- Title
- Making sense of a scam: MMM Mutual Fund participants in Kagiso negotiate dissenting mainstream new coverage on social media
- Creator
- Boqo, Bella Makhulu
- ThesisAdvisor
- Strelitz, Larry
- Subject
- Ponzi schemes -- South Africa
- Subject
- Fraud -- South Africa
- Subject
- Social media -- Influence -- South Africa
- Subject
- Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox -- In mass media
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145771
- Identifier
- vital:38465
- Description
- Pyramid, Ponzi and various fraudulent investment schemes are common feature in post-apartheid South Africa. The record levels of participation have generated much discussion in public discourse. Newspapers often abound with reports of participants who’ve lost large sums of money – in many instances their life savings. While on social media, thousands debate the merits and threats of new ventures as they emerge, in some instances using these platforms as the newest recruitment platforms. The sheer size and frequency of their appearance especially in post-revolutionary societies – those which experienced dramatic structural transformation following the end of the Cold War and growth of a neoliberal market economy – has drawn substantive scholarly attention. Much like media reports, however, this research often points to the morality of such practices, asking questions like what factors lead people to make the apparently irrational decision to participate in a scam? This study, however, contributes to a different body of emerging literature concerned with the larger structural contexts in which such forms of economic practice and organisation exist, and the meanings participants make of their involvement. Looking at the recently high profile of case of Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox (MMM), it employs a qualitative research methodology rooted in cultural studies to examine how participants based in the Johannesburg township of Kagiso used social media, specifically WhatsApp, to make sense of and contest the dissenting mainstream news coverage about MMM. Ultimately, it is a question of how their participation in particularly illegal pyramid or Ponzi type schemes and opposition to traditional news reports are rooted in their lived experiences, and what opportunities social media offer as alternate platforms for meaning-making, deliberation and public contestation.
- Format
- 142 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, RU School of Journalism and Media Studies
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Boqo, Bella Makhulu
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | BOQO-TR20-275.pdf | 915 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |