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Contemporary Sino-African relations: Interpenetration of history of relations with the West, ideology and comparative media frames
Olorunnisola A., Ma L.
AbstractThe authors examined tripartite relationships between Africa, the West and China via historical, ideological and media frames, believing that the approach would yield a robust understanding of China's contemporary engagements in Africa. Historical reflections and a review of China's foreign policy ideology – driven by the notion of ‘soft power’ – provided useful contexts for answering and interpreting findings generated by the central question: What frames did newspapers in Nigeria, South Africa, China and the United States employ in their respective coverage of China's engagements in Africa? The findings revealed that African media engaged in adequate surveillance on the subject matter, China's media representative was promotional, while that of the US was adversarial. A combination of historical, ideological and media frames informed that Africa was yet to mount an audacious response to China's ‘grand strategy’. As it stands, an Africa–China linkage is poised to repeat the continent's dalliances...
Crisis management as representational strategy: The arrangement of “African” subjectivities and the 2010 world cup
Aranke S., Zoller K.
Africa as the site for the World Cup begs for a media analysis that attends to the dynamics of postcoloniality and globalization. This article looks at the way in which postcolonial subjectivities are arranged in what the authors call a “subject deficit,” where players and fans are already racialized in and against colonial representations that mark them as “backwards” and “savage.” In this representational space, the “deficit” refers not only to a kind of “backwardness” but also to the way in which uneven capital flows mark particular national subjectivities as in debt to (neo)colonial nations of the global North. This subject deficit marks a crisis in the arrangement of postcolonial subjectivities. This article argues that in order to have the World Cup do its neoliberal, multicultural work, these crises have to be managed. This management translates into a representational strategy in which representations of the “other” echo historical forms.
Challenging the Lion in Its Den: Dilemmas of Gender and Media Activism in South Africa
Geertsema M.
Media activism groups work to bring about change in the mainstream media, but their gains are often limited. Drawing on theories of the political function of news in a democracy, media sociology, and feminism, this article focuses on the specific experience of Gender Links, a Southern African gender and media organization founded in 2001. An analysis of institutional materials and 25 in-depth interviews shows that Gender Links is using a professional-technical approach to feminist media activism that is insufficient in bringing about deep and long-term change on an ideological level. It is suggested that Gender Links could benefit from more emphasis on political and countercultural approaches. The research also highlights some of the other dilemmas posed by issues related to funding, networking, the grassroots, press freedom, the profit motive, and the strong backlash from a patriarchal culture.
The sportswriter as development journalist: Covering African football
Peltz R.J.
Football is Africa's game, but performance in world competition reveals the sport as metaphor for African development is stymied by political corruption, infrastructure deficiency, and neocolonial exploitation. The media‐sport complex has perpetuated this cycle. Development journalism contrarily posits media as a force for good. Where the ideal of objectivity dominates traditional news, development journalism stresses nation building. However, emphasizing news, development journalism overlooks the powerful role of sport in African life. Through meta‐analysis, this article compares the values and practices of development journalism and of sportswriting. The article concludes that sportswriters are well positioned to act as development journalists. As mediator of football, the sportswriter can capitalize on the promise of sport to effect nation building and development in Africa.
World cup 2010: An (Un)African world cup
Ginsberg R.
South Africa pursued the World Cup for many reasons. Some were tangible objectives, such as infrastructure development, job creation, and the promotion of the country's tourism industry. Less tangible was a hope of reconfiguring Africa's reputation. In 2004, South Africa was awarded the 2010 World Cup, with the bid's supporters arguing that a successful tournament would help improve Africa's image, thereby increasing foreign investment throughout the continent and boosting Africa's global political prestige. It is argued that the World Cup 2010 is, if anything, an “un‐African World Cup.” FIFA, the South African government, and the local organizing committee promised the revelation of “Africa” during the “African World Cup,” but the execution has merely been a global operation adorned with African accessories. It is concluded that neoliberalism needs only enough “Africa” to show that it is a good place to make money and go on vacation. In essence, only the Africa “civilized” by international finan...
In memoriam: Dr. Louise M. Bourgault†
Musa B.A.
Media, Civil Society, and Political Culture in West Africa
Saliou Camara M.
