Mediated political cleavages: Zimbabwe's 2000 election seen through the media

Abstract

The 2000 parliamentary election was the first Zimbabwean election in which the media situation gave the opposition against Presider t Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU (PF)) a fair possibility to inform the voters about the political situation in the country. Even if ZANU (PF) still controlled radio and television, a few newspapers opposed to the regime had been established toward the end of the 1990s. This article discusses three political consequences of this new situation: Which way did the new media situation influence the election campaign agenda? How did the media present the conduct of the election in the light of generally accepted democratic rules? What did the media tell voters about the political violence that took place during the election campaign?