Research Reports
Research Reports are indepth, often quantitative reports around our various programme areas.
- Children’s Views Not in the News: Portrayal of Children in South African Print Media 2009
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Monitoring conducted by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) in 2003 as part of the Empowering Children & the Media (ECM) strategy showed that only 6% of all news included children. The latest data to emerge from the ECM reveals that representation of children has improved, marginally, to 8.4% of all news monitored in 2009. The monitoring shows that not only are children’s issues frequently sidelined, but un-careful and unethical reporting often leads to further violations of their rights.
- Race and Migration in the Community Media: Local stories, common stereotypes
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In South Africa, racism and xenophobia, widely recognised as human rights violations, are particularly pertinent. A long history of institutionalised racism, most recently apartheid, saw the classification, segregation and discrimination of people along racial lines. It has shaped perceptions, attitudes, identities, and relationships, and left a legacy of inequality. In May 2008, xenophobia came starkly to the public’s attention, in the form of violence targeted at perceived “foreigners”, making local, national and international headlines. However, negative and discriminatory attitudes and behaviour towards migrants, or xenophobia, have long been documented as widespread and problematic in South Africa. Black immigrants in particular are victims of xenophobic attitudes and treatment.
For many South Africans, community and small commercial media are not only important sources of information for communities about issues affecting them, which may include racism and xenophobia, but also about “groups” of people that they may not come into contact with. While research has helped establish how the national and provincial media cover issues of race, racism, migrants and xenophobia, little information is available about coverage by community and small commercial media. To address this need, Media Monitoring Africa conducted research into how issues of race, ethnicity, migrants, racism and xenophobia are represented in community and small commercial newspapers.
- National and Provincial Elections 2009: “A win or a place, citizens come last.”
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During election time, the media has a pivotal role to play in communicating information to voters and facilitating their making of informed decisions on Election Day. For this reason Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) has been monitoring coverage, gathering data and providing analysis since the first South African national and provincial elections in 1994. This report assesses the results of monitoring coverage preceding and immediately after the fourth national democratic election, which took place on 22 April 2009, and reflects findings from 56 South African print and broadcast media. While considering the media’s mandate for fairness and balance in coverage, the report also considers the quality of the coverage that deals with the issues that materially influence South African citizens’ lives and futures as a fundamental function of the right to free speech and self-determination. Furthermore, this report takes the opportunity to explicitly engage with questions of gender in the context of election coverage. The findings are based on quantitative analysis and a rating system that allows for comparison and ranking of media performance. MMA proposes that while the South African media landscape demonstrated good levels of balance and fairness in its coverage, there is an opportunity to develop greater rigour in dealing with topics of importance to citizens, in order to better inform voters on key election issues.
- Torture in South Africa: Exploring torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment
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Little information exists on the practice of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment (CIDT) in postapartheid South Africa. However, despite the dearth of research and information, due to the history and widespread use of torture against political activists, it is not surprising that there is, in some quarters, a stated commitment to the eradication of torture. This is reflected in South Africa’s ratification in 1998 of the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT);1 the signing of other international instruments outlawing torture; and the inclusion of the prohibition of torture and CIDT in the Constitution. South Africa has also signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT).
- 2009 Election Coverage: Did media assist citizens in making an informed decision?
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In Media Monitoring Africa’s final weekly report on the 2009 Elections, we focus on the overall performance of media in terms of their role in enabling South African citizens to fully and effectively participate in their democracy through the provision of relevant and timely information in the lead up to the elections on April 22.
- Deadly silence - Media election coverage confirms disinterest in the welfare of children
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With the exception of a handful of articles by some journalists, election coverage highlighting the serious issues faced by South African children has been extremely disappointing for its absence. In the previous weekly report, it was noted that in media’s role of holding government to account and informing citizens, it was particularly important for media to give voice to the concerns and opinions of the marginalised in society, as so often they remain silenced through powerlessness and political disinterest. It is even more important that media fulfil this role during an election period, when the need for information and potential for influence and change is the greatest.
- 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.
- “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.
- Is media campaigning for ANC and COPE?: Election Report for week ending 28 March 2009
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While it is reasonable to expect the ANC as the ruling party to receive greater attention in news coverage, information that is useful to citizens for enabling informed participation has been few and far between. The coverage has in fact often appeared as an extension of Political Advertisements, and should therefore be far more limited in number and extent. This argument can also be extended to the attention received by other parties, with coverage exhibiting a bias towards the new party Cope at the expense of other more established parties.
- Meeting their public mandate?: A Critical Analysis of South African Media Statutory Bodies
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This book, published by the Open Society Foundation and written by various organisations, offers insignt into the South African Media Statutory Bodies. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the Universal Services Agency, and the Media Development and Diversity Agency are explored in terms of their mandates. The Media Monitoring Project conducted the research and wrote the analysis of the SABC.
Placed here with the kind permission of the Open Society Foundation.
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