ABSTRACT The study sought to investigate why public relations copy has been freely finding its way into media content with the end result being the fourth estate, journalism, losing its watchdog role to has now come to be known as the ‘fifth estate’, which happens to be public relations departments of various organisations. The researcher subjected to empirical study the phenomenon that led to media under study, The Herald Business to be a channel through which public relations copy reapp...
ABSTRACT Since the attainment of independence in 1980, Zimbabwe’s historiography has been dominated by what Byrnes (2012:3) refers to as “Big History.” This Big History, authored by self-glorifying former nationalists and complemented by willing commissar intellectuals of the early 1980s, silenced the narratives of former fighting forces from the Second Chimurenga, which brought the country’s independence. However, studies utilizing a bottom up approach that is capturing the voices of...
ABSTRACT This study is about the construction and reconstruction of „reality‟ in fictional and non-fictional films Hotel Rwanda (George, 2004) and Rwanda‟s Untold Story (Terry, 2014). The study explores, and explains how cinematographic and narrative techniques are used to (re)construct the history of the Rwanda genocide. Political Economy of Film and the Gaze theory were employed to provide a theoretical base for this research. The study employed qualitative research methods, archival ...
Abstract The researcher focused on the contribution to democratic deliberation of a typical rhizome on twitter. The study explored the deliberations that were taking place on Jonathan Moyo’s twitter page @ProJNMoyo’s selected tweets. The researcher used the public sphere theory with close reference to the virtual public sphere, the network society theory as well as the deliberative democracy theory. The theories helped the researcher by setting the aggregates on how to give evaluations an...
ABSTRACT Football has become a widely followed „religion‟ just like Christianity. This has influenced a growth of scholarship on the subject from different theoretical positions. This study explores the sport world from a media centric standpoint. It looks at sports, particularly football from the lens of the media. It unearths how the media manufactures reality while at the same time exploring the discourses that prevail in the media with specific reference to football coaches. The study...
Abstract One of the media’s core and normative roles is to inform, educate and entertain society. This dissertation unravels this notion. It investigates the coverage of xenophobia research findings in two popular South African newspapers; the Mail & Guardian and the Sowetan from 2008 to 2013. Employing a neo-Foucauldian approach informed by Michel Foucault’s theory of discourse, power and knowledge, and using mixed methods, this study calls for more balanced and consistent coverage of xe...
ABSTRACT This is a critical discourse analysis of how ideological domination and power were reproduced in the CNN representations of Africa and Africans in the coverage of the Ebola crisis. The research also sought to establish if the CNN could have provided a conduit for racism in its framing of the disease. The research used a qualitative research methodology. The research was theoretically informed by the theories of representation and decolonial theory. It generally emerged in this thesis...
ABSTRACT The focus of this study is to assess the organizational communication strategies used by Unki Mine for community engagement and development. Under the umbrella term of “Organizational Communication”, this study discussed related literature such as effective communication, corporate communication, public relations and stakeholder engagement. Further, the study applies triangulation through the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods to obtain information for empi...
ABSTRACT The study explores how both men and women are framed in the music of two contemporary artistes in Zimbabwe— that is Alick Macheso and Lady Squanda. The specific objectives were to determine how men and women are framed in the music of Lady Squanda and Macheso. Grounded in the cultural studies research tradition, the study utilises the qualitative research approach. Purposively selected songs were subjected to critical discourse analysis. In-depth interviews were also conducted wi...
ABSTRACT This study rethinks the legitimacy of the political economy theory in so far as it assumes that media owners unproblematically determine content in newspapers, radio or television stations that they own. The study was stimulated by The Herald’s political news content in the period between 2015 and 2017, which scandalised some senior politicians in the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) Government. This occurred notwithstanding the fact that the ZANU PF Gover...
ABSTRACT The study seeks to provide a solution on how media organizations can employ marketing strategies to survive the economy. With the advent of new trends in the global marketing world, this study explored the implementation of the holistic marketing concept and its effectiveness in a crisis-ridden Zimbabwean economy by Zimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Ltd. It addresses the gap on how print media organizations can best utilize marketing to stay viable in an unstable economic environment. The ...
ABSTRACT Newspapers layout and design is meant to appeal to the preference of the reader. This in turn will also ensure the long term survival of the media entity in question through the realisation of significant daily sales. Even though daily sales do not determine the long term profitability of a media organisation, the sales go a long way in assisting some of the expenses such as printing. The newspaper industry in Zimbabwe is highly competitive because of various factors. Among them is ...
ABSTRACT The researcher explores the reportage of artisanal mining and environmental issues by The Sunday News and The Standard from 2017 to date. The research so to find out how the two newspapers frame, give prominence to news reports on artisanal mining and environmental issues in Zimbabwe. The research used the framing, ideology and political economy theories to find out how far these two newspapers give value to news on artisanal mining and environmental issues in Zimbabwe. The research...
Abstract The study will look at how Donald Trump is presented in Zimbabwe‘s public media which is The Herald newspaper. The Herald is well known to be an ideological state apparatus for the ruling government. This is so because President Mugabe‘s government created the state-controlled Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust (ZMMT), a watchdog that eventually took overall ownership of The Herald and its sister papers (Nyahunzvi 2001). In Zimbabwe the media is much more polarized on political lines. Whe...