The making of business news in Africa: a case study of Cameroon Tribune newspaper
- Authors: Tawe, Ngamale Emmanuel
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Journalism -- Cameroon Mass media -- Cameroon Journalism, Commercial -- Cameroon Cameroon Tribune (Cameroon) Journalism, Commercial -- Sociological aspects -- Cameroon Journalism, Commercial -- Social aspects -- Cameroon Journalism, Commercial -- Economic aspects -- Cameroon Journalism, Commercial -- Political aspects -- Cameroon Cameroon -- Economic conditions Elite (Social sciences)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3487 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002942
- Description: Since the emergence of business journalism as a genre within the broad spectrum of news reporting, most of the scholarly works into its development have focused on growth in the western (that is developed) world. This indicates that very limited research has been done in the field of business journalism in the developing economies. Thus there exist gaps in understanding the practice of business journalism in Africa and part of this is rooted in how the practice is defined. This study aims to shed light on the practice of business journalism in this African context. It explores the onset and development of business journalism and its evolution in Africa. The main focus in this case study was to understand the definition of business news in the specific context of the Cameroon Tribune. Individual in-depth interviews were used as the main (primary) data collection method along with observation and cursory reading as complementary (secondary) methods. This study is influenced by the sociology of news production which foregrounds theoretical frames such as news construction and gatekeeping. Findings from this study reveal that business news at the Cameroon Tribune is elitist, essentially defined around personality and, is in the most part, development news. Additional findings indicate that the absence of any editorial guidelines leaves most reporters secondguessing how to please management with socialised values mostly acquired through peer learning. In conclusion, this study advances the necessity for the Africanisation of business news. This would entail reporting financial, economic, consumer, and corporate affairs, from a vocabulary and composition context that unveils much exchange taking place in the lives of many Africans.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Investigating the role of media in the identity construction of ethnic minority language speakers in Botswana : an exploratory study of the Bakalanga
- Authors: Thothe, Oesi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Linguistic minorities -- Botswana , Kalanga language (Botswana and Zimbabwe) , Kalanga (African people) -- Ethnic identity , Language policy -- Botswana , Mass media and language -- Botswana , Mass media and ethnic relations -- Botswana , Mass media -- Audiences , Mass media -- Social aspects -- Botswana
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3547 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017788
- Description: This dissertation investigates the role of media in the identity construction of minority language speakers in Botswana, with a focus on the Bakalanga. The study is informed by debates around the degree to which the media can be seen to play a central role in the way the Bakalanga define their own identity. As part of this, it considers how such individuals understand their own sense of identity to be located within processes of nation-building, and in particular in relation to the construction of a national identity. It focuses, more particularly, on the extent to which the absence of particular languages within media can be said to impact on such processes of identity formation. The study responds, at the same time, to the argument that people’s more general lived experiences and their broader social environment have a bearing on how they make sense of the media. As such, it can be seen to critique the assumption that the media necessarily play a central and defining role within processes of socialisation. In order to explore the significance of these debates for a study of the Bakalanga, the dissertation includes a contextual discussion of language policy in Botswana, the impact of colonial history on such policy and the implications that this has had for the linguistic identity of the media. It also reviews theoretical debates that help to make sense of the role that the media plays within the processes through which minority language speakers construct their own identity. Finally, it includes an empirical case study, consisting of qualitative interviews with individuals who identify themselves as Bakalanga. It is argued that, because of the absence of their own language from the media, the respondents do not describe the media as central to their own processes of identity formation. At the same time, the respondents recognise the importance of the media within society, and are preoccupied with their own marginalisation from the media. The study explores the way the respondents make sense of such marginalisation, as demonstrated by their attempts to seek alternative media platforms in which they can find recognition of their own language and social experience. The study thus reaffirms the significance of media in society – even for people who feel that they are not recognised within such media.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Selecting stories to tell: the gatekeeping of international news at SAfm
- Authors: Ticha, Abel Akara
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: South African Broadcasting Corporation SAfm (South Africa) Radio broadcasting -- South Africa Foreign news -- South Africa Radio journalism -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3499 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004520
