validity, reliability and objectivity) which is premised on the assumption that ‘reality is external to our perception’ (Trochim, 2006) 109 . Qualitative research is subjective and believes in message polysemy. Consequently, interpretation of data is based on researcher’s personal experience (Corbin and Strauss, 2008) 110 . This is contrary to quantitative research, where validity is determined by replicability under similar conditions with similar results.
The following two sections describe the dimensions of fake news, who produced them and how fake news was deployed. The discussion and conclusion section analyzes the findings.
Dramaturgia as a Political Communication Tool
Fake news in Zimbabwe is used to manipulate local, regional and global public opinion. It is used by government, the ruling party and the opposition as a tool of political communication and public diplomacy targeted at local, regional and global publics. The findings show that the opposition MDC-A on one hand and the government and ruling ZANU-PF on the other hand deploy fake news against each other. The MDC-A leader’s tours around the provinces and reports of alleged ZANU-PF and state security agents’ attempts to block him or even assassinate him were arguably made to coincide with the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Elena Douhan’s visit to the country and the UN Climate Change Conference: COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, both in the month of October 2021. However, ZANU PF’s and government’s dismissal of these reports of violence as ‘drama’ is a tactic of fake news. The party’s then Acting Political Commissar Patrick Chinamasa was quoted in the press (and widely shared on X) claiming that Chamisa was attacked for trying to forcefully address people that did not want to be addressed by him. This claim was proven to be false. The ruling party and government dismissed alleged abductions of MDC-A members and political activists by state security agents as staged. They labelled three female MDC-A activists who were allegedly abducted and tortured in 2020 during the COVID-19-induced lockdown as ‘drama queens’. In a 10 November 2021 press release that was also shared on Twitter following fake news about the alleged abduction of the MDC-A Vice President Tendai Biti by five armed men on 08 November 2021, the Minister of Home Affairs, Kazembe Kazembe, stated that, ‘The abduction narrative follows the same template used before in the staged disappearance of activist and medical doctor, Peter Magombeyi, and that of MDC-A youths, Joana Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova. These reports always surface on the eve of global summits or the periodic reviews of Western-imposed sanctions’. The then ZANU PF Director of Information @TafadzwaMugwadi on 11 November 2011 tweeted that, ‘@BitiTendai attempts on a fake abduction were exposed yesterday before they could finalise’. The state also previously blamed a ‘third force’ for the abductions. In this fake news battle, it is difficult to separate truth from the fake but what is indisputable is that the opposition, the ruling party and government utilise the genre and label dramaturgia to muddy the political waters.
Dramaturgia, as noted by Hirst (2017, 85 111 ), is ‘the staging of deliberate provocations to destabilise politics in order to take advantage of the resultant confusion’. The scheduling of the MDC-A leader’s tour of the country to coincide with the UN Rapporteur’s visit and the ruling party and government’s anti-sanctions march and on the eve of the COP26 Summit was, arguably, deliberate. It is arguable that MDC-A expected ZANU-PF to resort to its default mode of violent confrontation and this happened in Masvingo. The Masvingo incident provided fertile ground for claims of an assassination attempt to be made and to be believable. Whereas the claims appear to have galvanised the MDC-A leader’s supporters in the provinces to come in droves as he toured around the country, the dramaturgia appears to have not worked in influencing the UN Special Rapporteur whose report, contrary to the MDC-A position, called for the West to lift sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe. However, it appears to have worked in convincing the MDC-A’s traditional Western backers such as the USA who rejected the UN Special Rapporteur’s call for the lifting of sanctions. This is not surprising given that government officials such as @Jamwanda2 have consistently maintained that the Western embassies in Zimbabwe especially, the US embassy, are the ones that fund the MDC-A’s alleged staging of abductions. Government officials such as @nickmangwana and @Jamwanda2 have maintained that the alleged abductions and human rights violations were ‘drama’. For example, in a thread in which he accused activist and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono of selling out the opposition to the government, @Jamwanda2 claimed that one of the things he exposed were the alleged ‘abduction antics’ by the MDC-A. On 22 October 2021 and commenting on the alleged assassination attempt on the MDC-A leader Nelson Chamisa, @Jamwanda2 labelled him a ‘drama-comedian’. He tweeted ‘we have recordings on an altercation between Chamisa and his security detail who tries to knock sense into the drama-comedian [emphasis mine]. We shall release it in due course’. Nick Mangwana @nickmangwana, in dismissing the reported violence and alleged assassination attempt against the MDC-A leader on 11 October 2021, tweeted, ‘We are in the even of #COP26 and the Special Rapporteur’s engagement is about to happen. Do you know what else has started? The Dramas’.
