Reometria Oscilatoria

After transcribing the interviews, a thematic analysis was carried out to identify responses within the transcript that would fit into the four categories this research aimed to gain an insight into. Table 5.1 presents the personal motivations,

perceptions of newsworthiness and external pressures exerted upon journalists in their role as news producers. This table illustrates journalists’ personal

motivations which could be the reasons they decided to become journalists in the first instance. Their perceptions of newsworthiness are shown to be largely made up of Western concepts of news values, mainly Galtung and Ruge concepts of news criteria from 1965. There are also development journalism concepts of news values identified among their perceptions of newsworthiness. They also

experience a lot of external advertising and political pressures as news producers.

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Table 5:1 Journalists’ personal motivations, perception of newsworthiness and external pressures.

•Love my job. It's about job satisfaction at the end of the day

•An independent voice that could create change

•It is my voice to effect change

•Try to change the way things were

•Look through new ways of doing things

•Always wanted to be a journalist

•We're the whistle blowers

•Help people

•To be the voice of the uneducated

•To be the peoples' voice in decision making

•Represent the people - be the voice of the people

•Change the peoples' lifestyle, inform them

•Inform and educate people about issues and happenings especially social and educational issues

•Be the voice of the silent majority

•Give them more information

•Educate the people and change their mindset about voilence

•New ways of convincing people that there are better ways than their status quo

•Report for the small people

•Educate - educate the populace

Personal Goals/Motivations

•Those issues going on behind closed doors

•Issues about the silent majority that aren't told

•The gaps in service delivery

•What's actually breaking or happening during the day

•Government's decisions being passed

•Big story, eg; from Prime Minister's dept

•Breaking news - crime, break & enter, robberies, traffic accidents, ethnic clashes, police reports

•Anything interesting

•Current issues

•Stories of those companies paying for airtimes

•Ground breaking ceremonies, ribbon cutting, cultural perfomances

•Difficulties people face in trying to access basic services

•Problems affecting the people

•Something new about rolling issues

•Social and education issues

•Hard news, human interest and lifestyle

•Government's mismanagement of funds/projects

Perceptions of Newsworthiness

•Politicians give us allowances

•Direction from companies and organisations paying for airtime

•Direction from CEO

•Direction from management or sales division

•Political influence for PR work

External Pressures

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All journalists interviewed had personal motivations for wanting to become journalists, as one journalist stated:

“I’ve always wanted to be a journalist.”

Journalists’ perceptions of newsworthiness display values of both developmental journalism and Western concepts of news values. Development journalism views are a reflection of the country’s local context. As one journalist expressed, her focus has now shifted to identifying and reporting,

“The gaps in service delivery.”

Western news values displayed by journalists might have been embraced during their university training, which is mostly based on Western media theories.

Matbob (2007) pointed out that journalists’ news values are directly influenced by the foreign ownership of the local media, as well as journalism training in the workplace and at the university. A journalist pointed out that he was covering the early morning round, which was aimed at capturing breaking news. He went on further to present examples of what he identified as breaking news, which is mostly composed of bad news:

“I cover breaking news such as crime, breaking and entering, robberies, traffic accidents, ethnic clashes and police reports.”

His description of breaking news fits explicitly with one of Galtung and Ruge’s (1963) news criteria. Galtung and Ruge (1963 as cited in Harcup & O’Neil, 2010) identified 12 factors which they said are unconscious criteria that journalists use to select what is news. The journalists’ reference to breaking news as bad news is reflective of Western concepts of newsworthiness, which fits into Galtung and Ruge’s factor 12 (F12), which is a reference to something negative. Negative news could be seen as unambiguous and coconscious, generally more likely to be unexpected and to occur over a shorter period of time than positive news.

The interview also presented questions that allowed journalists to describe their roles throughout the encoding process. Apart from describing the normal duties of a television news journalist, they also highlighted some negative challenges, which at most times influence them and their news discourse.

“The time, the human resources and equipment, they all effect the quality of the news content at the end of the day.”

Journalists’ perceptions of newsworthiness and personal motivations were again positioned on Heath’s (1996) illustration of news valence, to identify their

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orientation and whether these would have an influence on the meanings being transmitted. This is apart from the external and institutional influences.

Figure 5:1 Journalists’ motivations and perception of newsworthiness on news valence.

Figure 5.1 is important, as it illustrates journalists’ personal preferences for what pieces of news to transmit and will help us to identify whether there is a

relationship to the meanings transmitted to students, and the meanings decoded (Heath, 2006).

From figure 5.1, it can be said that:

- Journalists have positive motivations, which influences their preference for positive news stories. These positive motivations could also be related to development journalism;

- Journalists’ perceptions of newsworthiness are mostly negative, which influences their preference for negative news stories. This could be related to their Western concepts of newsworthiness.