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From Spectatorship to Citizenship: Televised Supreme Court Presidential

Election Petitions and Public Perceptions of Judicial Legitimacy in Nairobi,

Kenya

Alfred Wandera Sanday

Department of Communication and Media Studies, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

ORCID: 0009-0007-0191-8525

George Ngugi King'ara

Department of Communication and Media Studies, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

ORCID: 0000-0001-5278-6242

Tommy Kibera Kiilu

Department of Communication and Media Studies, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

ORCID: 0000-0002-2640-2310

Alfred Wandera Sanday is an Assistant Registrar at Kenyatta University and a PhD candidate in the Department

of Communication and Media Studies. His doctoral research, titled Televised Justice: Public Perceptions of

Kenya's Supreme Court Through Presidential Election Petitions (2013–2022), examines the mediatization of

judicial authority and the civic reception of broadcast court proceedings. He holds two Master of Arts degrees —

in Translation Studies from the University of Nairobi and in Communication Studies from the University of

Nairobi — as well as a Bachelor of Science (Hospitality & Tourism Management) degree from Kenyatta

University. He has extensive teaching experience across Kenyan universities and served as Senior Administrator

at Kenyatta University Television and Radio Services (KUTV&RS), where he contributed to broadcast operations

and media training. His earlier research includes studies on live parliamentary broadcasts and papers advancing

Afrocentric perspectives in communication scholarship.

Contact: wandera.sanday@ku.ac.ke

George Ngugi King'ara (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies in the Department of

Communication, Media, Film and Theatre Studies at Kenyatta University, where he served as Chairperson of the

Department for five years before joining Kenyatta University Television and Radio Services (KUTV&RS) — an

advanced broadcast training centre and fully accredited broadcaster. Previously, Dr. King'ara served as Dean of

the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and as Lecturer in Communication and Media at Chuka University, Kenya.

His research interests centre on the cultures of television production, the conceptualisation of audiences, and new

media cultural formations. He is also an active practitioner in television programme and documentary production.

Contact: kingara.george@ku.ac.ke

Tommy Kibera Kiilu (PhD) is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication, Media, Film and Theatre Studies

at Kenyatta University, where he teaches broadcast media, public relations, media management, corporate social

responsibility, and communication theory. He earned his PhD in Communication Arts from the Pontificia

Università di San Tommaso d'Aquino (Angelicum) in Rome, building on graduate training in journalism and

business management from Italian universities. He is co-author of Human Communication Through a Social

Psychology Lens (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2024) and author of the chapter 'Challenges of

Democratization in the Age of AI' in Democracy and Democratization in the Age of AI (IGI Global, 2025). Dr.

Kiilu has held multiple senior administrative roles at Kenyatta University, including Acting Director of

KUTV&RS, and previously served as Chair of the Department of Communication at the Presbyterian University

of East Africa. His current research focuses on media literacy, artificial intelligence and governance, gender in

media, and digital communication in Africa. He is a registered member of the Media Council of Kenya.

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Author Contributions

Authors’ Full Names Academic Contribution

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Alfred Wandera Sanday x x x x x x x

George Ngugi King'ara x x x x x

Dr. Tommy Kibera Kiilu x x x x

1 — Project administration; 2 — Funding acquisition; 3 — Formal analysis; 4 — Conceptualization; 5 — Data

curation; 6 — Writing – review and editing; 7 — Investigation; 8 — Methodology; 9 — Resources; 10 —

Writing – original draft; 11 — Software; 12 — Supervision; 13 — Validation; 14 — Visualization.

Abstract

Judicial transparency assumes that making court proceedings publicly visible will generate civic

returns: informed citizens, stronger institutional trust, and greater acceptance of judicial outcomes. Yet

whether televised proceedings actually produce these democratic effects remains empirically contested.

This article examines how watching Kenya's Supreme Court presidential election petitions (2013–2022)

shaped public perceptions of judicial legitimacy. Drawing on survey data from 250 survey respondents

across two Nairobi sub-counties, eight focus group discussions, and content analysis of 43 broadcast

and online segments, the study finds that civic effects were conditional and uneven. Perceived

impartiality, competence, and integrity each followed non-linear trajectories across petition cycles,

peaking in 2017 following the unprecedented electoral nullification and declining in 2022 amid

intensified digital polarisation. Public trust showed similar episodic fluctuation. Hierarchical multiple

regression revealed that live viewing frequency and educational attainment positively predicted

legitimacy perceptions, while political alignment with the losing candidate was consistently the

strongest moderating variable. A composite acceptance index declined between 2017 and 2022 as

hostile media framing eroded the stabilising effect of direct exposure. The study introduces the concept

of the Democratic Screen to describe the mediated space through which constitutional authority is

publicly staged, interpreted, and contested. The findings suggest that judicial transparency activates

public perceptions of legitimacy conditionally, through the intersecting filters of interpretive capacity,

political identity, and digital media ecology. While the study draws on data from Nairobi, the patterns

identified carry implications for broader conversations on judicial broadcasting and democratic

governance in Africa.

