JMC 218 SUMMARY NOTES

• These summary notes are a guide of what the course was about, which may help
students focus in their exam preps.

1. Economic terms & the economy of Eswatini.

• You are expected to understand basic economic terms and also to understand
economic indicators. These are also best understood when applied to the situation of
Eswatini.
• Some of these terms included what we referred to as the economic problem. That
is, the basic understanding that there is always tension between our human needs
and wants and the resources available to meet them, which results in what we call
the scarcity of resources.
• In terms of economic indicators, these are important in relation to understanding
whether an economy is performing well or not. Among others that we discussed and
which were also in the tests were:
o GDP, inflation (as well as the difference between inflation and hyper-
inflation).
o You were also asked to explain unemployment and also to explain youth
unemployment as it is a critical measure of the health of an economy.
o Interest rates: why are interests especially their hike such a concern to 1.
Industries and 2. To us as individual households and consumers?
o Similarly, what is recession and what happens or would have happened when
we say an economy has entered recession? Recently the United Kingdom has
been described as having gone into recession, what does that mean?
o In order to answer questions on these terms and indicators, it is important as
we have emphasised to research them in relation to Eswatini.
• As a way of understanding the economy of Eswatini, it is also important for you to
draw a picture of what/and how the economy is now and to project how the
economy will grow in the coming year and years, in both the short, medium and long
term.
• What are the factors that have impacted negatively on our economy in the past few
years?
• The first one is the COVID-19 pandemic, because it was an unprecedented event
which affected not only Eswatini but also world major economies and our regional
neighbours and trading partners, such as South Africa and Mozambique.
• As a small and relatively undiversified economy, Eswatini was not very prepared for
the shutting down of industries and the halt in economic production and activity,
which also affected the rand, our currency.
• The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
• These two events are also important in understanding globalisation (as is the COVID-
19 pandemic) and how in a globalised world ‘distant events acquire very localized
impacts & vice versa’, as argued by Held & McGrew (2007) and how globalisation
implies the intensification of ‘worldwide social relationships which link distinct
localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring miles
away and vice versa’ (Giddens 1999).
• Russia is one of the largest producers of oil, therefore its inability (because of
sanctions by major western countries) to sell oil initially resulted in a spike in oil
 prices which affected not just our oil and transportation costs, but also virtually all
businesses in our country.
• In similar vein, the Middle East’s ability to keep a steady supply of oil is impacted
negatively by the Israel-Palestine conflict.
• Russia and Ukraine controlled about a quarter (25%) of global grain supply
especially wheat, maize and other essential grains essential in production of
essentials like cooking oil, which further compounded food inflation in our region and
our country.
• Climate change and the weather: it is noticeable that in the past 6-12 months
Eswatini has been experiencing long spells of dry hot weather. We briefly discussed
the El Nino effect, which briefly refers to the warming of temperatures in the Pacific
Ocean which results in droughts and hot weather in some parts of the world (ours)
and floods in others.
• We should be in a position, as economic journalists to describe this weather pattern
(as we are experiencing it) and also describe its impact on the economy in Eswatini.
• The above topics can be addressed in academic essays, but they should also be
tackled by production of feature articles and opinion pieces in which we show our
ability to write and also our knowledge as economic journalists.
• GLOBALISATION:
• We have already shown that we live in a globalised world, therefore what happens in
near or distant parts of the world will affect us.
• Questions on globalisation require us to be able to define us in brief but very clear
and comprehensive ways. We can rely on definitions by Held & McGrew (especially
their neat way of dividing scholarship on the phenomenon of globalisation between
‘globalists’ and ‘anti-globalists) and also on Giddens. This is highlighted in this
summary but we had a detailed discussion of their views in the lecture on this topic.
• Questions on globalisation can also best be addressed with illustrations from the
movie Babel, for those who watched it (as we screened it in class). In brief this
movie has 4 plots all taking place in a different country and continent: the 1st one is
in Morocco (Africa) where we see a family of Moroccan Berber nomads who live in
the desert and rely on herding goats, local trade and hunting/gathering. 2. We have
an American couple whom we encounter as tourists in Morocco (together with other
western tourists) and then we get together have left their minor children with a
Mexican nanny. We can say this is the plot taking place in North America/USA
although there are overlaps with plot three 3. In this plot we have the Mexican
nanny. She is a migrant worker in the USA state of California (San Diego city) who
like many Mexicans supports a family back home through remittances. We see her
going back home for her son’s wedding. 4. Finally we have the 2-member Japanese
family of father and daughter, who is troubled by a combination of her disability (she
is deaf and cannot ‘talk’) and adolescence.
• It is through the shooting incident (when the younger of the two boys shoots at
tourist bus and inadvertently injures Susan – the American woman travelling with her
husband Richard) that we get to see that indeed, globalisation entails local
happenings being shaped by events occurring miles away or vice versa.
• Susan’s shooting triggers a string of events which dramatically change the lives of all
of the characters in the film, and also lets us, as the audiences, realise how
intertwined the lives of these people who live in distant continents and do not know
 each other are. We can fill in by describing how their lives are affected by the
shooting.
• However, we also understand, through the film that globalisation entails: 1. Trade
(tourism in Morocco supported by rich western tourists; labour where poorer
countries of the global south supply cheap labour which supplements middle class
lives in richer countries like the USA). 2. Transportation as all these tourists
(including the Japanese man) rely on that to reach the countries in the global south.
3. Communication. Even in distant Morocco during a crisis Richard is able to keep in
touch with family and authorities back home in the USA. 4. Culture. We see an
exhibition of different cultures and the different ways in which families live or are
constituted.
• Media Economics:
• Because we are media students, we have to understand how the economy impacts
on the media and vice versa.
• The media exist in a market, how is our local media market?
• More importantly we need to understand the media ownership patterns in our
country.
• According to Gillian Doyle, media ownership can have a profound impact on media
pluralism and diversity and these are important in the ability of the media to meet
the needs of their audiences.
• Doyle says we need to look at this in terms of 1. external pluralism and diversity and
2. Internal pluralism and diversity. In the first instance, does the media market of
Eswatini have a multiplicity (a plurality) of diverse owners. The diversity means these
owners belong to different political, cultural and even social and economic groupings
and therefore do not see the world in the same way. That may mean that even
where media entities reflect the views of their owners, the public benefit from these
owners not having homogeneous perceptions about our world or our country. 2. In
the second instance, does each media entity or outlet (such as EBIS 1 & 2, Swazi TV,
or Eswatini Observer and Times of Swaziland) permit a plurality of diverse social,
economic, cultural and political views, voices, opinions and representations?
• Lastly all these issues are understood better if we understand our local media and
our local economy and can describe the economy as it is currently, what it has gone
through and we can project the issues that as a country our economy may face in
future as challenges and/or opportunities.