Committing journalism? A view of the Zimbabwean 2008 General Elections as interpreted by Internet news cartoons
A view of the Zimbabwean 2008 General Elections as interpreted by Internet news cartoons
Copyright and Licensing:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
- Articles
- Submited: October 16, 2022
-
Published: October 17, 2022
Abstract
This paper explores some issues of the contested Zimbabwean 2008 Presidential Election as
it was represented in one-frame political cartoons published in a selection of Internet news
sites in the Zimbabwean diaspora. It argues that the cartoons may constitute the contours of
alternative communicative spaces, in which the cartoonists present arguments about the ongoing
Zimbabwean crisis. The cartoons may be able to present, in a visual form, issues and processes
that are not so easily covered in verbal journalism. The cartoons thus constitute elements of
journalistic practice in their own right.
Article Metrics Graph
References
- Alexander, J. & Tendi, B.M. (2008). A tale of two elections: Zimbabwe at the polls in 2008. Concerned Africa Scholars Bulletin, 80 (Winter 2008), 5-17.
- Arntsen, H. (2010). Betwixt and between. Case Studies in gender, culture and the media in Zimbabwe in the 1990s. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Bergen, Bergen.
- Barthes, R. ([1964]1994). Bildets retorikk [The Rhetoric of the Image]. Oslo: Pax forlag.
- Becker, K. (2008). The rower of pictures in journalistic discours-. as news, as commentary, as art. In E. Eide, R. Kunelius & A. Phillips (Eds), Transnational media events. The Mohammend cartoons and the imagined clash of civilizations. Gothenburg: Nordicom.
- Chiumbu, S. & Moyo, D. (2009). Media, politics andp ower: re-gearing policy and propaganda in crisis Zimbabwe. In K.S. Orgeret & H. Rønning (Eds), The power of communication: changes and challenges in African media. Oslo: Unipub.
- Eide, E., R. Kunelius & A. Phillips (Eds). (2008). Transnational media events: the Mohammed cartoons and the imagined clash of civilizations. Gothenburg: Nordicom.
- Eko, L. (2007). It's a political jungle out there. How four African newspaper cartoons dehumanised and 'deterritorialized' African political leaders in the post-cold war era. The International Communication Gazette, 69, (3), 219-238.
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048507076577
- El Refaie, E. (2003). Understanding visual metaphor: the example of newspaper cartoons. Visual Communication, 2, (1), 75-95.
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357203002001755
- -. (2009). Multiliteracies: how readers interpret political cartoons. Visual Communication, 8, (2), 181-205.
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357209102113
- Flew, T. (2005). New mediaaAn introduction. (2nd ed.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
- Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge: Polity.
- -. (1994). Struggles for recognition in the democratic constitutional state In A. Gutmann (Ed.), Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Kabwato, C. (2009). Picturing Zimbabwe's 2008 Elections. Journal of African Media Studies, 1,(2), 263-277.
- https://doi.org/10.1386/jams.1.2.263_1
- Kunelius, R., Eide, E., Hahn, O. & Schroeder, R. (Eds.) (2007). Reading the Mohammed cartoons controversy: an international analysis of press discourses on free speech and political spin. Bochum/Freiburg.
- Laakso, L. (2002). When elections are just a formality: rural-urban dynamics in the dominantparty system of Zimbabwe. In M. Cowen & L. Laakso (Eds), Multi-party elections in Africa. Oxford and New York: James Currey and Palgrave.
- Lent, J. A. (2001). Cartooning and democratization world-wide. Media Development, 2001(2).
- -. (2009a). African cartooning: an overview of historical andcContemporary issues. In J.A. Lent (Ed.), Cartooning in Africa. Cresskill (NJ): Hampton Press.
- -. (2009b). Southern Africa: hardly a cartoonist's eden. In J.A. Lent (Ed.), Cartooning in Africa. Cresskill (NJ): Hampton Press.
- -. (Ed.). (2009c). Cartooning in Africa. Cresskill (NJ): Hampton Press.
- Lievrouw, L.A., & Livingstone, S. (Eds). (2006). The handbook of new media. Social shaping and social consequences of ICTs (Updated Student Edition). London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage Publications.
- Makumbe, J. (2002). Zimbabwe's hijacked election. Journal of Democracy, 13, (4), 87-101.
- https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2002.0071
- -. (2006). Electoral politics in Zimbabwe: authoritarianism versus the people. Africa Development, XXXI (3), 45-61.
- Maliki, B. a. G. N.?? (1987). Nyathi cartoons, Vol. 1. Harare.
- Mano, W. (2008). The media and politics in Zimbabwe: turning left while indicating right. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 133, (4), 507-514.
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161208324711
- Mason, A. (2001). Cartoon journalism in Africa puts political power into perspective. Media Development, 2001(2).
