Happy birthday Mama Winnie! The cultural politics of nostalgic portraits on the Twitter feed of @WinnieMandela

Women in politics, women politicians and the media

Winnie Mandela is a public figure for the most part due to her career as a politician, at first in an ‘informal’ capacity thanks to her role in the liberation struggle, and thereafter in a formal capacity as a public servant. Madikizela-Mandela has been received with both adulation and criticism by the South African public, the former on the basis of her anti-apartheid work, the latter on the basis of criminal trials and corruption allegations in the 1990s.

Globally, feminist and political theorists have increasingly paid attention to the role of gender in politics (Fleschenberg, 2008; Goetz and Hassim, 2003; Ross, 2000). Some women politicians, for example British women MPs interviewed in 1997, believe that they have a different style of politics to men (Childs, 2004). A number of studies in the US, summarized by Evans and Clark (2016: 328), have shown that voters tend to project ‘feminine’ characteristics on to women candidates, and that press coverage of them focuses on their personalities and appearance rather than their credentials. In Asia, it is perceived that some top women politicians gained their positions due to their descent from influential, elite political families (Fleschenberg, 2008). In South Africa, the role of women in the liberation struggle has received some attention. During the 1950s and 1960s, this was considered ‘motherist’, wherein key women leaders were extolled for their maternal virtues (Geisler, 2000: 608). After the increased repression of the 1960s, feminism was de-emphasized and women were expected to put their interests aside in service to the liberation struggle. Although many women joined the ANC’s (African National Congress) armed struggle, they were typically sidelined into clerical and administrative roles (Geisler, 2000: 609). Later, gender equality became mainstreamed into the policies of the movement, eventually culminating in a formalized quota system, which meant that in the first democratic elections in South Africa, 111 women were elected to parliament (Geisler, 2000: 606). Nevertheless, they experienced numerous sexist and chauvinist attitudes once there (Geisler, 2000: 618).

Although much has been written about the political trajectory of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (Harrison, 1985; Holmes, 1997; Klopper, 2001; Medalie, 2006; Meintjies, 1998; Pohlandt-McCormick, 2000) and about the role of women in politics in South Africa and Africa (Geisler, 2000; Goetz and Hassim, 2003; Hassim, 2005, 2014), less has been offered on the ‘softer’ aspects of her cultural power. As Bongani Madondo has argued, throughout apartheid, Madikizela-Mandela was a highly photographed public figure, whose relentless style, beauty and dignity provided a source of solace and inspiration for many in times of great anxiety and oppression (Madondo, 2016). Although the black press, specifically magazines like Drum, celebrated Madikizela-Mandela’s style throughout apartheid as an extension of her massive popular appeal with the electorate, the white press in South Africa, specifically during the 1990s when she was elected an MP in the first democratic government, presented more critical narratives. As I have argued elsewhere, the white press scrutinized her lifestyle, material practices and taste in clothing, cars and other accoutrements, suggesting that her taste for the finer things in life (pink champagne, black Mercedes, beautiful clothes) were evidence of moral depravity and political vacuity (Iqani, 2015). To put this into context, it is worth noting how, in the US, studies have shown that mainstream media gave women candidates less coverage than men candidates, and reproduced gender stereotypes, although this pattern has become less marked over time (Evans and Clark, 2016: 327). In South Africa in the mid-1990s, with the first democratic parliament constituted featuring a high percentage of women, media coverage portrayed women MPs as ‘honorary men’, characterizing them as ‘macho’ or ‘bossy’, or alternatively focusing on their appearance and asking them to share their ‘favourite recipes’ with readers (Geisler, 2000: 620).

