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Name : Sifiso Nyembe

Student Number: 397276
University: Wits University, South Africa
Course: Media Research
Supervisor: Natalie Ridgard
Word Count: 8 962
Submission Date: 18 October 2008
Essay Topic: Analysis of the news media coverage of children using traditional initiation as a
case study

Abstract
This paper examines the manner in which the South African media report children during the
annual traditional ritual of initiation (ulwaluko in Xhosa), a ceremony which involves
circumcision and is regarded as a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood. Research data has
been sourced from five newspapers: The Star, Citizen, Sowetan, City Press and Sunday Times. A
total of 24 articles from these publications are being analyzed. In exploring the relationship
between the media and children during reportage, this research uses a review of media literature
and engages in a foundational discussion of theories of the media which relate to news values,
and medias role in the promotion of democratic participation. These two components form the
basis of the work that follows; the work of extracting meanings out of texts in the news articles
under scrutiny. The use of existing legal instruments aimed at protecting children has also been
employed for this work. This paper makes various findings which include that media often fail to
protect childrens interests and also sometimes fall short in their attempt to take positive action
towards children. There are some pockets of disinterest in childrens issues. Although there are
instances where media work give commendable service to childrens issues, this study finds that
these are scanty and often fraught with problems. Another basis of this paper is from the premise
that merely reporting about children is not enough; media have a deeper social role to play. It has
a duty to improve public life; It has a duty to fertilize democracy, to ensure that the field is
appropriate for democracy to flourish, and to facilitate a scenario in which the public, including
children, gets a meaningful opportunity to participate and that its voices are heard. Unless media
take positive steps towards achieving this, the prevailing state of children shall remain grim.


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Contents


Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Aim and Rationale ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Aim ........................................................................................................................................................ 5
Rationale ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Literature Review Chapter ............................................................................................................................ 8
Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................................... 13
News Values ........................................................................................................................................ 13
Public Journalism and Social Responsibility ........................................................................................ 16
Methodology ............................................................................................................................................... 18
Data Collection .................................................................................................................................... 19
Data Sampling ..................................................................................................................................... 20
Data Analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 21
Strengths and Limitations ................................................................................................................... 21
Validity, Reliability and Credibility ...................................................................................................... 22
Findings ....................................................................................................................................................... 24
Presentation of findings ...................................................................................................................... 24
Muting of child voices ......................................................................................................................... 25
Stereotyping ........................................................................................................................................ 28
Neglect of the interest of the child ..................................................................................................... 31
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 34


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Introduction
Every year, generally between June and July, South African male children take part in a
ritual of initiation. This ritual is culturally regarded as a boys rite of passage to manhood.
This custom is very important for the boys because it earns them a place in society. The boys
leave their homes to spend roughly 30 days of initiation school in the bush. The going away
to the bush generally referred to as going to the mountain. Once there, the boys set up
camp and are accommodated in makeshift huts made of twigs and sheets of plastic. It is a
scenario of survival and the boys are made to collectively undergo prescribed hardship. This
hardship and other teachings forge the boys into men.
The custom is kicked off by conducting a circumcision procedure; the cutting off of the
foreskin of the penis. The procedure in non-aesthetic and is conducted by traditional men
who also oversee the whole process and give the all-important teachings to the boys in their
journey to manhood. Year in and year out, there are tragic media reports of deaths, violence,
forced circumcision and kidnappings of young boys all in the name of culture.
Most of these reports made up of images, news stories, editorials and opinion pieces appear
in the media play a vital role in relaying meanings and forming representations of these
children taking part in the ritual. These media elements are important in shaping the publics
understanding of the issues surrounding the ritual; to inform the debates relating to the social
and political standing of children. And indeed, the public is a critical judge (Edwards, 2005).
The purpose of this research is to investigate the manner in which the media reports the
children who are involved in the ritual. The status of children in many parts of the world
remains critical as a result of unsuitable social conditions, natural disaster, armed conflicts,
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exploitation and hunger, among other things (United Nations [UN], 1989). According to the
United Nations Declaration of Childrens Rights (1989), children enjoy special protection
under special instruments linked to childhood. Now, because of this, those tasked with
reporting children in the media are constantly faced with the herculean task of giving a voice
to the children, of safeguarding and promoting their rights and ensuring that their actions are
in the best interests of the children. Yet the biggest question is: in a news item, who
determines that the scene, narrative, trail of interview and image is enjoyable or pleasurable?
This is an issue one that sparks much debate.
According to Gill Swanson (1989), this is more so because the elements contained in a news
item provide an indication of how power relations stand; who has the right to speak and to
who. But how do the South African media give a voice to children in initiation; how do they
protect and promote their rights; and what is being said around this issue? This may be
answered by examining the work of those involved in the construction of perceptions; the
journalists who report on children.


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Aim and Rationale
Aim
The main aim of this study is to closely look at elements in the news reports that get
published in print media about children involved in the ritual of traditional initiation. It will
also explore how children are reported on in these news stories and also examine elements in
them that relate to childrens rights; do media protect or contravene these rights? The aim is
to assess how the media is doing in executing its important role of creating a platform that
enables participation of the public and children in the democratic space and how it promotes
the instruments, such as the Childrens Act and the UNCRC, put in place to advance
democracy.
Issues around circumcision and those that ensue as responses to news stories involving
children participating in the ritual will also be investigated. This essay will also probe the
degree of prominence of the childrens voices as subjects and sources in the text of news
stories. It will also be important to examine the kind of language used in description of child
initiates and their situations in the stories. More specifically this project aims to analyze the
text and accompanying images of children in circumcision in articles in five main-stream,
Gauteng-based newspapers for two months.
Research Questions
How were children covered in news media reports of the traditional initiation?
How are issues such as stereotyping, including the voice of the child and child rights
treated in the reporting?
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What does this say about medias responsibility in promoting rights?

