#politicallife

[asthegirlturns]

Election night coverage be like... #elections2022 #TeamRedState #writerhustle #writerslife #politicallife #stillwaitingonthewestcoast https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckua0ocL968/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[asthegirlturns]

It was a fabulous morning on the Black Voices panel at the @ca_gop annual convention. Along with Kira Davis and Pastor Brian Hawkins @realpastorbrian a great conversation happened and will continue. Thank you Corrin Rankin for bringing it all together and giving our diverse voices a platform. #writerlife #politicallife #iapprovethismessage #cagop2021 #conservatives #california #savecalifornia #blackvoices #blackrhetoric #blackconservatives (at Grand Hyatt San Diego) https://www.instagram.com/p/CUQmHlbhaZ9/?utm_medium=tumblr

[sizzlingenthusiaststranger-blog]

‘It’s not a crisis’ - #FeesMustFall quotes of the week

From Blade Nzimande claiming the nationwide fees protest is not a crisis, to comparisons to the Arab Spring, we bring you a roundup of some of the #FeesMustFall quotes this week.

The following article explains for the way in which a student’s family had to give up a lot of their possession in order to send him to university. #FeesMustFall Protests. The article also explored the Arab spring as explored in the main text. 

[sizzlingenthusiaststranger-blog]

#FMF

The following text will be exploring and discussing the #FessMustFall movement as a part of the theme political life. This will be discussed in relation to how the digital media has played an important part in allowing for the movement to be successful. This will be explored through referring to examples, and can also be seen through the texts posted under this theme (pictures, memes). The text will also discuss person opinions, experiences and responses to this. 

The idea of #FeesMustFall was developed and coordinated by The Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which took place at the University of Cape Town, where students demanded for the removal of the John Cecil Rhodes statue that was a  symbolism of white power and superiority during the apartheid regime (Ngcaweni, 2015: 176, in Daniels, 2016). The Fees Must Fall hashtag argues and protests beyond the problem of the 10% increase, rather focusing on problems such as “#Whiteprivellege, calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum, transformation of the university’s race and gender composition and rage against the devaluing and exclusion of black voice and culture” (Daniels, 2016). These movements are portrayed as successful and thus as a result of the power of the new media such as Twitter as an example. 

Tanja Bosch’s (2016) article argues that “social media discussions on Twitter specifically and the resultant emerging networked public of #RMF successfully set the agenda for public debate in other virtual spaces” (Bosch, 2016). This reinforces the idea that new digital media platforms such as Twitter contribute to the success of political movements. It has been said that Twitter has become the focus of student attention, with many pieces of information that prove that it is used to allow for communication amongst people (Bosch, 2016: 4). It can also “inform and mobilise during social unrest, to inform political discourse and to precede revolutionary events on the ground (Gleason, 2013).

The role of Twitter and social media during the time of the Arab spring has been well recorded. Researchers argue that social media has allowed for the emergence of new types and techniques of protesting (Bosch, 2016). 

The purpose of this text is more then just explaining what the #FessMustFall movement was about. This text explores how Twitter as a form of digital media has allowed for this to happen. At the end of 2015 media analysts attempted to engage with the trends in the political hashtags. According to the annual Twitter reviews, the “top trending hashtags for the year were #FeesMustFall and #NationalShutDown” (Daniels, 2016). This explains for the way in which the movements received such widespread global coverage impacted through the use of the hashtag on Twitter. This can be reiterated through the way that Daniels (2016) says that social media is “more then just about sharing your views and opinions” (Daniels, 2016). This was said in response to the way in which Mohammed Abdulla said he uses social media to write his own life story (Dirk and Peterson, 2015). Through the use of these examples explained above, one can understand how digital activism via the digital media can blend in with radical democracy. 

Personal responses, thoughts ad opinions can be seen through the idea of many theorists’ work. Moyo (2009), Stassen (2010), Van Noort and Verweij (2013) say that the rise of the new media like social media, has created a platform for the participation of the countries citizens in a democracy (Daniels, 2016: 181) to express and feel as they do. Daniels speaks about the effectiveness of Twitter as a platform of protests for #FeesMustFall. An apparent “total of 1,490,377 tweets were captured between 14 and 29 October, with 86,837 belonging to members of the public”. These high numbers show the high citizen participation through the digital media to allow for change. 

