Roles of various constituent elements of Strategic Leadership address deep and continuing issues relating to the creation and development of any organization. What is required to help firms successfully navigate the dynamics and uncertain environment in which they compete today to be successful is addressed. The founding in July 1991 of The Post, a privately owned Zambian newspaper, provided a unique opportunity to investigate the roles that various constituent elements of strategic leadership have played in its success. This is largely because much is already known about how state-owned media are managed, financed, and sustained by the state itself, which is fully involved in their re-capitalization and operating costs. The themes identified are at the heart of current debates about the capacity of private organizations to respond to new expectations, market realities, no state funding, globalization, technology, and a long list of other challenges so as to become market driven enterprises. The case of The Post is seen to present a story of an enduring publication in times of political, financial, social and other adversities and the research participants have no illusions about the success of the publication. The case study of The Post also gives useful insight into the many challenges and obstacles faced by the newspaper. It offers examples of determination, focused courage and innovation, complemented by strategic leadership. This was done by means of what emerged from the insight and experiences of the six research participants that were part of the founders of the newspaper and those associated with the development of the newspaper since its inception.

This research is premised on the understanding that alternative forms of media emerge to deal with specific ideological projects and, as such, must be seen as satisfying a specific need at a specific point in time. Using the case of a weekly newspaper, The Southern Star which was in circulation from January 2012 to June 2012, this study sought to understand the factors that led to the establishment of the newspaper, what it sought to achieve, how it went about putting that into practice, its message in relation to debates emanating from the ‘Matabeleland Question’ and also the factors that led to the its collapse. In order to address my research questions, I adopted a two stage research design qualitative content analysis and semi structured in depth interviews. In locating the study within the qualitative epistemic understanding of research, it was clear from the qualitative content analysis of 13 editions of the publication and in depth interviews held with 15 respondents that the newspaper was set up with the aim of serving a marginalised section of the population (in this instance the Ndebele) by providing them with a platform to articulate issues affecting them. It also sought to ‘speak’ the ‘unspoken’ within the mainstream media by focusing on Matabeleland identity politics. It achieved this by creating content around the Gukurahundi genocide, Matabeleland development, Matabeleland history and Matabeleland heroes. The newspaper also sought to emancipate the people from the South by advocated for social, cultural, economic and political justice as a resolution to the ‘Matabeleland Question’. However, the newspaper failed to sustain operations due to lack of advertising revenue. As a result of the constraining political environment in which the newspaper operated, potential advertisers were afraid of placing advertisements in the newspaper because of the nature of the content produced, which in view of Zimbabwe’s rival ethnic history, could easily be labelled ethnically divisive. Also, being a new player in the market worked to their disadvantage as prospective advertisers opted to place their adverts in “tried and tested” publications (Zimpapers and Alpha Media Holdings). Additionally, because of poor management, roles were not clearly defined and hence the newspaper failed to operate as a business enterprise. As noted during interviews with junior reporters, there was little or no experience at management level. The paper lacked a coordinated circulation strategy and from inception, was never officially launched, which resulted in the failure to reach significant audiences.

Most newspapers today are struggling to survive in an increasingly fragmented and digital media environment. How have their owners or corporate parents shaped or adapted their business practices to in order to thrive? This question guides the overall approach to this study. The focus is on one newspaper, the Dallas Morning News. In particular, how has the News used corporate messages to respond to the changing media landscape? This study employs forms of rhetorical and discourse analysis to determine the effectiveness of the News' corporate messages during a 10-year period in order to answer this question. This study finds that the News used inconsistent and ineffective corporate communications throughout this tumultuous period.

This qualitative research study explores the relationship between reducing uncertainty and assigning source credibility in the context of social media sites (SMS) and examines the effect of uncertainty reduction within the social media environment on the development of relationships between journalists and their sources. For this study, interviews were conducted with professional journalists to determine whether uncertainty was reduced and credibility was established with sources via SMS (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) and what theoretical strategies journalists used to reduce their uncertainty. The study also aims to determine if correlations exist between a reporter's age, beat, and/or personal adoption of SMS and the reporter's usage of SMS for source development. The interviews were conducted with 15 journalists of The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Florida), using a standardized interview protocol. Subjects were asked to voluntarily participate in a face-to-face interview with the researcher. Reporters were selected based upon their gender and cultural ethnicity, which was representative of the newsroom demographics of The Palm Beach Post at that time. This research aims to contribute to the uncertainty reduction theory in the realm of computer-mediated communications, specifically with regard to the use of SMS in forming and maintaining journalist-source relationships. / by Michelle D. Brown. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

