Hearing the citizens: inequality, access to journalists and the prospects for inclusively mediated spaces of political deliberation in South Africa
- Authors: Oelofsen, Marietjie
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/35030 , vital:24309
- Description: This study examines the extent to which material and social inequality in post-apartheid South Africa affect possibilities for poor citizens to gain access to mainstream spaces of mediated political deliberation. Access is problematized in terms of the possibilities that exist for poor citizens to ‘appear’ in these spaces as emancipated citizens with political agency. The study is motivated by a perception that South Africa’s middle-class and privileged citizens have more access to political deliberation because mainstream journalists pay more attention to their political concerns. Because mediated political deliberation provides a space for articulating the political will of citizens it is important that it reflects the multiple, and diverse range of voices that make up South Africa’s polity. If the experience of socioeconomically marginalised citizens is not registered in the same way as the experience of citizens with economic and political power, the balance of political decision-making continues to be skewed against the interests of the poor. Rather than a media-centric approach, the study centres on perceptions and views of poor citizens about their relationship with mainstream journalists. The study combines information from group interviews with citizens from Hangberg, Cape Town with 410 news reports in 18 mainstream newspapers about Hangberg citizens over a 20-year period. The interviews show that poor citizens feel largely excluded from mediated political deliberation; not because they do not appear in the news but because of how they appear in the news. The news reports confirm that mainstream journalists pay more attention to voices with political and economic power than to the voices of poor citizens. Even in news reports about Hangberg citizens, political leaders and non-governmental experts often talk about the problems in Hangberg more than the citizens of Hangberg themselves talk about these problems. Building on a relatively new scholarly interest in ‘active’ and ‘political’ listening in media studies and democratic theory (Bickford 1996, Dreher 2009, Couldry 2009, Dobson 2014, Wasserman 2013, Garman and Malila 2014), I consider listening as a constitutive element of the way in which journalists engage with poor citizens in mediated deliberative spaces. I ask whether different practices of listening can enable journalists to construct narratives that provide marginalised groups with different possibilities for equal access to, and participation in these spaces?
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- Date Issued: 2017
Facebook, youth and political action: a comparative study of Zimbabwe and South Africa
- Authors: Mare, Admire
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3553 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021259
- Description: This comparative multi-sited study examines how, why and when politically engaged youths in distinctive national and social movement contexts use Facebook to facilitate political activism. As part of the research objectives, this study is concerned with investigating how and why youth activists in Zimbabwe and South Africa use the popular corporate social network site for political purposes. The study explores the discursive interactions and micro-politics of participation which plays out on selected Facebook groups and pages. It also examines the extent to which the selected Facebook pages and groups can be considered as alternative spaces for political activism. It also documents and analyses the various kinds of political discourses (described here as digital hidden transcripts) which are circulated by Zimbabwean and South African youth activists on Facebook fan pages and groups. Methodologically, this study adopts a predominantly qualitative research design although it also draws on quantitative data in terms of levels of interaction on Facebook groups and pages. Consequently, this study engages in data triangulation which allows me to make sense of how and why politically engaged youths from a range of six social movements in Zimbabwe and South Africa use Facebook for political action. In terms of data collection techniques, the study deploys social media ethnography (online participant observation), qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews. Theoretically, this study jettisons the Habermasian theory of public sphere in favour of Fraser’s (1990) concept of the subaltern counter-publics, Scott’s (1985) metaphor of hidden transcripts and some insightful views on popular culture gleaned from African studies. Melding these ideas into a synthesised theoretical frame, this study argues that Facebook fan pages and groups can be conceptualised as parallel discursive arenas where marginalised groups (including politically active youths) have a political life outside the dominant mediated public sphere often in ways that are generally viewed as “irrational” and “non-political” in mainstream Western literature. This study also proposes ways of enriching Fraser’s concept of subaltern counter-publics by incorporating elements from Scott’s metaphor of hidden transcripts in order to analyse the various kinds of political discourses which are circulated on social media. The findings demonstrate that youth activists in Zimbabwe and South Africa are using Facebook to engage in traditional and alternative forms of political participation. Findings show that Facebook in both political contexts is deployed for transmitting and accessing civic and political information, as a conduit for online donations and