THE AGENDA-SETTING FUNCTION OF THE ‘JESTER’S SPACE’: ZAPIRO’S LADY JUSTICE CARTOONS

THE AGENDA SETTING FUNCTION OF THE ‘JESTER’S SPACE’:

ZAPIRO’S LADY JUSTICE CARTOONS

HELENA VAN WYK

200946225

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree

MA (COMMUNICATION STUDIES)

In the FACULTY OF HUMANITIES at the UNIVERSITY OF

JOHANNESBURG

SUPERVISOR: PROF NATHALIE HYDE-CLARKE

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DECEMBER 2011

2

Declaration regarding plagiarism

University of Johannesburg

School of Communication

I understand what plagiarism entails and am aware of

the University’s policy in this regard.

I declare that this final research script is my own,

original work. Where someone else’s work was used

[whether from printed source, the internet or any

other source] due acknowledgement was given and

reference was made according to the School

requirements.

I did not make use of another learner’s previous work

and submitted it as my own.

I did not allow and will not allow anyone to copy my

work with the intention of presenting it at his/ her

own work.

Helena van Wyk

200946225

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THE AGENDA SETTING FUNCTION OF THE ‘JESTER’s SPACE’:

ZAPIRO’S LADY JUSTICE CARTOONS

by Helena Van Wyk

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

1. To my parents, Jim and Susan Cameron, who instill in

us the love of books and knowledge, for that I would

always be thankful.

2. To my husband, Jonathan, who always supported me in

all my ventures. For believing in me and showing an

interest in my study.

3. To my children, Jayme and Sebastian, who I hope would

one day, see the value of cartoons.

4. To Maritha Pritchard and Rene Benecke, who as friends

and colleagues, were always there to listen and give

advice. Thank you for your friendship and support, it

is priceless.

5. To Prof Nathalie Hyde-Clarke, thank you for your

guidance and keeping me focussed when I was getting

sidetracked with “semiotics”!

6. To Tim Bester for the proof reading and valuable

input, and to Emmerentia Breytenbach: thank you for

your attention to detail.

5

ABSTRACT

Political satire in the print news media is a significant

part of irony that specializes in gaining entertainment

from politics. Jonathan Shapiro (alias Zapiro), and his

Lady Justice cartoons of Jacob Zuma, which were published in

the Sunday Times on 7 September 2008 and in the Mail & Guardian

on 12 September 2008, has brought this function to the

foreground in South Africa. This study focusses on the

‘Jester’s Space’ in the print media in relation to The Lady

Justice cartoons because of their controversial nature and the

possible effects they had on the print news media agenda.

The goal of the study was to examine the debates that

followed in select print news media in Gauteng between 24

August 2008 and 31 December 2008.

In order for the study to explore the role of the

political cartoonist in the South African context, the

study considers the development of political cartooning

globally and in South Africa. It draws on the Agenda

Setting theory. This theory postulates that the media

audiences accept guidance from media for determining what

information is most important and worthy of attention

(Graber: 1984). This study makes use of qualitative and

quantitative content analysis in order to analyse the

Agenda Setting function of the Lady Justice cartoons in

selected Gauteng English and Afrikaans newspapers – chosen

based on their differing media houses to ensure a range of

editorial and public views. The study successfully shows

that Zapiro’s cartoons were both able to frame and set

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the agenda for the debate themes that were discussed in

the public sphere.

7

Table of ContentsChapter One Overview of study 1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 9

2. Goal of study ……………………………………………………………… 11

3. Overview of study ………………………………………………………… 12

3.1. Literature review

3.2. Theoretical framework

3.3. Methodology

3.3.1. Reliability and validity

Chapter Two History and role of political

cartoons in the jester space4. A history of the global context ………………………………………….. 19

5. The South African context ……………………………………………….. 25

5.1. Colonial influences

5.2. Apartheid cartoons

5.3. Resistance cartoons

6. Post-apartheid cartooning………………………………………………… 40

6.1. Introduction: Zapiro

6.2. Zapiro: Early days

6.3. Zapiro: Post-apartheid cartooning

6.4. Zapiro: The new direction

6.5. Introduction: Zuma

7. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 56

Chapter Three Agenda-setting theory8. Overview of study …………………………………………………………. 60

9. The origins of the agenda-setting theory ……………………………...

60

10. Agenda-setting theory …………………………………………………… 64

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11. Agenda-setting process ………………………………………………….. 65

12. Shaping the media agenda ……………………………………………… 67

13. Critiques of the agenda-setting theory …………………………………

71

14. The importance for the study …………………………………………….. 73

Chapter Four Methodology15. Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 76

16. The research design …………………………………………………….. 76

17. Defining quantitative content analysis …………………………………

81

17.1. Steps in the quantitative content analysis

research

18. Defining qualitative content analysis

………………………………….. 87

18.1. Steps in the qualitative content analysis

19. Limitations of content analysis …………………………………………..

91

Chapter Five Findings20. Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 94

21. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis ………………………… 962.1. Zapiro …………………………………………………………………. 97

2.1.1. Quantitative findings2.1.2. Qualitative findings

2.1.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around Zapiro2.1.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around Zapiro2.1.2.3 Beeld Debate theme findings around Zapiro

2.2. Jacob Zuma/Zuma ..…………………………………………….. 1002.2.1. Quantitative findings2.2.2. Qualitative findings

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2.2.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around Jacob Zuma/ Zuma

2.2.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around Jacob Zuma/ Zuma

2.2.2.3 Beeld debate theme findings around Jacob Zuma/Zuma

2.3. ANC …………………………………………………………………… 104


2.3.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around ANC2.3.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around ANC2.2.2.4 Beeld debate theme findings around ANC

2.4. Rape ……………………………………………………………. 106


2.4.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around rape2.4.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around rape2.4.2.3 Beeld debate theme findings around rape

2.5. Cartoon ……………………………………………………………….. 1082.5.1. Quantitative findings2.5.2. Qualitative findings

2.5.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around cartoon

2.5.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around cartoon

2.5.2.3 Beeld debate theme findings around cartoon3. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 112

Chapter Six Data analysis1. Introduction……………………………………………………….. 114

2. Analysis of research questions ………………………………… 114

2.1. Analysis of sub-question 1: Have Zapiro’s

political cartoons (as printed in the Sunday Times on

7 September 2008 and Mail & Guardian on 12 September

2008) set the media agendas, as reflected in

editorials, columns and leading print news stories?

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2.2. Analysis of sub-question 2: Did these political

cartoons stimulate debate in selected print news

media between 7 September 2008 and 31 December 2008?

2.3. Analysis of sub-question 3: What was the nature

of the content of the debate in selected print news


2.3.1. Analysis of debate themes in Sowetan

2.3.2. Analysis of debate themes in The Star

2.3.3. Analysis of debate themes in Beeld

3. Overall agenda-setting trends in the three daily

newspapers…………. 123

4. Limitations of the study……………………………………………………. 124

5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….. 125

Chapter Seven Concluding remarks22. Overall trends in the media content………………………………………

127

23. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 130

References…..…………………………………………………………….. 132

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Chapter One Overview of study

Contents

24. Introduction

25. Goal of study

26. Overview of study

26.1. Literature review


26.3. Methodology


12

1. Introduction


part of irony that focuses on gaining entertainment from

politics. In the past, it has also been used with

subversive intent where political speech and dissent are

forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political

arguments where such arguments are expressly forbidden

(Henderson, 1993).

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the political

cartoonist plays an agenda-setting role within the South

African print news media today (Koelble & Robins, 2007).

The role of the political cartoonist in today’s society is

akin to that of the court jester in medieval times. The

difference is then the king appointed the court jester who

was given more latitude than others to criticise the

court. Today, newspapers give the political cartoonist

latitude to use hyperbole (and to be rude if necessary) to

stimulate public debate (Koelble & Robins, 2007).

This function of the cartoon artist has been brought to

the fore in South Africa by Jonathan Shapiro (alias

Zapiro), and his cartoons of Jacob Zuma (the then

president of the ANC) ‘raping’ the justice system. These

cartoons were published in the Sunday Times on 7 September

2008 and in the Mail & Guardian on 12 September 2008. This

dissertation will explore the role of the ‘Jester’s Space’

in the South African print news media in relation to these

cartoons.

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According to Zapiro, readers value the ‘poetic licence’

afforded to an editorial cartoon artist – to confront the

most powerful people in society and “knock them off their

pedestal” as Koelble and Robins (2007:318) remark. Mason

(2008) builds on this by referring to the ‘Jester's Space’ as

the space given to cartoonists to do their satirical work.

This is where cartoonists "let off the steam that builds

up in society's pressure cooker” (Mason, 2008:54).

Recent literature (Nyamnjoh, 2000; Wigston, 2002;

Wasserman, 2005) highlights that one of the important

functions of political cartoons is not to merely sum up a

complex situation, but to give shape to the issues and

often to steer these debates in new directions. The

Agenda-Setting theory deploys content analysis so that

“through their structure of social and political reality

the news media influence[s] the agenda of public issues

around which political campaigns and voters decisions are

organised” (Laughey, 2009:22). Wasserman (2005) made the

following observations about Zapiro’s work in his public

lecture: “Just like a good textual columnist, Zapiro is

not afraid to put forward provocative and controversial

ideas, and just like a good columnist his drawings makes

one think differently about issues of the day”.

2. Goal of study

The two controversial cartoons published by the Sunday Times

and Mail & Guardian depicting ANC president Jacob Zuma raping

the justice system unleashed a storm of controversy in the

South African print news media (Mason, 2008). The study

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will contribute to the field by examining the debates that

followed in the print news media through the central

question to be addressed: What agenda-setting role did the Lady

Justice cartoons play in selected print news media in Gauteng between 24

August 2008 and 31 December 2008?

A preliminary informal observational study by the

researcher indicated a correlation between the publication

of the cartoon and increased public debate about the

relevant political issues, personalities and the role of

political cartoons themselves. This study will determine

the exact manifestation of the agenda-setting that

occurred in this instance.

The central research question will be addressed through

the following sub-questions:

1. Have Zapiro’s political cartoons (as printed in the

Sunday Times on 7 September 2008 and Mail & Guardian on 12

September 2008) set the media political agendas, as

reflected in editorials, columns and leading print

news stories?

2. Did these political cartoons stimulate debate in

selected print news media between 7 September 2008

and 31 December 2008?

3. What was the nature of the content of the debate in



15

3. An overview of the study

3.1Literature review

For centuries it has been acknowledged as a necessary

characteristic of civilisation that there should be a

space set aside for jokesters to poke fun at the

embarrassing under-achievement of kings, queens,

pontiffs and politicians. In recent times, the jester’s

space has been a bustling thoroughfare. (Mason,

2008:54. Rhodes Journalism Review)

In order for the study to explore the role of the

political cartoonist in the South African context, we need

to look at the development of political cartooning

globally, and then apply this to a South African context.

The study will then focus specifically on Zapiro’s two

cartoons that appeared in the Sunday Times (7 September 2008)

and the Mail & Guardian (12 September 2008) because of their

perceived controversial nature and effects they had the

political print news media agenda. According to the ANC,

SACP and the ANC Youth League “Zapiro has gone off the

mark and he needs to be reminded of the basic tenets of

press freedom for which insult and defamation are not

counted amongst them” (Van Hoorn, 2008).

The political cartoon artist uses caricature as one of

his/her weapons to illustrate an event, individual, an

idea or an ideology. Political cartoons have a rich

history (which will be explored in more detail in the

dissertation): they have their roots in the powerful art

of satirists like Thomas Nast, who created familiar icons

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such as Uncle Sam, who represented the United States

(Marschall, 1999; Vernon, 2000; Katz, 2004). Various

international studies have looked at the role of political

cartoons and their licence to mock the individuals and

ideologies (Manning & Phiddian, 2004; Conners, 2007;

Townsend, McDonald & Esders, 2008). However, for the

purpose of this study the focus will fall solely on the

South African political cartoons.

Chapter Two outlines the history of cartooning in South

Africa. Political cartoons did not begin to appear before

the last quarter of the century, and these cartoons were

influenced by the colonialism and imperialism that were

political imperatives in South Africa at the time. During

the first half of the twentieth century, the Anglo-Boer

War set the tone for the cartoons of the time. The second

half of the twentieth century saw the birth of apartheid,

and the cartoons changed to reflect an Afrikaner

nationalism. In the final decade of apartheid, the

political cartoons illustrated how the South African

government was juggling white dominance, black aspiration

and international disgust at the apartheid policies

(Vernon, 2000).

It is during this time that Zapiro’s first political

cartoon was published in 1985 in the Weekly Mail, depicting

PW Botha with his finger as a smoking gun. A second

important creation of Zapiro was his 1987 UDF (United

Democratic Front) calendar poster. The cartoon illustrates

an optimistic revolutionary spirit and celebrates the fact

17

that ordinary people could defy the apartheid government.

The cartoon was strewn with messages, but a key one was

“Free Mandela” (Nyamnojoh, 2000; Wasserman, 2005; Zapiro,

2009). These examples show that Zapiro has always been at

the forefront of creating debates through his cartoons.

The study will build on recent literature on Zapiro’s work

and the influence of his work on the print media in South

Africa, and will draw on agenda-setting theory.


The third chapter presents an in-depth discussion of the

chosen theoretical framework for the study. The agenda-

setting theory emerges from communication studies and

focuses on mass media influence on setting a political

agenda, as articulated in the seminal article by Shaw and

McCombs (1972). They argued that the content analysis of a

local US election documented a high correlation between

media agenda and the public agenda (Wanta & Miller, 1996;

Garson, 2006). According to this theory, the media

audiences accept guidance from media for determining what

information is most important and worthy of attention

(Graber, 1984). The study will look at Zapiro’s Lady

Justice cartoons to determine if his cartoons guided the

print news media in South Africa in identifying and

framing important issues of public debate during the

second half of 2008.

The basic assumption of the agenda-setting theory is that

whether consciously or unconsciously, the media create a

particular image of reality; they confront the readers on

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a daily basis with issues on which they place salience

(Fourie, 2004). The political cartoon artist uses humour

or satire to place certain issues in the foreground very

much in the same way the media confront the readers on a

daily basis.

There are two levels of agenda-setting. The first

establishes the general issues that are important, and the

second determines the parts or aspects of those issues

that are important. The second level is as important as

the first, because it frames the issues that constitute

the public or media agendas (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008).

The agenda-setting function is a three-part process.

Firstly, it prioritises the issues to be discussed in the

media, or media agenda. Secondly, the media agenda

interacts with what the public thinks, creating the public

agenda. Lastly, the public agenda affects what

policymakers consider important, called the policy agenda

(Shaw & McCombs, 1972; Kosicki, 1993; Sheafer, 2007;

Littlejohn & Foss, 2008). This dissertation will focus on

the classic agenda-setting function, which predicts that

the media agenda-setting function influences the public

agenda (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008).

A number of studies have demonstrated that there is a

dimension of powerful media effects that goes beyond

agenda-setting. Lyengar, Peters and Kinder (1982) first

identified this added dimension as the ‘priming effect’

(Morgan, 2009). Priming is “the process in which the media

attend to some issues and not others and thereby alter the

19

standards by which people evaluate (issues)” (Severin &

Tankard, 1997:52). The theory is founded on the assumption

that people do not have enough knowledge about political

matters and do not take into account all of what they do

know when making political decisions. Through drawing

attention to some aspects of politics at the expense of

others, the media might help to set the terms by which

political judgements are reached, including evaluation of

political figures (Alger, 1989; Morgan, 2009). The time

frame in which Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons appeared

also needs to be taken into consideration: September 2008

was the build-up to the 2009 general election and

therefore the timing is of particular importance in

analysing the effect on political commentary. Fourie

(2004) emphasises the use of the agenda-setting theory

during election times in order to prioritise certain

topics over others.

The media attention given to certain issues, such as the

Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons, influences the rank order

of public awareness, and contributes to the significance

of these issues (McQuail, 1994). It is this priming of

perspectives that subsequently guides the public’s

opinions about public figures (McCombs, 2002; Morgan,

2009). According to Fourie (2004), the agenda-setting

function of the media focuses on what topics the media

present to an audience and secondly on how information on

the selected topics is presented. The study will examine

whether Zapiro’s cartoons fall into the agenda-setting’s

priming function of putting forward the issues of the day.

20

It relates to the dynamics of news coverage: the spectrum

of viewpoints, symbols and questions selected to construct

news items and how they are ranked or prioritised (Fourie,

2004). This may be determined by the amount of publicity

given to the cartoons, and the issues raised.

As Cohen (cited by Shaw & McCombs, 1972:177) states,

agenda-setting theory illustrates that “the mass media may

not be successful in telling us what to think, but they

are stunningly successful in telling us what to think

about”.

3.3. Methodology

This study will make use of qualitative and quantitative

content analysis in order to analyse the agenda-setting

function of the Lady Justice cartoons from 24 August 2008

to 31 December 2008.

The researcher used Newsclipping Services (a company that

sorts and collates media articles) to garner articles from

selected English and Afrikaans newspapers in Gauteng. The

newspapers chosen represent some of the media houses in

South Africa. The researcher chose one newspaper from each

media house: see Chapter Four, section 3.1: Steps in the

quantitative content analysis research for a breakdown.

Therefore there should be a range of editorial and public

views on the debate. The newspapers have not been chosen

according to circulation, but purely according to media

houses. The Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian newspapers are not

be included in this sample group, because they are seen as

the ‘source’. The sample group will use only Gauteng

21

regional newspapers, because although the province is the

smallest in geographical terms, 21.5% of South Africa’s

population lives in Gauteng, and it produces 33.3% of

South Africa’s GDP (Koenderman, 2009). The articles were

clipped from 24 August 2008 to 31 December 2008.

Quantitative content analysis is used to establish the

frequency of the articles dealing with the Lady Justice

cartoons, where the dependent variable (X) is time and the

independent variable (Y) the key words (‘Zapiro’, ‘Jacob

Zuma’, ‘ANC’, ‘Rape’ and ‘Cartoon’) as listed by the Mail &

Guardian Online system to code the information for the study.

The Mail & Guardian Online system was used because it is

regarded as the ‘source’ deferential boundaries.

Qualitative content analysis is used to establish the

nature of the agenda-setting relationship between Zapiro’s

Lady Justice cartoons and the collected newsprint

articles. The researcher uses content analysis to

establish the key issues that were highlighted in the

print news media. This is done through a thematic

analysis, whereby central arguments raised by the analysis

of the cartoons are identified and used to analyse the

agenda-setting aspects of the cartoons.

The point of departure of this dissertation is that media

content is not reality itself, but a representation and an

imitation of reality. In these representations, signs and

codes are combined in a structured way to convey the

specific meanings the political cartoon artist wishes to

communicate about reality (Larsen, 2008).

22


This study makes use of quantitative content analysis to

enhance overall reliability and validity. It also makes

use of a coding system which will enhance the objectivity

of the research method used in the study. It makes the

distinctions explicit and public, so that other

researchers can use the same procedure. The researcher

used a coding system and a second coder to increase the

reliability of the study. The coding system comprises: (a)

definitions of units of material to be analysed, (b)

categories or dimensions of classification (Smith, 2000).

There are different types of validity; however, this study

will specifically use construct validity. This type of validity

is determined by content-related and criterion-related

evidence (Du Plooy, 2008). It “involves relating a

measuring instrument to some overall theoretic framework

to ensure that the measurement is actually logically

related to other concepts in the framework” (Wimmer &

Dominick, 1997:56).

Since aspects of this study are qualitative, results may

not generalisable to other studies and may be grounded in

subjective reasoning.

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Chapter Two History and role of political

cartoons in the jester space

Contents

27. A history of the global context

28. The South African context




29. Post-apartheid cartoons






30. Conclusion

24

For centuries it has been acknowledged as a necessary

characteristic of civilisation that there should be a

space set aside for jokesters to poke fun at the

embarrassing under-achievement of kings, queens,

pontiffs and politicians. In recent times, the jester’s

space has been a bustling thoroughfare. (Mason,

2008:54. Rhodes Journalism Review)

In order for the study to explore what agenda-setting role

Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons played in selected print

news media in Gauteng, it is necessary to look at the

development of political cartooning globally, and then to

apply the development in a South African context. This

chapter will investigate the history and initial role of

the political cartoonist and how the role of the

cartoonist has changed.

1. A history of the global context Political cartoons are for the most part composed of two

elements: caricature, which parodies the individual, and

allusion, which creates the situation or context in which

the individual is placed (Gombrich, 1985; Vernon, 2000).

Caricature, as a Western discipline, goes back to Leonardo

da Vinci's artistic explorations of "the ideal type of

deformity" – the grotesque – which he used to better

understand the concept of ideal beauty (Hoffmann, 1957, as

cited by Thorn, 2009, in a research paper). The first true

caricatures are credited to the Bolognese painter,

Agostino Carracci, with his sketch of "A Captain of Pope

25

Urban VIII" (figure 1) in the late sixteenth century. The

caricature is representative of the new genre in that it

is a quick, impressionistic drawing that exaggerates

prominent physical characteristics to humorous effect. At

its best, it brings out the subject's inner self in a kind

of satire: the example presented here seems to be a

comment on some facet of the Captain's masculinity

(Hoffmann, 1957, as cited by Thorn, 2009; Vernon, 2000).

Cartoons of a more editorial nature developed during the

Reformation in Germany (1517). The Protestant Reformation

made extensive use of visual propaganda; the success of

both Martin Luther's socio-religious reforms and the

discipline of political cartooning depended on a level of

civilisation neither too primitive nor too advanced. A

merchant class had emerged to occupy positions of

leadership within the growing villages and towns, which

meant that a core of people existed who would respond to

Luther's invectives and be economically capable of

resisting the all-powerful Catholic Church (Thorn, 2009).

As regards the physical requirements of graphic art, both

woodcutting and metal engraving had become established

Figure 1: A Captain of Pope Urban VIII: (Source:

Web Gallery of Art)

26

trades, with many artists and draughtsmen sympathetic to

the cause. Finally, the factor which probably influenced

the rise of cartoons more than any other cultural

condition was the high illiteracy rate. Luther recognised

that the support of an increasingly powerful middle class

was crucial to the success of his reforms, but in order to

lead a truly popular movement he would need the sheer

weight in numbers of the peasantry, who were unable to

read (Shikes, 1969). It can be argued that Luther

understood the process of mass communication, in that he

made every effort during the replication process and the

dissemination of information to expand knowledge to the

masses, who were previously unable to access it.

