{"title":"Discursive Communities, Protest, Xenophobia, and Looting in South Africa: A Social Network Analysis","authors":"Limukani Mathe, Gilbert Motsaathebe","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2022.2083204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2022.2083204","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article informs on a study that employed a digital ethnographic approach to analyse a network of human relationships and connections based on the physical and social phenomena of political protest and xenophobia, accompanied by looting and the destruction of property in South Africa. It examines how social media have been used to fuel violence, protest, xenophobic attacks, and the looting of shops, and for ordinary citizens to post videos or images of protest actions on the internet. This article uses the tenets of propaganda (the propaganda model) as a social media theory to analyse online activism in various forms, such as journalism and political protest for citizen mobilisation and participation. The article finds that participation in groups (reflected by hashtags) is determined by shared interests or grievances (mob psychology) and shaped by propaganda. It concludes that social media are tools or platforms that can be used for good or bad, echoing realities on the ground, such as poverty and social inequalities, as causes of political protest, xenophobia, and looting in South Africa. Political players and activists drive their own agendas by exploiting or emphasising the causes of poverty and social inequalities, thereby attracting followers who reaffirm their messages by tweeting and retweeting. The article concludes that social media are weaponised for protest, causing panic, anxiety, and discomfort that linger for an unspecified period until another outbreak.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"102 - 126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46137858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Deconstructionist Reading of Populist Claims Related to Covid-19: A Rhetorical Discourse Analysis","authors":"David Katiambo","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2022.2083205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2022.2083205","url":null,"abstract":"Rhetoric at the ontological level—for instance, the way in which hegemony is structured like speech—is a tool that can be used to give meaning to narratives such as the medical populist claims that arose in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although these populist claims ranged from explicitly trivial conspiracies to rational demands about healthcare, outside the truth–falsity binaries we can explain how the narratives functioned metaphorically to gain acceptability. While guarding against linguistic reductionism, but considering that hegemony works like grammar, rhetorical discourse analysis, inspired by the work of Ernesto Laclau, is used to read the metaphorical transformation of disinformation into “rational” demands and the construction of enemy outsiders to stabilise this populist hegemony. Through a metaphoric mechanism, disinformation is converted to information and linked to rational demands, which enables what is otherwise irrational to become believable. This linking is achieved through disinformation and rational demands metaphorically substituting each other to become what they are not in their literal form. Thereafter, the metaphorical meaning loses its metaphoricity, allowing the disinformation to become catachrestic and to be taken as literal or genuine knowledge. Several cases are cited to illustrate concrete examples of knowledge generated through metaphorical contamination of rational demands with disinformation.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"28 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45226532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public Relations Management in Higher Education Institutions: A Case Study of Ghana","authors":"Albert A. Anani-Bossman","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2021.2011348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2021.2011348","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article reports on a study that examined the nature of public relations (PR) management in Ghanaian higher education institutions (HEIs), specifically public and private universities. The study aimed to determine the degree to which PR practitioners in Ghanaian HEIs practise excellent PR. The study adopted a qualitative approach in gathering data from 14 PR practitioners purposively sampled from public and private universities. The findings demonstrated that PR practice in Ghanaian HEIs is premised on the technician role with a minimal managerial role. PR practice is also based on one-way communication and PR practitioners do not have much influence on the decision-making process. The implication is that PR practice cannot be highly valued in HEIs unless it fulfils its dual role.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"127 - 157"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44528004","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nigerian Afrobeats, the Irony of Belonging and Here–Elsewhere Dialectics","authors":"Emmanuel Adeniyi","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2022.2051059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2022.2051059","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article reports on a study that examined the reflective experiences of a few Nigerian Afrobeats artistes on irregular migration and identified overlapping contradictory impulses in the Nigerian migration discourse (NMD). Ten song texts of eight of these Afrobeats artistes were purposively deconstructed to evince the conception of irregular migration as a discursive formation and musical argument. Deconstructive paradigm helped to determine the specific communicative purposes of the texts and accentuate Jacques Derrida's dual oppositions which provided a theoretical basis for interrogating conceptual models in the texts. To further strengthen the deconstruction of the texts, the study leveraged critical insights from social dialectical theory and phenomenology, interrogating the interplay of opposing social forces in the NMD. It related the discourse to a dialectical thinking underlying the use of songs by Afrobeats artistes to raise public awareness against irregular migration among an increasing number of Nigerian youths who regard south-north migration as the only panacea to their socio-economic woes. The study also investigated dialectical tensions in the song texts in order to foreground the agency of migrant actors, the multivocality of here–elsewhere dialectics in the NMD, and the perceptions of migrant actors on how the dialectics evolved an interplay of competing discourses.