South Africa: how the media stoked the fires of racism
posted by impuku | 25.05.2008 19:59
A major Idasa report, “Press Coverage of Cross Border Migration to South Africa Since 2000”, says the country’s newspapers and news wire services have played a major role in inflaming xenophobic sentiment.
Sunday Times
How the media stoked the fires
Published:May 25, 2008
Drawing on earlier research, the 2005 study noted that less than 10% of South Africans had a “great deal” of contact with foreign Africans — and that, therefore, “anti-immigration sentiment in the region is not primarily a result of (personal experience) with foreigners but rather the product of (mis)information from secondary sources, including the media”.
In a study of 950 press reports on immigration, the survey found:
# More than half the articles used at least one negative reference ( job stealers, criminals, illegals ...). This cumulative effect of rhetoric is perhaps the most revealing statistic of all;
# 17% used a “negative metaphor” to describe the migration, eg. floods, waves or hordes;
# 22% associated migrants with crime; 20% referred to migrants as illegals
# “The long discredited figure of nine million illegal immigrants living in South Africa ... continues to be reproduced in the press”;
“A large amount of press coverage remains anti-immigration and non-analytical”;
# Of the articles that used the term “job stealers”, the SA Press Association (Sapa) was by far the worst offender, making up 38%; and
# The problem was inflamed by “the growth of a tabloid press in SA . . . which latch on to reactionary and sensational issues and attitudes”.
The report concluded that “there are signs of a shifting, albeit polarised, approach to coverage of the issues — at least in South Africa — but xenophobic writing and editorialising remains a concern”.
How the media stoked the fires
Published:May 25, 2008
Drawing on earlier research, the 2005 study noted that less than 10% of South Africans had a “great deal” of contact with foreign Africans — and that, therefore, “anti-immigration sentiment in the region is not primarily a result of (personal experience) with foreigners but rather the product of (mis)information from secondary sources, including the media”.
In a study of 950 press reports on immigration, the survey found:
# More than half the articles used at least one negative reference ( job stealers, criminals, illegals ...). This cumulative effect of rhetoric is perhaps the most revealing statistic of all;
# 17% used a “negative metaphor” to describe the migration, eg. floods, waves or hordes;
# 22% associated migrants with crime; 20% referred to migrants as illegals
# “The long discredited figure of nine million illegal immigrants living in South Africa ... continues to be reproduced in the press”;
“A large amount of press coverage remains anti-immigration and non-analytical”;
# Of the articles that used the term “job stealers”, the SA Press Association (Sapa) was by far the worst offender, making up 38%; and
# The problem was inflamed by “the growth of a tabloid press in SA . . . which latch on to reactionary and sensational issues and attitudes”.
The report concluded that “there are signs of a shifting, albeit polarised, approach to coverage of the issues — at least in South Africa — but xenophobic writing and editorialising remains a concern”.
posted by impuku
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
Why?
26.05.2008 07:35
Mix Max
Who's blaming the media?
26.05.2008 10:45
The attacks on migrants are an abolute disgrace. Anyone caught attacking should be given a heavy prison sentence.
But, it is unlikely that the people carrying out the attacks say they are doing it because of the media. They are likely to say migrants are a big problem and to justify this they are likely to point to arguments made in the media.
Simon Hinds
These atrocities were not so spontaneous or surprising
26.05.2008 11:39
The government also bears responsibility as, no matter what they say in public about what has happened, they have left refugees to eke out an existence in appalling conditions without status or any protection. There have been murders and maiming of refugees over a number of years with little mainstream media coverage. NGOs have worked hard in publishing books and doing outreach projects to counter racism in communities but the books are expensive luxury items compared to newspapers and their projects can never be as powerful as official government policy.
Government-sanctioned actions such as the police raid on Zimbabwean refugees sheltering in a church in Johannesburg (
Refugees are once more offered as scapegoats for anger that ought rightfully be directed at the relentless neoliberal economic policies of the government, that have created an increasing wealth gap with obscene consumerism and staggering poverty existing cheek-by-jowl. In the current economic order human beings are mere collateral and this dehumanising process has been taken to its logical extreme. To compound all of this there is no viable political party in opposition promoting a redistribution of wealth or an inclusiveness that would encourage an alternative to the crude, chauvinistic nationalism that the country has seen more than enough of through what now amounts to successive regimes.
impuku