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PERSPECTIVES
ON P O LI T I C A L
COMMUNICATION
IN AFRICA

EDITED BY
BRUCE MUTSVAIRO
BESCHARA KARAM
Perspectives on Political Communication in Africa
Bruce Mutsvairo · Beschara Karam
Editors

Perspectives
on Political
Communication
in Africa
Editors
Bruce Mutsvairo Beschara Karam
School of Communication Department of Communication
University of Technology Sydney Science
Sydney, Australia University of South Africa
Pretoria, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-319-62056-5 ISBN 978-3-319-62057-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62057-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950711

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Peter Adams

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 I should like to dedicate this book to the residents of Imbali
(Pietermaritzburg, circa 1988–1992), and especially the Imbali Support
Group, who, during the height of apartheid and the violent civil war in
Natal, and under the most atrocious conditions, showed me enormous
kindness and taught me that true humanity transcends colour, race,
culture, and even politics. I am forever in their debt.
Beschara Karam
 Acknowledgements

Special thanks to our reviewers (in alphabetical order) for taking their
time to peer-review these chapters for us:

Kelvin Chikonzo
Ronesh Dhawraj
David Katiambo
Mark Kirby-Hirst
Rofhiwa Mukhudwana
Musawenkosi Ndlovu
Julie Reid
Babalwa Sibango
Tendayi Sithole
Stefan Sonderling

vii
 Contents

Part I Conceptualising Political Communication

in the Digital Age

1 Key Developments in Political Communication in Africa 3

Bruce Mutsvairo and Beschara Karam

2 Theorising Political Communication in Africa 27

Beschara Karam

3 Split: Missing the Master Signifier in the Role of the

Media in a Democracy: The Tension between the ANC’s
President Jacob Zuma and the Media in South Africa 45
Glenda Daniels

4 Hashtags: #RhodesMustFall, #FeesMustFall

and the Temporalities of a Meme Event 61
Pier Paolo Frassinelli

ix
x    Contents

Part II Emergent Narratives: Complex and Contradictory

Attitudes between Media and Politics

5 Determinants of Participation in Political

Communication in Uganda’s Broadcast Media:
Implications for Women 79
Emilly Comfort Maractho

6 Mapping Zambia’s Press Freedom Trajectory:

A Longitudinal Study Examining Parliamentarians’
Perceptions of the Media 95
Twange Kasoma and Gregory Pitts

7 At War: Government and Media Tensions

in Contemporary Kenya and the Implications
for Public Interest 113
Sam Kamau

8 Communicating Politics and National Identity:

The Case of Mozambique 129
Gisela Gonçalves and Stélia Neta João Mboene Mapanzene

Part III Online and Offline Mapping of Interactive Politics

and Media

9 Digital Media and Political Citizenship: Facebook

and Politics in South Africa 145
Tanja Bosch

10 Framing the Debate on ‘Kagame III’ in Rwanda’s

Print Media 159
Margaret Jjuuko

11 ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’: Exploring Ethno-Regional

Contestations in Nigerian Political Communication 173
Mercy Ette
 Contents    xi

12 Romancing the Media: A Critical Interrogation

of Political Communication in Presidential Elections
in Kenya 189
George Nyabuga and Wilson Ugangu

13 Fake It till You Make It: The Role, Impact

and Consequences of Fake News 203
Ylva Rodny-Gumede

Part IV Local Politics in a Globalised World

14 Political Communication in a Regressed Democracy:

An Analysis of Political Party Advertising Campaigns
in Zimbabwe’s 2008 Harmonised Election 223
Tendai Chari

15 Interviews with Ivorian Political Journalists:

Examining the Political Role of Local and Foreign
Journalists during Ivory Coast’s 2010–2011
Electoral Crisis 239
Jeslyn Lemke

16 Political Communication in Ghana: Exploring

Evolving Trends and Their Implications
for National Development 255
Africanus Lewil Diedong

Index 269
 Editors and Contributors

About the Editors

Bruce Mutsvairo is an Associate Professor of Journalism Innovation at

the University of Technology Sydney. His previous books with Palgrave
Macmillan are Palgrave Handbook of Media and Communication
Research in Africa (2018), Digital Activism in the Social Media Era:
Critical Reflections on Emerging Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa (2016)
and Perspectives on Participatory Politics and Citizen Journalism in a
Networked Africa: A Connected Continent (2016). He holds a PhD from
Leiden University, The Netherlands.
Beschara Karam is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Communication Science, at the University of South Africa (UNISA)
and teaches political communication and film studies. Beschara co-
wrote the White Paper on Film in 1996, which served as the basis for
the conceptualisation and implementation for the National Film and
Video Foundation. She has published on censorship and film, represen-
tation and the media, gender and the media, trauma, counter-memory,
post-memory and the artist William Kentridge. Beschara is on the edito-
rial board of the accredited journal Image/Text. She is the co-founder
of the community engagement project Landscapes of Cinema: Hearing
Our Voices, Screening Our Cultures, which screens and presents seminars
about African trauma, memory and post-colonialism. Beschara was an
anti-apartheid activist in Imbali, Pietermaritzburg and its surroundings

xiii
xiv    Editors and Contributors

at the height of the state of emergency, in the middle of the civil war
in KwaZulu-Natal (then Natal). She also served on the Executive
Committee of the Black Sash during that time. Beschara also wrote and
introduced the first South African undergraduate political communica-
tion module in 2001.

Contributors

Tanja Bosch completed her undergraduate studies in English and

History (BA, Hons) at the University of Cape Town, before working in
the local film and community radio sectors. She is currently working as
Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town. Tanja completed her
MA in International Affairs with a specialisation in Communication and
Development Studies while a Fulbright Scholar at Ohio University, where
she also graduated with a PhD in Telecommunications. Her PhD dis-
sertation was awarded the US-based Broadcast Educational Association
(BEA) Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2004. Tanja is former
Programme Manager and Station Manager of the local community radio
station Bush Radio. She has also worked as a consultant for UNESCO
community radio stations in Jamaica and Trinidad, and as consultant and
trainer for various South African community radio stations and NGOs.
She currently serves on the board of Fine Music Radio 101.3 FM, where
she also presents a World Music programme. Tanja conducts research
and has published in the following areas: community radio, talk radio
and citizenship, health communication, youth and mobile media, iden-
tity and social networking. She holds a C National Research Foundation
(NRF) rating and is currently involved in several collaborative interna-
tional research projects, including the EU-funded Media, Conflict and
Democratisation project (http://www.mecodem.eu/).
Tendai Chari is a lecturer at the University of Venda, South Africa.
Tendai holds a PhD from Wits University, South Africa. Previously, he
lectured at the University of Zimbabwe (where he was Coordinator of
the Media Programme in the English Department), Zimbabwe Open
University (ZOU), National University of Science and Technology
(NUST) (Zimbabwe) and Fort Hare University (South Africa). He
is widely published in the field of media studies and specialises in
political communication, media ethics, and new media and poli-
tics. His publications have appeared in the Journal of African Media
 Editors and Contributors    xv

Studies, African Identities, Communicatio: South African Journal for

Communication Theory and Research, Ecquid Novi: Journal of African
Media Studies and the Journal on Media and Communications. He
co-edited the book African Football, Identity Politics and Global
Media Narratives: The Legacy of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. He served
as Chairman of Zimbabwe Television (ZTV), as a board member of
Zimbabwe Broadcast Holdings (ZBH) as well as a member of the Media
Commission (MIC) in Zimbabwe.
Glenda Daniels is an Associate Professor in Media and Democracy at
the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Glenda has been a
journalist in the print industry for over two decades, having worked for
most of the big print media companies, starting off her career as a trainee
in 1990 at the Weekly Mail. Prior to that she was an anti-apartheid activ-
ist and student leader serving in the executive of the Black Student
Society at Wits University in the late 1980s. Her last stint in the news-
room was at the Mail & Guardian, as amaBhungane’s first advocacy co-
ordinator in 2011–2012. She served on the Right2Know’s first national
working group in 2011–2012. She joined Wits Journalism as co-ordina-
tor/author of State of the Newsroom in 2012. In 2015 she joined Media
Studies. Glenda is commissioning editor at Fesmedia on media freedom,
freedom of expression and access to information issues. She is also chair
of the South African National Editors’ Forum’s (Sanef) Diversity and
Ethics committee.
Africanus Lewil Diedong holds a PhD in Social Communication
from the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. Africanus is an alumnus
of the Ghana Institute of Journalism. At present, he is a senior lecturer
at the University for Development Studies and the Editor of the Ghana
Journal of Development Studies. He is a member of the International
Association for Media and Communication Research, a former fel-
low of the International Study Commission on Media, Religion and
Culture as well as a recipient of an International Award for Excellence
in Communication. His areas of research include: media and democracy,
media ethics and journalism education, development communication,
media–religion–culture, community radio broadcasting, media education
and pastoral communication. He is the author of the book: Responsible
Journalism and Quest for Professional Standards in Ghana (2016). Dr
Diedong has authored several papers and chapters in peer-reviewed jour-
nals, books, newspapers and magazines in Ghana and overseas.
xvi    Editors and Contributors