Moving to the role of social media in political communication, research on Twitter has expanded in recent years, in line with work that examines and theorizes the potential of the internet for politics and the public sphere (Ausserhofer and Maireder, 2013; Dahlgren, 2005; Poster, 1997). Some argue that the very definition of the political, in contemporary times, requires a recognition of ‘the networked connections established between lay and professional political actors, mass media and mobile media’ (Roslyng and Blaagaard, 2016: 1). Several studies in recent years have focused on the use of social media among politicians in the global north. The pros and cons of social media, and Twitter specifically, for political candidates’ communications campaigns, are reviewed by Evans and Clark (2016: 331–2). Politicians can get around the limits imposed by the gatekeeping of mainstream media and control their own messages, but the wide accessibility of tweets might in fact lead to a loss of control of meaning and interpretation. In a qualitative study on the use of Twitter as a PR tool by MPs in France (Frame and Brachotte, 2015: 281), one politician interviewed remarked on the ‘interactive potential’ of Twitter, as well as its usefulness in ‘short-circuiting the traditional press networks’. A study of politicians’ use of social media in Sweden and Norway found that in fact usage is quite low, with ‘underdog’ politicians more likely to use social media than those in elected positions (Larsson and Kalsnes, 2014), while a similar study in the Netherlands found that politicians tend to use the platform more to promote their individual profile rather than their party platforms (Vergeer and Hermans, 2013). Studies in South Korea on how politicians’ levels of interactivity on social media affect voters’ perceptions of them have found that higher interactivity tended to produce more positive voter evaluations (Lee and Shin, 2012) and that citizens who interact directly with politicians on Twitter tend to hold more favourable impressions of them due to a sense of face-to-face conversation (Lee and Shin, 2014: 1104). Politicians’ use of Twitter fosters ‘the impression that [they] strive to stay connected with the voters’ (Lee, 2013: 969). A study of Australian politicians’ use of Twitter found that, although they are embracing the format as a tool of communication, little evidence is available to show that it is improving the quality of public debate (Miragliotta, 2012). A 2011 study of the use of Twitter by UK MPs found that even though only a minority of MPs had adopted Twitter, women MPs were more likely to use the micro-blogging site than men MPs: ‘Women may feel that, as a direct communication channel, Twitter helps them bypass disadvantages in the access they have to traditional print and broadcast media’ (Jackson and Lilleker, 2011: 99). Other studies produced different findings; for example, one based in Australia found that politicians’ use of Twitter is not gendered (Miragliotta, 2012: 7). A quantitative content analysis examining how women politicians running for Congress in the United States in 2012 used Twitter in their campaigns (Evans and Clark, 2016) came up with mixed results, showing that women politicians do not use Twitter in stereotypically ‘feminine’ ways.

This brief tour of scholarship about women politicians’ relationships to social media shows that although gendered patterns are not always provable, questions of individual reputation and interactivity are central, and that the communicative potential of platforms like Twitter needs to be understood in relation to the representational shortcomings of mainstream press coverage. Although it is outside the scope of this article to examine how Winnie uses Twitter in general, a closer examination of how her admirers use visual communication on the platform to celebrate her can help to contribute a new perspective on what social media platforms mean for the mediated identity and power of women politicians in general.

A typology of nostalgic portraits of Winnie Mandela on Twitter

In order to develop an analysis of the Twitter-sharing of what I will theorize, in the concluding discussion, as ‘nostalgic portraits’, my methodology was qualitative and selective. After scanning through the entire @WinnieMandela Twitter profile several times, I employed a research assistant to repeat the process and collect ‘screen-grabs’ of all of the tweets tagging @WinnieMandela in which a non-contemporary portrait was shared. Although there were also many contemporary portraits shared, for example when an admirer met Madikizela-Mandela at an event and took a picture with her, for this project I focused on images taken before the 1990s. Often, these images were identifiable as historical because they were black and white, although later images are of course in colour. Screen-grabs were used to archive the tweets in their original form, showing the original tweeter, the number of likes and re-tweets, and the visual layout of the tweet. This work was done once in June 2016, and again in late September 2016 after the 80th birthday. It is possible that the current content on Twitter will have changed since then. The result of this data collection process was a corpus of 41 images (saved as jpeg files). I should emphasize that these tweets do not comprise the ‘majority’ of the profile. Although there is doubtless other content that is of analytical interest, my intention in the discussion that follows is to focus on the role of the historical portrait, and to think through how it functions culturally in the present moment.

