Reclaiming narratives: exploring how South African social movements use social media to contest the mainstream agenda

Social media has revolutionised communication, enabling communities to report on their issues in their own way. Thus, social movements all over the world have mobilised the power of social media, as these platforms grant their end-users the autonomy to produce and consume communication products. Using the theoretical lens of the digital public sphere, the paper examines the extent to which selected social movements within South Africa use social media to communicate their subaltern issues. The paper employs a qualitative methodology in the form of in-depth interviews with the key leaders of the following social movements: Abahlali BaseMjondolo, Equal Education, the Landless People’s Movement and the Unemployed People’s Movement. In addition, the social media analysis of the Facebook pages of the above-mentioned social movement was conducted to understand the practices of social movements on these platforms. The findings reveal that social media has benefited social movements in a variety of ways, including using social media to challenge mainstream narratives, to communicate instantly, to bypass censorship, to show their creativity, to set the record straight and become the source of news. However, the fact that social movements represent the poorest in society who might be digitally excluded is considered a limiting factor. The findings also reveal that the free flow of information is hindered by Facebook algorithms, which prioritise mainstream pages that have financial resources to push their narratives. Whilst social media is an important tool for social movements to contest the dominant narratives, the mainstream media continues to dominate both traditional and social media spaces, thus enabling them to set the agenda for public discussion.