A brief history of South African journalism, mass communication and media education.

A historical critique of the genesis of joumalism and mass communication studies, and media studies, in South Africa is offered. An overview of the major South African and African journals and the ideological positioning of different scholarly associations during and after apartheid follows. Some brief remarks on teaching perspectives locate different paradigms. The overall objective is to map the contours of the South African situation

Alter-egos: cultural and media studies.

The attached article is a pre-print. For the published version, please click on the DOI.A periodised case study is offered of a number of engagements undertaken by the Centre for Communication, Media and Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, between 1985 and 2012, in facilitating resistance, policy, development and analysis. How cultural and media studies travelled to South Africa and how the centre negotiated the intersections between the humanities and social sciences, health and the physical sciences, is examined in terms of the epistemological alliances and conflicts that emerged. New paradigms ranging from appropriations of African philosophy and critical indigenous methodologies are discussed in an environment where new nationalisms are emerging. The story of the centre offers the fulcrum around which to discuss specific paradigmatic shifts. A new imaginary for the humanities and social sciences for a rapidly changing South Africa is then briefly proposed

Cybernetics, semiotics and meaning in the cinema.

This paper builds on Gene Youngblood's use of cybernetic theory in film analysis. It combines the cybernetic method with Peircian-derived semiotics in an attempt to derive a meta-theory of social process and film textual structure. An attempt is made to resolve the more deterministic elements of Youngblood's theory, developing a more probabilistic approach. The paper ends with some conjecture on how the cyber-semiotic theory developed can be combined with Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxist approaches developed by the scholars contributing to the British journal Screen

Action research, participatory communication: why governments don't listen.

No abstract available

The rise of grassroot communication.

The first presentations at the Lusaka Symposium were devoted to South Africa. By challenging apartheid and repression at a local level. grassroot communication is an effective way to oppose Government policy in South Africa. Keyan Tomaselli, director of the Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit at the University of Natal in Durban, looked at the rise of grassroot organisations and how they are preparing an alternative structure for a democratic South Africa.Presentation given at the AMECEA/Sonolux Symposium 'Grassroot Communication' 20-26 Nov. 1988, Lusaka, Zambia

South-North perspectives: contesting cultural and media studies.

This is a pre-publication of the following article: Tomaselli, K.G., Mboti, N., and Ronning, H. 2013. South–North perspectives : the development of cultural and media studies in Southern Africa. Media, Culture and Society 35(1) pp. 36-43. DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443712464556.This intervention examines conceptual trajectories arising out of a 22 year North-South research collaboration. It traces the genesis of that trajectory of (Southern) African cultural and media studies that emerged from a context of struggle and liberation via an interdisciplinary network involving departments in universities in Zimbabwe, South Africa (and Kenya) linked to University of Oslo, 1980-2012. The study concludes by elaborating a new imaginary within cultural and media studies (CMS) that incorporates: i) social justice; ii) social action and popular participation; and iii) a reassessment of some assumptions of the European Enlightenment in multicultural African societies

Cultural studies and Africa: excavating the subject-matter.

This article examines some of the issues arising from the proliferation of cultural studies as a form of national-identity research. Looking at the case of the recent rise of culture studies in South Africa, we examine how certain items of received wisdom about cultural studies have obscured some of the academic dynamics that have actually driven the growth of cultural studies. In contrast with some of these aspects we consider cultural studies as a form of inquiry, driven by the reality of its subject-matter, and review some of the normative concepts that govern the communication of research findings. Based on C.S. Peirce's pragmatic conception of the logic of scientific communication, and on pragmatic trends arising among African writers like D.A. Masolo and Kwasi Wiredu, we consider just what has become the subject-matter of cultural studies. We offer an alternate formulation based in communication practice and provide an example of how this was presented in conference on the African Renaissance. We conclude with suggestions about how cultural studies might recover Its original radical democratic impetus in a world where socialism has lost much of its intellectual integrity

S. African Politics: mapping the constituency.

Reeling under the sanctions imposed by the community of nations and heightened internal struggles, the South African white government has begun the historic process of dismantling apartheid. The various democratic forces within the country and their aspirations to build a non-racial society still seem distant. Professors Eric Louw and Keyan Tomaselli from the Centre for Cultural and Media Studies at the University of NataI in Durban describe the turbulent situation in South Africa in vivid detail

The 1990 reforms and the alternative media in South Africa.

The alternative press, which contributed so much to the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s; found itself unprepared for a new role in the freer media environment after the lifting of the State of Emergency in February 1990. P Eric, Louw, and Keyan Tomaselli report on the financial, organisational and political difficulties now threatening the existence of the alternative press in South Africa

Intercultural sensitivity in the integrating suburb of Westville. Durban, South Africa.

To investigate intercultural sensitivity, the Davis Russell-Peters Intercultural Sensitivity Instrument (1994) was administered to 203 participants situated within residences in the formerly white suburb of Westville Durban, South Africa. The subjective experience of the participants was evaluated by comparing demographic variables with a suggested continuum of six stages between ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism. Respondents appeared to traverse the polarities related to their perceptions of reality and its subjective meaning. The preference for ethnocentric attitudes appeared to be a construct employed as a result of categorization and separation caused by former restrictive legislation of Apartheid. and strong cultural and religious anchors. It appears that groups gravitate towards their own cultural group because of the security it offers in times of political unrest and fear. Also, groups appeared to maintain healthy self-concepts and a preference for ethnorelativism, creating a world that values difference and is open to integration with the larger society