See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil? The press, violence and hooliganism at the ‘battle of Zimbabwe’
- Authors: Ncube, Lyton , Munoriyarwa, Allen
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Zimbabwe , Hooliganism , Battle of Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/257837 , uj:27096 , Citation: Ncube, L. & Munoriyarwa, A. 2018. See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil? The press, violence and hooliganism at the ‘battle of Zimbabwe’.
- Description: Abstract: Matches between Zimbabwean Premier Soccer League (PSL) teams Dynamos FC and Highlanders FC are popular but controversial. In 2004, Robson Sharuko, senior sports editor of The Herald newspaper, dubbed this game the ‘battle of Zimbabwe’. The fixture usually explodes into ugly scenes of violence. Such incidents hardly evade the eyes of the mass media. However, growing scholarship on Zimbabwean football have under-theorized this violence. The essay deploys the framing theory and Foucauldian discourse to analyze the framing of selected episodes of violence at the ‘battle of Zimbabwe’ by two state-controlled newspapers – The Herald and the Chronicle, which fall under the Zimbabwe Newspapers (Zimpapers) stable. The study shows that contrary to the common perception that The Herald and the Chronicle provide monolithic accounts on events, they furnish heterogeneous narratives on violence at this fixture. This heterogeneity is influenced by ethnic tensions between two dominant ethnic groups in Zimbabwe – the Shona and the Ndebele.
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So, who is responsible? A framing analysis of newspaper coverage of electoral violence in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Munoriyarwa, Allen
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Electoral violence , Zimbabwe , ZANU PF
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/445857 , uj:39021 , Citation: Munoriyarwa, A. 2020. So, who is responsible? A framing analysis of newspaper coverage of electoral violence in Zimbabwe.
- Description: Abstract: This study examines how the 2008 election violence was framed in three mainstream Zimbabwean weekly newspapers – The Sunday Mail, The Independent and The Zimbabwean. It was noted that four frames – the victim, justice and human rights, trivialisation and attribution of responsibility frames dominated the coverage of electoral violence in these three newspapers. The dominance of the trivialising frame in The Sunday Mail privileged the ruling party’s, Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) (ZANU PF’s) interpretation of electoral violence as inconsequential to the electoral process. Simultaneously, the prevalence of the victim, justice and human rights frames in The Independent and The Zimbabwean newspapers signifies the private media’s obsession with ZANU PF’s alleged electoral malpractices and situate these alleged transgressions within a broad global social justice and human rights trajectory to cultivate the West’s sympathy with the “victimised” opposition.
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When watchdogs fight back: resisting state surveillance in everyday investigative reporting practices among Zimbabwean journalists
- Authors: Munoriyarwa, Allen
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Journalism practice , Digital surveillance , Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Journal article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/490356 , uj:44741 , Citation: Munoriyarwa, A., 2021. When watchdogs fight back: resisting state surveillance in everyday investigative reporting practices among Zimbabwean journalists. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 15(3), pp.421-441.
- Description: Abstract: The recognition that digital surveillance is becoming ubiquitous has prompted varied responses from targeted groups. This article explores the ways through which journalists resist state-driven digital surveillance in Zimbabwe. It is based on in-depth qualitative interviews with practising journalists, sampled from the print media. The article utilises panopticon theory, which holds that victims of surveillance alter their behaviour upon the realisation of being surveilled. The interviews were subjected to thematic analysis. The article finds, among other issues, that as forms of resistance to surveillance, journalists in Zimbabwe now reduce their “digital footprints” and have started to re-think the spaces in which they engage with their sources. The article argues that journalists, as a discursive community, should keep the issue of state surveillance on the mainstream agenda and maintain both organised and ad-hoc forms of resistance as ways of “speaking back to the state”. Conscientising the public can, possibly, provide a positive starting point for responsible, transparent and fair regulation of state surveillance practices and assist in “fencing off” state intrusion in the field of journalism. In addition, journalists should push for legislation that protects their news sources.
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