#PutSouthAfricansFirst: Exploring how hashtag activism on Black Twitter promotes xenophobia

Abstract

Social media has challenged the idea that mainstream media shapes the public, media, and policy agenda. The fragmentation of audiences and their selective consumption of content has challenged the traditional ideas of agenda-setting theory, as well as highlighted the influence of discourse. Fittingly, principles of the agenda-setting theory and discourse theory apply to this study which seeks to explore which discourse under #PutSouthAfricansFirst sets the public agenda for misperceptions and violence towards black African immigrants in South Africa. The study uses netnography and discourse analysis to assess purposively selected tweets under the #PutSouthAfricansFirst from June 2023 to July 2023, a period prone to xenophobic attacks in South Africa. The results indicated that crime, political rhetoric, strife for jobs, and dehumanisation are pivotal topics of the #PutSouthAfricansFirst xenophobic discourse inundating Black Twitter (X) in South Africa. It is these issues that appear to set the agenda among the public and in the media for negative perceptions and physical violence targeted at black African immigrants.