At the same time, Lutheran artists in Wittenberg and

Nuremberg anonymously produced dozens of broadsheets and

pamphlets satirising the pope, clergy and many Catholic

beliefs. Lucas Cranach illustrated for a small picture

book Passional Christi und Antichristi (Wittenberg, 1521), comparing

the passion of Christ with that of the Antichrist, the

pope. Using visual antithesis, thirteen pairs of woodcuts

clearly distinguish their respective behaviour (Kern &

Marx, 1996). An example is shown below in Figure 2.

27

Figure 2: “Passional Christi und Antichristi” by Lucas Cranach

(Source: Web Gallery of Art1)

Political caricatures intended for wide distribution

originated in England about the mid-18th century.

Caricatures and cartoons existed for a long time side by

side, but separately. It was the English nobleman, George,

Marquess of Townsend (1724-1807), who combined these two

to publicly criticise his political opponents (Vernon,

2000). During this time in England, the three most

important caricaturists included the painter and engraver

1 The two pictures clearly intend to raise public consciousness by

illustrating the premise that changes must be made within the Church

for life to ever become more Christlike. "Passional Christi und

Antichristi" also demonstrates the artist's use of the second element

of political cartoons – the context of a widely-recognized story or

setting – to get his point across (Kern & Marx, 1996).

28

William Hogarth (1697-1764), perhaps the greatest of all

English pictorial satirists, who caricatured the

absurdities of social customs and the corruption of morals

of the Londoners of his day (Hallett, 1999; Oliphant,

2005). Hogarth began to produce daily cartoons featuring

the scandals of the nobility, fights between political

factions, and love affairs of virtually anyone in the

public eye (Vernon, 2000). Hogarth’s Gin Lane (Figure 3)

and Beer Street (Figure 4) represent his graphic lecture

on the evils of drinking that he believed inspired

violence and indecency through careless inebriation: a

gin-sodden mother is oblivious to her child's fall, and

sits with her breasts exposed. The underpinning message is

that addiction to spirits leads to negligence, poverty and

death. It has been argued that no modern copywriter could

produce a more persuasive argument than Hogarth’s two

illustrations (Hallett, 1999).

29

Figure 3: William Hogarth: Gin Lane (1751). (Source: Spectacle of

difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth, p. 109)

30

Figure 4: William Hogarth: Beer Lane (1751). (Source: Spectacle of

difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth, p. 109)

The second important caricaturist was the engraver Thomas

Rowlandson (1756-1827), who ridiculed the ludicrous

behaviour of such types as the aristocrat and the pedant;2

and, lastly, the illustrator James Gillray (1757-1815),

who comically pictured the public characters of his day

with fantastic costumes and enormous heads, such as his

portrayal of King George III as a jolly yeoman3 – at that

time it was more a mocking comment on the monarch’s

limited intellectual capacity (Vernon, 2000). It is during

this time that major developments in producing prints

occurred. The invention of the lithographic method4 of

printing in 1797 by Senefelder made large-scale

reproduction of cartoonists’ work possible and in

consequence opened up their art to a much wider audience

(Vernon, 2000).

The launch of Punch magazine in 1841 represented a landmark

for political carton artisists (Vernon, 2000; Hiley,

2009). The weekly magazine’s primary focus was the

dissemination of humour and satire, and it laid the

foundation for the political cartooning we have today

2 A person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning.3 A yeoman is historically a servant in a royal or noble household, ranking between a sergeant and a groom or a squire and a page.4 It is a method for printing using a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by Bavarian author Alois Senefelder as a low-cost method of publishing theatrical works. Lithography can be used to print text or artwork onto paper or another suitable material.

31

(Vernon, 2000). Punch ran from 1841 and was very

successful for over a century. By the late 1980s, however,

circulation had dropped to a low level, and three editors

in three years failed to arrest the decline. Punch was

eventually closed in 2002 (Hiley, 2009). As a very British

institution with an international reputation for its witty

and irreverent take on the world, it published the work of

some of the greatest comic artists. Its political cartoons

swayed governments, while its social cartoons captured

life in the 19th and 20th centuries. Arguably, some of the

world’s finest cartoonists appeared in Punch (Vernon,

2000; Hiley, 2009).

Figure 5: Final Edition of Punch magazine (1841–2002) (Source:

Punch.co.uk.)

32

2. The South African Context

Political cartoons did not begin to appear before the last

quarter of the nineteenth century in South Africa, and

were mostly influenced by colonialism and imperialism,

which were the political imperatives at the time. It is

possible to divide South African cartooning according to

the political ideologies that influenced its history.

Cartoon subject matter can thus be divided into three

distinct phases: (1) colonial influences; (2) apartheid;

and (3) post-apartheid cartooning. According to Mason

(2009:249), before 1990 South African cartoonists gave

expression to the “self versus the other” ideologies of a

society at war with itself. Hence, one finds that

political cartooning in apartheid was sombre, darkly

satirical and obsessively focused on the country’s

political crisis. The political cartooning in the post-

apartheid era, on the other hand, is light, lively and

expresses the concerns of a young democracy critical of

itself, and struggling to come to terms with the country’s

diversity.

This chapter will now discuss each phase so as to provide

a thorough background to the study.


George Cruikshank played an important role in the history

of South African cartooning because of his 1820 settler

cartoons, published by T. Tegg of Cheapside, London, on 7

September 1819 (Mason, 2010). One of these cartoons,

33

“Blessings of Emigration to the Cape”, graphically

demonstrates the scepticism with which the British public

viewed the prospects of settlement in the Cape.

Figure 6: George Cruikshank’s Blessings of Emigration to the Cape

(Source: Mason, 2010:14)

His cartoon is a fine example of how cartooning often lays

bare the ideological underpinnings of a historical moment,

providing information about prevailing attitudes.

According to Mason (2009), it is unlike Cruikshank to have

criticised the British government: it was more his

intention to discourage the settlement of British people

in what was perceived to be a dangerous and barbaric land.

However, the interpretation of the cartoon is dependent on

the reader’s historical or political context. Whereas the

British of that time would have seen it as presenting

South Africa as a barbaric country, contemporary South

34

Africans readers would see it as a racist depiction of the

local population. Mason (2010) argues that Cruikshank’s

cartoon drew attention to some of the real fears that

existed among the British population of that time who saw

the Cape as a place that was swarming with monstrous man-

eating savages.

Cruikshank’s cartoon also demonstrates the continuity

between the great British satirical tradition of Hogarth

and Gillray, and the origins of South African cartooning,

which builds on the satirical foundations that were

established by the British caricaturists.

In South Africa, political cartoons did not begin to

appear before the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

The Zingari (1870) published the first true South African

political cartoons in papers such as the The Lantern (1877),

and The Observer (1879) was quick to follow. These cartoons

were influenced by the colonialism and imperialism that

were political imperatives in South Africa at the time.

These newspapers pioneered the use of cartoons to get

their message across to a largely uneducated audience

(Vernon, 2000).

Based in Cape Town, The Zingari, founded by the Englishman

CJM Smith in 1870, was the first South African newspaper

to employ a full-time cartoonist, William Schroder, and to

print cartoons on a regular basis. From around 1880 until

his death in 1892, William Schroder dominated South

35

African cartooning. His work highlighted the theme of

conflicted identity, which was to be a feature of South

African cartooning for the next century (Vernon, 2000;

Mason, 2009). His work appeared predominantly in English-

language publications, but, interestingly, he supported

the Afrikaner cause. His cartoon of the Transvaal

president, Paul Kruger, printed in The Lantern in 1887

(figure 7) illustrates the hopelessness of Paul Kruger’s

position (mopping away the tide of ‘progress and unity’),

but, on the other hand, the cartoon illustrates Schroder’s

sympathy with him – Kruger’s hand across his brow (Vernon,

2000; Mason, 2009).

Figure 7: Schroder’s cartoon: Paul Kruger: The Lantern (Source:

Vernon, 2000:21)

36

Vernon (2000:22) claims that Schroder, being South

African-born, had a distinct advantage over the British-

dominated industry at that time. His strength lay in the

imagery he was able to bring to bear on this subject and

the subtlety with which he was able to convey that

intangible feeling of ‘life’ in his work.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the Anglo-

Boer War (1899-1902) set the tone for the newspaper, and

so the English-Afrikaner relationship was reflected in the

cartoons of the time. English-speaking readers

traditionally viewed the Afrikaans papers as conservative

and racist, while the Afrikaans readers perceived the

English press to be dangerously liberal and subversive

(Mason, 2009). At this time, many small papers closed, but

immediately after the war, two papers that had a profound

effect on the South African political and journalistic

world, Transvaal Leader and the Rand Daily Mail, with its sister

paper the Sunday Times, were established (Vernon, 2000).

In 1903, the South African News, which was seen as a Boer-

supporting, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist

newspaper, announced that it would hire a full-time

cartoonist – Daniel Boonzaier. He stamped his influence on

the history of the South African cartooning with the

creation of a character who was to become a lasting symbol

on the South African political stage – the arch-capitalist

‘randlord’ Hoggenheimer (Figure 8). The character

Hoggenheimer has been described as the first truly South

37

African symbolic stereotype (Mason, 2009). According to

Vernon (2000), Boonzaier managed, with Hoggenheimer, to

condense into one readily identifiable symbol a complex

combination of feelings, concepts and political beliefs

held by both urban white labour and rural Afrikaners

dispossessed of their land. Both these groups felt they

had been cheated and were being exploited. Hoggenheimer

represented the class that was doing this to them, and he

was an overnight success.

Figure 8: Boonzaier’s cartoon of Hoggenheimer (Source: Vernon,

2000:27)

In this first cartoon Hoggenheimer addressed an issue that

was to haunt South Africa for the next 20 years: the cost

of labour to the gold mines of South Africa. Conflicts

38

between labour and government, between black and white

workers, and between white and Chinese imported labour was

to dominate South Africa and lead the country to the brink

of civil war. Through it all Hoggenheimer stalked with

supreme arrogance and self-interest, making and breaking

politicians, businessmen and works alike (Vernon,

2000:27).

Given the context of cartooning in the country, it is

worthwhile noting that most of the cartoonists who worked

in South Africa up until this time were foreigners and had

spent relatively little time in the country before either

moving on or returning ‘home’. Holland was no different,

and returned to Britain in 1911.

In 1907, The Star employed cartoonist Frank Holland from

Britain for two reasons. Firstly, the paper was in

financial trouble and felt it needed to upgrade the

paper’s appeal; secondly, Holland was brought in to try to

gain support for the leading ‘imperialist’ party of the

English-speakers (Progressive Party) in the 1907 election.

His cartoons showed a sophisticated sense of political

imagery that marked him as one of the leading cartoonists

of the era.

The newspaper had a close relationship with the mining

industry and it showed in Holland’s cartoons, as in figure

9 “The miner’s friend”. The cartoon clearly spelled out

the consequences of that time – attack the mining industry

39

and you will find yourself on your own. Holland used hats

in his cartoons to label people: in figure 9 the working-

class cap worn by the miner clearly labels him as a honest

and simple working-class man, and is in direct opposition

to the flashy hat worn by the ‘agitator’, who is not to be

trusted (Vernon, 2000).

Figure 9: Frank Holland’s cartoon of the mining industry (Source:

Vernon, 2000:36)

In South Africa in 1914, the print media was still

essentially an English-language monopoly. This tendency

often led to the cartoonists selling their work to the

highest bidder, irrespective of the ideological content of

the message. Despite this, it is during this time that the

newspaper industry saw a growth in Afrikaans-language

40

newspapers, and 1915 can be marked as an important date in

South African press history.

In 1915, De Burger (Die Burger) was launched as the mouthpiece

for Hertzog’s newly formed National Party (NP). Boonzaier

joined De Burger and set about creating cartoons that

touched the heart of the concerns of the Afrikaner –

powerful yet simple statements that stuck a chord in the

hearts of ‘his’ people (Vernon, 2000). According to Mason

(2009), Boonzaier laid the foundation for Afrikaans

cartooning. Boonzaier in an interview (source unknown)

summarised the role of a political cartoonist:

You can answer an argument with a counter argument, but

a cartoon is a joke – this makes people laugh at you –

and there is no answer to that.

(Vernon, 2000:53)

In a similar vein, Zapiro said in an interview with Thomas

Koelble and Steven Robins (2007) that readers value the

‘poetic licence’ afforded to an editorial cartoon artist –

to confront the most powerful people in society and ‘knock

them off their pedestal’ (Shapiro, 1998). Mason (2008)

builds on this by referring to the ‘Jester's Space’: the

space given to cartoonists to do their satirical work.

This is the space where cartoonists "let off the steam

that builds up in society's pressure cooker” (Mason,

2008:55).

41

Most of Boonzaier’s cartoons were aimed at the South

African Prime Minister, General Louis Botha, a man he saw

as having betrayed his people by selling out to the

British. In his book Penpricks – the drawing of South Africa’s political

battlelines, Vernon (2000) said that the pain and sorrow

caused by these pictorial attacks, as well as the stress

induced by trying to answer the unanswerable, was at least

partially responsible for breaking Botha’s health, and for

many years Boonzaier was referred to as the ‘man who

killed Botha’.

Boonzaier variously portrayed General Louis Botha, whom he

hated with a passion, as a servile lackey of British

imperialism, as an expedient political chameleon, and as

an obese idol, as illustrated in figure 10 (Mason, 2010).

42

Figure 10: Boonzaier’s cartoon of General Louis Botha (Source: Mason,

2010:48)


The second half of the twentieth century saw the birth of

apartheid, and cartoons began to move from reflecting an

Afrikaner nation developing from a war-weary and defeated

people to a heightened sense of Afrikaner nationalism

(Vernon, 2000).

The most important development for the press took place in

1950, when the then government forced restrictive

legislation on the print media, with the main focus on

newspapers. The government set up a commission to inquire

into various aspects of the press: its ownership and

control; the activities of the foreign press corps in the

country; and the responsibility, accuracy and patriotism

of the local press corps (Vernon, 2000). It was apparent

to them that the liberal English newspaper cartoonists of

the mid-century period were less comfortably located

within the ideological milieu than their Afrikaans

counterparts (Mason, 2009). The commission was little more

than a witch-hunt against the English press and foreign

journalists, both of which the government perceived as

being against its policies (Vernon, 2000).

A second factor that affected the press during this period

was the systematic suppression of apartheid laws

43

themselves, which prevented the press from carrying out

its watchdog function, and in many cases actively

constrained reporting on a wide range of issues. Such

restrictions, the government claimed, were justified under

the need for ‘state security’. Notably though, the

cartooning world was largely unaffected by the apartheid

laws, with Abe Berry, Bob Connolly, John Jackson, David

Marais, Jock Leyden and Len Sak all producing fine

examples of biting satire rooted in anger at the apartheid

government from the 1950s to 1970s (Mason, 2009).

The main themes of the cartoons in the 1960s onwards were

the relationship between the press and the Afrikaner

Nationalist government. In the final decade of apartheid,

political cartoons illustrated how the South African

government was juggling white dominance, black aspiration

and international disgust at apartheid policies (Vernon,

2000).

In his 2009 article “Ten Years After: South African

Cartooning and the Politics of Liberation”, Mason

commented that Jock Leyden provided many classic

expressions of the liberal dilemma, a good example being

his cartoon on the famous “Winds of Change” speech by

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (Figure 11).

Leyden shows in his cartoon how the Rhodesian Prime

Minister Roy Welensky hoses his thatched roof down in a

vain attempt to protect it against the fiery blaze of

African nationalism sweeping down from the Congo, while

44

below him, at the southern tip of Africa, the architect of

grand apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, suns himself

unconcernedly outside his Cape Dutch house. Leyden’s

cartoon was intended as a clear warning to white South

Africans, a warning that proved to be very prescient.

Figure 11: Leyden cartoon: Winds of change in the Daily News, 1960

(Source: Vernon, 2000:108)

Meanwhile in the Afrikaans press, cartoonists such as Eric

Thamm at Die Transvaler simply reflected the policies of the

Nationalist government, with Thamm’s work in particular

containing distinctly racist elements (Figure 12) (Mason:

2009).

In his cartoon “Vlinder in die woud” (Butterfly in the forest)

(Figure 12), Thamm reveals a great deal about the mindset

of white South Africans with regard to Africans. The

45

cartoon shows a wide-eyed African youth, with the outsized

lips and blank look given to most Africans in Thamm’s

drawings, wandering through a jungle. In his net he has

caught the butterfly of independence (onafhanklikheid).

‘Ah, ek het hom’ (Ah, I’ve got it), he says innocently,

but in his youthful ignorance he does not see the dangers

that abound around him; the leopard of economic problems,

the snake of communism, the crocodile of civil strife, the

gorilla of ignorance. The caption beneath the cartoon

simply notes that in the coming year several African

states will become independent. However, it is in the

title that the real message of the cartoon is

encapsulated. “Butterfly in the forest” implies a lack of

understanding or ability to cope with the situation. This

is the subliminal message of the cartoon: that without the

white man to guide them, the newly independent African

states will not be able to cope. It reflects a

paternalistic approach, rather than one of antagonism, but

nevertheless it is just as demeaning (Vernon, 2000).

46

Figure 12: Eric Thamm’s cartoon: “Vlinder in die woud” as published in

Die Transvaler, 1960 (Source: Vernon, 2000:104)

A futher shift came in the 1970s, which saw the arrival of

a new generation of young cartoonists. They were street

smart and politically more educated, and their work

produced political satirical comment that had been missing

for decades. This new generation moved away from attacking

the National Party on pure party politics and instead

attacked the party on its real weaknesses, that of human

and civil rights. Dave Anderson was at the forefront of

setting this new trend in political cartooning (Vernon,

2000).

Dave Anderson’s editorial cartooning evocatively captured

the politically charged atmosphere of the mid-1980s. In

1982, in a manner reminiscent of Leyden’s 1960 ‘Winds of

47

Change’ cartoon, Dave Anderson portrayed the isolation of

South Africa’s white electorate, whose easy life was about

to change because of the tornado of unemployment, housing

crisis, hunger and the unrest (Figure 13) (Mason, 2009).

Figure 13 Dave Anderson: Evening Post 1982 (Source: Vernon, 2000:147)

The cartoon shows Anderson’s ability to distil the essence

of the issues, and raised other questions: do the middle

classes not deserve what is coming to them? This argument

is based on the assumption that they were mostly likely to

be voting for the Nationalists, the cause of the twister.

The caption lifted this cartoon to new levels of

excellence: it is a fine example of biting satire rooted

in the angry sentiment of that time in South Africa

(Vernon, 2000).

48


In the context of resistance cartooning in South Africa,

Dov Fedler’s importance lies in his consistent outrage at

white bourgeois South African society. It is clearly

expressed in his work, but it is less the viewpoint of a

political group intent on maintaining power than an

expression of the thoroughly modern alienation of the

individual caught up in a surreal and distorted world

(Mason, 2009).

In the severely constrained publishing environment of the

1980s, oppositional cartooning was channelled in three

main streams: the mainstream opposition press; the

alternative press (including NGO-based educational

publications); and underground comix (including cartooning

in the student press) (Mason, 2009).

The new breed of South African cartoonists came not from

the mainstream press with its long history of complicity

in the economic system that underpinned the apartheid

state, but from the newly-emergent 'alternative' press.

Berger (2000) points out that the alternative press is not

the same as the black press, as there were several

mainstream black papers.

Political cartooning in the alternative press after 1985

was characterised by more extreme forms of anti-government

satire than had previously existed in South Africa. At the

49

same time, new forms of cartoon iconography that

celebrated the transition to democracy were also founded.

Reflecting on the survival of the alternative press, Mason

(2009) points out that in many cases external donor

funding sheltered the alternative press. Freed from the

imperatives of economic sustainability, the NGO publishing

sector of the 1980s and early 1990s was allowed to become

the site of a variety of bold experiments in popular

communication for social change, including the use of

cartoons and comic strips for political education.

Unfortunately, the factors that enabled alternative

publications to survive in the turbulent last decade of

apartheid proved to be less useful in the mercenary post-

apartheid period, where the lack of business skills in

their managers and editors contributed, with one or two

notable exceptions, to their demise. The most successful

of the alternative publications, the Weekly Mail, survived by

virtue of its strategic amalgamation with the London-based

Guardian.

It was in the pages of Post (Natal) that one of the first of

South Africa’s new-generation cartoonists – and the first

non-white cartoonist to make an impact in the mainstream

opposition press – emerged. Nanda Soobben began submitting

cartoons to the Sunday Times Extra, a supplement aimed at

Indian readers, in 1975. In 1980 he began producing a

regular weekly cartoon for Post (Natal), a weekly paper that

targeted the large and politicised Indian community of the

50

Natal province (as it was then). His brief was to deal

with the ‘lighter side of news and sports’, but from his

first cartoons, the young Soobben brought a more serious

edge to his cartoons, often examining how entrenched

racism of South African life impacted on the Indian

community. In one 1980 cartoon, an Indian golfer dresses

up as a waiter so that he can collect his prize in the

racially exclusive Greytown country club, while another

(Figure 14) bemoans the fact that after 120 years in the

country, despite their achievements and contributions to

South African life, Indians were still regarded by the

state as second-class citizens (Mason, 2009).

Figure 14: Nanda Soobben. Post. 1980 (Source: Lent, 2009:270)

Soobben continued to draw for the Post until 2000, but with

several interruptions. In 1986, finding the political

51

situation intolerable, he left the country and experienced

the peripatetic life of the political exile, living in

Brazil in 1986-1987 and in the USA from 1990 to 1993.

Returning to South Africa in 1993, he resumed drawing for

the Post. In a personal interview with Johan Lent (July 11,

1996, Durban South Africa) Soobben commented how his

cartooning had changed from “powerful stuff against

apartheid [in the 1980s]. Now, I look at cartooning

differently – then, as a freedom fighter; now, as a

watchdog” (Lent, 2009: 270).

