Department of Journalism

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https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/53

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Browsing Department of Journalism by browse.metadata.advisor "Botma, Gabriel Johannes"

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    An exploration of four selected South African digital news publications’ news dissemination and audience interaction through Instagram
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Gilliland, Wianda; Botma, Gabriel Johannes; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Journalism.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study explores the utilisation of Instagram by four prominent South African digital news publications, namely Maroela Media, News24, Netwerk24 and TimesLIVE. This study focused on the ways in which the news publications are making use of Instagram’s various microformats and features, as well as ways in which audiences engage with the news publications on Instagram. Instagram’s ability to afford journalists novel ways to package content while also affording users to easily engage with the content arguably creates an opportunity for journalism to gain audiences. Academic research in this area is limited, especially within the South African context. The study worked within the democratic participant theory and the gatekeeping theory. The researcher employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, including semi-structured interviews and statistical social media data. The main findings from this study were that although Instagram have been used by Netwerk24, News24, TimesLIVE and Maroela Media around 4 years already, it remains a secondary social media platform. This is despite Instagram’s still rapidly growing local user base and the fact that younger audiences – which are sought after – are more present on Instagram than Facebook, which is still the primary social media platform for South African news publications. Instagram, however, is perceived by the journalists and editors from the selected news publications to have untapped potential and opportunity for journalism. The current utilisation of Instagram by Maroela Media, Netwerk24, News24 and TimesLIVE is not according to what Instagram’s apparent potential – for both news dissemination and audience engagement – is perceived to be.
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    Kenya print media performance and the social construction of identity: Raila Odinga in the Nation and The Standard newspapers (1997-2017)
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03) Ochoti, Fred Orina; Botma, Gabriel Johannes; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Journalism.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examines the discursive construction of Raila Odinga‘s social identity by the Nation and The Standard newspapers between 1997 and 2017 to indicate the performance of Kenya print media in the consolidation of democracy. The study is conducted within the social constructionism paradigm to investigate how ethnicity, political connectedness and media ownership influenced the discursive construction of Raila Odinga‘s social identity by the newspapers as he jostled for political position and power nearly a decade after the restoration of multiparty democracy in the country. By drawing on cultural studies, specifically Laclau and Mouffe‘s (1985) discourse theory, and aspects of critical political economy theory, the study focuses on how the Nation and The Standard discursively positioned themselves in relation to Raila Odinga‘s shifting political stances regarding ethnicity, political connectedness and media ownership in the country‘s heterogeneous discursive field. The argument is that the discursive construction of Raila Odinga‘s social identity contributed to the establishment of dominant and marginalised political positions, and thus structuring the country‘s politics as the discourses about the politician engaged in hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggles. Based on this theoretical departure point, critical discourse analysis (CDA) is identified as the appropriate research method for textual analysis applying the three-stage model suggested by Fairclough for identifying and analysing discourse, which was supplemented with some aspects from Van Dijk‘s model, whereby analysis was on how the newspapers characterised Raila Odinga when he had different political stances while in different political formations or alliances from 1997 to 2017. Because the study was in the main interested on the shifts and trends in the textual structures of discourses about Raila Odinga during the period under consideration, linguistic analysis was limited and placed in the context of discursive practice, whereby analysis focused on journalistic discursive resources that respective journalists drew from to construct and circulate discourses about the politician. The study also analysed the situational, institutional and societal structures and the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic sociocultural practices that were re-produced in the discourses of the newspapers about Raila Odinga, and how the existing power relations and ideologies were either maintained or changed because of the discourses. In order to triangulate and augment the textual findings, the study used semi-structured in-depth interviews with political journalists at the Nation and The Standard who engaged in practical processes of covering news stories about Raila Odinga, and political commentators who have an established reputation in commenting on the country‘s politics. The study found that as Raila Odinga shifted political formations and held different positions, the newspaper discourses about him by the Nation and The Standard intersected and other times diverged with different interests around ethnicity, political connectedness and media ownership. The editorial positionings of the newspapers on the politician changed depending on the ethnic groups he affiliated with, the political formations he was part of and the views he held in respect to diverse political issues during the period under consideration.