Media-usage patterns and political knowledge of NWU students: The 2009 election

Abstract

One of the central elements in a sustainable democracy is an informed and independent voters’ corps who is knowledgeable regarding democratic values and the policies of different parties, and who participates in democracy. The literature suggests that voters who are more heavy media users are also more politically knowledgeable. It follows that the media have an important informational role in a democracy. Against this background, the media usage patterns, media usage perceptions and political knowledge of the students of the North-West University on the Potchefstroom, Mafikeng and Vaal Triangle campuses were investigated during May 2009. This was done in the form of a quantitative survey that allowed students to report their real perceptions, experiences and knowledge levels. Questionnaires were administered in a self-administered style to avoid interviewer bias and to increase truthful self-reporting. Trained field workers used certain guidelines to ensure that the sample was representative of NWU students. The study found that students on all three campuses had poor levels of political knowledge. It was furthermore established that they were light users of media and did not often engage in political discussions with peers. On all three campuses, for political information television was the preferred medium, followed by radio. Although there were only weak correlations, it would seem that the students who were heavier users of media, were also more politically knowledgeable.     

Making meaning of citizenship: How ‘born frees’ use media in South Africa's democratic evolution

Abstract

By examining young people's habits of using the media in relation to citizenship, this article responds to calls that the starting point for research into citizenship and democracy should be the perspectives of citizens themselves. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative research with young South Africans (the ‘born free’ generation), the study sought to gain insight into how young people use media to make sense of notions of citizenship and participatory democracy in ways that are relevant and reliable to their everyday lives. The findings suggest that young South Africans are distrustful of politicians and political institutions. Media consumption was high amongst participants, as well as media trust, but the lack of relevance of media content suggests that those wanting to engage with the youth through the media need to target content through more youth-orientated genres.     

Radio and Television Audiences in South Africa: 1994–2002

Abstract

In this article the author tracks various media and their usage in South Africa from 1994 to 2002 to see how they reacted o the extended choices in radio and television. Wider exposure to the media, that is, private radio and television stations other than the South African Broadcasting corporation (SABC), was supposed to deepen democracy in the sense that it would give people the opportunity to hear and see differing opinions on air. In addition, for the first time disadvantaged communities had a voice in the media in the form of community radio. In the context of the massive and positive political, social and administrative changes in a wide range of sectors in South Africa, it was surprising to see the relative stability of choices made by mass media users, in terms of both content and type. Some theoretical and pragmatic comments on this phenomenon are given in the article.     

Defensive development,combative contradictions: towards an international political sociology of global militarism in Africa

ABSTRACT

Drawing on international political sociology, this article shows how the merger of development and security has become part of the ideational architecture that facilitates a new ‘feel-good’ militarism in Africa. Contemporary international reform efforts are designed to restrain military power in the name of development, democracy and civilian oversight, but also to strengthen the coercive capacities of African security institutions and make them more efficient in the global fight against violent extremism. Such defensive development efforts have implications for the historically problematic relationship of the African state with modern forms of organised force, reconfiguring and recalibrating relations and dynamics between the state, military forces and external actors. The article concludes that defensive development is fraught with combative contradictions and risks becoming the handmaiden not only of increased militaristic violence, but also of oppression and the restriction of freedom and democracy.     

South African election posters: Reflecting the maturing of a democracy?

Abstract

The South African democracy has survived three national and provincial elections and three local elections, since 1994. In comparison to other young democracies in Africa, South Africa has experienced a relatively stable transition to democracy. However, the ruling ANC has not been under pressure from opposition parties. Although this has helped pave the way, a dominant governing party does not necessarily encourage the growth of a mature, democratic political culture. The assumption of this article is that political parties in developing societies have a normative obligation to do more than canvas votes during election campaigns. Political parties should also be instrumental in fostering a democratic political culture by communicating democratic values, encouraging participation in the democracy and enabling voters to make an informed electoral choice. Although political posters contribute mainly to image building, the reinforcement of party support, and the visibility of the party, posters are the agenda setters or headlines of a party's campaign – it is therefore argued that political parties in developing societies also need to design political posters responsively, in order to sustain the democracy. In general it seems that the poster campaigns of parties have matured since 1999, in the sense that there was less emphasis on democratisation issues in the past, and the campaigns conformed more to the norm of Western political campaigning.     