The findings show that dramaturgia is deployed as a political communication tool to discredit opponents and manipulate local and international or global public opinion with the hope of gaining votes locally and score diplomatic goals regionally and globally. It is arguably utilised by the opposition to demonstrate that the change from Mugabe to Mnangagwa was no change at all. Government officials’ statements dismissing the alleged abduction and torture of opposition officials and activists demonstrate an awareness of the deployment of fake news to score diplomatic goals. For example, in the press release mentioned above, the Minister of Home Affairs noted that fake news resulted in ‘Government being falsely accused of orchestrating forced disappearances and abduction of political opponents to silence them’. He also accused the MDC-A of taking ‘a long time to respond to the false news before… [issuing] a statement dismissing the fake news’. This, Fadzai Mahere did on 09 November 2021 at 16.32 pm when she dismissed the abduction story as fake news. She tweeted, ‘he [Tendai Biti] was not abducted nor did he go missing. He was trailed by a suspicious vehicle yesterday [emphasis mine]’. The MDC-A officials have on many occasions before made similar claims of being trailed by unmarked vehicles. This usually is, in opposition and civil society circles, viewed as a prelude to abduction. The claims and counterclaims of fake news arguably demonstrate how it has become a key tool of political communication and by extension public diplomacy in Zimbabwe. The intention is two-fold: firstly, to score political goals locally through gaining voter sympathy and secondly, to score diplomatic goals regionally and globally.
However, if indeed the abductions, attempted assassinations, attempted kidnapping and torture did happen, then the ruling party and government officials’ dismissal of the same as ‘drama’ or as ‘staged’ is designed to muddy the waters to confuse the citizens and international community. The MDC-A accuses the government of creating fake news and then blame it on them and using fake news to downplay previous abductions and torture. For example, in response to the November 10, 2021, press release by the Home Affairs Minister, Fadzai Mahere tweeted, The regime create their own fake news and then blame us for it. The MDC Alliance never spread fake news about VP @BitiTendai…This is a regrettable attempt by the regime to use fake news to downplay past abduction and torture that to date haven’t been investigated… We won’t stop demanding accountability for the MDC Trio & other victims of state sponsored torture (@advocatemahere 10 November 2021).
Ironically, in court in March 2022 charged with communicating falsehoods prejudicial to the state, two of the ‘MDC Trio’ according to press reports denied having told anyone that they had been abducted and tortured (The Herald 18 March 2022). The third lady allegedly fled the country to avoid trial. However, the claims and counterclaims of fake news and/or dramaturgia confirm Hirst’s (2017) 112 argument that dramaturgia is used to muddy the waters. Government, ZANU-PF and the MDC-A deploy dramaturgia in the struggle for hegemony in Zimbabwe. The MDC-A arguably deploys it to gain public sympathy and swing local and global public opinion in its favour while simultaneously pushing the narrative that Mnangagwa is as repressive as was Mugabe, if not worse. But ZANU-PF and the government deploy ‘dramaturgia’ to dismiss opposition claims of human rights abuses, abductions and assassination attempts. This too, just like the opposition’s strategy, is designed to muddy the waters and cause confusion so that in the end the public are not sure of the truth. This appropriation or weaponisation of the term ‘drama’ to dismiss opposition claims of harassment, abduction and attempted assassination demonstrates that ‘fake news’ may, in contexts of political acrimony, become a useful tool to discredit the opponent. The weaponisation of the term ‘drama’ by ZANU-PF confirms observations by scholars that some politicians have become adept at dismissing news items that do not paint them in favourable light as fake news (see Hirst, 2017; Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 113 . It is noted that, ‘some politicians have also deployed this floating signifier as a stigmatising label used to critique anything that they do not agree with which is circulating in the public sphere’ (Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020, 2 114 ). The fake news and/or drama label is deployed by both parties to discredit or undermine public trust in each other.
