Mining Social Media for Political Communication: Lessons from an Analysis of Twitter Use between Citizens and the African National Congress pre-2014 South African National Elections

Politweeting is becoming increasingly popular globally. It offers benefits to politicians and to citizens, especially during election periods. Twitter users in Africa are five times more likely to use the platform to voice their political views than those in the US and UK. Yet, few studies from African countries provide insight into such use. This paper attempts to provide insight into the use of the African National Congress (ANC) Twitter account by citizens and politicians in the run-up to the 2014 general elections. The Adaptive Structuration Theory is relevant to the study and netnography was applied to the study. Findings show that the platform was mostly used by citizens rather than the political party and its politicians. Citizens mostly engaged in political commentary amongst each other about party activities and officials. The political organisation mostly used it for image management for the party and its officials. If harnessed through planned design and implementation of digital communication strategies, social media has the potential to be used as effectively for mass communication, yet simultaneously enable interpersonal persuasion between participants, especially during times of elections.