Keywords: Judicial legitimacy; Televised proceedings; Public perceptions; Mediatization;

Procedural justice; Kenya

Resumen

La transparencia judicial supone que hacer públicos los procesos judiciales generará beneficios cívicos:

ciudadanos informados, mayor confianza institucional y una mayor aceptación de las resoluciones

judiciales. No obstante, si las transmisiones televisivas de los juicios producen realmente estos efectos

democráticos sigue siendo una cuestión empírica no resuelta. Este artículo examina cómo el

seguimiento de las peticiones electorales presidenciales del Tribunal Supremo de Kenia (2013–2022)

modeló las percepciones públicas sobre la legitimidad judicial. A partir de datos de encuesta de 250

residentes adultos en dos subcondados de Nairobi, ocho grupos de discusión y el análisis de contenido

de 43 segmentos de emisión y publicaciones en línea, el estudio concluye que los efectos cívicos fueron

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condicionales y desiguales. Las percepciones de imparcialidad, competencia e integridad siguieron

trayectorias no lineales, alcanzando su máximo en 2017 tras la histórica anulación electoral y

disminuyendo en 2022 ante la intensificada polarización digital. La confianza pública mostró una

fluctuación episódica similar. La regresión múltiple jerárquica reveló que la frecuencia de seguimiento

en directo y el nivel educativo predijeron positivamente las percepciones de legitimidad, mientras que

la alineación política con el candidato perdedor fue la variable moderadora más determinante. El estudio

introduce el concepto de Pantalla Democrática para describir el espacio mediado en el que la autoridad

constitucional se escenifica, interpreta y disputa públicamente. Los hallazgos sugieren que la

transparencia judicial activa el compromiso democrático de forma condicional, a través de los filtros

entrecruzados de la capacidad interpretativa, la identidad política y la ecología de los medios digitales.

Palabras clave: Legitimidad judicial; Actuaciones televisadas; Percepciones públicas;

Mediatización; Justicia procesal; Kenia

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1. Introduction

Transparency reforms rest on a layered normative claim: that making institutions publicly

visible will not only signal accountability but will convert passive observers into engaged

democratic citizens (Grimmelikhuijsen & Welch, 2012). Courts have increasingly been drawn

into this logic. Broadcasting judicial proceedings is presented, institutionally and in policy

discourse, as a mechanism for building public understanding of legal processes, reinforcing

perceptions of judicial impartiality, and ultimately deepening public confidence in the rule of

law. These are significant democratic stakes, and they rest on empirical assumptions that have

rarely been subjected to systematic scrutiny.

Kenya's Supreme Court presidential election petitions provide an unusually rich

empirical setting in which to examine these assumptions. Following the constitutional

transformations of 2010, the Court broadcast its presidential election petition proceedings live

in 2013, 2017, and 2022, creating sustained mass encounters with constitutional adjudication

across three successive electoral cycles. Each petition was a high-stakes institutional moment

in which the Court's independence, procedural fairness, and moral credibility were publicly on

display. For scholars of media, law, and democratic governance, these cycles represent a

decade-long natural experiment in the civic effects of judicial transparency.

The 2013 petition introduced the public to the new constitutional court as a live broadcast

event for the first time. The 2017 petition produced the first presidential election nullification

in African history, a ruling widely interpreted as evidence of genuine institutional

independence. The 2022 petition unfolded in a dramatically transformed digital media

environment, saturated with partisan commentary, viral clip circulation, and algorithmically

amplified emotional framing. Across these three cycles, the questions of whether citizens

perceived the Court as impartial, whether they trusted its reasoning, and whether they accepted

its rulings were answered differently, suggesting that judicial transparency does not produce

uniform or cumulative democratic effects.

Existing scholarship on judicial legitimacy in Kenya is rich on constitutional and legal

dimensions but comparatively underdeveloped on questions of public reception (Kanyinga &

Odote, 2019). Much of the normative literature assumes that visibility generates trust, but

empirical work measuring how different audiences actually process and evaluate broadcast

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proceedings across varying social, educational, and political conditions remains sparse. This

gap is particularly significant given that Kenya's presidential election petitions are not ordinary

litigation events: they are communicative moments in which judicial authority is

simultaneously enacted, observed, and contested before a national audience.

This article addresses that gap. It examines how watching Kenya's televised Supreme

Court proceedings shaped public perceptions of judicial legitimacy across the 2013, 2017, and

2022 petition cycles. It asks: How did citizens evaluate judicial impartiality, competence, and

ethical integrity through broadcast proceedings? How did public trust in the judiciary evolve

across cycles, and what factors predicted it? Under what conditions did citizens accept petition

rulings, and how did media framing and political identity modulate those conditions? And

through what mechanisms did televisual visibility influence, fail to influence, or actively

undermine democratic engagement with judicial institutions?

The central argument is that judicial transparency activates democratic engagement

conditionally rather than universally. Perceptions of legitimacy were shaped by the intersection

of exposure depth, interpretive capacity, political identity, and media ecology (Hjarvard, 2008;

Tyler, 2006; Tichenor et al., 1970). Live viewing consistently strengthened legitimacy

perceptions relative to social media consumption, but even comprehensive exposure could not

override partisan interpretive filters in politically charged conditions. The 2017 experience

demonstrated that judicial performance can generate genuine legitimacy gains when

proceedings are perceived as constitutionally principled; the 2022 experience demonstrated

how digital amplification of antagonistic framing can dilute those gains.

The study draws on survey data from 250 adult Nairobi residents, eight focus group

discussions conducted across Kibra and Roysambu sub-counties, and content analysis of 43

broadcast and online segments. The theoretical framework integrates Mediatization Theory,

Performance Theory, Procedural Justice Theory, Agenda Setting Theory, and Knowledge Gap

Theory. The analysis introduces the concept of the Democratic Screen to describe the mediated

space through which constitutional authority is publicly staged, interpreted, and contested, a

concept that advances the theoretical vocabulary for studying judicial legitimacy in digitally

saturated democratic contexts.