The term is used to mean staged or false events or news. ‘Drama’ and/or ‘fake news’ have, in Zimbabwean political communication, become useful tools or terms to discredit the opponent and to positively influence public opinion in one’s favour while negatively influencing it against the opponent. This confirms scholars’ observation that the discourse or label of fake news can be weaponised (see Fairhall et al., 2019; Egelhofer and Lecheler, 2019) 115 . If the abductions and alleged assassination attempts did happen, the officials’ dismissal of the same as ‘drama’ is designed to confuse the media and the public and make it difficult for them to separate truth from fake. For example, Trump’s dismissal of news against him as fake was intended ‘to muddy the waters [to make it] almost impossible for the media to keep track of his own lies’ (Hirst, 2017, 85 116 ). The same is true of the deployment of the label ‘fake news’ and/or ‘drama’ by ZANU-PF and government officials to dismiss opposition claims of assassination attempts, abductions and torture. The label or discourse of dramaturgia is used to discredit the opposition and perpetuate ruling party dominance. But if the opposition does stage the abductions, then the genre of dramaturgia or fake news has been instrumentalised or weaponised to weaken the dominant.
Disinformation and Its Variations: Interplay Between the Genre and the Label
The findings show a close interplay between fake news as a genre, fake news as a label and dramaturgia in inter-party and intra-party battles. Dismissing unfavourable news as fake news and utilising verifiably false news to deceive and discredit the opponents are two variations of disinformation that are widely deployed. The third and fourth are the use of fake press releases and fake Twitter accounts in the name of opposition leaders and/or defunct opposition political parties to produce and circulate tweets designed to create an illusion of disunity in the MDCA. The findings show the individuals, organisations and institutions that deploy fake news as a political communication tool are the MDC-A politicians, ZANU PF politicians, factions within the various political parties, government officials and activists. The MDC-A deploys fake news against ZANU-PF, the government and the splinter MDC-T faction led by Douglas Mwonzora. MDC-A officials and sympathisers repeat the unsubstantiated claim that MDC-T led by Mwonzora is a ZANU PF project. For example, in one of the fake news, @PedzisaiRuhanya, an ardent supporter of the MDC-A leader, on 09 September 2021 tweeted a false The Herald banner with a screaming headline ‘“Join ZANU PF” Mwonzora tells youths’. A search of The Herald (both online and hard copy) for the story yielded nothing. This is one level at which fake news is utilised in factional MDC battles where factions that split into distinct political party entities deploy fake news to discredit each other. This phenomenon is also evident in ZANU PF where the vanquished G40 faction has been accused of deploying fake news against the victorious Lacoste faction. G40 is the faction that was defeated when, in November 2017, the military staged a coup, removed President Mugabe and arrested some G40 Ministers and officials while others fled into exile. Lacoste is the faction that was led by the current President E.D. Mnangagwa.
