Abstract
At the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic, the South African government implemented one of the
harshest lockdowns in the world, with bans on non-essential employment, severe restrictions of travel,
and a curfew. Hunger followed. It was critical for activists in poor communities to distribute food and
undertake popular education, but the lockdown made this almost impossible. In Johannesburg, one
organisation successfully addressed the challenge. This was the Community Organising Working
Group (COWG). Use of Zoom was central, and this dissertation explores the implications.
My methodology included participant observation and, after the hard lockdown had eased, interviews
with activists in the communities where they lived. The latter brought home the way that Zoom had
been used alongside by in-person communication, with one re-enforcing the other. COWG’s full
media ecology was wider still, with valuable use of WhatsApp and the panoply of techniques common
in social movements (Treré and Mattoni 2016).
Through Zoom, activists were able to meet, make decisions, report on implementation, raise funds,
maintain accountability, develop leadership, increase trust and commitment, and integrate new
members. Goffman (1959), terms this as ‘backstage organising’ whereby activists can plan what they
would like to execute. Contrary to literature that laments the ‘digital divide’, this dissertation shows
how the internet, specifically Zoom, acted as a digital unifier and leveller. It brought together activists
and their communities, often far apart on the fringes of the city, and linked them with a small group
of professionals, who were socially separated. Some working comrades were able to attend, and
gender divides were narrowed, because comrades were able to combine meetings with childcare and
other responsibilities. Limitations are also considered. For instance, while leading activists were
connected most community members were not, though this was mitigated by organising within
neighbourhoods.
Most of South Africa’s working-class movements were disabled by the lockdown, but COWG
thrived. This case provides a glimpse of how poor people can adapt to new technology, turning it to
advantage, with the possibility of organising beyond a city, to a country and, indeed, internationally.