Neo Sithole🇿🇦 🇭🇺

Badimo ba Tsamaea le Nna 👣 /ECPS Non-Residential Research Fellow/ 2024-2025 DOSZ Ambassador for South Africa

[Dr Ally Louks @DrAllyLouks]

Delighted to announce a Call for Papers for the Smell Studies Journal, which will be the first international, peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to the field of Smell Studies. It’s a privilege to be on the editorial board and to be in charge of communications! 👃🏻

[@populismstudies @populismstudies]

📢 ECPS Commentary

⚡️ The Politics of Attention: Visibility, Legitimacy, and the Transformation of Democratic Competition

✍️ By Yacine Boubia

🚨 Why do traditional frameworks centered on ideology, institutions, elections, and economic interests seem increasingly inadequate for explaining contemporary politics? In this insightful commentary, Yacine Boubia argues that the missing variable is attention—and its transformation into a primary source of political influence, legitimacy, and power in the digital age.

📱 As digital platforms increasingly shape how citizens encounter politics, political competition is no longer merely a contest over policies, parties, or votes. It has become a struggle to capture and sustain public attention. Boubia traces how the transition from an era of informational scarcity to one of informational abundance has fundamentally altered the conditions of democratic governance, empowering actors who can dominate communicative space regardless of their institutional position or policy expertise.

📌 The commentary examines:
👉 How attention became a form of political capital
👉 The relationship between visibility and democratic legitimacy
👉 The rise of the “influencer politician”
👉 The impact of platform algorithms on political communication
👉 Why attention-driven politics advantages populist actors
👉 Donald Trump and the strategic exploitation of the attention economy
👉 The erosion of deliberative norms in democratic life
👉 The challenge of rebuilding democratic communication infrastructures

⚖️ Drawing on the work of Habermas, Postman, Debord, Laclau, Simon, and Tufekci, the commentary offers a sophisticated analysis of how commercial and algorithmic communication systems increasingly reward visibility over competence, emotional activation over deliberation, and spectacle over accountability.

🌍 An important contribution to contemporary debates on populism, democratic resilience, media power, digital platforms, and the future of liberal democracy.

📕 Read the commentary: 🔗 https://t.co/PPRM851jZ0

#ECPS #Democracy #Populism #PoliticalCommunication #AttentionEconomy #DigitalPolitics #SocialMedia #PoliticalTheory #DemocraticGovernance #MediaStudies #PublicSphere #DigitalDemocracy #PoliticalScience #PlatformPower

[@populismstudies @populismstudies]

📢 ECPS Interview / VIDEO🎥

🇦🇲 Richard Giragosian: Russia Is Increasingly Seen as Part of the Problem by Armenians Rather Than the Solution

✍️ Interview by Selcuk Gultasli

▶️ Watch our latest ECPS interview featuring Richard Giragosian (@Richard_RSC), Founding Director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC) in Yerevan, as he unpacks Armenia’s democratic trajectory, geopolitical transformation, and evolving relationship with Russia in the aftermath of war and the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh.

🌍 As Armenia navigates a changing regional order, Giragosian argues that the 2026 election was not simply a choice between East and West, but a democratic mandate for peace, stability, and normalization with its neighbors.

⚡ He also offers a nuanced assessment of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s political evolution, exploring how the populist energy of the Velvet Revolution has confronted the realities and constraints of governance.

📌 In this interview:
👉 Armenia’s post-Karabakh strategic recalibration
👉 Russia’s declining credibility in Armenian public opinion
👉 Democratic resilience under external pressure
👉 Populism in power and institutional challenges
👉 Armenia–Turkey normalization and relations with Azerbaijan
👉 Europe’s role in Armenia’s democratic future
👉 Patriotism, national identity, and political transformation
👉 The future of democracy in the South Caucasus

💬 “Many Armenians now see Russia as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.”

🎯 An essential discussion on democracy, populism, regional security, and geopolitical change in one of the world's most strategically significant regions.