Interestingly, the factional deployment of fake news extends beyond the first level discussed above to intra-party factionalism, that is, those members within the now distinct political parties that were formerly united are deploying fake news against each other. In conversations with people embedded in the structures of political parties such as the MDC-A, it was revealed that fake news is deployed in factional wars. In the MDC-A, fake news produced and circulated via X about the purported dismissal of the party’s Deputy Chairman Job Sikhala was allegedly a manifestation of factionalism. The same is true of the purported ‘imminent’ dismissal of Ostallos Siziba. The intention of the news about the deputy chairperson’s dismissal was allegedly to soil the party leader, Nelson Chamisa, before the public and party supporters whilst the alleged ‘imminent’ dismissal of Siziba was fake news designed to prepare the groundwork for his eventual dismissal by the faction opposed to Chamisa. Similarly, it is alleged that in ZANU-PF, the military and civilian factions (the two were part of Lacoste faction) deploy fake news against each other. The findings also show that there are suspicions of repressive state apparatuses, especially the intelligence community’s use of fake news against the opposition. The claims of state involvement in fake news production and circulation especially to discredit ZANU-PF’s opponents have been repeatedly made by the opposition and civil society activists. For example, @Welshman_Ncube on 21 August 2021 tweeted that, ‘The agents of the regime deployed everywhere including among us [emphasis mine] are on a roll with FAKE & UTTERLY FALSE [caps in the original] stories & Facebook & Twitter accounts. I am going nowhere. I stand with Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti and Lynette Kore in the fight 4 (sic) the people. The MDC Alliance is my home’. And on 01 March 2022 he tweeted again, ‘The agents deployed among us [emphasis mine] are on a roll with endless FAKE [caps in the original] and ludicrous articles quoting me supposedly saying very foolish things. I am not foolish. Never will be. My opposition to ZANU PF is on fundamental principle. Our unity in the opposition is 4 (sic) me not negotiable’. These tweets confirm the use of fake news in factional fighting within the opposition though they blame both the factionalism and fake news on state agents. Implied in the messages is that the state agents that have infiltrated the opposition are responsible for trying to fan divisions through the production and distribution of fake news that create the illusion of leadership division.
Fake news is viewed as designed by the ruling party and the repressive state apparatuses to cause confusion in the opposition ranks and disaffection amongst the voters. For example, on 19 July 2021 @Jamwanda2, widely reported to be George Charamba, claimed that MDC-Alliance was stuck with two batches of COVID-19 vaccines totalling half a million doses. He claimed that they were given the vaccines by America through her ambassador to Zimbabwe, but they are stuck because the vaccine is unregistered, and government has resisted the USA’s pressure to ‘accept importation and administration of those unregistered vaccines’. He claimed that the intention was ‘to checkmate the goodwill that has accrued to ZANU-PF through a sprite public vaccination programme’ (@Jamwanda2 19 July 2021). However, in an article titled ‘Covid-19 vaccines: US hits back’, the NewsDay of 21 July 2021 quotes the US embassy in Zimbabwe as having dismissed Charamba’s claims as ‘false’. And on the same day, @PedzisaiRuhanya tweeted a screenshot of the NewsDay story with the message, ‘We knew ZANU PF through Jamwanda was lying thinking that it can score political points against MDC-Alliance @nelsonchamisa and discredit them but lies have short legs...’.
