Critical Arts, 2018

This article attempts to theorise the various representations of Zimbabwe in the media. It does so by scanning the media landscape for significant events constituting what is commonly called the "Zimbabwean crisis". Such representations centre around the person of former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, perceived human rights abuses, and many other facets of political conflict, whether real or imagined. The article problematises the concept of representation within the context of the Zimbabwean conflict and the various texts associated with and emerging from it. It shows that the image of Zimbabwe most commonly found in the media is a product of ideological constructions, sometimes bordering on propaganda. This article may contribute useful insights towards understanding the various images of Zimbabwe in local and international media as well as social media.

African Studies Quarterly , 2021

Book Review on media politics in Zimbabwe

2017

This thesis explores the representation of political conflict in the Zimbabwean press with a specific focus on the The Herald, The Sunday Mail, Daily News and The Standard. The thesis sought to unpack the representation of political conflict in the four selected newspapers and to compare and contrast state-owned and privately-owned press representation of power, succession struggles and factionalism in ZANU PF and opposition MDC. The theory is undergirded by the framing theory and data was analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis. The thesis contends that the representation of political conflict in Zimbabwe was sensational and polarized. With clearly separate agendas, the government controlled press, The Herald and The Sunday Mail; and the privately owned Daily News and The Standard, have drawn upon different framing practices to represent political conflict in Zimbabwe. By selecting to report on a particular issue and silencing another, through choice of certain headlines, and vocabulary employed, they have produced a construction of events in political parties that satisfy their political agendas in an increasingly polarized political environment. The newspapers became associated with diverging political opinions, showing political parties they support. On the one hand, the state-funded media represented ZANU PF in positive light while the opposition, particularly the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was represented negatively, mainly depicting the party as harbouring a regime change agenda. On the other hand, the privately-owned press was critical of the ruling party, ZANU PF and blamed the party for economic problems, corruption, mis-rule, and abuse of human rights. As a result of this partisan representation of political reality by the two press camps, they became directly implicated in the conflicts thereby ceasing to be credible sources of information. This clearly illustrates the enormity of challenges faced by the press in political conflicts in politically polarised environments such as Zimbabwe. The thesis argues that when reporting political conflicts ideological considerations of the press take precedents at the expense of the informational and educational mandate of the press as ethics and professional interests of the press are pushed to the back stage. Contrary to the view that the press is a neutral and impersonal purveyor of information, it is an active participant in the framing of political conflicts and its framing is ideological. The study has broadened the body of knowledge on the framing of political conflicts in polarised political environments.

Matola Media Nexus , 2025

This document exposes the relentless suppression of press freedom in Zimbabwe, highlighting historical and ongoing attacks on journalists. It examines the arrest of Blessed Mhlanga, the government's tactics of intimidation, and the urgent need for resistance. Press freedom is under siege, but journalists will not be silenced. The fight for truth continues.

The Journal of international studies, 2020

The crisis in Zimbabwe in the past decade has many dimensions. One of the underestimated dimensions is the impact of Western media reportage on the unfolding drama in the country. Biased reportage by some mainstream Western media channels on Zimbabwe has had a negative and damaging effect both on the Mugabe regime as well as the country’s economy. It has also highlighted the excesses of the Mugabe regime in its quest to ensure regime security. In response to these Western media blitz, the Mugabe regime has countered them by stifling media independence in the domestic arena in a calculated strategy aimed at cushioning itself from unfair and biased media attacks. While there is some truth in what is being reported about the Mugabe regime by the Western media, on balance, this paper argues that the role played by the Western media in the ensuing political crisis in Zimbabwe has done more harm than good. In a big way, the Western media has aggravated the political and socioeconomic cris...

