Radio Mthwakazi and the construction of Ndebele ethnic identity
- Authors: Ncube, Bhekinkosi Jakobe
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Ndebele (African people) - Zimbabwe - Social life and customs , Ndebele (African people) - Zimbabwe - Ethnic identity , Radio broadcasting - Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/400620 , uj:33442
- Description: Abstract : This study is an examination of identity construction by an online radio station, Radio Mthwakazi. It interrogates the institutional routines of the station and how they facilitate the construction and contestation of Ndebele ethnic identity. This is against the background of a resurgence of Ndebele particularism in Zimbabwe. The study argues that in Zimbabwe the salience of Ndebele ethnic identity has been influenced by events in the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial nation building process. Tracing these events from the 1929 Bulawayo fights right through the emotive Gukurahundi up to the current situation of Mthwakazi politics, the study argues that the Ndebele people of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe are appropriating the internet as a platform to coalesce on issues of their nationhood and in the process creating for themselves an alternative public sphere. Conceptualising ethnicity beyond instrumentalism and primordialism, the study takes a constructionist or constructivist approach to the study of ethnicity and identity which seeks to understand ethnicity and Ndebele nationhood within the concept of Anderson’s concept of imagined community. The study argues that indeed nations and identities are imagined and therefore constructed. The argument is that ethnicity and nationhood are socially constructed, that is, they are products of human thought and action and therefore they can be contested. Identities are malleable – they are situational and members of the Ndebele people in the diaspora are attempting to preserve their identity through the station. This is linked to the concept of belonging, that is, how as an emotional attachment, it is articulated and structured in relation to identity construction and contestation. Using textual and discourse analysis of the station’s texts and conversation analysis of interviews and conversations, the study makes the point that precisely because of marginalisation – socially, economically and political – the subaltern such as the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe have opted for alternative ways of expressing their dissent and at the same time forging their identity consciousness. The study found out that the station attempts to construct Ndebele ethnic identity through being an alternative and resistance based medium. Ndebele ethnic identity is also discursively constructed, that is, through talking the nation and performances that enhance their nationhood but this construction is not innocent, it is contested. , D.Litt. et Phil. (Communication Studies)
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- Authors: Ncube, Bhekinkosi Jakobe
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Ndebele (African people) - Zimbabwe - Social life and customs , Ndebele (African people) - Zimbabwe - Ethnic identity , Radio broadcasting - Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/400620 , uj:33442
- Description: Abstract : This study is an examination of identity construction by an online radio station, Radio Mthwakazi. It interrogates the institutional routines of the station and how they facilitate the construction and contestation of Ndebele ethnic identity. This is against the background of a resurgence of Ndebele particularism in Zimbabwe. The study argues that in Zimbabwe the salience of Ndebele ethnic identity has been influenced by events in the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial nation building process. Tracing these events from the 1929 Bulawayo fights right through the emotive Gukurahundi up to the current situation of Mthwakazi politics, the study argues that the Ndebele people of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe are appropriating the internet as a platform to coalesce on issues of their nationhood and in the process creating for themselves an alternative public sphere. Conceptualising ethnicity beyond instrumentalism and primordialism, the study takes a constructionist or constructivist approach to the study of ethnicity and identity which seeks to understand ethnicity and Ndebele nationhood within the concept of Anderson’s concept of imagined community. The study argues that indeed nations and identities are imagined and therefore constructed. The argument is that ethnicity and nationhood are socially constructed, that is, they are products of human thought and action and therefore they can be contested. Identities are malleable – they are situational and members of the Ndebele people in the diaspora are attempting to preserve their identity through the station. This is linked to the concept of belonging, that is, how as an emotional attachment, it is articulated and structured in relation to identity construction and contestation. Using textual and discourse analysis of the station’s texts and conversation analysis of interviews and conversations, the study makes the point that precisely because of marginalisation – socially, economically and political – the subaltern such as the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe have opted for alternative ways of expressing their dissent and at the same time forging their identity consciousness. The study found out that the station attempts to construct Ndebele ethnic identity through being an alternative and resistance based medium. Ndebele ethnic identity is also discursively constructed, that is, through talking the nation and performances that enhance their nationhood but this construction is not innocent, it is contested. , D.Litt. et Phil. (Communication Studies)