Mercy Ette is a senior lecturer in Journalism and Media at the

University of Huddersfield, UK. Mercy holds a PhD in Communication
Studies from the University of Leeds. She worked as a journalist in vari-
ous positions for several years in Nigeria and in the United Kingdom.
Her research focuses on media and democracy, news framing, gendered
mediation and political communication.
Pier Paolo Frassinelli is Associate Professor and PhD coordina-
tor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of
Johannesburg. Pier Paolo has lived in Italy, England, Ireland and, since
2003, South Africa, where he first came to take up a position as Andrew
W. Mellon post-doctoral fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand.
His publications and teaching cut across traditional disciplinary bound-
aries. They span critical theory, post-colonial and de-colonial studies,
translation, and culture, communication and the common. He is Book
and Film Reviews editor of Journal of African Cinemas.
Gisela Gonçalves (PhD in Communication Sciences) is Professor and
Head of the Department of Communication and Arts at the University
of Beira Interior (UBI, Covilhã, Portugal). Gisela develops her research
activity at LabCom.IFP—a Communication, Philosophy and Humanities
research centre. In 2014 she was elected vice-chair of the Organisational
and Strategic Communication section of European Communication
Research and Education Association (ECREA). Her current research
interests are public relations theories, communication ethics and govern-
ment communication. Her work has been published in a wide range of
public relations and communication management journals and in various
edited collections.
Margaret Jjuuko is affiliated to the School of Journalism and
Communication, University of Rwanda, where she teaches Journalism,
Media and Communication studies. Margaret holds a PhD and MA in
Journalism and Media Studies from Rhodes University, South Africa and
a BA of Mass Communication from Makerere University, Uganda. Her
current research interests are in media textual production and audience
reception analyses; gender, environmental social justice, political and cor-
porate communications in African contexts.
Sam Kamau is a Media and Communications scholar at the Aga Khan
University, Graduate School of Media and Communications, with
over nine years’ experience in academia. Sam previously taught at the
 Editors and Contributors    xvii

University of Nairobi’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication

for eight years. His teaching and research interests include political com-
munication, digital journalism, communication research and theory,
new media technologies, social media and blogging, among others. He
has experience and expertise in curriculum development, research, stu-
dent mentorship, teaching and corporate training. He has also served as
a research consultant for several organisations, besides conducting com-
munication training programmes for different groups and clients. As a
researcher specialising in new media technologies, Sam has researched
extensively on youth, social media and political participation and the
impact of digital technologies on journalism. His research has been well
received in local and international conferences. Sam is also a regular con-
ference speaker and a media critic offering commentary and analysis on
different contemporary topics in the local media.
Twange Kasoma is a professor in the School of Communication
at Radford University in Virginia, USA. Twange teaches a variety of
courses in media and communication studies, which include news writ-
ing and reporting, specialised journalism and communication theory.
Prior to joining Radford, she taught at Emory & Henry College (also
in Virginia), where her legacy included establishing a successful study
abroad programme. This involved taking her students to Zambia and set-
ting them up with internships with Zambian media. Her research inter-
ests include media and politics, professionalism and ethics among African
journalists, and the role of the media in African society.
Jeslyn Lemke is a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism and
Communication at the University of Oregon. Jeslyn has taught inter-
personal communication and public speaking at Eastern Washington
University. She worked as a freelance journalist for several newspa-
pers in eastern Washington including the Spokesman Review, the
Inlander and the Lewiston Tribune, and as a full-time general assign-
ment reporter for the Whitman County Gazette in Colfax, WA. In 2008
Jeslyn worked as an intern journalist for the International Mission
Board in Ivory Coast and, in 2005, lived for six months on the coast of
Senegal studying French and writing articles for her college newspaper.
Her areas of interest include development communication, community
journalism, participatory action and social media use in Third World
nations.
xviii    Editors and Contributors

Stélia Neta João Mboene Mapanzene has worked in the Public

Relations department of the Ministry of Economy and Finances of
Mozambique since 2006 and in 2015 Stélia was appointed National
Director for Institutional Coordination and Image. She has a degree
in journalism (Coimbra University, Portugal) and an MA in Strategic
Communication (University of Beira Interior, Portugal). She has
just finished her PhD in Communication Sciences on the theme of
Mozambique political communication and Guebuza’s open presidency,
at the University of Beira Interior.
Emilly Comfort Maractho holds a BA (Hons) in Development Studies
from Makerere University; an MA in Development Studies from Uganda
Martyrs University; an MA in Communication and Media Studies from
Daystar University, Kenya. Emilly is a PhD Candidate at the University
of KwaZulu-Natal, Centre for Communication, Media and Society
(CCMS). She has been a lecturer at Makerere University since 2005
and has also taught at Uganda Christian University. Maractho’s research
interest is communication, gender and development with specific focus
on institutional, legal and policy frameworks within the governance
agenda. She teaches development policy science, media law and policy,
and governance and development, in addition to research methods.
Her doctoral thesis is titled Media, women and public life in Uganda:
Interrogating representation, interaction, and engagement. Maractho
is part of the College of Instructors on Advanced Research Methods
offered by the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research
(PASGR) in conjunction with the Institute of Development Studies
(IDS), University of Sussex, Brighton (UK). Her latest publication is
‘Local governments and primary education in Uganda’, IDS Bulletin,
48(2), March 2017.
George Nyabuga is currently a senior lecturer at the School of
Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Nairobi. Prior to join-
ing the University of Nairobi, George was the managing editor in charge
of weekend editions and media convergence at The Standard Group
in Kenya. He is the author of, among other works, Click on Democracy:
Uses and effects of the Internet on Kenyan Politics (2009) and co-edited
with Wambui Kiai The Media in Kenya: Evolutions, Effects and Challenges
(2011). Nyabuga’s research interests include the sociology of journalism,
new media, journalism and media theory, and comparative media systems.
He has a PhD in Media, Politics and History from Coventry University.
 Editors and Contributors    xix

Gregory Pitts is a professor and director of the ACEJMC accredited

School of Journalism at Middle Tennessee State University. Prior to
this, he chaired the Department of Communications at the University
of North Alabama, where he achieved the programme’s initial accredi-
tation by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication (ACEJMC). Gregory is the past recipient of two
Fulbright appointments and two Fulbright Specialist appointments. He
is Director of Faculty and Student Programs for the National Association
of Television Program Executives (NATPE). Active memberships include
the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
(AEJMC) and the Broadcast Education Association (BEA).
Ylva Rodny-Gumede is Professor in the Department of Journalism,
Film and Television at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa,
and a Senior Associate Researcher with the Stanhope Centre for
International Communications Policy Research at the London School
of Economics. Ylva holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and
African Studies, London University as well as an MA degree in Politics
from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and an MA in
Journalism from Cardiff University in the UK. As a former journalist, her
research mainly focusses on investigating journalism practices, particu-
larly with regard to the role and functions of the news media in the post-
colony.
Wilson Ugangu is currently senior lecturer in Media Studies at
Multimedia University in Kenya, where he also holds the administrative
position of Associate Dean, Faculty of Media & Communication Studies.
He has written and researched extensively on Kenya’s and Africa’s media
and attendant issues of policy, democracy and participation, training and
research. His research focus includes media and communication policy
in developing societies, media and culture, international communication,
comparative media studies and media theory. Wilson has undertaken var-
ious consultancies in the broad area of communication for various organ-
isations such as UNESCO, UNIFEM (United Nations Development
Fund for Women), IDRC (International Development Research
Centre), ASARECA (Association for Strengthening Agricultural
Research in Eastern and Central Africa), the Friedrich Ebert Foundation
and the Media Council of Kenya, among others. He has received per-
sonal Institute of International Education (IIE) grants from the Ford
Foundation to research various issues, including studying media trends
xx    Editors and Contributors

