The political economy of transformation in the post-apartheid South African media - ASC Research Seminar

Professor Keyan Tomaselli holds the Chair of Culture, Communication and Media Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. He is President of the South African Communication Association and the author of numerous books and articles on the mass media in South Africa under apartheid and on subsequent post-apartheid developments in the print media, broadcasting and cinema.

The presentation will discuss the political economy of shifts in ownership and control in the South African print media from 1990 to 2000. The concepts and processes to be examined include black economic empowerment, the relationship between ownership and control, and the ideological significance of the restructuring that occurred in 1996 when a consortium of black trade unions bought out Johnnic, the holding company of the country's second largest media conglomerate. The strategies employed after 1990 will be discussed in relation to those which occurred between Afrikaner- and English-dominated capitals during the apartheid era.