Publications Masters Dissertations Citizens of The Nation: Citizens of The World | Citizens of The Nation: Citizens of The World |
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Citizens of The Nation: Citizens of The World? A Comparative Content Analysis of Globalisation in SABC 3 and e-TV National Television News. \
By Natalie Emslie (2007)
Degree: M.A. (66% Dissertation)
South Africa is a country interconnected with Africa and also more increasingly interconnected with the world. South African national television news is also more global or ‘glocalised’ (Robertson, 1996) today in comparison to the period during apartheid. This research incorporates an analytic-empirical, social constructivist approach, interpreting news as a specific construction of reality, a “social artifact” (Hjarvard, 2002: 91) of the context in which it is produced (Venter, 2001: 197). This definition allows for analyzing existing aspects in news items to determine exactly what makes the news reality global, ‘glocal’ or cosmopolitan. The methodology uses a comparative content analysis of three non-sequential weeks selected during September, October, and November 2006 of SABC 3 and e-TV national news, focusing only on the first fifteen minutes of bulletins, and examining only foreign news. Foreign news includes news locally and news with a South African connection abroad (Sreberny-Mohammadi et al, 1985).
This study analyses influence of globalisation on each broadcaster – economically, politically, culturally, and technologically – and examines mediation of global, ‘glocal’, and moderate cosmopolitan perspectives in news items. Findings reveal globalisation is influencing SABC 3 and e-TV in similar ways with slights differences, and while national or international perspectives are more prominent, global, ‘glocal’, and moderate cosmopolitan outlooks are still present, with e-V representing these slightly more than SABC 3. Conclusively SABC 3 and e-TV construct its news audience as citizens of the nation and citizens of the world, by representing a ‘sliding scale’ (Wallis and Baran, 1990) from national to international and global perspectives. This present study demonstrates how SABC 3 and e-TV mediate “allegiances to the outer circle” – regional, international, global – by “acknowledging the value of, but also passing through [other]” local or national South African allegiances (Bowden, 2003:242 – 243).
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