Regulatory Annexation: Extending Broadcast Media Regulation to Social Media and Internet Content

Abstract This article considers the regulation of social media usage in Nigeria and Africa, drawing from ideas on critical political economy, securitization, and state–citizen distrust. Using a methodology that combines policy analysis, case studies, and qualitative reading of social media texts, it introduces for the first time the concept of regulatory annexation. This is the extension of standards, principles, and sanctions originally meant for one particular frame of reference to another. I establish the concept by drawing from case studies on broadcast media regulation to show that this is being mapped onto the emerging regulation of social media and Internet content in what I describe as the politics of regulation. I argue that regulatory annexation bears significant implications for the control of the entire media architecture and our understanding of new media regulation in the wider sense, both now and in the future.