The politics of reporting poverty statistics in South Africa: anatomy of a media debate

1. The politics of reporting poverty statistics in South Africa: anatomy of a media debate Guy Berger, IAMCR July 2008

2. Introduction • Summary of the issue • Lining up the theory • Description of research data • Analysis and conclusion

3. Summary of the issue • Politicisation of poverty

4. Thabo Mbeki 2000 -

5. Pro-poor platform

6. Rival: Jacob Zuma

7. Populist

9. SAIRR: • 1996: 1.9 million < $1 a day • 2005: 4.2 million

10. Uniqueness of debate • Most poverty coverage: • Disconnects manifestations of poverty (eg. poverty, homelessness, hunger) • Disconnects concept and policy of “poverty” from manifestations • Here, these all had to be connected to contest the point.

11. Bombshell • 3

12. Appropriating Western theory CDA: • Repertoire, genre, style, networks of practice. Norman Fairclough

13. Building theoretical bridges • Salience, media-frames, cultural frames, cause-morality-cure, headlines. • Keywords, phrases, stereotypes. William Gamson Robert Entman

14. Research data • 25 articles • 3 news • 11 opinion pieces (9 non-journalists) • 8 letters • 13 in Business Day & Weekender • 7 from SAIRR, 3 from government • 0 from poor, NGOs, unions

15. Frames • Inadequacies of journalism: • Lack of scrutiny and value-add; • “Press had field day” (press-bashing). • Personalisation of the issues: • “Mbeki attacks Institute of Race Relations” • “President in war with race body over poverty”.

16. Frames • Politicisation:

19. Frames

20. Frames • Politicisation also works by: • ‘ideology’ accusations both sides • Frame expansion: labour laws as problem.

21. More frames • Conceptualisation of poverty: money-metric vs social wage • Relevance to winning the debate.

22. More frames • Statistics: • Comparing apples & oranges & diff PDLs • Proportions vs absolute figures • Empiricism vs scepticism vs “hunch”-ism • “shoddy”, “inadequacy of stats”, “it would be surprising if…”

23. Yet more frames • International legitimation around $1 a day • Problem of exchange rate issues (govt); • You use the measure yourself (SAIRR). • Dominant consensus vs dissident SAIRR • “Not one of SA’s poverty experts would argue…” – Miriam Altman • “We doubt such consensus exists” - SAIRR

24. Final frames • Agenda-switching: • “stop nitpicking” • “surely our top economists would be better occupied…” • Responsibility pointing: • Blame govt, population growth, economy, liberals.

25. Conclusion • Analysis shows themes from frames are rhetorical, more than media frames. • Debate never resolved: media played role of elite forum only.

26. Taking stock textually: • SAIRR won the debate – in terms of volume & reason

27. Research qtn: media centrism • BUT: political frame may be the most important – beware of CDA and Frame assumption that texts “talk”, and have influence… • Because: “White” SAIRR vs black govt. • In the end, the absent players (at least some) had their say: Mbeki lost his ANC post to Zuma a month later!

28. On the other hand…