The internet as a cultural medium

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Chapter 3 The South African media as context and the internet as a cultural medium Thabo, Thabiso and Blackx, bus stop (Araminta de Clermont)

 Introduction

This chapter describes the composition of South African media, its structure and the role it has played in South African society. The purpose of this discussion is to position the online news reports that are the subject of this study within a broader context that gives insight into the dynamics that give rise to the news reports and discussion forums.
South Africa’s media is largely based on the British-American concept of a democratic-libertarian system (Merrett, 2001; Wasserman & de Beer, 2005b). The first newspaper appeared in 1800 and the first legislation guaranteeing press freedom was passed in 1820 (Wasserman & de Beer, 2005b). However, under the apartheid regime an extensive legal framework, colloquially referred to as the 100 laws, were put in place with the aim of repressing and controlling media freedom (Merrett, 2001).
The media are not neutral, objective, passive reporters of facts, but play a role in actively constructing and transmitting public discourse (Van Dijk, 1987, 2006). The media also play a central role in setting the public agenda by deciding what is newsworthy and, by implication, what becomes widely known (Durrheim, Quayle, Whitehead, & Kriel, 2005). The media played a central role in the politics of division that characterised the apartheid regime (Merrett, 2001).
The information that reached the public under this media administration was consequently permeated with racial stereotypes which legitimated the apartheid regime (Durrheim et al., 2005).
In justifying state violence, the media crafted the image of black protesters as primitive, mindless stone-throwing mobs that exhibited savage tribal behaviour which could only be contained by the civilised violence of the police force (Durrheim et al., 2005). With the legislative and moral shift away from explicit racism as an accepted cultural norm, South African media have been the subject of scrutiny for latent forms of racism (Tomaselli, 2000). These take the form of the ownership of media in South Africa, the construction of black people as corrupt and criminal, the unfair discrimination against black journalists, the trivialisation of the deaths of black people as statistics (in contrast with detailed biographies and descriptions of the deaths of white people) and the publication of what amounts to hate speech (Tomaselli, 1997).
The relationship between the post-apartheid government and the media has been described as fragile, contentious and symbiotic (Wasserman & de Beer, 2005b). The contention arises in part from the history of the relationship between the apartheid government and the media (characterised by government control and intimidation of the media) as well as from an ideological split centred on the concepts of national interest and the public interest (Tomaselli, 2000). One direct expression of the tension between these concepts is the shift away from a government controlled media, often in the name of the national interest, to the development of a self-regulated media, which is deemed to be in the public interest (Wasserman & de Beer, 2005b). The shift to professionalisation and self-regulation leaves decisions regarding the media’s role in society to market forces rather than a dialectical engagement with other role players such the government, civic institutions, non-governmental organisations and members of the public (Wasserman & de Beer, 2005b).
Positioning the contention for control over the media as a battle between the government and the media regulatory bodies would not only be an oversimplification, but misleading. In a detailed analysis of the ownership of media holdings, Tomaselli (1997) describes the influence and power of corporations as hegemonic and predominantly white. Ostensibly, the ideological drive behind the corporate owned media is to serve markets in pursuit of profit (Tomaselli, 1997). This, however, cannot be separated from the ideological agenda of class interests as the capitalists who invest in the media use these organisations to further their own interests (Jackson, 2009; Tomaselli, 1997). The racial transformation of the media largely consisted of replacing white journalists with black ones in the corporate press, while retaining a predominantly white editor and ownership cohort (Tomaselli, 1997, 2000). While the controlling interests of the media remain in the hands of a predominantly Western-centric, white elite, the construction of South African identity in the media will not likely be derived from Africanised values (Tomaselli, 1997, 2000; Wasserman & de Beer, 2005a). A further twist in the exploration of who directs the media gaze lies in the ownership conundrum, which states that while increasing black ownership may lead to an Africanisation of values in the media, financial survival drives the structure and content of the artefacts produced by the media (Tomaselli, 1997; Wasserman & de Beer, 2009; Wasserman, 2008). Financial survivability of a media outlet is determined by readers and advertisers who, historically speaking, are the silent partners and passive recipients of the artefacts produced by the media (Jackson, 2009; Tomaselli, 1997).
Although many of the debates on the role of the media focus on the contestation for media control between the government and the media regulatory bodies, it is also important to consider the media’s responsibility to the public who they ostensibly claim to serve (Wasserman & de Beer, 2005b). As a point of departure in examining the role of the media, it is important to examine what the media seek to achieve, namely, the public interest. Christians (1999) presents two contrasting schools of thought in answer to the question of the public interest. Liberal democracy with its emphasis on individual freedom and rights forms one end of this spectrum and holds the principle that the public interest is what aims to protect individual rights for the man on the street (Christians, 1999). The alternative view is communitarianism which claims that individual rights ought not to exist separately of communally shared conceptions of good (Christians, 1999). The central tenet of this stance is that the individual is inseparable from their relationship with others and therefore cannot precede the interests of the commonality (Christians, 1999). Wasserman and de Beer (2005) offer a corroborating interpretation to the debate of the greater good. On the one hand they position the public interest as a libertarian, individualist democratic framework which positions the public interest as the collective of individual rights entrenched in the constitution and informed by international neo-liberal consensus (Hofmeyr, 2001; Wasserman & de Beer, 2005b). On the other hand they position ethical media actions that work toward the national interest as linking media agenda closely to that of the post-apartheid government and is informed by Black nationalist thought; it is also positioned as striving to redress of previous imbalances in the interests of equality that defines rights in terms of socioeconomic terms and political terms (Hofmeyr, 2001; Wasserman & de Beer, 2005b). The concepts of national interest and public interest are therefore rhetorical positions that alternatively place the power to censor in the hands of politicians (in the national interest) or in the hands of the media (in the public interest). These rhetorical positions are examined (in Chapter 6 and 7) in relation to online reports on initiation schools to trace whether the tension between the public interest and the national interest emerges within these reports.
The purpose of the discussion above is to shift the perception of the media from the position of the neutral observer and consumer of public discourse, to an active agent in the construction of public discourse with its own agenda, allegiances and hegemonic orders.

