e-Learning and the Reconfiguration of Higher Education – Disruptive, Innovative and Inevitable

This first part of this paper gives a concise overview of how e-learning ‘works’. The second part suggests the inevitability of more and moreteaching and learning taking place in the e-learning context. It touches on some of the communication challenges academics face in moving from thelecture format to the online format and describes some of the challenges that lecturers, tutors and managers face in implementing e-learning successfully

Reflections on e-learning from a communication perspective.

This article uses a dialogical model of communication to reflect on communication in e-learning. It is argued that teaching and learning is a singular, dialogical communicative process leading to a shared negotiation of meaning congruent with the collaborative-constructivist perspective. However, misunderstanding and miscommunication are common and less detectable in an online environment, raising questions about the limitations of communication in the context of e-learning. The author examines the importance of communication contexts in e-learning, probing issues of interpersonal and group contexts in the matrix of possible interactions as well as those of distance, place, and proximity. The author also speculates on the limits of encoding and decoding and exchange of meaning in the e-learning transactional process, and the affordances and disaffordances of mediated communication

Reflections on e-learning from a communication perspective.

This article uses a dialogical model of communication to reflect on communication in e-learning. It is argued that teaching and learning is a singular, dialogical communicative process leading to a shared negotiation of meaning congruent with the collaborative-constructivist perspective. However, misunderstanding and miscommunication are common and less detectable in an online environment, raising questions about the limitations of communication in the context of e-learning. The author examines the importance of communication contexts in e-learning, probing issues of interpersonal and group contexts in the matrix of possible interactions as well as those of distance, place, and proximity. The author also speculates on the limits of encoding and decoding and exchange of meaning in the e-learning transactional process, and the affordances and disaffordances of mediated communication

Approaches to African communication management and public relations : a case for theory-building on the continent

Most of the scholarly body of knowledge of public relations built up over the last three decades has been undertaken in Western countries. Naturally, these conceptual frameworks have been suited to those areas of the world. The focal point of the calls for a shift to a new, inclusive global economic order is the growing influence of the developing economies of the world. This, in turn, has important implications for public relations and communication management in these regions and internationally. Academic researchers could embark on building an African body of knowledge of public relations and theories based on an African philosophy and worldview. Against this background, the debate around whether a generic model of public relations in and for Africa is possible has been the subject of considerable debate. It has also been argued that shared, common African philosophical approaches can be identified, and that these have an important role in communication throughout Africa. This article describes some of the influences that might shape African theory-building and raises a number of questions along the way such as: Can there be an exclusively African public relations model? What is the balance between Western and African influences in the synthesis of a hybrid model? What has Africa to offer to Western theory?http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1479-1854/ff201

The communication challenges of issue management in a postmodern world: a case study of the South Durban Industrial Basin

This article describes the failure of issue management communication in resolving an enduring pollution crisis stretching over two decades in South Africa’s South Durban Industrial Basin (SDIB). A crisis of responsibility has arisen from a postmodern, neoliberal order. Concerns of residents are overridden in favour of nationally significant economic growth objectives. As a result “local” issues are communicated by global coalitions seeking environmental justice through modernist notions of “science” communicated in a postmodern, global context. The lack of public confi dence, trust and the unmet expectations of participation in the environmental decision-making of government agencies and corporations is revealed. Local mobilisations look to broader spaces of engagement, including international activist organisations and international media as the unresolved crisis is deepened by state coercion and industry intransigence

Communication interventions for diversity management in a new company - lessons from KwaZulu-Natal

This article explores a South African/Australian corporate joint venture whose corporate culture is bi-national, multiracial and multi-ethnic in character, synthesising a variety of elements including modern first world corporate culture, traditional cultures, and the emerging culture of the “new” South Africa. It is based on a project carried out for Ticor SA, a mineral sands mining and processing facility, sixty percent owned by Kumba Resources Ltd, a publicly listed South African company, and forty percent owned by Ticor Ltd, a publicly listed Australian company and manager of the project. This study employs a case study / participant observer methodology and atheoretical methodology. The author was actively involved in the strategic planning and workshop interventions

“New Zealand’s darkest day”. The representation of national grief in the media: the case of the Christchurch earthquake

On 22 February 2011 an earthquake registering 6.3 on the Richter scale struck the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. Buildings had collapsed, businesses were disrupted, and many lives were lost. As the death toll rose and the realities of the destruction set in, a nation moved from initial shock to anger and depression—not unlike the stages of grieving. This paper discusses the stages of grieving and the mourning process as they were reflected in national media. It explores how national identity and national consciousness is related to national mourning by reviewing the literature and providing a thematic analysis of selected media content. The authors found that emotion is not only evident in reporting but it is necessary and expected when disaster is reported, challenging traditional views of "quality" journalism that favours rationalism and objectivity over emotion in reporting. The emotion shown in reporting of the disaster mimics the process of grieving and in this case the process of national grieving. Media reportage of such disasters, using emotion and responding to emotion, is necessary to allow those affected directly or indirectly to mourn what they have lost. In the process the media both reify and reconstruct national identity. This research contributes to scholarly debate concerning the reporting of national disasters and how it impacts on its national identity, and may contribute to re-evaluating traditional views of quality journalism