A textual analysis of three, South African, online newspapers (2021-2022) on the representation of the Economic Freedom Fighters

Abstract

This study, entitled “A textual analysis of three, South African, online newspapers (2021-2022) on the representation of the Economic Freedom Fighters”, is a cross-sectional, mixed methods textual analysis investigating how three South African online newspapers, namely the Daily Maverick, City Press, and the Mail & Guardian represented the political party, Economic Freedom Fighters. The analysis focuses on texts produced and disseminated between January 2021 and June 2022, with the target population being the written texts and images from the above-mentioned online newspapers; specifically, all the stories reporting on the Economic Freedom Fighters (henceforth referred to as the ‘EFF’). Articles from these publications that ran with the EFF (or its member/s) in their headlines, were used as primary data; whereas other articles that related to the EFF or to this study, were approached as secondary data. Relying on purposive sampling, the researcher visited the websites of these newspapers to access stories written about the EFF; the method was deemed suitable to maximise understanding of the research problem. Through the use of her personal laptop and data bundles, the researcher was able to access the Internet, identify and sample the required online articles, and finally analyse the articles in terms of the textual and visual elements thereof. The articles were analysed to determine whether the newspapers represented the EFF positively, negatively, or neutrally during the given time period. From a political communication perspective, the study contributes to how newspapers, or the media in general, gather and report political content, and it is hoped that the findings will promote objective and unbiased reporting.