Rationale
Many issues that arise in society are fertilized by the intervention of media as a forum that is
embraced as a public arena that is deemed neutral for deliberation (IFJ, 2002). With no
exception, traditional initiation is one of the issues that are of interest to society. This is
where children, political players and leaders of the future, get socialized into adults.
Therefore the public has a duty and an interest in the ritual. Like all matters that concern
society, the initiation of children has a place in the media as the spot where its presence is
overwhelming. And one of the consequences of its presence in the media is that it shapes
public opinion and deliberation. As mentioned earlier that children have their own set of
rights (UN, 1989), the rationale of this study arises as a result of an interest to measure how
far media have gone in their goal to put children in the right (International Federation of
Journalists [IFJ], 2002).
South Africa, a relatively emerging and flourishing democracy apart from being one of
almost all member states on earth that are signatories of the UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child (UNCRC) has shaped its policies to emphasize greatly on elevating those sectors
of society that were previously marginalized. Children are a very important sector in society
because they are tomorrows leaders and are of the age group that makes up a large
proportion of South Africas population. They are also the most vulnerable members of our
society. Yet they are inherently seen and heard from afar, exhibiting meekness that shows
itself through any dialogue relating to media and the rights of children (IFJ, 2002).
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The press is powerful, and its ability to communicate what is accurate or inaccurate is
phenomenal. Yet, by virtue of its role as a public sphere, the media prompts the publics
responses to the reality that it constructs or distorts thereof about anything, in this case
about children and their wishes and feelings. The public, in this instance, could also mean the
state, which in some cases may respond by reshaping policy or alter distribution of resources;
to make sure children get what they are entitled to. It is because of this reason that the
manner in which children in circumcision are represented in media deserve to be examined
and the thematic elements that appear in these stories to be pin-pointed.

This research is carried out with a keen awareness of its limited scope. It is conducted on the
basis that the findings will make a contribution to the oasis of information that is vital to inform
us how South African media, as a public space for discussion, are behaving in their engagement
with issues of children in traditional initiation.

