This paper conceptualises ‘global financial crisis’ as primarily political and
focuses on the way it impacts on the ability of youth to renegotiate their place and
space with patterns of authority and control in Africa, using the instrumentality
of new media. Three main arguments are made. First is that, even though the
crisis occurred within the economy, non-economic causal factors were key
triggers. Second, the intersection between youth protest, the pressures of a global
system in crisis and the opportunities being provided by globalised social media
has been critical not only to the deepening of resistance, but also to the ability of
youth to appropriate the discourses and channel grievance. Third, youth
appropriation of protest discourses surrounding the pressures of the recent
global crisis has forced a renegotiation of patterns of authority and control and is
deepening stability challenges in different ways. This paper concludes by
examining how the state has responded to this emerging youth ability to not
only demand but also impose discourses within the public space.