Personal experiences and opinions towards Twitter are positive and radical. The platform allows for any people of any place to engage with an uprising problem or issue. These issues are dealt with in a manner where people can say what they like without any form of publication from mainstream media. This is because the mainstream media news can be fake and fixed a lot of the time, often resulting in misleading conclusions. Twitter, and more importantly the rise of this through the digital media can be seen to be portrayed as radical in its success in political activism. Personally, the platform is great for reliable news sources, allowing people of the public community and twitter community to say as they feel at any time of the day. 

Another idea towards the development of social media activism is seen in the work of Mano and Mukhongo (2016). They say they that social media have enhanced and reshaped alternative media in Africa. The power in the new media has become so effective, and this statement can be supported through the way in which “the courts attempted to ban students from using the #FeesMustFall, making it evident that the use of Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp and other social media as forms of alternative has been met with increased attempts by authorities to censor and control access to social media” (Mano & Mukhongo, 2016) and this shows the way in which the people in power do not want the community members to have access to these forms of media as a result of what they are capable of doing. Downing’s (2001) idea relates to the idea of Mano and Mukhongo. This is due to the way in which Downing (2001) notifies new media as “radical media expressing an alternative vision to hegemonic policies, priorities and perspectives” (Mano & Mukhongo ,2016: 27).

In conclusion, one can see that, through the examples and references used in above text, Twitter, social media and more so the digital media, has allowed for a space of political activism for students and members of the public in the case of #FessMustFall. This can be seen through the way in which the digital media allows for free participation at anytime by anyone allowing for a success in certain movements for the right reasons. More so, personal responses, thoughts and experiences are also included in the text. 

[camillelasin]

SATURDAY WORKDAY: That look on your face when your boss calls you to a meeting & messes up your entire Saturday schedule!!! #politicallife #politics #breathe (at Harris County Precinct 7 Constable May Walker)

[notyourcampusbabe]

#FeesMustFall and Feminism

Image Source

The #FeesMustFall movement began as a rejection of the 10.5% fee increment that was proposed by University of the Witwatersrand for the upcoming 2016 academic year. Students started protesting mid-October and as news spread across social media- the movement caught on countrywide.

This movement sought to remedy the lack of access to universities of the vast majority of black South African youth due to the prohibitive costs of higher education. The #FeesMustFall 2015 Movement resulted in a government directive for a 0% percent increase in university fees for 2016, a provisional victory that spurred the movement to regroup in 2016 with a demand for free, decolonised education for all eligible South Africans.

Chantal Mouffe (2016) stipulates that radical democracy is the ‘root’ of democracy; she critiques consensus building and argues that democracy has to be about more than just voting. Dissent is important for democracy, conflict strengthens democracy and that dissent reveals where power is concentrated. She argues that antagonistic spaces, a plurality of those spaces and, adversaries not enemies, make for a robust democracy.

‘Not allowing conflict ultimately leads to an authoritarian order... Conflict is ineradicable, but there are different ways in which conflict can express itself. Democracy then becomes the legitimisation of conflict. Its aim is to enable forms of expressing conflict that are not going to destroy the political association. You do not need to negate conflict in order to imagine a democratic society. ‘The question then becomes: how are we going to deal with conflict and what kinds of conflicts you allow for? When a society does not allow this agonistic form of conflict to express itself, you see the emergence of antagonistic forms of conflict.’ 

(Mouffe, 2016)

 Fees Must Fall as a case study can be used to think about the notion that social media is a platform for progressive politics. Bosch (2016) argues that youth are increasingly using social networking sites to develop a new biography of citizenship, which is characterized by more individualized forms of activism. In the present case, Twitter gives youth the opportunity to participate in political discussions, as well as discussions of broader socio-political issues of relevance in contemporary South African society, reflecting a form of sub-activism.

Social media revolutions offer utopian ideas about what a revolution is supposed to achieve.  Social media revolutions are no less different from real life revolutions- they achieve small changes and have a knockoff effect.  Fees Must Fall is a networked movement, social media during #feesmustfall was used to coordinate meetings, negotiate terms of engagement and to share information.

As Fees Must Fall was spread out countrywide and was almost on every South African university campus- even though it manifested in a myriad of ways. The lack of a central governing body meant much more liberal manner of governing, with each campus’s students deciding on the direction of its protests action in specific ways.

Despite the vast differences in the make-up and strategies of these student activist groups-what seemed to be the uniting factor in the 2015 iteration was the fees. However as the 2016 version came about #feesmustfallreloaded,  issues of class difference, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia and transphobia emerged as characteristics that threatened the movements, although unevenly on the varied campuses. Divisions emerged between students who identified as black, queer and transgender feminists, and sections of the movement who identified more explicitly with patriarchy.

