scholarly journals South Africa’s 2016 municipal elections How the ANC and DA leveraged Twitter to Capture the Urban Vote

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Joseph Olusegun Adebayo ◽  
Blessing Makwambeni ◽  
Colin Thakur

This paper focuses on how South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), and main opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), leveraged microblogging site Twitter. This was part of their urban election campaign arsenal in the 2016 local government elections (LGE) to promote party-political digital issue ownership within an urban context. Using each party’s corpus of 2016 election-related tweets and election manifestos, this three-phased grounded theory study found that each party used Twitter as a digital political communication platform to communicate their election campaigns. The DA notably leveraged the social networking site more for intense focused messaging of its negative campaign against the ANC while simultaneously promoting positive electoral messages around its own core issues and metro (urban) mayoral candidates. Furthermore, battleground metros were identified, narrow-cast and subsequently audience.segmented by the party in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, Tshwane (in Gauteng) and Nelson Mandela Bay (in the Eastern Cape). This led to an emphasised campaign to either activate the party’s own urban support base and/or to suppress the ANC’s turnout in these highly-contested areas. The results of this study further indicate that the ANC and DA both used Twitter to claim explicit and implicit digital party-political issue ownership in the 2016 LGE.

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sipho Stephen Nkosi

The note is about the appeal lodged by the late Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to the SCA against the decision of the Eastern Cape High Court, Mthatha, dismissing her application for review in 2014. In that application, she sought to have reviewed the decision of the Minister of Land Affairs, to transfer the now extended and renovated Qunu property to Mr Mandela and to register it in his name. Because her application was out of time, she also applied for condonation of her delay in making the application. The court a quo dismissed both applications with costs, holding that there had been an undue delay on her part. Mrs Mandela then approached the Supreme Court of Appeal, for special leave to appeal the decision of the court a quo. Two questions fell for decision by the SCA: whether there was an unreasonable and undue delay on Mrs Mandela’s part in instituting review proceedings; and whether the order for costs was appropriate in the circumstances of the case. The SCA held that there was indeed an unreasonable delay (of seventeen years). Shongwe AP (with Swain, Mathopo JJA, Mokgothloa and Rodgers AJJA concurring) held that the fact that there had been an undue delay does not necessarily mean that an order for costs should, of necessity, particularly where, as in this case, the other litigant is the state. It is the writer’s view that two other ancillary points needed to be raised by counsel and pronounced on by the Court: (a) the lawfulness and regularity of the transfer of the Qunu property to Mr Mandela; and (b) Mrs Mandela’s status as a customary-law widow—in relation to Mr Mandela.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Milan Oralek

<p>This thesis explores the life and work of a South African journalist, editor, and activist Michael Alan Harmel (1915–1974), a political mentor and friend of Nelson Mandela. A resolute believer in racial equality and Marxism-Leninism, Harmel devoted his life to fighting, with “the pen” as well as “the sword”, segregation and apartheid, and promoting an alliance of communists with the African National Congress as a stepping stone to socialism in South Africa. Part 1, after tracing his Jewish-Lithuanian and Irish family roots, follows Harmel from his birth to 1940 when, having joined the Communist Party of South Africa, he got married and was elected secretary of the District Committee in Johannesburg. The focus is on factors germane to the formation of his political identity. The narrative section is accompanied by an analytical sketch. This, using tools of close literary interpretation, catalogues Harmel’s core beliefs as they inscribed themselves in his journalism, histories, a sci-fi novel, party memoranda, and private correspondence. The objective is to delineate his ideological outlook, put to the test the assessment of Harmel—undeniably a skilled publicist—as a “creative thinker” and “theorist”, and determine his actual contribution to the liberation discourse.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Milan Oralek

<p>This thesis explores the life and work of a South African journalist, editor, and activist Michael Alan Harmel (1915–1974), a political mentor and friend of Nelson Mandela. A resolute believer in racial equality and Marxism-Leninism, Harmel devoted his life to fighting, with “the pen” as well as “the sword”, segregation and apartheid, and promoting an alliance of communists with the African National Congress as a stepping stone to socialism in South Africa. Part 1, after tracing his Jewish-Lithuanian and Irish family roots, follows Harmel from his birth to 1940 when, having joined the Communist Party of South Africa, he got married and was elected secretary of the District Committee in Johannesburg. The focus is on factors germane to the formation of his political identity. The narrative section is accompanied by an analytical sketch. This, using tools of close literary interpretation, catalogues Harmel’s core beliefs as they inscribed themselves in his journalism, histories, a sci-fi novel, party memoranda, and private correspondence. The objective is to delineate his ideological outlook, put to the test the assessment of Harmel—undeniably a skilled publicist—as a “creative thinker” and “theorist”, and determine his actual contribution to the liberation discourse.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-87
Author(s):  
Nina Gorenc

