Begging, borrowing, stealing: The context for media plagiarism in twenty-first century South Africa.

This article argues that the media plagiarism scandals in South Africa in 2003 reveal and reflect larger shifts in media behaviour. Structural changes to media employment in the new South Africa and the resulting pressures on writers have contributed to the problems. The article considers problemati...

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Published in:Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural & Media Studies Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 122 - 132
Main Author: Glenn, Ian
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd 2006
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        au: Glenn, Ian
        affil: Centre for Film and Media Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa
      su:
        Plagiarism
        Copyright
        Journalists
        Journalism
        Authorship
        Bourdieu, Pierre, 1930-2002
        South Africa
      sug:
        subj:
          South Africa
          Plagiarism
          Copyright
          Journalists
          Journalism
          Authorship
          Bourdieu, Pierre, 1930-2002
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        Bourdieu
        freelancer
        intellectual property rights
        journalism ethics
        plagiarism
        public relations
        South African media
      ab: This article argues that the media plagiarism scandals in South Africa in 2003 reveal and reflect larger shifts in media behaviour. Structural changes to media employment in the new South Africa and the resulting pressures on writers have contributed to the problems. The article considers problematic areas: the unacknowledged reuse of international material with slight alterations in the local market; whether writers can plagiarise their own work; what the status of public relations material is; when plagiarism becomes an intellectual property issue; what happens when a freelancer changes roles from journalist to public relations practitioner. Most current textbooks on media ethics spend very little time on the problems of plagiarism generally or enter into these complex legal and ethical issues, perhaps because most ethics guidelines are intended for journalists in full-time employment rather than freelancers. The article draws on Pierre Bourdieu's work on the market for symbolic goods to suggest some ways in which the commercialisation of the media and the changing role of the freelancer have influenced notions of intellectual property and intellectual propriety. In particular, the article considers ways in which the struggle for control of intellectual property and the under-valuing of content complicate the symbolic role of the writer and affect our judgment of plagiarism.
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