Partisan Media in a Politically Charged Zimbabwe: Public and Private Media Framing of 2018 Elections

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe 2018 presidential and parliamentary election in Zimbabwe was unique in that it was the first post-Mugabe election and the government had pledged to deliver a credible election free from the previous trappings of violence. This study uses framing theory to understand the actors, topics or issues and the media frames used in The Herald and NewsDay newspapers. This research adds knowledge to the vast literature on media coverage of politics in Zimbabwe by interrogating how the media framed the 2018 elections in a new political environment. Results show that despite the new political environment and legal provisions on how the media should cover elections, polarisation in the media along political lines has remained, and this is noted as a stumbling block to democracy in Zimbabwe. On the issues covered, it has been shown that NewsDay prioritised strategy issues at the expense of substantive issues while The Herald presented substantive issues from the perspective of political leaders. The conflict frame is the most dominant frame used by both media. In view of this, the article argues that such approaches in politically charged situations have the potential to entrench divisions, which may escalate to political hatred and violence.