Seven Days in May: An Afrocentric Diagnosis of Shepherd Mpofu’s Facebook Roar

Abstract

As a relatively new media, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram have received the attention of scholars emanating from Political Science, Public Administration, Media and Communication Studies, inter alia. Given that it is difficult to gaze the measure of adequacy, it suffices to mention that much of the scholarly works on this subject are disciplinary inward looking and Western centred- which exposes them to deficiency in capturing the African reality in its totality. As such, this interdisciplinary paper examines a sample of Mpofu’s Facebook roar during May 2023 on the basis of an Afrocentric lens and auto-ethnographic approach. The key argument of this paper is that Mpofu’s roar does not have a sound academic basis. But it is a revelation of underlying scholarly limits (enter profanity) which are common to all but worse for those with troubled consciousness.