We are all complicit — whether by fault or default — in the widescale collapse that is unfolding in South Africa today. It is our responsibility to engage in the political realm and actively shape the politics we want. In a functioning democracy, the citizenry can hold power to account. Read full article
Category: News
Xenophobia – Social Media Analytics Report 1
This social media analytics report focused on xenophobic conversations in South Africa covering the period 01 January 2023 – 31 January 2023. Crowd-verified data was used for this study and confirmed that more than 80% of the mentions exhibited negative sentiment towards foreigners in South Africa, whilst only 5% exhibited positive sentiment. The behavioural drivers...
Anti-corruption project Online conversations about corruption in South Africa
South Africa’s energy crisis have once again placed our country’s leadership in the spotlight. While some are questioning how we got to this point, others have expressed a lack of trust in the current leadership’s ability to solve these crises. Fuelling this mistrust are concerns around corruption, dubbed as the reason behind the depleting state...
Working for Democracy
#Nationalshutdown trended on Twitter in January. It was primarily used as a tool to gain public support to stand up against a tariff increase. However, it also became an opportunity to drive a political agenda. We explore this in our Calls for mobilisation report. Read full report
ANC Elective Conference News Media Coverage
The ANC is less than a week away from its national elective conference. Earlier this month, the CABC released a report that investigated the scope of conversation on Twitter around four presidential candidates; Lindiwe Sisulu, Zweli Mkhize, Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. In this report, we analysed how three South African media houses reported on...
ANC Elective Conference – Presidential Candidates on Social Media
The 55th ANC elective conference is only a few days away. In view of this, researchers at the CABC zoomed in on the online campaigns of ANC presidential hopefuls – Cyril Ramaphosa, Zweli Mkhize, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Lindiwe Sisulu.The aim of this report is to analyse the candidates’ online presence, the policy and/or character differences...
Periodic Report 5
Our researchers focused on three thematic areas; namely the ANC Elective Conference, the Constitution, and Corruption. A significant part of the conversation revealed that social media users have an acute awareness of a faltering social contract in South Africa. Furthermore, after identifying some narrative manipulation, there is a clear trend of vested interests polarising and...
Working for Democracy: #PhalaPhalaFarmGate: Manufacturing Dissent
This report is a deep dive into the sustained prominence of #PhalaPhalaFarmGate within South Africa’s online democracy conversation. For the past 14 weeks, #PhalaPhalaFarmGate has been a top 10 trending hashtag within this conversation. Findings of this report over the period include #PhalaPhalaFarmGate being responsible for sustained anti-Ramaphosa sentiment since the beginning of June 2022...
TIMES LIVE – EDITORIAL | TikTok is to be commended for running down the clock on political advertisingThe Beijing-based TikTok phenomenon that has left Mark Zuckerberg and co scrambling to catch up, has introduced welcome new policies for political party advertising. A breath of fresh air, this social media app which is four years young, reached one billion users in September. It’s a feat Facebook
The Beijing-based TikTok phenomenon that has left Mark Zuckerberg and co scrambling to catch up, has introduced welcome new policies for political party advertising. A breath of fresh air, this social media app which is four years young, reached one billion users in September. It’s a feat Facebook Read full article
IOL – Social media can be used to tackle thorny issue of GBV, data shows
The non-profit company hosted a webinar where experts delved into their strategy of using social media listening tools to explore the perpetuation of harmful gender attitudes and GBV on public social media in the country. Read full article