ABSTRACT

The South African commercial press marginalises alternative and counter-hegemonic voices partly due to its location in the capitalist power structures. Notwithstanding its transformation post-apartheid, the ethos of this media remains rooted in apartheid-like economic and ideological rationalities. This media still functions within Western news values and a neoliberal paradigm; hence, the reporting of ideological discourses delegitimises the concerns of the dispossessed. This paper uses the critical political economy of the media in conversation with decolonial theories to analyse the media’s representation of the land debate by assessing economic and political interrelations that shape its structures and practice. Stories in the South African English-language print media in 2018 are analysed using thematic and framing approaches. It emerges that the land debate is framed negatively. The media employed a narrow neoliberal frame in the stories and thus failed to support a legitimate discourse. Instead, the media gave voice to individuals located in capitalist production structures who defended the status quo.

摘要

南非商业媒体将另类和反霸权的声音边缘化，部分原因是它位于资本主义权力结构中。尽管在种族隔离后发生了转变，但这种媒体的精神仍然植根于种族隔离式的经济和意识形态理性中。这种媒体仍然在西方新闻价值观和新自由主义范式中发挥作用；因此，意识形态话语的报道使被剥夺者的担忧失去了合法性。本文使用媒体的批判政治经济学与非殖民主义理论对话，通过评估塑造其结构和实践的经济和政治相互关系来分析媒体对土地辩论的表现。使用主题和框架方法分析了 2018 年南非英语印刷媒体中的故事。土地辩论似乎是消极的。媒体在报道中采用了狭隘的新自由主义框架，因此无法支持合法的话语。相反，媒体向位于资本主义生产结构中捍卫现状的个人发出声音。