“South Africa belongs to all who live in it”

Abstract

A growing body of literature on media and xenophobia in South Africa has shown that the depictionof immigrants by the mainstream print media is overwhelmingly negative, and this in turn enforcesnegative stereotypes that contribute to further xenophobic attacks. This paper adds a dimensionthat is missing from existing research to focus on media representation of immigrants withinquestions around citizenship and identity.. The arguments driving this paper are inspired by theproclamations in the South African Constitution preamble, which states that “South Africa belongsto all who live in it, united in our diversity”. This paper analyses how selected print media in thecountry construct immigrants in the context of identity and belonging. We start from the premisethat as a social institution, the media play an important role in shaping policies on immigrationthat have a bearing on these matters. Using theories of media and national identity, the paperexamines thematic frames used by the selected newspapers to construct the image of immigrantsduring three periods of xenophobic violence, in 2008, 2015, and 2017. Our main argument isthat while the media have played a significant role in creating awareness about the scourge ofxenophobia, they have, wittingly or unwittingly, used narrative frames that justify the exclusion offoreigners, thereby entrenching a perception of insiders and outsiders, citizens and non-citizens.In the process, they also reinforce fears of a national takeover by the foreign “other”. Thesearguments hold significance in the broader debates about the transformation of the print mediaand its role in the on-going process of nation-building.