Global Media Journal - African Edition

Xenophobia in South Africa still needs more analysis just as the field of violence is still wide open for speculation. The primary focus in the evaluation of the causes of xenophobia is on micro-politics and political discourse while the cultural aspect is most often neglected. As a concept, xenophobia is often explained by reference to present-day social, economic and political crises. The explanation that most of the violence facing millions of Africans results from the demands made on people by globalisation is often accepted without question. Moving away from this thinking and mindful of the fact that people do not live outside culture and history, there is a need to evaluate the effect of history and the recent shift in culture on the cancerous violence that infects the soul of South Africa. It is hoped that drawing on the theory of 'home,' developed by Alfred Schuetz, and with an eye on film a window could be opened on culture for understanding xenophobia within its cultural context. In this discussion, the strategy to curb violence and suggestions to improve media representation of Africa are also tackled.

The spate of xenophobic attacks that occurred in South Africa first in 2008 and more recently in 2015 has raised questions in relation to causes and possible solutions. These discourses have focused on South African narratives with little contributions on how other African nationals perceive and conceptualize xenophobia. The paper recognizes the power of the mass media in serving as a major source of information for a variety of people in shaping their views and opinions about issues concerning xenophobia. Based on mass media narratives, the concept of a global village becomes more apparent as viewers, listeners and readers were informed of the events even though they were several miles away and in the comfort and safety of their environments. The paper argues that the media did not only inform but also served as a platform through which national and international reactions and actions could be aired and reported. These reactions and actions speak to a perceived identity that bind people along the lines of fundamental and sensitive issues such as religion, gender, rights and race. The Arab Spring protests exemplify the quintessential demonstration of the mobilization, by mass media, of citizens who through reactions and actions united to fight a common course and defend a common identity in the 21^st century. The study focuses on the xenophobic attacks in South Africa between April and June 2015. The paper considers xenophobia not from the point of view of South African journalists and citizens but from the narratives of foreign online newspaper reportage. Through content analysis of online versions of The Guardian (based in Nigeria) and The Herald (based in Zimbabwe), the study attempts to understand the role of the media in reporting the reactions and actions as identified in these papers. Key findings of the study suggest that mass media are not only instrumental in stimulating actions and reactions within the selected countries but also in South Africa where the xenophobic attacks took place.

This article explores how major news media and news agencies assigned importance to aspects of the 2011 humanitarian disaster in Somalia. What were the sources that dominated their coverage, and what was the relationship between the sources and the assignment of salience? These issues were investigated through content analyses of online news from Al Jazeera English, Cable News Network International, Pan African News Agency and Reuters. The researchers found different levels of emphasis on news framing functions. The two news agencies, Panapress and Reuters, used similar news framing functions. This suggests that Reuters extended its function of being a news purveyor for news media to a definer of news content for an alternative news agency in a developing nation. Furthermore, the pattern of assigning salience to functions in news framing revealed that because the 2011 famine in Somalia was a humanitarian disaster with catastrophic consequences, the assignment of greater salience to suggestions and to consequences may have been intended to mitigate the disaster itself and prompt urgent action. The distinctions and similarities in assigning functions to news frames may not be unconnected to the functions of ideological structures, editorial policies and in-house style. The study also found a significant relationship between news framing functions and news sources suggesting that news sources played a significant role in assigning salience to the reportage of the humanitarian crisis of the 2011 famine in Somalia.