in Kenya and Uganda and an assessment of media reportage of Kenya’s

elections in 2013. In 2012 Wilson led an initiative for the Climate
Change Agriculture and Food Security programme (CCAFS) that uti-
lised local language radio as a tool for enhancing knowledge and dia-
logue in communities coping with climate change. He received a DLitt
et Phil in Communication Science at the University of South Africa in
2013.
 List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 The statue of Cecil John Rhodes is readied to be removed

from the upper campus of the University of Cape Town
(April 2015) 66
Fig. 4.2 Word cloud referring to a data set of 3180 tweets
from @RhodesMustFall 70
Fig. 4.3 Word cloud referring to a data set of 1332 tweets
from @WitsFMF 71
Fig. 5.1 Representation by gender 84
Fig. 5.2 Sources of news by gender adapted from the Uganda
Radio Network (URN) 84
Fig. 6.1 Support for media regulation via a press council in 2015 103
Fig. 6.2 Support for media regulation via a press council in 1997 104
Fig. 6.3 Support for media regulation via a press council in 2005 105
Fig. 6.4 Percentage of members of parliament supporting increased
press freedom in 2015 106
Fig. 6.5 Support for increasing press freedom in 1997 107
Fig. 6.6 Support for increasing press freedom in 2005 108
Fig. 6.7 Do parliamentarians agree that news coverage by various
media outlets is fair and balanced (n = 74; numbers
do not add up to 100%)? 109

xxi
 List of Tables

Table 9.1 Political parties in parliament and their Facebook popularity 150
Table 9.2 Top 4 political parties by Facebook popularity 151

xxiii
 PART I

Conceptualising Political
Communication in the Digital Age
 CHAPTER 1

Key Developments in Political

Communication in Africa

Bruce Mutsvairo and Beschara Karam

Studies in political communication have dominated the disciplines of

political and communication sciences for many years with the ‘prolifera-
tion of communication, media abundance, ubiquity, reach and celerity’
(Blumler and Kavanagh 1999: 213) aggregating and maximising, in cross-
disciplinary oriented scientific interest in these two key areas of research.
Several definitions of political communication have been proposed by
various scholars with Chaffee’s (1975: 15) easily identifiable because of
its noticeably invigorating simplicity: ‘the role of communication in the
political process’. Norris (2004: 1) defines political communication as ‘an
interactive process concerning the transmission of information among pol-
iticians, the news media and the public’. McNair (2011: 4) takes it further
with an all-inclusive approach that stresses the academic field is not just

B. Mutsvairo
School of Communication, University of Technology Sydney,
Sydney, Australia
e-mail: bruce_mutsvairo@uts.edu.au
B. Karam (*)
Department of Communication Science, University of South Africa,
Pretoria, South Africa
e-mail: bescharakaram@gmail.com

© The Author(s) 2018 3

B. Mutsvairo and B. Karam (eds.), Perspectives on Political
Communication in Africa,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62057-2_1
4 B. Mutsvairo and B. Karam

centred on the political relationship between media and democracy but on

‘all forms of communication undertaken by politicians and other political
actors for the purpose of achieving specific objectives’. While research in
political communication is abundantly available in the West (see Graber
1981; Denton and Woodward 1990; McKinney et al. 1999; Esser et al.
2001; Street 2001), the same cannot be said about Africa, where the
introduction of constitutionalism in several countries across the continent
following years of colonial subjugation was expected to play a leading role
in determining the destiny of party politics.
This book seeks to investigate the current state of political communica-
tion in Africa. A book attempting to conceptualise political communication
in an African perspective is long overdue in an era when stories of success-
ful emerging democracies continue to dominate headlines in leading news-
papers of the world. Why would a political communication convener at an
African university recommend a book that hardly makes reference to the
continent, especially when considering that the dynamics of political com-
munication in Africa cannot be the same as experiences in other regions?
Africa as a region has its own shared yet sometimes complicated history
in addition to very diverse religious and social cultures. Remarkably, and
complicating things further, it is possible to discover many cultures or
religions within one African country. History is key to understanding the
complex African political terrain. A historical account will therefore be pro-
vided, with the collection not only historicising the field of political com-
munication but also examining how the propagation of emerging digital
discourses such as social media influences is aiding or inhibiting its influ-
ence. Africa’s Internet boom has seen the continent claim the second high-
est growth rate at 1100% (Miller and McKerrow 2010).
While the same study concluded that the continent was home to the
lowest percentage of population penetration at 5.6%, we must point out
here that things have changed to an extraordinary extent over the years.
Recent statistics have shown Internet penetration levels rising to about
20%, while mobile subscriptions are close to 70% (Nyirenda-Jere and
Biru 2015). Internet penetration has developed more than tenfold, rising
from 17 million users in 2005 to an estimated 172 million in 2014 (ITU
2014). This escalating rise is hugely important given that previous stud-
ies have long pointed to the Internet’s influential role in political mobi-
lisation (see Rheingold 1994; Grossman 1995; Schwartz 1996). Besides,
new media technologies are not only influential in connecting inacces-
sible populations to markets but they also increasingly provide platforms
 1 KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN AFRICA 5

for innovation and engagement, which in turn helps to enhance politi-

cal awareness and the potential for social openness and freedom (Madon
2000).
Relations between the media and state players in several post-colonial
African countries have always been guarded, with members of the press
corps working to actively promote the ruling party in what has been called
the Soviet media model (Seibert 1956). For example, Ansu-Kyeremeh
and Karikari (1998) argue that radio and television broadcasting fell vic-
tim to state monopoly in 1935 and 1965 when they were respectively
unveiled in Ghana. In a similar vein, Banda (2006) posits that in a state-
sponsored regulation exercise, post-independence Zambia sought to issue
broadcast licences on religious merit, with Christian applicants supporting
President Fredrick Chiluba’s Christian-centred views being favoured and
securing the much-needed ticket to the airwaves. The colonial legacy has
been critical in media development across Africa. In Zimbabwe, for exam-
ple, the tendency to use radio for hegemonic political purposes has been
reported both in the pre- and post-colonial state (Moyo 2005). Indeed,
McQuail (1994) has propounded that one key characteristic for countries
transiting from colonialism has been the lack of human and infrastructural
resources to develop media systems without state intervention, a devel-
opment which has unfoundedly seen dominant media models in practice
and in principle becoming prevalent. For many in Africa, it was nearly
impossible to find alternative sources of news content before the digital
revolution, which took shape between the late 1950s and 1970s. Lack of
funding weighed down upon potential independent players, leaving the
government the lone supplier of one-sided news bulletins, which took the
obvious narrative of supporting the incumbent. That trend is changing,
and this volume explains why and how.
Problems holding back political participation, including illiteracy,
cannot be ignored, especially in Africa where uninformed citizens, con-
strained in terms of communicating their views, rely on media messages
to explain and articulate pressing political issues. Seeking an African
perspective in this field, we also analyse the theory of media politics as
proposed by Zaller (1999: 1) as a ‘system of politics in which individ-
ual politicians seek to gain office, and to conduct politics while in office,
through communication that reaches citizens through the mass media’.
That is, we seek to identify how and with what effect politicians across
the continent use or misuse mass and social media to advance their ide-
ologies and political goals.
6 B. Mutsvairo and B. Karam