It was not until the late 1990s that Soobben’s career as

South Africa’s first mainstream black cartoonist was

resumed in earnest. In 1998 he was appointed as political

cartoonist on Durban’s newly established weekly newspaper,

Independent on Saturday, and his bold full-colour cartoons and

caricatures were prominently displayed in this paper. In

1999 he was appointed to the Daily News, making him the

first black cartoonist to be appointed to a mainstream

South African daily newspaper (Mason, 2009).

3. Post-apartheid cartooning

It was in the new weeklies, and in particular the Weekly

Mail, that the most important of South Africa’s new

cartoonists found an outlet for their work in the post-

apartheid era of cartooning. This new energy was

exemplified in the unrestrained ink-spattered cartoons of

Derek Bauer. In his work, ink often stood for blood, in

which many of his cartoons were appropriately drenched as

52

South African society began to tear itself apart. It was

Bauer, more than any other cartoonist, who captured the

disillusionment and despair of much of the country in the

early 1990s, as the euphoria of the early days of

democracy threatened to disappear under a deluge of

seemingly mindless violence.

Bauer’s cartoons contain remarkably strong images, as

illustrated in Figure 15 below. The machete symbolises the

wave of violence that threatened to completely destroy the

fragile peace talks that had commenced between the

government and the ANC in 1990, slicing neatly through the

‘peace’ dove bearing the olive branch. The only word used

in the cartoon is, the sound of the steel cutting through

flesh ‘shlink’ (Vernon, 2009).

Figure 15: Derek Bauer, Weekly Mail, 1990 (Source: Vernon, 2000:167)

53


Jonathan Shapiro, better known as Zapiro, was born in Cape

Town in 1958 and began drawing at an early age. In a 1988

autobiographical comic, Zapiro’s mother had encouraged him

to draw the monster of his dreams in an attempt to drive

them out of his dreams. As a young adult he continued to

portray the ‘monster’ politicians of the apartheid era in

his drawings (Zapiro, 2009). In an interview with Fred de

Vries (July 2009), Zapiro pointed out that the English

graphic cartoonists Ralph Steadman and Gerald Scarfe

influenced his work, and that Derek Bauer had a stylistic

influence on his early cartoons.

As a member of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s,

he exhibited a bias towards a progressive, left-liberal

conception of what political life ought to be. This sat

uncomfortably with the increasingly Africanist tendency of

South African political life.

He was drafted into the army, but refused to bear arms and

became active in 1983 in the newly formed United

Democratic Front. His work as a cartoonist began in

earnest in a wide range of political and progressive

organisations. When the newspaper South began in 1987, he

became its editorial cartoonist.

His work is currently featured in national daily and

weekly newspapers: Mail & Guardian, the Sunday Times and The

Times. His cartoons have also appeared in international

publications (Corriere della Sera and the Los Angeles Times) and he

54

or his work has been featured in everything from highbrow

newspapers to the front page of real estate advertisement

magazines (Koelble & Robins, 2007). He was editorial

cartoonist for The Sowetan from 1994 to 2005 and his

cartoons appeared in the Cape Argus between 1996 and 1997.

He has been editorial cartoonist for the Mail & Guardian

since 1994 and for the Sunday Times since 1998. Since

September 2005 his work has published three times a week

in the Cape Times, The Star, The Mercury and Pretoria News (Zapiro,

official website: 2010).

Zapiro has received the following awards acknowledging his

contributions to the public sphere as a political

cartoonist (see Figure 16 below):

2001: First cartoonist to win a category prize in the CNN

African Journalist of the Year Awards.

2003: Mondi Newspaper Award for Graphic Journalism.

2004: University of Transkei (now incorporated into Walter

Sisulu University) made him an Honorary Doctor of

Literature. Mondi Newspaper Award for Graphic Journalism.

2005: Prince Claus Fund of the Netherlands awarded him the

Principal Prince Claus Award. Honorary Sunday Times Alan

Paton Literary Award. Named Communicator of the Year by

Tshwane University of Technology's department of Public

Relations and Business Communication.

2006: First Mondi Shanduka Journalist of the Year Award.

First Vodacom Cartoonist of the Year Award.

2007: Cartoonists Rights Network (USA) awarded him its

annual Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award. First prize

in Berlin in the international Entwicklungspolitik cartoon

55

competition on Africa. Mondi Newspaper Award for Graphic

Journalism. First SA Comedy award for Best Humorous

Cartoon. Women Demand Dignity White Ribbon Award.

2008: South African Cartoonists Awards for Best Humorist

Cartoon award

2009: Mondi Shanduka Newspaper award for cartoons

Figure 16: (Source: Zapiro official website, www.zapiro.co.za; De

Vries, 2009; M&G, June 25 to July 1 2010)


Zapiro’s first political cartoon was published in the

Weekly Mail in 1985 depicting PW Botha with his finger as a

smoking gun (Figure 17 below). Botha wanted Mandela to

denounce the armed struggle but Zapiro wanted to point out

that the real violence in the country was driven by the

then apartheid government.

56

Figure 17: Zapiro, Weekly Mail, 1985 (Source: Zapiro. 2009:6)

A second important creation by Zapiro was his 1987 United

Democratic Front (UDF) calendar poster (Figure 18). The

cartoon demonstrates an optimistic revolutionary spirit

based on the reality that ordinary people could defy the

apartheid government. The cartoon was strewn with

messages, but a key one was ‘Free Mandela’ (Nyamnojoh,

2000; Wasserman, 2005; Mason, 2009; Zapiro, 2009). This

shows that Zapiro has always been at the forefront of

creating debate through his cartoons.

57

UDF Poster

Figure 18: UDF Poster (Source: Zapiro, 2008:118)

As mentioned above, in 1987 Zapiro began drawing for South,

one of the new alternative weekly newspapers linked to the

UDF, and many of the 60 or so drawings he did for South

over the next year reflected the influence of Derek Bauer.

Zapiro was giving expression to the kind of political

analysis that was representative of prevailing opinions in

the mass democratic movement, and was informed by the

close contact with informed people within it. Throughout

his career, Zapiro has assiduously maintained the opinion

base provided by these contacts. He has had frequent

recourse to advice from an extensive network of political

activists, analysts and academics, especially when

58

ideologically complex situations arise (Mason, 2009;

Zapiro, 2009).

Zapiro has said that he was fully committed to the

national liberation struggle and saw his work as an

instrument in the furtherance of the ideals of the

struggle (Koelble & Robins, 2007; Manson, 2009). Zapiro’s

early cartooning for South thus took place in a context in

which activists were prepared to expose themselves to high

levels of risk (Mason, 2009).

In 1987, partly on the basis of his political work, Zapiro

secured a Fullbright Scholarship to study at a world

famous centre of cartooning, the School of Visual Arts in

New York. In 1988, before he left for the USA, Zapiro

mounted an exhibition of his political work, entitled

“Laughter in the Belly of the Beast”, at Cape Town’s

prestigious Baxter Theatre (Mason, 2009).

Zapiro left for the USA, where he studied drawing,

etching, visual communication, comics (under Will Eisner)

and satirical cartooning (under Harvey Kurtzman). A year

later he was able to study the graphic novel under Art

Spiegelman. This personal history of commitment to the

idealistic agenda of the liberation struggle, combined

with his subsequent education at a world-renowned centre

of cartooning with some of the most famous names in the

field, molded Zapiro into a cartoonist uniquely suited to

record the drama and euphoria of South Africa's transition

59

(Pretorius, 2009; Mason, 2009).

Zapiro was in New York City when Mandela visited the

United States. He and his wife, Karina, joined the New

York Mandela Welcoming Committee. The Committee asked

Zapiro to design the official poster. In his Mandela Files,

Zapiro (2009) described his designs, using bright colour

schemes as well as a caricature of Mandela in the middle

(Figure 19). He commented on the fact that the ANC was not

ready to accept the use of caricature and that they

changed the original poster back into the traditional ANC

colours and a photo of Mandela (Figure 20). This was a

clear indication of Zapiro’s ability to set the trend of

how he would depict his subject matter in all his future

political cartoons, which has led to many of Zapiro’s

cartoons becoming national icons.

60

Figure 19: Original Poster to commemorate Mandela’s visit to New York

in 1990. (Source: Zapiro, 2009:16)

61

Figure 20: Final poster design approved by the ANC for Mandela’s New

York visit. (Source: Zapiro, 2009:16)

Zapiro returned to South Africa in 1991, but it would be

three years before he returned to the world of political

cartooning.

In 1994, Zapiro’s re-entry into editorial cartooning was

sudden and prolific: in February of that year he replaced

Derek Bauer at the Weekly Mail & Guardian and in July joined

the Sowetan as its daily editorial cartoonist, displacing

Len Sak. Within the year, he had established his authority

as the country’s leading political cartoonist, and since

then his work has become the benchmark against which all

cartooning activity in South Africa will be measured for

decades to come (Mason, 2009).

Zapiro recognises how important his ‘struggle credentials’

have been in securing his credibility and legitimacy

amongst the country’s emerging political elite. In a

sense, his political involvement gave him licence to

criticise powerful ANC leaders harshly when he believed

that the occasion demanded it. This licence was secured

early on, and the 1987 UDF poster illustration is very

important in this respect, because its messages were

directed not so much at the state, or at the myopic white

electorate at large, but at the democratic movement

itself. One of the cartoon’s key messages is that of non-

racialism, from which the need to secure recognition for

62

the role played by white activists in South Africa’s

political struggle is based (Mason, 2009).


Since 1983, his work has touched upon the history of

oppression, the reactions of those in and now out of

power, and, in more recent years, on the issues that arise

from the ‘underbelly’ of the liberation movement. He has

brutally caricatured the foibles of the liberation

movement’s leaders, be it their AIDS denialism, individual

cases of corruption or the hypocrisy of ethnic or racial

mobilisation in the context of the new non-racial

dispensation. His particular wrath is directed at African

National Congress (ANC) figures who have, in his view,

defiled the principles of the liberation movement.

Zapiro’s changing approach is well illustrated in the

contrast between his treatment of the two presidents –

Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. Zapiro imbued Mandela with

saintly qualities, showing him walking on water and

performing other miraculous acts. His iconic caricature of

Mandela – expanded cheeks, huge smile, heavily lidded eyes

and jaunty ‘Madiba jive’ stance (Figure 21) – became a

symbol of the transition with which all South Africans

could identify.

63

Figure 21: Zapiro (Source: Zapiro, 2009:167)

By contrast, Mbeki was presented as a worried-looking

technocrat with the new nation’s expectations weighing

heavily upon him. On the cover of Zapiro’s third book,

Mbeki was presented as ‘Mr Delivery’, his delivery scooter

piled high with houses, schools, clinics and and other

icons representing the country’s dire infrastructural

needs (Figure 22).

64

Figure 22: Thabo Mbeki (Source: Zapiro, 2009:148)

More recently Zapiro has busied himself with a series of

cartoons depicting the trials and tribulations of the

former deputy president and leader of the ANC, Jacob Zuma,

during 2007/2008. During an interview for a research

paper, Thomas Koelble, from the University of Cape Town,

and Steven Robins, from the University of Stellenbosch

(2007:318), posed the following question to Zapiro:

You’ve stated in several of your cartoons that Jacob

Zuma has become almost an “obsession” to you. You have

certainly portrayed him in the most unflattering

manner. Are you not concerned that your cartoons have

gone “overboard”? After all, Zuma was pronounced not

guilty of rape and he may get off on the corruption

charges as well. What is your view on such a negative

65

characterization and do you think it plays well with

the wider public?

Zapiro’s answer: To a huge extent, politics is about

image. The image a person has of her/himself is

different than the image presented to the public by

utterance and actions. My unflattering portrayal of

Jacob Zuma is entirely based on actual quotations of

his where he has said outlandish, chauvinistic, and

ignorant things about Aids, women, and the rule of law,

amongst other things. As a cartoonist and therefore a

commentator, I don’t have to hold back if I feel

strongly about these things, which I do.

5

5 This cartoon captures the anger felt by many that Zuma got off very

lightly and that he had destroyed his own reputation through his

testimony rather than any court action against him. The machine gun

alludes to Zuma having sung his liberation song (Umshini Wami) about

66

Figure 23: Jacob Zuma: The cartoon depicts Zuma’s exit from the High

Court after having been found “not guilty” on rape charges (Source: Mail

& Guardian, January: 2008)


As editorial cartoonist for the mass circulation black

daily newspaper, The Sowetan, the intellectual, left-leaning

weekly, Mail & Guardian, and the mass circulation weekly,

Sunday Times, Zapiro was the first South African political

cartoonist to draw for an audience that could in any way

be described as 'national'. His ability to communicate

with readers across the social and political spectrum

speaks not only of his personal genius, but also of South

Africa's profound transformation from an embattled and

fragmented society to a unitary nation (Mason, 2009).

After a decade of cartooning Zapiro has become a leading

South African opinion former in his own right (Mason,

2009). Zapiro uses elements from legend or classical

literature to make the point that knowledge of these

intertexts is essential for the intended meaning of the

cartoons to be understood and in order to bring about a

change of opinion among readers (Wasserman, 2005). Zapiro

does not merely visually reflect the events of the day orhis ‘machine gun’ to his supporters. The gun fires sperm bullets and

is aimed at short skirts; the baby oil is ready for massaging any

willing female; the showerhead refers to his having ‘reduced’ the risk

of HIV through taking a shower after having had unprotected sex. All

this is cloaked in the “Zuma Culture” and membership of the Communist

Party (Koelble & Robins, 2007).

67

dominant debates, but shapes them and often steers the

debates in a new direction.

Within five years of the transition, Zapiro had abandoned

his role as a political activist in service of the

liberation struggle and reclaimed the cartoonist's

prerogative to occupy the moral high ground against the

political pressures that might conspire to lure him from

it. But it is not an easy position. The problems facing

the country are complex and the solutions are seldom

obvious. Zapiro continues to consult regularly with a

range of analysts and opinion formers as he makes his way

through the daily minefield of political analysis, aware

that a wrong call is difficult to remedy after the fact.

The depth of his research and monitoring of the ongoing

political situation in South Africa and further afield is

impressive – some would say awesome – and as a cartoonist

he has the privilege of always being able to take the

correct ethical position, something that politicians are

often unable to do (Mason, 2009).


In order to understand the context of the Lady Justice

cartoons, as published in The Sunday Times on 7 September

2008, and in the Mail & Guardian on 12 September 2008, it is

important to look at Jacob Zuma’s personal history and a

few of his clashes with the South African justice system.

In essence the cartoon is based on two key legal

allegations.

68

In the first clash with the South African justice system,

Jacob Zuma was charged with multiple counts of

racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering (CNN,

2008). Zuma and his supporters were enraged by these

allegations.

They believed (and continue to believe) that Zuma had been

unlawfully accused to stop his bid for the presidency of

the country (CNN, 2008). There were mass protests by his

followers (including the ANC Youth League, the South

African Communist Party and the Congress of South African

Trade Unions (Cosatu)) throughout South Africa. The

multiple threats of violence by them were an attempt to

coerce the courts and the authorities into dropping the

charges against him. ANC Youth League president Julius

Malema said during a youth rally in July 2008 that he was

“prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma”, and Cosatu

general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi in August 2008 echoed

Malema’s ‘kill for Zuma’ statement (Mkhwanazi & De Lange,

The Star, page 6, 2008).

The second was a rape allegation levelled against Jacob

Zuma when he was accused of raping a 31-year-old family

friend in his Johannesburg home on 2 November 2005 (Evans

& Wolermans, 2006). The accuser stated that Zuma took her

into his bedroom and raped her. Immediately following the

alleged rape, the accuser continued, Jacob Zuma left the

bed to take a shower. In his defence, Zuma contended that

the sex was consensual and that he took a shower to lessen

his chances of getting HIV/AIDS, since he knew the victim

69

was HIV-positive (Evans & Wolermans, 2006). This highly

controversial statement subsequently gave rise to Zuma’s

showerhead in Zapiro’s cartoons.

Zuma was found ‘not guilty’.

On Friday 12 September 2008 Judge Chris Nicholson threw

out all charges against Jacob Zuma’s corruption,

racketeering and tax evasion on a legal technicality.

Jacob Zuma was acquitted on all charges against him and

this cleared his path to the presidency of South Africa

(BBC, 2009; Bal, Pitt, Berthon & DesAutels, 2009). See the

BBC News Timeline in Figure 24 below for more detail.

June 2005

Mr Zuma's close associate Schabir Shaik found guilty of fraud

and corruption in connection with a $4.8bn arms deal.

Judge Hilary Squires said there was evidence of "a mutually

beneficial symbiosis" and that payments by Shaik to Mr Zuma

"can only have generated a sense of obligation in the

recipient".

June 2005

Sacked by President Thabo Mbeki as South Africa's deputy

president after an outcry over Shaik's conviction.

October 2005

Charged with corruption.

70

Weeks later the HIV-positive daughter of a family friend

accuses him of rape.

December 2005

Charged with rape.

February 2006

Mr Zuma goes on trial for rape. He denied the charges.

April 2006

Acquitted of rape.

But criticised in the press for his remarks about sex:

that he knew she wanted to have sex with him because she was

wearing a short traditional wrap-around.

that it was against his Zulu culture to turn down a woman.

and that he did not use a condom but took a shower to

"protect" against HIV infection.

At the time, he was head of South Africa's Aids council.

May 2006

ANC votes to reinstate him in his party duties.

September 2006

His corruption trial is struck from the court list when the

prosecution asks for yet another delay to gather evidence.

November 2007

The court of appeal opens the way for charges to be brought

again when it rules that the seizure by police of

incriminating documents from his home and office was legal.

December 2007

ANC elects him as party president ahead of Mr Mbeki in a

bitter contest, making him favourite to become South Africa's

next president after elections due in 2009.

71

Ten days later prosecutors bring new charges of corruption,

racketeering and tax evasion.

June 2008

Mr Zuma files papers to have his prosecution declared invalid

and unconstitutional.

He reveals that if the application fails he would bring a

second application for a permanent stay of prosecution.

12 September 2008

Judge Chris Nicholson declares that the prosecution was

invalid and throws out the charges on a legal technicality,

stressing this has no bearing on Mr Zuma's guilt or otherwise.

He says there was evidence of political interference – that Mr

Mbeki had colluded with prosecutors against Mr Zuma as part of

the "titanic power struggle" within the ANC.

Five days later, the National Prosecuting Authority says it

will appeal, sparking fury within the ANC.

The ANC then forces Mr Mbeki to resign as president.

October 2008

Prosecutors are given leave to appeal against the dismissal of

Mr Zuma's corruption trial.

November 2008

South Africa's ex-President Mbeki loses an attempt to quash a

ruling saying he meddled in the prosecution of Mr Zuma.

January 2009

Appeals court overturns Judge Nicholson's ruling, opening the

way for Mr Zuma's trial to be resumed, just months before

general elections.

6 April 2009

South Africa's chief prosecutor, Mokotedi Mpshe, announces

that charges against Mr Zuma are being dropped after phone-tap

evidence showed there had been political interference in the

72

investigation and it was "neither possible nor desirable" to

prosecute Mr Zuma.

Figure 24: BBC News: Timeline: Jacob Zuma’s legal problems (Source: As

published by http://bbc.co.uk: 6 April 2009)

According to Zapiro, he used the Lady Justice cartoons to:

“make a point about the ANC and its alliance partners

violating our constitutional democracy and the judiciary”

(Mkwanazi & De Lange, 2008: The Star, page 6). Manson (2010)

points out that the role of the cartoonist is not only to

make the world more tolerable for the average reader, but

that the cartoonist plays an important political function.

Societies that attempt to limit the jester space are

generally those on their way down towards

authoritarianism. In the case of Lady Justice cartoons,

Zapiro fulfilled the political role in creating awareness

about the perceived violating of our constitutional

democracy and judiciary in the public domain.

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Figure 25: Zapiro: Lady Justice cartoon as published in The Sunday

Times, 7 September 2008. (Source: Zapiro, 2008:124)

Figure 26: Zapiro: Lady Justice cartoon as published in The Mail &

Guardian on 12 September 2008 (Source: Zapiro, 2008:125)

4. Conclusion

In his 1985 article “The Cartoonist’s Armory”, Gombrich

comments on the extent to which political cartoons have

the ability to condense a complex idea in one striking and

memorable image – hence the enduring appeal of the

cartoon. Zapiro has managed to do that consistently.

This chapter focused on the development of the political

cartoonist – from the Protestant Reformation in the 1517 –

and made extensive use of the cartoon as a visual form of

propaganda. It discussed how political caricatures

intended for wide distribution originated in England in

about the mid-18th century as a tool to communicate and

comically depict public personalities. The discussion of

74

the development of the political cartoonist in South

Africa focused on the influences of colonialism and

imperialism, which played an important role at the time.

The chapter examined the three distinct phases: (1)

colonial influences; (2) apartheid; and (3) post-apartheid

cartooning. The chapter highlighted the way cartoons

changed in the South African context. Where political

cartooning in the apartheid era was sombre, darkly

satirical and obsessively focused on the country’s

political crisis, the political cartooning in the post-

apartheid, on the other hand, is light, lively and

expresses the concerns of a young democracy critical of

itself, and struggling to come to terms with the country’s

diversity.

This study intends to build on the idea that the political

cartoonist has a very important role to play in shaping

the content of the print media to stimulate debate in

society.

75

Chapter Three Agenda-setting theory

Contents


32. The origins of the agenda-setting theory

33. Agenda-setting theory

34. Agenda-setting process

35. Shaping the media agenda

36. Critiques of the agenda-setting theory

37. The importance for the study

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Setting the agenda is now a common phrase in

discussions of politics and public opinion. This phrase

summarises the continuing dialogue and debate in every

community, from local neighbourhoods to the

international arena, over what should be at the centre

of public attention and action. In most of these

dialogues the mass media plays a significant and

sometimes controversial role. (McCombs, 2008)

The focus of the study is to look at Zapiro’s Lady Justice

cartoons and to determine if his cartoons guided selected

print news media in Gauteng as to how to identify and

frame the important issues of the public debate during the

second half of 2008. In order to do this the agenda-

setting theory will be used.

