Political Economy of Media Transformation in South Africa

This volume is the first book-length examination of the political economy of media transformation in South Africa. By locating South Africa within continental and global contexts of changes and with theoretical incisiveness and praxis-oriented understanding, authors depict a media system at the forefront of transition both in terms of shifting representations of race and class and in terms of ownership and readership changes. Chapters explain the idea and emergence of black economic empowerment and its adoption by the media industry as well as the way in which black labour unions took ownership of South Africa’s biggest companies.

Topical issues include the controversial flux of identity, vagaries of regulations, changes to state-owned enterprises and to print, broadcast media, and telecommunications corporations. A unique component of this book that is also hitherto untreated by others is treatment of the pivotal role of leading advertisers both in the way they challenged racial stereotyping and helped forge changes in media depiction of racial groups. This book is an authoritative reference available to scholars of media, business, sociology, political economy, and African studies who desire more than a linear presentation of issues pertinent to media transformation in South Africa shortly before the end of and after apartheid.