These divisions gave rise to a range of feminist interventions across the University campuses. At Rhodes University, black womxn activists released the #RUReference List, a list which named eleven men accused of rape on that campus, and ignited a national debate around rape culture on South African university campuses. Moreover, Black feminists at these universities have organised events, workshops and protests aimed at challenging the violence and exclusion inflicted upon them by cis-heteronormativity, and patriarchy (AgendaFM, 2016).

They have, unlike earlier struggles, brought to the fore a clear and powerful feminist challenge to the cisheteronormative patriarchy – in broader society as well as within the student movements. As social media platforms were largely used to disseminate information, the silencing of feminists within the movement was something that was also hotly discussed on platforms such as Twitter. The hashtag #MbokodoLead, coined after the Zulu phrase ‘Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo’ (You touch a woman, you strike a rock), was started as a platform affirm to the young female student leaders at the forefront of the student protests. The hashtag is a collection of images and tweets with a strong feminist narrative (Vallabhjee, 2015).

Kristi Cole (2015) in her text, “It's Like She's Eager to be Verbally Abused”: Twitter, Trolls, and (En)Gendering Disciplinary Rhetoric’ stipulates that  commonplaces about feminists, about women’s rights, bodies, and rhetoric participate in a cycle of violence and consciousness-raising. Using her argument I will demonstrate how feminists within the #feesmustfall movement were met with violent anti-feminist engagement on social media media platforms such as twitter and Facebook. With this form of engagement functioning as disciplinary rhetoric.

The goal of this rhetoric within the movement was to silence female students who were not happy with the exclusionary, patriarchal behaviors of their fellow male students. It is important to examine how trolling was used within the media to understand how it framed public opinion of the #FMF feminists. The image above which was part of the #iamoneinthree protest action, to highlight the plight of rape and the war on womxns bodies at the University of the Witwatersrand, illustrate the forms of online abuse and behaviours related to trolling on the media and twitter including rape threats, and body shaming (Lumsden & Morgan, 2017).

There is still evidence that some students did not accept female leaders. When certain female leaders in the movement took to the podium to speak the crowds were not as enthusiastic as when a male student leader spoke. This was evidence that there are those who are still behind on feminist ideals and gender equality, leading to the erasure of female voices within Fees Must Fall.

Women, especially those who publicly identify as feminist receive a substantial amount of hatred and violence directed toward them, on online spaces, what Banet-Weiser and Miltner (2015) term as a ‘networked misogyny’. The growing popularity of feminism within popular culture has garnered a lot of attention and thus created very polarize view on social media platforms.

References

AgendaFM. (2016). Feminisms & Womxn’s Resistance Within Contemporary African Student Movements.Online, retrieved 31 October 2017:

http://www.agenda.org.za/feminisms-womxns-resistance-within-contemporary-african-student-movements/

Cole, K. K. (2015). “It's Like She's Eager to be Verbally Abused”: Twitter, Trolls, and (En) Gendering Disciplinary Rhetoric. Feminist Media Studies, 15(2), 356-358.

Banet-Weiser, S., & Miltner, K. M. (2016). # MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and networked misogyny. Feminist Media Studies, 16(1), 171-174.

Lumsden, K., & Morgan, H. (2017). Media framing of trolling and online abuse: silencing strategies, symbolic violence, and victim blaming. Feminist Media Studies, 1-15.

Chantal Mouffe, quoted in Glenda Daniels (2016), ‘Scrutinizing Hashtag Activism in the #MustFall Protests in South Africa in 2015’. In Bruce Mutsvairo (ed), Digital Activism in the Social Media Era.

Vallabhjee, D .(2015). Online, retrieved 31 October 2017:

http://www.marieclaire.co.za/hot-topics/mbokodolead-women-leading-feesmustfall-movement

[dirtbagn1nja-blog]

#violence #lol #politicallife

[annywitha]

It is the week after graduation, someone (me, haha) is feeling nostalgic yet so ready for the future. With reflection comes bookmarking/making a mark/memory/, which is why I am leaving this with you all.

This video was supposed to be uploaded yesterday aka Monday because of ‪#‎Mondaysshouldnotbemundane‬ and now it's FINALLY UP. YAY. Which means... it can go for ‪#‎TalktomeTuesday‬ ? I think so. PLEASE watch my speech since you are in sight of it. This moment was too priceless to not share. I thank you guys in advance.