South African media's role in the creation and mutation of identities

Saturday June 14 2008
14: 30 – 15:45
Entrance to the event is free
All are welcome

14 years ago there were no tabloid headlines screaming from lamp-posts, no blogs, no glossy men’s magazines, no 24-hour local television broadcasts. Journalists worked under very different circumstances in a sector that was strictly regulated and structured along racial and cultural lines.

The media, like South African society itself, has undergone massive changes since the end of apartheid in 1994. The liberalisation of the broadcast sector, the arrival of tabloids, the growth of the internet and significant shifts in the ownership of media organisations are striking examples of such change.

In the landscape of a society in transition, the media is an important role-player in the areas of understanding identity, culture and politics. The media’s construction of identity in post-apartheid South Africa is inextricably linked with the politics of the country’s transformation. Just how is the media contributing to representations of nationhood, of gender, of race and of culture? And how do they understand their role in the creation of our South African identity?

On this panel, co-editor of the volume, Adrian Hadland (HSRC) and contributors to Power, Politics and Identity in the South African Media (HSRC Press) attempt to excavate the space between media and identity.

Drawing on their chapters in the book –

Tanja Bosch (UCT) will go into cyberspace to explore coloured identity on the internet.

Simphiwe Sesanti (Stellenbosch) will give an Afrocentric perspective on the media and Zuma/Zulu culture.

Ian Glenn (UCT) assists us in understanding identity with regard to local tabloids.

And Adam Haupt (UCT) returns to the theme of black masculinity through an investigation of specific forms of popular culture.

As part of the general discussion, Dr Ivor Chipkin (HSRC), author of Do South Africans Exist? (Wits Press), will share thoughts on identity politics and the media

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