This thesis explores the role and positionality of three Black public intellectuals in post-94 South Africa, namely, Simphiwe Dana, Ntsiki Mazwai and Sisonke Msimang. For the purpose of this study, I analysed the twitter postings shared by these intellectuals on various social matters that concern the condition of the Black in post-94 South Africa. Using Fanon’s Native Intellectual Consciousness as a lens, the study seeks to capture and evaluate an emergent form of ‘cyber’ activism in the country. The main argument of this thesis is that, the concept and function of intellectualism must undergo a complete overhaul, beginning with the accommodation of more voices, particularly those of oppressed Black women. For this reason, the study is based on three Black women and seeks to dismantle the colonial lens through which Black women are studied This study not only historicises Black women as producers, users and custodians of knowledge but it also situates their lived experiences as relevant ‘knowledges’ albeit ignored in discourse. Moreover, the study is not only a form of epistemic protest against epistemic racism, but it is also a form of Black positioning in communication studies. I therefore posit that, Black Twitter is the communicative plane on which blackness performs and articulates itself, for itself. For this purpose, I conceptualise Black Solidarity within Communication studies; a field that often pretends to be only marginally affected by issues of race. This study contributes to Communication Studies, a new, raw and altruistic way of studying blackness by allowing it to think, and speak through its pain as opposed to the usual pathologising white gaze. Using the decolonial concept of a traditional Imbadu as the methodological aspect in conducting this study, I observe that even in the face of debilitating colonial hangover, blackness persists through those intellectuals whose intergenerational trauma forces them to think and speak from Blackness. The chosen intellectuals who are feminists by choice, think and speak from Blackness albeit being silenced by oppression. As such, the study itself is a pedagogical contradiction to the orthodox axiology of a detached scholar and hence written in the autobiographical form. / Communication Science / D. Phil. (Communication)

This study uses Frantz Fanon‟s thoughts on race and blackness, the black elite and black public intellectuals as the theoretical framework and examines the positionality of Sipho Seepe, Xolela Mangcu and Andile Mngxitama as black public intellectuals in order to understand how they view the post-1994 political discourse. Seepe, Mangcu and Mngxitama‟s views are studied by analysing themes emerging from newspaper columns they have written. This study reveals that the three black public intellectuals examined have been radical and forthright, though they display different understandings of race and blackness, the black elite and black public intellectuals. However, the study reveals that only Mngxitama‟s postionality has been consistently radical, whereas Seepe and Mangcu‟s views have been fluid and are now considered moderate. This study concludes by highlighting the relevance of Fanon‟s thoughts in enabling a new reading of post-1994 South Africa. Of central importance is the creation of the „new being‟, who is informed by the process of liberation, which is the antithesis of the black condition. / Political Sciences / M. A. (Politics)

This study uses Frantz Fanon‟s thoughts on race and blackness, the black elite and black public intellectuals as the theoretical framework and examines the positionality of Sipho Seepe, Xolela Mangcu and Andile Mngxitama as black public intellectuals in order to understand how they view the post-1994 political discourse. Seepe, Mangcu and Mngxitama‟s views are studied by analysing themes emerging from newspaper columns they have written. This study reveals that the three black public intellectuals examined have been radical and forthright, though they display different understandings of race and blackness, the black elite and black public intellectuals. However, the study reveals that only Mngxitama‟s postionality has been consistently radical, whereas Seepe and Mangcu‟s views have been fluid and are now considered moderate. This study concludes by highlighting the relevance of Fanon‟s thoughts in enabling a new reading of post-1994 South Africa. Of central importance is the creation of the „new being‟, who is informed by the process of liberation, which is the antithesis of the black condition. / Political Sciences / M. A. (Politics)