Operacionalización / categorización de los componentes de las

In chapter five I have described how the four newspapers reported on developments in Africa. I looked at the topics they covered, the words and sentences they used, the propositions that were present in and in between the lines. As I pointed out in the previous paragraph the three generic frames not only consisted of different vocabulary and propositions, they also reflected different perspectives, showed different realities.

As my research focused on establishing how print media covered the socio- economic realities my data collection and content-analyses was based on a predefined list of keywords, that contained mainly what was present. What was absent was however also part of the story of representation of socio-economic realities. I established through a quick text analyses that indeed certain words were not present in any of the newspaper articles on development and not just missed because they were not part of the predefined list. This allowed me to also conclude on uncovered socio- economic realities.

Financial realities

The financial realities included changes in the way development was funded and how financing was organised. My data showed that new realities such as investments by Asian and Arab countries were covered. These new foreign investments were not judged on their own merits however but compared with investments by western countries. They were assessed through the familiar political and social parameters that have always dominated the discussion on development aid and donor funding. Especially if articles were politically framed this became visible in propositions such as ‘Western aid is tied to democracy, transparency, human rights and good governance’ and ‘China has no ethics or moral agenda when doing business in Africa’.

A normative discussion on dependency was part of representing the financial reality. Established ideas on the relation between north and south were recycled. However the stakeholders changed, from western to eastern, the approach to the relationship with Africa remained the same. The central message was still that Africa could only develop and grow with huge foreign investments. The financial dependency remained despite that the political influence was presumed to be less. So the observed absence of a political agenda, which was always presented as one of the causes of dependency in the relation between Africa and the west, was translated into a proposition that a change of stakeholders would mean independency for Africa. This is

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Figure34. Topicsinthefinancialframe

Business Day Beeld City Press Mail & Guardian SA The Good News

one of the clearest examples I found of how ‘meaning was created through differences’ (Hall 2003:236) as I have described in §2.3.

Investments by the market, more over by South African companies was another way to avoid politically loaded donor funding and make Africa more independent (appendix IV, financial frame, propositions 2 and 4). In most newspapers this was presented as the preferred economic track compared to investments by Asian and Arab countries. This communicated a neo-liberal approach in which the solution was the free market rather than state interference. To some extent this can be explained by the time frame of my research which was just before the economic crunch at a time when the neo-liberal model was not a major topic of discussion (§4.6). But apart from the fact that the financial crisis of the past four years has shed a different light on the absoluteness of the free market, the major parameter to assess it was political. The market was not described on its own merits but through the characteristics of donor funding. The market was what donor funding was not, free of political values. So in line with Hegel’s theory a sense of sameness was created on the basis of what defined the other, especially in newspapers with a target group of business people. The financial dependency that came with commercialisation and privatisation was not questioned. This was more so remarkable as most journalists were very aware of the influence of commercialisation on their own independency. This became clear in the interviews I had with them.

To sum up, financial independency is mostly presented through alliances with new countries and the free market, and presented as an alternative for donor funding. Another major source of cash flow, migrant remittances was not mentioned once, however in some countries this already made up a large portion of the incoming cash

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Figure 35. Topics in the political frame

Business Day Beeld City Press Mail & Guardian SA The Good News

flow. This might have been caused by the lack of a civic perspective in the financial and political frame, which excluded the perspectives of ordinary people, who were the main players in the story on migrant remittances. But even in the social frame there were no stories on this subject. As I argued in §6.2 these financial aspects of socio-economic realities were almost absent in a social perspective. So due to the strong framing the stories and realities that lied in between the frames were ignored. That was a flaw in reporting development in Africa.

Political realities

Apart from the dependency on money, the dependency on structures and institutions, more over international institutions, was the other major part of the story. This related to a structuralist and functionalist approach to development (§4.6) that presumed that development could only be achieved if the process is ‘well organized’. The role of major institutions such as the IMF and World Bank was sometimes criticised, but they were still presented as key players in a process of development.

The abundance of coverage on regional cooperation communicated that it was a good thing for Africa to become less dependent on these international institutions and organise their own development, via their own institutions and bodies. This new reality was especially well covered in Beeld and Business Day. Articles on the hindrance of customs rules, the complications of regional cooperation, the importance of inflation control and solid budgets all communicated that these were hard preconditions for development and countries and companies were working hard to establish them. But institutional preconditions were not the only factors influencing regional and international cooperation and trade. There were a lot of articles on the importance of infrastructure, both physical and digital. And on the opportunities for South African

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business to make a profit by investing. This part of the socio-economic reality of Africa was on it’s way to beat the coverage on natural resources, cash crops and commodities (see financial frame). The only thing missing was how these changes would influence the present institutions and stakeholders. It was clear that digitalisation could reduce the distance between producer and consumer, provider and buyer. Some stakeholders, such as middle men and sales representatives, might disappear in the value chains of goods and services. Institutions and regulations were not only preconditions for development, development would also change the institutions and regulations. It could change the way people related to each other and to the world around them, it would change dependency and independency. This perspective, that existed in between the financial and political frame, was however absent in reporting on emerging sectors such as ICT. Again this was more so remarkable as most journalists were very aware of the influence of digitalisation on their own work processes, organisations and professional independence.

Political preconditions for development furthermore dealt with political and financial stability (solid budgets, good governance, democracy and transparency) and not with human safety and security. If human security was represented it was always through the perspectives of the rulers, top down. It showed how good governance could provide structures to ensure human security as a precondition for development. It didn’t show how freedom and human rights could provide a sense of security that empowered citizens to participate in development, bottom up. This socio-economic reality, that lied in between the political and social frame was not covered. The proposition that human security is a precondition for development that involved both governments and citizens was only covered in City Press. And mainly through a gender discourse (figure 36). To me this was something I had not expected. Human rights were an important topic in political articles. Media-freedom was hugely debated in South Africa (§2.4). It was viewed as precondition for democracy, in line with established ideas on the role of journalists in society, especially from a social responsibility approach.190 _{But it seemed} restricted to political articles and professional debate. It seemed as if topics were the unique domain of certain ‘beats’ in journalism. In this way realities that lied in between remained uncovered. Only one article, in one newspaper showed the role of media- freedom in change and development and represented the socio-economic reality of young bloggers.191

Social realities

Overall the social frame presented citizens’ perspective of development as something that happened to them and not as something they could influence and even create. As I have argued before, the lack of financial and political topics in the social frame, by

190 _{Clifford G. Christians, Theodore L. Glasser, Denis Mcquail, Kaarle Nordenstreng and Robert A. White.}

Normative Theories of the Media, Journalism in Democratic Societies. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009

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