- Mazango, E. (2005). Media games and shifting of spaces for political communication in Zimbabwe. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, Special Issue, November 2005, 33-55.
- https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.40
- Mbembe, A. (1997). The 'thing' & its doubles in Cameroonian cartoons. In K. Barber (Ed.), Readings in African Popular Culture. Oxford: James Currey.
- McLoughlin, T. (1989a). The comic strip and Zimbabwe's development. In E. Ngara & A. Morrison (Eds), Literature, language and the nation. Proceedings of the Second General Conference of the Association of University Teachers of Literature and Language (ATOLL). Harare: The Association of University Teachers of Literature and Language (ATOLL) in association with Baobab Books.
- McLoughlin, T. (1989b). Reading Zimbabwean comic strips. Research in African Literatures, 20,(2), 217-241.
- Moyo, D. (2004). From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe: change without change? Broadcasting policy reform and political control. In H. Melber (Ed.), Public discourse and political contestation in Zimbabwe. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
- -. (2005). The 'independent' press and the fight for democracy in Zimbabwe: a critical analysis of the banned Daily News. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, Special Issue, 109-128.
- -. (2006). Broadcasting policy reform and democratisation in Zambia and Zimbabwe, 1990-2005. Global Pressures, National Responses. University of Oslo, Oslo.
- -. (2007). Alternative media, diasporas and the mediation of the Zimbabwe crisis. Paper presented at the Nordic Africa Days.
- -. (2009). Citizen journalism and the parallel market of information in Zimbabwe's 2008 Election. Journalism Studies, 10, (4), 551-567.
- https://doi.org/10.1080/14616700902797291
- Namate, T. (1998). Writing on the wall. Cartoons from the Zimbabwe Independent, Vol. II. Harare: Zimind.
- Ndlela, M. N. (2009). New ICTs and social change in Southern Africa. In K.S. Orgeret & H. Rønning (Eds), The power of communication: changes and challenges in African media. [Oslo]: Unipub.
- Ndlela, N. (2003). Challenges and prospects for press freedom. Comparative perspectives on media laws in Zimbabwe and South Africa. University of Oslo, Oslo.
- -. (2009). African media research in the era of globalization. Journal of African Media Studies, 1, (1), 55-68.
- https://doi.org/10.1386/jams.1.1.55_1
- Nyamnjoh, F.B. (2005). Africa's media, democracy and the politics of belonging. London, New York, and Pretoria: Zed Books and Unisa Press.
- Rønning, H. (2003). The media in Zimbabwe: the struggle between state and civil society. In S. Darnolf & L. Laakso (Eds), Twenty years of independence in Zimbabwe: from liberation to authoritarianism. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403948120_10
- -. (2009). Strengths and weaknesses: political change and the media in Africa since the 1990s. In K.S. Orgeret & H. Rønning (Eds), The power of communication: changes and challenges in African media. Oslo: Unipub.
- Rønning, H., & Kupe, T. (2000). The dual legacy of democracy and authoritarianism: the media and the state in Zimbabwe. In, De-westernizing media studies. London: Routledge.
- Saunders, R. (1991). Information in the interregnum: the Press, state and civil society in struggles for hegemony, Zimbabwe 1980-1990. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, Carlton University, Ottawa.
- Spitulnik, D. (2002). Alternative small media and communicative spaces. In G. Hydén, M. Leslie & F.F. Ogundimu (Eds), Media and democracy in Africa. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
- Vollan, K. (2008). Zimbabwe: the Elections on 29 March and the later runoff event and byelections on 27 June 2008. Oslo.
- Waldahl, R. (2004). Politics and persuasion: media coverage of Zimbabwe's 2000 Election. Harare: Weaver Press.
- -. (2005a). Mediated political cleavages: Zimbabwe's 2000 Election seen through the media. Critical Arts, 19, (1 and 2), 61-73.
- https://doi.org/10.1080/02560040585310061
- -. (2005b). Political journalism the Zimbabwean way: experiences from the 2000 Election Campaign. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (Special Issue, November 2005), 18-32.
- https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.39
- Willems, W. (2006). Mediating changing everyday lives in Zimbabwe: an exploration through comic strips. Paper presented at the Workshop in the Nordic Research Network for Media, Communication and Popular Culture in Africa.
- Zaffiro, J. (2002). Media & democracy in Zimbabwe, 1931-2002. Colorado Springs: International Academic Publishers.
- Zeleza, P.T. (2005). Rewriting the African diaspora: beyond the Black Atlantic. African Affairs, 104, (414), 35-68.
- https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adi001
How to Cite
Committing journalism? A view of the Zimbabwean 2008 General Elections as interpreted by Internet news cartoons. (2022). Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa, 29(sed-1), 18-41. https://doi.org/10.36615/jcsa.v29ised-1.1672
