Read-Write-Erase: Mobile-mediated publics in South Africa’s elections.

This paper describes four kinds of mobile mediated political participation observed during the 2009 national elections in South Africa: (1) SMS ‘wars’ in the run-up to the election; (2) .mobi websites hosted by political parties; and the political content included on (3) the mobile social network Mig33 and excluded from (4) its counterpart/competitor, MXit. We 1 The paper is the independent expression and responsibility of the authors; the views expressed are the authors’, and cannot be ascribed to their employers in any way. We are grateful for the insightful feedback we received on this paper from participants in the Mobile Communication and Social Policy conference held at Rutgers University, 9-11 October, 2009, and for suggestions for revision from