Oorredingsveranderlikes in redaksionele kommentaar in koerante : 'n verkenning

M.A. (Communication Science)This dissertation is a profusion in combining two sub disciplines of the communication science, namely journalism and persuasion theory. An. analysis of journalism as a form of persuasion is made in which is shown that not only in explicit commentary, but also in everyday news stories the contents is slanted. This is because of the inescapable subjectivity of man that de-objectifies information. The sources of de-objectification is localized in the study by means of a model of the press process, which traces the development of the news item and identifies the different phases in which the information is, mostly unknowingly, given new meanings by subtle slanting. As a pilot study, and therefore as a matter of testing the validity of combining the two communication subdisciplines mentioned, a simple comparative study is done. The most explicit commentary article, namely the leader, of three Johannesburg newspapers are sampled and judged by means of three of the most simple persuasion principles. A comparison is made of the effective use of these persuasive techniques by the three newspapers' leader writers. The conclusion is reached that further studies in this field could be very fruitful, keeping the following two qualifications in mind firstly, that the many contradicting conclusions reached within persuasion research should be cleared up, and secondly, that some sort of stable scale for measuring the effectiveness of journalistic persuasion, except by comparative means, be devised