Ubuntuism as a Foundation of Media Ethics in Zimbabwe? Journalists’ Perspectives and Discontents

Abstract

There are debates on the relevance of Eurocentric normative frameworks for studying the media in post-colonial Africa. Emerging from these debates is a rebuttal of the dominant Western-derived paradigms for the conceptualisation of journalistic norms, values and practices. Given that the dominant Western liberal models for normative media ethics are incongruent to the needs of Africa, there is a growing call to reconceptualise media ethics anchored upon alternative epistemologies and moral foundations such as ubuntuism. Although there is existing scholarship on ubuntuism as a framework for media ethics in Africa, none of these studies has focused particularly on Zimbabwe. Using the 16 August 2019 (hereafter August 16) protests as a photojournalistic “moment” as a frame, this article explores the views and perspectives of Zimbabwean journalists on their understanding of media ethics and professionalism. Further, it probes the possibilities of ubuntuism as a moral foundation of journalistic practice in the country. Journalists’ views are diverse and contested on the nature and practice of media ethics in the country. Although ubuntuism is touted as a normative framework for media ethics, the Western liberal perspectives remain dominant. As such, post-colonial theory offers a useful approach to understanding the interconnections, contradictions and tensions underpinning media ethics in post-colonial Zimbabwe.     

Manufacturing Black-on-Black Violence in Africa: A Decolonial Perspective on Mfecane and Afrophobia/Xenophobia in South Africa

The phenomenon of “black-on-black” violence among the people of Africa has, ever since the advent of modernity/coloniality, been articulated in such a way that it presents victims as perpetrators. Thus, from the Mfecane violence of the “pre-colonial” era to the xenophobic/Afrophobic violence of the “post-colonial” era in Africa, incidents of black-on-black violence have always attracted explanations that cast doubt on the humanity of the black subject, through the colonial strategy of inventing and inverting causation. This colonial strategy entails both mis-presenting the epochal history of coloniality by representing it in terms of rupture instead of continuity, as well as representing the indigenous African subject as inherently violent. I argue in this article that black-on-black violence is a product of coloniality—a racist global power structure that makes incidents of “non-revolutionary violence” among the oppressed black subject inevitable. Thus, I deploy the case of the Mfecane violence of the “pre-colonial” era in southern Africa, and the Afro-phobic attacks on foreign nationals in “post-apartheid” South Africa to unmask the longue durée of coloniality, and its role of manufacturing blackon-black violence among the black people of Africa.     

The South African Broadcasting Corporation's expansion into Africa: South African media imperialism?

Abstract

This article examines the commercial advancements of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) into the African regional media markets. In this examination, the focus is mostly on the SABC's Africa-orientated channels, SABC Africa and Africa2Africa, as a case study. The article posits that the SABC's regional commercial expansion is paradoxical in the sense that it is both advantageous and disadvantageous at the same time. At the theoretical level, the article identifies some limitations to applying theoretical and analytical frameworks such as the dependency paradigm, media and cultural imperialism in explaining regional expansionism driven by Southern-based national media organisations.     

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the social responsibility media theory: the case of Yizo Yizo

ABSTRACT

In this article the authors investigate the controversy surrounding the educational youth programme Yizo Yizo and the possible effects thereof on school children and members of the public. The research problem is situated against the background of the social responsibilities of the South African Broadcasting corporation (SABC) with the aim of establishing whether the producers of Yizo Yizo have violated the principles of the social responsibility theory by publishing information (television programmes) which has lead to crime, violence or social disruption, and which has offended sections of the viewing public.

The authors argue that demands and outcries by members of the public and politicians to remove Yizo Yizo from the television screen, would be shortsighted. Yizo Yizo is a good example of social realism which succeeds in penetrating the root courses of problems in township schools. The excessive use of violence and graphic portrayal of rape and sodomy however, detracts from and overshadows the positive messages. In terms of the application of the social responsibility theory, it seems that the SABC did violate some of the principles of this theory by broadcasting programme content which offended a large section of the viewing public. Furthermore, another worrying factor is that Yizo Yizo did lead to crime and violence when school children started acting out copy-cat scenes of violence they had seen on Yizo Yizo.     

Encounters with panaceas: reading flyers and posters on ‘traditional’ healing in and around Johannesburg's Central Business District

Informed largely by the Critical Discourse Analysis framework, this article analyses flyers and posters that advertise traditional/alternative healing distributed and posted respectively in and around Johannesburg's Central Business District. Paying close attention to text and context, the paper analyses the advertising of medicines and practices referred to as traditional/alternative. The advertising, which employs modern media and advertising techniques, is as complex as the multiplicity of religious, secular and corporeal interventions offered by the healers. The ubiquitous presence of flyers and the continued pasting of posters onto city structures, despite warnings by the city of Johannesburg, are an expression of resistance to city authorities. The paper posits that what may appear to be downright charlatanism by the advertisers might in fact be a viable alternative to biomedicine, especially in Johannesburg's context of high in-migration with its attendant plethora of social and health problems. Thus the healing services that the healers advertise pose a challenge to allopathic medicine, suggesting that illness needs to be understood in a broad sense.     

The meaning of post-apartheid Zulu media

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between certain South African media corporations, growing post-apartheid Zulu media platforms, the size and diversity of Zulu-speaking media consumers, and the historical socio-cultural construction of ‘Zuluness’. This relationship, this author observes, manifests largely through media corporations’ increasing recognition of Zulu people's pride in Zulu (i.e. the language) and ‘Zuluness’ – all of which are historical products of various forms of socialisation. Coopting this pride, profit-driven media corporations are commodifying Zulu and ‘Zuluness’. This commodification via the establishment of Zulu media outlets is paradoxical: 1) it is a transformation of a public and open Zulu cultural sense of ‘being’ into institutionally determined commodities exchangeable for revenue, for the ultimate benefit of media owners other than the masses of Zulus themselves; 2) it is a form of commoditisation that gives Zulu a linguistic profile that has historically been accorded only to English and Afrikaans. This article's argument is further briefly articulated through various intellectual frames: Graham Murdoch and Peter Golding's conceptualisation of critical political economy of communications and culture (2005); John and Jean Comaroff's anthropological analysis of commercialisation of ethnicity (2009); and, for South African specificity and precedent, through Herman Wasserman's reading of Afrikaans media corporations’ commercialisation of Afrikaans language and identity. Then the question is: What does the explored relationship mean for South Africa's multilingualism?