3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Investigative journalism and whistleblowers: the ethical handling of sources in the “Inkathagate” and “Vlakplaas” newspaper exposes’(2017) Raghunath, MahendraJournalists are often presented with leaked information from whistleblowers. Having the information and writing the story, as well as handling a source that may or may not want to be anonymous, gives rise to ethical dilemmas on the part of the journalist. This was certainly true for journalists reporting on the political violence in South Africa during the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Journalists operate under codes of practice that are set by various media organisations and must ensure that in using whistleblower information to write their stories, “they must avoid breaches of ethics, fairness, factual accuracy and contextual accuracy” (Houston, B. et al., 2002: 538). And most importantly, journalists are ethically bound to protect their sources. This research looks at the interaction between journalists and their sources of information in two major stories that involved the use of whistleblowers. It discusses and compares the issue of “source handling”, in the following two South African stories which used information leaked by whistleblowers: a. the 1991 “Inkathagate” story, which was broken by the Weekly Mail newspaper; b. “Vlakplaas” hit squad story, initially involving the Weekly Mail (20 October 1989) and then Vrye Weekblad (November 1989). This study also brings into focus the issue of strengthening journalistic ethics in the South African context. It contends that the “Inkathagate” and “Vlakplaas” stories were dependent on the verification of the information, as well as the ethical handling of the whistleblowers. This study raises questions about the motivations of the whistleblowers, their relationships with the journalists, as well as the critical role of the public’s “right to know”, or “public interest”.Item Media representation of political leadership and governance in South Africa: press coverage of Jacob Zuma(2017) Nkomo, SibusisoThis research report examines news media representation of political leadership and governance in South Africa between 2007 and 2013, when President Jacob Zuma served his first terms as ANC leader and later as the head of state. The research sought to find out what themes and ideas exist about political leadership in news media more than 20 years since the advent of democracy. Quantitative manifest content analysis is utilised to analyse newspaper articles from the City Press, Mail & Guardian, the Sunday Independent and the Sunday Times. The results show that media representation of political leadership is most discussed in opinion articles and editorials and relies on key democratic concepts such as freedom of expression and freedom of the media. The key themes and ideas that emerge include the personalisation of leadership, defining leadership, debate on how to lead, Zuma’s own leadership traits versus expectations and it became clear that news media evaluated Zuma as head of state or leader of the nation more often than as president of his party.Item A discursive analysis of the narratives emerging from coverage of rape in South African newspapers(2016) Ferreira, KateRape is a predominant crime and a social issue in South Africa today. South Africa’s incidence of rape is among the highest in the world. Identifying and understanding the dominant rape narratives in news media is useful in pinpointing how the media represents the crime of rape. It is understood through agenda-setting theory that news media plays an important role in how topics come onto the national agenda, giving news media a particular influence in society. Further, through discourse analysis and narrative theories, research has shown how what people read and hear can influence their understanding of those matters, and can drive social change or maintain the stability of social structures. Some theorists take this further, arguing that narrative fundamentally informs how humans make sense of the world, that reality is discursively constructed. The research below attempts to access, reveal and unpack these dominant narratives as they pertain to rape, using a combination of corpusbased analysis and critical discourse analysis techniques on two corpora of South African newspaper text from the first quarter of 2013, and tied to a specific case study, the rape and murder of Anene Booysen. The resultant findings also provide a snapshot of the dominant ideology and social practices in South Africa over the time period studied, as discourse and narrative are implicitly tied to power in societyItem Between science, politics and human rights: media coverage of the blood controversies(2012-08-31) King, CharlesSouth Africa obtained a new constitution in 1994 that enshrined the right to sexual orientation, race and gender equality, as well as – crucially – ensuring the “freedom of the press and other media”. However, consequent national debates appear to indicate that the country is still grappling with issues of sexual orientation and of sexual practices. It is against the complexity of this background that this research examines – through a focus on reported conflict over South Africa’s blood transfusion service – how certain debates and controversies around issues of race and sexual orientation arose and played out in the media. The editorials and opinion pieces of both The Star and The Citizen newspapers were more than mere platforms for debates to unfold upon. While both publications did undoubtedly provide a seemingly neutral platform for the two controversies to play themselves out, which included ample input from their readers, both publications from their editorial position intervened in a wide range of editorials, opinion pieces, commentaries and one cartoon. Thus, in fact, they played a powerful role in the curating manipulation of the debates.Item The representation of kwaito in the Sunday Times between 1994 and 2001(2012-08-03) Vilakazi, SandisiweThis research investigates the representation of kwaito in the Sunday Times between 1994 and 2001, a period of transition for South Africa and the South African media. Kwaito, a music phenomenon that began in the streets of townships, was an important social development. Initially, it offered a range of ways in which post-apartheid black youth could represent themselves and their lives, both good and bad. The Sunday Times, on the other hand, was a white establishment newspaper that needed to change to represent a wider community and provide a space for the inclusion of previously neglected areas of South Africa cultural life. My analysis of all the articles on kwaito published in the newspaper demonstrates that the paper increasingly covered kwaito musicians and events, but tended to confine this coverage to the gossip pages of the City Metro, an insert aimed at black readers. On the other hand, commentators in feature and commentary articles in the main body, who had the power as “cultural consecrators” to investigate the meaning of kwaito as a phenomenon, tended to dismiss it as debased form of expression by lost youngsters. This bears out the argument by Hebdige that youth subcultures tend to be accommodated and contained by the media through a process of converting them into mass-produced objects or through neutering them ideologically.Item Investigative journalism and the South African government: publishing strategies of newspaper editors from Muldergate to the present(2012-08-01) Steyn, NantieThe 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.