Hustle and flow! : an analysis of Naspers’ operationalization as reported by prominent South African newspaper publications over a three-year period.
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2017
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Abstract
This thesis deals with two pertinent questions. It examines the shift in business operations Naspers has undertaken to become a predominantly e-commerce based global conglomerate. Secondly, it examines the media coverage, specifically the reportage by the fraternity of the most popular South African financial newspapers. Literature published on Naspers has revealed that since its inception the company has been able to reinvent itself through a series of acquisitions, and start-ups throughout the historical stages of South African history until its early footprint into e-commerce. This thesis predominately adopted the political economy of communication by drawing upon certain principles encompassed in the model. This thesis purposively collected one hundred archival articles from four of the most prominent South African newspaper publications and proceeded to implement an inductive and deductive textual analysis. The thesis highlighted that Naspers’ transition into an e-commerce-based company was fuelled by the business acumen of their chief executive officers and their investment into Tencent while still enabling the ‘old guard’ to remain in power. Secondly, the media coverage of Naspers’ transition was predominately favourable towards them, especially the coverage on Koos Bekker. However, the media did reportage their scepticism on Naspers’ being over reliant on Naspers’ investment in Tencent.
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Master of Social Science in Centre for Communication, Media, Society. University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. Durban, 2017.