Content and readership analysis of the M&G and Thought Leader

In a recent post Bert Olivier referred to being called a “clown” for being critical of capitalism. As it goes I have been doing some research about commentators and contributors to Thought Leader. I am still collecting and analysing the data.

Of the thousands of entries I have in my spreadsheet, so far, the clearest indications (at this point) are that the highest percentage of all contributions (in terms of readers and commentators) are posts that are critical of the ANC, the government, Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Robert Mugabe and black people in general. Michael Trapido ranks high in terms of popular contributors most weeks. I think my data is based on weekly updates, but I have difficulty finding data going backward — go figure. He seems to be followed (at least this week) by Sarah Britten and/or Sentletse Diakanyo.

The political/ideological biases are markedly to the right of, say, Helen Suzman during the 1980s. The politician most favourably considered by most commentators is Trevor Manuel; from what I have found, based on some applied principles of critical discourse analysis, is that because he is more “market-friendly” and speaks the language of “the market”, he is considered quite favourably. Without fail, Nelson Mandela seems to be everyone’s hero.

Some of the posts that have had among the highest hits have to do with emigration/white flight and so forth. Crime is also up there. It may come as no surprise to some people that Lyndall Beddy has made some of the most outrageous claims. In one post (perhaps not on Thought Leader) a writer explained about how impressed he was with Kader Asmal’s humility and decency, to which Beddy, quite ungraciously said: (I paraphrase) But he is in the ANC, he doesn’t care. Immediately after writing this I found the link to the Beddy comment, I left my own comment in to show whether I was wrong or right. Elsewhere, where people were discussing some issue, she simply said: “Why aren’t we criticising the government?”

I am still collecting the data. There are literally hundreds of topics. On any given day there may be up to 50 topics (at any time). For example, at 11.23am on October 7, there were 50 topics (posted as tags) listed as the Thought Leader “Zeitgeist”. These were

language
corruption
humour
democratic centralism
constitution
English
mulit-party
racism
scorpions
economist
culture
africans
cars
economy
asia
apartheid
Afrikaners
democracy
politicians
Arundhati Roy
organisation
corruption
military
Thabo Mbeki
South Africa
Africa
government
democratic governance
ANC
Luthuli House
artists
poverty
Jacob Zuma
imperialism
language
history
truth
images
Khalema Motlanthe
new plans
ideology
sa
crime
Mbeki
Wall Street
English
Sarah Palin
Shilowa
Julius Malewa
globalisation

These are, of course, based on “tagging”, which means it is quite arbitrary — as is clear. I have not altered them. I did this research for myself because I am seriously considering coming back to South Africa and wanted to get a feel for things. As it goes, I am in the midst of changing my plans to return home due to a lack of firm offers … That’s another issue.

The data collection will continue when I have more time, maybe in December.

What I have established, and will say for now is this: in terms of content, the Mail & Guardian is quite a distance more to the right on the political spectrum than the paper I worked on from 1985 to 1987. It is, nonetheless, still the best newspaper in South Africa. That, I admit, is my personal bias.

What Thought Leader reflects (not the newspaper) is that there has been a significant change in the readership; this is based only on the commentators. I must re-emphasise two points, in order not to confuse anyone.

1. In terms of content and based on my early analysis through a critical media/critical discourse analysis lens, the M&G is well to the right of the Weekly Mail.

2. Based only on Thought Leader commentaries (literally several hundred that I have collected over seven months), the readership appears to be more closely (but not entirely) allied with the Star or Business Day of the 1980s.

This brings me back to criticism of Bert Olivier. Having worked in South Africa as a journalist during the 1980s, rampant anti-communism and the dismissal of critics of capitalism was the mainstay of the Citizen, Star, Business Day and others.

Olivier should not be too concerned … he is in good company.