3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item A critical discourse analysis of rhetorical strategies used by South Africa's President, Cyril Ramaphosa: the case of the state of the nation addresses 2018 - 2019(2020) Sekhonyane, PhumlaThis study provides an academic enquiry into presidential rhetoric and how it is employed in presidential speeches to reinforce and maintain power relations. It seeks to analyse how the President Cyril Ramaphosa constructs the reality he seeks to present to the people using rhetorical strategies during the State of the Nation Address (SONA). The study addresses a much-neglected aspect in the field of language, presidential speeches and the State of the Nation Address, particularly in South Africa — this involves how politicians draw from existing discourses to create text in order to shape social realities for the public. This is done through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as a method of analysis, in order to ascertain how language is deployed in order to shape social realities, to reinforce ideologies and maintain power. This study also illuminates how democracy is negotiated and projected through use of rhetorical language.Item The nature of participatory democracy practices in Madibeng municipality(2017) Sephai, Moyagabo LouisaThis report sought to determine the nature of participatory democracy practices in Madibeng municipality. In order to achieve the intension of this study, two research questions were formulated (1) what is the nature of participatory democracy in Madibeng municipality? (2) To what extent does the implementation of participatory democracy mechanisms influence municipal policy decisions? A hypothesis was formulated in respect of the second question that: The implementation of participatory democracy mechanisms in Madibeng is limited to compliance with existing laws and regulations. Data was drawn from two strata’s (population samples), [ward councillors and community members] from Madibeng municipality. A probability simple random sampling was used to collect data from a total list of 36 ward councillors, whilst a non-probability convenient sampling was used to collect data from 27 community members. In respect of ward councillors, the study targeted 26 respondents and only achieved 52% response rate, whilst a total of 11 respondent was targeted and 27 responses were attained, indicating 145% response rate in respect of data collected from community members. The general finding in relation to the first question is that participatory democracy practice in Madibeng municipality is characterised by the implementation of five mechanisms; IDP, Ward committee structures, Mayoral imbizos, Policy public hearings and Petitioning system. A revelation was made that communities prefer to participate in IDP and ward committee structures meetings than the other three mechanisms reflected in the report. However, it remained unclear as to how effective and efficient is the exercising of the two preferred mechanisms. The general arguments found in various literature sources, that the practice of participatory democracy in South Africa’s local municipalities seem ineffective and often do not often yield positive results, was also confirmed by this study. This conclusion was based on the revelations made from the contradicting responses given by ward councilors and community members. In general, ward councilors considered the implementation of available participatory democracy practices in Madibeng as effective and strongly believed such practices informs the municipal Executive Council’s policy decisions to a large extent. On the other hand, community members seemed unsure or inadequately informed about the influence, their participation in policy decisions has on the overall service delivery by the municipality.Item A critical discourse analysis of how South African publics engaged in the social media platform, Facebook, over Nkandlagate in 2015(2016) Kumwenda, SallyThe Nkandlagate scandal, in which the South African President, Jacob Zuma allegedly spent an estimated R246 million of taxpayers’ money on the renovation of his Nkandla residence, created huge public outcry. This reached yet another height in 2015 when Zuma’s administration declared that the President was not going to pay back the money as demanded by the South African publics. The publics of South Africa used social media platforms to express themselves over the decision. Studies have shown that social media platforms provide an opportunity for political mobilisation of publics and their participation in democracy. Using critical discourse analysis, this study seeks to investigate how South African publics engaged in the social media platform, particularly Facebook, over Nkandlagate. The research focuses on the discussions by two political parties’ Facebook pages: an opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The analysis involves posts and comments made by South African publics on each of the Facebook pages to establish how South Africans made use of Facebook to express themselves over Nkandlagate, how the two parties covered Nkandlagate and what kind of discourse emerged from the parties’ posts. The concepts used in this research include the networked public sphere, democracy, watchdog and collective will/opinion. Three dimensions of critical discourse analysis were used for data analysis in this study: description (text genres), interpretation (discursive type) and explanation (social practice.) The insights of South African publics social practices were recognised. This research argues that to a large extent, social media has provided South African publics with access to Facebook a public sphere through which democracy – particularly in terms of freedom of speech – is exercised. However, there is a lack of democratic interaction in that although there was interactive engagement amongst publics, there was a lack of interactive engagement between politicians and publics.