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Literature Review
The South African Childrens Act of 2007 stipulates that a child is any individual up to the age
of 18. This is in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
In South Africa, boys who participate in the rite of initiation are predominantly of any age from
early teens to about 18, although in some cases even boys aged 19 and older do take part.
For purposes of this study, it is useful to review the work of researchers and Non-governmental
Organizations that have examined the quality and quantity of news reporting on children and the
socio-economic, political and cultural issue they face. The work of other researchers who have
come before offer a background on which to build my research. In one study jointly conducted
by the Childrens Institute and the Centre for Social Research in the University of Cape Town,
Helen Meintjes and Rachel Bray (2005) analyzed South African medias reporting on children
affected by HIV/Aids. They did this by doing a close reading of a total of 114 systematically
chosen news articles carried in 21 English-medium newspapers over two specific periods.
In another study, Emily Nwankwo and Arthur Okwemba (2002) set out to look at how Kenyan
newspapers, the Daily Nation, the East African Standard and the Kenya Times covered
childrens rights issues between June 16, 2000 and June 16, 2001. They also conducted a close
reading and applied content analysis of articles from the three newspapers.
Both these studies indicate that media generally gave lukewarm service to reporting on
childrens issues. Meintjes and Bray (2005, p7) found that in covering childrens issues, media
rarely took into account the real impact that the HIV/Aids epidemic had on children: Only two
of a total of 114 articles analyzed made reference to children living with sick caregivers. Direct
quotes from readings needs a page number Okwemba and Nwankwo (2002) observed that when
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media did positively address childrens rights and had special programs for children, these
programs remained skewed in favour of children from rich families, disregarding those from
poor settings. They also note that media content focused on issues that did not relate to the
majority of children living under poor conditions. On offering a critique of a specific story
carried by the Daily Nation to mark the Day of the African child, Okwemba and Nwankwo
found that the story did not appear to promote the rights of the child as contained in the UNCRC.
When making reference to abuse the author did not indicate how the rights of the child should be
guarded and protected.
The story also had no direct quotes from the child which meant the childs voice remained
unheard thus violating the childs right to express him or herself. Yet article 12 (respect for the
views of the child) of the UNCRC seeks to guarantee the childs right to say what he/she thinks
should happen and to have their views taken into account.
What stands out in Meintjes and Brays study is their acknowledgement of the fact that as much
as reporters and editors would personally wish to cover certain issues, they are constantly faced
with limitations such as budgets, access to resources and literary freedom and their organizations
influence as a result of the need to sell a product and stick to their chosen political position
(Stein, 2002).
Other previous studies have also offered a critique of medias failure to recognize not only the
childrens voice but also the childrens explanation. Ennew (2003), building on Jill Swarts
(1990) work based on street children in Johannesburg, emphasizes the importance of avoiding
giving translation using adultist interpretations. She argues that what may seem to mean to the
adult may be a totally different thing to the child.
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In the two studies by Meintjes and Bray (2005) and Okwemba and Nwankwo (2002) there
appears to be a consensus that media seem to look at childrens stories in some particular way,
which is different to the way they consider other stories. Childrens news stories are generally
poorly received yet the same could not be said of other news. Perhaps this is because childrens
issues are often not as dramatic as other news such as political issues (ibid). Therefore media
tends to ignore childrens news stories. However, media evidently take a keen interest on
childrens issues when the children are involved in abuse and violence (ibid). Out of the 420
surveyed Kenyan articles, it was found that 157 were on child violence and abuse.
On the other hand Meintjes and Bray (2005) found that in the articles they analysed the lack of
interest to cover childrens issues manifests itself in the terminology that reporters use. The
terms, which are sometimes even hurtful, make blanket descriptions of children, treating them as
if they are the same even if they are in different situations. For instance the majority of the
studied newspapers propagated the stereotype of the orphan as the victim of Aids or Aids
orphan even if the issue at hand was not necessarily exclusive to children who have been
orphaned as a result of Aids. This challenge could emanate from the very notion of the definition
of childhood. According to Swart (2003) the very concept of The Girl Child is as fallacious as
the assumption, for instance, that the girl who grows up to become Queen Elizabeth II can be
imagined to fall under the same category as The Girl Child in rural Nkandla. The same could
be said for something like The African Child.
Because of this, problems may arise when actions of intervention are to be taken to address
childrens issues if children are treated as homogeneous and their issues blanketed simply as
issues of aids orphans, for instance. Although the Kenya study does not reveal this state of
affairs, it does highlight the need for proper education of reporters on the UNCRC provisions.
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This essay will argue that not only training should be provided, but robust advocacy that will
result in reporters internalizing the UNCRC and holding the rights of the child close to their
hearts is gravely necessary. Okwemba and Nwankwo, commenting on the Daily Nations story,
do allude to the possibility that the writer knew little or nothing about the UNCRC. Article 4 of
the UNCRC encourages the education of those working with and for children in order to set the
stage for increased child participation to take place.
Meintjes and Bray (2005) point out a very crucial aspect of medias tendency to use linguistic
techniques to describe certain things and the potential danger of stereotyping, alienating and
making children feel inferior or a threat to broader society. They use examples of text found in
newspaper stories, such as mushrooming orphan numbers, Aids orphan explosions. In other
instances, the media has been caught, albeit unconsciously, warning their readers: Aids orphans:
Help us! (p17). This headline presents a serious ambiguity which on one hand may be construed
to mean orphans are calling for help, or more disastrously, warning readers or the public about
the problems we face as orphaning gets out of hand.
Although the Kenyan study is not bold in its acceptance of the challenges faced by journalists as
a result of media ownership and organizational culture, it does highlight a concern. It was found
that although Kenyan media generally addressed childrens rights and had substantial
programming tailored for children, the challenge was the imbalance of their benefit to children
faced with poverty compared to those from well-to-do families. As a result issues of poverty
naturally took a back seat. Yet the majority of children in Africa generally live under serious
poverty conditions. The media, faced with commercial pressures, (Noam Chomsky, 1991), which
are as real as newsroom pressures exhibited a tendency to feature childrens stories mainly on
Sundays when children and parents are often together and the children will influence the parents
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to buy the newspaper for them to read their sections (Okwemba and Nwankwo, 2002). This
creates a problem because media is then seen as using children as marketing devices.
In conclusion, Meintjes and Bray (2005) argue that the reading public seldom scrutinizes, not to
mention dismantle, the messages within media texts. Therefore conveying the key message
which in the case of this study could be the message of the importance of protecting the rights of
the child in whatever way possible should be a priority for South African journalists. They
concede that the use of news writing strategies that are staged and well-acted out, including
employing sensationalist tactics and deliberate stereotyping is justified.
The findings from both studies were arrived at via qualitative analyses of texts in print news
media.



