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The politics of reporting poverty statistics in South Africa: anatomy of a media debate
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The politics of reporting poverty statistics in South Africa: anatomy of a media
debateGuy Berger, IAMCR July 2008
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Introduction
1. Summary of the issue2. Lining up the theory3. Description of research
data4. Analysis and conclusion
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Summary of the issue
• Politicisation of poverty
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Thabo Mbeki 2000 -
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Pro-poor platform
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Rival: Jacob Zuma
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Populist
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• SAIRR: –1996: 1.9 million < $1 a day– 2005: 4.2 million
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Uniqueness of debate
• Most poverty coverage:– Disconnects manifestations of poverty
(eg. poverty, homelessness, hunger)– Disconnects concept and policy of
“poverty” from manifestations
• Here, these all had to be connected to contest the point.
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Bombshell
• 3
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Appropriating Western theory
CDA:• Repertoire,
genre, style, networks of practice.
Norman Fairclough
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Building theoretical bridges
• Salience, media-frames, cultural frames, cause-morality-cure, headlines.
• Keywords, phrases, stereotypes.
William Gamson
Robert Entman
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Research data
• 25 articles–3 news–11 opinion pieces (9 non-
journalists)–8 letters
• 13 in Business Day & Weekender• 7 from SAIRR, 3 from government• 0 from poor, NGOs, unions
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Frames
1. Inadequacies of journalism:– Lack of scrutiny and value-add; – “Press had field day” (press-bashing).
2. Personalisation of the issues:– “Mbeki attacks Institute of Race
Relations”– “President in war with race body over
poverty”.
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Frames
1. Politicisation:
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Frames
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Frames
1. Politicisation also works by:– ‘ideology’ accusations both sides– Frame expansion: labour laws as
problem.
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More frames
4. Conceptualisation of poverty: money-metric vs social wage– Relevance to winning the debate.
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More frames
5. Statistics: – Comparing apples & oranges &
diff PDLs– Proportions vs absolute figures
6. Empiricism vs scepticism vs “hunch”-ism– “shoddy”, “inadequacy of stats”,
“it would be surprising if…”
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Yet more frames7. International legitimation
around $1 a day– Problem of exchange rate issues (govt); – You use the measure yourself (SAIRR).
8. Dominant consensus vs dissident SAIRR
– “Not one of SA’s poverty experts would argue…” – Miriam Altman
– “We doubt such consensus exists” - SAIRR
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Final frames
9. Agenda-switching:– “stop nitpicking”– “surely our top economists would
be better occupied…”
10. Responsibility pointing:– Blame govt, population growth,
economy, liberals.
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Conclusion
• Analysis shows themes from frames are rhetorical, more than media frames.
• Debate never resolved: media played role of elite forum only.
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Taking stock textually:
• SAIRR won the debate – in terms of volume & reason
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Research qtn: media centrism
• BUT: political frame may be the most important – beware of CDA and Frame assumption that texts “talk”, and have influence…
• Because: “White” SAIRR vs black govt.
• In the end, the absent players (at least some) had their say: Mbeki lost his ANC post to Zuma a month later!
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On the other hand…