South Africa offers a rich context for the study of the interrelationship between the media and identity. The essays collected in this book 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 Africa's finest media analysts pooling skills to grapple with one of the country's most vexing issues: who are we?

This timely book argues that the Global North’s research methods and traditional assumptions are not valid to the media landscapes and audiences of the Global South. With South Africa as the focus, the authors offer a new understanding of media diversity along an audience-centred approach. Disappointingly, research shows that most South African citizens (most of whom are economically marginalised) are found to experience extremely low levels of media content diversity in their personal media diets. The contributing factors are inter-related and complex, but include the inequitable distribution of media content, a lack of African language media, and most especially, the cost of media access which is unaffordable to many. In this book, the authors examine what went wrong with post-apartheid attempts to democratise the media landscape, and why the experienced levels of media diversity by the majority South African audience remain so woefully low. While media diversity is usually measured by policymakers, sector stakeholders or by market-related imperatives, this book foregrounds the perspective of the media consumer. In doing so, traditional media measuring is inverted – leading to a more in-depth understanding of how ordinary people in the Global South receive media content, how much, and why. The authors offer a holistic analysis of the ineffectuality of key media policymaking processes, projects and institutions – while also suggesting how these could be transformed to create a more diverse and broadly accessible media landscape.

Focusing on three South African communities the authors dismiss the idea that some groups are voiceless, arguing that they are being deliberately ignored by dominant news media The dominant news media are often accused of reflecting an ‘elite bias’, privileging and foregrounding the interests of a small segment of society while ignoring the narratives of the majority. The authors of Tell Our Story investigate this problem and offer a hands-on demonstration of listening journalism and research in practice. In the process they dismiss the idea that some groups are voiceless, arguing that what is often described in such terms is mostly a matter of those groups being deliberately ignored. Focusing their attention on three very different South African communities they delve into the life and struggle narratives of each, exposing the divide between the stories told by the people who actually live in the communities and the way in which those stories have been understood and shaped by the media. The three communities are those living in the Glebelands hostel complex in Durban where over 100 residents have been killed in politically motivated violence in the past few years; the Xolobeni community on the Wild Coast, which has been resisting the building of a new toll road and a dune mining venture; and Thembelihle, a settlement south-west of Johannesburg that has been resisting removal for many years. The book concludes with a set of practical guidelines for journalists on the practice of listening journalism.

This book is the culmination of several years of collaborative work. It is a unique contribution to the field of journalism because of the depth and variety of contributions it makes to the field. The scholars who contribute to this volume respond to the great need to rethink journalism from various perspectives including journalism training, research, the contents of the news media, language, media ethics, the safety of journalists and gender inequities in the news media. In doing this, they recognise how the societies that journalism address should themselves change.

This volume encompasses a wide range of empirical research on a variety of topics that are related by their focus on the importance of attitudes, culture, and perceptions. The significance of public attitudes, the impact of cultural norms, and the perceptions of military officers and civilians are all analyzed in the seven articles in this latest edition of Political and Military Sociology. The first essay asserts that military memoirs should be taken seriously as objects of scholarly analysis. Using the Minorities at Risk Dataset, the second article examines the effects of globalization on ethnic conflict in 106 countries from 1985 to 2002. The next focuses on Canadian attitudes toward military expenditures following the September 11th terrorist attacks. The fourth examines the attitudes of Texans toward recent US wars, the draft, and military service generally. The fifth essay explores the role of the media in promoting democracy and democratic attitudes in southern Africa. Using survey data, the following article addresses the extent to which higher education promotes more tolerant attitudes among Israeli Jews toward Israeli Arabs. The volume concludes with a study of US warrant officers that shows how the rank has evolved over time.

This book examines the historical FeesMustFall (FMF) university student protests that took place in South Africa and shows how the enduring historical construction, representation and conceptualisation of South African youth (as typically radical and political) contributed to the (mis)interpretation of FMF protests, and led to a discourse on an African National Congress-toppling revolution. Arguing that the student protests were not the revolutionary movement they have been represented as, Ndlovu demonstrates that ideological divisions amongst the protestors, the declining economy, and reduced youth participation in the political public sphere cannot lead to a new revolution in South African politics. This book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in South African politics, higher education, democracy and protest movements.