ETD Collection

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Press and politics--South Africa

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    Signposts in an earthquake Journalism ethics and the political transition in SA
    (2019) Kruger, Franz
    This thesis responds to debates around journalistic practise and ethics in the South African media in the early years of South African democracy, placing the norms themselves at the centre of the inquiry. Analytically, the project investigates the extent to which the norms of journalism can be seen to have changed at this time. Normatively, it considers whether and how they should change. The South African experience raised questions about the relationship between normative universalism and the contingencies of the political, thus providing an opportunity to address a debate that has exercised the field of journalism ethics globally for some time. The project draws on the ideas of Jürgen Habermas, particularly the notion of Discourse Ethics, a meta-ethical theory which argues that valid norms must be established and agreed in discourse. The project centres on four articles published independently in different journals. The first of these explores the opportunities opened by Discourse Ethics, identifying four ways in which Discourse Ethics can provide an enriched understanding of journalism ethics. These four applications are further explored in the other articles. The second article explores normative and critical questions, considering what a role conception for journalism would look like if it was based in Discourse Ethics, particularly in the context of a new but highly unequal democracy like South Africa. The final two articles consider specific examples from the South African experience in which norms in journalism can be shown to have shifted as the result of an often heated public debate. One article considers the coverage of the deaths, 18 months apart, of two prominent figures associated with the AIDS denialist position, where a marked shift in norms is revealed. In the final article, the norm of balance is shown to have come under pressure in the face of political attempts to give credibility to the denialist position, seen by medical science and civil society as not only wrong but harmful. Considered as a whole, the project makes four contributions to the field of journalism ethics. First, it shows how the Discourse Ethics model offers an account of both universal and contingent norms by deriving universal proto-norms from the foundational rules of communication, and allowing for a wide range of contingent variations to be developed in discourse. Second, it exploits the analytical opportunities of the model to provide a new perspective to historical controversies around the media in the South African transition and, in doing so, adds to a substantial body of research described as transitological. The third contribution made by the project, based on experience from South Africa as part of the Global South, suggests adjustments to Habermas’s Discourse Ethics approach that takes the reality of contestation more seriously and points to the beginnings of a model of normative change. Finally the project shows how Discourse Ethics provides a basis for
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    Press coverage of a national security issue
    (2016) Malinda, Nthomeni Edward
    South Africa, like other liberal democracies worldwide, is characterised by constant tension between government and the media, particularly the press. At the centre of the tension is the need by government to maintain a certain level of state secrecy on the grounds of national security on the one hand, and the need for transparency and the right of access to information on the other. Both these rights are provided for in international and local statutory instruments. Press reports about an alleged secret procurement by South Africa’s Department of Defence of a spy satellite have also heightened the tension. The purpose of the research is to explore the nature of the tension through a case study focusing on some national newspapers. The study examines if the South African press, which, when it dispensed information to the public, published sensitive state information that detrimentally impacted national security. This research shows that in some instances local newspapers published classified and sensitive information relating to national security. Although a court of law is the proper organ to determine whether the press contravened the law by publishing sensitive security information, the disclosure arguably prejudiced the national security interests of South Africa.
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    Investigative journalism and the South African government: publishing strategies of newspaper editors from Muldergate to the present
    (2012-08-01) Steyn, Nantie
    The relationship between governments and the media has historically been an antagonistic one, and investigative journalism – the material manifestation of the role of the press as fourth estate – is central to this antagonism. In their capacity as the fourth estate, those newspapers that pursue and publish investigative journalism stand in opposition to government. Governments have responded to this opposition in a variety of ways; mostly, however, by way of legislated censorship of the press. In South Africa, the legislation that regulated what newspapers could print under apartheid was unusually vast. In spite of this, major exposés of government corruption – and worse – were seen on the front pages of those publications that pursue investigations into political malfeasance. In South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy, with constitutional protection of the freedom of expression, there has been increasing evidence of what Jackson has called the “embedded qualities of intolerance and secrecy” (1993: 164) in the state’s response to revelations of corruption in the press, culminating in the Protection of State Information Bill that was passed in Parliament in November 2011. The passing of the Bill has resulted in widespread concern about the possibility of legislated, apartheid-style censorship of the media and freedom of expression. I interviewed five editors who were part of exposing state corruption during and after apartheid, in order to establish what motivates their decisions to keep on printing stories that brings them into conflict with the political powers of the day, in spite of the financial consequences for their publications. Regardless of the different political landscapes, the strategies that they followed in order to keep on publishing were remarkably similar, as is their reason for continuing to publish investigative stories: they believe it embodies the role of the press in a democracy. Indicators are that editors will keep on publishing, in spite of attempts by the government to gag the press.