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Modern celebrity and inspiration in South Africa: an examination of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans

  • Authors: Lishivha, Welcome
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Youth in mass media -- South Africa , Youth -- Social conditions -- South Africa , Mail & Guardian , Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5165 , vital:20782
  • Description: The postapartheid condition of a majority of young people in South Africa is substantially similar to the apartheid conditions under which their parents lived. This results in a dominant narrative in the media and everyday talk circulating in South African that the youth are a ‘lost generation’ and also that they represent a significant danger and risk for the stability of our democracy. Against this backdrop The Mail and Guardian, one of the South Africa’s most influential newspapers has chosen to celebrate a small number of young people every year as inspirational and extraordinary in their achievements. This investigation into this representation of a significant - although small - group of young South Africans employed content analysis of the 2015 edition of 200 Young South Africans, interviews with profiled individuals across the years, and a focus group of readers. The study aimed to unpack the complexity of constructing certain young people as exemplary given the structural conditions that constrain and prevent a majority from attaining the education and mobility they need to make a difference in their own lives. The study found through the content analysis that the Mail&Guardian is setting up these young people as exemplary citizens whose actions should inspire other young people to similarly ‘make a difference’. Through the interviews the study found that those featured on the list found both that there was significant social capital in being valorised this way, but that this position was also a complex one to negotiate given the structural limitations of poverty and lack of education for those out of whom they had been chosen. The readers in the focus group did find inspiration in reading about their exemplary peers but they too were conscious of how small a group this was in comparison to the majority of young South Africans. In conclusion the study found that the narrative of hope, inspiration and making a difference is an important message in relation to a generalised hopelessness about South African youth but that it runs the risk of ignoring the significant structural constraints that young, poor, undereducated, unskilled young South Africans face.
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  • Date Issued: 2017

Ties that bind: a critical discourse analysis of the coverage of the Millennium Development Goals in the Mail and Guardian

Race against democracy: a case study of the Mail & Guardian during the early years of the Mbeki presidency, 1999-2002

  • Authors: Steenveld, Lynette Noreen
  • Date: 2007
  • Subjects: Mbeki, Thabo -- In mass media , Mail & Guardian , South African newspapers , Press -- South Africa , Press and politics -- South Africa , Journalism -- South Africa , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Racism in the press -- South Africa , Mass media -- Political aspects -- South Africa , South Africa -- Politics and government -- 20th century
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
  • Identifier: vital:3537 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015572
  • Description: This thesis examines the 1998 complaint of racism against the Mail & Guardian, a leading exponent of South Africa's alternative press in the 1980s, and important contemporary producer of investigative journalism. The study is framed within a cultural studies approach, analysing the Mail & Guardian as constituted by a 'circuit of production': its social context, production, texts, and audiences. The thesis makes three main arguments. First, that the claim of racism cannot be understood outside of a consideration of both the changing political milieu, and subtle changes within the Mail & Guardian itself. Significant social changes relate to the reconfiguration of racial and class identities wrought by the 'Mbeki state'. Within the Mail & Guardian, the thesis argues for the importance of the power and subjectivity of the editor as a key 'factor' shaping the identity of the paper, evidenced in its production practices and textual outputs. In this regard, the thesis departs from a functionalist analysis of particular 'roles' within the newsroom, drawing instead on a post-structuralist approach to organisational studies. Based on this production and social context, the thesis examines key texts which deal with aspects of South Africa's social transformation, and which exemplify aspects of the Mail & Guardian's reporting which led to the complaint of racism by the Black Lawyers Association (BLA) and the Association of Black Accountants (ABASA). Their complaint was that the Mail & Guardian's reporting impugned the dignity of black people, and in so doing was a violation of their rights to dignity and equality which are constitutionally guaranteed. However, as freedom of the press is also guaranteed by the South African constitution, their complaint to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) resulted in public debate about these contending rights. My second argument relates to the jurisprudential approach to racism, and the related issue of affirmative action, which informed the complaint against the paper. Contrary to the 'normative', liberal approach to these issues, this thesis highlights Critical Race Theory as the jurisprudential basis for both the claimants' accusation of racism against the Mail & Guardian, and aspects of its implicit use in South African human rights adjudication. The thesis argues that in failing to recognise these different philosophical and political bases of legal reasoning, the media, including the Mail & Guardian, in reporting on these matters failed in their purported role of serving the public interest. The thesis concludes by applying Fraser's critique of Habermas's notion of a single, bourgeois public sphere to journalism, thereby suggesting ways in which the critiques of some of the Mail & Guardian's own journalists could be employed to enlarge its approach to journalism - giving voice to constituencies seldom heard in mainstream media.
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  • Date Issued: 2007

Blogging, journalism and the public sphere: assessing the value of the 'blogosphere' as a new form of the public sphere : a case study of the Mail & Guardian Online's Blogmark

  • Authors: Sibanda, Fortune
  • Date: 2006
  • Subjects: Habermas, Jürgen -- Criticism and interpretation , Mail & Guardian , Blogs -- South Africa , Online journalism -- South Africa , Electronic newspapers -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:3483 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002938 , Habermas, Jürgen -- Criticism and interpretation , Mail & Guardian , Blogs -- South Africa , Online journalism -- South Africa , Electronic newspapers -- South Africa
  • Description: The study seeks to investigate whether weblogs can act as virtual public spheres, where people can meet to discuss issues of interest to them. It uses the Mail & Guardian Online’s Blogmark as a case study. Weblogs – highly interactive online journals comprised of links and postings in reverse chronological order – are fast becoming an avenue of choice for many internet users wanting to share opinions and news with others online. Because of their unique read-and-write characteristics, some have equated them to the 18th century coffeehouses, around which the early forms of citizen involvement in public affairs began in early capitalist Europe. Despite their growing popularity, however, not much scholarly work has been dedicated to the practice of blogging in Africa, and particularly in South Africa. The study’s theoretical framework is drawn from Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere. While noting some of the criticisms of the Habermasian model, it is argued that the concept is instrumental in our understanding of the relationship between the media and democracy. The study, however, adopted a re-worked model of the concept of the public sphere. This model argues for the need to have a multiplicity of public sphericules (instead of one single public sphere as advocated by Habermas), around which individuals can congregate to discuss issues of common concern to them. Using a combination of qualitative content analysis, self-completion questionnaires and a semi-structured interview, the study found Blogmark to be an example of how emerging internet genres such as weblogs can be vehicles of citizen involvement in public life. A range of issues were discussed in the blog, from politics, race and ii i gender issues, to personal anecdotes, relationships, and sex. However, while some posts exhibited high levels of interactivity, with many bloggers joining in to offer their opinions, some read like online monologues. The study argues that although blogging is a practice that is still limited to a few privileged individuals, with the everrising size of the ‘blogosphere’, weblogs such as Blogmark are making a small but not insignificant contribution to the number of voices that can be heard in the public realm.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2006
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