“Digitally speaking”: TikTok, Language use and Gen Z demonstrations against the 2024 Finance Bill in Kenya

This study explores the role of language on social media in shaping Gen Z-led demonstrations in Kenya. The purpose is to examine how language used on TikTok, shapes policy debates and the mobilization of youth activism around the Finance Bill 2024. With 11 purposively - sampled Tik Tok videos, hashtags and user-generated comments as data collected from popular trends, videos and viral content, the study qualitatively investigates how young people creatively use communicative strategies to construct social media trends and perceptions as a way of responding to the planned roll-out of The Finance Bill 2024. The study was guided by the framing theory originally by Erving Goffman (1974) and later expounded by Robert Enthman (1993) which observes that the media selects and emphasizes certain aspects of reality while downplaying others to influence public perception. The findings reveal that the use of informal, relatable and emotionally charged communicative strategies to critique the Finance Bill, fosters solidarity and creates viral advocacy campaigns, while, at the same time, enabling Gen Z’s to amplify their concerns and drive mass engagement, as they deal with challenges, such as the potential misinformation, oversimplification of complex issues and limited reach to audiences beyond the TikTok demographic.