Document details

Social Media and Everyday Life in South Africa

London; New York: Routledge (2021), x, 157 pp.

Contains index

Series: Routledge Contemporary South Africa Series

ISBN 9780367628581 (pbk); 9780429316524 (ebook)

"This volume explores how, over the past decade, social media platforms have deeply penetrated the fabric of everyday life. The author considers South Africans’ use of wearable tech and use of online health and sports tracking systems via mobile phones within the broader context of the digital data economy. The author also focuses on the dating app Tinder, to show how people negotiate and redefine intimacy through the practice of online dating via strategic performances in pursuit of love, sex and intimacy. The book concludes with the use of Facebook and Twitter for social activism (e.g. Fees Must Fall), as well as networked community building as in the case of the #imstaying movement." (Publisher description)
1 Introduction to social media and everyday life in South Africa, 1
2 Wearable tech and the qualified self: a sociological analysis of South African Strava users, 12
3 Liquid love? South Africans' experiences of Tinder, 33
4 Social media, space and place: #capetown on Instagram, 52
5 (Re)imagining the nation: Facebook, the #imstaying movement and cultural citizenship, 74
6 (De)constructing the movement: the social media ecology of #FeesMustFall, 94
7 Social media and social movements: the hashtagged activism of #ZumaMustFall, 114
8 Twitter, race and social surveillance in the (virtual) public sphere, 133