1.1   Historical Background to Political

Communication in Africa
Writing a historical overview of political communication in Africa proved
to be an almost impossible task both from a theoretical and practical
point of view. This is in part because political communication as an inde-
pendent discipline has only recently developed in many parts of Africa
and because the countries making up the African continent are very
diverse, not only with regard to culture, religion and geographic dimen-
sions (even regionally), but also political infrastructures, political cultures
and political communication. Worse still, there is no significant body of
work to draw on and very little comparative analysis (between countries),
with little accessible data. Not only are these diverse contexts significant,
but so are their histories. And these diversities do vary greatly from one
another, from one African state to another. For instance, in the case of
political crisis, one state might institute a state of emergency, mobilising
armed troops, while another country might create a new policy or even
generate and create new strategic policies in order to deal with a similar
crisis.
There are many prevalent socio-economic limitations, such as the
Internet divide, illiteracy and economical apartheid; and each of these
conditions, to varying degrees, has impacted not only on several African
communities, but also on political communication as a field, along with
access to information and the media. More so, governments in differ-
ent countries have had different responses to the information and com-
munications technology (ICT) revolution. And statistics show that many
Africans encounter political communication (from the different players/
actors) through radio. For example, South Africa only saw the intro-
duction of televised political advertisements in 2009, fifteen years after
democracy was introduced to South Africa. Studies about the use of such
advertisements then, and in the 2014 elections, are only now emerging
(Dhawraj 2013). However, this is not to say that southern Africa does
not practice, teach or study political communication. We are simply mak-
ing the point that the field falls under the guise of its many variant multi-
and inter-disciplinary components, from political science to cultural and
media studies, to organisational communication. Therefore, writing a
historical overview is particularly challenging as each separate contribu-
tion would need to undergo a thorough literature review in order to
bring this information into a single contained space. Therefore this brief
 1 KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN AFRICA 7

overview only collates some of the main themes that are found within
political communication across the continent.
Historically, political communication began in the 1960s in America.
The field was inter- and multi-disciplinary, drawing from disciplines
such as political science, sociology, communication studies, media stud-
ies and even the arts (McNair 2011). Since then, the field has emerged
internationally as a stand-alone discipline studied by everyone from first-
year students to those engaged upon post-graduate MAs and PhDs.
Traditionally, it has straddled two distinct areas in communication. The
first is organisational communication, with an emphasis on advertising,
public relations and information management. The second is cultural and
media studies, with the focus on communication between politicians,
politics and the media (journalism, traditional media, the public sphere
and new media). In addition, other disciplines have contributed to the
field, such as political economy and international politics. Following the
same trajectory as the West, political communication in much of Africa
has only emerged as a distinct discipline over the last decade. It, too, has
combined media and journalism studies, cultural studies, sociology, mar-
keting, advertising, economics, international politics, political history,
anthropology and public affairs. It is being taught across several universi-
ties in Africa as an emerging field but, to further highlight its infancy,
in South Africa only one university, the University of South Africa,
teaches political communication as an undergraduate course, with other
South African universities, such as the University of Cape Town, teach-
ing it only at post-graduate level. These institutions still draw on the
wide array of different disciplines and leading scholars in their respective
fields (Bennett and Iyengar 2008). There are also several internation-
ally accredited journals in South Africa publishing research in the field
of political communication. These include African Journalism Studies,
Critical Arts, Communicatio and Communicare.
A literature search has revealed a noticeable gap of scholarly work on
political communication as a field of its own, hence the conceptualisa-
tion of this book. The discipline, both internationally and nationally,
is attempting to come to terms with new media studies, and new tech-
nologies, convergence and glocalization, all impacting in some way on
both the discipline and the practice. The discipline also needs to find
‘new ways to conceptualize the expanding field, adapt old methodolo-
gies and create new ones’ (Semetko and Scammell 2012: 4). In south-
ern Africa specifically, that also means contending with Africanisation,
8 B. Mutsvairo and B. Karam

de-Westernisation and decolonisation. The field needs to incorporate

transnational organisations; grassroots organisations (pressure groups)‚
non-state actors‚ and active citizenry (Semetko and Scammell 2012). In
Africa, the small contingent of scholars thus not only needs to consider
these aspects, but also generate a characteristic of the discipline—focus-
sing entirely on the political communication context across the continent
as well as generating theories and methodologies that are not only able
to deal with Africa’s unique context, but to challenge and question the
inherently Western theory and ideologies that scholars are forced to use
in order to teach the discipline. The constant call for decolonisation, a
South African and continent-wide movement, not only of all curricula,
and university and institutional structures, is therefore of importance in
this regard. This call should not to be confused with the de-Westernisa-
tion or Africanisation of curricula or teaching methods, but a complete
decolonisation of the subject matter and the tuition methodologies, or,
as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o so aptly put it, we need to ‘decolonise the mind’
(1986). How this is applied will greatly influence political communi-
cation as a subject and in practice. However, Africa’s experiences with
political communication, in comparison with other regions of the world,
are still in their embryonic stage, but as already mentioned this is not to
say it does not exist.
Southern Africa is for example a hub of ‘politicised activity that takes
place within a culturally complex and socially stratified society’ (du
Plessis 2015). It is also lagging on all media fronts (Leslie 2002; Berger
2004; Lesame 2005; Ndlela 2005; Chuma 2006). A closer look at other
regions in Africa will reveal the continent’s shared experiences thanks to
the socio-political and economic shadows of their colonial past and, in
the case of South Africa specifically, apartheid. As elsewhere on the con-
tinent, during the 2009 and 2014 presidential elections in South Africa,
the electorate made use of both Facebook and Twitter, a development
which affected the outcome of the national elections (cf. Dhawraj 2013).
Further studies have looked at the impact of political communication in
elections across the continent, including Zimbabwe (Mutsvairo 2013),
Ghana (Amoakohene 2006); Kenya (Nyabuga and Mudhai 2007) and
Nigeria (Olayiwola 1991). However, more recently (c. 2015 and 2016)
political communication in the form of grassroots/student activism
has erupted in South Africa, and this political activism has made use of
Facebook and Twitter as part of its mobilising campaigns (#FeesMustFall
and #RhodesMustFall). These pressure groups and their campaigns are
 1 KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN AFRICA 9

putting pressure on the South African government, first to bring the fees
of (tertiary) education down; and second to decolonise campuses (both
institutionally and educationally). With regard to #FeesMustFall, stu-
dents and their supporters are holding the government accountable for
their promises‚ such as all education over the last twenty years will be
free. These campaigns, and others, such as the Right2Know campaign
(tackling the issue of freedom of speech in South Africa, and the con-
tentious Film Publications Bill), are amongst the first in the country to
use new media as agents of change. However, as noted earlier, there are
still many southern African states whose governments do not tolerate any
dissension within the public sphere, whether it is in the cybersphere, the
mediasphere or the physical realm, in terms of protesting. And it remains
the overwhelming response of many governments in Africa to use cen-
sorship or even violence and threat of detention to prevent any form of
political communication (either for or about the government) (Glenn
and Mattes 2011).
It is visibly apparent that we need a critical analysis of the politi-
cal communication discourse focussing on its actors, organisations, and
the public sphere anchoring and situating them within the specific real-
ity of the African continent. Theoreticians, scholars, democracy activists
and political practitioners should engage each other in the African pub-
lic sphere and its globalised links, and a form of historical archiving of
political communication as both practice (applied) and scholarship (the-
ory) is also essential. This multi-disciplinary book is a move in that direc-
tion. Still, the extent to which technology is hindering or enhancing the
effectiveness of social media in mobilising citizens’ support for demo-
cratic development in Africa is one area that has yet to be copiously stud-
ied. Yet elsewhere, a wealth of work examining media’s persuasive role
in promoting politics remains in abundance (see Castells 2008; Mutz
1998; Jones 2000; Couldry and Curran 2003; Kahn and Kellner 2004;
Kirkpatrick 2008; Martin 2008). Social media’s overriding role in shap-
ing presidential elections in the USA has been recognised by London
and Ghobrial (2010).
Campaigning online has been proven to impact the dynamics of
participation and improve the courtship of political supporters as the
Internet allows citizens to unreservedly express themselves (Gauntlett
2004). For Lerner (2010), digital media democratise the political process
through mobilisation. Digital media are a facilitating force in the pro-
cess of democratic development (Mortara 2010). However, promising
10 B. Mutsvairo and B. Karam

possibilities for the Internet to revitalise political systems in Africa have

met a discouraging trend of support for structures that seek to gal-
vanise government control of communication channels, as proven in
several studies across the continent (see Okigbo 1992; Okoro 1993;
Mukasa 2000). Studies have also shown divided opinions on journalism
that seeks to promote Africa’s political dispensation (Ziegler and Asante
1992). In South Africa, Glenn and Mattes (2011) are adamant that what
they consider the three main actors of political communication, ‘citi-
zens; media organizations and professionals; and politicians and political
parties’, fail to get the obligatory attention for analysis. Buoyed by the
aforesaid lack of analysis, this book spearheads a survey of the uneasy and
increasingly shifting relationship between politicians, media players and
citizens for an African perspective.

