Thesis (MPhil (Journalism))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Most journalists readily acknowledge that they cannot be proud at all of their numeracy. The literature also depicts a rather bleak scenario regarding journalists' use and often misuse of numbers. This matter raises concerns especially in the present century, characterised by a rapid development in the area of science and technology. Numeracy is essential to make sense of those developments that are frequently explained by means of numbers or mathematical and statistical concepts.

Thesis (MPhil (Journalism))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Global climate change is the result of the natural greenhouse effect being enhanced or augmented by human activities such as industrial burning of fossil fuels and large-scale agricultural practices which have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The result – the first truly globalised consequence of pollution – is arguably one of the most pressing matters facing the future of the human species. Journalists reporting on the subject have considerable responsibility to unravel the science and present it accurately and responsibly to the public, so that the latter can make informed decisions about individual energy consumption, informed decisions at the voting poll and go further to put the necessary pressure on policy makers. However climate change is without doubt the most complex story environmental and science reporters have ever encountered, not only because it encompasses so many different fields of natural sciences (oceanography, climatology, biological sciences including flora and fauna, hydrology, horticulture etc.), but because it all too often spills over into the political, economic and social arenas. “Climate change is a difficult story to recreate… (it) is one of the most complicated stories of our time. It involves abstract and probabilistic science, labyrinthine laws, grandstanding politicians, speculative economics and the complex interplay of individuals and societies” (Wilson, 2000: 206). Specialist environmental and science news reporters only have three and a half decades of experience and history, since this is one of the more recent journalistic beats to be assigned to modern newsrooms. Such writers face a particularly challenging job of reporting the complex and growing science of global climate change. Furthermore they must do so in an environment where politicians and environmental activists feed journalists sometimes conflicting information, each with its own agenda. Increasing consumer demand for entertainment in place of information may also complicate the telling of these stories, given the financial imperative to sell newspapers. Furthermore, the “global warming story is also affected by a number of journalistic constraints, such as deadlines, space, one-source stories, complexity and reporter education” (Wilson, 2000: 206). The complexities of news values also shape the stories which finally are released to the news consuming public.

Thesis (MPhil (Journalism))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / The media plays a fundamental role in shaping societies’ opinions about topical issues. Most human beings depend upon either the print media (newspapers/magazines), television or radio as their sources of news. The advent of the internet since the 1990s revolutionised the media world and created an immediacy on the impact of news like no other previous medium could provide, as it had a combination of audio and visual material. The most effective demonstration of such immediacy would be that of the impact of the September 11 attacks in the USA in 2001. The aftermath of the media’s impact still resonates throughout the world today, especially its impact on those who follow the Islamic faith. This paper aims to explore the impact of the media on this newly derived concept of Islamophobia, especially post 9/11. It includes a case study of the Islamophobic Danish cartoon controversy that occurred in February 2006. This paper discusses the concept of Islamophobia and anti-Islamism, as well as how the events of 9/11 and its media coverage contributed towards the worsening of this sentiment across the globe. The conclusion reached is that instead of the media acting as a mediator between Western society and the global Muslim community and creating an atmosphere of each understanding the other, it acted negatively against Islam, the world’s fastest growing religion.