The evolution of South Africa's democracy promotion in Africa: from idealism to pragmatism

South Africa is an emerging power with fairly strong democratic institutions that were crafted during the transition from minority to majority rule twenty years ago. How has South Africa used its position and power to promote democracy in Africa? Against the backdrop of debates on democracy promotion by emerging powers, this article probes attempts by successive post-apartheid governments to promote democracy in Africa. We argue that although democracy promotion featured prominently in South Africa's policy towards Africa in the immediate post-apartheid period under Nelson Mandela, the administrations of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma faltered in advancing democratic norms. This is largely because South Africa has confronted pressures to maximize pragmatic national interests, which have compromised a democratic ethos in a continental environment where these values have yet to find steady footing.     

Democratization by association? Brazil’s social policy cooperation in Africa

The field of international development has undergone major shifts as South–South cooperation expands. New questions are being raised about the political implications of this cooperation, including with respect to democracy and human rights. In this paper, we analyse the role of Brazil, a democratic provider of South–South cooperation, in fomenting these principles in Africa. We find that explicit democracy promotion makes up a minority of Brazil’s cooperation with Africa. However, Brazil also engages in social policy initiatives which, despite not being labelled as democracy and human rights promotion, are inspired by Brazil’s own experiences with re-democratization—what we refer to as “democratization by association”. We argue that these initiatives—mostly geared towards institution-building in areas where Brazil seeks to promote itself as a hotbed of policy innovation—are disembedded from the political context in which they arose in Brazil. While this disembeddedness allows the Brazilian state to maintain its official discourse of non-interference, it also makes the political impact of Brazilian cooperation in Africa highly uncertain.     

Why do some Arab citizens see democracy as unsuitable for their country?

Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and democracy as incompatible. Government performance theories argue that citizens who perceive the current authoritarian government as acting in a transparent manner will demand greater democracy. I argue that attitudes toward democracy are shaped by beliefs about its political, economic, and religious consequences, including those related to sectarianism. I test this consequence-based theory using Arab Barometer data from six nations. Sixty percent hold favourable views of democracy generally and for their country, while 7% reject democracy. Twenty-seven percent support democracy generally but see it as unsuitable for their country. Beliefs that democracy will have negative consequences and perceptions of poor government performance are the most important predictors of democracy's unsuitability. Modernization theory receives support, but Islamic identity and beliefs do not consistently predict attitudes in the expected direction. These findings offer a more nuanced understanding of Arab public opinion and suggest that concerns about the consequences of free elections affect support for democracy as much as assessments of the political and economic performance of the current authoritarian regime.     

Elitist democracy and China's democratization: A gradualist approach towards democratic transition by a group of Chinese intellectuals

This article examines how a group of Chinese intellectuals experimented with the western concept of elitist democracy in a Chinese context in the late 1980s. Drawing insights from western theories on political development and political culture, they argued that China's lack of a civic culture meant an elitist democracy would be an historically necessary and inevitable stage during the process of democratization. To implement elitist democracy in China, the existing political institutions should be made more open to experts, technocrats and intellectuals. This political proposal was advanced, involuntarily, during the Tiananmen Movement of Spring 1989, but eventually suffered a great setback. Nevertheless, the article maintains that elitist democracy remains relevant to China's democratization in the future.     

Institutional legitimacy in Sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT

How do personal encounters with legal institutions shape citizens’ confidence in those institutions throughout sub-Saharan Africa? Using Afrobarometer’s cross-national citizen survey, we show that negative first-hand experiences with government courts and police erode citizens’ trust in those state institutions but do not tend to disrupt citizens’ perceptions of their authority to arbitrate or enforce the law. Individuals from diverse demographic backgrounds imbue state institutions with the right to perform their governance and law-enforcement duties, even after experiencing institutional incompetence or injustice. This article advances existing comparative research on legal institutions, which tends to conflate trust and legitimacy and overlooks the distinction between de facto performance and de jure authority. We suggest that rule-of-law institutions have deeper roots than some scholars have previously supposed.     