The article proceeds as follows. Section 2 develops the theoretical framework. Section 3

describes the methodology. Section 4 presents findings on perceived impartiality, competence,

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and integrity across petition cycles. Section 5 examines trust trajectories and public acceptance

of rulings. Section 6 discusses the Democratic Screen concept and its implications for

democratic theory and judicial communication. The conclusion reflects on what conditional

civic engagement means for transparency reform and democratic governance in Africa.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1 Mediatization and the Transformation of Judicial Authority

Mediatization theory provides the structural foundation for this study. The theory argues

that media logics become progressively embedded in the operations of non-media institutions,

reshaping how those institutions communicate, perform, and are evaluated (Hjarvard, 2008;

Couldry & Hepp, 2013). Institutions operating within mediatized environments must negotiate

not only what they decide but how they appear, because appearance has become inseparable

from authority. Courts, historically insulated from public scrutiny through spatial enclosure,

procedural formality, and restricted access, have not been immune to this transformation

(Thompson, 2005).

When judicial proceedings are broadcast live, the courtroom becomes a mediated arena.

Judicial reasoning, once confined to written judgments and courtroom participants, enters a

communicative space shaped by editorial priorities, broadcast conventions, and audience

interpretation. Tone, demeanour, rhetorical style, and even silence acquire interpretive weight

in ways that formal legal procedure does not account for (Couldry & Hepp, 2013). Kenya's

Supreme Court, through its decision to televise presidential election petitions, has not merely

opened its doors to public view. It has entered a national broadcast circuit in which its authority

is continuously produced, contested, and renegotiated.

Kenya's case adds a non-Western dimension to mediatization theory, showing how courts

in transitional democracies navigate the tension between legal autonomy and the demands of a

live broadcast environment where moments are clipped, shared, and reframed in real time.

2.2 Performance Theory and Symbolic Enactment

Performance Theory, drawing on Goffman's (1959) dramaturgical framework and its

extension into institutional analysis by Alexander (2004, 2006), conceptualises authority as

enacted through ritualised symbolic behaviour. Institutional legitimacy depends not merely on

formal mandate but on the successful performance of authority before audiences capable of

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recognising and validating it. When judicial proceedings are broadcast, performative

dimensions that previously operated within a specialised professional audience become visible

to mass publics who lack legal training but do possess interpretive frameworks shaped by

political identity, media exposure, and lived experience.

In Kenya, viewers used visible cues such as how judges questioned both sides, how calm

they appeared under pressure, and how evenly they managed the courtroom to decide whether

the Court was fair. These cues became the raw material through which ordinary citizens formed

legitimacy judgments. The Democratic Screen concept, developed in this study, draws on this

insight: what the public sees and how it is framed shapes whether judicial authority is accepted

or questioned.

2.3 Procedural Justice and the Communicative Foundations of Legitimacy

Procedural justice theory provides the most directly applicable framework for

understanding how citizens evaluate judicial legitimacy. Tyler (2006) argues that citizens are

more likely to accept institutional authority and comply with legal decisions when they

perceive that procedures were fair, respectful, and conducted by neutral authorities who

attended seriously to their concerns. Critically, procedural justice theory holds that outcome

satisfaction is less important than process evaluation: citizens who perceive fair procedures are

more likely to accept adverse outcomes than those who perceive procedural unfairness

regardless of their preferred result.

Applied to broadcast proceedings, procedural justice theory suggests that televisual

visibility creates opportunities for large-scale procedural evaluation that were previously

available only to courtroom participants. Citizens who observe questioning symmetry,

composed judicial demeanour, and transparent deliberative reasoning are likely to develop

stronger legitimacy perceptions. However, Kenya's petitions also reveal boundary conditions

for procedural justice theory: in intensely polarised political contexts, where electoral stakes

are existential and partisan identity is deeply engaged, procedural fairness may enhance

legitimacy among moderates but struggle to persuade deeply committed partisan audiences

who interpret the same proceedings through selective filters.

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2.4 Agenda Setting and Knowledge Gap as Interpretive Mechanisms

Two additional theoretical frameworks operate as interpretive mechanisms within the

mediatization context. Agenda Setting Theory (McCombs & Shaw, 1972) identifies how media

editorial choices structure what audiences attend to and how they understand it. Broadcasters

who emphasise confrontational exchanges, dramatic moments, or politically charged

utterances steer public interpretation toward contestation rather than constitutional reasoning.

In Kenya, media framing choices across and within petition cycles shaped the interpretive

environment within which legitimacy judgments formed, sometimes amplifying procedural

legitimacy and sometimes intensifying institutional capture narratives.

Knowledge Gap Theory (Tichenor et al., 1970) offers the second mechanism. When

complex information enters a social system, better-educated citizens absorb it faster and

convert it more readily into informed attitudes. For broadcast proceedings, this means that a

university-educated viewer and a secondary-school viewer may watch the same hearing but

come away with very different levels of comprehension. Without legal background knowledge,

it is easy to mistake a ruling against one's preferred candidate for bias, rather than recognising

it as a constitutional outcome. This dynamic concentrates the democratic gains of transparency

among those already positioned to benefit.

2.5 The Democratic Screen: A Conceptual Contribution

This study introduces the concept of the Democratic Screen to describe the mediated

space through which constitutional authority is publicly staged, interpreted, and contested. The

concept draws on but extends several foundational ideas in communication theory. Habermas's

(1989) public sphere provided a normative model for reasoned democratic deliberation, but the

Democratic Screen departs from it by recognising that the space in which courts are

encountered is not a forum of rational argument but an emotionally charged, editorially curated,

and algorithmically amplified media environment. Thompson's (1995) concept of mediated

publicness captures the asymmetric visibility that broadcasting creates: the Court becomes

visible to millions who cannot respond in kind. The Democratic Screen adds a specifically

judicial dimension: once cameras enter the courtroom, proceedings become visible not merely

to gallery observers but to dispersed audiences whose interpretive frameworks are shaped by

media logic, partisan affiliation, and digital circulation rather than procedural proximity.

