Social Media as a Counterforce to Manufactured Consent:

Abstract

Social media has emerged as a transformative force in democratic participation, challenging traditional media gatekeeping and enabling citizen-led political mobilization. This systematic review examines how social media platforms fostered democratic engagement during Kenya's 2024 Gen-Z movement, in which young activists used X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to organize protests against the Finance Bill 2024. The movement demonstrated how digital platforms enable rapid information dissemination, coordinate collective action, and amplify marginalized voices beyond traditional media narratives. Through a systematic thematic analysis of secondary literature and documentation of the 2024 protests, this paper reveals that social media facilitated unprecedented direct engagement between citizens and government leaders, including Kenya's first presidential participation in an X-space discussion. However, significant challenges, including misinformation, digital surveillance, state-sponsored censorship, and the rural-urban digital divide, constrained the movement's full potential. The findings suggest that maximizing social media's democratic potential requires prioritizing digital literacy programs, strengthening independent journalism, ensuring equitable access to technology, and protecting digital rights. This study contributes contextually relevant insights into digital activism in African democracies and offers lessons for global democratic engagement in the digital age.