The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

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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?

For teachers, students and anyone else interested in questions of media, race, power and gender, as well as the manner in which new identities are created and old ones mutate, much of interest will be found within the contributions to this important collection.

Open Access

Product information

Format : 210mm x 148mm
Pages : 416
ISBN 10 : 07969-2202-0
ISBN 13 : 978-07969-2202-1
Publish Year : 2008
Rights : World Rights
  • Introduction

  • Identity in theory

    Media, youth, violence and identity in South Africa: A theoretical approach
    Abebe Zegeye

    Essentialism in a South African discussion of language and culture
    Kees van der Waal

    'National' public service broadcasting: Contradictions and dilemmas
    Ruth Teer-Tomaselli

    Field theory and tabloids
    Ian Glenn and Angie Knaggs

    Identity in post-apartheid South Africa: 'Learning to belong' through the (commercial) media
    Sonja Narunsky-Laden

  • Media restructuring and identity formation after apartheid

    Finding a home in Afrikaans radio
    Johannes Froneman

    The Daily Sun and post-apartheid identity
    Nicola Jones, Yves Vanderhaegen and Dee Viney

    Online coloured identities: A virtual ethnography
    Tanja Bosch

    The mass subject in Antjie Krogs Country of My Skull
    Anthea Garman

  • Expressing identities

    Crime reporting: Meaning and identity-making in the South African press
    Marguerite J. Moritz

    Afrikaner identity in a post-apartheid South Africa: the Self in terms of the Other
    Wiida Fourie

    Foreign policy, identity and the media: Contestation over Zimbabwe
    Anita Howarth

    Masculine ideals in post-apartheid South Africa: The rise of mens glossies
    Stella Viljoen

    Tsotsis, Coconuts and Wiggers: Black masculinity and contemporary South African media
    Jane Stadler

    The media and the Zuma/Zulu culture: An Afrocentric perspective
    Simphiwe Sesanti

    He lova tata icova sesiya vela: Black masculinity and the tyranny of authenticity in SA popular culture
    Adam Haupt

Under the banner "Holding us together or pulling us apart? The role of the South African media in the creation and mutation of identities", six contributors plus political scientist Ivor Chipkin as discussant looked at a range of ways that a changing media is currently engaging with a changing society. Listen to the edited podcast of this spirited discussion.

Duration: 8 min 58 sec

Dr Adrian Hadland is a director in the Democracy and Governance research programme at the HSRC. Before joining the HSRC, he was the Political Editor and Assistant Editor of the Cape Argus. He has worked for a number of South African and international news organisations as a political journalist and columnist.

Eric Louw is Director of Communication Programs in the School of Journalism & Communication, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. His primary area of research is political communication.

Simphiwe Sesanti is a lecturer in the Department of Journalism at the University of Stellenbosch. He has worked as a journalist writing for South African and international publications in the areas of politics and arts for more than ten years.

Professor Herman Wasserman teaches Media, Communication and Cultural Studies at the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom and is associate professor extraordinary in the Department of Journalism, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He is editor of the journal Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies.

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