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The Democratic Screen works through three key features. First, it is selective:

broadcasters choose which moments to show, so not everything that happens in court reaches

the public equally. Second, it is plural: the same broadcast means different things to different

people depending on their education, social background, and political outlook. Third, it reaches

beyond the broadcast moment itself: a phrase or ruling does not disappear when the cameras

switch off but continues to circulate on social media and shape how institutions are

remembered. These features explain why watching the Kenyan Supreme Court did not produce

one shared public response, but many different ones shaped by who was watching, where they

watched, and how they made sense of what they saw. Through the Democratic Screen, judicial

authority becomes something citizens see and feel, not just something they read about in a

judgment.

3. Methodology

3.1 Research Design

This study employed a concurrent mixed-methods design, integrating a survey

instrument, focus group discussions, and content analysis of broadcast and online media. The

design reflects the multi-dimensional nature of public legitimacy perceptions, which require

both measurable indicators accessible through survey instruments and the interpretive depth

available through qualitative methods. Triangulation across all three data sources strengthened

analytical credibility and reduced reliance on single-method inference.

The philosophical orientation is constructivist. Judicial legitimacy is treated not as an

objective institutional property but as a socially constructed belief shaped by mediated

interaction, interpretive frameworks, and political context (Tyler, 2006; Norris, 2011). This

positioning aligns the study with communication scholarship that conceptualises institutional

trust as perception-driven and relational rather than structurally determined.

3.2 Study Location and Sample

The study was conducted in Nairobi City County, Kenya's capital and the site of the

Supreme Court, national broadcast infrastructure, and the densest concentration of civil society

and media organisations (KNBS, 2019). Within Nairobi, two sub-counties were purposively

selected for their contrasting socio-economic profiles: Kibra, characterised by informal

housing, lower income levels, youth-driven political expression, and historically oppositional

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civic discourse; and Roysambu, marked by greater socio-economic diversity, higher media

penetration, and a more mixed political orientation. This intra-urban contrast enabled reflection

on how class, education, political identity, and media access mediate the reception of televised

justice.

The target population consisted of adult residents aged eighteen and above who had some

exposure to at least one of the three televised petition cycles between 2013 and 2022. A multi-

stage sampling procedure was employed: sub-counties were selected purposively, and within

them, respondents were stratified by age and gender and approached through systematic

household visits and community intercept points. Sample size was determined using Cochran's

(1977) formula for large populations, yielding a minimum recommended sample of 384 at a 95

per cent confidence level (Z = 1.96), with p = 0.5 to maximise variance and margin of error e

= 0.05. A target of 400 was set to accommodate non-response. After data cleaning, 250 valid

responses remained, representing a 62.5 per cent effective response rate. A post-hoc power

analysis using G*Power 3.1 confirmed that the retained sample was adequate for detecting

moderate effects across the planned analyses.

3.3 Quantitative Instrument

The survey questionnaire included Likert scale items measuring perceived impartiality,

competence, and ethical integrity; public trust in the judiciary; and acceptance of Supreme

Court rulings. Items were adapted from Tyler and Huo's (2002) procedural justice scales and

established political trust instruments. Three composite scales were constructed. The

legitimacy composite yielded Cronbach's alpha = 0.88; perceived impartiality alpha = 0.84;

perceived competence alpha = 0.81. All values exceeded the accepted threshold of 0.70

(DeVellis, 2017). Construct validity was examined through exploratory factor analysis with

varimax rotation, which revealed clear item loadings onto anticipated constructs with factor

loadings above 0.60 and minimal cross-loading.

Political affiliation was captured through a survey item in which respondents indicated

which presidential candidate they had supported in each petition year; this allowed

classification by whether the ruling went in the direction they preferred. Quantitative analysis

was conducted using SPSS version 28. Descriptive statistics summarised demographic patterns

and central tendencies. One-way ANOVA models tested differences in perceived legitimacy

across education levels, with Levene's test assessing homogeneity of variance and post-hoc

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Tukey comparisons identifying pairwise differences. Hierarchical multiple regression was

employed to examine predictors of legitimacy perceptions, entering demographic controls in

Model 1 and media exposure variables and political affiliation in Model 2 to assess incremental

explanatory power. Mediation analysis employed Hayes's (2018) PROCESS macro Model 4 to

test whether comprehension mediated the relationship between broadcast exposure and

perceived fairness, using bootstrapped confidence intervals to address minor deviations from

normality. The analysis confirmed partial mediation: live broadcast exposure significantly

predicted comprehension, which in turn predicted perceived fairness, with the indirect effect

statistically significant (bootstrapped 95% CI excluding zero), while the direct effect of

exposure on fairness perceptions also remained significant after accounting for the mediating

pathway.

3.4 Focus Group Discussions

Eight focus group discussions were conducted, four in each sub-county, with six to eight

participants per group (total n = 56). Participants were sampled from survey respondents to

ensure inclusion of extensive viewers, light viewers, and non-viewers, and were stratified by

gender and educational level to ensure diversity of perspective. Discussions were audio-

recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using NVivo software. Participants were

encouraged to recall specific moments from the 2013, 2017, and 2022 proceedings rather than

speak in abstract terms, grounding discussion in the actual communicative cues present in each

petition. Thematic analysis followed Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-phase process, with coding

beginning from theoretical sensitising concepts drawn from mediatization and procedural

justice frameworks before proceeding inductively to capture emergent themes. Reflexive

memos were written throughout analysis to bracket researcher interpretation.