This chapter will give an overview of the study topic and

how agenda-setting might play a role, before defining the

theory. It will then focus on the theoretical explanation

of how issues can shape the media agenda and the

consequences thereof. It will also investigate the

importance of the theory and the shortcomings of the

agenda-setting theory.



part of irony, which specialises in gaining entertainment

from politics. In the past, it has also been used with

subversive intent where contrarian political speech and

dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of

advancing political arguments (Henderson, 1993).

77

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the political

cartoonist is playing an agenda-setting role within the

South African print news media today (Koelble & Robins,

2007). Zapiro has brought this function of the cartoon

artist to the foreground in South Africa, particularly

with his Lady Justice cartoons, published in the Sunday

Times on 7 September 2008 and in the Mail & Guardian on 12

September 2008. Wasserman (2005) makes the following

observations about Zapiro’s work:

Just like a good textual columnist, Zapiro is not

afraid to put forward provocative and controversial

ideas, and just like a good columnist his drawings

makes one think differently about issues of the day.

Recent literature (Nyamnjoh, 2000; Wigston, 2002;

Wasserman, 2005) has highlighted that one of the important

functions of political cartoons is not to merely sum up a

complex situation, but to give shape to the issues and

often steer these debates in new directions this, in

effect setting agendas. The agenda-setting theory deploys

content analysis so that “through their structure of

social and political reality the news media influence the

agenda of public issues around which political campaigns

and voters decisions are organised” (Laughey, 2009:22).

The basic assumption of the agenda-setting theory is that

whether consciously or unconsciously, the media create a

particular image of reality, they confront the readers on

a daily basis with issues on which they place salience

(Fourie, 2004). The political cartoon artist uses humour

78

or satire to place certain issues in the foreground very

much in the same way the media confronts the readers on a

daily basis.

The study therefore uses the agenda-setting theory as its

theoretical framework to determine if Zapiro’s Lady

Justice cartoons guided selected Gauteng print news media

in identifying important issues and setting the agenda for

the public debate during the second half of 2008.

2. The origins of the agenda-setting theory

The original agenda-setting proposition was a direct

reflection of 1920s public opinion scholar Walter

Lippman's statement that the press formed a bridge between

“the world outside and the pictures in our heads” (Lowery

& DeFleur, 1995, as cited by DeSantos 2004; McCombs,

2008). Lippman introduced the idea of the pseudo-

environment, the view of the world that exists in our mind

– a view that is always incomplete with regard to reality

and frequently inaccurate (McCombs, 2008). New York Times

columnist William Safire echoed Lippman’s idea of the

pseudo-environment in the reality of the news: “And in

politics, what is widely perceived by the press and public

is what is” (as quoted by McCombs, 2008:35). What we know

about our world is largely based on what the media decide

to tell us. This study will explore the role the Lady

Justice cartoons played in setting the media and public

agendas with regard to Jacob Zuma’s clashes with the South

African justice system.

79

The agenda-setting theory emerged from communication

studies and focused on mass media influence on setting the

political agenda, as articulated in the seminal article by

Shaw and McCombs (1972). They argued that the content

analysis of the 1968 presidential election coverage in

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, evinced a high correlation

between media agenda and the public agenda (Wanta &

Miller, 1996; McQuail, 2005; Garson, 2006). The evidence

collected at that time consists of data showing a

correspondence between the order of importance given in

the media to ‘issues’ and the order of significance

attached to the same issues by politicians and the public

(McQuail, 2005). Neuman (1990) points out that McCombs and

Shaw’s study not only examined the phenomenon of

persuasion on one side or the other of an issue; they

proposed moreover to examine the process by which the

public comes to defines issues as important in the first

place. McCombs and Shaw (1972:176), as cited by Baran

(2010:368), wrote:

In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom

staff, and broadcasters play an important part in

shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about

a given issue, but how much importance to attach to

that issue from the amount of information in a news

story and its position …. The mass media may well

determine the important issues – that is, the media may

set the “agenda” of the campaign.

What McCombs and Shaw discovered in the 1968 presidential

election study was a high correlation between what the

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news media reported as issues and what voters identified

as issues. According to Lowery and DeFleur (1995), as

cited by De Santos (2004), McCombs and Shaw’s findings

helped clarify the definition of agenda-setting – focusing

on the cognitive (awareness) level rather than the

affective (feeling) level; in other words, the media make

voters aware of the issues, but do not tell them how to

think or feel or act about the issues. Also identified

were suggestions about the media's limitations in this

process, specifically the impossible task for media

outlets of covering all issues. These findings refocused

attention on the media as a powerful force in its own

right, rather than just another variable in the viewers'

social and psychological processes (De Santos, 2004).

McCombs, in Setting the Agenda (2008), acknowledged that there

are a number of other significant influences that shape

the individual attitudes and public opinion. He suggested

that our feelings about certain issues could be rooted in

our personal experience, our culture or our exposure to

the mass media.

Another theorist, Anthony Downs (1972), argued that the

‘issue-attention cycle’ could influence public opinion.

The issue-attention cycle is rooted both in the nature of

the issue and in the way media interacts with public.

According to Downs the issue-attention cycle consists of

five stages, which may vary in duration depending on the

issue, but which almost always occur in the following

sequence:

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(1) The pre-problem stage – the problem exists, but has not yet

captured the public’s attention. Jacob Zuma’s personal

history and the two clashes he had with the South African

justice system (referred to in Chapter Two), can be seen

as the pre-problem stage of the Lady Justice cartoons.

(2) The discovery stage – this is the threshold, the sudden

steep ascent of attention and transition from non-problem

to problem. Zapiro’s first Lady Justice cartoon, which

appeared in The Sunday Times on 7 September 2008, can then be

seen as the discovery stage, where he has put the issue of

‘Zuma raping the justice system’ in the public sphere.

(3) Realising the cost of significant process – there is a realisation

that the problem is not easily solved and that it is quite

complex. In the case of the Lady Justice cartoons the

editorials, analysis and opinion pieces should highlight

the complexity of the issues the cartoons are addressing.

(4) The decline – the gradual decline in the intensity of

public interest in the problem. Three typical reactions

set in: some people just get discouraged; some feel

threatened and suppress their thoughts; and yet others

become bored with the issue. By this time some other

issues have entered into stage two and are demanding the

public’s attention. The study will investigate if there

was a downwards spiral in the number of articles published

between the first and second cartoon.

82

(5) The post-problem stage – the issue has been removed from the

centre of public concern. However, the issue now has a

different relation to public attention than it had in the

‘pre-problem’ stage (Downs, 1972; Neuman, 1990). In the

pre-problem stage the focus might have been on “Zuma raping

the justice system”, but what the study hopes to establish

is that in the post-problem stage the focus has moved onto

other issues that were highlighted in the public debate –

for example, media freedom might be one of the topics to

surface as a point of debate.

This dissertation hopes to establish that the Lady Justice

cartoons not only set the agenda in the print news media,

but managed to create an ‘issue-attention cycle’ within

the given time period.

Over the past 35 years more than 200 studies have been

done on agenda-setting, because it complements and is

compatible with a variety of concepts in the social

sciences (De Santos, 2004; Kosicki, 1993, McCombs, 2008).

Significant studies include the following:

1. Doris Graber's 1980 study, as cited by Neuman (1990),

looked specifically at the strength of the media's

influence on voters' judgments; she found that the

influence varied depending on environmental

circumstances as well as media content.

83

2. Dominic Larsorsa and Wayne Wanta's 1990 study added

interpersonal experience to the agenda-setting

paradigm of newspaper and television news in relation

to an issue’s importance.

3. Scott Hays and Henry Glick's 1997 study extended the

agenda-setting idea from its news effects to policy

adoption effects, and concluded that when

environmental conditions in the political entity (the

state) and media influences are similar and

convincing, “the policy in question is more likely to

be adopted”.

4. McCombs then expanded his study to the international

arena, studying the 1996 general election in

Pamplona, Spain, the 1994 Taipei mayoral election,

and the 1993 Japanese general election. He concluded

that the idea of what the media presents to voters as

issues holds across cultural differences.

According to Kosicki (1993), the agenda-setting theory has

over the years made its way into newsrooms and think-tank

analyses of publicity and policy debates. When the general

public thinks about media effects, it almost always thinks

of agenda-setting.

3. Agenda-setting theory

According to this theory, media audiences accept guidance

from media for determining what information is most

important and worthy of attention (Graber, 1984). Dearing

and Rogers (1996:34) referred to this “as a process of

ongoing competition among issue protagonists to gain the

84

attention of media professionals, the public and policy

elites.” Cohen (1963), as cited by McCombs (1993:65),

pointed out, “The media may not tell us what to think, but

they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think

about.” According to McCombs (2008), a number of studies

conducted from 1968 to the present in the United States,

Spain, Germany, Japan and Argentina support the hypothesis

of the agenda-setting effects that journalists do

significantly influence their audience’s picture of the

world. Zapiro’s cartoons as interventions in the political

sphere build on this characteristic of the agenda-setting

theory in that they prime people as to what information is

important to pay attention to.

McCombs (2008) highlighted the fact that agenda-setting

directs our attention at the early formative stages of

public opinion, which should sensitise journalists with a

strong ethical responsibility to select the issues on

their own agendas very carefully. The political cartoon

artist using humour (or satire) to place certain issues in

the foreground behaves in very much the same way as the

media when they confront readers on a daily basis

(Wasserman, 2005).

There are two levels to the agenda-setting function. The

first establishes the general issues that are important

and the second determines the parts or aspects of those

issues that are important. The second level is as

important as the first, because it frames the issues that

constitute the public or media agendas (De Santos, 2004;

85

Jensen, 2002; Littlejohn & Foss, 2008). Robert Entman

(1993:160) defines framing as follows:

To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived

reality and make them more salient in a communicating

text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem

definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation

and/ or treatment recommendation for the item

described.

McCombs (2008) paraphrased this definition by pointing out

that framing is the selection of or emphasis upon a

particular attribute for the media agenda when one talks

about a subject. In the Lady Justice cartoons, Zapiro

chooses to frame Jacob Zuma’s clashes with the South

African justice system in the ‘rape’ metaphor. Similarly,

people also frame objects, placing varying degrees of

emphasis on the attributes of persons, public issues or

other subjects when they think or talk about them

(McCombs, 2008). This second part will then form the basis

of the study to investigate what where the ‘pictures’

formed by the various print news media in Gauteng about

the Lady Justice cartoons.

The agenda-setting influence of the news media is not

limited to this initial step of focusing public attention

on a particular topic. The media also influences the next

step in the communication process: our understanding and

perspective on the topics in the news (McCombs: 2002).

86

To refer back to Walter Lippmann’s phrase, ‘the pictures

in our heads’, the agenda of issues or other subjects

presented by the news media influences what the pictures

in our heads are about. The agenda of attributes presented

for each of these issues, public figures, or other objects

literally influences the pictures that we hold in mind

(McCombs, 2002). This dissertation will examine the images

held by the public as framed by the print media of Jacob

Zuma as a political candidate as a result of the attribute

agenda sited by the political cartoonist.

4. Agenda-setting process

This section will focus on agenda-setting theory in its

broadest form, which Rogers and Dearing (1988), as cited

by Kosicki (1993), referred to as the ‘agenda-setting

process’. According to Rogers and Dearing, this process

consists of three subareas:

The first subarea is public agenda-setting, which deals with

the link between issues as portrayed in mass media content

and the issue priorities of the public. Public agenda-setting

was first mooted in the original McCombs and Shaw article

published in 1972 (Kosicki, 1993). The second subarea is

what Rogers and Dearing (1988), as cited by Kosicki

(1993), define as policy agenda-setting, which refers to the

issue of elected officials or those issues focusing on

issues in the legislative arena and the connection between

the issues and the media content. The last subarea is

media agenda-setting, which prioritises, defines and

87

emphasises the issues discussed in the media (Shaw &

McCombs, 1972; Kosicki, 1993; Sheafer, 2007; Littlejohn &

Foss, 2008).

Littlejohn and Foss (2008) encapsulate the agenda-setting

theory as the process whereby the media agenda affects the

public agenda, and the public agenda affects the policy agenda.

The media can, but does not always, have a powerful impact

on the public agenda. The media’s impact depends on the

power of the media, which we can link to the credibility

of the media on particular issues, the extent of

conflicting evidence as perceived by individual members of

the public, the extent to which individuals share the

media values and their need for guidance.

Littlejohn and Foss (2008) referred to the four types of

power relationships between the media and the outside

sources. The first is a high-power source and a high-power

media. In this kind of relationship – if they have a

positive relationship – they can influence the public

agenda; however, if the powerful media and the powerful

source do not agree, a struggle may take place between

them. The case of the Lady Justice cartoons and the

lawsuit against Zapiro illustrate this relationship

clearly. The second type of relationship is a high-power

source and a low-power media. In this scenario the external

source will co-opt the media and use them to accomplish

its own ends – this happens when we buy media space. In

the third type of relationship, low-power source and high-

power media, the media is largely responsible for their own

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media agenda – where media marginalise certain news

sources. This is of analytical value to the present study

in relation to the event of all charges being dropped

against Zuma on Friday 12 September 2008, opening the door

for him to run for president of South Africa (Bal et al.,

2009). The fourth relationship (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008)

refers to where both the media and external sources are

low in power, and the public agenda is established by events

themselves rather than the media or news sources creating

one.

In the South African context the relationship between the

media and the outside source is one in which both parties

are powerful, and therefore both can influence the public

agenda. The study took this into consideration when the

qualitative content analysis of the data was conducted

(refer to Chapter Four for discussion) to examine how and

if the media and outside source influenced the debate

themes.

This dissertation focuses on the media agenda-setting function

as a process that influences the public agenda. It also takes

the power/source relationships into consideration when

analysing the content of the various newspapers in

Gauteng.

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5. Shaping the media agenda

“In a world where the media set the public agenda and

drive the dialogue, those things media ignore may as well

not exist,” columnist Leonard Pitts observed, as cited by

McCombs (2008:115).

Since the mid-1980s, communication scholars have published

a number of studies showing that the media do tell us both

what to think about (which issues to focus on) and what to

think (which attitudes and judgments to have about them)

(Weiss, 2009). Sheafer (2007) supports this hypothesis by

citing several empirical studies: Golan and Wanta (2001);

Kim, Scheufele and Shanahan (2002); King (1997); Kiousis

(2005); Kiousis, Bantimaroudis and Ban (1999); and Wanta,

Golan and Lee (2004). Weiss (2009) explains further that

these scholars argue that there is a connection between

the two: The perceived salience of an issue (the relative

prominence given to an issue by the media and, presumably,

agreed on by audiences) is related to the evaluations that

audience members make about the political actors

associated with the issue. Thus, agenda-setting

scholarship – and agenda-setting theory – has expanded to

encompass both the cognitive aspects of the agenda-setting

function (the setting or structuring of the agenda by the

mass media) and its affective or emotional aspects

(influences on how audiences feel about the items on the

agenda). Central to this expansion have been the concepts

of priming and framing, which McCombs and other theorists now

claim to be natural extensions of agenda-setting, McCombs

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argues that “framing is the selection of – and emphasis

upon – particular attributes for the media agenda when

talking about an object” (McCombs, 2008:87). However,

Kosicki (1993) argues that priming and framing are not

extensions of agenda-setting, but that they begin from an

explicit cognitive perspective and lead in new directions

unanticipated by the original agenda-setting model.

Kosicki states:

They begin from explicit cognitive perspectives and

lead in new directions unanticipated by the original

agenda-setting model. If the initial phase of mass

communication research involving media and public

issues examined primarily what topics made it onto the

public agenda, the next phase is likely to examine how

the issue is framed and discussed, and the consequences

of such framing. (Kosicki, 1993:117)

Weaver (2007:145) draws the following conclusion on

agenda-setting and framing:

There are similarities between second-level agenda

setting and framing, even if they are not identical

processes. Both are more concerned with how issues or

other objects are depicted in the media than with which

issues or objects are more or less prominently

reported. Both focus on the most salient or prominent

aspects or themes or descriptions of the objects of

interest. Both are concerned with ways of thinking

rather than objects of thinking.

The theoretical point of departure of this dissertation is

an extension of the agenda-setting function and will

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examine how the Lady Justice cartoons have used the

framing effect in drawing attention to some issues in

order to stimulate a debate in the print media. Through

drawing attention to some aspects of politics at the

expense of others, the media might help to set the terms

by which political judgements are reached, including

evaluation of political figures (Alger, 1989; Morgan,

2009). The time frame in which Zapiro’s Lady Justice

cartoons appear also needs to be taken into consideration:

September 2008 was the build-up to the 2009 general

election in which Zuma was the ANC’s candidate for SA

president and therefore the timing is of particular

importance in analysing the effect on political

commentary.

The attention media gives to certain issues, such as the

Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons, influences the rank order

of public awareness and contributes to the significance of

these issues (McQuail, 1995). It is this priming of

perspectives that subsequently guides the public’s opinion

about public figures (McCombs, 2002; Morgan, 2009).

According to Fourie (2004), the agenda-setting function of

the media focuses on what topics the media present to an

audience and secondly on how information on the selected

topics is presented. Weiss (2009) supports this by adding

that media’s framing is beyond inclusion-exclusion

decisions. News producers present or represent issues and

political actors in specific ways; how a story is told

contributes to its framing, and therefore to the

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communication of how the issues and actors comprising the

story should be evaluated by the audience. The present

study examines whether Zapiro’s cartoons fall into agenda-

setting’s framing function to put forward the issues of

the day. It relates to the dynamics of news coverage: the

spectrum of viewpoints, symbols and questions selected to

construct news items and how they are ranked or

prioritised (Fourie, 2004) These may be determined by the

placement of articles and the issues raised.

In exploring the question who sets the media agenda? it is

argued that there is an interaction between the media and

the public agenda, but that the merging of the agendas of

various news outlets applies a significant pressure

towards homogeneity in telling the news of the day

(McCombs, 2008; Littlejohn & Foss, 2008).

A number of studies have demonstrated that there is a

dimension of powerful media effects that goes beyond

agenda-setting. Lyengar, Peters and Kinder (1982) first

identified this added dimension as the ‘priming effect’

(Morgan, 2009). Priming is “the process in which the media

attend to some issues and not others and thereby alter the

standards by which people evaluate [issues]” (Severin &

Tankard, 1997:22). When applied to news coverage, the term

framing describes the process of organising, defining, and

structuring a story. Media theorists argue that even when

journalists intend to be objective or balanced in their

coverage, they necessarily report on issues in ways that

give audiences cues as to how to understand the issues,

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including which aspects of the issues to focus on and

which to ignore (Weiss, 2009). The theory is founded on

the assumption that people do not have enough knowledge

about political matters and do not take into account all

of what they do know when making political decisions.

In his article “Framing Bias: Media in the distribution of

power”, Entman (2007) examines the linkages between

framing, priming and agenda-setting. He asks whether the

agenda-setting and framing content of texts and priming

under the conceptual umbrella of bias would advance

understanding of the media’s role in distributing power,

which is critical in political communication.

The term bias takes on three major meanings: firstly,

distortion bias occurs in news that purposely distorts

reality; secondly, content bias is when news favours one side

and does not provide equal treatment to both sides; and

lastly, decision-making bias occurs when journalists produce

biased content (Entman, 2007). The study explores the

nature of the content of the debates in the selected print

media to examine the impact of Zapiro’s Lady Justice

cartoons on the media agenda.

According to McCombs (2008), at one level we find the news

sources trying to influence the media agenda. At a second

level, we find various media influencing each other – a

phenomenon referred to as intermedia agenda-setting. These

interactions validate and reinforce the social norms and

94

traditions for journalism. They are close to the core,

which defines the ground rules for ultimately shaping the

media agenda. Journalists frequently validate their sense

of news by observing the work of their colleagues

(McQuail, 2005; McCombs, 2008). This dissertation will

examine how Zapiro, as a political cartoonist, has

influenced other print media’s agendas and what debates

were stimulated in the print media in the latter part of

2008.

According to De Santos (2004), McCombs, from his extensive

research, further refined the roles of agenda-setting in

terms of how the news media builds consensus. He suggested

the media play four roles in agenda-setting, and thus must

exhibit four characteristics to build informed

communities:

1. The media should be professionally detached,

reporting the facts and not determining the pros and

cons of issues.

2. One of the functions of news media is to recognise

their targeted involvement in putting issues on the

agenda.

3. The media are the precursors of issues.

4. The long-term effect of media involvement in issues

is the creation of a public agenda.

These four roles are also applicable to the editorial

cartoonist. Zapiro sees his cartoons as interventions in

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the political process, as a way of giving expression to

ideas that he feels need to be aired in the public domain,

cutting across bluster and spin-doctoring in the public

communications sphere.

6. Critiques of the agenda-setting theory

Although the agenda-setting theory does now encompass both

the what-to-think-about and the what-to-think components of

Cohen's 1963 formulation, there is still room for debate

around the core questions of media influence, namely, how

directly and to what degree the media sets the public

agenda (Willnat, 1997; McCombs, 1993; McQuail, 2005).

McCombs (1993) points out that at the time of the initial

agenda-setting study in Chapel Hill, McCombs and Shaw

conducted content analysis of nine newspapers, TV networks

and major news magazines to cover all the 1968

presidential voters. Today’s media system is much more

fragmented, and this leaves the door open for more

interesting explorations. Although there have been more

than 200 studies over 35 years contributing positively to

the agenda-setting theory, critics say the evidence is not

substantial enough to show a causal connection between the

various agendas (McQuail, 2005; Morgan, 2009).