African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, 2011

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Information, Communication & Society, 2020

In response to mass protests in Zimbabwe in January 2019, the government ordered all internet service providers in the country to suspend operations. While Zimbabwe experienced its first total internet shutdown then, the government previously imposed other forms of restrictions to social network platform access, including the removal of a Facebook page of 'whistleblower' Baba Jukwa in 2014. Moreover, the government's 2018 National Policy for Information and Communication Technology initiative promised more centralized state control of the country's internet traffic. These issues and potential realities raise concerns for journalists and storytellers in Zimbabwe. How can they can circumvent censorship online? How does their use of social media complicate conceptualizations of temporality and censorship on the internet? Shortly after the shutdown ended, the Johannesburg Review of Books published a story by a journalist formatted as a Twitter timeline from his 'recollections and imaginings' of what he would have posted during the week-long social media blackout. It included descriptions of protests, statements about the state, and satire aimed at the president, telling the type of stories that the government had attempted to censor. As a vehicle for the piece, the JRB created a new Twitter account, @Zvakadhakwa, for the tweets. This paper explores notions of risk, transparency, and opacity in journalism, and storytelling under surveillance and digital censorship in Zimbabwe, by engaging with scholarship on Baba Jukwa Facebook posts before the internet shutdown in Zimbabwe and deploying a close textual analysis of the alternate Twitter timeline.

This article explores how the internet has become a platform for Zimbabweans to exercise their right to freedom of expression given the repressive conditions within their country. The article does this by examining the online debates on the 1980s genocide in the website www.newzimbabwe.com. Theoretically the article uses the alternative digital public sphere theory. The article argues that the proliferation of citizen journalism aided by the "internet, world-wide web [WWW], mobile phones, etc" 1 (Banda, 2010: 25) has made it possible for counter-hegemonic voices (Mitra, 2001) to upset the elite and politically dominated public spheres. The internet is credited for simultaneously enabling the user to exercise the right to freedom of expression through receiving and disseminating information, ideas and opinions visually or phonetically to large audiences at the lowest possible cost. Also, this evolution of technology has caused global dramatic changes in the field of journalism. Of particular interest in this article is how this alternative digital public sphere offers Zimbabweans an avenue to discuss a taboo subject in Zimbabwe without fear or being reprimanded by the secretive and authoritarian state. The 'taboo' in this context refers to issues that the state does not want discussed in public like the president's health, genocide, Zanu-Pf factionalism or succession debate and state sponsored corruption just to mention but a few. The state has tabooed the genocide debates within Zimbabwe for national cohesion and Zanu-Pf's political expediency. Most precisely, the article explores how the internet has challengeed the elitist dominated domestic public sphere into a sphere where ordinary citizens interact among themselves and those in power. There may not be direct communication between the elite and the ordinary people but the intertextuality of debates alludes to some form of speaking to each other. In addition offline debates by political leaders seem alive to the fact that Zimbabweans are 'privately' discussing the 'taboo.' Before proceeding with the discussion it is imperative that I map out the journey of this article. Firstly I attempt to contextualise issues within the public sphere theory, then I introduce the debates around the genocide for reasons that will become clear later before delving into the online debates.

This article features my practice research in Zimbabwe. In particular, I focus on the controversy surrounding the staging of the most controversial theatrical play during the Harare International Festival of the Arts in 2014, Lovers in Time, written by Zimbabwean Blessing Hungwe and produced and directed by myself. I present the case against the background of the media furore that surrounded the production. I see the press reactions, which changed from very positive to irrationally vitriolic, as an example of patriotic journalism and Althusserian interpellation. Under the particular circumstances in Zimbabwe, my whiteness, gender and European background were also an issue discussed both in the media and among the members of our theatrical company when decisions had to be made regarding where the lines of belonging lie and why. The article suggests that open discussions of this nature might be helpful in terms of de-mystifying the cultural challenges and subverting patriarchal notions of production of knowledge in which the myth of objectivity is still advanced as the only valid scholarly interrogation.

Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa

This article explores recent events in Zimbabwe, the violence and intimidation thatmarred the 2002 presidential elections and the war Robert Mugabe, the country'spresident since independence in 1980, waged against whoever was opposed to orchallenged his leadership - especially white farmers and journalists - in the run-up tothe crucial polls. I opine that even though Mugabe won 56 per cent of the country's vote, his leadershiplacks legitimacy because a sizeable number of people, especially in the oppositionareas, were denied the right to exercise their democratic right to cast their vote.Although I argue that his purge against critics is unjustifiable and evil, I also writeabout the need to fight injustices subjected to his people. I posit that Mugabe's contempt and assault on the media will continue, especially after he signed into law the controversial Access to Information Act aimed at curtailingcriticism by the press.