An analysis of the coverage of Helen Zille and Patricia De Lille prior to, during and after South Africa's national elections by South African English newspapers

Abstract

Feminist media studies theory and intersectionality were used to determine if South African national English daily, weekly and weekend newspapers perpetuated stereotypes when reporting about Helen Zille and Patricia De Lille, both of whom were female political candidates during the 2009 national election. The study explores the nexus between media, gender, race and class representation and political election campaign reporting. In particular, it seeks to find out if the different gender, race and class of two female candidates influenced national newspaper reporters; in either reporting negatively or positively about them as candidates during the elections. Content analysis and critical discourse analysis were used as method to analyse the data collected from newspaper articles. The content analysis findings showed that Zille compared to De Lille received significant coverage and most headlines were referring to her. The findings of the critical discourse analysis indicate that language was sometimes used to perpetuate stereotypes through the use of tone, choice of language in headings, metaphors; puns, oxymorons as well as insinuations. The hypotheses was that the race of the candidates would feature prominently in the findings however there was very little about the race of the candidates. The analysis revealed that there was a focus on the race and class of the audiences and voters addressed by Zille and De Lille during their campaign period. Keywords: Feminist media theory, race, media, gender, elections, Helen Zille and Patricia De Lille.