Now that President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced the election date, media outlets are facing a mammoth task of telling the SA story of 30 years of freedom and democracy while also covering the fiercely contested elections.

Added to the challenge is the 350 registered political parties, some sprouting up on the eve of the elections, making the printing of the ballot paper by the Electoral Commission of SA an administrative burden.

In the three decades since 1994 when South Africans of all hues headed to the polls, the country mostly relied on the public broadcaster and a few newspapers for information.

Fast forward to 2024, there’s a variety of choice – be it print and broadcast, though they are experiencing fierce competition among themselves but also from online and digital platforms.

Although SA also boasts three 24-hour broadcast television channels, there is a plethora of community media – radio, television and digital and online media platforms.

Newspapers are bleeding readership, while radio listenership has grown exponentially. Television news has also attracted sizeable viewership. Radio is immediate and the introduction of 24-hour television channels has been critical in covering breaking stories.

With political parties vying for votes using the mainly mainstream media, digital and social media including public engagements and sometimes debates, it’s important to understand who between those with influence and those with power sets the agenda.

The three decades of democracy, coupled with the elections, are momentous occasions when the media ought to set the agenda in its news coverage. Agenda setting describes the way in which media attempts to influence voters (viewers, listeners and readers) and establish a hierarchy of news.

This includes story angle, prevalence, research time and resources allocated to a particular story. It’s inevitable that the media will come under a microscope on how they covered or not covered a particular story.

This is not as easy as every armchair critic of the media thinks. Fact is the media is not homogeneous. Second, media outlets compete among themselves and take into consideration their readership, viewership and listenership in their news coverage, packaging, distribution and dissemination of information.

Political parties with a large following will receive more media coverage. For instance, the ANC, DA and EFF will receive the lion’s share of media coverage. As for online, digital and social platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, the numbers of users,re-tweets and likes often drive traffic to those sites.

It is imperative for all social media users, political parties, the media, the government including the IEC which has been working with Media Monitoring Africa, to curb and combat the spread of misinformation and disinformation, including the proliferation of the so-called “fake news ” phenomenon.

We have a good story to tell about the importance of democratic processes and the media should always rise to the occasion.

■ Sepotokele is a journalist, communication strategist, media trainer and journalism lecturer