- Description: The premise of this thesis is that the selection of international news to be aired on the bulletins of SAfm by SABC Radio News staff is influenced by more complex factors than could be seen solely from the prism of an empirical journalistic paradigm. Drawing from data obtained through participant observation and interviewing, it is noted that there has been a revolution from a propagandist approach during apartheid to a professional approach following the demise of apartheid, in the selection of international news for bulletins on SAfm. Using Lewin's theory of forces in decision making and locating it within four out of five levels of a framework of gatekeeping analysis provided by Shoemaker (1991) and Shoemaker et al (200 I), it is concluded that the delimiting well-tested routines of newsmaking act as powerful companions of individuals' selection decisions of international news broadcast on SAfm's bulletins. However, these routines are adapted to meet the organisational demands of the SABC, which as a Public Service Broadcaster (PBS) has embraced the discourse of South African nationalism/panAfricanism, as a major philosophy underpinning the Corporation's coverage of the world. Therefore, some individual, routine and organisational factors influencing the se lection of international news broadcast on SAfm's bulletins, are predetermined and co-determined by the social system (the ideological/discursive structure), which is promoted by certain social institutions. Instances of spokespersons of such institutions as governments, international governmental and non-governmental organisations, etc., officiating the news abound; the gatekeepers use them to meet routine professional standards of journalism. This potentially works to sustain the hegemonic discourses of the powerful in international affairs (in tenns of core/peripheral nations relations, and elite classlruled majority relations) though there is a conscious oppositional effort to modify or dwarf stories that explicitly promote imperialism and to hold rulers accountable to the public. It is posited that the time is ripe for newsworkers responsible for the production of bulletins for SAfm to take the risk that may be necessary to inject a few changes in routine practices that could limit the engineering of consent to the powerful elites in the international arena.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
"Too tired to speak?": investigating the reception of Radio Grahamstown's Lunchtime Live show as a means of linking local communities to power
- Authors: Tsarwe, Stanley Zvinaiye
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Community radio -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Radio broadcasting -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Radio journalism -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Mass media -- Political aspects -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Grahamstown (South Africa) -- Economic conditions -- 21st century Grahamstown (South Africa) -- Social conditions -- 21st century Civil society -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Political participation -- South Africa -- Grahamstown
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3488 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002943
- Description: This study sets out to investigate Lunchtime Live, a twice-weekly, one-hour long current affairs show broadcast on a small community radio station, Radio Grahamstown, to understand its role in the local public sphere, and its value in helping civil society’s understanding of and involvement in the power structures and political activities in Grahamstown. Lunchtime Live seeks to cultivate a collective identity and promote public participation in the public affairs of Grahamstown. As a key avenue of investigation, this study seeks to test theory against practice, by evaluating Lunchtime Live’s aspirations against the audiences’ perception of it. This investigation uses qualitative content analysis of selected episodes of recorded transcripts of the shows that aired between August 2010 and March 2011, together with the audiences’ verbalised experiences of this programme through focus group discussions. The study principally uses qualitative research informed by reception theory. The research reveals three key findings. First, that resonance rather than resistance is the more dominant ‘stance’ or ‘attitude’ towards the content of Lunchtime Live. Residents interviewed agreed that the programme is able to give a “realistic” representation of their worldview, and thus is able to articulate issues that affect their lives. Second, that whilst the programme is helping establish links between members of the civil society as well as between civil society and their political representatives, residents feel that local democracy is failing to bring qualitative improvements to their everyday lives and that more ‘participation’ is unlikely to change this. Most respondents blame this on a lack of political will, incompetence, corruption and populist rhetoric by politicians who fail to deliver on the mantra of ‘a better life for all’ in the socioeconomic sphere. The study finds a scepticism and even cynicism that participatory media seems to be able to do little to dilute. Thirdly, in spite of the largely positive view about Lunchtime Live’s capacity to be a platform for public engagement, its participatory potential is structurally constrained by the material privations of most of its listeners. Given that in order to participate in talk shows and discussions audience members have to phone in, economic deprivation often precludes this. It is clear from this research that despite shows such as Lunchtime Live that are exploring new techniques of popular involvement, the voice of the ordinary people still struggles to be heard.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
