"We should be a lot angrier" : A case study of the Marikana shootings

Sammanfattning:

Our aim with this study was to examine how the Marikana massacre, the killings of 34 mineworkers in August 2012, was portrayed in the news media in South Africa. We based our study on a discourse analysis of a selection of articles written at the time of the massacre. We have also used interviews with two journalists who covered the Marikana massacre, to gain further insight in journalistic decisions regarding the coverage.

Through theories and earlier research we have analysed the content, among others we have used Burton’s theory of self-regulation and Gramsci’s theory of media hegemony. The findings of the discourse analysis show that newspapers have covered the incident from different angles, in accordance with the different conflicts that the massacre contains. We found a conflict between the police and miners as they are both portrayed as victims and the criminals in the articles. The second conflict between the largest unions and the third among the politicians Jacob Zuma and Julius Malema.

We have concluded that there is a political discourse and the political key players have used the massacre as means to gain political support. Through the discourse analysis we have also found that newspapers are at times critical towards government and authorities.