These elections took place amid concerns from media analysts about the level of freedom of expression allowed to traditional forms of South African media. The 2009 elections were designated as a 'make or break' milestone for the political and social future of the young democracy.
Race and the Socio-Historical Context
Facebook and Facebook Newsgroups
When embarking on Internet-based research in Africa, however, the concept of the digital divide cannot be omitted. While some members of the previously disadvantaged groups enjoy Internet access, it is still clear that previously advantaged groups are more than proportionately represented on Facebook newsgroups.
Popular culture and marginal discourses
The fact that the medium does not guarantee anonymity can promote a higher level of meaningful engagement, as the contributor associates their names with the views they express there. This term refers to the fact that the gap between rich and poor is accentuated due to the enabling potential of the new media, which is inaccessible to the poor.
Inclusiveness
Since Jacob Zuma as presidential candidate, rather than ANC politics, is the focus of. When the contributors discuss individuals rather than political dynamics, ordinary South Africans are sufficiently equipped to converse with confidence on issues related to democracy, the image of the nation, the legacy of apartheid and its preludes.
The Public Sphere and Revisionist accounts of Public Sphere
This research can therefore be seen as a contribution to academic debates on the application of public sphere theory to less formal, 'low culture' branches of the media in South Africa, such as tabloid newspapers (Viney, 2008). ). We hope that this thesis can be useful for future research in this area by documenting this early phase of Facebook newsgroups and their potential for democratic participation.
Approach for this study
What tension arises between the context of the referred unfolding South African issues and that of the new media environment of the news group. Since Facebook has not been widely researched so far due to the newness of the.
New Media and Civic Identity
- Online communities
- New media, identity and democracy
- Discourse Theory
- Discourse and Agency
- Discourse and Silencing
- Critical Discourse Analysis
- Habermas‘ public sphere
- Revisionist accounts of the public sphere
- The Decline of the Public Sphere
This is important for applying the work of Fraser (1997), in the field of public sphere, to research. Habermas attributed the decline of the public sphere to the shift towards public consumerism (Habermas.
Methodological Framework
This is also reflected in the terms used in the various branches of inquiry to refer to the people whose answers form the basis of the research. Especially ethnographic and hermeneutic research models have been used in the context of new media communities.
Research Design
Hermeneutics and ethnography in a new media environment
The image of South African character built in the text and the elements on which it is based will provide a special insight into the culture of the newsgroup. However, one of the challenges of this type of research is identifying and limiting the researcher's own subjectivity in the study.
Critical Discourse Analysis
For this reason, the full text of the analysis is reproduced in appendices ii and iii, while the summarized findings and discussion are presented in chapter four. With this conception of the discourse practice of online communities, the separation in the analysis of the categories of production and consumption is impossible.
Data Collection
This period of time is an ideal setting for this research as interest in the national political issues is at its highest pitch. Note: in the original online text, the contributions to the discussion appear in reverse chronological order, so that the ‗first‘ comment that appears at the top of the page is the most recent post.
Analytical tools
Critical Discourse Analysis Tools
Identifying the social metaphor and myth at work in the text will function as a key to unlocking the social dynamics they seek to mask. This would have implications for the development of civic identity initiatives in the field of new media.
Hermeneutic Ethnographic Tools
By comparing and contrasting these views of the text, an additional layer of meaning is accessed. Both approaches emphasize the importance of historical context for textual analysis.
Ethical considerations
Demographics
As a result, so is the amount of line space in the text taken up by comments from members of the racial groups in question. Despite institutional progress in the empowerment of black women in South Africa, this notable absence may reflect patriarchal African traditional cultural practices that.
Themes and Myths
- Race
- Notions of Blackness
- Notions of Whiteness
Conversely, Fanon's reference to the supposedly larger size of the black man's penis can be seen as a measure of consolation against this political situation. It is therefore not surprising that the question of the government's attempts to correct these errors emerges from the analysis of the newsgroup discussion.
Violence
However, the Kenyan-born President of the United States is probably more culturally Western than most South Africans of European descent. Fanon, whose work can be interpreted as advocating violence against the colonizer as crucial to the reestablishment of the colonized, nevertheless acknowledges the accompaniment. It is therefore interesting that most white authors frame their comments on violence in reference to political reasons, in the light of sensitivity to racial issues and the myth of black men's propensity for violence.