The research behind this paper is set in the context of the 2016 US presidential election that has come to symbolize the post-truth era. We conducted a literature review on the 2016 election, with the aim to better understand the impact of computational propaganda on the election outcome and on the behaviour of voters. The paper opens with a definition of post-truth society and related concepts such as fake news and computational propaganda. It explores the changes of political communication in a digital environment and analyses the role of social media in the 2016 election. It probes into phenomena such as the trivialization of politics and the loss of credibility of political actors, which are both common in post-truth societies. The reviewed literature seems to indicate that social media have become strong actors on the political stage, but so far not the predominant source of political information and influence on the behaviour of voters. The paper makes two important contributions. Firstly, drawing on the concept of post-truth society, it analyses the role of computational propaganda in the 2016 presidential election, and secondly, it attempts to explain the paradox of general political apathy on one hand, and increased political activism on the other. These are some of the challenges we are now facing, and in order to be able to cope with them it is important to acknowledge and understand them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 122
Author(s):  
Noviana Sari ◽  
Siti Mauliana Hairini ◽  
Muhammad Fadhil Murabbi Amin

This study aims to determine how the informal communication strategy is used by women to achieve their political position in government villages. The essence of informal communications is not to follow any specific rules and procedures. the studies of informal communications have remained the question cause there is not a clear form of informal communication. This study has been contributed to the women's informal political communication in Baliuk village to fulfill the gap of informal communication studies. There are three strategies that women used to dominate political representatives in Baliuk Village Government. First, the women have dominated the political issue in Village, second, women’s have dominated the informal channel, second women dominated the informal political communication channels, and the third, women have dominated the informal campaign for BPD’s election. The main factors from those strategies are how the women do the interpersonal conversation and how they made gossip in every aspect and access of communication itself for their political interest. The women have a concern about how to use an alternative way of communications to gain power in a political position, then they have to succeed dominated Badan Permusyawaratan Desa or BPD as the representatives' institution for village people.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-37
Author(s):  
Joanne Davis

The Reverend Tiyo Soga, ordained as a minister in the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland in December 1856, is a remarkable figure in many ways. However, one area not yet commented on in the scholarly literature on Soga is the legacy of his family within the ministry. This paper examines the role of Soga's parents, ‘Old Soga’ and NoSuthu, in his conversion and introduces his wife, Janet Soga, and their seven surviving children, of whom two sons – William Anderson and John Henderson – were ordained ministers and missionaries, and two daughters – Isabelle McFarlane and Francis Maria Anne – worked in missions in the Eastern Cape. The three remaining Soga siblings, who did not go in for the ministry, nonetheless led full and interesting lives. Kirkland Allan was a pioneer of the now ruling African National Congress, Festiri Jotelo was the first South African veterinary surgeon, and Jessie Margaret was a pianist and music teacher in Scotland, where she looked after Janet Soga after they moved to Dollar following Soga's death. In addition, Soga's nephew and namesake, Tiyo Burnside Soga, became an ordained minister and a writer, and since then, several of Soga's great- and great-great-grandchildren have become ministers. This paper seeks to situate the Soga family as a powerful family in South African religious history and its intelligentsia.


Author(s):  
Howard Newman ◽  
Donald Tshabalala ◽  
Guillermo A. Pulido Estrada ◽  
Romuald Kom Nguetchueng

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 744-760
Author(s):  
Jogilė Ulinskaitė

Populist parties participate in the process of political representation through elections. Little is known about how they conceptualize this process since their statements refer to a direct involvement of citizens in decision-making and disapprove of representatives. This article addresses this issue and presents an empirical study about how Lithuanian populist political parties define political representation. The data come from the 2016 election manifestos and from party websites between April 2016 and September 2017. The qualitative content analysis reveals that populists define representation by referencing common moral values and constant communication with citizens. This helps them create a political identity common to themselves as representatives and the represented.


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