Abstract
The Fees Must Fall movement was a national, student-led protest which began in mid-October 2015, in a response to fee increases at South African universities. The protests arose from a broader context of declining government funding for higher education, as well as broader socio-economic inequalities and racial conflicts. During the height of the campaign, social networking site Twitter was used both as an organizing tool by students, and also as a space for national debate around related issues. The Fees Must Fall campaign falls into the category of what Postill describes as a viral campaign, with the main features of tweets with catchy slogans, explosive growth, social drama liminality, real time participation and intense but ephemeral news media coverage. The proposed chapter explores how the campaign used Twitter, in the context of an international growth in so-called ‘Twitter activism’, and wide-range online political participation. The methodology is a social network analysis of over a million tweets collected at the height of the protests, which will identify key actors and relationships. A qualitative content analysis will explore the purpose and nature of the online conversations via the hashtag #FeesMustFall. Much scholarly work on Twitter uses hashtags to identify tweets, to highlight particular conversations and communicative exchanges. The central question is to what extent virals such as #FeesMustFall strengthen or undermine public discourse, and whether political reality is framed by such virally shared digital content. In this instance, Twitter afforded youth an opportunity to participate in politics and set mainstream news agendas. While South Africa’s transition to democracy in the 1990s was not marked by violent revolution, rising social inequality has resulted in ongoing community protests, and the student protests can be seen within this context. Revolutionary student movements have always been a feature of transitional societies, and are appearing with increasing frequency in Western societies. The chapter contributes to understanding the role of the internet in fostering political participation and activism. Taking into account critiques of the internet by scholars such as Morozov and Dean, the proposed chapter explores the collective experiences of social media within the context of #FeesMustFall.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
References
Alexander, P. (2010). Rebellion of the poor: South Africa’s service delivery protests–a preliminary analysis. Review of African Political Economy, 37(123), 25–40.
Bakardjieva, M. (2010). The internet and subactivism: Cultivating young citizenship in everyday life. In T. Olsson and P. Dahlgrem Ed., Young people, ICTs and democracy. Sweden: Nordicom.
Bosch, T. (2016). Twitter activism and youth in South Africa: The case of #RhodesMustFall. Information, Communication and Society, 14(6), 757–769.
Bruns, A., & Burgess, J. (2015). Hashtags from ad hoc to calculated publics. In N. Rambukkana (Ed.), Hashtag publics: The power and politics of discursive networks. New York: Peter Lang. 13–28.
Bruns, A., & Stieglitz, S. (2013). Towards more systematic Twitter analysis: Metrics for tweeting activities. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 16(2), 91–108.
Census (2011). Available at http://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdf. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
Cornwall, A. (2002). Making spaces, changing places: Situating participation in development. ISD Working Paper 170, IDS: University of Sussex.
Davis, B. (2013). Hashtag politics: The polyphonic revolution of# Twitter. Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research, 1(1), 4.
Dean, J. (2005). Communicative capitalism: Circulation and the foreclosure of politics. Cultural Politics, 1(1), 51–74.
Gerbaudo, P. (2012). Tweets and the streets: Social media and contemporary activism. New York: Pluto Press.
Isin, E., & Ruppert, E. (2015). Being digital citizens. London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Jeffares, S. (2014). Interpreting Hashtag politics: Policy ideas in an era of social media. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jungherr, A. (2015). Analysing political communication with digital trace data: The role of Twitter messages in Social Science Research. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Juris J. (2012). Reflections on #Occupy everywhere: Social media, public space, and emerging logics of aggregation. American Ethnologist, 39(2), 259–279.
McEwan, C. (2005). New Spaces of Citizenship? Rethinking gendered participation and empowerment in South Africa. Political Geography, 24, 969–991.
Morozov, E. (2009). The Brave New World of Slacktivism. Foreign Policy (blog), 19 May http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism
Morozov, E. (2011). The net delusion: The dark side of internet freedom. New York: Public Affairs.
Postill, J. (2012). Digital politics and political engagement. In H. A. Horst and D. Miller (Ed.), Digital anthropology. London/New York: Berg.
Postill, J. (2013). Democracy in an age of viral reality: A media epidemiography of Spain’s indignados movement. Ethnography, 1–9. http://eth.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/10/08/1466138113502513.abstract.
Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Press.
Small, T. A. (2011). What the hashtag? A content analysis of Canadian politics on Twitter. Information, Communication & Society, 14(6), 872–895.
Turner, V. (1978). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bosch, T. (2016). Twitter and Participatory Citizenship: #FeesMustFall in South Africa. In: Mutsvairo, B. (eds) Digital Activism in the Social Media Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40949-8_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40949-8_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40948-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40949-8
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)