Perceptiveness of U.F.S. students towards racial messages in newspapars
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Date
2002-03
Authors
Snyman, Carina Francis
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
In 1998, the Human Rights Commission (HRC) received a request from two
professional bodies, The Black Lawyers Association (BLA) and the Association of
Black Accountants of South Africa (ABASA), to investigate two newspapers. The
BLA and ABABSA claimed that The Star and The Mail & Guardian were allegedly
guilty of racism.
The HRC consequently appointed two research authorities, Claudia Braude
(qualitative content analysis) and The Media Monitoring Project (quantitative
content analysis), to investigate these allegations.
Several newspaper editors and journalism institutes questioned these findings.
According to them, the research was "considerably weakened by the absence of
research into media consumers" (HRC report, 1999). They based their
arguments on the premises that the research focused primarily on the content of
the respective newspapers, and not on the interpretation of the
readers/audience of the papers. In the final section of the report, the HRC
concluded that "the media can be characterised as racist institutions" (HRC
report, 1999).
By not considering the opinion of the media receivers, the HRC report failed to
make a credible and valid impact. An investigation on the audience's
interpretation of these racist messages was called for.
The population sample of the study was drawn from students between the ages
of 18 and 25; the future readers and interpreters of newspaper messages. The
sample included a variety of nationalities in order to determine to what extent
race plays a role in the interpretation of the mass media messages.
The content of three newspapers (Mail & Guardian, The Citizen and The Star)
was analyzed over a period of a nine weeks based on the same guidelines
determined by the MMP report (i.e. quantitative content analysis categories).
Newspaper items were analyzed by monitoring items in which race was explicitly
stated and implicit to the content.
Once the content analysis was completed, examples of specific newspaper
articles, which have been selected on their racist content, were supplied to the
respondents. After reading the items, the respondents were asked to complete a
questionnaire based on the selected newspaper articles.
An exploration of the media as an institution and the interpretation of the
respondents on the other side of the spectrum provided a relative holistic
encapsulation of racism in the media
The data gathered from the survey indicated a statistical significant difference
between the responses of the White and the Black respondents. Although all the
items presented to the respondents contained implicit or explicit racist messages,
the respondents did not perceive these newspaper items as racist.
Description
Keywords
Racism -- South Africa, Racism in the press, Journalism -- South Africa -- Language, Dissertation (M.A.(Communication Science))--University of the Free State, 2002