An analytical tale of the social media discursive enactment of networked everyday resistance during the #feesmustfall social movement in South Africa

Social media are a space for discussions, debates and deliberations about personality, culture, society, and actual experiences of social actors in South Africa. They offer an unexpected opportunity for the broader consideration and inclusion of community members’ voices in governance decision making and policy processes. They also offer opportunities to engage, mobilise and change people and society in impressive scale, speed and effect: They have mobilising and transformative powers emanating from their interaction with the impetus of the agency of community members seeking better conditions of living. The magnitude of the effects of these powers makes it imperative to have a better understanding of their workings. Social media have been used in numerous social movements as the medium of communication to mobilise, coordinate, and broadcast protests. However, social media were never a guarantee of success as most movements using them did not achieve significant results. Yet, governments in developed and developing countries tend to engage inadequately with social media supported movements. The research problem is that the contribution of social media to the transformation of the social practice of discourse, which causes SSA community members’ agential impetus (collective intentionality for action) to generate a discourse of resistance on social media during social movements, is not well understood. The main research question is: Why are South African community members using social media to enact online discursive resistance during social movements? The aim of the research is to explain, from a critical realism point of view, Sub-Saharan African community members’ emergent usage of social media during social movements, by providing a contextualised social history (a tale) of South African community members’ practice of online discursive enactment of resistance. The emergent usage of social media of concern is conceptualised as “discursive enactment of networked everyday resistance” within a dialectical space of interaction conceptualised as “space of autonomous resistance”; an instance of a communication space allowing for transformative negation to occur. The research follows Bhaskar’s Critical Realism as a philosophical paradigm. Critical Realism seeks to explain phenomena by retroducing (retrospective inference) causal explanations from empirically observable phenomena to the generative mechanisms which caused them. The research was designed as a qualitative, processual and retroductive inquiry based on the Morphogenetic/Morphostasis approach with two phases: an empirical research developing the case of South African community members’ emergent usage of social media during the #feesmustfall social movement, looking for demi-regularities in social media discourse; and a transcendental research reaching into the past to identified significant events, objects and entities which tendencies are responsible for the shape of observed discourse. In the first phase, a case study was developed from data collected on the social media platform Twitter™, documents, and in-depth interviews of South African community members. The data collected were analysed using qualitative content analysis (QCA) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to unveil demi-regularities; moving from the observable individual strategic orientation of messages to discourses, thus to the tendencies of relational emergent properties of systemic magnitude which structure local discourses and are transformed by them. Then, the social mediainduced morphogenesis or transformation of South African community members’ discursive action was postulated in an analytical history of emergence (or analytical tale) of their usage of social media within a “space of autonomous resistance” during social movements. The findings of the research suggest that South African community members authored 3 discourses of resistance on Twitter™: #feesmustfall discourses of struggle, identity and oppression. They identified as “student qua black-child” stepping into the “Freedom fighter” role against the hegemonic post-apartheid condition curtailing their aspirations. It was found that social media socio-cultural embeddedness and under-design (Western European socio-cultural globalising underpinning features and functional features of the platforms) which interaction with the local socio-cultural mix (postapartheid socio-cultural tendencies for domination/power, spiral of silence, and legitimacy/identification) resulted in misfits and workarounds enhancing individual emotional conflict and aligning towards a socio-cultural opportunistic contingent complementarity integration in the deployment of discourse. That integration was actualised as a mediatization emergent property through asignification/signification of mainstream discourses of liberal democracy, colonial capitalism, national democratic revolution, free and decolonised education, black consciousness and Fallism. That mediatization through re-signification of the struggle for freedom created a communication “space of autonomous resistance” where networked freedom fighters enacted discursive everyday resistance against the hegemonic forces of students’ precariousness. The contribution of the research includes a realist model of social media discursive action (ReMDA); an explanation of South African community members’ deployment of discourse over social media during social movement and telling the tale of the transformation of discursive practices with the advent of social media in South Africa

