Visual Political Humour as Political Dissent: South African Online Posters Under Government of National Unity

Abstract

The social media platform, referred to as X, is populated with a variety of visual images, including memes and online political posters that employ visual political humour to undermine the legitimacy of the newly established Government of National Unity (GNU) in post- apartheid South Africa. This paper posits that the black audience on social media X employs visual political humour, using an array of visual rhetorical techniques such as political cartoons, satire, sarcasm, posters, and visual metaphors to counter, protest, reject, or trivialise government decisions or political figures regarding issues such as high inflation, colloquially termed 'Cyril's economy', and the GNU. The role of visual political humour within visual political communication is to frame political discourse, either to legitimise or delegitimise a political actor or issue, to establish a political agenda, and to influence public opinion. The objective of this paper is to explore the discursive practices of visual political humour and to deconstruct the underlying ideological meanings of online political posters depicting key figures of South Africa's major political parties, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), under the GNU. The study employs Black Twitter theory with a particular focus on the counter publics approach, which examines the practices and experiences of black users on X and how they undermine the two main leaders in the GNU political discourse. This paper adopts a qualitative research approach, using purposive sampling to analyse 20 online political posters available on the social media platform X. The analysis method used is critical visual discourse analysis, which interrogates the underlying ideological meanings present in the sampled visual imagery. These posters feature political actors of the ANC and the DA leaders, as well as issues associated with the GNU spanning from 2024 to 2025. Preliminary findings indicate the deployment of various visual and linguistic symbols that undermine President Cyril Ramaphosa and the DA leader, Mr Steenhuisen to underscore the perceived shortcomings of the GNU. This paper contributes empirically to the fields of visual political humour and visual political communication, considering the substantial engagement of political actors with social media platforms such as X to establish political agendas.