- Title
- Reporting on home: how journalists from rural Botswana experience covering rural development while working at the Botswana Daily News
- Creator
- Lekoma, Bame Dirakano
- ThesisAdvisor
- Du Toit, Jeanne
- Subject
- Botswana -- In mass media
- Subject
- Journalists -- Botswana
- Subject
- Rural development -- Botswana
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146566
- Identifier
- vital:38537
- Description
- The study investigates how journalists working for state media in Botswana experience reporting on development in rural communities. It is observed that many of these journalists are members of the rural communities they report on and therefore have personal knowledge of them. Furthermore, it describes how even though Botswana is often praised for its developmental achievements, the country continues to be characterized by social inequality. The study then articulates a theoretical framework designed to engage with the normative guidelines that inform journalistic practice within the Botswana media landscape. It draws, for this purpose, on normative theories of the press. It is concluded that the Botswana media landscape is representative of an authoritarian, polarised pluralised media system in which journalists work under strict control of the state. The empirical component of the study draws on this framework by conducting life history interviews of journalists working at the Botswana Daily News. It examines what such journalists know from personal experience about development from rural Botswana and how such knowledge impacts on their engagement with the processes of reporting for the paper. It is concluded that journalists working for this paper have a deep commitment to representing the interests of rural communities. However, they remain constrained in their ability to act on this commitment, in context of the guidelines for reporting that frame their institutional context.
- Format
- 84 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, RU School of Journalism and Media Studies
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Lekoma, Bame Dirakano
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | LEKOMA-MA-TR20-289.pdf | 810 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |