Functions Of Political Culture

Political culture can be defined as a value system wherein society’s beliefs, attitudes and customs amalgamate and allow for a single political identity to emerge. According to Manheim, a political culture needs members and common objects, which are recognized as having a direct relationship to the political system (1982:49). A political culture emerges when the context and experiences within a society are mutual and interpreted in the same way. Therefore, common characteristics of a mutual context or social experience are related to having a shared physical environment, history, information platforms and social problems or challenges (Manheim, 1982:49). Once these common characteristics have been established there is a fundamental consensus

The political culture provides legitimacy through consensus and defines the behaviour of the society at large. For example, behavioral elements which are present when a democratic political culture is established are political tolerance (Diamond, 1999:165), a multi-party system, support for competitive elections, democratic rights, freedom, independent media, the need to accept change, accountability and better standards of living for all. How political culture functions within a political system depends on the extensive, intensive or temporal attitudes of the particular political society in question. An extensive political function means that the political beliefs are more widely shared as is the case in the United States of America, whereas an intensive political function means there is importance and strength on the political beliefs and lastly a temporal political function refers to the strength of party identification or tendency towards issue politics. A public symbol has an important function within shaping political culture once the political society have established a direct relationship between their political system and the object (Manheim, 1982:52). The United States of America have a flag which is essential a tricolored piece of cloth, but has become a public symbol of liberty, justice and democracy within America and the larger western world (Manheim, 1982:52). Symbols

Freedom of speech allows for all individual citizens, media platforms and political parties to voice opinions about the functioning of the political system publicly without the fear of punishment. Censorship should never be a concern within a democratic political culture and the safety of journalist and individuals with a strong influence on the political culture can never be jeopardized. Julius Malema, current leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), made statements about media exclusion and threated journalist safety during recent interviews, which is concerning within a democratic political culture because Malema expresses an unconstitutional approach with regards to freedom of speech and basic human rights to safety. Malema threated the safety of journalists at future EFF political rallies, which violated the constitution Malema promised to uphold when becoming the official leader of the EFF, but more importantly the exclusion of media coverage at public EFF events would encourage censorship and destroy the democratic political culture of South Africa. Democracy within South Africa would lack legitimacy if debates about media censorship were to continue, because the dominant political culture is democratic and strongly believe in the freedom of