Abstract provided by author:
The media remains a powerful presence in most cultures, worldwide. It gives people news of world and local events, entertains, and may even function as a companion to children (television). Because it functions as a window to the outside world, what appears across its landscape actually may become people's reality. Thus, the potential for distorting their view of that world is high if the picture provided is unrepresentative of actual events [Phyllis 1999:1] The research explored the possibility that the media may also serve as a powerful creator of the very public opinions it seeks to reflect in its news. The research was a content analysis of The Namibian newspaper reporting about the war in Iraq from April to August 2003. An exact amount of 137 articles were sampled and each main concern of each article was categorized. There were 10 main categories: Context, Diplomacy, Impact, Investigation, Military, Mitigation, Reactions, Reconstruction, Response and Miscellaneous. There was a disparity in the presentation of these categories; coverage was dominated by Military and Response Categories, while Context Category had only two articles. In addition, the coalition side received less coverage compared to Bush and his ally, Britain. This is troubling because people could make decisions based on the information they received. The findings cannot be generalized because of the sample size. Only articles from 16 April to 18 August 2003 were analysed. The research is unique because it is the first of its kind and will be a basis for future researchers who would want to study media biases in Namibia especially the press because, to be able to determine biases, you need also to look at patterns of coverage