fundraising, for contacting political decision makers, as a venue of political activism, as an advertising platform for social and political events and as a platform for everyday political talk. It demonstrates that the broader political context shapes and constraints the localised appropriations of Facebook for political purposes in ways that deconstructs some of the postulations of the cyber-optimist and pessimist approaches. The study also found that youth activists in Zimbabwe and South Africa used Facebook in their own unique ways as shaped and dictated by the broader political and mediated opportunity structures. It argues that youth’s engagement with social media platforms for political purposes should be understood in their own terms without necessarily imposing inflexible boundaries on what counts as political participation. Although Facebook like other social media platforms foster avenues for cognitive engagement, discursive participation and political mobilisation, these political practices are not immune to the influences of offline processes. Youth activists in all the six case organisations used Facebook as a complementary and supplementary space for political processes rather than as a standalone platform. The study also argues that compared to South Africa, the political uses of Facebook in Zimbabwe are largely influenced by practices of state surveillance. It also found that whilst youth activists in South Africa are deploying Facebook to supplement traditional methods of political activism, their counterparts in Zimbabwe are using the same technology to circumvent the restricted political and media environment. The findings also indicate that youth activists in both countries are using Facebook as a change agent tool within the broader media ecology which is characterised by the increasing interpenetration of older and newer media platforms. In terms of micro-politics of participation and discursive interactions, this study found that Facebook pages and groups should viewed as a “sites of power” where corporate forces and platform specific code coalesce together fostering “algorithmic” gatekeeping practices and the favouring of paid for content over non-paid for user-generated-content which ultimately affects activists’ visibility and reach within the online media ecology. These gatekeeping practices therefore further complicate claims by cyber-optimists that social media platforms are the sine qua non spaces for symmetrical and democratic participation. This study argues that “subtle forms of control” characterise the much glorified participatory cultures on Facebook in ways that defy optimistic accounts of the role of new media in political change.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Facilitating and renegotiating Afrikaans youth identities: Die Antwoord phenomenon
- Authors: Meintjes, Stephané Ruth
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Die Antwoord , Die Antwoord -- I Fink U Freeky , Identity (Psychology) -- Social aspects , Afrikaner nationalism , Afrikaners -- Ethnic identity , Afrikaners -- Psychology , South Africa -- Race relations , Music, Influence of -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3538 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015655
- Description: This thesis reports on a project which investigated how young native, Afrikaans-speaking Rhodes University students responded to the musical outfit Die Antwoord and to their music video “I Fink U Freeky”. The study attempted to establish how a selected group of Afrikaans-speaking students consisting of Whites, Coloureds and Blacks interpret the work of Die Antwoord as well as their own Afrikaans identity. The purpose of the study was to interrogate the relationship between artistic media, citizenship and belonging to a particular group. The thesis reports on the ways in which interviewees in the group discussions responded to notions of identity, whiteness, class, race, hybridity and creolization registered in the music video which was used to prompt the discussions. Finally the thesis reports on findings regarding the relationship between citizenship and the artistic media. The enormous change in the socio-political position of Afrikaans-speakers in the post -1994 dispensation provides the social context of the study. The project utilised qualitative research and a reception study of the music was undertaken by means of focus group discussions in order to arrive at thick descriptions in an attempt to understand the contextual behaviour of the participants. It was postulated that Die Antwoord provides a discursive site within which audiences could generate their own innovative meanings regarding being Afrikaans. While there was no clear indication that the identities of the participants was constructed by the media, the video prompted discussions regarding identity and provided evidence that media texts are capable of stimulating an interrogation of identities. It emerged that all participants, while abandoning some aspects of Afrikaans culture, strongly embraced and highly valued the language. Participants did not regard race as an important aspect of citizenship. Vociferous discussions regarding class demonstrated how media texts can influence citizenship. Discussions about hybridization and creolization demonstrated how the media can challenge received conceptions regarding citizenship. Responses provided evidence that the media could stimulate new forms of citizenship and contribute to the inclusion of previously excluded subjects. The research findings clearly demonstrate links between artistic media, citizenship and belonging to a group of Afrikaanses rather than Afrikaners. Post- 1994 young Afrikaans-speakers in this study provided clear evidence that they are exploring new and alternative ways of being Afrikaans.
