YOUTH AND INDIGENISATION IN THE ZIMBABWEAN PRINT MEDIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/1727-7140/1383Keywords:
framing, youth, indigenisation, The Herald, The Zimbabwean, The StandardAbstract
The main purpose of the indigenisation policy in Zimbabwe, according to Masunungure and Koga (2013), was to empower the historically disadvantaged groups in Zimbabwe after the nationalist government had recognised that the inherited colonial systems were unsustainable and a sure recipe for future social and political instability. Although the indigenisation policy was a very noble idea, there was no consensus – especially at the political level – on how empowerment was going to be achieved. The ruling party (ZANU-PF) saw empowerment as being best achieved through the compulsory takeover of foreign-owned businesses in order to benefit the indigenous blacks, and the main opposition party (MDC-T) perceived empowerment as the creation of more jobs for the multitudes of unemployed Zimbabweans, especially the youth. This article, however, argues that the use of nationalistic language, such as ‘the black majority’, in political discourse by politicians in most cases obscures who the real beneficiaries are or will be. In view of the above, the aim of this study is to critically explore, with the aid of framing theory, how the Zimbabwean print media have reported on the issue of youth and indigenisation in stories purposively sampled from The Herald, The Zimbabwean and The Standard newspapers.
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Accepted 2016-12-08
Published 2017-03-07
