Newspapers Influence on Society in South Africa

I am writing a paper on xenophobia in South Africa. While researching this topic, I came across an article about the influence of South African newspapers on the issue. According to this article, South African newspapers have an anti-immigration bias. Articles that discussed immigration issues were usually conservative and used little factual information. The South African newspapers were also more likely to mention that a criminal was illegally in the country if they were black.

The part of the article I found most interesting was when it described the newspaper's bias use of words. A majority of the newspapers used the term "illegals" when describing immigrants that illegally entered the country. This term has a negative connotation and could be describing perfectly law abiding people who had to leave their country for completely understandable reasons, such as escaping political unrest.

The article also discussed how articles use sensational headlines like: "Illegals in SA add to decay of cities" and "Africa floods into Cape Town." The headlines often used aquatic or mob metaphors, such as "hordes," "floods," and "streaming."

Even though South Africa is a very different country from the United States, lessons learned there can easily be applied here. American newspapers should be weary about the effects of sensational headlines and their use of words.