Recent studies suggest that personal variables can

mitigate the effects of media agenda-setting on individual

audience members. Those viewers who do not find the media

(or a particular media outlet or source) credible are less

likely to have their agendas set by the media (Lyengar &

Kinder, 1982). Dearing and Rogers (1996) point out that

96

agenda-setting is related to other kinds of effects,

including the bandwagon effect, spiral of silence,

diffusion of news and media gatekeeping. Dearing and

Rogers (1996) offer a number of generalisations about the

theory. The first generalisation refers to the fact that

different media do tend to agree about the relative

salience of a set of issues. Secondly, media agendas do

not always match ‘real-world’ indicators: for some media

outlets Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons are not news, and

they can question newsworthiness. Finally, the position of

the issue on the media agenda determines that issue’s

salience on the public agenda. McCombs (2005) challenges

these generalisations by referring to the availability of

many new online news services, and the greater chance for

the ‘news user’ to seek news according to a personal

agenda instead of being influenced by a media agenda.

McCombs (2005) states that the agenda-setting hypothesis

is inconclusive, with the status of a plausible but

unproven idea. McCombs (2005) cites Kraus and Davis

(1976), Becker (1982), Reese (1991) and Rogers et al.

(1993) to support his statement. Another weakness of the

agenda-setting theory has been its traditional bias

towards the overall-level analyses of public opinion

(Willnat, 1997). In his article “Agenda-setting and

Priming: Concepts, links and differences”, Willnat points

out that individuals are not passive consumers of media

messages, but interpret, elaborate on, and evaluate

97

information within existing networks of personal

knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and experiences.

In his seminar article “Problems and opportunities in

agenda-setting research”, Kosicki (1993) acknowledges that

the agenda-setting literature is immense, encompassing

everything from work dealing with micro-level analysis of

individual issues using experimental and survey data, to

case studies of local samples using rank-order

correlations on a handful of issues. In his paper he noted

that all media effects research carries implicit or

explicit assumptions about media content. Jensen (2002)

adds to this, stating that scholars have been debating the

approach both methodologically and theoretically. The

methodological concern is that both the media and the

audience’s side of the issue are examined as a

conglomerate, using content analysis and surveys, but with

little empirical attention beig paid to the public’s media

use or how media has covered the subject matter over time.

According to Neuman (1989), as cited by Jensen (2002), the

ideal would be to do ‘parallel content analysis’ to

examine the content of both media and public opinion,

their thematic focus and formal articulation over time.

Kosicki (1993) posed the question of Agenda-setting or agenda

reflecting? He argued that research has uncovered a strong

correlation between audience and media views on important

issues, but it does not demonstrate that media choices

cause audience salience. The emphasis given to issues in

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the media is a reflection, not a cause, of audience

agendas.

Despite the weaknesses in the theory, evidence from

agenda-setting research does indicate that the news media

can affect what people think about and to some extent what

they see as important (Alger, 1986).

7. The importance for the study

This chapter has dealt with the theoretical framework of

agenda-setting. It is clear that the literature on agenda-

setting theory deals with three subareas or agendas: public-

agenda, policy-agenda and media-agenda. This study will build on

these agendas to determine how the political cartoonist

influences the media and public agendas.

The second important departure point for the study is that

the researcher sees framing as an extension of the agenda-

setting theory. The study will then use the notion that

the agenda-setting theory sets not only the cognitive

agenda but also an emotional affective agenda as well,

influencing how the audience feels about the items on the

agenda. This aspect of the agenda-setting theory will

assist the study to investigate what the issues

highlighted by the cartoons are, and secondly what aspects

of these issues are important to the media and are in the

minds of the readers.

The study investigates what ‘pictures’ were formed by the

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various print news media about the Lady Justice cartoons

in Gauteng. In the Lady Justice cartoons, Zapiro chose to

frame Jacob Zuma’s clashes with the South African justice

system in the form of a rape metaphor. People also frame

objects, placing varying degrees of emphasis on the

attributes of persons, public issues or other objects when

they think or talk about them (McCombs, 2008).

The agenda-setting theory gives the research the framework

to investigate the transmission function of the media-to-

media process which impacts on potential millions of

people and how the political cartoonist chooses to frame

the issue and the connections that are made between it and

the debates. The framework also gives the researcher an

idea of what ‘pictures’ were framed in the mind of the

readers through examining at the content of the letters to

the editors and opinion and analysis sections of the

various newspapers.

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Chapter Four Methodology

Contents

38. Introduction

39. Research design

39.1. Defining quantitative content analysis

40. Steps in the quantitative content analysis research

40.1. Defining qualitative content analysis

41. Steps in the qualitative content analysis

42. Limitations of content analysis

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1. Introduction

The two cartoons published by the Sunday Times and Mail &

Guardian depicting ANC president, Jacob Zuma, about to

‘rape’ the justice system, unleashed a storm of

controversy in the South African print news media at the

end of 2008. The controversy was fuelled because of their

perceived debatable nature, and because of the effects

they had on freedom of expression and on the rights of the

political cartoonist (Mason, 2008). This study will

contribute to the field by examining the debates that

followed in the print news media, as highlighted by the

central research question: What agenda-setting role did the Lady

Justice cartoons play in selected print news media in Gauteng between 24

August 2008 and 31 December 2008?

A preliminary informal observational study by the

researcher indicated a correlation between the publication

of the cartoons and increased public debate about the

relevant political issues, personalities and the role of

political cartoons themselves. This study will determine

the exact manifestation of the agenda-setting that

occurred during the identified time period in the selected

print media. The dissertation aims to determine the

correlation between the appearance of the Lady Justice

cartoons and the public debate that took place in the

print media.

In order for the study to examine the debates that

followed the Lady Justice cartoons in the print news media

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properly it is important to clearly demarcate the

methodological context of this study.

2. Research design

There are two main methodological orientations that

pertain to the field of social research, namely

quantitative and qualitative research. The researcher used

content analysis as a method to collect research data. Du

Plooy (2002) points out that content analysis is used to

record the frequency with which certain symbols of themes

appear in a message. Content analysis as a method of

research data collecting can be both quantitative and

qualitative.

There are a number of definitions for quantitative content

analysis. Berger’s (1991) definition states that content

analysis is a research method based on measuring the

amount of something (e.g. violence), and is founded in a

representative sample of a mass-mediated popular art form.

Krippendorf (2004(a)) defines it as a research technique

for making replicable and valid references from data to

their context. Kerlinger’s definition states that content

analysis is a method of studying and analysing

communication in a systematic, objective, and quantitative

manner for the purpose of measuring variables (2000:156).

Du Plooy (2002) adds to this by stipulating that in order

for quantitative content analysis to be scientific, it

needs to be systematic, objective and valid, and content

must be quantified.

The main objective of qualitative content analysis is to

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provide an understanding of areas where limited or no

prior information exists (Du Plooy, 2002:83). Qualitative

content analysis, according to Wimmer and Dominick (2011),

uses a flexible questioning approach, and the qualitative

researcher uses an inductive method to understand people

and their experiences through communication. Krippendorff

(2004(a)) builds on this approach by pointing out that the

qualitative content analysis approach has its roots in

literary theory and the social sciences and these theories

are given the label of interpretive, which means these

approaches are a process of engaging in interpretations of

text.

This study will make use of both quantitative and

qualitative content analysis in order to analyse the

agenda-setting function of the Lady Justice cartoons from

24 August 2008 to 31 December 2008.

According to Berg (1995), one of the leading debates among

users of content analysis is whether analysis should be

quantitative or qualitative. Berelson (1952), as cited by

Wigston (2009:5), suggested that content analysis is

“objective, systematic and quantitative.” Selltiz et al.

(1959) suggested that heavy quantitative content analysis

results in a somewhat arbitrary limitation in the field by

excluding all accounts of communications not in the form

of numbers and those that may lose meaning if reduced to a

numeric form, like symbols and detailed explanations.

McQuail (2005) supports this by adding that structuralism

and semiology do not involve quantification; there is even

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an antipathy to counting as a way of arriving at

significance, since meaning derives from textual

relationships, oppositions and context rather than from

number and balance of references. It is Smith (1975) who

suggested that a combination of both quantitative and

qualitative content analysis should be used, “because

qualitative content analysis deals with the forms and

earlier consequent patterns of form, while quantitative

content analysis deals with duration and frequency of

form” (Smith, 1975:218).

Deacon, Pickering, Golding and Murdock (1999:134) concur:

“… for when quantitative and qualitative approaches are

used methodologically in combination with each other, the

resulting analysis is invariably stronger”. As such,

quantitative content analysis will be used to establish

the duration and frequency of the articles surrounding the

Lady Justice cartoons; and qualitative content analysis

will be used to understand the nature of the agenda-

setting relationship between Zapiro’s Lady Justice

cartoons and the selection of collected newsprint articles

from 24 August 2008 to 31 December 2008. According to

McQuail (2005), these possibilities are a clear reminder

of the relative character of most analysis of content and

there has always to be some outside point of reference or

purpose according to which one chooses between

quantitative or qualitative content analysis.

Wigston (2009) highlights the importance of understanding

where content analysis fits into the communication process

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in order to use content analysis as a research method (see

Figure 27 below). According to this model, content

analysis makes, firstly, inferences about the antecedents

of a communication (the who and why): in order for the

researcher to analyse the Lady Justice cartoons he/she

needs to understand the circumstances that led to Zapiro

depicting Zuma’s relationship with the justice system

using this metaphor. Secondly, the model describes and

makes inferences about characteristics of the

communication. It makes the basic assumption that an

investigation into the message will give us insight into

the communicator’s intention and then makes inferences

about the recipient of the communication. The model

focuses on the message; however, it is important to note

that it is not limited to the message only (Wigson, 2009).

The researcher will use content analysis to establish not

only the key messages that were brought forward in the

print news media, but will also investigate the effect of

these. This will be done through a thematic analysis,

whereby central arguments raised by the interpretative

analysis of the cartoons will be identified and used for

further analytical purposes of agenda-setting.

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Figure 27: The position of content analysis in the communication

process (Source: Fourie, 2009:7)

The differences between these two methodologies,

quantitative content analysis and qualitative content

analysis, are discussed and compared to assess the

relevance and suitable application of each for the

purposes of this study.

The dissertation’s point of departure is that media

content is not reality itself, but a representation and an

imitation of reality. In these representations, signs and

codes are combined in a structured way to convey the

specific meanings the political cartoon artist wishes to

distribute about reality (Larsen, 2008).

The study therefore used qualitative and quantitative

content analysis to establish the nature of the agenda-

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setting relationship between Zapiro’s Lady Justice

cartoons and the collected newsprint articles.

The methodology provides a language for talking about the

process of research, not about the subject matter. Because

of this, content analysis has been forced to develop a

methodology of its own, one that enables researchers to

plan, execute, communicate, reproduce and critically

evaluate their analyses, whatever the particular results

(Krippendorff, 2004(a)).

Wigston (2009:35) adds to the critique by highlighting the

fact that all content analysis can do: “is to tell us what

message(s) exist and how often they appear, and to provide

some systematic and objective way to evaluate the

individual elements.” It is important to weigh up the

advantages and limitations of content analysis, because it

will not always be the appropriate method, but can be

useful in an explanatory or descriptive study (Berg,

1989).

Wigston (2009) lists the following as advantages of

content analysis:

1. Its unobtrusive and non-reactive nature. People act

differently when they know they are being observed.

This is known as the Hawthorne effect (Babbie,

1992:240). Experiments and certain surveys place

subjects and their behaviour in a highly artificial

situation and this can alter their responses, giving

false results, which makes replication difficult.

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2. Our influence as researchers is indirect, since we

are studying mediated messages and not the behaviour

of people. It allows us to study social life from

afar, without any effect on the subject being

studied.

3. It is sensitive to context and symbolic forms. For

example, in experiments, symbolic meaning is often

separated from the data being analysed. Content

analysis allows us to research situational, semantic

and political aspects of messages.

4. It is flexible. It can be used for a longitudinal

study if we want to study changes over a long period

of time, such as the changing role of the political

cartoonist in the media from 1995 to 2005; or we

could take a slice of time and use content analysis

for a cross-sectional study, such as a comparison of

the role of the political cartoonist in Afrikaans and

English newspapers.

5. It can cope with large volumes of data. However, the

data generated by content analysis can easily exceed

what the individual researcher can cope with. Then

additional workers will have to be hired and/or

processing will have to be spread over a longer

period of time.

3. Defining quantitative content analysis

The above-mentioned definitions involve three concepts:

content analysis must be systematic, objective and quantitative.

Wimmer and Dominick (2011) elaborate on these three

concepts:

109

Systematic: this means that the content to be analysed

needs to follow precise rules and a set procedure

that is applied to the sample being analysed. Sample

selection must follow proper procedure, and each item

must have an equal chance of being included in the

analysis. The evaluation process must be systematic,

and in the context all content under consideration

should be treated in exactly the same manner. This

means that there needs to be uniformity in the coding

and analysis procedures the coders will use.

The researcher’s sample selection followed rules and

procedure using the All Media Products Survey (AMPS)

audited figures by the South African Advertising

Research Foundation to guide the researcher in the

selection of the three daily newspapers in Gauteng.

The researcher included newspapers from three

different media houses to ensure representation of

various public views. The content evaluation process

was systematic. Articles were selected according to

the Mail & Guardian’s online tagging system, which was

used to guide the researcher in establishing the

units of analysis (Zapiro, Jacob Zuma/ Zuma, ANC,

rape and cartoon). The placements of articles were

used for categories (main section, editorial, letters

to the editor, opinion and analysis section).

Objectivity: is achieved by defining the methodology

precisely, so that another research can apply it to

the same content, and get the same results. In order

for the results to be objective and reliable, the

110

researcher needs to establish a clear set of criteria

and procedures that fully explains the sampling and

categorisation methods. Perfect objectivity is seldom

achieved in content analysis, because the research

exercises subjective choice in defining the units of

analysis and categories. The researcher ensured

objectivity of the study by using Wimmer and

Dominick’s ten-step approach in the quantitative

content analysis (2011). In order for the results to

be objective and reliable, the researcher developed a

codebook in which clear guidelines concerning the

units of analysis and categories were stipulated.

Quantitative: the aim of content analysis is to provide

an accurate representation of the material.

Quantification is important in achieving the aim

because it aids the researcher in the search for

accuracy. Quantitative research is always given in

either numerical values or frequencies.

Quantification gives the researcher an additional

statistical tool that can aid him/her in the

interpretation and analysis of the data. An external

research party (Statkon) was used to validate the

frequencies that appeared in the data. Statkon was

used to ensure accuracy of representation of the

material. Since 1988, Statkon has provided a

professional, goal-orientated statistical

consultation service to postgraduate students and

researchers at UJ in respect of research design and

methodology, experimental and questionnaire design,

111

and statistical analysis of data (www.uj.ac.za).

Holsti (1969) added the generality concept to content

analysis. He argued that the term quantitative was too

restrictive. Although quantification offers a research

project a degree of precision, statistics by themselves

are meaningless. According to Holsti (1969), information

revealed by statistics needs to be interpreted before the

meaning becomes clear. For this reason, this study will

also include a qualitative component and will be discussed

later in the chapter under point 2.2: Defining qualitative

content analysis.

3.1. Steps in the quantitative content analysis research

The researcher used the steps of Wimmer and Dominick

(2011) to conduct content analysis. These will be

discussed step by step below:

Step one: Formulate the research question or hypothesis

The central question to be addressed in the study is: What

agenda-setting role did the Lady Justice cartoons play in selected print news

media in Gauteng between 24 August 2008 and 31 December 2008?

The central question was addressed through the following

sub-questions:


Sunday Times on 7 September 2008 and M&G on 12

September 2008) set the media’s political agendas, as

reflected in editorials, columns and leading print

news stories?

112







Step two: Define the universe in question


sorts and collates media articles) to clip articles from

selected Gauteng English and Afrikaans newspapers. The

newspapers chosen represent the various media houses in

South Africa. The researcher chose one newspaper from each

media house; therefore there should be a range of

editorial and public views on the debate. The newspapers

were not chosen according to circulation, but purely

according to media houses. The Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian

newspapers were not included in this sample group, because

they were seen as the ‘source’.

Step three: Select an appropriate sample from the

population

The sample group consisted of Gauteng regional newspapers

only, because although it is the smallest province in

geographical terms, 21.5% of South Africa’s population

lives in Gauteng and it produces 33.3% of South Africa’s

GDP (Koenderman: 2009). The articles were clipped from 24

August 2008 to 31 December 2008. The following

publications were selected. Beeld belongs to the

Naspers/Media 24 media group, with 575 000 readers (90%

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White, 6% Black, 3% Coloured and 1% Indian Afrikaans-

speaking audience) (www.naspers.co.za: 2010). The Star (5%

Indian, 25% White, 4% Coloured and 66% Black English

readership) is an Independent Media Group daily with 1 081

000 readers (www.thestar: 2010). Sowetan (90% Black, 5%

Indian, and 5% Coloured) belongs to the AVUSA media group,

with 2 097 000 readers (www.avusa.co.za). All three papers

are morning papers, except for The Star, which has a late

edition in the afternoons. The publications are also rated

according to the All Media Product Survey (AMPS) that was

developed by the South African Advertising Research

Foundation (SAARF). The researcher also took the education

levels of the readers of the three papers into

consideration when analysing the clippings. Figure 28:

Breakdown of readership of the three papers shows that The

Star has the highest number of graduates. One would expect

this to influence the type of debate themes in the

newspaper.

The publications were selected not only according to

various media houses, but also taking into consideration

the various educational levels of the groups to ensure a

range of editorial and public views on the debate.

Publicatio

n

Media

group

Language Appearance *ABC

figures

000

AMPS

000

The Star INC Eng AM/PM 1081 1081

Beeld Media Afr AM 575 575

114

24/

Naspers

Sowetan AVUSA Eng AM 2097 2097

Figure 28: Summary of Newspapers (Adapted from: SA Media Facts: 2009 its *Audit Bureau of Circulations from Oct-December 2008)

Publica

tion

Readers

hip

Gender Education Race

Ma

le

Fema

le

High

Scho

ol

Mat

ric

Gradua

tes

Bla

ck

Whi

te

Colou

red

Ind

ian

The Star 1 081

000

40

%

60% 14% 37% 48% 64% 26% 5% 6%

Sowetan 1 618

000

64

%

37% 36% 42% 23% 98% 1% 1% 0%

Beeld 575 000 60

%

40% 30% 39% 19% 6% 91% 2% 1%

Figure 29: Breakdown of Readership of the The Star, Sowetan and Beeld

(Adapted, per media house, from: www.inl.co.za; www.avusa.co.za; www.media24.com )

Step four: Select and define a unit of analysis

According to Wigston (2009:15) “Words are the smallest

element we can use to establish a frequency distribution

of specific words or terms”. This study used the key words

or ‘tags’ ‘Zapiro’, ‘Jacob Zuma’, ‘ANC’, ‘Rape’ and

‘Cartoon’, as listed by the Mail & Guardian Online system as

the unit of analysis to code the information for the

study. The Mail & Guardian Online system was used, as it formed

the ‘source’ deferential boundaries.

Step five: Construct the categories of content to be

analysed

115

The researcher identified the following categories for the

study: headlines and placement of articles (section in

which the article appeared: main section, editorial,

letters to the editor, opinion and analysis section). For

categories to be reliable, they should include the

following criteria: mutually exclusive, exhaustive and reliable

(Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). A category system can be

described as mutually exclusive if a unit of analysis can be

placed in only one category. The study’s categories can be

seen as mutually exclusive because the units of analysis

can only be placed in one category. The second criteria

refer to exhaustivity, which means that there must be an

existing slot into which every unit of analysis can be

placed. The study allowed for an existing slot into which

each unit of analysis can be placed – for example, the

unit of analysis Zapiro can be placed in the category

Headline if the unit of analysis appeared in a headline.

Lastly, the category system should be reliable, which means

that different coders should agree in the great majority

of instances about the proper category for each unit of

analysis (Du Plooy, 2008; Wimmer & Dominick, 2011;

Wigston: 2009). Categories were established: headline;

front page; main section of paper; editorial letters to

the editor; opinion/analysis section. The researcher

compiled a codebook in which the categories and units of

analysis are explained to ensure that coders agreed in the

majority of instances about the placement of the units of

analysis. The researcher also used Statkon, as discussed

in point 2.1: Defining quantitative content analysis.

116

Therefore categories can be seen as reliable, because they

fulfil the criteria of mutually exclusive, exhaustive and reliable.

Step six: Establish a quantification system

According to Wimmer and Dominick (2011), quantification in

content analysis occurs at three levels of data

measurement: nominal, interval and ratio data measurement

levels. Nominal measurement refers to when numerals are

being used to classify objects. An example of this would

be when the researcher assigned a value to each category:

front page of newspaper is ranked as 1 and main section of

paper is ranked as 2. Interval level refers to when

objects are being ranked along some dimension and when

intervals appear between points on the scale the dates and

number of articles were used. This study engaged with the

nominal and interval levels when the content was analysed.

The nominal level was used to count the frequencies of the

units in each category. It may be argued that the number

of frequencies could be a clear indication as to whether

the Lady Justice cartoons helped to stimulate the debate

in the print media in Gauteng.

At the interval level, the researcher applied the space

and exposure over time element to determine how much space

was given to the Lady Justice cartoons. The researcher

argued that if the Lady Justice cartoons set the agenda in

the print media it was important to look at how many

articles were published and the placement of the articles

in the various selected print media. Baran (2010) points

117

out that the placement of stories in a given section in a

newspaper is an important factor in agenda-setting because

it is the way newspapers influences not only what we think

but what we think about. Nel (2001) explains that story

selection is important, because media set the agenda of

issues which we find ourselves thinking and talking about.

In this study it is argued that if the Sunday Times and Mail

& Guardian did not print Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons,

the readers would not have thought about or debate the

fact that Zuma was supposedly raping the justice system

and the consequences thereof.

The researcher did not use the ratio level to measure the

data because it requires the researcher to develop

possible scales for coders to use when rating the

attributes of the situation. Wimmer and Dominick (2011)

point out that rating scales inject subjectivity into the

analysis and can jeopardise intercoder reliability.

Step seven: Train coders and conduct a pilot study

The researcher used a coding system and made use of a

second coder to increase the reliability of the study. The

coding system comprised (a) definitions of units of

material to be analysed, and (b) categories or dimensions

of classification (Smith, 2000). Careful training of the

coder is an integral part of content analysis and will

result in a more reliable analysis. The researcher gave

the coder detailed definitions and descriptions of the

content categories and instructions on how to carry out

118

the coding. The coder that the researcher identified then

analysed a representative sample of the content, which

would ultimately be analysed. This helped to eliminate

poorly defined categories or categories that are vague.

