Data was collected from the news aggregator News24. News24 is described as Southern Africa and Africa's premier online news resource, with round-the-clock coverage for local and international news (Mnguni, 2010). It prides itself in "bringing you news as it happens" (Alfreds, 2010). From this aggregator, 52 articles that relate to violent crime were collected and coded for analysis. The data collected fits the working definition of the study. To ensure that articles comply with the working definition of violence, the Key words ‘murder’, ‘rape’ and ‘killings’ and
‘assault’ were used to search for the relevant articles. The search capability of the aggregator was used also to filter the specified years.
A specific number of articles were selected for each type of crime within the defined years to give a total of 52 articles. A grid delineating the chosen variables is provided below in Table 4.1.
The headlines for the selected articles are presented in Table 4.2. Let it be noted that all of the articles, save one, are from the month of December. This outcome was peculiar and not
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intentional. The search results scared by the News24 site search were all inexplicably from December even after specifying the months in the search criteria. Like MacRitchie and Seedat - as mentioned in the literature review section - the steps used for searching for the data for this research were followed.
Table 4.1: Grid delineating chosen variables
Year
2010 2011 2012
Type of crime Number of articles (52)
Rape 6 6 6
Murder 6 6 6
Assault 5 5 6
Table 4.2: Headlines of Articles
2010 Rape
Date Time Headline
December 22 17:22 Girl raped by friend's boyfriend December 21 14:35 Eastern Cape man rapes 2 women December 09 8:27 Man gets life for rape, assault December 20 13:02 Gauteng teen raped by 7 men December 14 9:47 Sharpeville residents beat up rapists December 21 14:38 Mandela son-in-law back to court in Feb Murder
December 29 14:39 Sugarcane killer to be sentenced in Jan December 27 14:41 Man kills drinking buddy
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December 30 18:25 Seven held over 'witchcraft' murder December 28 11:18 20 killed in Eastern Cape over weekend December 26 22:39 Anni Dewani murder - 'no sign of struggle' December 26 7:35 Teen found murdered
Assault
December 22 16:02 Boys, 14, held for setting man alight December 27 12:17 Gran dies after brutal farm assault December 14 9:47 Arrest warrants for ex-Helpmekaar boys December 28 21:29 Robbers hide guns in pram, shoot 3 December 24 12:00 Assaulted granny in critical condition
2011 Rape
Date Time Headline
December 12 15:57 Breakthrough in 'holiday' rape case December 16 16:22 Pastor overpowers girl, then rapes her December 22 13:01 Limpopo boy kidnapped, raped
December 29 10:05 KZN nurse arrested for raping patient December 27 20:05 Man arrested for raping stepdaughter December 27 13:21 Teen gang-raped by 5 men
Murder
December 24 21:18 Woman held for boyfriend's murder December 26 16:14 North West teen arrested for murder
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December 28 20:00 KZN couple arrested for cop's death December 21 0:57 3 appear for Tongaat couple's murder December 28 13:35 Man arrested for killing woman, 55 December 29 2:57 3 arrested for killing KZN couple Assault
December 12 18:00 Murder accused also 'assaulted' farm workers December 07 19:03 Blue light assault case drags on
December 15 14:42 Initiate dies trying to escape school December 21 14:44 ANCYL man's assault case postponed December 20 13:22 ANCYL man to appear for journalist assault
2012 Rape
Date Time Headline
December 30 22:10 North West dad held for daughter's rape December 31 16:00 Spate of child rapes in Limpopo
December 30 12:01 Man held for rape of granddaughter, 10 December 31 8:03 Grandfather in court for rape
December 31 10:48 Man held for attempted child rape October 28 14:39 Man held for raping 6 girls, 2 boys Murder
December 24 20:01 Man held for attempted murder December 27 20:18 Two seen after train driver's murder December 31 12:13 Pensioner to appear for murder
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December 29 22:47 Teen held for murder in Eastern Cape December 31 9:20 Metro cop held for double murder December 30 16:10 3 Eastern Cape teens held for murder Assault
December 12 14:14 Bloemfontein prison hostage-takers in court December 04 16:37 Soweto pastor granted bail
December 21 10:24 PE man gets damages from cops
December 05 14:39 Karate coach gets correctional supervision December 16 17:47 Cop held for North West kidnapping December 22 21:36 Balotelli's brother arrested
4.5.1. Corpus
The data corpus consisted of online news articles of violent crimes. Forty English articles pertaining to South Africa were used. To ensure relevance to the study, articles had to contain any of the words rape, assault or murder. The time interval for the data to be collected is from 2010 to the year end of 2012. The reason for the choice of this interval is because online news readership has gained popularity over the past couple of years. It is also important to define the period for the research so the distinction between what counts as violent crime and what does not. Perpetrators of violent crime are understood within a particular historical context. The lack of a defined research period in this case would cause the error of presentism in the study (Seixas & Peck, 2004). It was also important to place 'violence' within a contemporary timeframe because scholars speculate that high levels of violent crime are more readily reported by media (Kaminski, 2013).
Sacco (1995) suggests that media outlets which once would not dare report on crimes of a sexual or violent nature began to do so because of public discourses around such crimes
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(Sacco, 1995). Throughout time, the definition violence became broader and broader (Mucchielli, 2010). The analysis must therefore take account of both of these possible effects in its selection of data in the present. There are no statistics that speak to violent crime to draw comparisons from history, but it can be subjectively analysed that violent crimes are increasing in terms of reporting.