Characterising e-Participation in sub-Saharan Africa: A thematic review of the literature

e-Participation is understood to bring about greater participation, transparency and accountability in governance processes. North America, Western Europe and many countries in the South East Asia region, are reported to have made strides in transforming their governance systems in order to be able to accommodate e-Participation. All these countries happen to be ruled by democratic regimes. Africa on the other hand, and especially sub-Saharan Africa, is reported mainly ruled by post-colonial regimes that are not always amenable to democracy. That background suggests that little is known about e-Participation in sub-Saharan Africa. A review of a selection of most influential works was performed with the aim of characterising e-Participation in sub-Saharan Africa. The findings of the review suggest that the narrative of e-Participation in sub-Saharan Africa does not provide a proper understanding of local e-Participation actors; mostly only accounts of government led projects and initiatives; mostly only accounts of the overwhelming burden of contextual factors; does not offer clear accounts of the effects of initiatives; and does not provide a thorough evaluation of projects. Further studies should empirically examine sub-Saharan African actors, their online interactions, the effects that e-Participation has had on their lives and on their communities; making use of context relevant evaluation approaches and methods

Public participation in government: the place of e-participation in the City of Cape Town-Western Cape

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Magister Technologiae: Information Technology in the Faculty of Informatics and Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2013South Africa can be seen as one of the most advanced democracies on the African continent. Its 1996 constitution and state institutions were developed to enable a representative, deliberative and participative democracy. The legislature is predominant and public participation is expected like the element that legitimates the institutions of the state, their decisions and their initiatives. However, despite the use of ICTs to enhance the process of public participation, there remain profound misunderstandings between the government and its communities; expressed in demonstrations, strikes and other violent protests, as dissatisfaction in public service delivery grows and confidence in the government declines. The problem is that it seems that the potential of ICTs to better the processes of public participation is not fully understood and not fully realised. The aim of the study was to seek out elements helping and hindering the use of Mobile, Web and Social media in public participation in the city of Cape Town. This research endeavour falls under eParticipation research. It considers consultation for law and policy making in the city of Cape Town. It examines its democratic, social and communicational anchors in terms of facilitation and openness to change, on one hand; and it examines Mobile, Web and Social media, in terms of adoption and use for the purpose of public participation on the other hand. The research adopted the Critical Realism philosophical paradigm for its ontology and epistemology. It set out to use existing knowledge, theories and models to work mainly with qualitative data. It followed a qualitative, exploratory, holistic, and cross-sectional approach developing a case study of eParticipation in the city of Cape Town from a triangulation of methods. Data was gathered from literature, documents, in-depth interviews, a focus group and observation of meetings. The data gathered was analysed using qualitative content analysis. The case study analysis followed the structure of the research conceptual model and built the story of the development of eParticipation in the city, bringing together readiness achievements in individual community members‘ perceptions and attitudes to eParticipation, and readiness achievements in local government induced social facilitation of eParticipation. These eParticipation readiness elements were considered direct determinants of individuals‘ intention to participate using Mobile, Web and Social media, and of local government democratic engagement and openness to change, constituting the city‘s intensity of e-participation. That estimate of the intensity of eParticipation provided ground to sketch out it position towards achieving ‗cultural eParticipation‘ for the city of Cape Town. This study has implications for theory, policy and practice: It develops analytical frameworks for assessing and determining the place of eParticipation; and it suggests a map of favouring and hampering elements to eParticipation in the city of Cape Town

Understanding Sub-Saharan African Learners Informal Learning Using Mobile Devices: A Case of Tanzania

In this era of pervasive computing and the Internet, learners everywhere connect and reconnect to knowledge away from classrooms, via mobile devices and their Mobile Instant Messaging platforms (MIMs). Still, many sub-Saharan African educators continue to confine these platforms to recreational activities. There is lack therefore of knowledge about how learners from sub-Saharan Africa perform such informal and experiential learning. This paper presents a case study of Tanzanian learners learning in informal settings using their mobile devices and MIMs. It deploys the rhizomatic learning theory with the aim of understanding how such learning occurs. Findings suggest that learners use mobile devices and MIMs to organize their personal learning spaces, to access specific content and to interact with peers on academic topics. Mobile devices and their MIMs are used as support in personal learning environments understood as multidimensional networks of heterogeneous multiplicities which rhizomatic maps situate, and contain knowledge, skills, and opportunities for innovation

