Evaluation of the Political Affiliation of Online Participants in Online Political Discussion of Online News Forums During the 2014 South African Elections

This paper seeks to look at political affiliation and participation of online bloggers in online political discussion on online news forums during the 2014 South African general elections. Content analysis was used to analyse bloggers' comments about the 2014 South African general elections. Samples of all commentary appended to 2014 South African general election news reports published online by Media 24, Times Media Group, Mail & Guardian, Independent Newspapers, Caxton CTP, and TNA Media were selected. The study employed a purposive sampling technique and 1000 comments were extracted. NVIVO 11 was utilized to code these bloggers' comments into their respective classifications. The primary findings of this paper showed that online bloggers are more interactive and participative on these online public forums and their political discourse echo political affiliations to different political parties, bearing in mind that South Africa has 13 political parties that participated and are represented in parliament. The findings also revealed that most participants identify with the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), its main opposition, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the most vocal party, and then other parties.