"When Hallin and Mancini (2004) produced their watershed three models theory, South Africa was a new democracy barely a decade old. Even then, along with other countries of the Global South, the experience of a young democracy posed certain critical challenges to Hallin and Mancini's understanding o
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f the way that media and politics interrelate. Two decades later, South Africa has continued to change. There has been increased diversity in media ownership, rapid growth in community and social media, digital disruption, and significant challenges to media freedom. How does the three models theory stack up now? This article reviews scholarly critiques of Hallin and Mancini's model, including their follow?up work, Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World (2012), and assesses to what extent the three models is still a valid approach to understanding the connection between media and politics in the Global South. The article concludes by evaluating Hadland's (2012) Africanisation of the model in light of the complex postcolonial trajectories of South Africa, suggesting that this, along with Hallin et al.'s (2021) expanded hybridisation model, still offers a better set of variables with which to understand how the media and political systems intertwine in the postcolony." (Abstract)
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"Among the stand-out results, we found a significant decline in the number of photographers working full-time in photography from 74% of respondents in the first survey in 2015 to 59% in 2018. The report is based on four years of surveys with photographers entering the World Press Photo Foundation
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s annual photo contest. The data has been analyzed by a team at the University of Stirling in Scotland, one of the UK’s highest ranked journalism departments. Over the four years of our research, more than 5,000 photographers from over 100 countries and territories participated in the surveys that form the basis of our study. We found that more photographers are working as stringers and a greater proportion, close to 40%, admit their financial circumstances are “difficult” or “very difficult”. In an age where nearly everybody has a camera in their smartphones, in which copyright is often not respected, and in which traditional media organizations have been struggling to survive, it seems photographers are finding it increasingly difficult to make a living. Photographers are having to be more flexible, engaging in different kinds of work from teaching and exhibitions to portraiture and crowdfunding. Respondents in the survey said they were increasingly being required to shoot video even though they far preferred stills photography. Almost 40% of the photographers who participated in the research were required to take video as part of their work. They were also more likely to be part of a multi-media team." (Adrina Hadland, Dec 12, 2018 at https://witness.worldpressphoto.org)
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"There has been a significant change in the employment arrangement of photographers from 2015 to 2016. The number of photojournalists working for themselves (self-employed) has declined from 60% in 2015 to 54% of respondents in 2016. Fewer respondents are working full-time as photographers, down mar
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kedly from 74% in 2015 to 61% in 2016. Instead, there has been a rise in part-time work with respondents undertaking other photography-related work and also unrelated work on the side. Less than half of our respondents get all their income from photography. Most need to supplement their photography income with earnings from other activities such as teaching or work in the hospitality industry." (Key findings, page 5)
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"The report is based on an online survey of professional photographers who entered the 2015 World Press Photo Contest. A total of 1,556 photographers from more than 100 countries and territories completed the questionnaire. Evidence from the questionnaire is summarised below. This is the first large
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-scale international survey of its kind but it is intended that this survey will be repeated annually to track the changes and circumstances of professional photojournalists and to examine the impact of the digital era on their lives and livelihoods. Key findings: 1. Professional news photography is dominated by men, with 85% of the respondents male. 2. The majority of photographers (60%) who responded to the survey were self-employed. 3. Three-quarters of the respondents work full-time as photographers. 4. When asked to specify their role, 40% called themselves photojournalists, 30% said documentary photographers, and 14% said news photographers. 5. News photography was the largest category of photography (named by 19% of respondents), followed by personal projects (18%), portraiture (14%), and sport (10%). 6. Photographers largely work alone (80% of respondents)[...]" (Executive summary)
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"The shocking beheading of several Western journalists during 2014, including the Americans Steven Sotloff and James Foley and the Briton David Haines, and the wide dissemination of their murder videos on the Internet, is a graphic, gruesome signal that something has changed in the relationship betw
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een journalism and conflict." (First paragraph)
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"Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World offers a broad exploration of the conceptual foundations for comparative analysis of media and politics globally. It takes as its point of departure the widely used framework of Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini's Comparing Media Systems, exploring
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how the concepts and methods of their analysis do and do not prove useful when applied beyond the original focus of their "most similar systems" design and the West European and North American cases it encompassed. It is intended both to use a wider range of cases to interrogate and clarify the conceptual framework of Comparing Media Systems and to proposed new nidels, concepts, and with processes of political transition. Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World covers, among other cases, Brazil, China, Israel, Lebanon, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Thailand." (Publisher description)
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"Leading researchers from different regions of Europe and the United States address five major interrelated themes: 1) how ideological and normative constructs gave way to empirical systematic comparative work in media research; 2) the role of foreign media groups in post-communist regions and the e
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ffects of ownership in terms of impacts on media freedom; 3) the various dimensions of the relationship between mass media and political systems in a comparative perspective; 4) professionalization of journalism in different political cultures—autonomy of journalists, professional norms and practices, political instrumentalization and the commercialization of the media; 5) the role of state intervention in media systems." (Publisher description)
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"South Africa offers a rich context for the study of the interrelationship between the media and identity. The essays collected here explore the many diverse elements of this interconnection, and give fresh focus to topics that scholarship has tended to overlook, such as the pervasive impact of tabl
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oid newspapers. Interrogating contemporary theory, the authors shed new light on how identities are constructed through the media, and provide case studies that illustrate the complex process of identity renegotiation taking place currently in post-apartheid South Africa. The contributors include established scholars as well as many new voices. Collectively, they represent some of South Africas finest media analysts pooling skills to grapple with one of the countrys most vexing issues: who are we?" (Publisher description)
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"This book, compiled by South African experts in community broadcasting with the assistance of many key figures in the sector, traces the two-decade campaign for local-level television in South Africa. It highlights the development of policy, reviews existing international models and spells out the
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technical, financial and managerial challenges that face this nascent sector. Policy-makers, community television station managers and staff, development analysts and funders, media academics and students, press officers, organisations wishing to access local TV together with anyone interested in community media in the developing world generally, and community television specifically, will find this book important reading." (HSRC website)
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