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"66 - 101"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47718948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cyber-ethics for NGOs during Covid-19: The Eight “Ethical Variables” and a Microsocial Contract","authors":"Adelina Mbinjama","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2022.2058040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2022.2058040","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action and discourse ethics as a theoretical basis merges several factors that have an impact on the use of digital media by internet users. This article provides a qualitative narrative analysis of a study of five South African-based based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on their experiences with digital media and cyber-ethics during the Covid-19 pandemic. The author interviewed employers and digital media specialists from the NGOs about their experiences with the “eight ethical variables”, namely, justice, privacy, access, accuracy, truth, human dignity, regulation, and ownership of information, during the global Covid-19 (acronym for the coronavirus disease of 2019) pandemic. The article discusses how the NGOs have been affected by the increasing use of digital media. The article argues that a need exists for a framework of cyber-ethics for self-regulation purposes, to be followed by NGOs to deal with breaches of ethical conduct. Finally, the formulation of a microsocial contract based on the proposed eight ethical variables is offered. The present study contributes to media ethics literature by proposing a framework for ethical conduct for digital media use. This is of importance to internet users and may be achievable if imbedded in employee procedural policies and public policies. It is argued that in formulating appropriate ethical guidelines, Habermas’ discourse ethics should be kept in mind for an optimal microsocial contract to be attainable.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"45 - 65"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44221112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Rhetoric of Covid-19: Numbers and Stats and Maps – Oh My!","authors":"Kyle Rath","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2022.2058041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2022.2058041","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract From February 2020, media coverage surrounding the spread of Covid-19 (acronym for the coronavirus disease of 2019) accelerated to the point where it has become the most exhaustively covered pandemic in recent times. In particular, numerous information visualisations surrounding the extent of the disease were released. One reason for such acceleration may be that, in an increasingly digital world, growth in media coverage is inevitable. However, when compared to the concurrent Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) pandemic, which has a significantly higher fatality rate, coverage surrounding Covid-19 has been inordinately more expansive. One key difference between the two pandemics is that Covid-19 spreads more rapidly. In this article, the author examines the rhetorical potency of information visualisation as a means of visually expressing the spread of Covid-19. He comments on the efficiency and clarity with which information visualisation distils content surrounding the pandemic. Further, the author delineates rhetorical agents that arouse fear and urgency in depicting the concept of the “spread” of Covdid-19 in a palpable way.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"48 1","pages":"1 - 27"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47292169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tell Our Story: Multiplying Voices in News Media, by Julie Reid and Dale T. McKinley","authors":"Richard Tusiime","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2022.2042347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2022.2042347","url":null,"abstract":"The result is a startling rebuke by lay people who accuse the mainstream media of deliberate deception, distortion and arm chair methods all of which the authors rightly fear accentuate the crisis of credibility facing the dominant media. All this at a time when accusations of fake news trumpeted by the likes of former US President Donald Trump are already eating at the core of media companies – brazenly interfering with their revenues and spelling doom for their very existence.