TikTok as a Site for Ethno-Political Contestations and Conflict Mediation Among Ethiopian Diaspora

This study examines how TikTok has served as a site for both ethno-political contestations and conflict mediation in the context of Ethiopia by focusing on the engagement of the Ethiopian diasporic community on the platform. Informed by the deliberative democratic theoretical framework, it addresses how ethno-political contestations among the diasporic community discursively manifest themselves in the TikTok sphere and how such diasporic community mediates the contestations on the platform. In addressing these, critical discourse analysis was employed on purposively selected TikTok content created from October 2023 to September 2024 across four key thematic areas. The findings indicate that the ethno-political contestations among the diasporic community manifested themselves on the TikTok sphere by juxtaposing exclusionary ethnic identity against inclusive pan-Ethiopian identity. Such contestations were enacted through the deployment of charged rhetoric. However, the contestations were mediated by pushing back against destructive discursive trends through strategic intervention of some TikTok hosts. The platform served as a site for both an ideological battlefield and a counter-platform for challenging polemical discourses and for promoting deliberative discourse among the Ethiopian diaspora. Contrary to the prevailing skepticism about TikTok’s potential for meaningful discourse, this study reveals that if deployed strategically, it can be a valuable platform for advancing rational dialogue among disparate groups, which could be instrumental in encouraging participants to seek collective solutions for enduring political problems.