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Theoretical Framework
This research hinges on theories of the media which serves as a foundation for the analysis to
follow. The data to be analyzed will appraise the theories that I will discuss here.
News Values
Through the words of Walter Gieber (1964), Michael Schudson (2003) says news is what the
newspapermen make it. Schudson also explores another theorists belief that news is the result of
the methods that news workers employ (Fisherman, 1980). Indeed, journalists are the authors of
every single word that appears in the papers of on screen as news stories. As part of their job,
they literally make a selection of what appears and how it appears as they compose their
publications (Schudson, 2003). This theory will help provide an understanding of why children
get to be reported the way they are in the media. I found Schudsons work particularly useful and
the points he makes are adequately relevant for the kind of work that I am doing for this project,
which is why I have relied on him quite a lot.
Far from being the reflection of reality, news is a constructed representation of the world
(Schudson, 2003). As earlier stated, in constructing the representation of the world, journalists
make selections and take decisions, rendering the picture they seek to paint subjective.
Considering the work of David Manning White who studied a wire editor at an American
newspaper for one week, Schudson (2003) illustrates how highly subjective, how based on the
gatekeepers own set of experiences, attitudes and expectations news really is. Some of the
reasons given by the editor for rejecting some of the stories were not bright (Schudson, 2003,
p177): not enough space, dull writing or drags too much. Others were plainly political:
propaganda, or he is too Red. Page number is needed for a direct reference
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It should follow therefore that given these reasons stated above, which are subjective, there
would be some variation among wire editors if a larger sample were to be studied (Schudson,
2003). But Gieber found a differing pattern in another study of 16 wire editors in Wisconsin.
They all selected their news the same way. They were not doing politics; they were doing a
systematic task (Schudson, 2003).
However, focusing only on the editor, who is the gatekeeper, undermines the process of looking
at the whole chain of news production, yet news production is more complex than gatekeeping
(Schudson, 2003). One more sophisticated approach to news values that relates to the resultant
news packages is the view of political economy. Some time ago, Graham Murdock (1982) said
this is linked to the structure of the state and the economy, and the economic foundation of the
news organization (in Schudson, 2003). Murdock (1973) warns, however, that this link is not
simplistic. Rather it is oblique to day-to-day journalism, Schudson (2003) notes that Curran et
al (1980) find that advertisers find value in publication that are attractive to small, concentrated
elite audiences; hence chain ownership becomes a commercial necessity. Schudson (2003) also
notes that some scholars suggest that corporate ownership and commercial organizations
simplistically compromise the democratic promise of public communication (McChesney, 1997).
Yet Schudson himself is actually wary of the absence of commercial organizations or their total
domination by the state.
The second approach is borne out of studies of sociology; the attempt to understand how
journalists professional input is squeezed by organizational and occupational demands
(Schudson, 2003). He says journalists operate within a set of real constraints, the pressure of time
being one of them. He laments that they have to write accurately about real occurrences in the
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world; whoever planned their occurrence and whichever way and time these came to the medias
attention.
Other writers observe that the ability to report remotely, using telefax and email, has led to more
shorter stories on timely events rather than longer more in-depth stories and less time-based
work. This has the potential to compromise the quality of news, suggest Weaver and Wilhoit (in
Schudson, 2003). This may be the same manner in which news involving children is treated.
Schudson notes, however, that journalists are individuals capable of making their own judgments
as opposed to operating robotically. However, he also concedes that, if theorists are right, it does
not matter who the journalists are and how judicious they wish to be in observing professional
precepts, they will quickly be socialized into the values and routines of daily journalism. There
exist signs of a shared professional culture among journalists (Gurevitch, Levy and Roeh, 1991).
News is constructed; socially constructed. Schudson builds on Harvey, Molotch and Marilyn
Lester (1974) to define news by the manner in which the news organization becomes aware of it.
If an event is planned by one person or organization and then promoted as news by its planners,
this is a routine news item. If an event is planned by one person and then promoted by another
as news, it is a scandal. If it is unplanned, it becomes an accident. (Harvey, Molotch and
Marilyn Lester, 1974)
According to them, the news media represents not a world out there but the actions of those
who have the power to determine the experience of others.
Those advocating for the recruitment of more women and minorities into the newsrooms hold the
belief that the individual values that reporters bring to the job from their social backgrounds will
dye the news they produce (Schudson, 2003). Schudson talks of a fear in the United States that
the burgeoning number of journalists who report by fax and email and access databases from
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their computers will be disconnected from direct contact with the poor whereas the hope was that
bringing in the minorities would help the press responsive to a broader social spectrum.
Another critical aspect of the analysis of the social organization of the process of news
production is the reporter-editor relations. Even though there have been suggestions of ways that
reporters may engage in self-censorship when they are out to please an editor, sociological
research has particularly succeeded to substantiate the claim (Schudson, 2003).
Another important theory that enhances the foundation of this research is the notion of public
journalism as discussed below.