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"119 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44404990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exclusion of South African Rural Communities from Digital Communication Podia: A Regulatory Conundrum","authors":"Boikaego D. Seadira, W. Heuva","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2022.2039736","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2022.2039736","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article reports on a study that examined how SA Connect (i.e., the South African broadband policy that was approved in 2013) has sought to integrate rural South Africans into the digital communication podia. The study drew from a major recent study focusing on selected themes as captured in SA Connect. Furthermore, it interrogated the current configurations of the South African telecommunications market and the role of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) in levelling the playing field within the sector. Located within the terrain of telecommunications policy and regulation, the study interrogated the interplay between mobile operators and ICASA in expediting broadband penetration into rural South Africa. Theoretically, the study was guided by the tenets of the knowledge gap theory as proposed by Philip Tichenor, George Donohue and Clarice Olien in 1970 and the principles of universal access within the context of the broadband ecosystem. The findings showed that an unreconstructed and predisposed skewed urban market as well as the indecisive regulator stance led to failure to reduce the digital divide. Thus, despite relentless attempts to address these challenges at policy level, South African rural areas remain excluded from the digital communication podia, subsequently causing digital inequality. The findings confirmed critical perspectives on digital inclusion which maintain that, the more information is circulated through the new conduits of information technology, the more communities from the low economic stratum of society are excluded from the information society and participation in the digital economy.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"72 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42720379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Independent Online and News24 Framing of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma: A Case Study of the African National Congress 54th National Conference","authors":"T. P. Muringa, D. McCracken","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2022.2037093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2022.2037093","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The media plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion concerning political leaders by either selecting or negating what to report. Extensive research has shown that apart from informing the public about issues of interest, the media is a socio-political institution responsible for framing events and issues to influence the audience engagement with news. This article reports on a study that used a qualitative case study approach to investigate how Independent Online (IOL) and News24 frames were used to either legitimise or de-legitimise the political and leadership qualities of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma who was appointed as the Minister of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation on 27 February 2018. The study interrogated whether IOL and News24 frames reinforced the gender biases normally assigned to South African women in the news. The two key questions asked in the study were: “How were Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's leadership and political characteristics portrayed by the media?” and “Did the portrayal of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma evoke any gendered media biases?” An analysis of 100 electronic online news articles purposively retrieved from IOL and News24 archives was conducted. The study identified that the media evoked cultural constituted frames that were replete with gender stereotypes to discredit Dlamini-Zuma's leadership and political qualities. Thus, the study has contributed to research on the framing of women leaders by demonstrating how IOL and News24 frames were infused with gendered stereotypes.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"1 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41704538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Name-Calling as a Communicative Tool in South African Political Discourse","authors":"Lutendo Nendauni, M. Sadiki, M. Baloyi","doi":"10.1080/02500167.2021.2009531","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2021.2009531","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article reports on a study which emanated from an extended study that explored how name-calling serves as a communicative strategy in political discourse. As an extension, and with a distinct focus on selected political cartoons entrenched in the South African press, the current article details name-calling as a communicative tool in South African political discourse. The study adopted a triangulation theoretical framework, due to its espousal of multiple naming theories. The researchers opted for qualitative discourse textual analysis methodology coupled with exploratory-explanatory research design. Document collection and semiotic analysis were used in succession, as data collection strategies. From the accessible population of ten cartoons, purposive sampling strategy was employed in selecting five cartoons that served as the sample for the study. Name-calling constructs were sequentially extracted from linguistic and visual discourse segments, and were qualitatively analysed through the semiotic analysis, and the theoretical tools underpinning the study. The findings of the study revealed that most of the name-calling stemmed from political corruption. Disclosement and reaction instigation were found to be the most used naming-communicative strategies during name-calling. Additionally, ideological character and aggressiveness were the most common semantic-pragmatic inherent categories of political discourse reflected. To this end, the study submits that cartoons in the South African press employ various name-calling constructs to express viewpoint, persuade, reprimand and construct arguments.","PeriodicalId":44378,"journal":{"name":"Communicatio-South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research","volume":"47 1","pages":"21 - 47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45229528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}