🎬 Watch the interview: 🔗 https://t.co/qYK72tzyFN

📕Read the interview: 🔗 https://t.co/z81aWUtc9G

#ECPS #RichardGiragosian #Armenia #Pashinyan #Populism #Democracy #DemocraticResilience #SouthCaucasus #NagornoKarabakh #Russia #EuropeanUnion #Geopolitics #Authoritarianism #DemocraticBacksliding #Turkey #Azerbaijan #InternationalRelations #PoliticalScience

[Nchema @ShottaZee]

The significance/history behind public holidays is slowly fading out in this country. We were warned about changing their original names in the name of "unity" and "reconciliation" and now the impact is becoming visible with every year. Even government events are now lowkey.

[iScathulo SePhara 👞 @ISephara]

When are they gonna unveil youth employment?

[Phindile Kunene🇵🇸🇨🇩🇸🇩 @kunenephindz]

Why are these xenophobic vigilante groups allowed to torment and provoke people like that? They spoiling for a fight. The aim is to provoke violence on the part of migrants and then use this as a basis for indiscriminate attacks. It's an old script. We know how this story ends.

[Hinokami Kagura @Khuze_Elikhulu]

No. And even if it did, it's fine. We would have been betraying ourselves as South Africa if we hadnt done something.

[thami @thamieverywhere]

even the poster is full of defenders 💔

[Pollicy @PollicyOrg]

📣The Pollicy 2026 Fellowship is now OPEN for applications!

We’re looking for thoughtful, creative, values-aligned people passionate about data, technology & digital rights.

Join our feminist collective for a 6-month paid fellowship and help shape more just digital futures.

Apply 👉🏾 https://t.co/LIvrtDixeF

#PollicyFellowship

[Veve @LudidiVelani]

There are undocumented South Africans. Thousands of them

[Nat ✨ FREE 🇵🇸 @loopzoooop]

that’s the question isn’t it. what WILL she do? there are no youth clubs for her to attend. food, cinema tickets, any sort of third space activity is all too expensive. their parents are underpaid, saturday jobs don’t exist any more, children have truly been abandoned by the govt

[Mzwandile Zulu @Father_Of_Geeks]

Hello Mzansi, we made it! 🇿🇦
For the first time in history, South Africans can code in their own language.
Introducing CMT-SALanguages — Python in all 11 official SA languages.

isiZulu · isiXhosa · Afrikaans · Sesotho · Setswana · Sepedi · siSwati · isiNdebele ·
Tshivenda · Xitsonga

Read all functions, keywords etc here:👇🏽
https://t.co/fdzmQRxQta

#YouthDay #June16

[DME 🇳🇦 @dme_363]

How did FIFA allow two African teams to face each other during the group stage of the World Cup?

[Dr Gugu Nogwebela @Gugu_Noggy]

Since it's youth day...thought I should share that we will be running an initiative where we teach(online) High School mathematics during the school holidays.

If you have a kid in High School, please register them via this link: https://t.co/2zagEuGvRh

[Neo Sithole🇿🇦 🇭🇺 @PrimeSithole]

BROOS!!!! We will never forgive you!

[Bloke @UtdBloke_]

Africans at the World cup.

[Peaches @Nsikoe]

Hire the unemployed SAn youth to speed up this process!

[Lesilo Rula @kay_mahapa]

UEFA president said the 48 team World Cup creates “uninteresting” games. A few days later, the Champions of Europe fail to beat World Cup debutants, Cape Verde.

[Godzilla @GhostOfTheWest_]

This is not it man. Idc but you just don’t treat people like this

[Save Yamal's Legs™ @leewritesalot]

Once again, if your knowledge about xenophobia on this continent starts & ends with South Africa, that is a reflection of a poor media diet. There are people who only understand what is going on in Africa through Western media & Twitter & that is unfortunate

[Lorch’s wife💍❤️ @DineoManamela1]

Cape Verde, in their 1st ever World Cup participation held SPAIN to a draw. This makes me hate Hugo Broos more and more and more and more.