3.5 Content Analysis

Televised proceedings and associated media coverage across the three petition cycles

were sampled purposively, yielding 43 broadcast and online segments. Coding categories

included judicial tone, referencing of constitutional principles, management of courtroom

tension, media emphasis on symbolic exchanges, and framing of ruling outcomes. A detailed

codebook was developed prior to analysis. Two independent coders analysed 20 per cent of the

sample; Cohen's kappa coefficient was 0.86, indicating strong inter-rater agreement and

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exceeding the widely applied threshold of 0.70 for substantial reliability (Landis & Koch,

1977). The content analysis enabled contextualisation of survey and focus group responses

within the actual communicative content that audiences encountered during each petition

cycle.

3.6 Ethical Considerations

The study was conducted under ethical approval from the National Commission for

Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI), Kenya, Permit Number

NACOSTI/P/25/416673. All participants provided informed written consent. Given the

political sensitivity of presidential election petitions, focus group discussions were moderated

carefully. Emotional discomfort occasionally surfaced when participants recalled the 2022

proceedings, and debriefing opportunities were provided. Identifying information was removed

from all quoted material before analysis.

4. Findings I: Perceived Judicial Legitimacy

4.1 Sample Profile

Table 1

Demographic Characteristics of Respondents (N = 250)

Variable Category Frequency Percentage (%)

Gender Male 132 52.8

Female 118 47.2

Age 18–30 94 37.6

31–45 102 40.8

46 and above 54 21.6

Education level Secondary 68 27.2

Diploma 71 28.4

Undergraduate degree 74 29.6

Postgraduate 37 14.8

Primary media source Live television 109 43.6

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Variable Category Frequency Percentage (%)

Television highlights 58 23.2

Radio 32 12.8

Social media clips 51 20.4

Note. Source: Field Data, 2025.

Table 1 presents the demographic profile of the 250 respondents. The sample was

predominantly male (52.8 per cent), with the largest age cohort aged 31 to 45 (40.8 per cent).

Educational attainment was broadly distributed across secondary, diploma, and undergraduate

degree levels. Live television was the primary source of petition coverage for 43.6 per cent of

respondents, followed by television highlights (23.2 per cent) and social media clips (20.4 per

cent). The dominance of television as the primary encounter with judicial proceedings is

consistent with the broader media landscape for major national events in Kenya.

4.2 Perceived Impartiality

Respondents were asked to rate agreement with the statement: 'The Supreme Court

judges appeared impartial during the televised presidential election petition hearings.' Across

the full sample (N = 250), 58 per cent agreed or strongly agreed, 21 per cent were neutral, and

21 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed. When disaggregated across petition cycles,

impartiality perceptions followed a non-linear trajectory.

The 2017 petition recorded the highest mean impartiality score (M = 3.91 on a five-point

scale). Focus group participants frequently characterised that moment as proof of judicial

independence. As one Roysambu participant stated: 'When they cancelled the election, it

showed they are not controlled.' The 2013 petition produced moderate impartiality ratings (M

= 3.38), with several participants noting procedural unfamiliarity. The 2022 petition showed

the sharpest polarisation, recording the lowest mean (M = 3.29), with respondents aligned with

the losing candidate substantially more likely to report perceptions of bias.

Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that live viewing frequency (β = .28, p < .001)

and education level (β = .19, p < .01) positively predicted impartiality perception. Political

alignment with the losing candidate was the strongest single predictor (β = −.34, p < .001),

demonstrating that partisan interpretive filters substantially moderated the civic effects of

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transparency. Focus group discussions elaborated three evaluative patterns: perceived

questioning symmetry, in which respondents closely monitored whether judges interrogated

both parties with comparable intensity; judicial demeanour, where calmness and measured

speech were associated with neutrality; and control of proceedings, where even-handed

management of interruptions was interpreted as procedural fairness.

4.3 Perceived Judicial Competence

Across the full sample, 64 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the

Supreme Court judges demonstrated strong legal competence; 18 per cent were neutral and 18

per cent disagreed. Competence perceptions were consistently higher than impartiality

perceptions across all petition cycles, suggesting that citizens distinguish between technical

capacity and political neutrality as separate dimensions of judicial legitimacy.

Perceived competence peaked in 2017 (M = 4.02), remained relatively high in 2022 (M

= 3.74), and was moderate in 2013 (M = 3.61). The 2017 proceedings were widely regarded as

legally rigorous: focus group participants referenced the Court's detailed interrogation of

electoral technology and procedural irregularities as evidence of intellectual seriousness. The

2013 petition was described by some participants as appearing 'rushed' due to constitutional

time constraints, while in 2022 some respondents questioned the Court's evidentiary threshold

without substantially withdrawing their assessments of competence.

Regression analysis confirmed that live viewing frequency (β = .35, p < .001) and

education level (β = .27, p < .001) were the strongest predictors of competence perception.

Unlike impartiality, political alignment exerted only a weak moderating effect (β = −.18, p <

.05), and income was not statistically significant. This pattern is theoretically significant:

competence, unlike impartiality, appears to operate as a more cognitively than politically

evaluated dimension of legitimacy. Frequent viewers who observed sustained legal reasoning

were significantly more likely to rate the judges as technically capable, irrespective of partisan

identity.

4.4 Perceived Ethical Integrity

Integrity perceptions were the most politically volatile of the three legitimacy

dimensions. Across the sample, 55 per cent agreed or strongly agreed that the judges acted with

ethical integrity, 23 per cent were neutral, and 22 per cent disagreed. The trajectory across

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cycles was strikingly discontinuous: the 2017 petition recorded the highest mean integrity score

(M = 3.96), reflecting widespread interpretation of the nullification decision as evidence of

judicial courage and independence from executive influence. The 2022 petition saw integrity

ratings return to their lowest level (M = 3.31), with the 2013 petition occupying an intermediate

position (M = 3.28).