Public Journalism and Social Responsibility
Media have a duty to serve society. It is Theodore Glassers (1999) belief that public life (which
includes children) needs to improve and media have a responsibility to renew their commitment
to democracy and democratic inclusivity. Over and above reporting on the days happenings,
according to Arthur Charity (1995, p.14), media have to take a step further to make the press
more relevant to people as citizens.
Davis Merritt (in Glasser, 1999) defines the press in the notion of public journalism as a fair-
minded participant in a community that works a rational judge who has no interest in the final
outcome, but is concerned that the process progresses as the participants agreed that it should.
Therefore, the manner in which media conduct their refereeing of children events is a critically
important aspect of public journalism. The UNCRC, Constitution and Childrens Act are the
precepts of the reporting process in this case.
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Charity (1995), an obvious proponent of public journalism, warns journalists, however, that they
should not degenerate into agents of reform, but should focus on creating a platform where
citizens can assemble and engage with one another in a rational and constructive way. In
essence, the argument here is that media are not expected to provide solutions to societys
problems, rather to set the stage for democratic inclusivity to be possible so that citizens are able
solve their issues.
Glasser (1999) uses Michael Sandels critique, in which expresses a belief that public journalism
offers no conception of what democracy demands; instead it is concerned with what democracy
is. Because of this, Glasser (1999) fears media may be incapable of promoting social change.
Technological developments in media have been accused of curtailing the press performance in
meeting the social and moral needs of society (Denis McQuail, 1987). This is echoed by Nick
Davis (2005) who says modern journalists are virtually chained to their keyboards and no longer
get out there to dig deeper for information. As stated in earlier chapters, previous research shows
that childrens stories rarely rank high up in priority. Even if they are touched on, it is literally
scrapping over the surface. Yet one of the fundamental principles of a socially responsive press
is that it has specific obligations to society (McQuail, 1987). These obligations can be fulfilled
by setting high professional standards of informativeness, truth, accuracy, objectivity and
balance.
However, advocates of public journalism seem to think that truth, accuracy and balance are not
enough. They believe that journalists must explore issues deeper and must strive to cast the net
wider. In this way, childrens issues will have a better chance in the media; the public arena for
these issues to be discussed.
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Methodology
This research is based on aspects of the qualitative methods. These methods of research are
techniques which enable a researcher to, among other tasks, conduct a critical evaluation of texts;
to understand the nature and attributes of text. However, it is not confined to this it is a much
wider field. Jane Stokes (2003) explains these methods as being primarily made for
understanding meaning and interpretation. They help a researcher to determine how audiences
understand media and texts. For the specific purpose and scope of this research, I employ certain
elements of the qualitative methods to examine texts to draw manifest meaning.
As stated in earlier chapters, the aim of this study is to investigate the nature of reports carried
by South African news media on children taking part in the tradition of initiation. In other words
the answers to my research questions lie in texts.
To answer these questions, the most appropriate methods to use therefore are the qualitative
research methods, which means I shall do a close reading of news articles and accompanying
pictures, opinion articles and letters to the editor. These were published in the period between
July 1, 2009 and August 31, 2009.
Using the qualitative methods is in keeping with the nature of my research, which hinges on
studying the character of media reports. This research technique will enable me to strip down the
mechanics of text and images. Texts are made of several dimensions and layers but for the
purposes and scope of this project I will only be looking at manifest content.
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In my analysis of the texts, I will be dong a close reading, looking at how language is used; how
the children are described; and who speaks, where in the reports they speak and what they say.
I will dismantle sentences and look at the words, analyze sentences and scrutinize paragraphs to
determine what is being said and what is not being said.
Data Collection
An Internet keyword search using the words circumcision and initiation search yielded
several results of articles talking about the traditional initiation of children, but these were
problematic. A good number of them were not dated and as opposed to articles in print media
it proved difficult to determine how these articles were in the publications in which they were
carried. For example there is a possibility that on the print publication an article was packaged
with a picture but not when it was republished on the online version of the publication it was not
accompanied by one. For purposes of this study, packaging of articles is one of the key issues in
the quest to see how children were reported; were articles accompanied by pictures, what did the
pictures look like.
Because of these challenges, I opted for hardcopy newspapers. Wits Universitys William Cullen
library provided me with copies of five mainstream Johannesburg-based newspapers, namely,
Citizen, The Star, City Press, Sunday Times, and Sowetan published from July 1 to August 31,
2009. The Star, Citizen and Sowetan are daily newspapers whose coverage is nationwide
whereas the City Press and Sunday Times are weeklies which are published on Sundays. The
period from July 1 and August 31 wee chosen after an investigation revealed that news articles of
the childrens initiation started trickling into media pages during July and continued to take space
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in the media until early September. In order to avoid having to deal with big chunks of
information, I opted to confine the sampling period to between July 1 and August 31.
These copies carry substantial amounts of text and images are generally readily available as
compared to other forms of media. I manually collected clippings of these articles and images by
physically searching page by page.
Data Sampling
Although the initiation season normally runs from June to July and sometimes encroaches into
August, my sample is taken from July to August because news articles start trickling in when the
event is already well under way. Also, because the debates that ensue in relation to the custom,
articles continue to pour in even after the event as my initial investigations revealed. These
specific newspapers were chosen because looking at the resources available at the time of
research they proved to be more easily accessible, yet they were also more suited for this
research because they have national reach and carried fairly substantial amount of the reports
being studied. My profiling of these newspapers has been informed by the 2007 All Media
Product Survey (AMPS).
The most important question for this research is how children were reported during initiation and
how issues surrounding that were debated, so I decided to include letters to the editor as part of
how the media reported and debated the unfolding events. With this in mind, I found a total of 37
articles on initiation from the five publications. However, 13 of those were not necessarily
speaking about the children themselves, but the tradition of initiation in general, so these articles
fell off.
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Data Analysis
The general approach for analysis of the text and images is based on aspects of thematic content
analysis. I conducted a close reading in order to examine recurring themes in each of the final
sample of my research material. The data will be classified (Creswell, 1998) in terms of the
patterns that characterize each article and single-instance occurrences to seek meanings in
relation to each case.
As such, I will be critically looking at the language being used, examining quotes to see who is
being given a voice and what this voice says. Also I will be looking at whose voices are muted. I
will also comb the text to see whether media reports do promote childrens rights and how they
go about doing so.
Images will also come under scrutiny as I consider who is in the pictures and how these pictures
were taken. I must state though that the scope of this study, and owing to the academic level at
which it is being conducted, is confined to reading for manifest content only what can be read
off the surface.

Limitations
This study is conducted with full awareness that children participating in the initiation ritual have
been reported about in other forms of media. Because this works focus is limited to print media,
specifically the five newspapers being studied, this makes the data sample to be too small. This is
especially so because children may have been reported differently in other newspapers and other
forms of media and not necessarily the same as this study will find.
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Another limitation that I readily acknowledge is that the researcher cannot claim lustrous
credentials and experience in the field of research. Although due care has been taken to avoid
this, being a player in the production of news could result in the researcher introducing biased
opinions. Also, as an inherent factor of qualitative research methods, there is no single truth to
be discovered; it is possible that other researchers may hold differing views, with each of these
holding equally binding authority (Creswel, 1998).


Validity, Reliability and Credibility
The next step was to ensure that the information presented in this research as a data sample is
reliable and valid. Sapsford, in (Stokes, 2003), explains the concern of validity as one that relates
to the question whether the material presented as evidence has the weight of the conclusion that
is drawn from it.
Will the methods used give the same result again and again, no matter who is using it?
According to Stokes (ibid), accurate and properly done research addresses the issue of reliability.
This research was conducted using newspaper text and images as data sources. Long-established
conventional research methods as laid down in the work of acclaimed authors such as Stokes
(ibid) and Boyatzis (1998) were applied. In that case the research can be deemed to be measuring
what it is supposed to be measuring (how news media reported children in traditional initiation).
Anyone else following the steps that this researcher has followed will arrive at a similar set of
findings. An effort has gone into this project to ensure it is appropriately conducted. To take this
23

a step further, the researcher has also attempted to ensure accuracy by physically conducting his
own photocopying and tagging of the clippings from the newspapers.

24

Findings
A total of 24 newsprint articles from five newspapers, namely The Star, Sowetan, City Press,
Citizen and Sunday Times, published in the period beginning from 1 July and ending on
31August 2009. This section of this project is an overview of the data sourced from the
newspapers named above. This data is grouped in themes which were identified in the
investigation of how the print news media reported children involved in the ritual of traditional
initiation, which also involved circumcision.

