Framing the proposed opposition alliance prior to 31 July 2013 elections: a case of the Herald and Newsday

Abstract

The study set out to establish why there seemed to be contrasting discourses emanating from The Herald and Newsday’s framing of a proposed opposition alliance prior to the 31 July 2013 elections. While polarisation of the media in Zimbabwe had been documented before, the period in which this study takes place was unique in that the country was in a dispensation of a government of national unity (GNU). The previous polarised environment was expected to have been corrected or at least minimised during this period since all the major political parties were represented in government. A qualitative research paradigm was used for the study where archival research was used to obtain the stories which were purposively sampled and critical discourse analysis was used to analyse data. The study established that there was no break from the past in terms of the pro-ZANU PF and anti-ZANU PF discourse in media framing of the proposed alliance. The state controlled media framed the proposed alliance as a Western project to topple the nationalist ZANU PF while the privately owned media framed the proposed alliance as the most viable project to defeat ZANU PF at the polls.