Communication technology and development: can South Africa afford the information explosion?

ABSTRACT

Weare living in a world where the availability of information can make you, or the lack of it can break you. The 'information explosion', as it is sometimes called, has already changed our lives. How this affects us, and changes our environment, our economy and our lives is a fascinating issue. But does it affect everyone? Is there a possibility that some communities can be left in the dark without the availability of these masses of information?

In South Africa some major changes are taking place at the moment. It could be argued that while South Africa tries to erase the remains of apartheid and rebuild the country, the rest of the world has 'quietly' moved into the information age. A development problem in South Africa concerns the disparities among the different communities. There is still a significant difference between the information-rich, a small minority, and the information-poor, the majority of the population.

This article first describes the situation in South Africa with regard to Internet availability and accessibility and secondly gives a broad overview of the theoretical assumptions underlying computer-mediated communication from a communication sciences perspective. In conclusion, specific questions on the topic for future research in communication sciences are proposed in general and applied to conditions in South Africa as a developing country.     

Aids and political cartoons: a case study

ABSTRACT

Broadly, this article looks at the role played by political cartoons in the Aids struggle. A sample drawn from the period 1988 to 2001 was used for this study, the purpose of which is to discover how Aids has been represented in political cartoons published in major South African newspapers. Two sub-problems are identified. The first sub-problem looks at the frequency of Aids-related cartoons over the study period and follows a quantitative approach using content analysis. The second sub-problem considers the representation of Aids in cartoons and uses a qualitative approach through the application of semiotic analysis. This analysis is based on the interpretation of the sign system drawing on the iconic, indexical and symbolic elements in the cartoon. In conclusion, the value of political cartoons is debated. Political cartoons serve as an important adjunct to editorials, providing a summary of a certain situation or event. As a visual image, cartoons can instantly make a point that would be difficult to articulate in written text and often leave a lasting impressions on the reader. A problem in analysing political cartoons is the lack of definitive supportive theories. A model devised by Medhurst and Desousa, based on the assumption that the political cartoon is a rhetorical device, is used as the starting point.     

The eclipse of consociationalism in South Africa's Democratic Transition

This article considers the failure of consociationalism ‐ claimed by its proponents to be the best form of democracy for countries characterized by ethnic cleavages ‐ to provide any plausible solution to the dilemmas that faced political elites in South Africa as they exited from apartheid and moved towards majoritarian democracy. The basic argument here is that consociationalism's one‐dimensional approach to ethnic politics depleted the model of any pragmatic utility, especially when it became evident that the ethnic equation in South Africa was more fluid than the consociational model had entertained.     

Unintended Consequences of EU Democracy Support in the European Neighbourhood

ABSTRACT

The European Union’s (EU) impact on the political governance of the European neighbourhood is varied and sometimes opposite to the declared objectives of its democracy support policies. The democracy promotion literature has to a large extent neglected the unintended consequences of EU democracy support in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. The EU has left multiple imprints on the political trajectories of the countries in the neighbourhood and yet the dominant explanation, highlighting the EU’s security and economic interests in the two regions,cannot fully account for the unintended consequences of its policies. The literature on the ‘pathologies’ of international organisations offers an explanation, emphasizing the failures of the EU bureaucracy to anticipate, prevent or reverse the undesired effects of its democracy support in the neighbourhood.     

Public confidence in the judiciary: the interaction between political awareness and level of democracy

Apart from the studies that focus on public attitudes toward higher courts in advanced democracies, we know little about the factors that can explain public confidence in the judiciary in a comparative setting. In this regard, the goal of this study is to explain whether, and to what extent, the country's level of democracy moderates the impact of political awareness on public confidence in the judiciary. This study uses hierarchical linear models to analyse the interaction between individual and country level factors by using the World Values Survey (2005–2009) data for 49 countries and various other data sources. Our empirical results show that in advanced democracies political awareness variables like education and political participation have a positive impact on public confidence in the judiciary, whereas in countries with weak levels of democracy higher political awareness leads to increased cynicism about the judiciary. These results suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to explain confidence in the judiciary is not possible when we are dealing with a wide range of societies that vary in terms of many characteristics, both institutional and cultural.     