1.2   Political Communication: An Africanised

Perspective
Based on the research findings discussed in this volume, one key point is
clear: there is no room for generalisations because Africa is clearly not a
single country. Case study analysis of various countries in Africa demon-
strates a diversity of experiences when it comes to the rickety relationship
between politicians, mass media and citizens. Studies show that the media
role in elections, political processes and decision making, along with digital
media’s ability to shape politics, varies within a concomitant of emerging
democracies and long-standing dictatorships. To understand this heteroge-
neity, one needs to look no further than the diverse cultural, social, histori-
cal, religious and indeed linguistic differences associated with the African
continent. For instance, some African religious groups forbid their follow-
ers from going to clinics or watching television, the result of which could
swing voting decisions in favour of a particular candidate. The noticeable
multifariousness in religious beliefs is therefore key to understanding the
dynamics of political communication in Africa. As noted, unlike the situ-
ation in liberal democracies of the West where the press plays a watchdog
role in seeking ‘to prevent the abuse of power’ (Marder 1998: 20) or take
the function of the Fourth Estate (Hanitzsch 2007), the case studies pre-
sented in this book show a systematic marginalisation of media institutions
aimed at keeping them out of political power and influence.
Of increasing importance across the continent is the role played by
technology in influencing political processes. Gone are the days when
 1 KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN AFRICA 11

citizens were considered passive political players if not receivers. The

capacity for citizens to gather and in many instances even disseminate
news through social media channels such as YouTube is also significantly
changing the field of political communication in the region, considered
home by up to 1.216 billion people. A booming civil society has had a
key role to play in empowering the citizens, but thanks to the advent of
online technologies, citizens are taking it upon themselves to empower
each other politically. The mediating role of a journalist is not totally gone
but‚ depending on the political dynamics of a country and unhindered
accessibility to the Internet, citizens have taken a new active role not only
in determining a country’s political shape but ensuring that those who
abuse power are brought to book. Better still, politicians are embolden-
ing themselves with a firm grasp of online technologies, so as to make the
process of reaching out to constituents and supporters simple and useful.
Social media platforms are being used to drum up support for candidates
during elections across the continent. Other politicians are maximis-
ing the potential of new technologies to their fullest extent by building
political websites or blogs to support their political base. Some, including
John Magufuli, have become instant social media icons, with the newly
appointed Tanzanian president, unlike his predecessors, choosing to crack
down on corruption and wasteful spending in the aftermath of his inau-
guration in November 2015. He has had his own critics, who accuse him
of stifling dissent. The enduring hashtag #WhatWouldMagufuliDo that
universally trended on Twitter and Facebook is a key pointer to Africa’s
increasing importance in global politics. As citizens in Tanzania and Africa
took to social media to mimic Magufuli’s no-nonsense approach and zero
tolerance on corruption and inefficiency, the whole world reacted.
However, any suggestion or speculation that the increasing ubiquity
of the Internet and digital technologies will positively shape the politi-
cal destiny of Africa should be treated with unlimited skepticism. Going
by Bratton, Mattes and Gyimah-Boadi’s (2005) argument that without
political participation democracy would have limited or no legitimacy,
we do not find compelling evidence to show that the Internet is facili-
tating greater participation in the democratic process. We find the term
‘democracy’ very difficult because nearly every African president claims
allegiance to it. While some case studies presented in this volume provide
arguments for the Internet–participation correlation, we also realise that
political circumstances including maturity and freedoms play a prominent
role in determining the extent to which the Internet influences politics.
12 B. Mutsvairo and B. Karam

A study on digital political participation in 2014 found that six out of

ten Kenyans were actively participating in political issues, along with
52% of Senegalese, but also concluding that just 24% of Ghana’s popu-
lation were highly engaged political participants (Pew Research 2014).
This shows the varying nature of online-based political participation in
Africa. Particularly pressing issues, including restricted civil liberties, digi-
tal divide and digital illiteracy, have been highlighted by Mutsvairo and
Harris (2016) as key factors inhibiting the Internet’s potential to influ-
ence African politics. To fully understand the role of social media in
African politics, we argue that it is important to consider the prohibitive
cost of accessing the Internet either via mobile phones or computers, and
also slow connections: a lack of information technology (IT) infrastruc-
ture remains a major hindrance to Africans attempting to go online.
Realising the potential for social media to facilitate active citizen polit-
ical engagement, some governments are opting to regulate and restrain
these digital spaces. One way of doing this is by switching off WhatsApp
or any social media platforms. In early 2015, the government’s reaction
to non-stop protests against President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic
Republic of Congo was to impose an Internet blackout, forcing all tel-
ecoms companies including giants Vodacom and Orange to discontinue
all Internet and short-message services across the country. Chad also
introduced restrictions on social media, messaging and mobile phone
communication during its national elections in April 2016. Similar meas-
ures have also been applied in Uganda and Zimbabwe, even though
officials in the southern African country have denied allegations of tak-
ing down WhatsApp during anti-government protests against President
Mugabe. Even Ghana, considered a robust role model for political
democracy, also announced measures to shut down social media ahead
of the November 2016 election so that ‘social media are not used to
send misleading information that could destabilize the country’ (Clottey
2016). Cameroon also disrupted internet connection in its restive
Anglophone regions in 2017 to contain mass anti-government protests.

1.3  Critical Reflections on Media and Political

Reforms in Africa
To deepen the theoretical and empirical understanding of political and
media systems in Africa, we need to look at attempts to reform these insti-
tutions, which are often met with resistance. Globalisation has in part
Another random document with
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“Where are you going?”
“Up to see this man—this mate of the Silver Swan.”
“Oh yes. Well, you tell him I’m coming up to see him myself, today.
It’s a mystery to me why he should go to that place. I don’t
understand it. How was he looking when you saw him—for I take it
you have seen him?”
“How do you mean—sick or well?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, he appeared in pretty fair health, I should say,” replied Brandon,
beginning to think that there was something queer about it all.
“Well, I’ll see him myself,” declared the merchant, rising and giving
the boy his hand. “I tell you what we’ll do, Brandon. If you don’t get
back here by noon, I’ll step up and get you, and we’ll go to lunch
together; then afterward we’ll take a look at the whaleback, if you
like.”
Brandon thanked him and opened the door into the outer office,
almost falling over Mr. Alfred Weeks, who had his head suspiciously
near the keyhole.
“Lo—looking for my ruler that I dropped,” declared the red haired
clerk, as his employer’s eyes rested sternly upon him.
But as he passed out, Brandon noticed that the ruler was on the high
desk holding open the leaves of a much tattered paper novel.
“Funny sort of fellow for a respectable ship owner to employ,”
Brandon decided, as he made his way along the crowded
thoroughfare. “In fact, I guess I’ll withhold my opinion of all three of
these people till I know ’em better—Wetherbee, Pepper, and his
clerk.”
By closely scanning the signs on the buildings as he passed, the
captain’s son finally discovered the place he sought. He came within
an ace of not doing so, however, for the words “New England Hotel”
were simply painted on a small strip of tin on one side of the
doorway, the rest of the sign space being devoted to the words: John
Brady, Wines, Liquors, and Cigars.
Brandon hesitated a moment before entering the place. It was plainly
a saloon of the worst type, the “hotel” part evidently being but a
“blind” by means of which the bar could be kept open all night.
Two or three disreputable men—sailors or longshoremen by
appearance—were hanging about the door, but Brandon Tarr had a
good deal of confidence in his ability to take care of himself, and
finally ascended the steps.
A sickening odor of stale tobacco smoke and bad liquor assailed his
nostrils as he stepped within the room, and he was almost tempted
to back out and give up his intention of seeing Wetherbee. But the
man behind the bar—a villainous looking fellow with a closely
cropped head and red face—had seen him and came briskly
forward.
“Well, young felley, what kin I do fur ye?” he asked, in what was
intended as a pleasant tone.
Deciding that he was in for it, the captain’s son walked forward to the
bar and replied:
“Nothing to drink, thank you. I’m looking for a man who’s stopping
here—Caleb Wetherbee.”
The bartender eyed him curiously and repeated:
“Caleb Wetherbee, eh? Well, I’ll see ’f he’s here.”
He stepped back to a door leading into an inner room and, opening it
a crack, called to somebody inside. There was a whispered
conversation between the men, and the bull necked individual came
back to the bar.
“All right, m’ duck; he’s in dere,” he said, with a grin, and a motion of
his thumb toward the inner door. “Yer don’t have ter send in no
kyard.”
Taking this as a permission to enter, Brandon walked across the long
saloon, littered with tables and chairs, and its door covered with
sawdust, and opened the door.
The apartment beyond was as badly furnished as the outer room,
there being only a square deal table and several wooden bottomed
chairs. In one of these chairs before the table, with his head bowed
upon his arms, was the sailor whom Brandon had seen two days
before in the woods on his uncle’s farm back in Chopmist, the only
occupant of the place.
 CHAPTER XIII
THE OLD SAILOR WITH THE WOODEN LEG