Any public figure’s media persona is comprised of a number of different narratives, which should be theorized as part of a social process of discourse formation, in which certain ideas are manifested and solidified through their very expression and discussion (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999). In the tweets analysed, five types of portraits of Madikizela-Mandela were present: the first of her wedding, the second show her as a mother, the third present her as a figure of African pride, the fourth as a style icon, and the last as a freedom fighter.

Mrs Mandela

Winnie Mandela’s last name remains a central part of her public identity, even after her divorce from Nelson, and his remarriage to Graça Machel. Fans share images of Winnie and Nelson together at the height of their fabled love affair. Consider the tweet by @MissFuzile on 30 April 2015 (three days after the annually celebrated Freedom Day which commemorates the first democratic election). It includes a composite of 15 images, showing Winnie and Nelson together laughing and embracing, including several of their wedding day. The couple appear radiant with joy at their proximity to one another; their beauty as a pair is inescapable. @MissFuzile comments, ‘Two of the most remarkable parents of our liberation.’ It seems that @MissFuzile is viewing the images in the way she might look at her own parent’s wedding pictures in a family album: marvelling at their energy, youth, and glamour on their wedding day. Another tweet by @IamMzilikazi shows a full-length wedding picture (Figure 1). In it, Mr and Mrs Mandela stand together in front of a bookshelf. Nelson, dapper in a suit, smiles happily at the camera. Winnie, elegant in a lace-sleeved wedding dress, with veil and bouquet, shares his delight. @Mahuntsu comments, ‘Hot woman that’. Wedding portraits signal a moment in which hope and a promise of social inclusion is performed by the romantic couple (Mupotsa, 2015). That the Mandela love story was destroyed by apartheid makes a re-viewing of the image all the more wistful.

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Figure 1.

The wedding picture.

The wedding is coded as the moment in which the pair, but Madikizela-Mandela in particular, became (as @MissFuzile says) legitimized as ‘parents of the liberation’. The wedding-day images are evidence of when Winnie became Mrs Mandela, and there is a nostalgic reaffirmation of the fabled romance that propelled her into the spotlight and a career in the struggle against apartheid. Being ‘Mrs Mandela’ frames her as the good wife, who carried on her husband’s work diligently when he was unjustly taken away from his public life. The wedding portrait captures how Madikizela-Mandela’s value as a woman and public figure was produced through proximity to her famous husband. Although she gained political power by being Nelson’s wife, this was not unchallenged. According to some reports, she was not elected to be president of the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) in 1991 as members did not want a situation where ‘the wife of the president’ was automatically put in charge (Geisler, 2000: 612). Nevertheless, she was elected ANCWL president in 1993, a move that many commentators saw as an instrumental one, to secure the popular vote for the ANC in the 1994 elections (Geisler, 2000: 616).

