Coverage of South Africa in seven leading Western newspapers

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-217)This thesis analyzes the performance of the press in\ud covering South Africa for an eleven-day period, October 4\ud to October 14, 1985.\ud Seven newspapers were selected for this study: the\ud New York Times, the Globe and Mail, The Times of London, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Aftenposten, Svenska Dagbladet, and Le Monde. \ud This thesis analyzes all\ud articles concerning South Africa, including events in that\ud country and internationally, that were found in these\ud newspapers.\ud Qualitative content analysis was used to study the\ud data, a method which allowed for a detailed examination of\ud 115 articles. Background information on South Africa, its\ud history, laws, and press control, is presented.\ud The study found that one hypothesis, concerning\ud whether news about South Africa was presented in the\ud perspective of the East-West conflict, was not validated\ud by the data.\ud The coverage of violent events, however, did dominate\ud the news from South Africa, with riot coverage\ud constituting 41 percent of all the articles datelined from\ud that country. Another hypothesis was also confirmed,\ud which was that elite sources were most often used by the\ud newspapers. However, there did not appear to be a\ud tendency to personify the news by focusing on individuals,\ud nor was the coverage dominated by bizarre and exotic\ud events. A wide range of news categories was found in the\ud newspapers, with international boycott actions numerically\ud dominating the coverage. Reuters was the source of more\ud than 50 percent of the wire stories used. Le Monde stood\ud out as the newspaper with the most interpretive stories,\ud while the New York Times had the most consistent coverage