ROi Africa report – Racism captured by the media – 2016

DATE: 12 FEB 2017

Compiled by Tonya Khoury – ROi Africa

Many racist and prejudice related stories swamped the ROi Africa charts over the year. Here are some examples:

·         Velaphi Khumalo

·         Chris Hart

·         Curro Schools

·         Pretoria Girls High

·         Cell C’s Jose Dos Santos

·         Pastor Steven Anderson, here SA stood in solidarity and said #NotInOurBackYard

·         Mcebo Dlamini

·         Matthew Theunissen

·         Black Face – Stellies

·         Vicky Momberg

·         Andre Slade

·         Mabel Jansen

·         Say No to Xenophobia

The top ten stories in South African media (both news and social)

See first graph – Penny Sparrow set the wheels of cyber racism in motion at the start of 2016, with her racist Facebook post referring to black people as monkeys. The incident is a constant reference for racism in the cyberspace, and has become a benchmark for any reference to racist social media.  Over the year 2016, Penny Sparrow stayed on the news charts and ended up as one of the top ten social media controversies in the year. It is remarkable though that over a 365 day period, Penny Sparrow can still be one of the top stories.  Pretoria Girls High and #BlackHairMatters also made huge impact.

What about the rest of the world?

See second graph – The graph (left) is an indicator of high level of public discourse internationally around issues that are very closely linked with topics of race and discrimination.

Many may argue that Brexit is a product of xenophobia.  Britons tired of losing work to foreigners, was probably the single strongest factor for the vote to Brexit

There is no denying Donald Trump was the biggest story of 2016 (and still is in 2017). His rhetoric is filled with misogynistic, racist and xenophobic messages, and his victory makes for an even more interesting case study.

* Watch this space for monthly updates and statistics on issues related to race and the media.