Weaving into the Mediascape: An Institutional Ethnography of NGO Media Activism in South Africa
Media Monitoring Africa (hereafter MMA), is a Johannesburg-based non-governmental organization (NGO) with the goals to increase me dia quality, refocus media ethics, foster media diversity, and advance media democracy. Via an institutional ethnography, conducted duri...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | deu |
Published: |
FU Berlin, University of Erfurt
2019-05-01
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Series: | Global Media Journal: German Edition |
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://www.db-thueringen.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/dbt_derivate_00044868/GMJ19_Sorce_final.pdf |
Summary: | Media Monitoring Africa
(hereafter MMA), is a Johannesburg-based non-governmental
organization (NGO) with the goals to increase me
dia quality, refocus media ethics, foster media
diversity, and advance media democracy. Via an
institutional ethnography, conducted during six
weeks of fieldwork, I take up MMA’s particular case to investigate how the NGO has become under-
stood as “part” of the South African mediascape,
rather than an auxiliary agent. Through partici-
pant observation of the NGO’s daily routines, in
-depth interviews with MMA members and local
media professionals, as well as textual analysis of
organizational documents, I found that MMA has
managed to weave into the organizational fabric
of the South African mediascape. The ethnograph-
ic data reveals that MMA is commonly perceived as
a necessary element of the South African medi-
ascape—a status that moves beyond the often strict
ly interventionist role of activist NGOs. I argue
that MMA has achieved this unique social position in the mediascape through four central organi-
zational-activist practices: 1. consistent interventi
on on the same sets of issues; 2. activist innova-
tion around the mode of their intervention(s); 3.
multilateral activism (political economy, media
policy, media content); and 4. successful curation
of relationships with media stakeholders. |
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ISSN: | 2196-4807 2196-4807 |