Presentation of findings
Summary of findings: Three themes came out of the data:
a) Muting of child voices This is the exclusion of the childs say in a story that involves
the child and in some instances the child is the primary source of the story. This is in the
form of the absence of direct quotes from the child.
b) Neglect of the interest of the child This is the failure to put the interest of the child
above all else, and the failure to promote the rights of the child in sheer contrast to
medias social duty to catalyse democracy and improve the publics life.
c) Stereotyping of the child This theme resulted from the descriptions of children in the
media stories. Stereotyping paints children in certain circumstances using words that
result in them getting new identities, some even hurtful and with a potential to
dehumanise them.
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Prior research and the theory discussed in the framework chapter aided the development of codes
for these themes. I found that the themes that came out of the two prior research studies that I
have reviewed were compatible with my study (Boyatzis, 1998). The thematic codes were
perfectly applicable to my raw data and emerged as I mechanically worked through each article,
zooming in on the words, the language being used and what was being said and by whom.

Muting of child voices
Article 12 of the UNCRC expressly calls for the respect of the childs views. Any decision that
may be taken and which affect the child should be taken in full consideration of what the child
feels because the child has a right to say what they think should happen (UNCRC). This section
will discuss the articles that this research has found do not give children a chance to voice their
opinion yet the issues covered in the articles relate to their issues. Out of the 24 news articles
under review, only six allowed children space to add their views and express their feelings on
how taking part in the ritual affects them personally.
Consider for instance the four articles published by The Star, (July 1-7, p2) which reported on
the rising death toll of children taking part initiation in Eastern Cape. None of those stories
catered for the voice of the child yet the death of the children were as a result of the conditions
that the boys are subjected to, some horrifying. Interestingly, these articles are all that The Star
reported on the children taking part in the ritual during the period being reviewed.
Other articles came from the Citizen (July 7&10, p7) which are also silent on what children think
and feel about the things that are happening to their peers. As observed in the data, the journalists
mainly opted to speak for the children. When it was not the journalists speaking, it was the health
26

department officials, the police or the traditional leaders. Regrettably in all likelihood, they failed
to express the views of the child. The articles merely focused on how many had died and how
many were receiving treatment; no individuality of these children was considered. Another
observation is that none of these news stories were accompanied by images in both publications.
The Star, for instance ran only these headlines during the entire initiation season: Teen dies
after botched circumcision (July 1, p2), Boy dies following illegal circumcision (July 2, p2),
Circumcision death toll 24 after boy dies (July 3, p2), Circumcision death toll rises to 36
(July 7, p2). The body of these articles do not have names of the children involved and the
circumstances of their death or the real conditions of those that are in hospital.
As a result, a few of the articles analyzed painted a picture of what these children go through,
what their experiences are in the mountain other than that children are dying. Meintjes and Bray
(2005) accuse the media that in covering childrens issues, they rarely took into account the real
impact of the situation children face. This research has also made a similar observation. Three of
the five analyzed publications seem to have been predominantly interested in the statistics of
those children who had died or those fell sick while in participating in traditional initiation than
what was really happening to them as individuals. In the articles, children have no say in the
manner they are circumcised or how the whole process is conducted.
The effects of medias attitude of general disinterest in childrens issues were displayed in the
Sowetan. This publication did not carry a single textual report specific to children in initiation
during the period that is being reviewed by this research. As a result, public opinion, in the form
of letters to the editor (July 2 & August 24), mainly focused on issues of the tradition of
initiation and not the key participants the children. They did not even pretend to be speaking on
27

behalf of the children. Only one letter zoomed in on children: Initiation is for teens, not
children (July 28, p12). Indeed, as Schudson (2003) considers, journalists literally make a
selection of what stories appear and how they appears as they go about the production of their
publications. This scenario also seems to reaffirm Okwemba and Nwankwos (2002) findings
that the media are more readily available to cover children when they are in hardship There
was not a single story that was a feel good; one that celebrates the achievements of those
children who survive the mountain. Or talks about the experience from a positive point of view
Media also seem to be conflicted in its approach to the coverage of children. Offering a critique
in a Citizen column, Stephen Mulholland decries the fact that media seem to place similar
childrens issues at different levels of the agenda (July 22, p12). He laments that the Stars
coverage of initiation (bullying) in private schools indicated that the paper treated these news
stories as massive news worthy of the sort of blaring front-page headlines that might greet and
outbreak of war whereas those of traditional initiation which are characterized by tragic and
awful deaths were relegated to minor fillers. It is therefore difficult to avoid making the
assumption that Curran et al in Schudson (2003) are right in accusing the media of acting in
accordance with the wishes of advertisers who find value in publications that are attractive to
small, concentrated elite audiences.
A contrasting picture of the prevailing theme of muting childrens voices was provided by
articles in the Sunday Times (July 19 & August 9) and City Press (July 19 & 26) shed some light
by making use of the voices of the affected children. The articles displayed that a story takes a
fresh perspective when players in the story are allowed to insert their voices. Even the space that
these stories were allocated on the pages, especially in the City Press (full pages), allowed the
28