Table 2

Mean Perceptions of Judicial Impartiality, Competence, and Integrity by Petition Year (N =

250)

Petition Year

Perceived

Impartiality (M)

Perceived

Competence (M)

Perceived Integrity

(M)

2013 3.38 3.61 3.28

2017 3.91 4.02 3.96

2022 3.29 3.74 3.31

Note. Scale: 1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree. Source: Field Data, 2025.

Regression analysis identified political alignment with the losing candidate as the

strongest predictor of integrity perception (β = −.41, p < .001), reinforcing the finding that

moral credibility evaluations are the most politically sensitive of the three legitimacy

dimensions. Perceived competence was a significant positive predictor of integrity (β = .38, p

< .001), suggesting a relational dynamic: technical mastery reinforces moral credibility, as

citizens appear to infer independence and principled conduct partly from observed intellectual

capacity. Live viewing had a modest positive effect (β = .17, p < .05), indicating that

transparency supports integrity perceptions but cannot override deeply partisan interpretive

filters.

Table 3

Hierarchical Regression Predictors of Legitimacy Perceptions (N = 250)

Predictor Impartiality β Competence β Integrity β

Live viewing frequency .28*** .35*** .17*

Education level .19** .27*** n.s.

Political alignment

−.34*** −.18* −.41***

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Predictor Impartiality β Competence β Integrity β

(losing)

Perceived competence — — .38***

Note. Standardised beta coefficients reported. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001; n.s. = not

significant. Source: Field Data, 2025.

Focus group discussions revealed three dominant integrity evaluation patterns.

Resistance to political pressure was assessed through judicial composure when addressing

politically powerful actors; as one participant noted, 'If they look intimidated, people will think

they have already been spoken to.' Consistency of reasoning across hearings was associated

with independence from external influence. And historical memory played a persistent role:

integrity judgements were not formed in isolation from participants' prior assessments of the

judiciary's institutional record, confirming constructivist accounts of legitimacy accumulation

over time (Norris, 2011).

In 2022, integrity perceptions were also substantially shaped by social media reframing.

Respondents acknowledged that viral commentary and hashtags questioning judicial

independence reached them before they had engaged fully with the proceedings, sometimes

creating impressions of bias that were not evident in context. Television created initial

visibility; social media produced moral framing. This layered mediation process, proceeding

from judicial performance through broadcast exposure to digital reframing and then partisan

interpretation, represents the Democratic Screen mechanism at its most consequential.

5. Findings II: Trust, Acceptance, and the Media Ecology

5.1 Public Trust Across Petition Cycles

Public trust in the judiciary was assessed retrospectively across all three petition cycles.

The data reveal episodic recalibration rather than cumulative consolidation. Trust peaked

following the 2017 nullification and declined in 2022, though not to its 2013 baseline.

Table 4

Public Trust in the Judiciary Across Petition Cycles (N = 250)

Petition Year High Trust (%) Moderate Trust (%) Low Trust (%)

2013 38.4 35.2 26.4

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Petition Year High Trust (%) Moderate Trust (%) Low Trust (%)

2017 48.8 29.6 21.6

2022 41.6 28.0 30.4

Note. Source: Field Data, 2025.

In 2013, 73.6 per cent of respondents reported high or moderate trust. Focus group

participants in Kibra described the broadcast as reassuring even when they disagreed with the

final ruling, with one participant stating: 'Even if you were not happy with the outcome, at least

you saw the process. It felt organised and serious.' The novelty of transparency generated

procedural legitimacy effects that partially insulated trust from outcome dissatisfaction.

The 2017 petition produced the highest recorded trust levels, with 48.8 per cent reporting

high trust, representing an increase of over ten percentage points from 2013. The nullification

decision accumulated what Easton's (1965) framework would describe as diffuse institutional

support: the Court demonstrated independence from executive power in a publicly visible

manner, and media coverage amplified this narrative. Even among respondents aligned with

the annulled result, many acknowledged the Court had exercised constitutional authority

decisively, with one focus group participant noting: 'I did not like the outcome, but I respected

the courage.'

The 2022 petition reversed this trajectory. High trust declined to 41.6 per cent while low

trust increased to 30.4 per cent, its highest level across all three cycles. Political identity played

a stronger role in shaping interpretation than in previous cycles: respondents watched the same

proceedings but evaluated them through sharply divergent partisan frameworks, consistent

with research demonstrating that media exposure does not eliminate partisan filtering (Iyengar

& Hahn, 2009). Critically, however, procedural fairness continued to predict trust more

strongly than outcome agreement in regression analysis (β = .58, p < .001): even among

dissatisfied respondents, those who perceived the process as orderly and respectful were more

likely to maintain moderate trust levels.

5.2 Public Acceptance of Rulings

Public acceptance was measured through a composite index constructed from survey

items assessing both emotional and structural dimensions of ruling acceptance. The index

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captured both immediate outcome acceptance and endorsement of judicial resolution as the

legitimate mechanism for electoral dispute.

Table 5

Public Acceptance Index by Petition Year (N = 250)

Petition Year

Mean Acceptance

Score

High Acceptance

(%)

Low Acceptance (%)

2013 58.2 29 26

2017 72.6 51 11

2022 60.4 34 22

Note. Mean acceptance score on a 0–100 scale. Source: Field Data, 2025.