From the premise that a free and democratic society is impossible without free and responsible media and an active civil society and that freedom and democracy must evolve from within a particular society in order to mature into a way of life for the society and its media, the present study examines the symbiotic role of the media and civil society in West Africa's struggle for democratic governance. It addresses the question of the independence and accountability of West Africa's media vis-a-vis foreign donors, local business, and political forces along with the effects on local audiences of giant Western/global media organizations competing in the region. The article concludes that West Africans must design their democratic model, that the West African media must be guided by normative ethics frameworks rooted in the values that inspire the region's democratic aspirations, and that global media ethics principles should mainly serve as supplemental guidelines to those frameworks.
Mediating religion in the American-sponsored War on Terrorism
Switzer L.
The following essay is a reflection on how American religion and the mass media became unholy (but not unwitting) partners in selling the American-sponsored War on Terrorism. I leave it to readers of this journal to decide if there are parallels to the South African experience-especially in the past.
Media during South Africa's first decade of liberal democracy: Some short impressions
Jacobs S.
In my more recent work, I have been concerned with the relationship between the South African media and the transition from apartheid to democracy. What I broadly argue in my work is that media, particularly a certain configuration of elite, opinion-leading media, played an important role in helping to shape the outcome of the transition and that the limits subsequently put into place in that process (i.e., that it was a very limited transition that wed liberal democracy to neo-liberalism) do much to explain the later development of the media and the public sphere in South Africa.
Comments on the Sanef media audit:a new news culture is facing the media and journalism educators: the time to act is now!
Deuze M., Boyd-Barrett J.O., Claassen G., Diederichs P., Eastman S.T., Jordaan D., Louw P.E., Newsom D., Quinn S., Rabe L., Steenveld L., Stevenson R.L., van Rooyen G., Wasserman H., Williams J.
This omnibus article deals with some of the comments received by the authors of the Sanef media audit (see p. 11) of the edition of Ecquid Novi). As Mark Deuze, one of the commentators puts it: The threats and challenges to contemporary journalism have caused scholars, publics, journalists, and thus journalism educators, to reconsider their approaches, definitions, roles, and function in community and society. Widely recognized as the four main changes or challenges facing education programmes in journalism are: the multicultural society; the rise and establishment of infotainment genres; the convergence of existing and new media technologies (cf. multimedia); and the internationalization or ‘glocalization’ of the media and journalism playing field. The four mentioned challenges and developments could be seen as reflected in the 2002 Sanef audit. The report particularly stresses the ‘new culture’ within which journalists are expected to do their work. This is a culture determined by fragmented audiences; ...
An experimental investigation of news credibility: Newspapers & the Internet
Payne G.A., Dozier D., Nomai A., Yagada A.
This study used an experiment to examine differences in credibility assigned to news read in paper form and the same news read on a web site. Subsequent to exposure to six identical news stories, randomly assigned newspaper treatment and Internet treatment groups rated the credibility of the stories they read, using standard credibility measures. Generally, news stories appearing on a web site were evaluated as less credible than their identical counterparts on paper.
Jerry Springer and the Marlboro man in Africa: Globalisation and cultural eclecticism
Eko L.
Despite its relative isolation from the global culture industry, telecommunications and mass communication centres and markets, Africa is buffeted by the winds of globalisation. Under World Bank and the IMF structural adjustment programs virtually all African countries privatised their telecommunications and mass media sectors, thus opening them up to Western multi‐national corporate investors. Though there might be an impression that African culture is being inundated and destroyed by American mass mediated culture, it is argued that Africans tend to select only certain aspects of Western cultural idioms, Africanise them and use them to promote African cultural values. Thus, it is argued, globalisation has had positive effects on certain aspects of African culture.
Myths and news narratives: Towards a comparative perspective of news
Berkowitz D., Nossek H.
Comparative research across cultures provides a fruitful terrain for research into myths and narratives that are embedded in news content. The study of news as myth or narrative helps to examine the enduring values that a culture tells about itself. This perspective suggests that news is a social construction, but it also suggests that news amounts to an ongoing telling and retelling of familiar stories with a relatively consistent set of themes, actors and moral lessons that link with the broad, common beliefs of a dominant ideology. This study offers a nexus of structuralist and ethnographic approaches that creates a conceptual complement for the above‐mentioned kind of research. Following a conceptual discussion, the article addresses methodological considerations and offers a scheme for conducting research with a cross‐cultural research team.
ThePrague Post’s readership in postcommunist Czech Republic
Garrison B.