Web-based communication: the need for more valuable on-line information

Abstract

Numerous studies about the Internet have already been conducted or are in the process of being conducted. However, after several years there still is no clear understanding of what form Web-based or on-line communication should take to make it really valuable to the consumer.

The contribution of this article is its attempt to address the current contents of Web-based communication and to provide some ideas with regard to the shortcomings in this regard. It addresses the impact of the Internet on the South African society, the Internet as a new communication medium as well as its effect on organisational communication. It also argues that an on-line presence is no longer enough and that online customers want more value in terms of their online experience.

Although Web-based communication has become an integral part of many organisational practices, traditional communication channels or media will not necessarily become obsolete. The Internet is a new communication medium with much potential and can eliminate problems associated with traditional media and channels.

Web-based communication has become a powerful new means of communication in South Africa. Information has become more accessible, more affordable as well as more manageable to both individuals and organisations and has in the process also empowered South African society with more knowledge. However, new technologies are not only concerned with the availability of new communication channels, but also with the development of new credible communication messages for successful communication.

Web-based communication is a more complex task and requires a much more skillful approach to be successful than is the general belief among communication practitioners. After the initial rush to obtain an on-line organisational presence, organisations are currently concerned with the effective integration of the Internet into their traditional marketing communication mix. Marketers, public relations practitioners and advertisers today benefit from the advantages of Web-based communication in conjunction with traditional media. However, even though it is clear that the Internet has an impact on organisational communication (integration), it is less obvious what form on-line information should take to make it really valuable to the consumer.     

Democracy assistance and women's political empowerment in post-conflict countries

Democracy promoters around the world cling to the hope that assistance given to civil society organizations decreases the risk of civil war and will lead to democracy in post-conflict societies. A particularly promising segment of civil society in peacebuilding is women. Inspired by Welzel and Inglehart's “human empowerment: path to democracy” this study places democracy assistance to women in a broader mechanism which forms a theoretical foundation of this study. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the author's insights from the fieldwork demonstrate that in order to assess the impact of democracy assistance on women's political empowerment the comprehensive women's political empowerment mechanism should be employed. The statistical examination, however, reveals that women's political activism is largely the function of legal empowerment and a country's political and socio-economic characteristics. The study also shows the limitations of current impact evaluation methodologies, and suggests better evaluation tools.     

The Internet,Public Spheres,and Political Communication: Dispersion and Deliberation

The theme of the Internet and the public sphere now has a permanent place on research agendas and in intellectual inquiry; it is entering the mainstream of political communication studies. The first part of this presentation briefly pulls together key elements in the public sphere perspective, underscoring three main analytic dimensions: the structural, the representational, and the interactional. Then the discussion addresses some central themes in the current difficulties facing democracy, refracted through the lens of the public sphere perspective. In particular, the destabilization of political communication systems is seen as a context for understanding the role of the Internet: It enters into, as well as contributes to, this destabilization. At the same time, the notion of destabilization can also embody a positive sense, pointing to dispersions of older patterns that may have outlived their utility. Further, the discussion takes up obvious positive consequences that follow from the Internet, for example that it extends and pluralizes the public sphere in a number of ways. Thereafter the focus moves on to the interactional dimension of the public sphere, specifically in regard to recent research on how deliberation proceeds in the online public sphere in the contemporary environment of political communication. Finally, the analytic category of deliberative democracy is critically examined; while useful, some of its rationalist biases, particularly in the context of extra–parliamentarian politics, limit its utility. It is suggested that the concept of civic cultures offers an alternative way to understand the significance of online political discussion.     

Democracy,human rights,and U.S.‐Africa trade

The nexus of economic and political relations is a central issue in international relations, and the influence of political liberalization upon trade ties lies at the center of much liberal theory. However, many facets of the empirical linkage between political liberalization—including democratization and the respect for human rights—and trade remain uninvestigated. Examining the case of U.S.‐Africa trade, this study considers two unexplored facets of these political determinants of trade: (1) the role of human rights conditions, and (2) the robustness of the relationship between democracy, human rights, and trade across a subset of vertical dyads. Using a gravity model to assess trade patterns, we find that neither democracy nor human rights conditions has a significant impact upon U.S. trade to Africa.