Mother of the nation

Leading on from the narrative of Mrs Mandela, a second framing of Madikizela-Mandela is as a mother. Admirers tweet images of Madikizela-Mandela with her two daughters, Zindzi and Zenani. Although many contemporary images are also shared of the grown daughters, each of whom actively participates in various civic and political issues, those from the 1960s when they were children are particularly poignant. Then, Madikizela-Mandela was effectively a single mother in the most trying of circumstances. She was constantly being targeted and harassed by the security police due to her active role in the political struggle against apartheid. Her commitment to mothering in the midst of a banning order, a revolution, and constant oppression by the state impressed many. Zindzi Mandela herself tweeted ‘From a young age we experienced an ugly side to humanity. A SA [South Africa] governed by fear and a disregard for human rights’ (@ZindziMandela, 27 April 2014), accompanied by a black and white photograph of herself in her mother’s arms (see Figure 2). The setting of appears to be a political gathering. At the front of a crowd of people stands Madikizela-Mandela holding Zindzi. She wears a dark shirt, waistcoat and stylish high hat, and appears to be deep in conversation with another woman, also holding a child. Although Zindzi speaks to the lofty narrative of global human rights in the tweet, the image tells a personal story about mothering in the midst of the struggle. Madikizela-Mandela, especially later in life once she had been divorced by Mandela, spoke openly about how the huge burden of the freedom struggle was carried by the women who stayed in the country, rather than those, mainly men, who were in exile. She says: ‘The freedom of this country was attained by the masses of this country. […] It was attained by women who were left to fend for their families. […] We are the ones who fought the enemy physically, who went out to face their bullets’ (Smith, 2014).

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Figure 2.

Mother of the nation (and two small girls).

It is this willingness to speak out on behalf of those whose role in achieving freedom is all too often erased that speaks to Madikizela-Mandela’s massive popular appeal. This attitude and her relentless presence on the ground throughout the struggle led to her being called ‘Mother of the Nation’. These narratives are powerfully captured in the image that Zindzi tweeted, which not only captures the suffering that the ‘women who were left to fend for their families’ experienced, but also their spirit, resilience and collective power to bring about democratic change. Of course, the narratives of wife and mother are inherently heteronormative, and the ‘mother of the nation’ framing conceals some problematic aspects. The nomenclature of motherhood was leveraged when ‘Mama’ Winnie spearheaded the securitization of her Soweto home in the 1980s, where she mobilized a group of personal bodyguards under the guise of a football club. It was at this time that some argue, the psychological aftermath of her years of suffering (Gilbey, 1993) including 18 months in solitary confinement, bore fruit in allegedly criminal behaviour. As Rachel Holmes has convincingly argued in an article about the 1991 trial for the kidnapping and murder of child activist Stompie Sepei, Madikizela-Mandela’s framing as mother of the nation has a dark side. This came out in the defence team’s argument that the four young men, including Stompie, who were taken to Madikizela-Mandela’s house and allegedly held and beaten there, were being protected from an allegedly sexually abusive priest. The defence argument effectively equated the possibility of the priest being homosexual with an assumption that this meant he was molesting the boys who were visiting him. This homophobic narrative was picked up by the public and some of Madikizela-Mandela’s supporters. One incident – which was widely reported on – involved a supporter holding a sign outside the court that read ‘Homosex is not African’. That Madikizela-Mandela condoned this argument in her defence is unconscionable, as it excludes queer citizens from her ‘motherly’ love and acceptance. This trial was also one of the first moments in the political transition in South Africa when queer activists rallied to argue publicly for their rights, and to fight against homophobia (Holmes, 1997). Madikizela-Mandela’s Twitter admirers stick to the positive narrative of her mothering as one that is morally pure and inclusive, despite evidence that Winnie did not always treat all of her ‘children’ the same. It is important not to gloss over the tensions between Winnie’s particular brand of feminism, which has been historically aligned with the ‘motherist’ politics of the ANC Women’s League, and the struggle for the recognition of queer rights in SA, which have often been at odds.

