Media & Democracy in South Africa

The introduction of a quality, accessible local television network represents the final piece in post-apartheid South Africas media jigsaw. With legislation and policy now in place, the fitting of the last piece is imminent. The race is now on to develop models and fine-tune systems that will make the most powerfully democratic tier of broadcast media sustainable, empowering and development friendly.

South Africa offers a rich context for the study of the interrelationship between the media and identity. The essays collected here explore the many diverse elements of this interconnection, and give fresh focus to topics that scholarship has tended to overlook, such as the pervasive impact of tabloid newspapers. Interrogating contemporary theory, the authors shed new light on how identities are constructed through the media, and provide case studies that illustrate the complex process of identity renegotiation taking place currently in post-apartheid South Africa. The contributors include established scholars as well as many new voices. Collectively, they represent some of South Africas finest media analysts pooling skills to grapple with one of the countrys most vexing issues: who are we?

In the form of personal essays, some of South Africa's top Journalists and journalism practitioners spell out the do's and don'ts of their particular speciality, gained by a lifetime of trial and error.

The rise of commercialism poses many challenges to the integrity of the South African media in the post-1994 era. To maintain profitability, many publications have developed a range of strategies to attract advertising, in particular, developing the content that advertisers most desire - content that creates what Herman and Chomsky called a buying mood for their products. These include niched supplements, special sections and advertorial pages (surveys) as well as a new trend in paid-for content in the South African print media, identified in this study: the development of a third arm.