DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2015.v03i04.006

Pages: 853-859

The political developments in Zimbabwe cannot be told without mentioning the role played by Moto Magazine, a catholic church-owned magazine that immensely supported the armed struggle that led to Zimbabwean independence in 1980. This paper looked at the role played by the magazine in Zimbabwean politics before and after independence. The paper focused on the ownership of the magazine, its target audience, the political situation in all the five decades under study, the discourses of the political stories in the magazine and the style of writing on stories in the different decades. Key research methods included archival research, interviews, textual analysis, hermeneutics and diagnostic analysis. Theories that influenced the research include political economy, agenda setting, hegemony, ideology, public sphere and mediation among others. The research found out that Moto magazine played a leading role in providing a voice to the nationalists and guerillas fighting the Smith regime before independence and continued to provide a voice to those fighting the ruling ZANU-PF after independence such as Joshua Nkomo’s opposition PF-ZAPU party before it was swallowed and later the MDC formations especially the one led by Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai.