In the past few decades, the proportion of business news compared to general news has increased tremendously across all media platforms in Africa. While the critical role played by business journalism is recognised, little is known about the people who write and report such news. Most studies on business reporting have tended to focus on analysing the content of business news, rather than the specific processes through which business journalists are socialized and trained. The findings of this study are drawn mainly from in-depth interviews with business reporters and editors at two leading newspapers in Malawi, The Daily Times and The Nation. Three major findings emerge trom the study data. First, business journalists vary in their educational and professional backgrounds, as well as the reasons for working on this beat. Second, the majority of them have no prerequisite formal education and training in business journalism and, therefore, have little knowledge and skills about what constitute good business journalism. Third, professionalism in the sub-field is constrained by a host of factors, influence of advertisers being the critical one. The study recommends that business reporting become an integral component of journalism education and training programmes to adequately prepare future generations of business journalists. In addition there is need for media houses to devise strategies to counter obstacles that business journalists face for them to effectively contribute to political economy debate. / KMBT_363

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:36:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CristovaoPS.pdf: 3480043 bytes, checksum: 57a246c1d5bec0a5540e4a71370dc05a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-08-25 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / The main objective of this research was studying the meanings of the freedom of expression and what professors of Journalism think about the way those meanings are used in pedagogical practices. The term freedom of expression is commonly used in journalism even though it is not so studied, consequently we don t have a word to define it. Therefore, we related the term freedom of expression in Journalism teaching to the condition as the object of this study, aiming to establish a connection among the term, the right, free expression and the endurance of the right. The theorical support to understand the dynamic of the meanings of the freedom of expression in the social practice of Journalism teaching was based in the Hegeliana dialetic theorical principles and in the language philosophy more specifically in Bakhtin s perspective from which we can mention the social auditorium, immediate conditions of production and a wider social horizon as the main categories of analysis. This study is a qualitative research with an interacionist perspective anchored in a semi-structured interview as a privileged method of data collecting made with ten professors from Journalism graduation. The analysis reveals that, in the interviewers perspective, there would be a deceiving practice from freedom of expression in the journalism teaching in which emerges either in speeches with handbills spreading the fear and/or under a stimulus form to concealment / O objetivo central desta pesquisa foi compreender os significados de livre express?o e o que pensam os professores de jornalismo sobre os modos como tais significados s?o utilizados em suas pr?ticas pedag?gicas. O termo livre express?o ? bastante usual no jornalismo, apesar de pouco estudado, n?o se sabendo ao certo como defini-lo. Em raz?o desse quadro, elegemos a livre express?o no ensino de jornalismo ? condi??o de objeto deste estudo, procurando estabelecer uma rela??o entre liberdade de express?o, o direito, e livre express?o, a vida do direito. O apoio te?rico para compreender a din?mica dos significados de livre express?o na pr?tica social do ensino de jornalismo foi localizado nos princ?pios te?ricos da dial?tica hegeliana e na filosofia da linguagem, mais especificamente na perspectiva de Bakhtin, da qual elegemos o audit?rio social, condi??es imediatas de produ??o e o horizonte social mais amplo como principais categorias de an?lise. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa, de perspectiva interacionista e ancorada na entrevista semi-estruturada enquanto m?todo privilegiado de coleta de dados, realizada com 10 (dez) professores da gradua??o em jornalismo. A an?lise revela que, na perspectiva dos entrevistados, haveria uma pr?tica escamoteadora da livre express?o no ensino do jornalismo, que emerge seja em discursos panflet?rios, propagadores do medo e/ou sob a forma de est?mulo ? dissimula??o

This thesis attempts to examine the construction of 'professionalism' within the newsroom of the Cape Argus, an English-medium newspaper in post-apartheid South Africa. It is a qualitative study which tries to evaluate how a particular mainstream media discourse of 'professionalism' is enacted and struggled over in the attitudes, behaviour and perceptions of entry-level journalists and news managers at the newspaper. It asks what the process of 'becoming a journalist' requires of entry-level journalists in terms of their previous education and personal qualities - and examines the newsroom strategies employed by news managers when entry-level journalists do not meet these particular requirements. This thesis looks at how the pressures of operating a daily English-language commercial newspaper may shape both the 'professional' expectations of news managers and their ability to positively contribute to entry-level journalists' 'newsroom training'. In attempting to examine the nature of journalistic 'professionalism', this study explores the ideology of knowledge construction within mainstream South African media. Operating from a 'radical democratic' perspective of journalism, which prioritises journalism as a vehicle for diverse social, cultural and political expression, this thesis suggests that South African media education needs to enable journalism students' understanding of the ideological construction of journalistic 'professionalism'.