Exploring eParticipation in the city of Cape Town

The city of Cape Town has invested in ICT capability. The city has successfully implemented a powerful ERP system and is completing several projects such as: setting up an optical fibre network, improving GIS, eProcurement and other services. All these will impact highly on the provision of transactional services to citizens. But what about their other needs for housing, sanitation, security, legal environment and other community infrastructural facilities, the poor resolution of which is leading to fierce demonstration and sometimes to violence? This paper uses Actor Network Theory (ANT) and explores the use of mobile, web and social media technologies in achieving eParticipation in the city of Cape Town

Mobilising an Obama nation using Web 2.0: “Yes we can"

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11th ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON WORLD WIDE WEB APPLICATIONS 2-4 September 2009 Port Elizabeth South AfricaThe 44th US president was massively elected on the 4th of November 2008 after an extraordinary campaign that successfully embraced the social capabilities of the World Wide Web. The Barack Obama “Yes We Can” campaign was impossible to ignore; it was simply everywhere. Additional to the effective use of traditional media such as radio, television and direct mail, their campaign utilised Web 2.0 technologies to reach the masses who could access the web via PCs, mobile devices, gaming stations and other devices. Maximising the use of social web applications such as Facebook, Skype, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn they succeeded to touch and muster people beyond customs and racial hindering, around a message, a program and a leader. All around the world, as well as in South Africa, every time democracies have to consult populations on important decisions, to gain their adhesion to a painful program of reforms or to campaign for any essential reason, the web is also utilised to disseminate the message; but it doesn’t always succeed as expected. This paper explores the technological trail of the “Yes We Can” campaign by US president, Barack Obama, as a case study in order to identify the underlying success factors to why it was successful in the mobilisation of a nation. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with social media and web experts to gain a better understanding about the “Yes We Can” e-strategy and what lessons could be learnt from this campaign. In conclusion a set of guidelines are presented for using an e-strategy that will support campaigning for fundraisers, elections, safety and other numerous important social calls where involvement and mobilisation of citizens in communities are crucial.Cape Peninsula University of Technology PO Box 652 Cape Town 800

Listening to the ground: web and mobile technology options for public participation in government

E-government can be seen as governing through the use of information technology, and a key component of e-government is e-participation: the use of information and communications technologies to engage citizens more closely in government processes. Public participation is achieved by a range of means, any or all of which might benefit from the use of technology in order to reduce costs and improve effectiveness: voting at election time, referenda, consultative committees, public fora, community meetings, consumer fora, workshops, interviews, reports and other public hearing events. In South Africa, web and mobile technologies are being used but at a transactional rather than a strategic level. Despite significant investments in technology-mediated initiatives, the South African public has a generally poor opinion of government services and there are clear tensions in South African society. A review of good practice elsewhere, and the opinions of informed experts, suggests that the emphasis must be on the implementation of e-participation rather than the technologies that might facilitate it, and also on the adaptation of government processes in order to maximise the benefits and free participation from the shackles of traditional methods.Cape Peninsula University of Technolog

An ANT Exploration of mParticipation in the City of Cape Town

The city of Cape Town has invested in ICT capability. The city has successfully implemented a powerful ERP system and is completing several projects such as: setting up an optical fibre network, improving GIS, eProcurement and other services. All these will impact highly on the provision of transactional services to citizens. But what about their other needs for housing, sanitation, security, legal environment and other community infrastructural facilities, the poor resolution of which is leading to fierce demonstration and sometimes to violence? Are their needs heard? Are they even articulated? Who is supposed to be listening to them? Are there opened channels for that purpose? Are there electronic channels? Are there mobile channels to carry through the expression of community needs? This paper explores the use of mobile technologies in achieving Community Articulation of Needs in the city of Cape Town, and using Actor Network Theory (ANT) it builds a case study of mParticipation by analysis of a specific instance: the enactment of a bylaw for liquor selling hours. ANT is applied to data gathered from document reviews, interviews and observation, and unveils dynamics favouring and impeding community articulation of needs; for example, the weaknesses of the mobile technology channel despite the availability of ICT capabilities to all public participation stakeholders