It was only in the country—in the woods and sheltered fence corners
—that the patches of snow still remained on this sixth day of April. In
New York the sun shone warmly upon the sidewalks, washed clean
by the shower of the night before, and the tiny patches of grass in
the parks and squares were quite green again.
About the middle of the forenoon a man stumped along a street
leading to what remains of the Battery park—a man dressed in a half
uniform of navy blue, and with a face (where the beard did not hide
the cuticle) as brown as a berry.
At first glance one would have pronounced this person to be a sailor,
and have been correct in the surmise, too.
The man’s frame was of huge mold, with massive development of
chest and limbs, and a head like a lion’s. But his bronzed cheeks
were somewhat hollow, and his step halting, this latter not altogether
owing to the fact that his right leg had been amputated at the knee
and the deficiency supplied by an old fashioned wooden leg.
Still, despite his evident infirmity, the old seaman looked cheerfully
out upon the world on this bright April morning, and pegged along
the sidewalk and into the park with smiling good nature.
Not a beggar had accosted him during his walk down town without
having a nickel tossed to him, and it was with vast contentment that
the wooden legged sailor at length seated himself upon a bench,
from which vantage point he could overlook the bay and its
multitudinous shipping.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, sniffing the air which blew in from the sea, like a
hungry dog. “This is life, this is! Thank heaven I’ve got away from
them swabs of doctors at last. Another week at that ere hospital
would ha’ been the death o’ me. Still, I reckon they meant well
’nough.”
He sat there for some time in cheerful silence, and drank in the
exhilarating air, his pea cloth jacket thrown open to the breeze,
baring the broad expanse of flannel shirt beneath.
“A few days o’ this’ll put me right on my feet,” he said, with delight,
“better’n all the tonics the old sawbones ever invented. Lord! if I’d
had this breeze a-blowin’ inter my winder up there to the hospital, I’d
been out a fortnight ago.
“The old man ain’t dead yet. It was a pretty hard tug, I admit; but
here I be!”
He slapped his leg with such vigor that a flock of sparrows flew up
with sudden affright from the path; but this energetic gesture was
taken in another sense by the group of urchins which had gathered
near by to talk and fight (much after the manner of their feathered
prototypes, by the way) over the morning’s sale of papers.
At the old man’s motion half a dozen of these sharp eyed little
rascals broke away from the group, and ran shrieking toward him,
wildly waving their few remaining wares in his face.
“’Ere you are, sir! Tribune, Sun, World!”
“Tribune,” said the old sailor, laughing heartily as though he saw
something extremely ludicrous in their mistake.
“My last ’un, sir. Thankee!”
The successful Arab pocketed his money and went back to his
friends, while the sailor slowly unfolded the sheet and took up the
thread of his reflections again.
“Once I get my sea legs on,” he thought, fumbling in his pocket for a
pair of huge, steel bowed spectacles, which he carefully wiped and
placed astride his nose “once I get my sea legs on, I’ll take a trip up
ter Rhode Island and see the cap’n’s boy, unless he turns up in
answer to my letter.
“Poor lad! he’s doubtless heart broken by Cap’n Horace’s death, and
won’t feel much like goin’ into this ’ere treasure huntin’ business; but
for his own good I’ll have ter rouse him up. It would be what the
cap’n would wish, I know.”
He let the paper lie idly on his knee a moment, and a mist rose in his
eyes.
“Never mind if the old brig has gone to pieces before we get there,”
he muttered. “I’ve got a little shot in the locker yet, an’ the boy shan’t
come ter want. I’ll do my duty by him as though he was my own son,
that I will!”
He picked up the paper again, and turned naturally to the shipping
news, which he ran over carelessly, smiling the while. Finally his eye
was attracted by something near the bottom of the column.
“Eh, what’s this?” he exclaimed. “What’s this about the Silver Swan?”
With great excitement he read the following news item, following
each line of the text with his stumpy forefinger:
Captain Millington, of the English steamer Manitoba,
which arrived here yesterday from Brazil, reports that he
passed a very dangerous wreck in latitude 22:03,
longitude 70:32. It was the hull of a brig, apparently in
good condition, but with her masts snapped off close to
the decks, and all her rigging carried away. The name on
her stern was Silver Swan, Boston.
This is the same derelict reported by the steamer
Montevideo at Savannah several weeks ago. According to
Captain Millington, the wreck of the brig is a great menace
to all vessels plying between this and South American
ports, as its course seems to be right across the great
highway followed by most of the steamship lines.
It will be remembered that the Silver Swan was wrecked
over two months ago on Reef Eight, southwest of Cuba,
grounding, according to the report of the survivors of her
crew, upright on the rock. The captain of the Montevideo
sighted her not far from the reef, from which she was
 doubtless loosened by the westerly gale of February 13th;
but since that time she has floated some distance to the
north and east, and if she follows the same tactics as
many of her sister derelicts, she may zigzag across the
course of the South American steamers for months.
The cruisers Kearsarge and Vesuvius are both lying in
port at present, and it will be respectfully suggested to the
Navy Department that one or both of those vessels be
sent to destroy this and several others of the most
dangerous derelicts now floating off our coast.
“Shiver my timbers, sir!”
With this forcible and exceedingly salty ejaculation, the old sailor with
the wooden leg dropped the newspaper to the walk, and his
spectacles along with it, and springing up, trampled upon them both.
But in his great excitement he noticed neither the torn paper nor the
ruined glasses. He stumped up and down the walk for several
moments before he became calm enough to think coherently.
In fact, the blue-coated policeman on the corner had begun to eye
him suspiciously.
“The Silver Swan afloat—a derelict!” he muttered. “This ’ere is a
sitiwation I didn’t look for. An’ then, them blasted cruisers are liable to
go down there and blow her into kingdom come any minute. The
Silver Swan on Reef Eight was bad enough, but the Silver Swan
afloat, at the mercy of the gales as well as other vessels, is worse!
“Now, what in creation’ll I do about it? I haven’t heard from the boy
yet, and there’s little enough time as it is. Why, she might sink ’most
any time with all them di’monds the cap’n told about aboard her!
“I’ll take a steamer to get down there ahead of them confounded iron
pots” (by this disrespectful term did he designate Uncle Sam’s
cruisers), “but who under the canopy’s got a steamer to charter?
“By the great horn spoon, I have it!” he exclaimed, after a moment’s
thought. “Adoniram Pepper is just the fellow.”
With this declaration he jammed his hat on his head, and stumped
off as rapidly as one good leg and one wooden one could carry him,
toward the shipping merchant’s office on Water Street.
 CHAPTER XIV
THE OLD SAILOR’S EXCITEMENT

