Press Silence in Postcolonial Zimbabwe: News Whiteouts, Journalism and Power / Edition 1

by Zvenyika Eckson Mugari

Overview

This book focuses on news silence in Zimbabwe, taking as a point of departure the (in)famous blank spaces (whiteouts) which newspapers published to protest official censorship policy imposed by the Rhodesian government from the mid-1960s to the end of that decade.

Based on archived news content, the author investigates the cause(s) of the disappearance of blank spaces in Zimbabwe’s newspapers and establishes whether and how the blank spaces may have been continued by stealth and proposes a model of doing journalism where news is inclusive, just and less productive of blank spaces. The author explores the broader ramifications of news silences, tacit or covert on society’s sense of the world and their place in it. It questions whether and how news media continued with the practice of epistemic deletions and continue to draw on the colonial archive for conceptual maps with which to define and interpret contemporary postcolonial realities and challenges in Zimbabwe.

This book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and academics researching the press in contemporary Africa, critical media analysis, media and society studies, and news as discourse.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367252250
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/18/2020
Series:	Routledge Contemporary Africa
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Zvenyika Eckson Mugari is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Lecturer in the Media and Society Studies Department at the Midlands State University, Zimbabwe. He also holds a Research Fellowship with the Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Colonial Foundations of Press Silence in Zimbabwe Chapter 2. Colonial Press and Intersecting Loci of Silencing Chapter 3. News Whiteouts Under Udi and After Chapter 4. News Silence on Forced Removals Colonial Rhodesia Chaper 5. The Daily News And ‘Telling the Land Story Like It Is’ Chapter 6. The Herald and Patriotic News on The Land Issue Chapter 7. Operation Restore (Colonial) Order Chapter 8. ‘Operation Restore Legacy’ In Post-Mugabe Era Chapter 9. Do-It-Yourself (DIY) News and The Emancipatory Promise