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- Date Issued: 2014
An investigation into how journalists experience economic and political pressures on their ethical decisions at the Nation Media Group in Kenya
- Authors: Maweu, Jacinta Mwende
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Nation Media Group Limited Journalists -- Kenya Journalistic ethics -- Kenya Press and politics -- Kenya Journalism -- Economic aspects -- Kenya Journalism -- Political aspects -- Kenya Mass media -- Political aspects -- Kenya Mass media -- Economic aspects -- Kenya Freedom of the press -- Kenya
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3508 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007583
- Description: This study investigates how journalists experience economic and political pressures on their ethical decisions at the Nation Media Group (NMG) conglomerate in Kenya. The study uses qualitative semi- structured interviews to examine how journalists experience these pressures on their professional ethics as they make their daily decisions. Grounded in the critical political economy of the media tradition, the findings of the study indicate that economic and political pressures from advertisers, shareholders’ interests, the profit motive and the highly ethnicised political environment in Kenya largely compromise the ethical decisions of journalists. The study draws on the work done by Herman and Chomsky in their ‘Propaganda Model’ in which they propose ‘filters’ as the analytical indicators of the forms that political and economic pressures that journalists experience may take. The study explores the ways in which journalists experience these pressures, how they respond to the pressures and the ways in which their responses may compromise their journalism ethics. The findings indicate that aside from the pressures from the primary five filters outlined in the Propaganda Model, ethnicity in Kenyan newsrooms is a key ‘filter’ that may compromise the ethical decisions of journalists at the NMG. The study therefore argues that there is a need to modify the explanatory power of the Propaganda Model when applying it to the Kenyan context to include ethnicity as a ‘sixth filter’ that should be understood in relation to the five primary filters. From the findings, it would seem that the government is no longer a major threat to journalists’ freedom and responsibility in Kenya. Market forces and ethnicity in newsrooms pose the greatest threat to journalists’ freedom and responsibility. The study therefore calls for a revision of the normative framework within which journalists’ and media performance in Kenya is assessed. As the study findings show, the prevailing liberal- democratic model ignores the commercial and economic threats the ‘free market’ poses to journalism ethics as well as ethnicity in newsrooms and only focuses on the media- government relations, treating the government as the major threat to media freedom.
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- Date Issued: 2013
Investigating the popularity of the main news bulletin on Muvi TV, a Zambian television station: a reception study of Lusaka viewers
- Authors: Mbatha, Loisa
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Television broadcasting of news -- Research -- Zambia Broadcast journalism -- Research -- Zambia Television programs -- Research -- Zambia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3463 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002918
- Description: The "tabloid TV" genre, like tabloid newspapers has been chastised for depoliticising the public by causing cynicism, and lowering the standards of rational public discourse. Such criticisms are not always based on a close interrogation of the reasons for the popularity of such a genre amongst its consumers. The "tabloid TV" news genre is a relatively new phenomenon in Zambia and in the African context in general. This study is an investigation of the rise in popularity of the Zambian television station, Muvi TV. It is a reception study of Lusaka (capital city) viewers, particularly the working class community, who make up the majority of the TV stations' audience. Members of this social group who have hitherto been marginalised from mainstream media discourses were interviewed. In particular, the study explores the meanings obtained from the content of Muvi TVs' tabloidised main evening news and its relevance to their everyday lived experiences. The TV station gives prominence to "micro-politics of everyday life", alongside "serious" stories albeit in a more lurid, sensationalised and personalised manner. In undertaking this investigation, the study draws primarily on qualitative in-depth interviews - focus group and individual. These techniques unearth the manner in which the viewers decode the messages and appropriate the meanings into their lived experiences. The study establishes that the popularity of Muvi TV is due to the emphasis on human-interest stories epitomised by tabloid journalism values. The working class majority is able to relate and identify with these stories, and attaches greater believability to the station's news as compared to the public broadcaster, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC). As such, Muvi TV can be seen to fulfil a political function despite its sensationalised approach.
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- Date Issued: 2011