As the old sailor hurried along the street toward the ship owner’s
office he became calmer, and, being a person who had all his life
been taking greater or less chances in his business of seagoing, he
began to look at the situation more composedly.
The Silver Swan was without doubt in far greater danger of
destruction now than she had been while hard and fast on the reef,
but no amount of worrying would better the matter, and therefore one
might accept the fact coolly. Then, besides, she had floated
unmolested for over six weeks already, and there was a big chance
for her doing so for six weeks or more to come.
“Blast these navy vessels any way, I say!” the old man muttered,
stumping along now at a moderate gait. “They probably won’t be
able to find her. And if nothing collides with her, I reckon she’ll keep
afloat for one while, for I can swear myself that the old brig warn’t
injured none below the water line—she went on that reef jest as
easy!
“She’s got the same chance o’ staying above board—the Silver
Swan has—as any other craft that’s become a derelict. Look at the
schooner W. L. White, abandoned by her crew during the great
storm of ’88. She floated about the North Atlantic for the better part
of a year, before she went ashore at last on the Hebrides.
“An’ then there was the Weyer G. Sargent, mahogany laden, floated
fifty-five hundred mile, or more, ’cording to the pilot chart, a-swingin’
’round the Atlantic from New Foundland to the Azores for two years.
An’ there may be many another good ship that’s got a bigger record
’n that at this very day, down in the Sargasso sea. Oh, it might be
worse.”
Nevertheless, despite this cheerful view, the old sailor’s forehead
was knotted into a scowl as he opened the door of the ship owner’s
dingy office and entered. The red haired clerk was alone at the desk
and the door of the private office was shut.
“Well, you jail bird, are you here yet?” demanded the visitor
impolitely, eying the clerk with exceeding disfavor.
“Oh, is that you, Mr. Featherbee——”
“Wetherbee, you scoundrel!” roared the sailor, in a voice like a bull.
“Oh, yes! I should say Wetherbee—er—that’s what I meant,” the
clerk hastened to say.
It was remarkable to notice the difference between the greeting
accorded to Caleb Wetherbee and that given young Brandon Tarr
shortly before.
“So you haven’t managed to get at Pepperpod’s till and clear out,
yet, eh?” demanded Caleb jocularly.
Mr. Weeks scowled and grinned at the same time, a feat that very
few men can perform; but he made no verbal reply to the question.
“Where is he?” queried the sailor, nodding toward the inner office. “In
his den?”
“He’s busy—engaged,” Mr. Weeks hastened to say.
“I believe you’re lying to me, Weeks,” returned the sailor, after eying
the fellow a moment. “You’d rather lie than eat. Where’s
Pepperpod?”
“He—he really is engaged, sir,” declared Weeks, who stood in mortal
fear of the brawny sailor. “That is, he told me to say so to anybody
that called——”
“I don’t doubt it—that’s what’s taught you to lie,” cried Caleb, in
disgust. “Well, I’m going to see him if he’s engaged fifty times. Cut
along now and tell him I’m here.”
Mr. Weeks slowly descended from his stool, evidently unwilling to
comply with the request.
“Get a move on you,” the sailor commanded. “If you don’t I’ll roast
you over a slow fire. I’m just out of the hospital and I’ve got an
appetite like an ostrich—or I’d never think of eating you.”
Mr. Weeks unwillingly went to the inner door and rapped on the
panel. Then he turned the knob and went in, remaining a few
moments, and on making his appearance again, held the portal open
for Caleb.
The sailor entered without a word and the clerk closed the door
behind him; then, as on the former occasion, he applied his ear to
the keyhole with a diligence worthy of a better cause.
Mr. Pepper was sitting before his desk, which was piled high with
papers and letters. The day’s mail had just been sent up from the
wareroom office by Mr. Marks, the ship owner’s trusted manager, or
“steward,” as Adoniram was in the habit of calling him.
Beginning business life more than fifty years before in this very
office, Mr. Pepper could not bring himself, as his trade increased, to
leave his old quarters, and having found his manager to be a most
trustworthy man, he had shifted the burden of the more arduous
duties upon his younger shoulders, and himself reposed contentedly
amid the dust, the gloom, and the cobwebs of the Water Street
office.
Thus it was that few people ever saw “Adoniram Pepper & Co.” to
know him; but to his old friends, those of his boyhood and young
manhood, Adoniram was always the same.
Naturally his acquaintance was mostly among seafaring people, and
it was no uncommon sight to see old hulks of sea captains and ship
owners, long past their usefulness, steering a course for the Water
Street office on pleasant days, where they were sure to receive a
pleasant word from the little old gentleman, if he was in, and not
uncommonly a bit of silver to spend for luxuries which “sailors’
homes” do not supply.
The old gentleman sprang up at once at Caleb’s appearance, the
unfortunate eye glasses jumping off the chubby little nose as though
they were endowed with life. Mr. Pepper gave both his hands to the
huge sailor, who indeed looked gigantic beside the little man, and
begged him to sit down.
“Well, Pepperpod, how are ye?” cried the sailor, in a hearty roar that
shook the light pieces of furniture in the room, just as his bulk shook
the chair he had seated himself in.
“First rate, old Timbertoes!” declared the old gentleman, laughing
merrily. “So you’re out of the hospital, at last?”
“I be, Adoniram, I be!” cried Caleb with satisfaction. “Never was so
glad o’ anythin’ in my life. Them sawbones would have killed me if
they’d kep’ me there much longer.”
“Well, well, Caleb, you was a mighty sick man—a mighty sick man.”
“I reckon I was,” responded the sailor reflectively.
“The doctor wouldn’t let me come in to see you,” said the merchant,
smiling jovially; “so I had to content myself with sending up things.”
“Yes, you did,” said Caleb, turning on him sternly. “I did think,
Adoniram, that you wouldn’t waste your money on such truck as that
—a-sendin’ me white grapes, an’ jellies, an’ bunches o’ posies.”
He snorted in veriest scorn.
“Well, er—er—you see, Caleb, I told Frances about you and she
took over the things herself,” said Adoniram hesitatingly.
“Hem!”
The old sea dog flushed up like a girl and mopped his suddenly
heated face with a great bandanna, finally saying gruffly:
“You tell your sister, Miss Frances, that I am mightily obleeged for
’em, Adoniram. They—er—jest went to the right spot, you tell her;
jest what I needed to tone me up!”
“You’d better come up and tell her yourself, Caleb,” said the
merchant, with a sly smile.
“Well—er—mebbe I will. Thankee, Adoniram.”
He was silent a moment, and then, suddenly bethinking himself of
the errand which had brought him there, he turned upon the little
merchant with a slap of his knee which sounded throughout the
office like a gun shot.
“But this ’ere ain’t what brought me here—not by a long chalk. Ye
know the Silver Swan, Adoniram? Cap’n Horace Tarr’s brig ’t I was
with when she grounded on Reef Eight, two months and more ago?”
Mr. Pepper nodded.
“Well, sir, she’s afloat.”
“Afloat!”
“That’s what I said; afloat! A-f-l-o-t-e,” responded the sailor, spelling
the word very carefully, if a trifle erratically.
“How—how can that be?”
“Well, ye see she went aground jest like she was goin’ inter stocks
for repairs, and if we’d stuck by her, it’s my opinion Cap’n Tarr’d ha’
been alive now.” He stopped and blew his nose hastily. “Well, what
is, can’t be bettered, so we’ll say no more o’ that.
“But what I’m gettin’ at is this: she went aground all standin’, an’ the
storm wot come up right arterwards, blew her off ag’in. She’s been
floating, according to this morning’s paper, ever since.”
“Well, well!” exclaimed Adoniram. “It’s too bad her hull can’t be
secured for the boy. If it’s still sound——”
“Sound as a dollar!”
“Where is it floating?”
“’Cordin’ to the report of a cap’n wot sighted her, she’s somewheres
about latitude 22, longitude 70.”
“A pretty valuable derelict, eh, Caleb?” said the merchant,
reflectively.
“Valible? Well, I should say!” The old sailor looked at his friend
curiously a moment, and then leaned forward and rested his huge
hand on Adoniram’s knee. “Besides a valible cargo wot we took on
at the Cape and Rio, there’s enough diamonds hid aboard that brig
to make the boy a second Vanderbilt!”
“Mercy me!” exclaimed the merchant, and this time the eye glasses
leaped off their insecure resting place and fell with a crash to the
floor, the splintered crystal flying in all directions.
“Now you’ve done it, Adoniram!” ejaculated Caleb in disgust. “What
under the canopy a man like you—with no nose to speak of—wants
to try to wear such tackle as them for, is beyond me.”
“Well—er—Frances thinks they look better on me than other kinds of
glasses,” remarked the merchant meekly.
“Well—hem!—I s’pose they do look some better on ye,” declared
Caleb loyally, and then a slight noise from the other side of the door
caused him to jump up and spring hastily to it.
When he flung the door open, however, the red haired clerk was
astride his high stool with a look of perfect innocence on his face; but
Caleb was not reassured. He shook his huge fist at the fellow, and
then shut the door again, turning the key in the lock and hanging his
hat upon the door knob for further precaution.
 CHAPTER XV
CALEB RECEIVES A STARTLING
COMMUNICATION

