Aesthetic Authoritarianism? Visual Propaganda and the Politics of Urban Renewal in Ethiopia

Images and short-form videos have emerged as the predominant features of social media, especially since TikTok's launch in 2018. Authoritarian states have recognized this visual turn and adapted their propaganda efforts accordingly to appeal to wider and younger audiences. While the growing use of visual and synthetic propaganda is starting to capture scholarly attention (Swimelar, 2018; van Noort, 2019; Seo, 2020; Bösch & Divon, 2024), its use in comparative contexts in the majority world remains largely underexplored. This study addresses this gap by investigating how visual propaganda is utilized by the Ethiopian government to shape public perceptions, mobilize supporters, and push back against critics. The study undertakes a case study of the Ethiopian government's visual communication on TikTok and Twitter regarding its urban renewal projects. What has come to be known as 'corridor project' in Ethiopia includes urban renewal initiatives to upgrade infrastructure, improve aesthetics, reduce traffic, and improve mobility in urban areas, most visibly of which is the Addis Ababa Corridor Development Project. Such efforts have faced criticism regarding forceful eviction of the poor, erasure of cultural heritage, lack of transparency, and misplaced prioritization considering the socio-economic and political challenges Ethiopia faces. To push back against such criticism, the Ethiopian government and supporters have resorted to visual propaganda, focusing on visually striking transformations of urban spaces as proof of government success. Government accounts and pro-government actors constantly share videos and pictures of green spaces, spacious streets covered in neon lights and high rises, often set to patriotic or triumphant music and speeches. These have been amplified by influencers, including foreign influencers. Given the growing significance of the visual turn of social media propaganda, this study asks three interrelated questions: 1. How do pro-government accounts narrate the urban corridor project through visual propaganda on social media? 2. What dominant themes, discursive strategies, and visual tropes emerge from these visual imageries? 3. How do these narratives contribute to dominating public discourse and extending digital authoritarian practices? The research approach involves two phases. The first phase is digital ethnography (Pink et al., 2016) focusing on TikTok and Twitter to identify and curate a dataset of short-form videos from government and pro-government accounts. The study will then employ multimodal discourse analysis (Machin, 2013) to understand the themes, discursive strategies, visual tropes, and narratives underlying the short-form videos. Based on preliminary analysis (data collection ongoing), the study argues that these visuals constitute an aesthetic turn in propaganda in an authoritarian context, where state actors resort to aesthetically appealing and patriotic visuals of urban transformation to deter criticism and mobilize their support base. The visuals of a radically transformed urban environment are implicitly taken as indicators of ruling elite accomplishments in bringing about socio-economic development, challenging the actual record of economic stagnation and decline in the country. By framing these short-form videos as an expression of evolving visual propaganda, the study contributes to understanding the changing relationship between visual politics, propaganda, and authoritarian legitimacy in the social media age, and broadly to understanding fast-changing digital authoritarian practices.