Eshu’s tricks. Fragments for a communicational analysis of voting Cover Image

Les facéties de Lebga. Fragments pour une analyse communicationnelle du vote
Eshu’s tricks. Fragments for a communicational analysis of voting

Author(s): Isabelle Mathieu
Subject(s): Media studies, Electoral systems, Politics and communication
Published by: ESSACHESS
Keywords: Voting; election; political; communication; incommunication; representation;

Summary/Abstract: Voting is a sort of black hole in work on political communication in information and communication sciences. As for electoral studies in political science, they provide increasingly precise information about who electors are and the circumstances under which they decide how to vote, but they struggle to enlighten what voters mean by their votes. This paper outlines a fresh approach to voting as a communicational process. In a context of crisis of representation, recent work in ICS encourages the use of “incommunication” to analyse the relationship that forms during political elections between governors and governed. A diversion by way of political anthropology will lead to mention of Eshu (Elegba, Legba), who in Africa forms a synthesis between communication that is inherent in all forms of power and the individual and collective expression of the guardians of power.

  • Issue Year: 11/2018
  • Issue No: 21 (1)
  • Page Range: 159-176
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: French