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Digital Activism and #Feesmustfall a Discourse Analysis on Facebook

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Digital Activism and #Feesmustfall a Discourse Analysis on Facebook Digital Activism and #FeesMustFall a discourse analysis on Facebook Word count: 34.392 Rhiannon Buyens Student number: 01505273 Supervisor(s): Prof. Dr. Vicky Van Bockhaven A dissertation submitted to Ghent University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in African Studies Academic year: 2018 - 2019 Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank some people whose assistance was indispensable in the writing of this thesis. I thank my supervisor Prof. Dr. Vicky Van Bockhaven for guiding me through the process of writing this Master thesis. She was always approachable and prepared to provide me with feedback. Her effort is very much appreciated. I am grateful for the funding that I received from Ghent University to travel to Cape Town for my Africa-semester in 2017, in which I spent one semester at the University of the Western Cape and conducted research for my Bachelor thesis. I thank all the informants from my former research for their enthusiastic cooperation and for sharing their opinions and knowledge with me. Especially Mthobisi Mngomezulu contributed to this former research, as he brought me into contact with students at the University of Cape Town. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, sister, boyfriend, friends and fellow students from African Studies for their infinite support, encouragement, help and offering a listening ear. 2 Table of contents List of abbreviations 4 1. Introduction 5 2. Conceptual-theoretical framework 7 3. Literature review and status quaestionis 13 3.1 Digital activism 13 3.1.1 Facebook 20 3.2 #FeesMustFall: background and contextualization 24 3.3 #FeesMustFall and social media 29 4. Methodology 33 5. Analysis 38 5.1 Personal communications 38 5.2 Digital fieldwork on Facebook 42 5.2.1 The #FeesMustFall community 43 5.2.2 The political identity 48 5.2.3 Addressed issues 55 5.2.4 Targets 62 5.2.5 Protest tactics 69 6. Discussion 85 7. Conclusion 93 8. References 96 3 List of abbreviations UWC University of the Western Cape UCT University of Cape Town CPUT Cape Peninsula University of Technology TUT Tshwane University of Technology PAC Pan Africanist Congress EFF Economic Freedom Fighters ANC African National Congress DA Democratic Alliance PASMA Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania EFFSC Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command SASCO South African Students Congress DASO Democratic Alliance Student Organisation SASO South African Students' Organisation 4 Digital Activism and #FeesMustFall: a discourse analysis on Facebook 1. Introduction Activism, digital technologies and social media are increasingly becoming more characteristic of today’s societies. Dispersing and signing petitions online, engaging in political discussions online and changing your profile picture to express solidarity are all examples of digital activism.1 Even though not everyone will consider themselves to be an activist2, most people will unknowingly participate in this phenomenon in which digital technologies are used for political action. At the same time there are protest movements consciously employing these digital platforms for their cause. Some movements are well-known for the use of digital activism: the Arab Spring, the international Occupy movement, the Indignados in Spain and many more have successfully adopted ICTs to strengthen their visibility and impact. In this thesis I will look at another movement that is profoundly connected with digital technologies, and more specifically social media: the South African #FeesMustFall movement. What makes this movement so interesting is twofold: it is the biggest protest movement since the dawn of democracy in South Africa and it used social media extensively.3 Despite the end of Apartheid in 1994, the structures from that painful era are still present in the South Africa of today. This is especially felt by black citizens, who feel dissatisfied and disillusioned with the promise of the Rainbow Nation. Since October 2015, mostly black students demand the abolishment of fees in tertiary education in #FeesMustFall. Still, the vision of #FeesMustFall consists of much more than just the falling of fees; it functions as a banner for many other demands and addresses not only the issues on campus but also in society at large. Social media has been an indispensable aspect in the existence of this movement. Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other platforms have augmented its expansion and success, which is why it is so important to regard it in relation to #FeesMustFall. 1 Amy Stornaiuolo and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, “Disrupting Educational Inequalities Through Youth Digital Activism,” Review of Research in Education 41, no. 1 (March 2017): 337–57, doi: 10.3102/0091732X16687973. 2 Christina Neumayer and Jakob Svensson, “Activism and Radical Politics in the Digital Age: Towards a Typology,” Convergence 22, no. 2 (April 2016): 131–46, doi: 10.1177/1354856514553395. 