Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

3-minute read
17 May 2023 | 15:40 CAT

Image: The African Mirror

According to social scientists, Freedom has lost meaning for numerous South Africans. They believe despondency about democracy is rising as the pledge of success under a new and caring government was eroded because of poor governance, corruption and incompetency. Wits Professor Nicky Falkof has released a book called “Worrier State”, in which she explores the narratives on how fear overloads in mainstream and digital media.

Nicky Falkof is a media studies professor who researches race and anxiety. She says fear and anxiety are significant elements of what it feels like to live in South Africa. Fear significantly affects how people vote, what they spend their money on, and who they treat as outlanders.

According to The Conversation, fear significantly affects how people vote, what they spend their money on, who they consider part of their communities and who they treat as outlanders. Pretty much all the major political parties in this country use racist and jingoistic dog-whistle tactics to frighten the population with the threat of loss of jobs, increased violence or, indeed, just feeling uncomfortable due to the presence of strangers. Media coverage of these political activations of collaborative anxiety distracts voters from the multiple failures of the political class by amplifying the sense that citizens are in danger from outsiders, says Falkof.

Meanwhile, Falkof doesn’t believe the fear will pass. The Conversation reported, Falkof stated, “One of the points I make in the book is that cultures of fear, while extraordinarily visible and racialised in South Africa, aren’t at all unique to this country. The general increase in fear and anxiety is a global condition which has to do with a number of factors. These include the explosion of digital technology and corresponding transmission of misinformation; the alienating conditions of late capitalism, in which power and money are verbose and distant; people’s increasing senses of powerlessness given these circumstances; and global phenomena like climate change that do actually pose a significant risk, but that feel unmanageably vast.”