The gendered appropriation of the mobile phone for online health information by youths in Zimbabwean tertiary learning institutions
- Authors: Tsarwe, Stanley Zvinaiye
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/738 , vital:19986
- Description: The study uses domestication of technology and Cultural Studies theories to investigate how youth in three institutions of tertiary learning in Harare, Zimbabwe are accessing health-related information online using their smart phones. The study critically examines how youths deploy these digital media technologies to construct their identities in a context where social and political power is unevenly distributed. To understand these issues, the study uses a triangulated research design comprising a social survey, in-depth individual interviews and field observation for data collection. Results from this data gathering showed that the use of digital media technologies differ across gender, at least in terms of the distribution of online health seeking practices between male and female youths. According to the survey results, more women tend to use their mobile phones to access health-related information. Data from the individual in-depth interviews showed that the most significant site of social change (social disruption) relates to how digital media facilitates emerging new identities (i.e. identity in the broader sense as well as health-related and sexual health identities). For both young men and young women, mobile phones are used precisely for image management, peer acceptance and the desire to define respective feminities and masculinities within their social networks. Both male and female youths assert they are able to access a variety of information online, and some of this information would not easily accessible when sought from traditional structures such as their parents. This way, youth feel that digital media technologies allow them to cultivate their own preferred identities outside the purview of parental authority and social control. Drawing on postmodern literature, such emerging identities are predicated on cultural volatility, unpredictability, decentralisation and refusal to fixation and conformity to socially constructed identities about being a youth, or being a young Zimbabwean woman or man, for example. Thus, the use of mobile phones and mobile Internet by youths in Zimbabwe to access health-related information has sociopolitical significance, because it allows young people to fashion preferred identities that resists entrenched regimes of social power. For young people in Zimbabwe, online health seeking practices precisely reflects attempt towards negotiating with and circumvent the structural limitations of either an expensive health care system or the general curiosity associated with growing up. That way, it is arguable that youth use digital media technologies to help them exercise some level of social autonomy and agency in dealing with everyday life. Individual in-depth interviews demonstrated that mobile phones and mobile Internet can thus be seen as opening up more spaces for youth to learn more about issues about growing up, sexuality and adolescents that a conservative society such as Zimbabwe traditionally consider as ‘inappropriate’ for youth consumption. They argued that the inability of parents to discuss with them issues about growing up often result in them “finding out on our own” using digital media technologies to satisfy the desire to wean themselves from what they view as arbitrary and asymmetrical social power. The study demonstrated that youth use the mobile phone to challenge the social world of adults and to show resistance to it, thereby strengthening a subculture as well as constructing an identity. However, despite the positive attributes of social capital, connectivity and personalised experience afforded by the mobile phone, the mobile phone is sometimes a source of conflict in relationships between young men and women; that is, between unmarried partners. Young women reported that their boyfriends often force them to disclose who they communicate with using their mobile phones. They also reported that their boyfriends often did some random surveillance of their social media contacts and activities. Thus, whilst one of the mobile phone’s most powerful attribute is its ability to offer personalised experience, as well as offer synchronised and unlimited access to distant connections, results from in-depth interviews showed that some unwritten expectations and norms dictated that young men closely watch their ‘girlfriends’ social media activities, including their online search activities. As a result, privacy as well as the much touted relationship between mobile phone and women’s autonomy becomes contested arenas. Even at young ages, and before marriage, women are socialised to show subservience to their partners by allowing them access to their mobile phones.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Investigating a rural community's use of communication technology: a study of Nakaseke Community Multi-media centre in Uganda
- Authors: Tumusiime, James
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Information technology -- Uganda , Media programs (Education) -- Uganda , Communication in rural development -- Uganda , Communication -- Technological innovations -- Developing countries , Telecommuting centres -- Uganda
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3489 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002944 , Information technology -- Uganda , Media programs (Education) -- Uganda , Communication in rural development -- Uganda , Communication -- Technological innovations -- Developing countries , Telecommuting centres -- Uganda
