Herman Wasserman, Professor and Deputy Head of the School of Journalism, is new to Grahamstown, but has already made his mark in a specific field of Media Studies being taught and researched in this School, that of Popular Journalism.
Prof Wasserman published two books on the topic recently, will also teach an Honours course on Popular Journalism in the first term and supervises postgraduate research in the area. He also hopes to embark on further research on the relationship between popular media and politics this year.
He published a monograph Tabloid Journalism in South Africa last year. Its successor, edited by Prof Wasserman and to which he provided the introduction, is a selection of essays published in 2011 and entitled Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa.
Tabloid Journalism in South Africa, published by Indiana University Press, has already become an important reference work for those who are working and studying within the field of Journalism studies. Prof Wasserman's intent was to look into how the tabloid newspapers have created a niche within the media culture in this country, and how this differs from observed trends in the Western world.
Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa (Routledge) broadens the scope of the first book to look beyond South Africa and examine the role of the media and journalists throughout the continent. Together the two books provide a refreshing African perspective on popular media.
The tabloid format is a relatively new addition to the print media portfolio in South Africa, and tabloid newspapers are becoming ever more popular. The Daily Sun is now the biggest daily newspaper in the country, having a readership of around five million poor and working class black citizens. It also has the highest pass-on rate of any print newspaper, and therefore reaches an even greater percentage of the population than suggested by the circulation figures.
When tabloid papers first appeared, there was a strong backlash against them from the established press. Criticisms included a perceived lack of respect for privacy, excessive use of sexual content and an unacceptable degree of latitude towards the truth. Journalists who worked on the tabloids were also vilified and accused of abandoning their journalistic principles.
While researching this book, Prof Wasserman held focus group discussions across South Africa, which allowed him to delve beyond these surface issues and to explore why the tabloids are so popular with a great majority of South African citizens.
The answer? Readers find that the content presented by the tabloids resonates with their daily lives. News stories that deal with local and community-based issues lead to a sense of connectedness within communities which broadsheets might not engender to the same extent. Prof Wasserman, while not trying to whitewash away any infractions of professional ethical codes which may occur within the medium, did find that journalists working on these papers spent more time in the field investigating their stories than he had expected, taking their role as reporters to the people extremely seriously.
Do people use tabloids to become politically informed? The research revealed that, to an extent, they do. However, what might be described as the 'big picture', for example what is happening on a daily basis in Parliament, is not a major factor in the lives of this demographic group. It is on a daily, lived-experience level that the tabloids do indeed act as a politicising force, covering issues such as the difficulty experienced by people trying to get ID books, and the plight of communities left without basic services like water or sanitation. They give a voice to those who might not otherwise be heard.
Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa is a collection of essays commissioned specifically to critically examine how media relates to discourses surrounding African democracy and development. Prof Wasserman states in his introduction that this book “not only wants to refocus attention on the interface between popular media, democracy and development, but also wants to do so very specifically from the perspective of Africa.
Essays explore the fluid nature of journalism on the continent, focusing on the innovative ways in which information is transferred in contexts where there is little or no access to traditional media. Popular music, film, radio and convergence culture are all investigated by well-respected academic writers from around the world, and the book is skillfully drawn into a coherent whole.
Prof Wasserman has an obvious passion and affinity for popular journalism. Not content to sit back, he is already planning how to use a grant received for research during 2011. In line with his interest in the politicising effect of the popular media, his plans include exploring how the tabloids shape their readers’ ideas of citizenship, and how they function and are used in a political event, in this case the upcoming local elections.