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Turmoil in the postcolony : post-independence electoral violence in Zimbabwe and the relevance of peace journalism
- Authors: Munoriyarwa, Allen
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Elections - Zimbabwe , Elections - Zimbabwe - Press coverage , Mass media and peace - Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/400596 , uj:33439
- Description: Abstract : Between the year 2000 and 2013, Zimbabwe held seven elections and two constitutional plebiscites. Many of these elections have been condemned by local and international observers as unfree and unfair because of election violence. In the post-2000 period, election violence has increased in both qualitative and quantitative terms as electoral contestations increased. Lives have been lost, political trust destroyed and citizens’ belief in the electoral system has, arguably, been shaken. On many occasions, the press has been fingered as failing to speak out against election violence by adopting alternative news reporting models like peace journalism. They have also been accused of failing to provide credible election news, enabling them to be objective, non-partisan conduits of election news in the country, and critics of the country’s election practices. Critics easily point at the ideological divide and subsequent polarisation of the press as the main cause of the press’ failure to be useful spaces of election information, and their subsequent failure to muster a unified voice against rampant election violence. This study is a qualitative research that explores press discourses of election violence in post-2000 Zimbabwe and the relevance of peace journalism. This study utilises qualitative framing analysis and CDA of news texts from The Sunday Mail and The Independent - to ascertain their alignment to peace journalism practices. In addition to textual analysis, the research utilises in-depth interviews with political reporters who covered election violence news for the two weeklies, to establish why news frames and discourses appear the way they are in both newspapers. The study observes that generally, there is no peace journalism practice in the two newspapers. Journalists expressed ignorance of the practice despite its obvious relevance to the Zimbabwean volatile electoral environment. I find that hatespewing, racist, confrontational, polarising and divisive discourses on electoral violence make it difficult to understand the extent of election violence, its subsequent consequences and how, in the long term, it can be arrested. I argue that in some instances, the two newspapers went beyond reporting news on election violence to participating in election violence. I propose a peace journalism news reporting model that can be utilised by the press in case election violence arise again. , Ph.D. (Journalism)
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- Authors: Munoriyarwa, Allen
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Elections - Zimbabwe , Elections - Zimbabwe - Press coverage , Mass media and peace - Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/400596 , uj:33439
- Description: Abstract : Between the year 2000 and 2013, Zimbabwe held seven elections and two constitutional plebiscites. Many of these elections have been condemned by local and international observers as unfree and unfair because of election violence. In the post-2000 period, election violence has increased in both qualitative and quantitative terms as electoral contestations increased. Lives have been lost, political trust destroyed and citizens’ belief in the electoral system has, arguably, been shaken. On many occasions, the press has been fingered as failing to speak out against election violence by adopting alternative news reporting models like peace journalism. They have also been accused of failing to provide credible election news, enabling them to be objective, non-partisan conduits of election news in the country, and critics of the country’s election practices. Critics easily point at the ideological divide and subsequent polarisation of the press as the main cause of the press’ failure to be useful spaces of election information, and their subsequent failure to muster a unified voice against rampant election violence. This study is a qualitative research that explores press discourses of election violence in post-2000 Zimbabwe and the relevance of peace journalism. This study utilises qualitative framing analysis and CDA of news texts from The Sunday Mail and The Independent - to ascertain their alignment to peace journalism practices. In addition to textual analysis, the research utilises in-depth interviews with political reporters who covered election violence news for the two weeklies, to establish why news frames and discourses appear the way they are in both newspapers. The study observes that generally, there is no peace journalism practice in the two newspapers. Journalists expressed ignorance of the practice despite its obvious relevance to the Zimbabwean volatile electoral environment. I find that hatespewing, racist, confrontational, polarising and divisive discourses on electoral violence make it difficult to understand the extent of election violence, its subsequent consequences and how, in the long term, it can be arrested. I argue that in some instances, the two newspapers went beyond reporting news on election violence to participating in election violence. I propose a peace journalism news reporting model that can be utilised by the press in case election violence arise again. , Ph.D. (Journalism)
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The challenges of establishing a sustainable regulatory system for journalists for media accountability to society : a case study of Uganda