- Description: An assumption that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and economic development have an automatic linkage has gained wide acceptance over the last decade. As a result, developing countries are under pressure to apply this prescription as a solution to poverty. With the help of development partners in the developed world and the United Nations, developing countries have embraced this call to increase access to ICTs to bridge the ever-widening gap between the ‘information rich’ and ‘information poor’ (Castells, 2001). One of the strategies has been the establishment of telecentres where the least privileged people might access ICTs for their own development needs. However, this strategy has tended to overlook contextual factors and circumstances in developing countries. ICTs are thus being introduced in an environment of mass poverty, illiteracy and poor infrastructure, exacerbating existing inequalities in some cases. Much attention has been focussed on initiatives aimed at expanding the ICT infrastructure for wider population access without addressing what the users actually do with such access. This study aims to make a contribution in that direction. The study focuses on Nakaseke Community Multi-media Centre(CMC), the first telecentre introduced in Uganda in 1997. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research techniques, the study sets out to develop deeper insights into how the Nakaseke community uses, engages with and relates with communication technologies installed at the telecentre. It probes whether these practices advance the dominant view that ICTs are a panacea for rural development. The findings indicate that while access to communication technology has expanded, albeit at a slow pace, the benefits might take very long to have a significant effect as many targeted users do not make use of the facilities because they lack the human skills and financial resources to exploit the technologies. Other problems such as poor electricity supply and sustainability also actively militate against the potential of the project to deliver. Besides, people tend to appropriate technology in ways different from those intended by its promoters. As Burton (2002) explains through the concept of ‘affordances’ and ‘culture’, some users perceive technologies essentially as something that bestows the status of being modern or sophisticated on their community, rather than as a development tool. In conclusion, it is argued that if used for development, ICTs can indeed make a difference in the lives of rural people. However, besides investing in technology, there is need to invest more in empowering the people themselves with skills, particularly literacy, to enable them use ICTs productively.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
The framing of China in Nigeria : an analysis of the coverage of China's involvement in Nigeria by Thisday newspaper
- Authors: Umejei, Emeka Lucky
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Thisday (Nigeria) , Nigeria -- Foreign economic relations -- China , China -- Foreign economic relations -- Nigeria , Journalism -- Nigeria , Journalism -- Political aspects -- Nigeria , Nigerian newspapers -- Objectivity , Social responsibility of business -- Nigeria
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3525 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012974
- Description: This study identified the media frames that dominate Thisday newspaper's coverage of China's engagement with Nigeria and relate these frames to frame sponsors, who articulate and contest these framings. Frame analysis is applied to a sample of 40 news, feature and opinion articles between the sample period of 1 November 2011 and 31 December 2012. The study analysed media content from Thisday newspapers, drawing on the four dimensions of frames identified by Entman: define problems, diagnose causes, evaluate causal agents and their effects, and recommend treatment (Entman 1993). Using an inductive approach to frame analysis, the study identified two overarching mega frames, contested among the ruling elites who sponsor their views on China in the media, which define China's engagement with Nigeria; partner/role model and predator. The two mega frames mirror the broad characterisation prevalent in the academic literature on China in Africa. The primary partner/role model mega frame constructs China's engagement with Nigeria as a mutually beneficial economic partnership while on the other hand the predator mega frame constructs it as unequal and exploitative. The study identified the activities of frame sponsors who are articulating and promoting their views on China's engagement with Nigeria in the media as primarily responsible for these framings. The study also identified the activities of frame sponsors (ruling and economic elites) was key to the exclusion of ordinary peoples' voices, civic organisations, trade unions and human rights organisation in the text. However, the study also attributes the exclusion of ordinary voices, human rights, democracy and civic engagements in the text to the weakness of Thisday journalism in mediating the framings of China being promoted and articulated by elite frame sponsors. This is, however, symptomatic of the fault lines of journalism practice in Nigeria.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Newsroom convergence at the Mail & Guardian: a case study
- Authors: Van Noort, Elvira Esmeralda
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Mail & Guardian Convergence (Telecommunication) Journalism -- Management -- South Africa Mass media -- Management -- South Africa Journalism -- Technological innovations -- South Africa Online journalism -- South Africa Broadcast journalism -- South Africa Mass media -- Ownership Digital media -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3490 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002945
