Journal of African Media Studies - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2016

Gender mainstreaming (GM) within media and journalism education and practice has been described by several scholars as good, representative, critical, ethical, just and balanced journalism. This article presents findings of a study exploring the extent of GM in media and journalism in university departments in Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Drawing on qualitative research approaches, the study found minimal, unclear and uncoordinated GM activities within most departmental policies, curricula, assessment and research. Whereas some respondents attributed this to the lack of teaching resources, others pointed to the lack of policy guidance and ‘know-how’ as well as a commitment to implement existing policies. There were also attitudinal standpoints dismissive of the significance of GM, posing concerns about perpetuating the hegemony of patriarchy already witnessed in journalism practice today. The findings underscore the need to revisit not just the policies and pedagogical approaches but also a focus on awareness- and knowledge-building especially among the teaching staff.

In 1985 Kenya hosted the UN World Congress on Women to tackle gender-based violence (GBV) and enhance women’s standing generally, but recently, in 2014, the country experienced a wave of public stripping of women – some captured on video and distributed via social media. These human rights violations, especially in Nairobi, happened in a nation that has witnessed three decades of pro-women activism bloom and whose constitution prescribes gender equity, with recent laws toughening punishment for sexual offences. Yet similarly worrying waves of GBV have occurred in other African countries. Focusing on Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, we use constructivist theory of framing and discourse analyses of media and interview texts to examine the extent to which purposively selected digital era change agents use mainstream and social media to aid critical literacy in their capacitybuilding bid to alter retrogressive attitudes harmful to women’s rights and progress.

The article draws lines between the historical example of Saartjie Baartman, the so-called Hottentot Venus, and the ‘Caster Semenya case’ – the 18-year old South African athlete who won the women’s 800 metres in the World Championship in 2009, and had to undergo ‘gender testing’. It looks into how the South African press covered the case of Semenya in the light of identity and power processes. How did the Semenya case feed into broader political and cultural processes in South Africa? The discussion shows how the concept of identity politics is multifaceted – covering issues such as sex, gender, ethnicity, colour, status and class while reflecting colonial as well as postcolonial realities.

Academic research reveals a quantitative and qualitative underrepresentation of women in news production and content. This article presents findings of a qualitative study, exploring the experiences of women journalists in Cape Town, South Africa. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews, the research found that most journalists did not feel that their gender impacted daily newsroom routines, with many seeing their predominant coverage of ‘soft’ news items as a personal preference and not a structural constraint, even though they sometimes felt restricted by the dominance of normative news values. Concerns over personal safety were foregrounded, and some respondents highlighted the use of sexuality by women journalists to gain leverage with editors or sources. While the experiences of women journalists cannot be generalized, particularly since this study provides findings from a limited regional sample, it creates room for further studies in this area at national level and in other developing nations.

The article discusses differences in professional perceptions among male and female journalists in Ethiopia, which is a country known for low scores on gender equality and limited women representation in the media. The approach is quantitative, involving a survey of 350 local journalists. The study observes gender differences in the monitoring and scrutinizing functions of the media, which are found to be more important for the male journalists, and in the entertainment and nation-building functions of the media, which are emphasized more by the women. Female journalists exhibit stricter ethical viewpoints than their male counterparts, whereas male journalists are somewhat more supportive of situational ethics and ethical risk-taking. However, the overall differences in professional perceptions are relatively minor, and a series of indicators did not detect any significant difference between the male and female journalists.

