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Viewpoint: ‘The Gentle Art of Letting the Other Fellow Have Your Own Way’: Viewpoints on a Media Narrative used to Promote the Proposed N2 Toll Road
Abstract
This viewpoint paper is written in response to a South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) advertorial published in various South African regional newspapers in February 2004. We highlight the importance of developing ‘media literacy’ – reading skills which enable the critical deconstruction of media texts. We explore, more specifically, the public relations strategies used by large corporations, and the media’s role as disseminators of corporate marketing material. We also look at the relevance in identifying the language and discourse positioning the writer, photographer, reader and their choice representative medium.