- Authors: Mbaine, Adolf Emmanuel
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Journalistic ethics - Uganda , Journalism - Law and legislation - Uganda , Journalism - Political aspects - Uganda , Mass media - Law and legislation - Uganda , Liability (Law) - Uganda
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/420400 , uj:35792
- Description: D.Litt. et Phil. (Journalism, Film and Television) , Abstract: This study investigates challenges of establishing a sustainable regulatory system for journalists in order to achieve media accountability to society, with Uganda as a case study. Using in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in media regulation, the study makes an inquiry into the dispute over who, between the media and the state in Uganda, should enforce ethical standards and public media accountability. This dispute became manifest in 1995 when the government of Uganda introduced statutory regulation for journalists, as Ugandan journalists later in 2006 also started a self-regulatory system to run alongside the statutory one. The study also assessed the prevailing ethical and accountability situation in the media in Uganda, including the existence, or absence, of accountability mechanisms in newsrooms. The study is anchored in political economy, critical political economy, normative theory and media accountability theory, and its findings show that there is a clash in the understanding of media roles, notably on the part of political actors and a government whose actions are increasingly becoming authoritarian. However, while the media understand their roles of providing information from the perspective of a liberal democratic framework, media organisations are subject to political and economic pressure that impacts on journalists’ ethical and accountability practices. Thus the pursuit of individual media interests and agendas has further weakened journalists’ collective self-organisation, leading to self-regulation failure. The findings further show that the level of ethical standards and accountability among Ugandan journalists is low, and that internal newsroom mechanisms to enforce them do not exist in many media organisations that are pre-occupied with survival in a repressive political environment, while also in pursuit of economic benefit. The study notes that statutory regulation of journalists in Uganda had failed in spite of having the backing of the law, because it was opposed by the journalists and ignored by the very government that set it up. Furthermore, weak journalism structures, corporate media interests and government high handedness against journalists might have undermined the social responsibility model of self-regulation. The study thus recommends that Uganda adopts the co-regulatory system between the public and the media, which gives power to the...
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- Authors: Mbaine, Adolf Emmanuel
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Journalistic ethics - Uganda , Journalism - Law and legislation - Uganda , Journalism - Political aspects - Uganda , Mass media - Law and legislation - Uganda , Liability (Law) - Uganda
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/420400 , uj:35792
- Description: D.Litt. et Phil. (Journalism, Film and Television) , Abstract: This study investigates challenges of establishing a sustainable regulatory system for journalists in order to achieve media accountability to society, with Uganda as a case study. Using in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in media regulation, the study makes an inquiry into the dispute over who, between the media and the state in Uganda, should enforce ethical standards and public media accountability. This dispute became manifest in 1995 when the government of Uganda introduced statutory regulation for journalists, as Ugandan journalists later in 2006 also started a self-regulatory system to run alongside the statutory one. The study also assessed the prevailing ethical and accountability situation in the media in Uganda, including the existence, or absence, of accountability mechanisms in newsrooms. The study is anchored in political economy, critical political economy, normative theory and media accountability theory, and its findings show that there is a clash in the understanding of media roles, notably on the part of political actors and a government whose actions are increasingly becoming authoritarian. However, while the media understand their roles of providing information from the perspective of a liberal democratic framework, media organisations are subject to political and economic pressure that impacts on journalists’ ethical and accountability practices. Thus the pursuit of individual media interests and agendas has further weakened journalists’ collective self-organisation, leading to self-regulation failure. The findings further show that the level of ethical standards and accountability among Ugandan journalists is low, and that internal newsroom mechanisms to enforce them do not exist in many media organisations that are pre-occupied with survival in a repressive political environment, while also in pursuit of economic benefit. The study notes that statutory regulation of journalists in Uganda had failed in spite of having the backing of the law, because it was opposed by the journalists and ignored by the very government that set it up. Furthermore, weak journalism structures, corporate media interests and government high handedness against journalists might have undermined the social responsibility model of self-regulation. The study thus recommends that Uganda adopts the co-regulatory system between the public and the media, which gives power to the...
- Full Text:
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