Finally, the study also demonstrates that in its disinformation campaign against the opposition MDC-A, the ruling party and its sympathisers also deploy fake X accounts in the name of defunct opposition political parties. For example, the fake @MDC_Nofficial handle is designed to deceive the opposition and to cause confusion by creating the impression that one of their Vice Presidents Welshman Ncube is misleading them. The handle tweets messages that are contrary to the MDC-A’s position, for example, on the eve of the anti-sanctions march and the UN Special Rapporteur’s visit, the handle tweeted calling for the lifting of sanctions. The MDC-N is one of the parties that joined the MDC-A in the run-up to the July 2018 election and was dissolved in the run-up to the MDC-A’s 2019 congress as the parties merged. Fake press releases have also been deployed by both pro-ruling party and pro-opposition netizens. Fake press releases on either ZANU-PF or MDC-A letterheads have been produced and circulated on social media. For example, a fake Morgen Komichi resignation letter on the opposition MDC-A letterhead was produced and circulated on X and WhatsApp. Morgen Komichi was the then MDC-A’s secretary for presidential affairs. However, the NewsDay of 12 March 2020 quotes Komichi dismissing the alleged resignation letter which was written on the party’s letterhead and had ‘Komichi’s signature’ as fake (Muponde, 2020) 117 . For its part, the MDC-A and its sympathisers, just like ZANU PF, also seek to discredit some pro-ZANU-PF X handles by dismissing them as Nick Mangwana’s ghost accounts. The X handles @nicolehondo and @MelodyChakatsva have been widely dismissed as @nickmangwana’s but both have denied the claims. This demonstrates that it is not only presidents or despotic rulers that utilise the term fake news to dismiss unfavourable news or social media handles that usually produce news not favourable to them. Whereas Mare (2020) as cited by Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara (2020) 118 notes that the term fake news has been used by some African dictators to clamp down on freedom of the media and the internet, the findings demonstrate that even opposition politicians deploy the term to dismiss some unpalatable criticisms against them. Weaponisation of the label fake news and deployment of the fake news genre are not the preserve of ruling parties even in a semi-authoritarian Zimbabwe.
Discussion and Conclusion
The findings demonstrate that, as political communication, fake news is designed to discredit and create disaffection towards the opponent. The findings also demonstrate that in semi-authoritarian states, fake news has also become a tool for the opposition to challenge repression. The opposition preys on the state’s known repression by faking it and publicising it to bring the limelight on the repressive system. Fake news is also used to deceive the opponent, to cause confusion and muddy the political waters. These goals are achieved through fake news that negatively portrays the opponents either as despotic or as pathological liars. The MDC-A, for example, portrays ZANU-PF as despotic through reports of alleged kidnapping and assassination attempts whilst ZANU-PF portrays MDC-A as pathological liars through labelling them as drama queens or drama-comedians. They seek to discredit each other through fake news because in political communication negatively portraying or attacking the opponent is as important, if not more important, as positively portraying the self (see Chibuwe, 2017a; Chibuwe, 2017b) 119 . It is arguable that disinformation, dramaturgia, dismissing unfavourable news as fake news and creating fake social media accounts in the name of defunct opposition parties are all designed to create positive self-presentation while negatively presenting the opponent. This is the political communication work that fake news does in its three dimensions as a label/discourse, a genre and as dramaturgia. The findings sustain the argument that fake news (or its variations of dramaturgia, and disinformation or as a label) is deployed in political communication as ‘munitions in campaigns of information warfare, non-lethal weapons intended to subdue adversaries rather than reason with them’ (Freelon and Wells, 2020, 146 120 ). The ruling party and government deploy the fake news or drama label to dismiss opposition claims of abductions, torture and attempted assassination. This is done to subdue and discredit it. Similarly, the opposition deploys, if indeed it does, the genre dramaturgia to discredit the ruling party and government as repressive. The findings sustain the assertion that fake news has negative consequences on democracy and/or rationale engagement in the political sphere (see Mare, 2020 as cited by Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 121 . For example, the confusion that dramaturgia causes on the political scene is self-evident as the researcher himself is not certain of the truth or falsity of some of the abduction and alleged assassination attempts.
However, if the opposition did indeed stage these things it could be because the state has been known to do it and the opposition has just seen an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive in their political communication arsenal. For example, the 2008 abduction and torture of human rights activist Jestina Mukoko was state-sanctioned. If the opposition did not stage those things, then the government and ruling party are simply sticking to their tried and tested political communication tactic of denying opposition claims and blaming the victims. Either way, the deployment of dramaturgia shows that citizens are left confused, and this makes it difficult for them to make informed political decisions. And since the targets are also sometimes foreign governments and pressure groups, they too, it is arguable are left confused thereby inhibiting their ability to make informed policy decisions. Following on this, it is arguable that dramaturgia as a political communication tool is, in addition to democracy, also detrimental to diplomacy. It does not promote rationale debate as it is geared towards subduing ‘adversaries rather than reason with them’ (Freelon and, Wells 2020, 146 122 ).