3 Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi, Chumani Mtshixa, Kathleen Diga, Nduta Mbarathi and Julian Douglas May, “'Asijiki' and the capacity to aspire through social media: the #FeesMustFall movement as an anti-poverty activism in South Africa,” in Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference (June 2016): 1-11, doi: 10.1145/2909609.2909654. 5 My encounters with #FeesMustFall at the University of The Western Cape in Cape Town awoke my interest for the movement. For my Bachelor thesis I researched the views of four student parties on #FeesMustFall in both UWC and UCT: PASMA, EFFSC, SASCO and DASO. I concluded that despite the great contrast between UWC and UCT in terms of media attention, prestige and addressed issues in #FeesMustFall, the same student parties have the same views regardless of the university in which they are located. After this, I decided to continue researching about #FeesMustFall from a different angle, and I chose social media due to its crucial role for the movement. Even though I got good answers on my questions about social media and #FeesMustFall in my former research, it occurred to me that there was more to be learned about it. In addition, the presence of #FeesMustFall on the social media platform Facebook had not been the object of research yet, which is why I felt the need to explore this further to possibly discover new knowledge about the movement. The discourse on the Fees Must Fall Western Cape Facebook page and its role in the movement at large will be the focus of this thesis. Through digital fieldwork I will attempt to answer the research question: “What is the role of social media on the #FeesMustFall movement when looking at the discourse of the Fees Must Fall Western Cape Facebook page?” To be clear: Facebook is not the only social media medium that is used in #FeesMustFall. It is part of a broader spectrum of communication technologies. Nevertheless, I focus on this specific platform in order to fill a gap in the literature on #FeesMustFall and social media. After this introduction, which also introduced my research question, I will give an overview and explanation of the most relevant theories and concepts that fit into this research in the conceptual-theoretical framework. This concerns the explanation of concepts and theories that have to do with activism in general and digital activism specifically. I will also give a first glimpse at the ideologies that characterize #FeesMustFall. After that, the literature review and status quaestionis will present the insights on digital activism, #FeesMustFall and its connection with social media that have been formulated by scholars up until today. With regards to digital activism, I will explain three debates: the positive and negative effects that digital technologies can have for activism, the ‘technological’ or ‘contextual’ view on digital activism and the debate on the ‘digital divide’. Because it is central in my research, I will explain some theories on the role of Facebook in digital activism in the section ‘Facebook’. In #FeesMustFall: background and contextualization I will explain what #FeesMustFall is and where it comes from, after which I will focus on the role of social media in this movement. 6 In the methodology my research methods will be outlined, which are qualitative: my background knowledge coming from my experiences at UWC and the interviews that I conducted for my former research, and the new digital fieldwork on the Fees Must Fall Western Cape Facebook page that will be central in this thesis. I will explain why I chose these approaches, how I collected the data and analysed it, and justify why this is the best method. Following on the methodology, I will set out my findings of the interviews shortly and elaborate on the digital fieldwork in the analysis section. The analysis of the digital fieldwork is divided in five sections: the #FeesMustFall community, addressed issues, the political identity, targets and protest tactics. Each of these sections will contribute to the question of the discourse on the page and its impact on the movement at large. The section ‘protest tactics’ is an explanation of how this discourse is enacted. My answer to the research question coming from the insights from the literature and analysis will be compiled in the discussion chapter. In this chapter I will also display the possible limitations of this research and proposals for further research on the subject. Following on the discussion, the conclusion chapter will finalize this thesis by offering a summary of my findings. 2. Conceptual-theoretical framework In this chapter I will explain some of the central concepts and theories that will give direction and shape the further course of this research. The selected concepts and theories relate to activism, digital activism and the philosophies behind #FeesMustFall. It functions both as a framework and a preface to my literature review. Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow formulated the concept of ‘contentious politics’, which serves as an umbrella for all sorts of activism.
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