- Description: This case study researches newsroom convergence as a process at the Mail & Guardian newspaper and their online edition the Mail & Guardian Online. It focuses on the reporters’ and editors’ attitudes towards newsroom convergence and on cultural resistance against change; one of the major challenges in the process. With structured interviews, observations and questionnaires it was analysed that communication problems between the newsrooms, different production cycles and time management issues are other prominent difficulties. The case study furthermore provides a snapshot of the convergence phenomenon as a process in a particular South African news organisation. The outcomes could not only assist other news companies with convergence plans but also be used as a pilot study for further research on converged newsrooms in South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Convergence of old and new: a case study analysis of the development online by a South African radio station: Radiosondergrense/www.rsg.co.za
- Authors: Vasques, Vanessa Claudia
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: Radio stations -- South Africa , Radio stations -- South Africa -- Marketing , Radio stations -- Computer network resources , Radiosondergrense
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3498 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003913 , Radio stations -- South Africa , Radio stations -- South Africa -- Marketing , Radio stations -- Computer network resources , Radiosondergrense
- Description: This thesis is a case study analysis of the dream one radio station had about creating something new and unique on the Internet. RadioSonderGrense (RSG), an Afrikaans South African radio station, saw opportunities for themselves as a radio station on the Internet and put enormous resources and man-power into their venture. Their vision of what the Internet could bring to their radio station, and what they could bring to a website set the ground for creative and innovative thought. This dissertation is an examination of whether the Internet lived up to the expectations RSG had for it, and whether they were able to use their resources (in terms of their audience, their advertisers and the uniqueness of radio) to create something new and never seen before. The foremost aim of this dissertation is to shed some light onto the up-to-now under researched area of why radio stations have begun to develop on the Internet. Through the analysis of RSG, their comes to this subject some new thoughts and ideas about the convergence of these two mediums. RSG, and radio in general, are examined historically, practically and in comparison to the Internet. This is done in order to fully grasp the project that RSG had set for themselves and to realize where they had come from and where they hoped to go. It is argued that although RSG had hoped for great things, their innovative thought was not enough to guarantee them their dreams. They were not able to fully utilize the resources available to them in combination with what the Internet could offer them to fulfill the expectations they had for themselves. The foremost conclusion is that although RSG were able to envisage what the Internet could add to the radio station, they fell short of giving their listeners, users and advertisers a tool which could make the RSG website truly unique. Their website gives the user some interesting and useful applications, but it does not make full use of what the Internet and radio together could create.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
The safety of journalists: an assessment of perceptions of the origins and implementation of policy at two international television news agencies
- Authors: Venter, Sahm
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Reuters Television , Associated Press Television News , Journalism -- Safety measures , Journalists -- Protection , News agencies -- Safety measures
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3491 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002946 , Reuters Television , Associated Press Television News , Journalism -- Safety measures , Journalists -- Protection , News agencies -- Safety measures
- Description: Being a journalist today can be a deadly pursuit, particularly for those covering conflict and other dangerous assignments. In 2004 more journalists and other media workers were killed than in the last ten years. While it is impossible to guarantee that journalists will not be killed or injured, kidnapped or detained, a policy has been created to help protect them in the course of their duties. This study examines the perceptions of journalists working for two international television news agencies about this safety policy called the ‘Joint code of practice for journalists working in conflict zones’. This policy was adopted in November 2000 by five major television companies including the television news agencies Reuters Television and Associated Press Television News. This study finds that the policy had significant flaws in how it was formulated and how it is communicated, implemented and reviewed. Recognising the existence of unequal relations of power and conflicting interests at play in any policy process, this study stresses that in the case of the journalist safety policy, all stakeholders should have participated in the relevant policy stages. This argument arises from researching the policy document as well as from the point of view of managers, and particularly journalists who work on dangerous assignments, either full-time or on a freelance basis for either of the two television news agencies. It finds that while journalists are not generally aware of the policy, they do practice many of its elements as well as a range of their own custom-made strategies to protect themselves. The result is to make the policy less effective than it could be.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