Jacob Zuma
A large proportion of the talk about Zuma in the newsgroup text was related to the Zuma rape and corruption trials. The most striking feature of the text's discussion of Zuma's rape and corruption charges is that the authors' comments challenge a serious conviction of Zuma's guilt, despite his acquittal of the rape charge and the fact that the corruption charges were dropped. Given the discourse identified earlier in the analysis that links anti-ANC sentiment to white racism, it is significant that both black and white South Africans are agitated by Zuma's victory when it is officially announced.
South Africanness
Mandilakhe's reaction to election results, ―KILL ME FAST SUM1!!!!!!‖ can be considered the most hyperbolic negative reaction to the news of Zuma as president-elect. The fact that these comments come from a female contributor may link these excessively pessimistic comments to the gender implications involved in electing a man accused of rape as president of the country. These instances of conflict may also provide for the lust for 'spectacle' observed by Baudrillard (Terranova), which is particularly documented in relation to television.
The Significance of Tone in the Newsgroup
For some readers of the text, however, the implication of this for the tone can be compared to shouting. Long live the president‖ is a festive comment regarding the result of the democratic election. On this reading of Brian's comment, the last part can be interpreted as expressing doubts about the judgment of the masses to determine leadership in democratic processes, since the ANC remains popular despite its shortcomings.
Discussion of the Relevance of the Data to my Research
- New Media Culture in the Newsgroup Text
- Virtual Identity
- Rationality and Civil Society
- Democratic Expression
Struggles in an online community, as in the case of the argument between Tiffany and Michael (who both oppose Zuma and both present as disillusioned white liberals), can be related to tensions between individual rationality and collective rationality. It may also be that the topicality included in the newsgroup title means that this discussion is "dated". Despite the headline of the newsgroup signaling that it was a group about Jacob Zuma, this topic itself was not dominant in the text.
Limitations
Triangulation
Critical discourse analysis and the practice of distancing in the ethnographic component of the study extend this research towards a more skeptical area of this continuum. At the same time, the interpretations provoked by critical discourse analysis are nevertheless rooted in the researcher's subjectivity, no matter how rigorously the researcher resists this and thus infuses the attitude of the research. Therefore, I place this study at the center of the fundamental interpretive continuum, although the use of detachment and critical discourse analysis as more objective approaches may tilt the study somewhat into the skeptical range.
Recommendations for Further Research
Regarding the third principle of the public sphere, the quality of the rationality displayed in the Facebook newsgroups depends on the context of the sector of society in question. The fact that the content of the newsgroup (ie comments from .. contributors) is generated by private individuals means that society is somewhat protected from the negative consequences for civic engagement that result. While the informal nature of the debates may undermine traditional Western notions of rational deliberation, this may counteract the “refeudalization” (Habermas in Fourie, which led to the decay of the public sphere.
Democratic Alliance (2008) Jacob Zuma, Jesus and Robert Mugabe: Beyond the Will of Mortals. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid Skeptical Feminism: Activist Theory, Activist Practice. New York, Gotham Books, Penguin Group (USA). http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article418948.ece/South-Africas-black- brain-drain [Accessed: 4 July Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity and Identity on the Internet. Available at http://www.da.org.za/newsroom.htm?action=view-news-item&id=6667 [Accessed: 2 September 2010].
Appendix
Appendix i Newsgroup Text
- Appendix ii: Ethnographic Hermeneutic Analysis
- Conclusion
- Appendix iii: Critical Discourse Analysis
- Demographics
- Themes
- Race and ethnicity
- Crime
- Zuma
In the works of Frantz Fanon, the mindset of the colonizer (—A man was expected to behave like a man. Tiffany refers to common disputes about the living standards of different classes in South Africa. This petition link is also the first case in the selection text intended to encourage public action (other than voting action) outside of the newsgroup.
This is related to Zuma who is considered "the man of the poor" and stands "for the people". Nocera's (2009) study of online communities relied on a methodology that grouped content into two categories: (1) ―what's happening in the country (real world); and (2) stories about internal events and general discussions of the cybergroup, namely.
