Television and Black Twitter in South Africa: Our Perfect Wedding

Abstract

This article examines Twitter use by audiences of the popular South African television show, Our Perfect Wedding. We argue that the show’s Twitter feed provides an extension of South Africa’s ‘Black Twitter’ facilitating a space for recognition and group identity for Black South African television viewers. Such a space is significant since Black audiences have been neglected in the short history of South African television broadcasting. On Our Perfect Wedding, broadcast on a satellite television service DStv to paying subscribers, questions of class and race are salient for an audience group prized as an emerging market of Black middle-class viewers. Through qualitative analysis of a sample of tweets featuring the hashtag, #OPWMzansi ( Our Perfect Wedding South Africa), we demonstrate how Twitter is used for the performance and negotiation of class and race for the audience. The comedy of the show’s Twitter commentary is largely dependent upon judgements around class, taste and language. While the Twitter feed features creative user contributions, the #OPWMzansi network reveals that much of the communication is prompted and networked back to the official programme Twitter site, demonstrating the centrality of the traditional television broadcaster to Twitter interactions with the text.

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