But on another level and contrary to findings by existing scholarship on fake news, the findings demonstrate that fake news, especially dramaturgia as a political communication tool, can be weaponised by opposition political parties and activists to open democratic space in contexts of repression, harassment, brutality, imprisonment and enforced disappearances. Indeed, prior studies have demonstrated that the proliferation of smart phones and digital platforms has opened the democratic space by enabling the subalterns to speak truth to power (Chibuwe and Ureke, 2016) 123 and to expose abuses. In Zimbabwe, mobile phones and social media platforms have been used by citizens, the opposition and activists to identify, name and shame alleged members of the ruling party and security services accused either of abduction, beating, torture and murder of opposition activists or citizen protesters. But unlike previous studies which noted that fake news has negative consequences on democracy, this article concludes that the proliferation of fake news aided by the same digital platforms and weaponized by pro-democracy movements can help democratise politics in semi-authoritarian contexts. In other words, whereas scholars note that fake news has negative consequences on democracy (see Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara, 2020) 124 they do not tell us what consequences fake news deployed by an oppressed and brutalised opposition against the ruling elite are likely to have on politics. This current study’s findings enable the researcher to argue that the opposition's deployment of fake news, especially dramaturgia, will make the state less likely to embark on brazen attacks on the opposition as happened previously before the widespread availability of smart phones and social media platforms such as X, Meta and WhatsApp. This, arguably, gives the opposition room to breathe especially in a context where the post-coup government is making frantic efforts to reengage with the West. Fake news becomes a deterrent against any possible shenanigans by the ruling party and government given that they will be aware of the opposition’s desire to make a media event out of any wrong turn by them. Arguably, the opposition's willingness to make a media spectacle out of any aggression from government or ruling party likely forestalls any such impulses by the ruling party and the state. Fake news in such contexts becomes the opposition’s pre-emptive strike on a system with a propensity to deploy extra-legal means to deal with a political opponent. But this may also inadvertently make the ruling party and government more likely to carry out those extra-legal activities and simply dismiss opposition reportage of such as fake news or drama.
The findings also show that fake news as political communication in Zimbabwe, in addition to the three dimensions (dramaturgia, fake news label and fake news genre) discussed in the conceptual framework section, involves appropriating opposition political party names on social media and tweeting information contrary to their stated position. The findings also demonstrate that fake news has become a key tool in the diplomatic offensives of the protagonists: the opposition and government and the ruling party. In the battle for regional and global sympathy, fake news has proven to be a key tool in international political communication in the Zimbabwean context. Based on this, the study concludes that not only is fake news detrimental to democracy (Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara 2020) 125 , but it is also detrimental to public diplomacy. Finally, whereas Mare (2020) as cited by Moyo, Mare and Mabweazara (2020) 126 notes that fake news has been used in political rhetoric by some African despots to justify their clamp down on freedom of the media and the internet, the findings demonstrate that a variation of fake news, that is, dramaturgia has been used by the state to mask alleged state-sanctioned human rights abuses and by the opposition to score political goals against a semi-authoritarian regime. The study concludes that fake news is a two-faced creature: first it has negative consequences for democracy and public diplomacy. Second, if deployed by the opposition in semi-authoritarian environments it can give them breathing space and dissuade the ruling elite from some of their more brazen repressive tendencies. It can also arguably forestall the deployment of extra-legal means by the ruling elite to contain the opposition. However, the problem associated with establishing the veracity of some of the claims of fake news was a handicap of the study even though it does not affect the confirmability, dependability, credibility and transferability of the study. To compensate for this, the study utilised thick descriptions.
Based on the findings, the article recommends that future studies could explore the use of fake news in public diplomacy especially by opposition political parties, political activists and governments in semi-authoritarian states. Future studies could also explore the extent to which fake news deployed by the opposition gives them breathing space in semi-authoritarian contexts.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
