All Resources
Category: Democracy and Governance [REMOVE]
- Election coverage 18, 19 April 2009 - Voter education and encouragement
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Election coverage for the weekend 18-19 April was notable for the significantly higher levels of informative coverage on the process of voting as well as on the parties themselves as compared to previous weeks’ coverage. Newspapers also encouraged South Africans to use their democratic right and vote.
- Election coverage 16 April 2009 - Zumaphilia and secret voting
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Election press coverage for Thursday 16 April 2009 showed a significant increase, particularly when compared to the previous week, though this was more noticeable in some newspapers than others. After looking at the day’s top stories, the report looks at two editorials and asks what could the media have done/ still do? The one editorial in The Times notes that the election has been all about Jacob Zuma. However, since other parties have been so poorly covered in the media, there has been pressure on parties to respond to high profile events to gain media attention, notably the Zuma corruption trial. The second editorial is from The Citizen about the secrecy of the vote.
- Election coverage 15 April 2009 - Sports and xenophobia
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Election coverage for Wednesday 15 April 2009 included a variety of different stories. However, the most prominent were stories about South African’s voting overseas. Although this was covered far more prominently on television, we are likely to see more coverage in the press tomorrow. An innovative elections story in The Star was tainted with xenophobic statements from a resident in an area recently affected by xenophobic violence. The statements were not contradicted.
- Election coverage 9-13 April 2009 - politics is about people
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Election coverage for Thursday 9 April and the weekend (10-13) continued to be dominated by the NPA’s decision to drop charges against Jacob Zuma, and the repercussions thereof. This is not surprising given the importance of the decision taken and its potential impact on South Africa. Thursday’s papers had less content about the case than the previous two days. However, by and large, the weekend coverage provided comprehensive analytical coverage of the issues involved as expected of weekend papers.
- Women? What women?! - Media contributes to the disempowerment of women
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It is clear that issues around gender equality, women’s poverty and health are of primary importance to South Africa. Women form a greater proportion of South Africa’s population and a greater proportion of the rural population (which is also the most poorly serviced), head a greater number of households (which are more likely to be poor and earn less than male-headed households), are affected by HIV/Aids the most, and suffer alarming levels of gender-based violence. MMA’s monitoring demonstrates that this has not been reflected in media’s election coverage, when these issues should come to the forefront of many (if not the greater majority of) reports.
- Election coverage 8 April 2009 - Zikalala and confusing stories
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Election coverage for Wednesday 8 April continued to be about the NPA’s announcement on the dropping of charges against Jacob Zuma, the reaction from other political parties, and what it means for the country. A substantial amount of the news in the newspapers was devoted to this. This was less so for television news. There were also a number of election stories which would confuse audience members, in various media. A comment by the ANC over the renewal of the contract of SABC news manager was also prominently covered. There were also a number of confusing election stories in various media.
- Election coverage 7 April 2009 - NPA/Zuma, media takes a stand for the people
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Election coverage for Tuesday 7th April was overwhelmingly focused on the NPA’s decision to drop the charges against Jacob Zuma and the reaction from various people. Not only were these stories prominently covered, but in most newspapers, they filled a majority of news coverage (as opposed to sport, entertainment or business). The exception to this pattern was the Daily Sun, who still gave unprecedented coverage to this political story as election stories have not been widely covered in the paper.
- Election coverage 6 April 2009 - Voters from many places
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Articles on the 6 of April focused on the impending announcement by the NPA on whether Jacob Zuma would face charges, with the majority predicting that the NPA would drop charges. Extensive coverage was also afforded to statements by Zuma that Afrikaaners were the only true White South Africans as well as Zuma’s response to Desmond Tutu’s comments about Zuma. Coverage of general election stories was notably higher.
- Election coverage 3 April 2009 - White Afrikaaners and Zuma
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The outstanding decision by the NPA on whether Jacob Zuma would face charges was discussed on Friday 3 April with much comment. However, most of this was not explicitly related to the election. The election coverage continued in much the same way as previous coverage, with top stories also revolving around the ANC and Zuma.
- “No big deal” Poverty, Service Delivery and Election Coverage: Election Report for week ending 3 Apr
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This week MMA looks at key topics of elections stories. The results of the topics of elections coverage present a number of issues to discuss. For this report however, we will build on the prior week’s report “Is the media campaigning for the ANC and COPE?”, and focus on the level of attention devoted to the topics of manifestos, campaigning, poverty and service delivery.
This report addresses the results of media monitoring conducted from 13/03/09 until 01/04/2009. According to the monitoring results, it would appear that media consider simplistic coverage of campaign activities and political conflict to be more important than engaging parties and the public over the content of party manifestos, and how parties believe such major issues as poverty and service delivery should and can be addressed.
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