Shifting trends in South African media

This section aims to provide insight into the patterns of dissemination through the various forms of media. The current trend in media is that all forms of media, but the newspaper industry in particular, had to radically change to adapt to new technology as well as to the convergence culture in order to maintain their relevance (Wasserman, 2008). Convergence culture describes a trend within the media toward a convergence of information sources such as opinions in blogs, news reports and multimedia (Thurman & Walters, 2013). This represents a shift away from conventional journalism to networked journalism (Wasserman, 2008). Conventional journalism is positioned as hierarchical, professionalised and formulaic, is characterised by deadlines, and is packaged as messages to its passive consumers (Wasserman, 2008). Networked journalism is positioned as a non-linear process with networked interactivity and is characterised by constant communication and information exchange between journalists and society (Thurman & Walters, 2013). This interactivity is often brought about through a combination of various forms of digital media such as radio phone-ins, SMSes to television shows, comments on blogs and sharing reported stories on social media (Fourie, 2010; Wasserman, 2008). The shift to networked journalism has blurred the lines between media genres (Thurman & Walters, 2013). Infotainment, as a function of networked journalism, blends high journalism (and its aspirations for factually accurate reporting) and tabloid reporting (and its emphasis on sensationalist reporting) as well as a mix of formats (Fourie, 2010). Magazines and newspapers are increasingly incorporating elements from television; television and radio are increasingly adopting characteristics of internet forums (Fourie, 2010).
The shift to networked journalism has also blurred the lines between the public and private as well as between lay reporting and professional journalism (Fourie, 2010). The use of user generated content (UGC) in the news has increased, but is a contentious issue within the media (Harrison, 2010; Thurman, 2008). UGC refers to the publication of comments, photos, videos, blogs reported on news sites by the public (Hermida & Thurman, 2008; Hermida, 2013). On the one hand UGC is positioned as a complementary form of journalism where the “ordinary people” partner with the professional journalists to make or break a news story (Harrison, 2010). Within this orientation, UGC allows citizens to become active participants in the creation and maintenance of the media landscape (Hermida & Thurman, 2008; Hermida, 2013). Numerous examples are given by authors where journalists are supported by emails, text messages, photos, videos taken on cell phones to construct news items that were central to the public awareness at the time (Hermida & Thurman, 2008). UGC provides insights into areas where journalists cannot typically access, such as from inside an oppressive regime that excludes all media coverage, inside active disaster areas where physical access is restricted or at spontaneous events (Harrison, 2010). Harrison (2010) positions UGC in four categories, namely, UGC as a form of unsolicited news story, UGC as a form of solicited content for specific extant news stories, UGC as a form of expeditious content for specific items and features, and UGC as a form of audience watchdog content.

1. Chapter 1
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Statement of the problem
1.3. Theoretical Framework
1.4. Research Questions
1.5. Rationale of the study
1.6. Structure of subsequent chapters
2. Chapter 2
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Initiation rites
2.3. Initiation in South Africa
2.4. Chapter summary
3. Chapter 3
3.1. Introduction
3.2. The internet as a cultural medium
3.3. Chapter summary
4. Chapter 4
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Paradigm
4.3. Decoloniality
4.4. Social Cognitive Theory
4.5. Critical Discourse Analysis
4.6. Virtual ethnography approaches
4.7. Chapter summary
5. Chapter 5
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Statement of the research objectives
5.3. Research questions
5.4. Sample
5.5. Data collection process
5.6. Data analysis
5.7. Trustworthiness
5.8. Ethics
5.9. Limitations
5.10. Chapter summary
6. Chapter 6
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Critical Discourse Analysis of online news reports
6.3. The context
6.4. The production process
6.5. Communicative acts and social meaning embedded in news reports
6.6. Participant positions and roles
6.7. The macro-semantics of the text
6.8. The superstructures of the text
6.9. Chapter summary
7. Chapter 7
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Critical Discourse Analysis of the online message boards
7.3. Examining participant positions and roles
7.4. Examining the macro-semantics of the text
7.5. Examining the superstructures of the text
7.6. Chapter summary
8. Chapter 8
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Revisiting the theoretical framework
8.3. Reframing the research question
8.4. Interpreting the Superstructures
8.5. Describing the Macro-semantics of the text
8.6. The linguistic practices used within the texts
8.7. Conclusions
8.8. A post-script on epistemological entanglement
9. References
Appendix A
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