During election campaigns political parties compete to inform voters about their leaders, the issues, and where they stand on these issues. Democratic theory supposes that participatory democracies are better served by an informed electorate than an uninformed one. This has resulted in party campaigns being focused on making sure that their respective supporters and prospective supporters are well inclined with their main concerns, this is done through manifesto’s and other such documents that outline the key issues a particular party focuses on. This development in campaigning has led to a renewed interest in analysing successful campaigns. As such my groups’ research question was: what were the key campaign messages that the ANC and the EFF tried to convey about themselves during the 2014 election campaign? How effective were these campaigns and how these messages were received? In order to answer these questions empirical research was conducted using standardised questionnaires.
Due to the nature of our research question we focused on particular questions within the combined survey which would speak to our main research question. These sub-questions include media exposure, feelings towards leaders and the importance of policy in voter decision making. These sub-questions would direct our research and ultimately infer a certain assumption. The importance of each of these sub-questions is paramount in understanding and ultimately being able to reach a deduction from the data.
Challenges faced and positive gains from the fieldwork process
The challenges that I faced were two fold, there were challenges faced by me as the interviewer and those face by the interviewee. The first challenge that I faced was related to the time that the surveys took to be conducted as a whole. I underestimated the time that it would take for me to finish all the surveys. This put pressure on me and one could argue that this impacted the interview process as survey conduction needed to be hurried in order to meet the designated number of surveys that were to be done. On the interviewee side the time component also played an unpleasant role. The time allocated for each survey was fifteen minutes, but this was rarely the case most participants could not finish in fifteen minutes and most complained about the extensive time it took to finish the survey.
This dilemma of time brought an unforeseen problem of unfinished or poorly finished questionnaires mostly the last questions were not done to the standard of the top questions, some even failed to answer the last few questions as they had run out of their own time they had setup to complete the survey. This resulted in a low response rate in the last few questions; this became an issue as there was no way of interpreting the population that the non-respondents represent.
Another problem was the processing of data after completion of the surveys. The process of data entering, editing and analysing the completed questionnaires’ is subject to a great deal of human error. Maintaining high level of quality control during this process takes time and it is very tempting to skip steps that ensure that the data is reliable.
With one of the respondents language seemed to be a factor in understanding the questions in the questionnaire. This language barrier resulted in me having to explain most of the questions, this resulted I felt in a skewed response as the respondent answered the questions in terms of how I had explained and understood of the question. The desired response would be one the person fully engages with themselves and gives an answer uninfluenced by the interviewee.
Limitation of the study
The limitations to the study vary from those imposed by the questionnaire itself and those limitations experienced by the respondents. The limitations of the questionnaire are that; because the questionnaire uses closed ended questions the opinion of the respondents is very limited. The disadvantage of this that respondents are usually heavily opinionated when it comes to politics and these opinions are not always captured by the answers one can answer in the questionnaire. The solution to this problem is to perhaps leave an opinion box at the end of the questionnaire. Secondly, due to the standardised format of the questionnaire it is not encouraged that the interviewers explain any points that the respondent might misinterpret. This could be partially solved by piloting the questions on a small group of respondents.
On the side of the respondents the limitations are that; firstly, there is no way of telling how truthful the respondents are being or how much thought was put into answering the questions. These two problems can be solved by perhaps giving some sort of incentive to the respondents, the questionnaire could also be emailed to the respondents to do in their own free time and comfort zone, thus respondents can fully engage with the questionnaire and take their own time to finish the questionnaire. Secondly, people may read differently into each question and therefore reply based on their own interpretation of the question, for example what is ‘good’ to someone may be ‘poor’ to someone else. This limitation may be solved by rather using a focus group interview rather than a questionnaire. This gives people the chance to elaborate on why they would choose a certain answer whilst engaging with other views that might prompt a different view of the subject at hand.
Recommended changes to questionnaire and method
The recommended changes to the questionnaire are not many as one acknowledges that the questionnaire was created to answer a plethora of different main questions. That said there are a few recommendations that I would give. Firstly the time allocation for the entire questionnaire should be at least twenty minutes to avoid the rushing of respondents. Secondly, the questionnaire could have perhaps run as a small sample conducted by the students in order for them to properly choose an appropriate group of respondents.
It would also perhaps work to one’s advantage if the questionnaire could be administered in the language of choice of the respondent, this would eliminate any language barrier and lead to a better understanding of the questions and also more reliable responses.
In terms of the method, focus groups I feel should have been compulsory in order to expose the students to the thinking patterns of the respondents thus giving them an understanding of the field being studied. Focus groups would also be very relevant in answering of questions that deal with public opinion as people would be free to express such opinions.
Key findings
Media
According to table one the main source of campaign information comes from TV news with 47.2% percent of the respondents attaining their information from TV. It is then fair to assume that parties with relatively high levels of media coverage through television will have an advantage over those parties that don not enjoy such media coverage. The ANC in this regard would be seen advantageous over the EFF in getting its party campaign to the masses since it is a new party. According to the research, conducted by Media Monitoring Africa, the ANC enjoyed 39% of the media coverage during the election campaign trail, the DA received 26% of media coverage and newcomer EFF got 12%(K. Magubane. 2014).These projections prove our theory.The three parties ANC, DA, and EFF collectively enjoyed nearly 80% of the media coverage in the seven weeks leading up to the national general elections (K. Magubane. 2014).