The impact of digital (new) media has caused both challenges and threats to newspapers’ continuing existence as a profitable and influential mass medium. While this is not the first time in history that new media appear to be challenging the future of the newspaper medium, from one perspective digital media offer not only direct competition, or alternative ways to produce and deliver news, but also possibilities for convergence, for making new media part of the traditional newspaper, inducing whole new possibilities for publishing. From another perspective, the newspaper medium is an old concept; a powerful mass medium with very profound consumption patterns, strongly associated with its traditional output medium: ink-on-paper. The purpose of the present work has been to examine the impacts digital media have on the old, well-established newspaper medium, and what consequences these impacts have for the future of newspaper as a mass medium, that is, is the medium the message? In order to achieve this aim, the present work has been carried out from three different angles: digital media, publishing and reading behaviour and presentation factors. The areas have been examined using several methods: instrumental experiment, eye-tracking experiment, secondary analysis, and case study design. Newspapers’ ’to be or not to be’ depends, in a theoretical sense, on what media constitute. The medium is the message in the sense that, in the definition of a mass medium, the strength of the newspaper message is that it is recognized as the newspaper concept. It is not, in that the message per se is dependent on the medium it is reproduced on, as a newspaper can be considered a newspaper even if presented on a digital medium, yet the specific way the content is presented will always depend on the technology and characteristics of the chosen output medium. Thus, while defusing the output medium’s significance for the concept, the strength of the newspaper, and its industry, lies in what hitherto constitutes the message: accurate, credible, serendipitous, and diverse content, but which is continuously adapted to the technology of the output medium, thus benefiting from it and further strengthening the developed, digitalized newspaper concept, or what will become of it. The newspaper industry has great potential to differentiate itself in a world where news is becoming increasingly commoditized, though it must further emphasize its power, which lies in the long-defined ‘old’ newspaper concept. Moreover, the industry must be aware of the fact that this refashioning and adaptation is a slow process. / QC 20100804

Global research shows that media owners tend to influence the editorial direction of their newspapers. Such influence generally tends to be in line with the media owner’s economic and / or political interests. Naturally, this is a challenge because media is regarded as the fourth estate and is supposed to be an objective yet effective channel for the citizenry to make informed decisions about their world. The study seeks to find out if the owners of four daily newspapers in South Africa, based on their political proximity; may have influenced their newspapers to be biased in favour or against any of the three biggest political parties contesting the 2016 Local Government Elections. This study is an exploratory and descriptive content analysis based on an Agenda Setting theoretic framework – supported by framing analysis and game framing. Findings reveal the correlation between the media owner’s interests and the biased reporting within their respective newspaper. This suggests that although media may not be directly or explicitly forced to adopt a specific ideology, it can be argued that political relations with media owners can influence editorial decisions. Therefore, it can be inferred that media owners of The New Age, The Citizen and The Star influenced editorial content of their newspapers during the 2016 local government elections. Given the findings of this study and the elections scheduled for 2019 in South Africa, it is important for more political communication studies to be conducted in order to establish guidelines for unbiased news reporting across all media – including newspapers. Alternatively, to compel media owners to declare their bias towards and against specific political parties in each news content, upfront. Particularly important during election period, is the need for each media (including newspapers) to have an independent editor – potentially one from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to ensure that each piece of content produced is validated as bias or impartial. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication Science)

This research explores to what extent the community newspaper, Fourways Review, which is distributed to a geographically demarcated area in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, is fulfilling the community’s expectations; how community members use the newspaper and how Fourways Review’s community journalists define their roles. The research uses a qualitative approach to collect data through face-to-face, in-depth interviews with a sample of 30 community members and eight news team members; and one week of participant observation in the newsroom. Data is analysed through a constant comparative technique. The research finds Fourways Review is accepted in the community but is not as community-minded as a community newspaper should be, which affects how the community members use the publication. Community member respondents attribute the criticism to the influence of a market-driven approach to reporting. This is echoed by the news team respondents who say news production is influenced by community, advertising and inter-departmental pressures. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication Studies)