Media coverage of Kenya's 2002 elections:A Case Study of The Daily Nation and The East African Standard

[摘要] Everywhere in countries around the world, there is an urgent call for governments inNations to enforcement democracy for its citizens. One of the measures of democracyis in an election where citizens are able to freely elect the leaders who govern them. Insuch times, the media in general play a vital role in among other things, informing thevoters, providing a forum for debate and acting as a watchdog to ensure that electionmalpractices are not carried out. Further, as purveyors of truth, the media is expectedto give balanced accounts of the political parties contending as well as debate thepromises of the candidates and parties in question. In Kenya’s 2002 elections, thevoters depended on the media to effectively play out its role as a purveyor ofinformation, and also set the agenda for what was deemed important.This research report is an examination, an analysis, which looks into what Kenya’sleading newspapers reported about the elections in 2002. In this report, I will not onlybe looking at the overall picture the newspapers painted but further, I will examine thethemes that played themselves out in the newspapers over the election period. Thetheories of news production as well as the role of media in democracy andsubsequently in election coverage will aid the arguments in this paper. Further, I willalso debate the notion of objectivity in media coverage in order to ascertain whetherprivate media can be the standards set for the industry. In doing this, the research willbe examining the role of media in democracy and subsequently in an electioncoverage.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand