From small pox in 1893 to the 1904 “Durban Plague” to the 1918 Spanish Flu to Covid-19 in 2020, South Africa has faced many scary viruses. Professor Philip Harrison, the South African research chair in spatial analysis and city planning at Wits’ Gauteng Regional City Observatory has done extensive research on past pandemics and believes …
What can we learn from the pandemics of the past? Read More »
Caolan Robertson (pronounced “kay-lin) was one of the central figures in making right-wing politics mainstream, he worked with people like Tommy Robinson and helped them move from ‘fringe’ to mainstream political commentators. Caolan has since distanced himself from right-wing politics and is now working for ByLine Times. He now works to undo the work he …
Caolan Robertson – Part 1 of 3. farmlands – The Making of a Misleading ‘Documentary’ Read More »
The final conversation with Caolan is a conversation about solutions, and about the future. Caolan has a unique perspective on how the right-wing media operates and what has made it so successful, in this episode we discuss the complexity of working to address disinformation, ‘fake news’ and hate speech online. This episode looks at what …
In an era of post-truth “alternative facts”, smoke and mirrors tactics have become the new currency of political gamesmanship Read full article
Anti-foreigner hashtags continue to swirl around local Twitter, together with misleading claims and links to fake news sites. Don’t be fooled, warns a UCT research unit. Read full article
This is a summary of the trending, highest impact and most active themes and their narratives related to social cohesion and division in South African public-domain social media conversations for the week ending 3 December 2020. Read full article
The key threat to democracy today is not ideological, in the sense that opposing or alternative ideologies threaten to replace democracy. Rather, it is how the politics of the base can be exploited to undermine democratic processes and institutions, and skew democratic outcomes. Read full article
This is a summary of the trending, highest impact and most active themes and their narratives related to social cohesion and division in South African public-domain social media conversations for the week ending 19 November 2020. This is a summary of the trending, highest impact and most active themes and their narratives related to social …
Peak of the week: South Africa’s weekly trends: November 12 – 19 Read More »
A crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic creates a perfect opportunity for those who wish to cause confusion, chaos, and public harm – and mis- and disinformation enables them to do just that. This week we look at elections and the actions of Real411. Read full article
This is a summary of the trending, highest impact, and most active themes and narratives related to social cohesion and division in South African public-domain social media conversations for the week ending on 5 November 2020. Read full article
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