Media Monitoring Africa director William Bird said that media coverage of elections and governance had not only improved in the past 20 years but had become more diverse. However, he said, much of the media coverage during the election campaign trail focused on party politics, campaign activities and politicians’ remarks, while significantly side-lining issues including economics, crime, service delivery, education and social justice(K. Magubane. 2014). This would suggest that the media platform was not efficiently utilised by the parties to expose and push their key campaign messages. This then bergs the question of the effectiveness of their campaigns, at least in media it seems parties were not effective in revealing their key campaign messages.
It is also interesting to note that only 10.3% of the 828 respondents were satisfied with party campaigns in SA, this might suggest that the population are also aware of the side-lining of important issues in media coverage of parties and are not satisfied with the methods that the parties use in order to obtain votes. Like the ANC only handing out food parcels during the election campaigns or the EFF building a house in Nkandla, this would seem as if political parties are buying votes instead of earning them on merit (service delivery, realistic manifesto).
Feelings & trust
A large number of the respondents take into account the leader of the party when voting. According to the data 63.6% of the respondents take into account the leader of a party when making their decision of which party to vote for. This relates to the question of the respondents’ feelings around the party leaders which will ultimately affect the votes each party gets and speak to how the campaign messages, relayed by the party leaders, were conveyed and interpreted by the respondents.
Both presidential candidates of the ANC and EFF are viewed negatively by the respondents, however due to loyalty towards the ANC and because the line between state services and ANC charity is often blurred, many households rely on the government for income thus interpreting that as ANC lead generosity. Almost 44% depend on the welfare system created by the ANC to make ends meet (J. Ledgard. 2014). Most of the jobs created since 2009 have been in the public sector which also adds to peoples preconception of a working ANC. Those who are disenchanted with the ANC turn to public protest rather than to political rivals. Many black voters believe the DA, which has a liberal tradition, would bring back apartheid if it won a majority. Many will also vote for EFF as well due to the youth being drawn to EFF policies. According to the tables and the data we deduce that most respondents are hostile to both, neutral respondents are of the same number but however there are more positive respondents to Malema with a valid percentage of 8.7% compared to Zuma with a valid percentage of 4.2% in as far as a positive response is concerned. This is the only difference in as far as the respondents are concerned.
The question of the respondents’ trusting parties revealed that the people trust the EFF more with 33.4 % of the respondents trusting it compared to the ANC’s dwindling 25.5%. This can be attributed to the fact that the ANC is the incumbent and corruption, service delivery protests and strong opposition make it vulnerable.
Interests of the people & policies
In order to be in a position to answer the question of the parties representing the interests of all people one must microscopically look at the racial demographics of our nation. For one there are many arguments, relative across all parties that seek to identify a particular which every party is bias towards. However, given the scope of our research question we focused on the two parties. The ANC being custodian of the concept of the rainbow nation and having representation of all races in its leadership and membership on the ground seems to be a party that represents the interests of all people. Looking at the data we find an affirmation of this argument as 40.4 % of the respondents feel that they represent the interest of all people. Whilst, the EFF with its radical policies in as far as the economy is concerned and the emphasis on restoring the land to black people it is seen as a party that represents only the interests of the poor and marginalized which is the interests of the black majority in our nation.
According to the data this is again affirmed when only 17.95 of the respondents feel that the EFF represents the interests of all people. Evidence suggests that policy issues were not key motivating factors for the South African electorate. First, there was very little relevant policy based information available with which to assess how, or indeed whether, parties pursue specific policy agendas. An assessment of media coverage and political party campaigns prior to the 2009 national and provincial elections shows a disjuncture between those issues voters cared most about and those the media and political parties promoted (C. S. Herzenberg.2010).
Looking at the policies of the two parties and as aforementioned they speak differently to the people of South Africa. The ANC has an all-encompassing policy framework which speaks to the protection of an open economy, willing buyer willing seller and no bias given to any race or class compared to the EFF with a redressive and much more radical approach therefore it is evident in the data with 67.6% percent saying policy matters a lot when considering voting. Which is why the majority of the respondents felt that the ANC represents the interests of all people more than the EFF does.
Conclusion
The key findings of the study have established that according to the data the respondents were not satisfied with the level of party campaigning in South Africa. This reveals that the messages the party tried to convey about themselves were either not well received or where not received at all. Thus the effectiveness of campaigns is highly questionable, ranging from partially effective to not effective at all.
References
C. S.Herzenberg. 2010. Voting in the 2009 South African Elections: Did Public Policy Matter? Institute for Security Studies. Cape Town
K. Magubane. 2014. ANC, DA, EFF ‘dominate’ media space during 2014 election campaign trail. Business Day. Retrieved 05 May 2014, 18:48 at http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/