A critical analysis of the coverage of Uganda's 2000 referendum by The New Vision and The Monitor newspapers
- Authors: Wakabi, Wairagala
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: National Resistance Movement (Uganda) , New Vision (Uganda) , Monitor (Uganda) , Democracy -- Uganda , Political participation -- Uganda , Mass media -- Political aspects -- Uganda , Press and politics -- Uganda , Freedom of the press -- Uganda , Uganda -- Politics and government -- 1979-
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3492 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002947 , National Resistance Movement (Uganda) , New Vision (Uganda) , Monitor (Uganda) , Democracy -- Uganda , Political participation -- Uganda , Mass media -- Political aspects -- Uganda , Press and politics -- Uganda , Freedom of the press -- Uganda , Uganda -- Politics and government -- 1979-
- Description: On July 29 2000, Uganda held a referendum to decide whether to continue with the ruling Noparty Movement system or to revert to the Multi-party platform. This research entails a qualitative content analysis of the role the media played in driving debate and understanding of the referendum and its role in the country’s democratisation process. The research is informed by Jurgen Habermas’s public sphere paradigm as well as the sociological theory of news production. The research covers Uganda’s two English dailies – The New Vision and The Monitor, examining whether they provided a public sphere accessible to all citizens and devoid of ideological hegemony. It concludes that the newspapers were incapable of providing such a sphere because of the structural nature of Ugandan society and the papers’ own capitalistic backgrounds and ownership interests. The research concludes that such English language newspapers published in a country with a low literacy rate and low income levels, can only provide a public sphere to elite and privileged sections of society. A case is then made that multiple public spheres would be better suited to represent the views of diverse interest groups.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
The exploration of the impact of state ownership on Uganda's New Vision Newspaper's social role
- Authors: Wasswa, John Baptist
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: New Vision (Uganda) , Government and the press -- Uganda , Press and politics -- Uganda , Newspaper publishing -- Uganda
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3493 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002948 , New Vision (Uganda) , Government and the press -- Uganda , Press and politics -- Uganda , Newspaper publishing -- Uganda
- Description: The global trends of democratisation and privatisation that swept much of the developing world in the 1980s and 1990s led to significant changes in the conceptualisation, organisation and performance of the media. In Africa democratisation attained a new meaning with associated processes of liberalisation of broadcasting to end the monopoly of broadcasting by the state. The private media of the liberalised market is increasingly putting the public media system, both broadcast and print, under serious competition, and forcing them to adjust to changing circumstances. The New Vision newspaper in Uganda is one such public service media organisations that are owned by the state and yet have to compete in the new more democratic and liberalised environment. This study set out to explore the extent to which state-ownership impacts on The New Vision’s social role. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods of date collection, I have established the that although The New Vision is a public service medium for which government remains the major source of news, it does not in most cases give the state more or preferentially prominent coverage at the expense of other interest groups in society. On contrary, basing of the amount of coverage of civil society I established that The New Vision enabled the various groups public sphere to interact. The newspaper to an extent also plays the democratic role of monitoring government although there was little evidence of monitoring of corporate abuse. The nature of The New Vision Statute, and the global trends that have changed the conduct of official and private business, have rendered the theories on the 1980s’ development media theories increasingly inapplicable, forcing The New Vision to develop its own version of development journalism that is socially relevant. The study recommends that whereas much of The New Vision Statute is progressive, sections of it should be removed to protect the newspaper from being manipulated by government functionaries, if the it is to continue enabling the public sphere. The newspaper should also increase its monitoring of corporate abuse, and make internal reforms to improve the coverage of development related issues.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Negotiating spaces, constructing identities and consuming symbolic resources: examining the complex interplay between identity formation, context and media consumption amongst black South African students at Rhodes University
- Authors: Willetts, Luke
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Mass media -- Psychological aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media -- Sociological aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media and culture -- South Africa , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Social movements -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Student movements -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Male college students -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Rhodes University -- Students -- Attitudes