Acceptance peaked in 2017 (mean = 72.6), consistent with trust findings. In 2013,

acceptance was moderate but structurally compliant: content analysis of broadcast and print

headlines showed procedural legitimacy framing accounted for 41 per cent of coverage, with

institutional capture narratives notably absent. The 2022 petition produced moderate mean

acceptance (60.4) with sharper partisan divergence. Content analysis of the first 72 hours

following the 2022 ruling documented that frames emphasising political betrayal or

institutional capture together accounted for 45 per cent of coverage, whilst technically framed

explanations accounted for only 17 per cent. Emotional framing substantially outpaced legal

explanation.

An interaction analysis tested whether televised exposure moderated the negative effect

of partisan framing on acceptance. Results indicated that high exposure to live proceedings

reduced the impact of hostile media framing by approximately 12 per cent: viewers who

watched substantial portions of proceedings were less susceptible to extreme rejection

narratives. Regression interaction models for the 2022 cycle showed that among respondents

with low reliance on partisan digital media, televised exposure increased acceptance by 23 per

cent; among those with high partisan digital media reliance, the increase dropped to 9 per cent.

One Roysambu focus group participant captured this dynamic precisely: 'I watched most of the

hearings. So, when people said it was scripted, I knew that was exaggerated. I still disagreed

with parts, but I could see how the judges reasoned.'

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A longitudinal dimension of acceptance also emerged. When respondents were asked

retrospectively whether presidential disputes should be resolved through the judiciary rather

than street protest, endorsement was 62 per cent for the 2013 cycle, 79 per cent for 2017, 74

per cent for 2022, and 81 per cent at the point of data collection in 2025. Even respondents

critical of specific rulings expressed sustained endorsement of judicial resolution as a

legitimate mechanism. Outcome-specific acceptance fluctuates with political alignment and

media framing; structural institutional pathway acceptance appears to have gradually

accumulated across cycles.

5.3 Media Framing, Studio Commentary, and Acceptance Shifts

Content analysis of studio commentary across major broadcasters after each ruling

revealed systematic patterns in how media organisations framed judicial outcomes.

Table 6

Studio Commentary Tone by Petition Year

Year Affirming (%)

Neutral

Analytical (%)

Questioning (%)

Segments

Coded (n)

2013 44 36 20 12 17

2017 58 30 12

2022 29 33 38 14

Note. Source: Broadcast Content Analysis, 2025.

The 2017 petition was distinguished by the highest proportion of institutionally affirming

commentary (58 per cent), consistent with widespread public narrative about judicial courage.

The 2022 petition reversed this pattern dramatically: questioning commentary rose to 38 per

cent of coded segments, and affirming commentary fell to 29 per cent. This shift in studio tone

correlated closely with the increase in low trust and acceptance fragmentation documented in

the survey data.

Sentiment mapping of 600 social media posts sampled within 48 hours of the 2022 ruling

documented that negative sentiment accounted for 46 per cent of posts, positive sentiment for

32 per cent, and neutral or analytical commentary for 22 per cent. The velocity of digital

framing meant that for many respondents, social media had constructed an interpretive frame

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for the proceedings before their own viewing was complete. One youth participant in Kibra put

it plainly: 'By the time I finished watching, Twitter had already judged the judges.' This

observation encapsulates the temporal asymmetry through which the Democratic Screen

operates in digitally saturated political environments: the broadcast is still unfolding when

partisan reinterpretation has already begun.

6. Discussion

6.1 The Democratic Screen and Conditional Legitimacy

The concept of the Democratic Screen, as developed in this study, captures a fundamental

tension in the relationship between judicial transparency and democratic legitimacy.

Broadcasting proceedings creates conditions of visibility that are, in principle, conducive to

civic engagement: citizens can observe judicial reasoning, evaluate procedural fairness, and

form legitimacy judgments grounded in direct exposure rather than institutional reputation

alone. The data confirm that these potential gains are real. Live viewing consistently predicted

stronger perceptions of impartiality, competence, and integrity relative to social media

consumption. Procedural fairness predicted trust and acceptance more strongly than outcome

satisfaction across all three cycles. The 2017 experience demonstrated that performative

boldness under conditions of high visibility can generate substantial legitimacy gains.

Yet the Democratic Screen is not a neutral relay. It is structurally selective, interpretively

pluralised, and temporally extended. The same broadcast produces differentiated responses

across educational, socio-economic, and political lines. Phrases, gestures, and rulings persist

in digital archives where they are continuously reframed and recirculated. In 2022, the judicial

phrase 'hot air' became a mediatized flashpoint whose interpretive trajectory through social

media diverged substantially from its procedural context in the courtroom. These dynamics

confirm that judicial transparency activates civic engagement conditionally: the Democratic

Screen provides possibilities for legitimacy construction that are realised or foreclosed

depending on interpretive capacity, political identity, and the media ecology within which

viewing occurs.

6.2 Knowledge Gaps and Differential Engagement

The knowledge gap findings are particularly significant for transparency policy.

Education predicted comprehension and legitimacy perceptions across all analyses, with

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university-educated respondents demonstrating substantially higher mean understanding

scores (M = 3.87) relative to those with secondary education only (M = 2.89). Within the group

of frequent live viewers, postgraduate respondents consistently outperformed their less-

educated counterparts on legitimacy perception gains. This pattern confirms Tichenor et al.'s

(1970) foundational prediction: when complex information enters a social system through

broadcast media, those with greater interpretive resources acquire it more rapidly and convert

it more effectively into institutional evaluations.

For courts, this finding carries uncomfortable implications. Broadcasting proceedings

makes them technically accessible to all citizens with television access, but the interpretive

distribution of that access is unequal. Without complementary investments in civic education

and accessible legal explanation, judicial transparency risks concentrating democratic

engagement gains among those already best equipped to benefit from them. In a country where

educational inequality intersects significantly with socio-economic and geographic

stratification, the democratic promise of open justice can inadvertently reproduce the

hierarchies it was intended to challenge.

