Political corruption in Zimbabwe: News media, audiences and deliberative democracy

IF 1.7 3区社会学 Q2 CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY

Crime Media Culture Pub Date : 2021-06-04 DOI:10.1177/17416590211022416

M. P. Ndhlovu, Phillip Santos

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引用次数: 3

Abstract

Even though corruption by politicians and in politics is widespread worldwide, it is more pronounced in developing countries, such as Zimbabwe, where members of the political elite overtly abuse power for personal accumulation of wealth. Ideally, the news media, as watchdogs, are expected to investigate and report such abuses of power. However, previous studies in Zimbabwe highlight the news media’s polarised and normative inefficacies. Informed by the theoretical notion of deliberative democracy developed via Habermas and Dahlgren’s work and Hall’s Encoding, Decoding Model, this article uses qualitative content analysis to examine how online readers of Zimbabwe’s two leading daily publications, The Herald and NewsDay, interpreted and evaluated allegations of corruption leveled against ministers and deputy ministers during the height of factionalism in the ruling party (ZANU PF). The article argues that interaction between mainstream media and their audiences online shows the latter’s resourcefulness and, at least, discursive agency in their engagement with narratives about political corruption, itself an imperative premise for future political action.

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津巴布韦的政治腐败：新闻媒体、受众和协商民主

尽管政客和政治中的腐败在世界范围内普遍存在，但在津巴布韦等发展中国家更为明显，那里的政治精英公然滥用权力积累个人财富。理想情况下，新闻媒体作为监管机构，应该调查和报道这种滥用职权的行为。然而，津巴布韦先前的研究强调了新闻媒体两极分化和规范性的无效性。根据哈贝马斯和达尔格伦的著作以及霍尔的编码、解码模型发展起来的协商民主的理论概念，本文采用定性内容分析来考察津巴布韦两大主流日报《先驱报》和《新闻日报》的在线读者，解释和评估了执政党派系斗争最激烈时期针对部长和副部长的腐败指控。这篇文章认为，主流媒体与其在线受众之间的互动显示了后者在参与政治腐败叙事时的足智多谋，至少是话语能动性，这本身就是未来政治行动的必要前提。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Crime Media Culture Multiple-

CiteScore

3.80

自引率

11.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： Crime, Media, Culture is a fully peer reviewed, international journal providing the primary vehicle for exchange between scholars who are working at the intersections of criminological and cultural inquiry. It promotes a broad cross-disciplinary understanding of the relationship between crime, criminal justice, media and culture. The journal invites papers in three broad substantive areas: * The relationship between crime, criminal justice and media forms * The relationship between criminal justice and cultural dynamics * The intersections of crime, criminal justice, media forms and cultural dynamics