Xhosa queen

A third genre of nostalgic imagery features Madikizela-Mandela’s celebration of her Xhosa heritage and indigenous jewellery and fashion. Portraits of her wearing traditional outfits have a particular kind of traction on Twitter. Figure 3 shows an iconic black and white studio portrait of Madikizela-Mandela wearing a Xhosa head wrap and a number of layered beaded collars. She looks the part of the African princess. Her face is perfectly made up and turns slightly from the camera with a coy smile as she bites gently on one of her fingers. The image was tweeted by @KhayaDlanga (a very well-known media personality in South Africa) on her birthday in 2015, with the caption ‘Happy birthday makhulu’. Madikizela-Mandela has always used what she wears and her self-presentation politically and although, as the next sub-section shows, she has also always been a consummate consumer of western fashion, here she is celebrated for having chosen the aesthetics of her own culture. Madikizela-Mandela is known to wear the headdresses, shawls and intricate beadwork of Xhosa fashion in formal portraits and public appearances. This self-styling can be read as an articulation of ethnic pride and resistance to colonial power, which has hugely powerful symbolism. As indicated by @khayadlanga’s use of the isiXhosa term ‘makhulu’, which is typically used in a respectful way to refer to one’s elders, Madikizela-Mandela is revered as an important senior figure within the black community. The portraiture of her in Xhosa finery echoes portraiture of royalty and dignitaries. Indeed, she does come from a family of high status in the Xhosa nation (Gilbey, 1993; Harrison, 1985; du Preez Bezdrob, 2004). Portraits of Madikizela-Mandela – showing her in the bloom of youth beautifully adorned in precious Xhosa items – hint at a nostalgia for unblemished pre-colonial African cultures and a time before the ravages of colonialism and the pains of apartheid.

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Figure 3.

Xhosa princess.

Style icon

In contrast to the indigenous aesthetics celebrated by the portraits discussed in the preceding sub-section is another set that, although also celebrating Madikizela-Mandela’s famous sense of style, focuses on western sensibilities. Almost without fail, when Madikizela-Mandela appeared in a photograph, whether it was a family snapshot or an appearance at a political event, she would be dressed winningly. Take the portrait tweeted on 22 May 2014 by @HRH_Zozuko (Winnie’s granddaughter Zuko Mandela). Alongside a caption reading ‘I want my daughters to look like this one day #tbt my gran’, a snapshot (Figure 4) shows Madikizela-Mandela at the front of the frame, cropped at the midriff, with a lawn, pathway, some trees and shrubs and an out-of-focus car in the background. She wears an elegant, high-necked, white blouse and a dramatic metallic necklace with long spikes resting on her collarbones. Her hair is styled into a high beehive bob, cropped at the nape. She is carrying some documents, and looks as though she has been caught mid-stride on her way to an important meeting. Her smile is dazzling. As one of @HRH_Zozuko’s followers @shazachez comments, the photo captures a sense of ‘beauty with a purpose’.

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Figure 4.

Style and beauty icon.

The nostalgia is quite literally communicated in the #tbt hashtag, a social media acronym for ‘throwback Thursday’, an online trend of sharing ‘old-school’ photos. @HRH_Zozuko may well be sharing a treasured family snapshot of her grandmother. What is interesting is that there is nothing explicitly political about the photograph: it merely shows a stylish and well-dressed young woman going about her everyday business. The granddaughter articulates an appreciation of her grandmother’s youthful beauty with a hope that some day her own daughters will be able to emulate her style. In this narrative, Madikizela-Mandela is removed from political symbolism and positioned in a post-feminist manner as merely an icon of style. The politics of Madikizela-Mandela’s life, the ‘purpose’ that @shazachez indicates, is inferred by the readers of the image because they know precisely that the smiling face belongs to a very powerful political figure, one who happens to have been stylish and beautiful. The fashion in the image is global and westernized; it implies membership in a transnational middle class and communicates that Madikizela-Mandela is in touch with international trends and has the agency to enjoy and partake in the pleasures of fashion, even though she was essentially, for most of her life, turned into a prisoner in her own country on the basis of the apartheid government’s repressive laws.