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/95207 , vital:31127
- Description: This thesis has looked at the complex interplay between media consumption and identity formation amongst a group of black South African male students within the context of a racially homogenous communal viewing area located on the Rhodes University campus during the #FMF protests in 2016. Using qualitative research methods the study concluded that the group context of communal viewing helped the students structure and make sense of their daily lives. They actively divorced themselves from the main student populace in an attempt to escape lived experiences of a repressive institutional culture expressed through the university’s monolingual language policies, aesthetics and course material. These students embodied the characteristics of a diasporic community characterised by displacement, dispersal and the continuous re-articulation of differences across contradictory social, cultural and economic contexts. They grappled with an alienating environment by creating a safe space for cultural reproduction aided by the communal consumption of local television programmes. Preferences for local content broadcast in African languages were shaped by a linguistic marginalisation experienced on the Rhodes campus. The politicisation of the context through #FMF in turn politicised the students’ subjectivities leading to a need to be informed of the movement’s progression through evening news broadcasts. Discussions around campus life were dominated by #FMF and the collective experiences of marginalisation in and from the university space. Communal viewing of local television shows allowed this group of students to transcend decades of essentialised African ethnic divisions bringing forward a group identity premised on a lived hegemony signified by blackness.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
The representation of women's reproductive rights in the American feminist blogosphere: an analysis of the debate around women's reproductive rights and abortion legislation in response to the reformation of the United States health care system in 2009/10
- Authors: Yelverton, Brittany
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Abortion -- Law and legislation -- United States Reproductive rights -- Law and legislation -- United States Fertility -- Law and legislation -- United States Feminism Blogs -- United States Health care reform -- United States -- 21st century Women -- Blogs -- United States Social change -- United States Discourse analysis Feministing Jezebel
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3494 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002949
- Description: This study investigates the representation of women's reproductive rights in the feminist blogopshere during 2009/10 United States health care reform. Focusing on two purposively selected feminist blogsites - Feministing and Jezebel- it critically examines the discursive and rhetorical strategies employed by feminist bloggers to contest the erosion of women's reproductive rights as proposed in health care reform legislation. While the reformation of the U.S. health care system was a lengthy process, my analysis is confined to feminist blog posts published in November 2009, December 2009 and March 2010. These three months have been designated as they are roughly representative of three pivotal stages in health care reform: the drafting of the House of Representatives health care reform bill and Stupak Amendment in November 2009, the creation of the Senate health care bill inclusive of the Nelson compromise in December 2009, and the passage of the finalised health care reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and supplementary executive order, in March 2010. This study is informed by feminist poststructuralist theory and Foucault's conceptions of discourse and power - an appropriate framework for identifying and analysing the unequal power relations that exist between men and women in patriarchal societies. Foucault conceives of discourse as both socially constituted and constitutive and contends that through the constitution of knowledge, discourses designate acceptable ways of talking, writing, and behaving, while simultaneously restricting and prohibiting alternatives, thereby granting power and authority to specific discourses. However, Foucault also stresses the multi-directionality of power and asserts that though hegemonic discourses are privileged over others, power lays in discursive practice at all social sites; hence the socially and politically transformative power of contesting discourses. Critical discourse analysis is informed by this critical theory of language and regards the use of language as a form of social practice located within its specific historical context. Therefore, it is through engaging in the struggle over meaning and producing different 'truths' through the reappropriation of language that the possibility of social change exists. Employing narrative, linguistic and rhetorical analysis, this study identifies the discursive strategies and tactics utilised by feminist bloggers to combat and contest anti-choice health care legislation. The study further seeks to determine how arguments supportive of women's reproductive rights are framed and how feminist discourses are privileged while patriarchal discourse is contested. Drawing on public sphere theory, I argue that the feminist blogosphere constitutes a counter-public which facili tates the articulation and circulation of marginalised and counter-discourses. I conclude this study by examining the feminist blogopshere's role in promoting political change and transformation through alternative representations of women and their reproductive rights.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010