children to speak out. Be that as it may, there were shortcomings that this research observed and
these will be discussed below.
Stereotyping
As Meintjes and Bray (2005) observed that the theme of childrens innocent victimhood sits at
the heart of South African print media, this section of the research has also found this to be
evident in the data that was analyzed. Children involved in initiation are made to appear as
victims of initiation. It must be said though that chances are good that the journalists do not mean
harm when they use the descriptions that they use when reporting children (Meintjes and Bray
2005). More often they mean well.
Take the City Press opinion article under the headline Cruelest Cut for instance (July 19, p22).
The author might have innocently set out to argue the legitimacy and relevance of the initiation
ritual but he arrived at a point where he portrayed children as victims of an idiotic ritual who
die for the removal of a piece of skin (referring to circumcision). This is an example of media
setting out to undertake a social responsibility role, and instead achieving the contrary.
The word idiot denotes a stupid person; a fool; a person with very low intelligence, an
imbecile who cannot think or behave normally. Clearly this motivates an act of judgment and
blame. This judgmental word also possesses the potential to contrast children; those who
willingly and enthusiastically take part in the ritual and those who do not. It has the power to
create tension among children when you consider the implied intellect of those children who
escape going to the mountain or who opt to be circumcised by medical doctors. The use of this
strong word could also be interpreted to mean those children who die do so in vain and those
who participate in this ritual are potential victims foolishly dicing with death. Those who are
29

befallen by the misfortune of being mutilated and physically scared for life will suffer double
jeopardy. This especially so with the use of the word shame when he describes the
circumstance of these survivors: They live in silence and shame. The word shame does not
benefit the dignity of those who bear the scars of botched circumcision. The word itself makes
connotations of disgrace and a need to feel embarrassed.
Consider two City Press articles about Mfundiso Nqwarhube and his 18-year-old brother,
Mawandle, who are captured in hospital and Mbedesho Nogoji, who died trying to fulfill his
dream of becoming a man (July 19, p27). If the article discussed above which appeared in the
same publication on the same date, is taken into consideration, then there is a serious
contradiction in the way this paper handled its reports of children in circumcision. In the article
about Mfundiso and his brother, the two boys are portrayed as heroes who, despite their private
parts being hurt and risking amputation, they are eager to see the ritual through because, its our
culture.
But the headline, Mutilated in the name of culture is problematic because it seems to validate
the earlier article that dismisses the ritual of circumcision as idiotic. And the journalists decision
to name the two boys has potential ramifications on the boys lives. Although the report gives
hope that they will regain use of their penises, the likelihood of them being viewed as victims
of initiation rather than heroes is exacerbated by the headline.
The same scenario was evident in the article in the Sunday Times (July 19, p11). In the article
headlined Circumcision Horror the boy whose rotted (sic) genitals literally fell of hours
earlier lies in his hospital bed. The author chooses to describe the state of the teenagers genitals
using the word rot. Besides it being inaccurate, the adjective has a remarkable impetus in its
30

meaning: decayed, having gone bad, unpleasant and possibly smelly. It does not portray the child
in good light and aggravates the implication that he is a victim. It is dehumanizing more than
anything else.
Even though the picture of him is taken facing away, the journalist goes ahead and names the
teenager in the article. This is an unethical practice because the Child Care Act stipulates that the
identity of the child concerned should not be exposed publicly. Also as stated in earlier chapters
that Article 3 of the UNCRC calls for the best interest of the child to take precedence over all.
Ignoring this, as the journalist did, amounts to neglect and could fertilize the chances of the child
being stigmatized and it constructs an image of helplessness, hence a need to be saved.
The recurring use of the word initiate also takes away any likelihood of recognizing these
children as individuals. In doing this, the media then runs the risk of relegating their
responsibility to treat these individuals as children who are entitled to special protection. Only 12
of the 24 reviewed articles referred to children as boys, kids, children or aspiring men.
The Circumcision Act outlaws the circumcision of children less than 12. Yet City Press carries a
picture, taken in an up-close manner, of an eight-year-old boy. The headline of the article, My
men make proud, creates a contradiction because the mood of the story is meant to coerce the
reader to share a feeling of pride that the boy has become a man at such a young age, yet the
same page carries an article announcing that it is illegal for this boy to have been circumcised. In
fact, labeling an eight-year-old a man has the potential of creating an identity crisis for the child.
In the background is a crowd of other children who look the same age as him. It does not benefit
the childrens interests to be publicized in association of or as victims, even subjects of a crime.
Also the boy it would seem the photograph was meant to portray the child as a heroic warrior at
31

his age. But this attempt seems to have resulted in an image of a child in helpless misery and
therefore appears as a victim of a ritual which, in terms of the law, he should not even be
attending. This is an issue of ethics on the part of the photographer.
The Sunday Times carries a picture of boys taking lessons on health issues which is unrelated to
the article headlined, Circumcision Horrors (July 19, p11). Yet the picture is fully embedded in
the article. This is problematic because at a glance this layout has a great potential to suggest that
these are the boys who have been mutilated thus stigmatize them. Yet this is just a case of
unfortunate proximity of the picture to an unrelated matter. This observation is especially backed
by the argument advanced by (Meintjes and Bray 2005) that the reading public seldom
scrutinizes, not to mention dismantle, the messages within media texts. It is therefore easy for the
public to make assumptions.