This article presents a case study to analyse the readership and explore the role of an English‐language newspaper in a region where English is not the dominant language. This study focused on a weekly publication in the former Communist Czech Republic, The Prague Post, reports a 1999 readership survey and, through use of interviews of the managers of the newspaper at that time, interprets the findings of the readership survey. It compares results of the most‐recent study with previous research conducted by the newspaper's marketing department. The Prague Post was found to serve a sophisticated and diverse multilingual audience; regular readers were found to be highly educated, international in both their personal and business‐professional lives working in professional‐level careers, multilingual, young, mostly single, mostly male, and economically varied.
A white world of the information economy: A content analysis of dot‐com magazine advertising
Kanayama T.
This study examines the representation of people in dot‐com magazine advertising. A content analysis of 671 dot‐com advertisements in seven mass circulation magazines (1997–2000) shows that minorities are considerably underrepresented. It also found that the digital divide was far larger in dot‐com advertisements that in the actual US economy. The results imply that the marketing strategy of dot‐coms is reinforcing a popular view of who is an information economy user, worker, and customer. It also suggests that there are some reasons for under‐representation of certain types of people in dot‐com advertisements, e.g. market strategy, Internet access, and purchasing power verified by an electronic identification.
Asking the right questions about media and racism – Let alone having the right answers
Baker V.
In this part of the 'Forum section' of this special edition of 'Ecquid Novi' on the media and racism, a number of original short articles, as well as statements and excerpts from publications and Internet authors are published to stimulate further debate on the issue.
Public broadcasting in a changing political & regulatory environment: The case of Africa
Eko L.
The end of the Cold War triggered media‐political liberalization on the African continent. Private commercial and community radio stations were launched. Divergent voices are being heard and many more people have access to the mass media. Many Western government‐owned broadcasters joined in the fray and lined up African affiliates to broadcast or rebroadcast their programming. This intense international and local competition has affected governmental public service broadcasting. Government‐owned stations must now decide whether to continue being broadcast media which serve all citizens or just ‘niche’ broadcasters. The position of this paper is that commercial pressures and competition need not lead African broadcasters to abandon their traditional role of broadcasting non‐profitable local cultural programming.
Communicating for social change: Identifying fundamental hurdles
Moemeka A.A.
The road to social change is always strewn with social, economic, political, psychological
and cultural hurdles. Social change programmes and efforts, in addition to problems inherent
in change itself, have always faced hurdles that have substantial impact on the outcome of
change endeavours. Unless these hurdles are recognised and guarded against, no change
effort can be successfully executed, and no executed change plan can endure for long. In this
article, the author discusses how communication could serve social development. He identifies
and examines factors that would enhance social change. He also identifies and discusses
barriers to social change and how social change agents could use them as stepping stones in
their work.
Public journalism and the search for democratic ideals
Glasser T.L., Craft S.
Public journalism is apparently gaining influence in newsrooms throughout the US. It seems to be a genuinely innovative effort to move journalists away from thinking about the claims of separation that have long defined the practice of journalism toward thinking about the claims of connection that might redefine and reinvigorate the role of the press in a democratic society. Public journalism presumes a democracy in decay and posits a role for the press based on what journalism can do to enrich a public discourse that has long been in decline. In this article, the authors question the role the press might play in a democratic society as purported by public journalism and its implied view of democracy. Following a review of what public journalism claims for itself, the authors identify and discuss the areas where its conception of the press and the press's commitment to self-governance appear to be most problematic. The question becomes not so much one of whether public journalism offers something desirabl...
Marketing the Olympics within the Olympics
Billings A.C., Eastman S.T.
On-air promotion is a key tool for gaining audiences and networks spend millions of dollars each year to promote upcoming programs. Prior to the 1996 Summer Olympics, NBC conducted extensive research to determine a programming and promotional strategy that would yield the highest ratings. Research results indicated which sports should get extended television coverage and which should be promoted on-air during their 17 prime-time broadcasts. The strategy that NBC employed apparently was effective, suggesting the Olympics to be a successful vehicle for promoting some prime-time series in NBC's post-Olympic line-up. The question is: was the Olympics an equally successful vehicle for promoting itself? This paper explores NBC's on-air promotional strategies during the 1996 Summer Olympic broadcast. Understanding successful strategy has potential value for promoting future Olympics and for promoting megasports in general. It also can contribute to the growing body of research on salience theory related to sport...