Freedom fighter

The final thematic visible in the historic portraits of Madikizela-Mandela shared by her fans on Twitter celebrate her revolutionary identity. As Madikizela-Mandela became increasingly radicalized in response to growing state repression in the 1980s, she often chose to communicate her commitment to the resistance through her clothing and hairstyles, no doubt carefully curated in order to photograph well. On 25 September 2014, @tshiwelan tweets, ‘Happy birthday @WinnieMandela mother of the nation. We love you, may you have a wonderful day and year’ (Figure 5). Alongside this sweet message is a black and white photograph of Madikizela-Mandela, along with a number of other comrades, with her fist raised high in the anti-apartheid struggle salute. Madikizela-Mandela looks anything but maternal: there are no children in sight, and it is clear that the context of the gathering is political. Madikizela-Mandela wears an Afro hairstyle and a dark collared shirt and leather waistcoat. She has a round beaded necklace at her throat and a similarly styled bangle on her raised wrist. In contrast to the other people, all of whom are wearing quite simple shirts and cardigans or jumpers, Madikizela-Mandela, even though the outfit is hardly elaborate, cuts a striking figure, echoing the styling of the US Black Panther movement. All the people in the image bear expressions of serious determination. Another image tweeted by @NjUhuruMpapu with no comment (simply tagging @WinnieMandela and @ANCWomensLeague) shows Madikizela-Mandela again with a serious expression and her fist in the air, this time wearing a camouflage flak jacket and a matching cap over her Afro. These images cement her presence as a struggle hero in the public imagination, someone who worked tirelessly to free her people from apartheid, and who supported the armed struggle. Although her fans rarely critique Madikizela-Mandela when they tweet pictures of her, it is worth nothing that during her tenure as head of the ANC Women’s League some members complained about her autocratic leadership style (Geisler, 2000: 616). She was nevertheless re-elected in 1997. Images of Madikizela-Mandela with her fist in the air not only speak to her role as a struggle leader but also carry hints of a personality that allegedly became increasingly domineering towards the end of apartheid.

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Figure 5.

Leader of the freedom struggle.

Nostalgia and reputation in portraits of Winnie on Twitter

How can we theorize the cultural role historical portraits of Winnie Mandela shared on social media? My argument is that these images can be theorized as a form of nostalgia, which, when deployed in social media platforms, becomes a resource for the social construction of public identity.

Nostalgia is defined as ‘the sentimental affection for a real or imagined past’ (Dovey and King, 2012: 285). Although it is ‘partly about memory […] or the things, people, conditions or values associated with’ earlier times (Higson, 2014: 123) it is perhaps more properly thought of as ‘a way of relating to a past imagined from the point of view of the present; it is a response to and a re-organization of contemporary experience’ (Higson, 2014: 124). Nostalgia has not, as some have argued (Jameson, 1984; Storey, 2009: 197), replaced history. There are social reasons that ‘nostalgia for the past has seemed to persist’ (Fanon, 1967: 91). What are the ‘values and sentiments’ of the ‘longed-for past’ being applauded (Higson, 2014: 124) in the images under analysis in this article? Certainly not the values of the oppressive apartheid state; more obviously it is the values of the struggle against it. Although apartheid had no virtue, this does not mean that black life under it was similarly bereft of moral content (Dlamini, 2009).

On 18 July 2016, Nelson Mandela’s birthday, @WinnieMandela tweeted, ‘I am honoured to have served my people and to live my purpose.’ Some could read this as a graceful response to having been snubbed by Mandela, who died in late 2013 and, according to media reports, although naming some of his staff and charities, did not leave a cent of his estate to Madikizela-Mandela. @lekhosi4life replies to the tweet, ‘thanks mama for the sacrifice you have made so that some of us can enjoy freedom. It is by your courage that we are free.’ Similarly, @4evaFatti says (sic), ‘U stood against soldiers,police,bullets, ‘the law’,illegal state,& media trying to rewrite your identity. MUCH Love 2u!’ (followed by two throbbing hearts and three raised-fist emojis). This tweet captures, quite brilliantly in just 140 characters, much of the public feeling towards Madikizela-Mandela, especially among black South Africans, despite the scandals that dogged her from the 1990s onwards. Such tweets capture wistfulness for the clarity of purpose and moral orientation that she represented. Although Madikizela-Mandela has not had real political power since the late 1990s, she continues to wield enormous cultural power. Her formal public service career was mired by political and corruption scandals, yet her legacy as a struggle heroine has outlasted it. What nostalgia allows us to do is to have the memory without the pain (Britten, 2006; Nauright, 1997: 98); the images analysed in this paper illustrate this truism.