The researcher identified a coder from another academic

institution (UNISA/TUT) with a master’s degree in Media

Studies to ensure reliability of the research findings.

Step eight: Code the content according to established

definitions

Coding sheets were developed, which allowed the coders to

classify the data by placing check marks in a

predetermined space.

Step nine: Analyse the collected data

The researcher made use of the University of Johannesburg

research unit, Statkon, to assist with the analysis of the

coding sheets. Statkon supports postgraduate (PhD,

Masters, Honours, BTech Honours) students conducting

quantitative research, which will be used in a thesis or

research article. The research project must be approved by

a departmental or faculty research, postgraduate and/or

ethics committee (www.uj.ac.za).

Step ten: Draw conclusions

In the final step the researcher looked for meaningful

patterns in the observations and measurements. Conclusions

were drawn from data gathered and related back to the

issues raised by the study’s research problem.

119

By following these steps it was possible to set the units

of analysis and categories, which were then analysed by

qualitative content analysis to identify the various

themes.

4. Defining qualitative content analysis

Qualitative content analysis can be defined as:

A research method for the subjective interpretation of

the content of text data through the systematic

classification process of coding and identifying themes

or patterns. (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, as cited by Zhang

& Wildemuth, 2009)

An approach of empirical, methodological controlled

analysis of texts within their context of

communication, following content analytic rules and

step by step models, without rash quanitification.

(Mayring, 2000)

Qualitative content analysis uses a flexible questioning

approach, with a limitless range and a more philosophical

working method (Wimmer & Dominick, 2011). Miles and

Huberman (1983), as cited by Zang and Wildemuth (2009),

agree and identified three major approaches to qualitative

content analysis: social anthropological approaches,

interpretative approaches, and collaborative social

research approaches. The study will make use of the

collaborative social research approaches because

researchers working in the collaborative social research

mode are involved in inductive reasoning when considering

the data as shaping action, and as information to

120

understand a situation (Berg, 2009). This thesis aims to

explore the various debate themes through inductive

reasoning.

Hsieh and Shannon (2005) examined three approaches to the

conduct of qualitative content analysis in the

collaborative social research approach, namely:

conventional, summative content and directed content

analysis. From their perspective these approaches differ

according to the degree of involvement of inductive

reasoning.

This dissertation used direct content analysis to frame the

categories for the analysis. Direct content analysis involves the

use of more analytic categories derived from existing

theories and explanations relevant to the research focus.

The researcher investigated the raw data using theoretical

themes and those that emerged from the data itself (Berg,

2009).

4.1. Steps in qualitative content analysis

Qualitative content analysis was used to establish the

nature of the agenda-setting relationship between Zapiro’s

Lady Justice cartoons and the collected newsprint

articles. The challenge with qualitative content analysis

is to define the categories of analysis: “How categories

are defined … is an art. Little is written about it”

(Krippendorff, 2004(b):76). Mayring (2000) points out that

the development of categories should take place within the

framework of the material. The framework is intended to

serve three purposes: its prescriptive process is to guide the

121

conceptualisation and design of the practical content

analytic research; its analytical purpose is to facilitate the

critical examination and comparison of the published

content analyses; and its methodological purpose is to point

to performance criteria and standards the researcher can

apply in evaluating ongoing content analyses

(Krippendorff, 2004(a)).

The main steps in the inductive qualitative content

analysis process can overlap with the quantitative content

analysis procedures (Tesch, 1990, as cited by Zhang &

Wildemuth, 2009); it consists of the following steps:

Step one: Prepare the data

According to Patton (2002), as cited by Zhang and

Wildemuth (2009), qualitative content analysis can be used

to analyse various types of data. Data needs to be

transformed into written text before it can be analysed;

however, in this thesis, the data is already in text form.

Once in text form, it is important that the choice of

content must be justified by what the researcher wants to

examine. The researcher organised the clippings according

to:

1) Publications: All The Star, Beeld and Sowetan articles

were separated.

2) Date of publication: For example, all Beeld articles

published on 9 September 2008 were grouped together.

3) Position in publication: The articles were clearly

marked according to their position in the

publication, e.g letters to the editor.

122

The above process was followed according to the research

questions, which examine whether or not the cartoons set

the agenda in the media as reflected in editorials,

columns and leading print stories in the selected print

media – Beeld, The Star and Sowetan. The research questions also

focus on the content of the debates and therefore it is

important from a qualitative content analysis point of

view to take the position of article in the publications

into consideration when analysing the content.

Step two: Define the unit of analysis

The researcher used the same units of analysis from the

quantitative content analysis, which came from the Mail &

Guardian Online system’s tag words to examine the themes or

debates around Jacob Zuma; Zapiro; Cartoons; Rape and ANC.

Step three: Develop categories and a coding system

The researcher developed the categories using the

placement of articles within the various sections of the

newspapers as a guideline for the categories – main

section, editorial, letters to the editor, opinion and

analysis section. The researcher has defined the

categories and unit of analysis in the codebook.

Step four: Test your coding scheme on a sample

According to Zhang and Wildemuth (2009), when using a

fairly standardised process in the content analysis, it is

advisable to develop and validate the coding scheme early

in the process. Schilling (2006), as cited by Zhang and

123

Wildemuth (2009), builds on this by referring to the use

of an inter-coder agreement, which tests the clarity and

consistency of one’s category definitions. If the level of

consistency is low, the coding rules need to be revised.

The researcher and the second coder coded a sample of the

data and there was no misunderstanding regarding the

definitions of categories; coding rules or units of

analysis. All text was coded.

Step five: Draw conclusions from the coded data

This step involves making sense of the themes identified.

It is at this stage that the researcher will make

inferences and present his/her reconstruction of meanings

derived from the data. The researcher will explore the

dimensions of the categories, identify relationships

between categories and try to uncover patterns (Zhang &

Wildemuth, 2009).

Step six: Report your methods and findings

Patton (2002), as cited by Zhang and Wildemuth (2009),

highlights the point that in order for a qualitative

content analysis study to be replicable the researcher

needs to monitor and report his/her analytical procedures

and processes as completely and truthfully as possible.

Qualitative content analysis strives to uncover patterns,

themes and categories that are important to social

reality, and therefore presenting research findings can be

challenging (Denzin, 1989, as cited by Zhang & Wildemuth,

2009).

124

Denzin (1989), as cited by Zhang and Wildemuth (2009),

suggests that when presenting his/her research findings,

the researcher should strive to maintain a balance between

description and interpretation of data. According to

Denzin (1989), as cited by Zhang and Wildemuth (2009),

description gives the readers background to the study and

contextualises the study, whereas interpretation of the

findings exposes the researcher’s personal and theoretical

understanding of the subject being studied.

5. Limitations of content analysis

Wimmer and Dominick (2011) list the following as

limitations of content analysis:

1. Content analysis alone cannot serve as the basis for

making statements about the effects of content on the

audience.

2. It cannot serve as the sole basis for claims about

media.

3. Another possible limitation lies in the problem of

using the method for a latent analysis of messages

with a high degree of reliability.

4. The findings of a particular study are limited to the

framework of the categories and the definitions used

in that analysis. Different researchers may use

different definitions and category systems to measure

a single concept.

5. It is time consuming. The task of examining and

categorising large volumes of content is often

tedious.

125

The researcher acknowledges the limitations of content

analysis as a process, and therefore conducted the

research on the selected Gauteng print media only. The

researcher made use of a second coder to enhance the

reliability and validity of the study. Since aspects of

this study are qualitative, results may not be generalised

to other studies and may be biased in subjective

reasoning. The researcher hopes through careful data

preparation, coding and interpretation that the results of

the qualitative content analysis will support, as well as

validate, existing theory on agenda-setting. The

researcher also hopes to provide an in-depth description

of the role of the selected political cartoons in the

chosen newspapers.

The focus in this chapter was on the methodology the

researcher used to examine the debates that arose in the

print media after Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons were

published in September 2008. The chapter outlined the

research design – both the quantitative and qualitative

content analytic steps – that will be applied in the

analysis of the data to be covered in the next chapter.

126

Chapter Five Findings

Contents43. Introduction

44. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis

2.1. Zapiro2.1.1. Quantitative findings

2.1.2. Qualitative findings

2.1.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around Zapiro

2.1.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around Zapiro

2.1.2.4 Beeld debate theme findings around Zapiro

2.2. Jacob Zuma/Zuma2.2.1. Quantitative findings


2.2.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around Jacob Zuma/

Zuma

2.2.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around Jacob Zuma/

Zuma

2.2.2.3 Beeld debate theme findings around Jacob

Zuma/ Zuma

2.3. ANC2.3.1. Quantitative findings


2.3.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around ANC

2.3.2.2 The Star sebate theme findings around ANC

2.3.2.3 Beeld debate theme findings around ANC

2.4. Rape2.4.1. Quantitative findings


2.4.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around rape

2.4.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around rape

127

2.4.2.3 Beeld debate theme findings around rape

2.5. Cartoon2.5.1. Quantitative findings


2.5.2.1 Sowetan debate theme findings around cartoon

2.5.2.2 The Star debate theme findings around cartoon

2.5.2.3 Beeld debate theme findings around cartoon

3. Conclusion

If there were only one truth, you couldn’t paint a hundred

canvases on the same theme.

- Pablo Picasso, 1966

1. Introduction

This chapter sets out to answer the question: “What

agenda-setting role did the Lady Justice cartoons play in

the selected print news media in Gauteng?” Fistly, the

study investigates through quantitative content analysis

whether the Lady Justice cartoons set the media and public

agendas. Secondly, the study examines whether the Lady

Justice cartoons stimulated debates as reflected in the

editorials, columns, letters to the editors and leading

news stories. Qualitative content analysis is then used to

investigate the agenda-setting function of the cartoons.


sorts and collates media articles) to clip articles from

The Star (TS), Beeld (B) and Sowetan (SW). Only 34 articles of

the 40 articles clipped using the Mail & Guardian Online’s

tagging system were relevant. Relevancy of articles was

determined by using the online tagging system as a guide.

Keywords were used as units of analysis. The key words

128

were: Zapiro, Jacob Zuma, ANC, Rape and Cartoon. The

quantitative research measured the number of articles

published between said dates, and, secondly, whether there

was a correlation between the number of article

appearances and the dates on which the cartoons appeared.

In Figure 30 (below) the dates show a clear indication of

‘issue-attention cycle’ discussed in Chapter Three.

According to Downs (1972) the public attention rarely

remains focused on an issue for very long – even if the

issue is of crucial importance for the audience. The graph

in Figure 30 illustrates that there was a high uptake in

the selected daily newspapers on the debate after the

first cartoon appeared in The Sunday Times on 7 September

2008. The ‘issue-attention-cycle’ theory informs us that

if an issue is raised in the public domain it leaps to the

foreground and remains there for a short period of time.

In Figure 30 we can clearly see that the interest in the

first cartoon peaked on 10 September (first peak in graph)

when ten articles appeared in Sowetan, The Star and Beeld in

all the categories (front page, main section, letters to

the editor; editorial columns; opinion and analysis

section). The graph further indicates that the issues

started to fade from the centre of public attention after

11 September and only created the third peak again after

the second cartoon appeared in the Mail & Guardian on Friday

12 September 2008 – three articles appeared on 18

September 2008 across the daily newspapers selected in all

the categories. After the second cartoon, the public

debate faded.

129

Distribution of total content clippings according to

appearance of Cartoon 1, The Sunday Times: Sunday 7 September

2008 and Cartoon 2, Mail & Guardian: Friday 12 September 2008

Figure 30: Frequency of clippings after cartoon 1 and cartoon 2

appeared (Source: Statkon: University of Johannesburg)

Agenda-setting according to editorials, letters to the

editor, opinion and analysis

According to Baran (2010), placement of stories on a page

in a newspaper is an important aspect of agenda-setting.

The agenda-setting power of the media resides in more than

the amount of space or time devoted to the story but also

in its placement on the page and position on page. The

researcher argued that Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons have

stimulated a valuable debate because the cartoons were

successful in involving the readers of the respected

newspapers. Figure 31 (below) indicates that there were a

1st

Cartoon

2nd

Cartoon

Number o

f clippings

130

high number of editorials, letters to the editor, as well

as opinion and analysis articles that were published. It

illustrates that the Lady Justice cartoons were able to

influence the public agenda. The number of responses in

the editorials, letters to the editor, opinion and

analysis sections is a clear indication that the cartoons

had conversational value.

Summary of number of editorials, letters to the editor,

opinion and analysis articles

Figure 31: Summary of agenda-setting (Source: Statkon: University of

Johannesburg)

2. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis

The following section will present both the quantitative

and qualitative content analysis of the data.

131

In the quantitative content analysis the units of analysis

were sorted and interpreted according to the following

categories: headlines and space (section in which the

article appeared). The researcher argued that if the Lady

Justice cartoons set the agenda in the print media in

Gauteng it was important to look at if it made headlines, and

where it appeared in the newspaper.

2.1. Zapiro

2.1.1.Quantitative findings:

The word Zapiro appeared in seven clippings headlines – two

were in The Star (TS) and Sowetan (SW) respectively and three in

Beeld (B). None of the clippings made the front page. The two

clippings in The Star were placed in the letters to the editor

section, while the Sowetan had one editorial and one letters to

the editor placement. Two of the clippings from Beeld were

placed in the main section of the newspaper and one

clipping appeared as an editorial.

The graph illustrates that the cartoons influenced the

public agenda, because of the seven clippings published

three clippings were feedback from the readers in the form

of letters to the editor. The two editorials that appeared are also

an indication of how the cartoons influenced the media

agenda.

132

Nr of Articles

Front page

Main section

Editorial

Letter to the Editor

Opinion & Analysis

00.51

1.52

2.53

TSBSW

Figure 32: Summary of Unit of analysis: Zapiro in the newspapers’

headlines

2.1.2. Qualitative content analysis findings

2.1.2.1 The Sowetan debate theme findings around Zapiro

The positive views in the main section of the Sowetan

regarding Zapiro were that he (Zapiro) had the right to

freedom of expression. His cartoons had opened up the

debate as to how far a cartoonist can go in expressing his

views (Sowetan, 9 September 2008, page 5). Zapiro also

received credit in the Sowetan Editorials – Have your say section

for his accurate illustrations of the highs and lows of

South Africa’s new democracy, and that he was recognised

among the great social commentators of the world (Sowetan,

11 September 2008, page 12).

The negative views in the main section of the Sowetan

regarding Zapiro were that Zapiro went too far with his

cartoon: he had gone beyond the limits of freedom of

133

expression. The debates in the Sowetan around Zapiro were

firstly that he was insinuating that Zuma is above the law

and can do whatever he wants (Sowetan, 9 September 2008,

page 5). In the Editorial – Have your say section, it was pointed

out that Zapiro made it his business to harm the integrity

of others, in this case Zuma, where he continued to

portray him as a rapist, although the SA courts had

cleared his name – Zapiro failed to see the effect of the

cartoon on Zuma’s family and supporters (Sowetan, 10

September 2008, page 14).

It was also notable that Zapiro’s cartoons represented the

opinion held by readers of Sowetan that at this moment the

ANC had no respect for the judiciary (Sowetan, 10 September

2008, page 14). The use of the rape metaphor shocked the

country, and Zapiro had succeeded in ruffling the feathers

of the parties close to Zuma (Sowetan, 11 September 2008,

page 12).

2.1.2.2 The Star debate themes around Zapiro

The major themes around Zapiro appeared in the letters to the

editor section of The Star. Zapiro was seen as a valuable

catalyst in stimulating political and social debates,

media freedom was being put under the magnifying glass and

the race card was being played (The Star, 10 September 2008,

page 13).

The opinion and analysis article pointed out that Zapiro did

what any great political satirist should do: grab people

134

by the shoulder and force them to take note of something –

and then discuss and debate it. He excited public interest

in the attacks on the judiciary made by some of the ANC

and alliance leaders in public. There was a feeling that

Zapiro had summed up ordinary people’s thoughts and fears

(The Star, 11 September 2008, page 16).

Media freedom was being debated on a number of levels in

these letters. On one level there was the debate that

Zapiro was hiding behind media freedom. According to

Phillip Musekwa, Leondale, Germiston (The Star, 10 September

2008, page 13): “he [Zapiro] violates with impunity the

rights to dignity of the individuals in his cartoon. He

denigrate [sic] the decision of ‘our people’ to choose

Zuma for president – and Zuma needs to be respected

because of that [being the chosen one].” Zapiro drove the

messages home that Zuma was a rapist, although he had been

cleared in the court. Phillip Musekwa stated that Zapiro

must draw a cartoon about himself being ‘allergic to

democracy.’ On another level people were of the opinion

that Zapiro had gone beyond media freedom in the manner in

which he expressed himself and in dealing with the

integrity of individuals. Zapiro had made it his business

to ridicule Zuma and the ruling party. Words that were

being associated with Zapiro and media freedom were:

“disgusting, deplorable and defamation abuse of media

freedom” (Seakgwe: The Star, 10 September 2008, page 13;

Khumalo: The Star, 11 September 2008, page 23). Lastly, there

was a group of people who felt that Zapiro did not abuse

135

media freedom and that he had the right to express

himself, but should be cautious in his line of duty. They

were also of the opinion that one of the first signs of a

government becoming a dictatorship was press censorship,

and they praised Zapiro for his efforts in upholding the

constitution. They also noted that democracy implies

freedom of the press and that Zapiro had made the

government sit up and listen (The Star, 10 September 2008,

page 13).

Another theme that was being debated in letters to the editor

section was the fact that the race card was being played

around Zapiro. The issue being pointed out by Malcolm-

Cowan (a reader from Potchefstroom) was: “Just because a

powerful and provocative cartoon by Zapiro was created by

a white guy, he becomes a racist,” and a statement by the

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe according to Malcolm-

Cowan, that “the media, which is mostly managed by white

people, does not have respect for the ruling party and its

new leadership,” was seen as arrogant and a racist comment

in itself. There was an undertone that if you were not

African and did not agree with the ruling party, you were

a racist. The perpetuation of the racist label by

politicians was what kept racism alive in this country

(The Star, 11 September 2008, page 23).

2.1.2.3 Beeld debate themes around Zapiro

The debate themes in the main section of Beeld focused on

how Zapiro felt about his work. He saw his cartoons as an

136

important tool to emphasise the fact that politicians were

not above the law (Beeld, 10 September 2008, page 2). An

article appearing on 9 September 2008, in the main section,

highlights that the people in the cartoon should be

apologising to the nation for raping the justice system.

The article referred to how important and effective

Zapiro’s work was by using humour to convey the important

message that the alliance members were attacking the

constitutional foundations of South Africa (Beeld, 9

September 2008, page 2). Zapiro stressed that he is a

visual journalist commenting on current issues, and that

Zuma did not understand the role of a political cartoonist

in a newspaper (Beeld, 19 December 2008, page 4).

Other themes in the main section of Beeld were Zapiro’s

unfair treatment of Zuma and that it seemed that Zapiro

was intent on humiliating Zama (Beeld, 18 September 2008,

page 2). The fact that Zapiro used the rape analogy when

Zuma was cleared of the act supported this view (Beeld, 19

December 2008, page 4). Julius Malema described Zapiro’s

treatment of Zuma as unfair and unbalanced; he accused

Zapiro of being a “traitor” (Beeld, 11 September 2008, page

4).

2.2. Jacob Zuma/Zuma

2.2.1. Quantitative findings

The phrases Jacob Zuma or Zuma appeared in seven clippings

headlines – five were in Beeld (B) and three were published

in the Sowetan (SW). The placement of the clippings in Beeld

137

was in the main section, letters to the editor and in the opinion and

analysis section of the newspaper. Sowetan placed both the

items in the main section of the newspaper. The Star (TS) had

no items using the phrases Jacob Zuma’s or Zuma in its

headlines.


media agenda because of the seven articles published five

were published in the main section of the newspaper

compared to the two published in the letters to the editor and

opinion and analysis section.

Nr of Articles

Front page

Main Section

Editorial


Opinion & Analysis

012345

TSBSW

Figure 33: Summary of Unit of analysis Jacob Zuma/ Zuma in the

newspapers’ headlines


2.2.2.1 The Sowetan debate themes around Zuma/Jacob Zuma

The major themes that appear in the opinion and analysis

section of the Sowetan around Zuma were that he (Zuma) felt

that the media had wronged him and therefore he was suing

138

the newspapers for R63 million (Sowetan, 3 November 2008,

page 13). There was a sense in the main section of the

Sowetan that the cartoons were aimed to discredit Zuma and

depicting him as a rapist, even though he had been found

not guilty (Sowetan, 9 September 2008, page 5). Zuma’s role

as a father figure had been undermined (Sowetan, 9

September 2008, page 5). According to the Editorial – Have your

say section, the cartoons did not protect Zuma’s right to

dignity; instead they highlighted the perception that Zuma

and his supporters wanted to rape the justice system. The

Zuma-fication of the ANC was a theme that surfaced in the

opinion and letters to the editor (Sowetan, 10 September

2008, page 14).

The negative theme that is raised in the Editorial – Have your

say section is that Zuma’s ANC had ensured free rein for

rapist and abusers of women (Sowetan, 11 September 2008,

page 12). A number of readers were of the opinion that if

Zuma had defended the rights of women and the constitution

with the same commitment that his right-hand men had

pushed the politics for him as their elected horse, then

only could the finger be pointed at Zapiro for unfair

comment in the cartoons (Sowetan, 11 September 2008, page

12).

2.2.2.2 The Star debate themes around Zuma/Jacob Zuma

The central debate themes around the phrase of Jacob

Zuma/Zuma were the issue of rape, the presidency, the

threats and violence that accompanied debates around Zuma

and the corruption trial.

