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I have seen it! Have you seen me?: Understanding the use of engagement features on Ugandan LGBTI community's social media
Malmö University, Faculty of Technology and Society (TS), Department of Computer Science and Media Technology (DVMT).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5097-6218
Department of Communication, Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3621-4687
2025 (English)In: Information, Communication and Society, ISSN 1369-118X, E-ISSN 1468-4462, p. 1-18Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

In this article, we study engagement on Ugandan LGBTI organizations and activist’s posts on three different platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Our aim is to study how a historically underrepresented community in the Global South navigates a complex information ecology in an uncertain socio-political situation. We ask: (1) Which posts emerge as more popular regarding user engagement on the different platforms respectively? (2) Are there similarities or differences concerning such popularity across the three platforms? (3) Did engagement patterns change after the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act? and finally (4) How can we understand these engagement patterns from the perspective of the community? We approach these questions using three different yet interrelated methodological approaches: (A) Social media analytics to identify highly engaged posts, (B) Qualitative analysis of these posts and (C) Qualitative interviews with community representatives. Our results show that engagement differs between the platforms. This has to do with platform characteristics, such as Instagram pushing for photos and scrolling, and political realities, such as Facebook being blocked. The audience also matters, in that Twitter is perceived as populated by international allies. Calls for action are not common because engaging with posts implies that not only that you have seen the post, but that the posting entity, and sometimes also the repressive state, have seen you. We thus conclude that engagement in this particular situation is governed by visibility.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge , 2025. p. 1-18
Keywords [en]
Engagement, LGBTI, social media, Uganda, visibility
National Category
Information Systems, Social aspects
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-79874DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2025.2559147ISI: 001577855200001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105017033772OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-79874DiVA, id: diva2:2003024
Available from: 2025-10-02 Created: 2025-10-02 Last updated: 2025-10-03Bibliographically approved

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Svensson, Jakob

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