“Some of these days,” said Caleb, with decision, when he had taken
these precautions, “I shall wring that scoundrel’s neck, Adoniram. I
wonder at your keeping him here.”
“Well, you see, nobody else would have him,” responded the
merchant, as though that fact was reason enough for his keeping the
objectionable Mr. Weeks.
“Ya-as—one o’ your blasted philanthropic notions,” declared Caleb,
with a snort denoting disgust. “Well, he’ll rob and murder you some
day and then you’ll wish you’d heard to me. If ‘jail bird’ ain’t written
on his face, then I never saw it on no man’s.”
“But, Caleb, what do you mean by the astounding remark you just
made about the Silver Swan?” asked the merchant, drawing the
sailor’s mind away from the subject of Mr. Alfred Weeks and his
frailties.
“I’ll tell you about it,” said Caleb, in a lower tone, seating himself by
the desk again. “What I said is straight, Pepper. There is hidden
inside that hulk of the Silver Swan, a lot o’ di’monds—how many, I
don’t know—but enough, according to Cap’n Horace’s own words to
make a man fabulously rich. They belong to his boy, Brandon, and
we must get ’em for him.
“I never knew a word about the stones till we was on the raft. Cap’n
Horace was pretty fur gone—any one with half an eye could see that
—and when we’d been out several days an’ hadn’t sighted no ship,
he wrote a long letter to Brandon an’ give it to me with a package of
other papers.
“I’ve got them papers right here at this identical minute; but I ain’t
opened ’em, ’cause it ain’t my place to do so. They tells all about the
di’monds an’ how they come into Cap’n Horace’s han’s.
“It seems that just afore we left the Cape a man come aboard the
Silver Swan and brought a package of wot he thought was papers, to
Cap’n Horace, from his brother Anson.”
“Why, Anson was dead long ago, I thought,” interrupted Mr. Pepper.
“So did everybody else think so; but he wasn’t. He was dead,
though, when this feller seed Cap’n Horace, for he’d give the
package into the man’s hands when he was dying, for him to send to
Cap’n Tarr. But we put into the Cape afore the man got ’round to
sendin’ ’em to the States.
“He never knew what a valible thing he was a carryin’ ’round; but
when the cap’n come to open the package he found a lot o’ di’monds
done up in a separate wrapper. These he hid somewhere about the
brig—he tells about it in this letter to Brandon, I b’lieve.
“I wanted to know why he didn’t take ’em on the raft when we left the
brig, but it seems he misdoubted himself about a rascally sailor we
had with us—one Jim Leroyd.
“This ’ere Leroyd had been snoopin’ around the cabin when the
cap’n was given the diamonds, and he thought the feller suspected
something. So, not knowing how it might go with any of us, he left
the gems on the brig, preferring to risk losin’ ’em altogether, rather
than to cause strife an’ p’r’aps bloodshed on that raft.
“An’ I reckon ’twas lucky he did so, fur we had trouble enough with
that swab Leroyd.”
“Why, wasn’t he the man who was saved with you?” asked the
merchant.
“That’s who.”
“Tell me, Caleb,” said Mr. Pepper earnestly, “why was it he stood the
experience so much better than you? Why, he was discharged from
the hospital in a week, so I understand, while you show traces of the
suffering you underwent even now.”
Caleb closed his lips grimly and looked at the little man in silence for
several moments. Then he leaned further forward and clutched his
arm with one great brown hand.
“He had food that I didn’t have,” he whispered hoarsely.
“What!” cried Adoniram, shrinking back, his eyes abulge.
Caleb nodded slowly.
“There were four of us on that raft. Paulo Montez—he went first. We
divided the food and water, an’ that villain Leroyd ate his all up. Then
we had ter drive him behind his chest at the other end of the raft, an’
keep him there at the point of our pistols.
“Then the cap’n went, an’—an’—I had to throw him to the sharks to
keep him out o’ the clutches o’ that cannibal Leroyd!”
“Great heavens!” exclaimed the ship owner, shrinking back into his
chair, his face the picture of horrified amazement.
“Yes, sir,” whispered Caleb; “he dragged poor Paulo’s body back o’
that chest—an’—well, ’taint no use talkin’! I ain’t said a word about it
before to any living creature. It’s only my word ag’in his, at best. But I
swear, Adoniram, I’d kill the hound with as little compunction as I
would a rat.
“He’s been sneaking ’round the hospital, inquiring about me, too,”
continued the sailor. “He’s got his eye on these papers, for he see
Cap’n Horace give ’em to me. I reckon he don’t know what they’re
about, but he suspects there’s money in it. He was ’round to the
hospital only last night, so the doctor told me.
“And now, Adoniram, wot I want o’ you is to help me find this derelict
before some o’ Uncle Sam’s blasted iron pots go out after her. We
must get the boy down from that uncle’s place in Rhode Island——”
“Why, didn’t you see him this morning?” asked Mr. Pepper, in
surprise.
“See who?”
“Why, the boy—Captain Tarr’s son, Brandon?”
“What?” roared the sailor. “Then he’s here in New York, is he?”
“Why—of—course,” responded the merchant, in bewilderment. “I
thought you’d seen him again. He started out to call on you not two
hours ago. He said you’d given him your address—at the New
England Hotel, just below here.
“And what I want to say, Caleb is that I don’t consider it a great proof
of friendship on your part, for you to go to such a place as that, even
if you were low in finances. I’d only be too glad to have you come to
my house and stay the rest of your natural life—and so would
Frances.”
“Me!—at the New England Hotel!—why the man’s crazy!” declared
Caleb.
“Ain’t you stopping there?” gasped the merchant.
“Am I? Well. I guess not! I ain’t but just got out o’ the hospital this
blessed morning.”
“Why, he said he’d seen you once, and you’d told him to call at the
New England Hotel.”
“Who?” roared Caleb.
“Brandon Tarr.”
“Why, man alive, I never saw the lad in all my life!”
“Then,” declared Adoniram with energy, “there’s foul play about it.
When I came down this morning I found the captain’s son waiting to
see me. He’d just come down from Rhode Island, I believe, and he’d
got your address—said he’d already seen you once, mind you—and
was going up to this place to see you again.
“I thought ’twas funny you should put up at such a house, Caleb; but
I didn’t know but perhaps you were ‘on your uppers’” (Caleb snorted
at this), “and had gone there for cheapness. I told Brandon I’d come
up after him this noon and take him to lunch.”
But Caleb was on his feet now, and pacing the floor like a caged lion.
“I see it all—I see it all!” he declared. “It’s some o’ that swab Leroyd’s
work. Why, man alive, do you know what the New England Hotel is?
It’s one o’ the wickedest places in New York. I know the den well,
and the feller as runs it, too. Why, the boy’s in danger every moment
he stays there!”
He seized his hat and jammed it on his head again.
“Ef anything’s happened to that boy, I’ll break every bone in that
scoundrel’s body!” he exclaimed, seizing the door and throwing it
wide open without the formality of unlocking it.
The splintered wood and broken lock flew in all directions as he
dashed through the doorway and flung himself into the street, while
Mr. Pepper remained weakly in his chair, too utterly bewildered to
move, and the festive Mr. Weeks dodged behind the high desk with
alacrity, as the sailor went through the outer office like a whirlwind.
 CHAPTER XVI
TELLING HOW BRANDON BEARDED THE LION
IN HIS LAIR

As Brandon Tarr entered the apartment behind the bar room of the
New England Hotel, the man at the table raised his head and
surveyed him surlily. Evidently he had been drinking, and the liquor
had changed his mood greatly from that of the affable sailor who had
accosted the captain’s son in the Chopmist woods.
“Well, how came you here?” inquired the sailor, in no very friendly
tone, gazing at Brandon, with bloodshot eyes.
“I came down on the train.”
“Ain’t you lost?”
“Guess not,” responded the boy.
The man shifted his position uneasily, keeping his eyes fixed upon
his visitor.
“Can’t say as I expected to see you—just yet, any way.”
“No?” returned Brandon coolly.
“Say! wot the blazes do you want, any way?” demanded the sailor
fiercely, after an instant’s silence. “It won’t pay you to be sassy here,
my lad, now I can assure ye.”
“Think so? Seems to me you’re not as glad to see me as I reckoned
you would be. It didn’t exactly pay you to come ’way up to Rhode
Island to pump me, did it?”
The fellow hissed out an oath between his teeth and clinched his fist
angrily.
“You’re too fresh, you are!” he declared.