139

Zuma was being portrayed as a rapist, although he had been

cleared of the rape charges. The SMS your feedback section (The

Star, 10 September 2008, page 13) reflected that Zuma took

Zapiro’s cartoons very seriously: where the other heads of

state took Zapiro’s cartoons in their stride, Zuma laid

charges against Zapiro. In the letters section the readers

were pointing out the cynical reference to Zuma’s

showerhead, which he received because of his unprotected

sexual relations with an HIV-postive woman, which he

claimed could not harm him because he took a shower

afterwards. Zuma’s appetite for the fairer sex was

portrayed in the cartoon in his unfastening of his belt to

rape the justice system (The Star, 10 September 2008, page

13).

The letters section also pointed out the controversy around

Zuma, who had hardly been cleared of the arms deal, and

corruption charges were still unanswered. There was also

the point that the fact that Zuma had got his hand on the

presidency was deeply concerning for some political

analysts. There was also a perception among some people

that Zuma was the “chosen one” for the presidency and

should be respected for that (The Star, 10 September 2008,

page 13). An article in the main section of The Star (9

September 2008, page 6) pointed out that because of the

controversy around Zuma, the justice system was the last

institution standing between Zuma and the presidency, and

hence the relentless attacks on the judiciary. The readers

140

of The Star were highlighting their strong opinion in the

letters section (The Star, 11 September 2008, page 23), that if

Zuma did respect the law, he should be willing to be

subjected to a fair trial, but the broader thinking public

saw that Zuma, Mantashe and Vavi were determined to rape

the judiciary and constitution and therefore disregard the

citizens of South Africa.

On the other hand, Max du Preez, in an article in the

opinion and analysis section, was of the opinion that Zuma

realised that ordinary people were not happy with the

‘wild stuff’ going around and he tried to defuse the

situation by offering a new take on criticising the

courts: “In a democracy there should be space to criticise

the courts, but the criticism should be fair and

informed”. He also pointed out that it was only in

dictatorships and autocracies that criticism was viewed

with contempt (The Star, 10 September 2008, page 16).

2.2.2.3 Beeld debate themes around Zuma/Jacob Zuma

The main section articles in Beeld focused on the issue that

Zuma was portrayed as a rapist although he was found not

guilty (Beeld, 9 September 2008, page 2; Beeld, 10 September

2008, page 2; Beeld, 18 September 2008, page 2).

In the opinion and analysis section of Beeld the theme of power

misuse by Zuma was discussed. The opinion and analysis section

questioned Zuma’s attacks on journalists and asked the

question how thin the line is between verbal attack and

141

putting policies into place to control the media.

According to the opinion and analysis article it was clear that

Zuma was not consistent in his view about the role media

plays in society (Beeld, 18 September 2008, page 17). Beeld

reported in an article in the main section that Zuma

cautioned the media against irresponsible reporting and

that it could lead to constraining media freedom in South

Africa (Beeld, 19 September 2008, page 4).

In the letters section there was a perception that if Zuma

was innocent, why did he not use the courts to defend

himself? But instead, he used the opportunity to turn it

into a ‘political trial’ (Beeld, 10 September 2008, page

10).

2.3. ANC


The word ANC appeared in the headlines of two clippings.

Beeld (B) placed one article in the main section of the

newspaper. The Sowetan’s (SW) clippings appeared in the

letters to the editor section. The Star (TS) had no items referring

to the word ANC in its headlines during this period.

The graph illustrates that the cartoons influenced both

the public and media agendas because of the even spread of

items published.

142

Nr of Articles

Front page

Main Section

Editorial


Opinion & Analysis

00.20.40.60.81

TSBSW

Figure 34: Summary of Unit of Analysis ANC in the newspapers’

headlines


2.3.2.1 The Sowetan debate themes around ANC

The themes in the main section of the Sowetan were that the

ANC and its allies – ANC Youth league, SACP, COSATU – saw

the cartoons as an abuse of media freedom (Sowetan, 9

September 2008, page 5). They felt the cartoons bordered

on defamation of character – because they depict the ANC

president, Jacob Zuma, as a rapist when the South African

courts had cleared his name (Sowetan, 9 September 2008,

page 5).

There was an opposing debate in the Editorial – Have your say

section that pointed out that the ANC wanted South

Africans to understand Julius Malema’s calls “Kill for

Zuma” in context, but failed to understand the cartoons

(Sowetan, 10 September 2008, page 14). The debate pointed

143

out that the ANC failed to understand that the idiom was

clearly highlighting the issue that the ANC had a total

disrespect for the judiciary, that it felt it was above

criticism, was applying double standards and that the

Zuma-fication of the ANC had led to the ANC losing its

moral high ground (Sowetan, 10 September 2008, page 14).

Another prominent debate in the Editorial – Have your say

section, around the ANC was that Zuma and the alliance

leaders depicted in the cartoons had allowed free rein to

rapists and the abuse of women. The ANC had failed to

implement the decade-old Domestic Violence Act

successfully. It had failed to establish a police system

in which women had enough confidence to report their cases

of abuse and rape to (Sowetan, 11 September 2008, page 12).

2.3.2.2 The Star debate themes around ANC

The question that was being asked in The Star’s letters section

(10 September 2008, page 13) regarding the ANC was “What

are the new ANC leadership doing in addressing the fears

of South Africans?” The question in the letter was based

on the fact that the ANC’s new rulers (SACP, COSATU and

ANCYL) had been attacking the constitutional order at its

foundations by calling senior justices counter-

revolutionary (Mr Gwede Mantashe); issuing a threat that a

ruling against Zuma would “take the country to a brink of

war” (Mr Blade Nzimande); and mounting demonstrations

against the courts. In the opinion and analysis section the

attacks of the ANC leadership on the judiciary were

described as “pulling a ZANU-PF on South Africa” (The Star,

144

11 September 2008, page 16). The ANC had repeatedly called

into question the integrity of the justice system, with

little or no justification (The Star, 11 September 2008, page

23). An article in the main section highlighted that there

was a view that the ANC had paid little regard to the

fundamental principles that underpinned South Africa’s

democracy, or to uphold the rule of the law – all in order

to advance the interests of one man who stood accused of

corruption and fraud (The Star, 15 September 2008, page 10).

Another article in the main section of The Star (9 September

2008, page 6) reported that the ANC was fuming about how

its president was being portrayed as a rapist, and in a

joint statement it accused Zapiro of having a vendetta

against the ANC. It pointed out that the ANC would not use

any undemocratic means to bring about change, but would

rely on the “will of the people” and therefore the “fears”

were unfounded and the media blamed for taking the issues

out of context.

2.3.2.3 Beeld debate themes around ANC

The themes around the ANC in the main section of Beeld

focused on the fact that the ANC saw Zapiro and white

journalists to be racists because of the image they

created about Zuma and the alliances as rapists and

drunkards (Beeld, 10 September 2008, page 2; Beeld, 11

September 2008, page 4). The second underlying theme

addressed the offensiveness of the cartoon and the fact

that it bordered on defamation of character (Beeld, 9


145

Beeld readers commented in the letters section that the

reaction of the ANC set double standards. They pointed out

that the cartoon should be seen in context in the same way

the ANC expected them to read “Kill the Boer” in context

(Beeld, 10 September 2008, page 10). The readers pointed

out that the ANC confused the terminology democracy with

mob-cracy and that the ANC’s actions were in conflict with

the constitution (Beeld, 10 September 2008, page 10).

Another theme in the letters section was that the readers

agreed that Zapiro’s cartoon was offensive, but it was as

offensive as the ANC and alliances attacks on the

judiciary; as offensive as the “Kill the Boer” song; and

as offensive as the ANC and alliance’s threats of war if

the corruption case against Zuma was not dismissed (Beeld,


In an editorial, Beeld applauded the ANC for the principles on

which it had founded South Africa’s constitution: the

editorial pointed out that one of the elements that made

the constitution work was the involvement of civil

society. The editorial emphasised the role civil society

played within a democracy and then pointed out that it was

time the ANC paid attention and listened to the input from

civil society as represented in Zapiro’s cartoon (Beeld, 11


146

2.4. Rape


The word rape appeared in the headlines of two clippings.

Beeld placed an item in the newspaper’s main section and the

The Star’s item was in the letters to the editor section. The Sowetan

had no item which used the word rape in its headlines

during this period.

The graph illustrates that, given the even spread of items

published, the cartoons influenced both the media and

public agendas.

Nr of Articles

Front page

Main Section

Editorial


Opinion & Analysis

00.20.40.60.81

TS B

SW

Figure 35: Summary of Unit of analysis: Rape in the newspapers’

headlines


2.4.2.1 The Sowetan debate themes around rape

The use of the rape metaphor stimulated a number of

debates in both the main and editorial section of the

Sowetan. The first debate in the main section was around

the appropriateness of the rape metaphor in a country

147

where violence against women and children was a real

problem. This took into account the failure of the ANC

government to implement the Domestic Violence Act and to

create a safe, credible police environment for victims of

violence (Sowetan, 09 September 2008, page 5). The second

issue emphasised was in the Editorial – Have your say section:

readers felt that Zapiro’s cartoon reflected the opinion

held by the majority of South Africans that it was not

acceptable for South Africans that the Zuma-ANC could

belittle the South African justice system and that the ANC

was seen as being above the law (Sowetan, 10 September

2008, page 14).

2.4.2.2 The Star debate themes around rape

In The Star very little was said about the use of the rape

metaphor. The only mention was in one article in the main

section of The Star (9 September 2008, page 6) in which it

was remarked that the ANC deplored the use of the rape

analogy because of our country’s violent history against

women and children.

2.4.2.3 Beeld debate themes around rape

The rape theme appeared in the main section of Beeld, where

the article pointed out that, according to the Freedom of

Expression Institute, the cartoon was positioning the act

of rape as ‘not such a bad thing’, that it is acceptable

to achieve an end goal; however, Prof Pierre de Vos,

Constitutional expert from the University of Western Cape,

148

stated that the metaphor could potentially have a negative

impact in the sense that it is sending out a message to

men that ‘rape is not such a bad thing’ (Beeld, 9 September

2008, page 2).

2.5. Cartoon

2.5.1 Quantitative findings

The word cartoon appeared in the headlines of 13 clippings.

The Star had six items. Four of them were placed in the

letters to the editor section, and there was an opinion and analysis and

main section item respectively. The Sowetan had four items in

which the word ‘cartoon’ appeared. The items were evenly

spread between the main section and letters to the editor. Beeld

had two items in the main section and one in the letters to the

editor section.


debate on the public agenda because of the 13 items

published, eight were feedback from the readers in the

form of letters to the editor or appeared in the opinion and analysis

section. How the cartoons influenced the media agenda is

also evident in the five main section items that appeared.

149

Nr of Articles

Front Page

Main Section

Editorial


Opinion & Analysis

0123456

TSBSW

Figure 36: Summary of Unit of analysis: Cartoon in the newspapers’

headlines


2.5.2.1 The Sowetan debate themes around cartoons

The debate themes were stimulated in the main section of

the Sowetan, and focused on the issues of media freedom:

the cartoons were in bad taste and were beyond the limits

of acceptability; bordered on defamation of character; and

promoted hate speech (Sowetan, 09 September 2008, page 5;

Sowetan, 10 September 2008, page 14).

On a different level the cartoons caused an outrage in the

main section of the Sowetan because of the use of the rape

idiom. There were a number of opinions that felt the

cartoons had gone too far and that the use of rape was

insensitive towards the rape crisis and violence against

women in South African. It was also seen to be creating an

unnecessarily bad impression about South Africa (Sowetan,


150

There was also a racial debate reflected in the Editorial –

Have your say section: if the cartoons would had shown white

men raping the justice system the reaction would have been

“it creates the wrong perception about white men”, but

because it was black men raping the justice system the

comments were that the cartoons were “well thought out” –

this was seen as being hypocritical (Khumalo, 11 September

2008. Sowetan, page 12).

The cartoons were inferential rather than direct about the

freedom of expression rather than the right to dignity

according to the main section of the paper (Sowetan, 9


2.5.2.2 The Star debate themes around cartoons

The debate themes that were prominent in The Star were the

controversial rape metaphor that had been used and how

inaccurately the cartoons captured the ANC and its

alliances. The cartoon showed Zuma loosening his trousers,

while the ANC Youth League president, Julius Malema, SACP

leader, Blade Nzimande and Cosatu general secretary,

Zwelinzima Vavi, hold Lady Justice down. And ANC

secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, says: “Go for it,

boss”.

Max du Preez (11 September 2008. The Star, page 16), in his

article in the opinion and analysis section, pointed out that he

had an expectation that the cartoon would create a

category 5 hurricane, but instead it created a mild storm.

The columnist felt that the cartoon was “strong and yes,

151

even cruel, but … it was exactly what South Africa needs”

(11 September 2008. The Star, page 16). In the letters section

there was a feeling that the cartoon reflected very

accurately how the alliance members’ leadership had harmed

the integrity and credibility of the alliance through

their disrespect for the constitution and the rule of law

(The Star, 11 September 2008, page 23). The readers of the Star

were of the opinion that the cartoon metaphorical

depiction told the truth and provoked arguments, and that

the media freedom it represented was out of the reach of

the monolithic ANC. There was a strong sense that the

cartoon played the role it was supposed to, and that is to

promote dialogue and inform the public opinion (The Star, 10


On the other hand, the cartoon was criticised in the main

section of The Star (9 September 2008, page 6) for being

subjective and insulting the dignity of the alliance

leaders. According to the COSATU statement issued, “the

cartoon was disgusting and it implied and reinforced that

Jacob Zuma is a rapist”. It was highly defamatory and was

clearly intended to poison the minds of the readers

against the ANC president and supports the campaign to

discredit him as president. COSATU saw the cartoon as

being racist because all the players in the cartoon were

Africans.

Vukani Khumalo from Goodwood, Cape Town, asked the

question in the letters section (11 September 2008. The Star,

152

) what if the cartoon was reversed? “What if the

cartoon depicted a black farm worker female, pinned down

by three white male rugby supporters with a white farmer

ready himself to rape her, would the opposition parties

still see that as ‘metaphorically depiction of the

truth?’”

The DA answered his question by expressing support for

Zapiro’s cartoons for a number of legitimate and important

reasons (The Star, 15 September 2008, page 10):

1) Role of the satirists was to provoke debate and

discussion in society on matters of national

importance

2) Support Zapiro in the hope that these cartoons would

shock the nation into seeing the ANC’s assault on the

judiciary for what it is

3) Judiciary being attacked by the ANC because it was

the last Institution standing between Zuma and the

presidency

In the pursuit of the ANC’s goal, to get Zuma elected as

the next president of SA, they had disregarded all the

fundamental principles that underpin our democracy.

2.5.2.3 Beeld debate themes around cartoons

The debates around the cartoons in Beeld were limited. In

two September main articles reference to the importance of

the cartoons was made and in the second article COSATU

asked the question about the cartoon crossing the line of

media freedom and being insensitive to the rape situation

153

in South Africa (Beeld, 9 September 2008, page 2; Beeld, 10


A reader pointed out that the cartoon captured the mood of

South Africans, that the ANC and its alliances were raping

the justice system and placing Zuma above the law (Beeld, 10


3. Conclusion

This chapter has analysed the clippings published between

the said dates. It showed there was a correlation between

the number of appearances of press items and the cartoons

as well as the number of total content clippings that

appeared in a specific section of the newspapers. From

this it is clear that a case of ‘issue-attention cycle’

was established.

The researcher collected data according to headlines and

the space allocated to the total content clippings in the

various publications. It was argued that if the issues

were important enough to set the agenda, the researcher

needed to take the placement into consideration. The data

was sorted according to sections in the publications: main

section, editorials, letters to the editor, opinion and

analysis.

Furthermore, the chapter investigated the question of the

ability of the cartoons to establish debate in the various

publications. According to the qualitative data analysis,

154

the researcher identified a number of debate themes that

presented themselves in the 33 clippings that were read

and analysed. The researcher used the Mail & Guardian Online’s

tagging system, identifying the key words. The themes were

also analysed according to placement in the publications:

main section, editorial, letters to the editor and opinion

and analysis.

The study concludes through the quantitative content

analysis that agenda-setting took place in relation to

both the media and public agendas, and that the cartoons

established an ‘issue-attention cycle’ in the selected

print media.

155

Chapter Six Data analysis

Contents

45. Introduction

46. Analysis of research questions

46.1. Analysis of sub-question 1: Have Zapiro’s

political cartoons (as printed in Sunday Times on 7

September 2008 and Mail & Guardian on 12 September

2008) set the media agendas, as reflected in

editorials, columns and leading print news stories?

46.2. Analysis of sub-question 2: Did these political

cartoons stimulate debate in selected print news


46.3. Analysis of sub-question 3: What was the nature

of the content of the debate in selected print news


46.3.1. Analysis of debate themes in Sowetan




newspapers

48. Limitations of the study

49. Conclusion

156

1. Introduction

The study set out to examine the debates that followed

Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons in the print news media in

Gauteng in the latter part of 2008. It examined the impact

Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons had on the print media in

Guateng through the central question: What agenda-setting role

did the Lady Justice cartoons play in select print news?

The central research question was addressed through the

following sub-questions:


Sunday Times on 7 September 2008 and Mail & Guardian on 12

September 2008) set the media agendas, as reflected

in editorials, columns and leading print news

stories?







This chapter will explore if the dissertation achieved its

research objectives by analysing the findings using the

sub-questions as its points of reference. It will also

reflect on the limitations of the study and put forward

possible questions raised by the study.

157

2. Analysis of research questions

2.1. Analysis of sub-question 1

Sub-question 1: Have Zapiro’s political cartoons (as printed in the ‘Sunday

Times’ on 7 September 2008 and ‘Mail & Guardian’ on 12 September 2008) set

the media agenda, as reflected in editorials, columns and leading print news

stories?

The study examined this sub-question by reflecting on the

frequencies of total clipping content in the selected

Gauteng daily newspapers. Through the quantitative content

analysis, as seen in Chapter Five, section 1: Figure 30:

Summary of number of editorials, letters to the editor,

opinion and analysis articles, it is a clear that the

cartoons set the agenda.

The basic assumption of the agenda-setting theory informs

us that the media consciously (or unconsciously) create a

particular image of reality. The media confront their

readers on a daily basis with issues on which they place

salience. According to Weiss (2009), there is a connection

between the perceived salience (the importance the public

attaches to issues) and how the audience evaluates these

issues. The three daily newspapers in Gauteng gave the

Lady Justice cartoons relative prominence by publishing

news articles in the newspapers, as illustrated below in

Figure 37: Placement of total clipping content in the

three Gauteng daily newspapers.

SUMMARY OF TOTAL CLIPPING CONTENT

158

FRONT PAGE

MAIN SECTION

OPINION & ANALYSIS

LETTER TO EDITOR

EDITORIAL

0

2

4

6

8

THE STARBEELDSOWETANSeries4

Figure 37: Placement of total clipping content in the three Gauteng

daily newspapers

A total of 12 items were published in the front page and main

section of the three daily newspapers. Figure 37 above

illustrates the process of media agenda influencing the

public agenda. The bulk of the response of the total

clipping content was published in the opinion & analysis, letters

to the editor and editorial sections of all three newspapers. Over

the time period, 15 letters to the editor, one editorial, and five

opinion and analysis articles appeared, and therefore debate was

clearly stimulated in the public sphere. Thus the

researcher argues that the Lady Justice cartoons published

in The Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian succeeded in

influencing the media agenda of the three newspapers

examined.

On a second level, the study acknowledges McCombs’s (2008)

viewpoint that our attitudes and public opinions can be

rooted in our personal and our cultural experiences, as

well as our exposure to mass media. In Chapter Three:

159

Agenda-setting theory, the study examined Anthony Downs’s

‘issue-attention-cycle’ theory (1972), which explored how

both the issue and media interact with the public. Data

shows that the cartoons created an “issue-attention-cycle”

in Chapter Five, section 1: Figure 30: Frequency of

clippings after cartoon 1 and cartoon 2 appeared. The data

in the literature study points out that there was a pre-

problem stage in which Zuma’s clashes with the South

African justice system were discussed (Chapter Two,

section: 3.1.4. Introduction: Zuma). The quantitative data

analysis clearly shows a correlation between the first

cartoon printed in The Sunday Times on 7 September 2008 and

the total number of clippings and placement within the

three newspapers in the main section articles, editorials, letters to the

editor and opinion and analysis articles. A total of 23 items

were published after the first cartoon. The data

correlates with Down’s theory that in the second stage –

the discovery stage – the issue is being moved into the

foreground from a non-problem to a problem. The steady

increase seen on Tuesday 9 September 2008, with six items,

Wednesday 10 September 2008, with seven items, and peaking

on Thursday 11 September 2008, with 10 clippings,

indicates that the public understood the complexity of the

issue at hand.

The second cartoon was published in the Mail & Guardian on

the Friday, 12 September 2008. Therefore the first time

that we see data was on the following Monday, 15 September

2008,6 when two items were published. The second cartoon

6 Weekend papers were not included in the study.

160

had less of an agenda-setting function. However, it is

important to note that given the parameters of this study

and the use of dailies, there may have been a public and

media reaction over the weekend that does not reflect in

the data collected. There was also a clear decline in

responses from both media and public – which also supports

the ‘issue-attention-cycle’ theory that states that an

issue will fade out of the public sphere because people

get discouraged or disinterested; they get bored with the

issue or some feel threatened and suppress their thoughts.

We therefore saw the third spike on the Thursday 18

September 2008, with three items, and the last spike

occurred on Tuesday 23 September 2008, with one item,

taking us into the post-problem stage of the theory, when

the issue falls completely off the media agenda.

The research findings indicate then that certainly the

first cartoon of the Lady Justice cartoons not only set

the media agenda and the public agenda successfully, but

also managed to create a clear ‘issue-attention-cycle’ in

the public sphere. The second cartoon had less of an

effect.


Sub-question 2: Did these political cartoons stimulate debate in selected print

news media between 7 September 2008 and 31 December 2008?

