A Comparative Appraisal Analysis Of Political News In The Namibian And New Era Newspapers From 2015 To 2018

ABSTRACT

The thesis is a comparative Appraisal analysis of political news from two Namibian English newspapers (The Namibian and New Era), particularly focusing examining the propagation of journalistic attitudinal biases in political ‘hard news’ stories and journalistic ‘objectivity’. The research compares the textual structures of news reports from the English language reporting Namibian newspapers (The Namibian and New Era), during the period January 2015 - December 2018. It is a time in which the country was grappling with a varied number of concerns which split the nation on political grounds. Such a split based on political ideology seems to have trickled down into main stream media and hence creating a very interesting polarity of the media. For example, during this period and beyond, the nation faces unresolved land disputes which are framed in economic crisis, elections, economic woes and social ethnic division. The polarity of the Namibian media on political lines creates occasions where one issue is projected differently in different newspapers. Utilizing Appraisal Theory, in particular the ‘reporter voice’ configuration, the research analyses the nature of reporter biases in political hard news, The texts were textually analysed in terms of their adherence, or lack of it thereof, to the concerns of the “reporter voice configuration”. The research observes that Namibian newspapers, specifically The Namibian and New Era political reports in English, commonly exhibit cases of deliberate, albeit veiled, biases.