All Eyes on Africa : The Representation of South Africa in Transnational Television News during the 2010 FIFA World Cup

The reality as we perceive it is shaped by various forms of representation regarding race, ethnicity, gender, class, etc. that are influenced by the media. When in summer 2010 the FIFA World Cup took place in South Africa, the host country was faced with the challenge of being in the international media focus and hence also the object of coverage in transnational television news. For the present study, which is based on the concept of media representations, the relation of sports and news media, previous research on football World Cups in the media and the role of transnational television, newscasts from three transnational broadcasters, BBC World News, CNN International and Al Jazeera English have been analyzed. The study aims to reveal how they depict and frame the host country, which topics were considered to be newsworthy, the differentiation between the country South African and the African continent and whether similarities or differences can be found in the three broadcasters’ coverage. To get answers to the research problem a combination of two methodological approaches, a quantitative content analysis, measuring the frequency of certain key topics, and a more interpretative qualitative discourse analysis of newscasts aired during the World Cup in June and July 2010, has been conducted. The findings suggest that the broadcasters were trying to represent South Africa from different perspectives, reporting about a broad variety of topics going beyond the actual football event, clearly differentiating between the continent and the host country. Nevertheless, the broadcasters’ way of presenting certain topics differs slightly. Hence, the study provides insights into how the broadcasters represented the host country as well as a comparison of their reporting. Moreover, it can function as a basis for future research that, for example, seeks to include the audience’s perception of the mediated image