South Africa offers a rich context for the study of the interrelationship between the media and identity. The essays collected here explore the many diverse elements of this interconnection, and give fresh focus to topics that scholarship has tended to overlook, such as the pervasive impact of tabloid newspapers. Interrogating contemporary theory, the authors shed new light on how identities are constructed through the media, and provide case studies that illustrate the complex process of identity renegotiation taking place currently in post-apartheid South Africa. The contributors include established scholars as well as many new voices. Collectively, they represent some of South Africas finest media analysts pooling skills to grapple with one of the countrys most vexing issues: who are we? For teachers, students and anyone else interested in questions of media, race, power and gender, as well as the manner in which new identities are created and old ones mutate, much of interest will be found within the contributions to this important collection.
South Africa offers a rich context for the study of the interrelationship between the media and identity. The essays collected here explore the many diverse elements of this interconnection, and give fresh focus to topics that scholarship has tended to overlook, such as the pervasive impact of tabloid newspapers. Interrogating contemporary theory, the authors shed new light on how identities are constructed through the media, and provide case studies that illustrate the complex process of identity renegotiation taking place currently in post-apartheid South Africa. The contributors include established scholars as well as many new voices. Collectively, they represent some of South Africas finest media analysts pooling skills to grapple with one of the countrys most vexing issues: who are we? For teachers, students and anyone else interested in questions of media, race, power and gender, as well as the manner in which new identities are created and old ones mutate, much of interest will be found within the contributions to this important collection.
Essentialism in a South African discussion of language and culture
Kees van der Waal
‘National’ public service broadcasting: Contradictions and dilemmas
Ruth Teer-Tomaselli
Field theory and tabloids
Ian Glenn and Angie Knaggs
Identity in post-apartheid South Africa: ‘Learning to belong’ through the (commercial) media
Sonja Narunsky-Laden
The Daily Sun and post-apartheid identity
Nicola Jones, Yves Vanderhaegen and Dee Viney
Online coloured identities: A virtual ethnography
Tanja Bosch
The mass subject in Antjie Krogs Country of My Skull
Anthea Garman
Afrikaner identity in a post-apartheid South Africa: the Self in terms of the Other
Wiida Fourie
Foreign policy, identity and the media: Contestation over Zimbabwe
Anita Howarth
Masculine ideals in post-apartheid South Africa: The rise of mens glossies
Stella Viljoen
Tsotsis, Coconuts and Wiggers: Black masculinity and contemporary South African media
Jane Stadler
The media and the Zuma/Zulu culture: An Afrocentric perspective
Simphiwe Sesanti
He lova tata icova sesiya vela: Black masculinity and the tyranny of authenticity in SA popular culture
Adam Haupt