This article has shown that Winnie’s legacy is, to a significant extent, visually constructed. Photography played an important role in building Winnie’s profile during the struggle and it continues to do so as her social media presence is cemented. In the age of applications that allow one to doctor an image taken on a smartphone so that it looks as if it has been fished out of a yellowing cardboard box in a cellar, or is an original film slide being projected by analogue equipment onto a screen, the power of a ‘real’ image from a bygone age should not be underestimated. One reading of nostalgia could be that it masks dissatisfaction with the present. Currently South Africa is going through perhaps the most trying times since the end of apartheid: multiplying social protests are challenging the ANC government’s legitimacy and, in the face of growing economic inequality, ever more stringent demands are being voiced for proper restitution and transformation. Perhaps there is something romantic about looking back on the unambiguously ethical liberation struggle, which was, for a time at least, captured in the image of the beautiful revolutionary-wife-mother, Winnie Mandela. Perhaps those who are looking at, and sharing, those iconic portraits of Madikizela-Mandela are yearning, not of course for the return of an oppressive, racist state, but for the kind of clarity of purpose that comes about as a response to that oppression.

Who has not known […] the surge of an overwhelming nostalgia for lost origins, for times past? And yet, this ‘return to the beginning’ […] can neither be fulfilled nor requited, and hence is the beginning of the symbolic, of representation, the infinitely renewable source of desire, memory, myth, search, discovery – in short, the reservoir of our cinematic narratives. (Hall, 1990: 233)

I would update this comment from Stuart Hall by replacing the word ‘cinematic’ in the final phrase with ‘social’ or ‘media’, or indeed, ‘social media’. Arguably, the Twitter profile of Winnie Mandela – and perhaps the Twitter profiles of politicians around the world – can be theorized as narrative reservoirs, where ideas about identity and history are mythologized and infinitely renewed, returned to the beginning and remixed, shared and reinscribed with meaning in different ways. Precisely because all data online will, in some form or another, last forever, only future research will be able to tell us how such narratives will continue to evolve.

Like any form of popular culture, social media serve as a space for exercising nostalgic impulses. This is particularly relevant considering that mainstream media, especially the English-language press, demonized Madikizela-Mandela in their coverage from the late 1980s onwards. In response to the court case trying her for the kidnapping and murder of Stompie Sepei, and various allegations of corruption during her career as a Member of Parliament and deputy minister, journalists and public commentators took it upon themselves to challenge Madikizela-Mandela’s power and reveal her inconsistencies and faults, many of them framed by allegations of voracious consumption (Iqani, 2015, 2016). Many of her supporters, both then and now, see that kind of media coverage as an attempt to undermine her legitimacy. Black women are particularly vulnerable to ‘assaults […] in media representations’ (Collins, 2000: 26). Although still constrained by the political-economy of media ownership, ordinary citizens can use platforms such as Twitter to share their views with public figures, such as Madikizela-Mandela, in a manner unprecedented before the digital age. Admirers and fans are free to celebrate the legacy of the woman who didn’t back down, who showed courage and solidarity in the face of heinous intimidation. Such sentiments are communicated merely by sharing a famous portrait in homage. Although, as @umuntuZA_ claimed, Madikizela-Mandela is ‘not celebrated enough’ in mainstream media, her admirers can try rectify that on Twitter. This raises the question of whether those who positively engage with Madikizela-Mandela on Twitter are already fans simply underlining that appreciation through social media, or whether her presence on social media positively influenced them to admire her. This question requires further research, although it is worth considering the extent to which a ‘favourable pre-disposition’ (Lee and Shin, 2014: 1102) affects people’s agreement with politicians’ views expressed on Twitter.

