Media transformation and new practices of citizenship: the example of environmental activism in South Durban

South African media and telecommunications have been fundamentally restructured in the last decade. Corporate unbundling and black economic empowerment have transformed the ownership of broadcasting, print media, publishing, and telecommunications; new radio and television services have been set up; the SABC has been restructured as an independent public service broadcaster; and a new independent regulatory authority for broadcasting and telecommunications has been established. However, a once vibrant alternative press, closely associated with the mass mobilisation against apartheid of the 1980s and 1990s, has suffered severe decline. New technologies, such as satellite television, the Internet, mobile telephony, and digital media have all rapidly established a foothold in South African communications markets. All of these processes have gone hand in hand with a re-scaling of South African media economies and media cultures. Inward foreign investment in South African media and communications industries has been matched by a 'continental drift' of South African capital into African media and communications markets (Barnett 1999b, Tomaselli and Dunn2001)

‘More Than Just TV’: Educational broadcasting and popular culture in South Africa

About the book: Yearbook 2002 contains research examples illustrating the role of media globalisation in children's and young people's lives in different parts of the world. The transnational media and media contents - imported television programmes, satellite TV, the Internet, video and computer games, popular music, 'global' advertising and merchandised products - are to a great extent used by children and are, as well, increasingly targeting children. What does this mean for media production? For children's cultural identity and participation in society? For digital and economic divides among children both within and between richer and poorer countries? A separate section of the book presents recent statistics on children in the world and media in the world

Convening Publics: The parasitical spaces of public action

About the book: Political Geography is a core subdiscipline of Human Geography, the Handbook of Political Geography will provide a highly contextualised and systematic overview of the latest thinking and research. Edited by key scholars, with international contributions from acknowledged authorities on the relevant research, the Handbook of Political Geography is divided into six sections: - Scope and Development of Political Geography - key debates; the geography of knowledge; conceptualisations of power; and conceptualisations of scale - Geographies of the State - state theory; territory and central local relations; legal and judicial geographies; borders; and states and nature - Participation and representation - citizenship; space; electoral geography; place; media public space; and social movements - Political Geographies of Difference - class; nationalism; gender, sexuality ; and culture - Geography Policy and Governance - regulation; welfare; urban space; planning, environment - Global Political Geographies - geographies of imperialism; post-colonialism; globalization; environmental politics; international relations; war; and migration The Handbook of Political Geography will be the standard work, widely used and highly-cited, by all scholars with an interest in politics and space

Segmenting Publics

This research synthesis was commissioned by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to examine audience segmentation methods and tools in the area of public engagement. It provides resources for assessing the ways in which segmentation tools might be used to enhance the various activities through which models of public engagement in higher education are implemented. Understanding the opinions, values, and motivations of members of the public is a crucial feature of successful engagement. Segmentation methods can offer potential resources to help understand the complex set of interests and attitudes that the public have towards higher education. Key findings: There exist a number of existing segmentations which address many of the areas of activity found in Universities and HEIs. These include segmentations which inform strategic planning of communications; segmentations which inform the design of collaborative engagement activities by museums, galleries, and libraries; and segmentations that are used to identify under-represented users and consumers. Segmentation is, on its own, only a tool, used in different ways in different contexts. The broader strategic rationale shaping the application and design of segmentation methods is a crucial factor in determining the utility of segmentation tools. Four issues emerged of particular importance: 1. Segmentation exercises are costly and technically complex. Undertaking segmentations therefore requires significant commitment of financial and professional resources by HEIs; the appropriate interpretation, analysis, and application of segmentation exercises also require high levels of professional capacity and expertise 2. Undertaking a segmentation exercise has implications for the internal organisational operations of HEIs, not only for how they engage with external publics and stakeholders 3. Segmentation tools are adopted to inform interventions of various sorts, and superficially to differentiate and sometime discriminate between how groups of people are addressed and engaged. 4. For HEIs, the ethical issues and reputational risks which have been identified in this Research Synthesis as endemic to the application of segmentation methods for public purposes are particularly relevant

Marketing practices and the reconfiguration of public action

Market segmentation methodologies are increasingly used in public policy, arts and culture management, and third sector campaigning. Rather than presume that this is an index of creeping neoliberalization, we track the shared and contested understandings of the public benefits of using segmentation methods. Segmentation methods are used to generate stable images of individual and group attitudes and motivations, and these images are used to inform strategies that seek to either change these dispositions or to mobilise them in new directions. Different segments of the population are identified as bearing particular responsibilities for public action on different issues