SECTOR 2 Mention was made of a case in 2008 in which Media Monitoring Africa sued the Daily Sun for repeatedly using the word ‘alien’ in articles and headlines to describe foreign nationals. The NGO felt this contributed to a culture of xenophobia in the country, by directly and indirectly implying that these foreigners were the ones to blame for the violence. The tabloid ultimately agreed to stop using the derogatory term. Commercial media in South Africa is dominated by English and Afrikaans, which are the main languages in the country that attract advertising. The country’s remaining nine official languages (isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sepedi, isiNdebele, Sesotho, Setswana, TshiVenda, Siswati and Xitsonga) are represented on community radio stations and through the SABC’s nine indigenous radio stations and television news bulletins. However, these state news bulletins tend to be literal translations from the English broadcast, without journalists making the effort to get extra comment from specific communities about their perspective on an issue. Most of the sources used in these indigenous news broadcasts are English-speaking, presented on television without sub-titles. “South African media tends to be incredibly un-analytical and un-self-reflective. The underlying problem is that there is an elite pack governing the discourse in the country. This results in contemptuous undertones towards the majority, so the media will cover them when they burn a clinic, for example, but not during the months of non-violent protest action before this.” Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 40 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER SOUTH AFRICA 2013 1.9 (2010: 2.2; 2008: n/a; 2006: n/a)