Politicians use Twitter as a ‘private publicity channel’ (Lee and Shin, 2012: 515) and as a tool of ‘impression management’ and self-promotion (Jackson and Lilleker, 2011: 101). As noted on the @WinnieMandela Twitter profile, Madikizela-Mandela has a PR team managing her affairs, and their work has included making sure that she has a presence on the internet through a website and social media profiles. This presence is used to build a positive public reputation. Her team re-tweets complimentary messages from her supporters, colleagues and admirers, and thereby creates an impression that she is widely looked upon with love and respect. Madikizela-Mandela’s social media team has artfully curated a space where she does not herself have to prove her relevance to the struggle; her admirers make this argument for her. The cultural economy of social media produces value from the activity of friends, followers and fans (Banks and Humphreys, 2008). Indeed, contemporary fandom has been described as a ‘digital archive culture’ (Lothian, 2013). That Madikizela-Mandela, at the age of 80, had the political acuity to ensure that not only did she have a presence in digital media, but one that has cleverly harnessed the labour of her followers to build a positive public reputation, is admirable and indicative of her astute political thinking in general.

From another perspective, it could be argued that the trend of sharing nostalgic portraits of Madikizela-Mandela speaks to a vacuum: there are very few high-profile women role models in the contemporary South African political public sphere. Does the sharing of historical images of Madikizela-Mandela, particularly those that label her as ‘mother of the nation’, hint at nostalgia for the ‘motherist’ politics that she for a time represented? The celebration of historical images could be read as a kind of backlash against a younger feminist generation, the ‘daughters’ who are unlikely to be as modest, stylish and restrained as Madikizela-Mandela appears in Figure 4. It is also worth considering the extent to which her enduring popularity is in part due to her palatable self-presentation. She always, even in her old age, meets expectations that she be beautiful, feminine, stylish and look younger than her years. As such, Madikizela-Mandela is an example of ‘ageing celebrities [who] promote a successful lifestyle associated with later life’ (Marshall and Rahman, 2015: 577). She is a ‘good consumer’, a woman interested in clothes, jewellery, fashion and make-up. Her public identity did not challenge heteronormative expectations of women’s roles as wives and mothers, that they be well-groomed and good-looking. Doubtless, she invests a time, energy and money in her appearance and producing herself as attractive (Thornham, 2003). Although many of her fans are quick to point out her enduring beauty and style, many also refer to her courage, sacrifice and moral orientation as the reasons that they love her. But the question lingers: if Madikizela-Mandela were less stylish and beautiful, would she have achieved the same levels of popular appeal?

As I have argued elsewhere, writing with Bridget Kenny and reflecting on the work of Danai Mupotsa (Mupotsa, 2015), nostalgia plays a particular role in contemporary South African consumer culture. Not only does it complicate ‘a version of aspiration as inclusion (or even exclusion)’, it also ‘offers a promise of participation in public culture, while at the same time attaching its shadow of disappointment and failure’ (Iqani and Kenny, 2015: 104). To some extent, Winnie Mandela’s legacy has been remixed and given new life by her fans through social media, and this in turn has created a new kind of digital life for a public figure whose cultural power, both nationally and internationally, is clear. This article has explored the intermingling of digital agency, nostalgia and cultural power in post-apartheid times. Focusing on the case study of fan-shared historical portraits of Winnie Mandela on Twitter, it has argued that the images feed into a form of nostalgia that yearns for the clear moral position of the fight against apartheid; they also serve as a powerful form of value-creation in a public relations strategy. The images are evidence of Madikizela-Mandela’s enduring cultural power and her popularity among black South Africans, despite constant challenges from the left and the right to the ANC government in the current moment.