The relationship between mainstream media and celebrities is intricate, mutually beneficial and sometimes mutually destructive. The essence of ‘celebrity culture’ is itself deeply rooted in the media. This article discusses the mediation of the Oscar Pistorius trial using the lens of critical political economy of media. A first in South Africa in many ways – including the live televization of court proceedings, the creation of a special dedicated TV channel for the coverage, the stratospheric viewership figures and the attendant commercial benefits for media houses, among other ‘firsts’ – the trial came to be characterized in some media as a ‘trial of the century’, or that South Africa itself was on trial. And yet, it could be argued that this was just another South African trial, whose coverage by the media, however, mirrored trends in the West, thanks in part to the country’s reintegration into the global political economy post-Apartheid, and in part to the developments in new media and communication technologies. What perhaps sets the trial apart, and therefore quite interesting for this article, is that the spotlight on this case did not pay sufficient attention to the overall context of violence in South Africa, especially violence among ordinary black people who do not make the headlines and especially violence that involves spousal killings. The trial presented both local and global media with a fleeting moment to hit it big in the context of declining media economics, and while its live televization may have played the pedagogical role of educating citizens about the intricacies of the Court system, the overall focus on the sensational, the drama and the individual outside of the broader context negated the media’s role.

This article is an interpretation of cartoons’ interpretation of both the verdict and the sentence in the Oscar Pistorious trial for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Selected for analysis, in terms of methodology and sampling, are those cartoons that appeared in isiZulu and English newspapers in South Africa, during September and October 2014. Specifically interpreted in these cartoons is their production of social meaning(s). This work is concerned mainly with cartoons’ content and their ideology, and less so with aesthetics and form. If cartoonists, by nature, read a particular subject and then reproduce social meaning from it through references to other familiar happenings in the public sphere, this work examines the allusions/metaphors used by cartoonists in this regard. Cartoons, in this work, are regarded as texts that represent cartoonists’ conscious decoding of both the verdict and the sentence, and subsequent representation of them for public reception. In reading the ‘reading’ of the verdict and the sentence, the article concludes that cartoons made little references to race, gun control, urban violence, violence against women, wealth and celebrity status, which had already engulfed public discourse about the Pistorius trial. Cartoons did find Judge Masipa ‘guilty’ of a lenient verdict and sentence.

Several important critical perspectives on media coverage of the Pistorius trial emerge in comparison to the most famous murder trial in South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. In both cases, a well-known sports star shoots a young woman under circumstances that cause speculation and conjecture. The trials led to huge public interest and crowded courtrooms. While there are many points of comparison between the cases, in this article we do not discuss what the comparison reveals about the legal intricacies of the Pistorius case, or on the current state of the subjudice laws, or on the effect of the live broadcast (matters to which we plan to return), but rather on the different ways in which the legal protagonists and media framed the accused and other major figures in the two cases. We find that in the earlier trial the media, after the trial, played the role of criticizing the ways in which the jury and the judge had understood the events, while in the Pistorius trial the media overwhelmingly followed a framing narrative produced by the police and the prosecution, neglecting their watchdog function.

The coverage of the Oscar Pistorius bail application proceedings is examined using the notions of ‘trial by media’ and ‘the media spectacle’. A sample of 54 issues was taken from the Cape Argus and quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. The research substantiated the hypothesis that Pistorius was subjected to a trial by the media, in which he was convicted in the court of public opinion. Furthermore, the coverage of the legal proceedings by the Cape Argus elevated the status of the case to that of ‘the megaspectacle’, which emphasized the importance of Pistorius, while demoting the importance of Reeva Steenkamp. ‘The megaspectacle’ also highlighted the societal struggles that South African citizens face, including poor gun control, domestic violence, subordination of women, as well as racism.

Twitter is an instrument for sharing and communication employed by professional reporters, citizen journalists and everyday users. The platform provides space for everything from the live reporting of breaking events to the discussion of the unfolding of these events. This study explores how South African journalists are challenging and adapting traditional journalistic conventions in their live tweeting of the Oscar Pistorius murder trial. It examines the tweets of five South African journalists covering the trial, focusing especially on the role of the journalist in terms of their commitment to objectivity, accountability as well as their gatekeeping role.

GENDER TERRAINS IN AFRICAN CINEMA, DOMINICA DIPIO (2014) Pretoria: Pretoria, 242 pp., ISBN: 9781868887354, p/bk, R320

CULTURAL HEALING FILMS, TAGHREED ELSANHOURI (2014) Khartoum/Sudan: Concordis International