Headlines and Discourses in Newspaper Reports on Traffic Accidents

Abstract

Building on the existing social and health sciences knowledge base, we explore the ways in which traffic accidents on South African roads are constructed by the media and how these constructions are related to the media's role in supporting hegemonic interests, producing public consensus and promoting public agency. Discourse analysis was used to analyse 52 South African newspaper articles that reported on traffic accidents during the Easter weekend and the festive season in 2005/6. The analysis suggests that well-crafted headline messages and multiple discourses, predicated by a range of news-values and specific framing modalities, are interwoven to project the dominant view that over the holiday season South African roads are war-zones. Irresponsible and reckless drivers, in particular taxi drivers, are typecast as ‘unworthy’ citizens and habitual perpetrators of the ‘carnage’ on the roads. Motorists and occupants of public transport vehicles feature prominently as the primary victims of traffic deaths. Pedestrians and motorcyclists are among the less frequently mentioned victims. In contrast to the villains of the road, traffic safety officers are presented as the protectors of law-abiding citizens and emergency care workers, characterised as altruistic and angelic, are described as the rescuers who heal the wounded. Whereas the non-dominant discourse alerts the reader to pedestrian vulnerability, certain contextual determinants of traffic deaths, some successes in traffic safety promotion, and the dominant discourses suggest that the panacea for traffic safety is primarily rooted in proper road behaviour and law-enforcement. The analysis points to silences related to societal, institutional, and corporate responsibility in road safety and highlights the need to engage the print media toward assuring evidence-led reporting of traffic accidents.