6.3 Legitimacy as Episodic and Contested

The comparative analysis across three petition cycles confirms that judicial legitimacy in

mediatized democratic contexts is episodic rather than cumulative. Each petition operated as a

high-visibility constitutional moment in which public perceptions were recalibrated. The 2013

petition introduced citizens to the new constitutional court through an unfamiliar lens of

broadcast transparency. The 2017 petition generated the highest legitimacy scores of the decade

through a ruling that confounded expectations and demonstrated credible institutional

independence. The 2022 petition revealed the limits of transparency under conditions of

intensified digital polarisation.

This episodic character does not imply institutional fragility. Beneath the cycle-by-cycle

fluctuations, structural endorsement of judicial resolution as the legitimate mechanism for

electoral dispute has gradually deepened, reaching 81 per cent agreement at the time of data

collection. Courts cannot control the interpretive environment through which their proceedings

are received, but they can invest in communicative conditions that make procedural legitimacy

more legible. The evidence that live comprehensive viewing consistently strengthened

legitimacy perceptions relative to social media consumption suggests that the quality and

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accessibility of broadcast proceedings matters substantively for the democratic returns that

transparency generates.

6.4 The Polarisation Problem

The finding that political alignment with the losing candidate was the strongest predictor

of negative legitimacy perceptions across all three dimensions, and that this effect was most

pronounced in 2022, points to a structural tension within judicial broadcasting in polarised

democracies. Courts cannot easily control the downstream interpretive uses to which their

visible proceedings are directed. In Kenya's electoral context, where political identities are

strongly held and electoral stakes carry significant resource implications, the same judicial

behaviour can simultaneously generate legitimacy endorsement among one audience and

legitimacy contestation among another.

This does not mean transparency is counter-productive. The interaction analyses

demonstrate that live viewing buffered against extreme partisan rejection, reducing the

acceptance deficit between low and high digital media reliance respondents. But it does mean

that judicial broadcasting alone is insufficient as a legitimacy strategy. Complementary

investments in civic legal education, accessible plain-language explanatory materials, and

deliberative infrastructure around judicial proceedings are likely necessary to extend the civic

benefits of transparency beyond those who already possess the interpretive capacity to engage

with them substantively.

6.5 Limitations

Several limitations of this study warrant acknowledgement. The geographic scope is

confined to two Nairobi sub-counties, and urban residents have higher than average educational

levels, media access, and institutional familiarity. It should therefore be noted that while this

article refers broadly to Kenyan public perceptions, the data reflect Nairobi-based experiences,

and findings may not generalise to rural Kenya where television access, digital connectivity,

and patterns of civic engagement differ substantially, nor to other African contexts with

different media ecologies and judicial reputations. Future studies should deliberately extend

sampling to peri-urban and rural settings to test whether the patterns observed here hold beyond

the capital. The retrospective design introduces recall bias: respondents were asked to

reconstruct perceptions of petitions as far back as 2013, and the salience of the most recent

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cycle may have distorted earlier recollections. The study cannot determine whether the

legitimacy effects identified here persist over time or represent responses to specific salient

events. Future research should track perceptions longitudinally, test deliberative interventions

designed to enhance comprehension, and examine whether effects replicate across varied

judicial contexts and national settings.

7. Conclusion

This article examined how watching Kenya's televised Supreme Court presidential

election petitions shaped public perceptions of judicial legitimacy, and found that transparency

creates conditional rather than automatic democratic effects. Perceived impartiality,

competence, and integrity each showed non-linear trajectories across the 2013, 2017, and 2022

petition cycles, with the 2017 nullification decision generating a peak in legitimacy perceptions

that the more digitally saturated and politically polarised 2022 environment could not sustain.

Public trust and acceptance of rulings followed similar episodic patterns: high in 2017,

fragmented in 2022, yet accompanied by gradually deepening structural endorsement of

judicial resolution as a democratic mechanism.

The study makes three theoretical contributions. It advances mediatization theory by

demonstrating how courts in transitional African democracies negotiate the tension between

juridical autonomy and media logic, revealing that judicial authority under broadcast

conditions is as much communicatively produced as legally mandated. It extends procedural

justice theory by identifying the boundary conditions under which fair process perceptions can

and cannot overcome partisan interpretive filters in highly polarised political environments.

And it introduces the Democratic Screen as a conceptual tool for understanding the mediated

space through which constitutional authority is publicly staged, interpreted, and contested, a

concept with potential analytical utility beyond the Kenyan case.

For courts and transparency advocates, the conditional nature of civic legitimacy gains

implies that broadcasting proceedings is necessary but insufficient. Complementary

investments in civic legal education, accessible explanatory formats, and communicative

strategies designed to make proceedings intelligible to non-specialist audiences are needed to

broaden the democratic distribution of transparency's benefits. For media organisations, the

evidence that studio tone and framing choices significantly moderated acceptance outcomes

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suggests that how judicial proceedings are reported shapes democratic consequences at least as

much as the proceedings themselves.

Kenya's experience with three decades of broadcast presidential election petitions offers

a rare empirical window into what happens when a democratic court becomes a sustained

national media event. The broader challenges that digitally saturated media environments pose

to democratization across Africa make these lessons particularly timely (Kiilu, 2025). The

country that produced the first African annulment of a presidential election, live and before a

national audience, and then watched trust in that same institution fragment under the pressure

of a digitally polarised 2022 cycle, has generated evidence whose lessons extend beyond its

own borders. The Democratic Screen does not merely transmit judicial authority; it

reconstitutes it in ways that democratic theory is only beginning to understand.

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