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 "Claasen, G."

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    Science communication and the nature of the social media audience: Breaking and spreading of science news on Twitter in the South African context
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03) Van Rooyen, Renier Stephanus; Claasen, G.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Journalism.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Twitter has been shown to be a powerful medium for the breaking and spreading of news and science news. In this study the TAGS v6.0 software and the Gephi graph visualisation platform are used to visually analyse how, and by whom, various science news stories were actually spread on Twitter in real-time, in order to determine who are the most prominent disseminators of science news globally as well as in the South African context. This is measured in terms of total number of retweets per Twitter account. The conclusion is made that the Twitter audience tends to retweet mainly from sources that they know and trust to be true and accurate. This has implications for how science communicators ought to go about understanding the nature of the social media audience. The study shows that globally major scientists and scientific institutions use public trust on Twitter to great effect to successfully communicate science, but that science communication role players in South Africa have so far failed to realise Twitter’s potential. Recommendations are made for how South African scientists, science institutions and science journalists ought to best exploit the platform to enhance the effective communication of sound, evidence-based science.
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    The scientific politics of HIV/AIDS : a media perspective
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003-03) Malan, Martha S.; Claasen, G.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Journalism.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: When South Africa's President, Thabo Mbeki, began doubting that HfV was the cause of AIDS in the late nineties, the debate he introduced in his country was not new; it had raged in the United States as far back as a decade ago. But, even prior to that, there had been numerous controversies pertaining to the discovery of the Ill-virus. This thesis argues that those contentions created such a heated atmosphere that the causal debates that were to follow, however incredible they were, were largely unavoidable. In its coverage of the epidemic, the media were immersed in its own politics. During the early eighties, the gay newspapers in the US felt a personal responsibility to find the cause of a disease that was rapidly killing many of its readers. But, in the process, the often promoted unscientific and dangerous approaches. By the time the AIDS dissident debate had unraveled in the US, the gay media was so suspicious of the anti-gay Reagan government that they frequently advanced dissident arguments. The mainstream and scientific media, on the other hand, were perceived as rigidly supporting government institutions, excluding critical voices. When the dissident debate reached South Africa ten years later, the South African media was completely unprepared. Most journalists had never heard of AIDS dissidents; some had not even heard of HfV or the anti-AIDS drug AZT, that the President had labeled toxic. Begin a new democracy, with a history of white oppression, the black and white media differed immensely on how to cover 'the President's debate'. Criticism of the newly elected ANC government's arguments were often branded racist and unpatriotic, with journalists suffering regular intimidation at the hands of state officials and governmentaligned editors. This thesis examines the development of the politics surrounding the science of AIDS, from the discovery of'HfV up until Thabo Mbeki's controversial contentions. To an equal extent, it looks at the news media's coverage of the process, focusing on the approaches to the debate of various media outlets and individual journalists. It also raises ethical issues, particularly in South Africa, that emerged during one of the most widely reported debates in the country's history. It in no way attempts to provide a quantitative analysis of media coverage and, in the case of the US media, draws heavily on analytical studies conducted at the time. NOTE: In the analysis of the South African media's coverage of the AIDS dissident debate in Part Three: B, issues pertaining to the country's public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), were not discussed The reason was that the author was the Corporation's Health Correspondent at the time, and therefore too closely involved in the institution in order to provide an objective perspective.