Digital Activism and the #EndSARS Movement : Exploring the Role of Social Media in Mobilization, Advocacy, and Collective Identity

In this thesis, I explore the role of social media in shaping digital activism during Nigeria's #EndSARS movement, with a special focus on how youth participants mobilized, shared narratives, and constructed collective identity.Drawing on Collective Identity Theory, affective publics, and connective action, and using a qualitative approach based on seven semi-structured interviews, I identify seven major themes through thematic analysis: mobilization through digital platforms, emotional storytelling, unity across diversity, digital risk and governmental suppression, reflections on protest outcomes, future aspirations for activism, and the challenges of misinformation and narrative control.The findings reveal that social media functioned not only as an organizing tool but also as a contested arena for building solidarity, amplifying lived experiences, and negotiating both empowerment and vulnerability under state repression.Participants described how platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook transformed passive awareness into active engagement, while also exposing activists to surveillance, emotional exhaustion, and disinformation.Despite these risks, many viewed the movement as a civic awakening for a digitally connected generation.This thesis advances scholarship on digital resistance in postcolonial contexts by centering Nigerian voices and showing how online spaces can simultaneously enable political expression, collective memory, and new forms of participatory youth identity, while also highlighting the persistent challenges of sustainability and narrative contestation.