There is a considerable amount of literature arguing that economics and business journalism is growing. This subfield of journalism is important as economics issues impact on everyday lives of the people. Media have an important role to inform people about the economy and give them a voice to take part in public debates. The down side though is that economics journalism is criticised for not serving the public well in this aspect. Evidence suggests that economics journalism lost its critical character and that there is closer in economics debates. Using content analysis, this study examines coverage of inflation as reported by South African print media. Three major findings emerged: 1) Evidence shows that there are a variety of cases of inflation. 2) There are also similarities among newspapers on what they view as causing inflation. 3) However, media do not draw sources from all sectors of society. The elite, who are educated people and government officials, are over-accessed while the ordinary citizens - although also affected by inflation – are marginalized. Company and government sources top source lists in the media. It is argued that sources play an important role in shaping the news content. They do so by identifying problems and prescribing potential solutions. They set parameters and define terms of reference. However, media also play a mediating role. They do so by selecting sources and structuring sources in stories. They may chose to quote or report what their sources say and even comment on it. This study concludes that in South Africa ordinary citizens have no voices in economics debates. Media used bureaucratic sources only and that is a consonant agenda on inflation coverage amongst newspapers. The heavy reliance on bureaucratic sources and the exclusion of some sectors of society in sources lists raises questions about impartiality of these sources on issues relating to their organisations and institutions. These are not viable sources that could provide information that could expose abuse of power.

Quels facteurs déterminent la présence et le choix de métaphores dans la presse financière et économique? Présentation d’un modèle explicatif. <p><p>Ces 20 dernières années, les publications en sémantique cognitive traitant de la relation entre la métaphore et l’idéologie dans la presse financière se sont multipliées. Grâce notamment à Boers (1997, 1999, 2000), Koller (2002) et Charteris-Black (2000), la plupart des mécanismes rhétoriques accompagnant les métaphores sont relativement bien connus. <p><p>Toutefois, jusqu’à présent, l’effet de l’idéologie sur les choix métaphoriques n’a pas pu être prouvé, et à fortiori mesuré. Le but de cette étude est de développer un modèle explicatif des facteurs influençant la présence et le choix de métaphores dans la presse financière, afin de fournir un instrument méthodologique et statistique fiable pour l’analyse critique du discours. Une telle analyse pourrait s’avérer également utile dans le domaine de la traduction et de l’apprentissage de la langue spécialisée dans le domaine économique.<p><p>Le cadre théorique est constitué par une version modernisée de la Conceptual Metaphor Theory. L’approche est cognitive et onomasiologique. Le point de départ est un ensemble de concepts élémentaires du monde financier et sélectionnés sur la base des résultats d’un échantillon randomisé de 10.000 mots dans 2 quotidiens de la presse belge. Les concepts sont ensuite rassemblés sur base de critères pragmatiques et statistiques dans un ensemble qui reflète la composition du monde des finances et de la bourse. <p><p>Pour chaque réalisation de ces concepts, on décide si oui ou non il s’agit d’une métaphore, en appliquant la méthode d’identification proposée par le « Pragglejaz Group » (2007). Ensuite, dans le cas d’une métaphore, on tente d’identifier le domaine source.<p><p>Le corpus bilingue couvre une période de 12 mois en 2005 et comprend 450.000 mots, répartis dans 6 publications belges :De Standaard, De Morgen, Trends Cash, La Libre Belgique, Le Soir et L’Investisseur.<p> / Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation langue et littérature / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The media today are under pressure from various fronts including governments, businesses as well as cultural interests. In the developed world, this pressure that led to the emergence of a new form of journalism that puts the demands of the market at the forefront. This commercial oriented journalism gives priority to articles that attract mass audiences like entertainment while it downplays information that promotes debates that is necessary for citizens to be able to have a voice on the issues that affect them. And since participation and discussion are cornerstones of a democratic process, market-driven journalism undermines democracy because it narrows down the forum for debate. As a result, active citizens are turned into passive observers in society. Although several studies about this phenomenon have been done in the western world, the same is happening in Africa because the media face similar challenges as in the West; challenges of globalisation and media conglomeration facilitated by the rapid advancing technology. This study, which is informed by political economy and market-driven journalism theories, notes that the media in Uganda are also faced with these challenges. The study is focused on Uganda’s only independent newspaper, The Monitor. The findings indicate that market-driven journalism is taking root at the expense of journalism that promotes citizenship and debate such as political reporting and opinions. For example, there has been an increase of entertainment, sports and supplement articles in The Monitor as compared to declining political reporting and opinions. More so, investigative reporting has dwindled over the years at the expense of increasing use of press releases. This is because entertainment and sports articles can attract big audiences that the newspaper needs to sell to advertisers. Advertisers are important because they provide financial support to the newspaper. However, in a country where democracy is in its formative stages, public information is necessary not only for citizens to make informed decisions but also to spur economic as well as social development.

This research study aimed to examine how the identity of ' Muslim' people is constructed in British print media today, and whether or not these constructions promote or undermine a xeno-racist project. The research draws on the idea that identity is partly constructed through representation, with an emphasis on how language can be used to construct and position people in different ways. Using a social constructionist paradigm, the study further considers the role that print media has in providing a discursive field within which the construction and reproduction of racist attitudes and ideologies in contemporary global society can take place. Sixty-five newspaper articles were selected from the online archives of British newspapers, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph using systematic random sampling. These were analysed using the six stages of Foucauldian discourse analysis outlined by Carla Willig. To provide a more fruitful account, the analysis also incorporated the methods of Potter and Wetherell whose focus is on the function of discourse, as well as van Langenhove and Harre's focus on subject positioning, and Parker's use of Foucauldian analysis which looks at power distributions. The analysis revealed that Muslims are discursively constructed as a direct politicised or terror threat, often drawing on discourses of sharia law, and Muslim-Christian relationships. They are also constructed as a cultural threat, drawing on discourses of isolation, oppressed women, the veil/headscarf, identity, visibility and integration. The analysis also showed some variation in constructions, and these extended from the racialization of Muslims to showing the compatibility between Islamic and western values. This study discusses the form these different constructions take and the possible implications these constructions might have in contributing toward a prejudiced and largely negative image of Islam and Muslims.

New media technology continues to provide journalists with sophisticated tools that are changing news processing and gathering. Economics journalists in particular have grasped the possibilities offered by new media technologies. Thus, this paper offers a theoretical and practical look at how new media technologies have impacted the production and processing of economics news in South Africa, with a particular focus on Fin24.com which is South Africa's biggest online economics news publication. Using qualitative research methods and the case-study approach, this thesis documents the impact of new media technologies on the production of economics news. It draws on Witschge and Nygren's (2009) framework which describes how new media technologies change the nature in which news is produced and processed. New media technologies in this study will refer to the Internet, particularly search engines like Google, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, Blogs as well as mobile telephony. Economics journalism will here refer to all coverage of economics and business-related news. This is because the case study (Fin24.com) covers both business and economics journalism by strict definition. Findings reveal that these new media technologies have not only changed economics newsgathering and processing but also journalistic routines. The findings generally show that new media technologies make it easier for economics journalists to produce the news quickly and efficiently. Indeed, the most distinguishing characteristic of new media is its overall speed, which is both challenging and attractive. The findings also reveal that new media technologies within a newsroom can be problematic in a number of ways, mainly raising issues of accuracy and credibility thus challenging the profession of economics journalism more than ever.