Neglect of the interest of the child
In the theoretical framework chapter, it was stated that the media has a duty to serve the public
(Glasser, 1999). The public includes children whose lives must also improve (ibid). This section
discusses the observation of the theme of neglect of the interest of the child. Interestingly none of
the stories in the analyzed coverage of children in traditional initiation made a single reference to
any section of the UNCRC. This is in the same light in which Okwemba and Nwako (2002)
complain that in a Kenyan newspaper report commemorating the Day of the African Child which
made reference to abuse, the journalist failed to indicate how the rights of the child should be
guarded and promoted and protected. This research has also found that even those stories which
were reporting on the abuse of rights did not make any mention of those rights. It must be
32

remembered that the promotion and protection of rights is a fundamental aspect of nurturing
democracy, which is one of medias duty to society.
The Sunday Times article headlined Circumcision Horror and was about a boy whose genital
organs had fallen off and who was telling a story of how he and other initiates were beaten up
and forced to wake up at 3am: It was raining outside and very cold. We were told to get out of
the hut and stand naked outside. We were suddenly beaten up and then made to sing and dance
(July 19, p11). This boys younger brother died while he held him in his arms. Needless to say,
there was abuse of human and child rights in this scenario, but nowhere did the journalist attempt
to bring this out as the main and most important theme of the story and therefore squandered an
opportunity to promote the childrens rights. Whereas Article 4 of the UNCRC says all available
measures should be taken to protect the rights of the child. This amounted to abdication of public
duty on the part of the journalist whose other purpose is to create socially positive outcomes.
A big number of the stories reviewed indicate that children go through suffering, violence even
death. This gives more weight to the need for media to create awareness and promote childrens
rights. But this is absent. Even when some of the publications make mention of the Circumcision
Act which among other things bans the initiation of boys younger than 12, they do so without
being specific to the legislation. Only seven stories mentioned the existence of the Act, of these
only one article by City Press drilled down the provisions of the Childrens Act of 2005 (July 26,
p10) and actually engaged officials from the South African Law Reform and the social
development department, who expressed their desire to have the Circumcision Act repealed
because it clashed with certain sections of the Childrens Act.
33

An article in the Citizen, Zim boys forcibly taken to initiation (July 10, p7) is about five boys
which were kidnapped while they were in the course of employment, loading sand onto a truck
after they were hired by a certain businessman in Limpopo. Once again, the journalist
relinquished a chance to raise awareness that a crime had been committed on children; that of
kidnap and commercialization because the kidnappers were reported to have later demanded
R3 750 from the businessman to secure the childrens release.
Instead, what seems to have been the prime angle of the story was that these children were
Zimbabwean. This is evident in the perpetual reference to them as Zimbabweans. This reference
appears five times in a seven-paragraph story. Reading from the mere mention that these were
young boys and were employed raises a suspicion that a case of child labor is also what the
journalist should have explored to promote childrens rights.

Discussion of Findings
Childs voice: As this research had set out to investigate how children were covered in news
media during traditional initiation, it has emerged that children are largely not allowed to speak
in the media. They are not given the space to express their views regarding the circumstances
they find themselves in as a result of taking part in the ritual despite that some of their
circumstances involve horrid experiences. However, this study has also found that some media
do make an attempt to address this shortcoming.
Interest of the child: Media are not doing enough to fulfill their duty to ensure the terrain is level
enough for democracy to flourish. Childrens rights seem not to enjoy the top spot on medias
34

priority list whereas the protection and promotion of rights is the cornerstone of a healthy
democracy.
Stereotyping: The manner in which media generally report on children in initiation is beset with
problems. Descriptions of children result in creating negative representations of them. These
descriptions have the potential to do more harm than good. This results in other problems such as
stigma and so on.
Conclusion
This research aimed to determine the manner in which the media reported children participating
or involved with traditional customs by making use of annual ritual of traditional initiation which
entails circumcision. A total of 24 articles from five Johannesburg-based newspapers, namely
The Star, Citizen, City Press and Sunday Times, were analyzed in order to extract themes that
were drawn from the language that was used in the texts. What was also looked at was who
spoke in these articles, what words were being said and on whose behalf were these words being
said.
The main objective was to use the meanings that were learnt from the texts to determine how
South African media were treating issues of children in relation to the necessity to protect these
young lives and their rights and how the media was discharging its social responsibility.
Simplistically, this is a responsibility which means media should provides information to the
public as a service. But in a more complex way, as earlier chapters have noted, reporting on
events involving children is not enough. Media have a role to play in the improvement of the
publics life. They have to ensure that the field is appropriate for democracy to flourish, that
public has a chance to participate and its voices are heard.
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In keeping with the findings of other researchers, this project notes that the manner of coverage
of children generally remains a concern. Although trying, the media, as seen in the previous
chapter, have yet to do enough to report children in a manner that includes them in the
democratic space, in a manner that does not expose them to undesirable elements but rather one
that recognizes them as individuals with rights. Firstly it is a tragedy that out of 24 media articles
only six gave a voice to children, yet they were subjects and sources of these media stories. The
findings of this paper revealed that some of the media is disinterested in childrens rights,
perhaps because commercial interest took priority. This research also exposed that childrens
stories were often relegated to filler material, fit for obscure pages regardless of the seriousness
of what the children being reported were going through. All four of the stories in The Star were
during the two-month period reviewed on page two as briefs, some even shorter than four lines
and were often portraying children in a statistical manner.
The theoretical framework section of this research demonstrated that sometimes media set out to
do good to the children but unconsciously prejudiced these children. This researchs findings
revealed how a City Press column, in an argument likely intended and with a massive potential
to promote and protect the interests of children ended up painting an unpleasant image of
children who take part in a custom legitimated by society for years. It portrayed children as
sitting ducks and willing victims. And more seriously it created potential conflicts among
children.
It has also been seen how images improve and enhance news stories. In the same vein it has been
seen how a well-intended picture can result in a pregnancy of negative connotations.
36

As shown above and in the findings, media ultimately fail to put children in the right. They fail
to give children dignity. They fail to protect and promote the interest of children and as a result,
they falter in their quest to achieve the goals of the IFJ. This therefore renders media inefficient
in the discharge of public duty. Unless media change, the prevailing state of the children will
remain grim.

37

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