ABSTRACT
Three decades after the end of apartheid in South Africa, Black “townships” in Cape Town remain largely segregated, with a reputation for poverty and crime that make them virtual no-go zones for White neighbours. Although thousands of foreigners visit high-poverty townships as tourists, most locals living in wealthier surrounding communities lack first-hand experience there and build their impressions largely from media representations. This chapter examines the role of mainstream news media in perpetuating ongoing segregation, inequalities, and urban borders. It examines how the largest English-language newspaper in Cape Town (The Cape Times) depicted the oldest Black township in the city (Langa) in coverage from 2016 to 2021. Content analysis shows a diverse range of themes in the overall coverage; however, almost all front-page photographs referencing Langa represented people who had died in tragic accidents or violence. These prominent visuals connoted precarity and poverty in ways that oversimplified realities in Langa and undermined the prospects for urban debordering.