The data shows that the Lady Justice cartoons stimulated

debate in the selected newspapers. See Figure 36:

161

Placement of total clipping content in the three Gauteng

daily newspapers (above): a total number of 21 editorials,

letters to the editor, and opinion and analysis articles

were received in the given time period. Eight letters to the

editor came from The Star’s readers, compared to the three

from Beeld and four from Sowetan. When the researcher

compared the readership of the three daily newspapers

(Chapter Four, section 3.1.1: Steps in quantitative

content analysis research, Figure 29: Breakdown of

readership) it was noted that The Star’s readership consists

of 48% graduates, compared to the 23% of Sowetan and 19% of

Beeld. Therefore, the public participation in The Star is

expected if one takes into consideration the readership’s

qualifications and level of education. The study also

examined the ‘power’ of the media to influence the public

agenda (Chapter Three, section 4: Agenda-setting process),

in which Littlejohn and Foss (2008) pointed out that if

both the media and the outside source (in this case,

Zapiro and his Lady Justice cartoons) have a lot of power,

they both have the ability to influence the public agenda.

Littlejohn and Foss (2008) also highlighted the fact that

the media’s impact depends on the power of the media,

which they linked back to the credibility of the media on

the particular issue. It can therefore be argued that the

total number of letters to the editor, editorials and opinion and analysis

items are an indication of this power relationship between

the three Gauteng daily newspapers and their readers, but

it also confirms Zapiro’s credibility as a political

cartoonist, something that the readership of all three

162

newspapers recognised. We saw a positive relationship

between the media agenda and the public agenda in which

the readers were engaged in Lady Justice cartoons debate.


Sub-question 3: What was the nature of the content of the debate in selected

print news media between 7 September 2008 and 31 December 2008?

The agenda-setting theory also examines how the issues

have been framed in the print media. McCombs (2008) points

out that the agenda of attributes presented for each of

these issues literally influences the pictures that we

hold in our minds. Through qualitative content analysis

the researcher investigated how The Star, Sowetan and Beeld

framed the issues for their readers.

McCombs (2008) argued that the concept of framing is a

natural extension of the agenda-setting function (Chapter

Three, section 5: Shaping the media agenda). This study

supports this argument by highlighting the fact that

Zapiro as a political cartoonist has framed, through his

Lady Justice cartoons, certain issues for the media and

public agenda: he has chosen to frame Zuma and the

alliance’s clashes with the South African justice system

using the ‘rape’ metaphor.

The agenda-setting function of the media focuses on what

topics the media presents to an audience and secondly what

the nature of the content was. Through qualitative content

analysis, the researcher established that there was debate

163

themes established in the three newspapers examined. These

will be analysed in detail below.

2.3.1. Analysis of debate themes in the Sowetan

The Lady Justice cartoons produced the following important

debate themes in the Sowetan: media freedom, rape and

respect, indicated in Figure 38 below, as a summary of

Chapter Five, section 2: Quantitative and qualitative

content analysis.

The first theme was ‘media freedom’. The debates around

the media freedom theme were that, firstly, Zapiro rightly

framed the issue using the rape idiom and that Zapiro

captured the fear of the majority of readers. However,

there was also a perception that the cartoons abused that

same right. The cartoons were seen as bordering on

defamation of character (Zuma’s) and there was also a

perception that the cartoons were out to discredit Zuma as

a leader.

The second debate theme was the metaphor of ‘rape’ being

used in a country with high rape statistics. It was

interesting that it was brought to the discussion table

taking into consideration that the readership was mostly

black males, who took offence at another black man being

framed as a rapist.

The third debate theme in the Sowetan was ‘respect’. It

appeared in three different guises. At the first level the

debate involved the ANC itself. The debates focused on the

ANC as an organisation that had lost its moral high

164

ground, had no respect for the judiciary, and had no

respect for women and the issues pertaining to women in

South Africa. At another level the debate focused on the

lack of respect shown to Zuma. He was seen as a father

figure and the media was not treating him according to

that status. On the other hand Zuma’s respect for woman

was questioned, and it was inferred that his acts were

undermining the rights of women.

Again, these were interesting debates if one considers

that 98% of the Sowetan’s readership is black and 64% are

male (Chapter Four, section 3.1.1. Steps in quantitative


readership). They have a lot of respect for Zuma because

of his powerful position as president of the ANC.

Debate themes in Sowetan

Unit of analysis

Zapiro Jacob

Zuma/ Zuma

ANC Rape Cartoons

Summary of

Debate

Themes

Freedom of

expression

Media had

wronged

him

No

respect

for

judiciary

Appropria

teness

was

questione

d in a

Abuse of

media

freedom

165

country

with high

rape

statsHarming

integrity

of others

Discrediti

ng Zuma

Can

support

Julius

Malema’s

call

“kill for

Zuma” –

fail to

understan

d cartoon

Border

on

defamati

on of

characte

r

Father

figure

role

undermined

Losing

its moral

high

ground

Opinion

held by

majority

of SAZuma-

fication

of ANC

Have

failed

women

Racial

debate

Underminin

g rights

of women

Inferent

ial

aspect

of

cartoonFigure 38: Summary of debate themes around the Units of Analysis in

Sowetan, published between August 2008 and December 2008.


In The Star, three debate themes were brought to the

foreground: ‘media freedom’, ‘race’, and the ‘presidency

debate’, indicated in Figure 39 below as a summary of

Chapter Five, section 2: Quantitative and qualitative

166

content analysis. The media freedom debate’s focal point

in The Star was around Zapiro’s right to or abuse of the

freedom of expression – there was also a clear argument

around Zapiro’s role in upholding the constitution and

that a democracy implies freedom of the press.

The race theme delivered an interesting perspective – it

looked at the ownership of the media (which is mostly

white) and their treatment of the ruling party as being

racist. A point was raised that if you were not African

and did not agree with ruling party then you were a

racist.

The Lady Justice cartoons successfully managed to link an

old issue – Zuma’s corruption charges, which were still

unanswered (Chapter Two, section: 3.1.4: Zuma

introduction) – with the new issue of the presidency of

South Africa. The discussion centered on the controversy

surrounding Zuma, and argued that the justice system was

the last institution standing between Zuma and the

presidency. The concept of the “chosen one” was also

brought to the discussion – the fact that Zuma was the

“chosen one” to become president needed to be respected.

This view led to a concern being raised that a number of

South Africans seemed to share, and that was that the ANC

was going to “pull a ZANU-PF move”7 on South Africa. The

constitution and democracy were being questioned. 7 Mr Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe and the ZANU-PF party, announces an

acceleration of the land resettlement programme, saying private white farmers

will not be fully compensated, and suggesting the UK assist them. A list of

more than 1,000 targeted properties is published in November 1997 (source:

BBC News, 1998).

167

Taking into consideration that the readership of the

newspaper includes 64% black and 24% white readers, and

that it has the highest percentages of graduates (48%)

compared to the other two dailies (Chapter Four, section

3.1.1: Steps in quantitative content analysis research,

Figure 29: Breakdown of readership), it is thus noteworthy

that the president can be seen as the “chosen one” and

that the democratic process of electing a president was

not questioned.

Reference was made to the ‘rape’ metaphor, but it did not

create enough attention to stand out as a separate major

theme.

Debate themes in The Star

Unit of analysis

Zapiro Jacob

Zuma/ Zuma

ANC Rape Cartoons

Summary of

Debate

Themes

Freedom of

expression

The

presidency

What are

ruling

party

doing to

address

fears of

South

Africans?

Rape

metaphor

appropria

teness

was

questione

d

Inaccura

cy of

cartoons

captured

the ANC

&

alliance

Racist Threats

and

violence

that

accompanie

s debates

around

Pulling a

ZANU-PF

on South

Africa

Opinion

held by

majority

of SA

168

ZumaRacial

debate Figure 39: Summary of debate themes around the Units of Analysis in

The Star, published between August 2008 and December 2008.


The analysis of the clippings from Beeld is presented in

Figure 40 below, a summary of Chapter Five, section: 2:

Quantitative and qualitative content analysis. There was

one more theme from this sample when compared to the

others. The four themes focused on the ‘role of the

political cartoonist’, ‘respect’, ‘media freedom’ and the

‘rape metaphor’.

Beeld was the only newspaper that had an in-depth

discussion around the role of the political cartoonist,

which looked at the important function Zapiro fulfilled as

a visual journalist on commenting on the current issues,

using humour to convey an important message.

The second prominent debate theme in Beeld was ‘respect’.

It firstly focused on Zuma and his disrespect towards the

role of the media, through his direct verbal attack on the

media. This discussion was then closely linked to media

freedom. The debates raised the concerns that Zuma was not

consistent in his view about the role media plays within

South African society, and his reference to putting

policies in place to control the media (which has recently

started to come to fruition).

169

The second respect debate was around the ANC and its

double standards and disrespect it showed towards the

constitution of South Africa. The debate focused on the

argument that the South African constitution is built on

the involvement of civil society and the role it plays to

uphold democracy. It was suggested that the ANC should pay

attention to the civil society as reflected in the Lady

Justice cartoons and that it should not confuse democracy

with mob-cracy.8

Taking into consideration that the readership of the

newspaper is 91% white readers, of whom 19% are graduates

(Chapter Four, section 3.1.1: Steps in quantitative


readership), the debate around the rape metaphor is

interesting. It supports the notion that in order to get

people to pay attention to an issue, you need to shock

them. The readers claimed that this was just what the Lady

Justice cartoons had done, and therefore it justified the

use of the graphic rape illustration. On the other hand,

Beeld criticised the rape metaphor for setting a bad

example to men: “When the president-to-be can do it, then

it must be okay?” This then leads to the debate of the

cartoons crossing the line of media freedom and instead

becoming a form of defamation of character.

Debate Themes in Beeld

Unit of analysis

8 According to Maggie Fick (2011), “mob-cracy” (not democracy) is when

the mob (thug) takes over democracy.

170

Zapiro Jacob

Zuma/ Zuma

ANC Rape Cartoons

Summary of

Debate

Themes

The role

of the

political

cartoonist

Power

misuse by

Zuma

No

respect

for South

Africa

constitut

ion

Rape

metaphor

not such

a bad

compariso

n

Crossing

the line

of media

freedom

Can

support

Julius

Malema’s

call for

“kill for

Zuma” –

double

standards

Offensiv

eness of

cartoon

–

defamati

on of

characte

r

Figure 40: Summary of debate themes around the Units of Analysis in

Beeld, published between August 2008 and December 2008.


newspapers

In conclusion, the agenda-setting trends in the three

daily newspapers should be pointed out. Beeld was the

newspaper with the most main section articles, (six

compared to the two in The Star and Sowetan respectively).

Beeld appeared to be more analytical in nature. Beeld was

the only newspaper that looked at the role of the

political cartoonist in the public sphere; it also argued

both sides of the rape metaphor in its articles. However,

what the researcher found interesting was the lack of

reader participation in the debates. Over the time period

there were only three letters to the editor in comparison with

171

the eight from The Star and four from the Sowetan. There is

then a clear indication that the readership of The Star

newspaper was the most active public in the debates around

the Lady Justice cartoons.

It is also interesting to note how the various newspapers

have framed Zuma. The Sowetan saw Zuma in a more

traditional way – the father figure – and therefore saw

that he needed to be treated with respect. Beeld focused on

the issues surrounding Zuma, rather than on his actual

person. The articles in Beeld concentrated on Zuma’s attack

on the media. The Star had a more balanced approach to Zuma.

If one takes The Star’s readership into account, then, of the

three newspapers, the more equitable distribution of

readership democraphics for that newspaper definitely

affected the discussion. Beeld has a predominantly white

Afrikaans readership and Sowetan has a predominantly black

readership, which explains the more nuanced reactions to

Zuma and the cartoons.

4. Limitations of study

It is important to note that due to the following

variables the results may not be able to be generalised to

other studies and may be grounded in subjective reasoning.

In addition to these, three other limitations should be

noted, due to the parameters of the study:

1. The size of the sample group was limited to only

three daily print media in Gauteng, and therefore the

findings cannot be generalised outside the sample.

172

2. The study did not include weekend print media, and

therefore one can argue that thus limited the agenda-

setting focus of the study.

3. Content analysis focused on editorials and letters to

the editors, which can be problematic, because

newspaper editors’ gatekeep information in those

sections and information that is published in those

sections is framed to fit the newspaper’s editorial

policy.

5. Conclusion

In the South African democracy the individual citizen’s

rights are protected by the Constitution, as is the

media’s right to freedom of expression. The Lady Justice

cartoons brought this issue of our Constitution under

discussion in the latter part of 2008. Zuma is suing

Zapiro for defamation of character, and one can argue that

he has a constitutional right to do so. However, by virtue

of his position as the then president of the ANC, Zuma had

a responsibility towards South Africans to set an example

regarding acceptable behaviour. The researcher is of the

opinion that his position as president of ANC and the

future president of South Africa outweighs his individual

rights, and his actions are in the public interest. A

political cartoonist like Zapiro, operating in a

democracy, has a right to expose the unacceptable

behaviour of people in leadership positions, especially

when the leader of the main party makes statements that

threaten the country’s democracy: “Zuma cautioned the

173

media against irresponsible reporting and said that it

could lead to the constraining of media freedom in South

Africa” (Beeld, 19 September 2008, page 4). It is the role

of the political cartoonist to draw attention to such

issues.

174

Chapter Seven Concluding remarks

Contents

50. Overall trends in media content

51. Conclusion

175

1. Overall trends

Zapiro’s work was evaluated according to the main function

of a political cartoonist, namely to visually reflect the

dominant debates of the day and to create a platform for

new directions of debate, which can be seen as playing a

key role in the safeguarding of democracy and freedom of

expression. Given the freedom cartoonists as modern-day

court jesters enjoy, the political cartoonists are in the

best position to make people aware of the potential

dangers to their constitutional rights. In his article “A

licence to cheek”, Kruger (2008:2) identifies freedom of

speech as a fundamental right. Mason (2010) supports this

by highlighting the fact that the right of the cartoonist

is entrenched in our Constitution, and that freedom of

expression is a pillar of our Bill of Rights, which today

gives South Africa the democratic freedom that was unheard

of under the apartheid regime.

However, it would seem that the public and media interpret

Zuma’s clashes with the South African justice system

(highlighted in Chapter Two, section 3.1.4: Introduction:

Zuma) as the president of the ANC wishing to disregard

these laws of South Africa. These concerns have been

raised in the public sphere with the analogy of the “ANC

pulling a ZANU-PF on South Africa”9 (Max du Preez,

9 Mr Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe and the ZANU-PF party, announces an acceleration of the land resettlement programme, saying private white farmers

will not be fully compensated, and suggesting the UK assist them. A list of

more than 1,000 targeted properties is published in November 1997. (Source:

176

2008:16). There is also a growth in public engagement

through the letters to the editor, from which most of the

clippings emanated.

Although similar themes emerged across the data collected

from the separate dailies, it was interesting to note that

the focus of the arguments within those themes was

different across the three dailies. The researcher argues

therefore that although agenda-setting did occur, readers

from the different dailies reacted differently to the Lady

Justice cartoons.

The researcher sees Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons as an

important tool to stimulate public debate in order to make

the public aware of perceived undemocratic social conduct

and possible double standards of the ANC alliance.

The researcher acknowledges that the use of the rape

metaphor is a sensitive issue in any country, but more so

in South Africa, taking the high rape statistics into

consideration. Mason (2010) supports this by referring to

the statistics, newspaper reports and anecdotal evidence

of a pervasive culture of rape that strikes fear into the

hearts of South Africans, so the cartoon evokes personal

fears of being raped. Kruger (2008) emphasises that the

cartoons relied heavily on the idea that rape is an act of

the utmost brutality, and that the Lady Justice cartoons

are not meant to be a joke. Mason (2010) explains that the

Lady Justice cartoons make us feel very uncomfortable,

BBC News, 1998). [repeated from p. 116]

177

because we see ourselves as voyeurs witnessing an act of

rape. Moreover, Zuma’s name being automatically linked to

rape because of his rape trial (in which he was acquitted

in April 2006) makes it seem more real. It is

understandable that he would not want to be framed as a

rapist. Zapiro (2007) justifies the way in which he framed

Zuma in an interview with Thomas Koelble (University of

Cape Town) and Steven Robins (University of Stellenbosch)

on the basis of actual remarks Zuma made regarding Aids,

women and the rule of law:

... following the alleged rape, the accuser continued,

Jacob Zuma left the bed to take a shower. In his defence,

Zuma contended that the sex was consensual and that he

took a shower to lessen his chances of getting HIV/AIDS,

since he knew the victim was HIV-positive. Zuma said he

did not have a condom at the time of the incident. (Evans

& Wolermans, 2006, as cited by Bal, Pitt, Berthon &

DesAutels, 2009:233)

This case is further compounded by the fact that the ANC

leadership itself has voiced concerns about the role of

the media in society, in most cases believing it to be

destructive and anti-government. In response to the Lady

Justice cartoons, Julius Malema, president of the ANCYL,

declared: “there are white racist journalists who project

African leadership as irresponsible and we will never

allow that” (Kruger, 2008). Mantashe’s comment (11

September 2008, The Star, page 23) that the “leaders” in the

cartoon are all African, and that “this shows that the

178

media, which is mostly managed by white people, does not

have respect for the ruling party and its new leadership”,

are both ignoring Zapiro’s struggle record and the many

examples of opposition to the apartheid regime, as

discussed in Chapter Two, section 3.1: Introduction:

Zapiro.

However, a number of editors disagreed with this argument.

Mondli Makhanya, then editor of the Sunday Times, made the

comment in an article written by Du Plessis (Wednesday, 10

September 2008. Beeld, page 2) that: “… he feels strongly

about the issue that politic needs to re-look their

actions and not hide behind the race card”. Similarly,

Malcolm-Cowan (Thursday 11, September 2008. The Star, page

23), a reader from Potchefstroom, raised an important

point: “The perpetuation of the racist label by all and

sundry, particularly our so-called politicians, is what

keeps racism alive in this country. Just because a

powerful and provocative Zapiro cartoon was created by a

white guy, it becomes racist”.

The accusation of racism is always present given South

African history; however, Sipho Seepe, as cited by Kruger

(2008), wrote in Business Day that “many (African people)

did find the cartoon racially offensive”. For Kruger

(2008) this is an indication that white people have

difficulty in understanding the depth of sensitivity felt

by black people on the issue of rape.

179

The researcher also noted that the readers are all

influenced by their various backgrounds, but feels that

Zapiro’s reputation as a political cartoonist comes to his

defence: his cartoons have always depicted people in

powerful positions, irrespective of their race – the

leaders of today just happen to be black. According to

Mason (2010), Zapiro himself remained firm in the

conviction that he has never deviated from the progressive

non-racial principles he embraced in the days of the UDF.

This also speaks to the theme of ‘respect’. Kruger (2008)

points out that respect in a democracy is not something that

is automatically attached to prominence. Supporters of

Zuma have reiterated the viewpoint that Zapiro shows no

respect for Zuma as a leader, especially as head of the

ANC party. According to them it is expected of Africans to

hold their leaders in high esteem; they also refer to Zuma

as a “father figure”. Kruger (2008): points out that

respect needs to be earned.

In fact, according to Zapiro himelf, it is the

cartoonist’s job to confront the most powerful people in

society and “knock them off their pedestal” (as quoted by

Koelble & Robins, 2007:318). Therefore one can argue that

respect for authority is not a priority for a political

cartoonist; it should instead be ensured that political

cartoonists give voice in a humorous or satirical way to

the anxieties and concerns of civil society (Mason, 2010),

as discussed in Chapter Two, section 2: The South African

180

context, and section 3: Post-apartheid cartoons.

According to Mason (2010:233), cartoonists and jesters

have an important role to play: if “… we see our leaders

and representatives abrogating their responsibilities and

undermining our hope for a better future, we have to speak

out about it, whatever the consequences”. Zapiro, through

his Lady Justice cartoons, has done exactly that.

Through the analysis of the data, it is clear that a few

issues and concerns arise for further consideration:

1) The fine line between media freedom and media abuse: It

was evident in the clippings that some readers felt that

the Lady Justice cartoons overstepped that line. This gave

way to the discussion of media freedom in South Africa and

putting it into context with current SA debates around the

new Information Bill. This tension should be explored

further.

2) The question around the cultural dimensions of how the

cartoons were perceived needs more attention in similar

studies, given the multi-cultural nature of South African

society.

2. Conclusion

The Lady Justice cartoons did manage to set the agenda and

stimulate public debate around important issues such as

media freedom, democracy, respect and racism, but

ultimately the interpretation of the cartoons was a matter

of personal opinion.

181

The study has explored the growth of political cartooning

in South Africa, and the important role the political

cartoonists played in the apartheid years. As Mason

(2010:212) rightly points out:

It was the cartoonists who have always been quick to

call politicians to task for falling short of the

progressive democratic principles epitomized by Nelson

Mandela and entrenched in our Constitution. The freedom

of expression enjoyed by our cartoonists is part and

parcel of a broader freedom won after decades of

struggle, and won’t be surrendered lightly.

It is against this background that the study acknowledges

that it is the duty of political cartoonists not merely to

sum up a complex situation, but to give shape to the

issues and often steer these debates into new directions,

as well as acknowledge values of democracy,

accountability, transparency and good governance, and give

credit where it is due.

The study succeeded in proving that framing can be part of

the agenda-setting theory, if we take into consideration

how on the one level Zapiro’s Lady Justice cartoons framed

Zuma using the rape metaphor and the content of the debate

themes that were discussed in the public sphere. At the

second level, the study succeeded in proving that the

media itself sets the agenda for the public, and the

dissertation pointed out the different approaches the

three daily newspapers took to the Lady Justice cartoons

and the impact this had on the content of the debate

themes.

182

It has always been recognised that civilitation needs to

set space apart for the court jester to mock or to poke

fun at the embarrassing under-achievements of kings,

queens and politicians. In the case of political

cartoonists, the ‘jester space’ that they fill today plays

a crucial role in facilitating the debate within the

public sphere. At the time this dissertation was written,

the ANC government, with Zuma as president of South

Africa, passed the Protection of Information Bill10 in the

National Assembly (28 November 2011). It seems that

political cartoonists such as Zapiro will have a new

‘struggle’ on their hands to defend South Africa’s freedom

of expression for future generations to come.

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THE AGENDA-SETTING FUNCTION OF THE ‘JESTER’S SPACE’: ZAPIRO’S LADY JUSTICE CARTOONS

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