Visual Representation of Black Women’s Empowerment in Online Political Advertisements: A Case Study of South Africa

This paper argues that Black women are represented in online political advertisements during South African election campaigns. Through the qualitative online research approach, this paper deploys a purposive sample of 30 online political advertisements of the African National Congress (ANC), Democratic Alliance (DA), and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) from the national, provincial, and local government 2009 and 2024 elections cycles. This paper deploys an Africana Womanist Approach as both a theoretical and analytical framework to interrogate underlying visual rhetoric concerning how Black women are depicted in the sampled online political advertisements, particularly in the framework of post-apartheid South Africa. Findings revealed that Black women are consistently portrayed in the ANC, DA, and EFF advertisements as maternal figures, labourers, marginalised individuals, and iconic of anti-apartheid activists’ inequality since the 1994 transition. Nevertheless, it was also found that Black women continue to be seen as emblems of poverty and underdevelopment, despite the political promises of change. This paper advances understanding as to how perspectives on Africana women shape the visual framing of political messages in the South Africa online campaign environment, demonstrating how these representations can be aligned to produce cultural and political communication strategies.