Abstract
The 21st century is close to two‐decades‐old and there is a growing concern that South African
media needs to improve their science news coverage to conscientise citizens with scientific
literacy i.e. their knowledge about science, and the environment. This will assist in developing
active citizens in a world that is dominated by complicated scientific and technological
advances. The concern about how the media in particular newspapers portray science news
is growing, since there is a belief that newspapers can play a pivotal role in educating the
citizens. Newspapers can play a role when teaching science are regarded as a medium that
can heighten students’ knowledge, enhance vocabulary skills and encourage a positive
attitude towards learning. The aim of this study was to provide an overview of how online
newspapers portray astronomy news in terms of framing and tone. The study is underpinned
by framing theory, which suggests that presentation can influence the choices people make.
A mixed method approach was employed since it combines both qualitative and quantitative
methods to deal with different questions of the study. An instrument to collect data was not
required, the data was available on the internet. I retrieved the newspapers from the internet
and samples were drawn from two online newspapers, the Mail & Guardian and News24 from
1 January 2012 to 31 July 2015. The Nisbet framework and a modified story analysis form
were used to analyse data. The quantitative results indicates that the coverage of astronomy
news is still very limited in South Africa media based on the newspapers analysed. The finding
shows that 82% of the analysed Mail & Guardian newspapers were general news, whereas
only 76% of News24 stories were general news.