This timely book analyses the crisis and chaos of journalism in contemporary South Africa and argues for and about the power of public interest journalism The transition to digital news has been messy, random and unpredictable. The spread of news via social media platforms has given rise to political propaganda, fake news and a flattening of news to banality and gossip. Media companies, however, continue to shrink newsrooms, ousting experienced journalists in favour of 'content producers'. Daniels writes of the contribution of investigative journalists to exposing corruption and sees new opportunities emerging, which may well be a model for the future of non-profit, public-funded journalism. Engaging and dynamic, the book argues for the power of public interest journalism, including investigative journalism, and a diversity of voices and positions to be reflected in the news. It addresses the gains and losses from decolonial and feminist perspectives and advocates for a radical shift in the way power is constituted by the media in the South African postcolony. A valuable introduction to the confusion that confronts journalism students, it has much to offer practicing media professionals. Daniels uses her years of experience as a newspaper journalist to write with authority and illuminate complex issues about newsroom politics. Interviews with alienated media professionals and a semi-autobiographical lens add a personal element that will appeal to readers interested in the inner life of the media.

This edited collection examines women journalists’ experiences and obstacles in South Africa’s (SA) democracy. They exercise power, and add a vital diversity, but they are routinely harassed in the online social media space of big tech companies such as Twitter and Facebook by populist and corrupt politicians and their supporters. Using SA as the case study, this book examines attempts to curb women journalists’ freedom combining theory and first-hand accounts. The target audience for the book includes scholars of political philosophy, gender, media, communications, NGOs, media freedom activists and journalists.

This timely collection of essays analyses the crisis of journalism in contemporary South Africa at a period when the media and their role are frequently at the centre of public debate. The transition to digital news has been messy, random and unpredictable. The spread of news via social media platforms has given rise to political propaganda, fake news and a flattening of news to banality and gossip. Media companies, however, continue to shrink newsrooms, ousting experienced journalists in favour of 'content producers'. Against this backdrop, Daniels points out the contribution of investigative journalists to exposing corruption and sees new opportunities emerging to forge a model for the future of non-profit, public-funded journalism. Engaging and dynamic, the book argues for the power of public interest journalism, including investigative journalism, and a diversity of voices and positions to be reflected in the news. It addresses the gains and losses from decolonial and feminist perspectives and advocates for a radical shift in the way power is constituted by the media in the South African postcolony. A valuable introduction to the confusion that confronts journalism students, it has much to offer practising media professionals. Daniels uses her years of experience as a newspaper journalist to write with authority and illuminate complex issues about newsroom politics. Interviews with alienated media professionals and a semi-autobiographical lens add a personal element that will appeal to readers interested in the inner life of the media.

South Africa offers a rich context for the study of the interrelationship between the media and identity. The essays collected in this book 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 Africa's finest media analysts pooling skills to grapple with one of the country's most vexing issues: who are we?

"A much needed media history and political and social assessment of a genre that is currently very much the subject of conjecture."---Sean Jacobs, University of Michigan --

A collection of finalists of the Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Reporting, this book illustrates the revival of hard-hitting investigative reporting in South Africa and highlights its important role. These exposés range from government corruption and white collar crime to environmental and social issues. With a comprehensive discussion on the state of South African journalism, these stories were originally published by the country's most reputable newspapers and make no qualms about covering the controversial: the horrors of Zimbabwe prisons, shifty politicians, and shoot-to-kill policemen.

This timely book argues that the Global North’s research methods and traditional assumptions are not valid to the media landscapes and audiences of the Global South. With South Africa as the focus, the authors offer a new understanding of media diversity along an audience-centred approach. Disappointingly, research shows that most South African citizens (most of whom are economically marginalised) are found to experience extremely low levels of media content diversity in their personal media diets. The contributing factors are inter-related and complex, but include the inequitable distribution of media content, a lack of African language media, and most especially, the cost of media access which is unaffordable to many. In this book, the authors examine what went wrong with post-apartheid attempts to democratise the media landscape, and why the experienced levels of media diversity by the majority South African audience remain so woefully low. While media diversity is usually measured by policymakers, sector stakeholders or by market-related imperatives, this book foregrounds the perspective of the media consumer. In doing so, traditional media measuring is inverted – leading to a more in-depth understanding of how ordinary people in the Global South receive media content, how much, and why. The authors offer a holistic analysis of the ineffectuality of key media policymaking processes, projects and institutions – while also suggesting how these could be transformed to create a more diverse and broadly accessible media landscape.

"This is an important book, from a global south perspective, on television coverage of South Africa's post-apartheid general elections. Jones analyses the troubling mismatch between the issues that mattered to the electorate and the issues that mattered in, and to, the media, and explains why this mismatch occurred. She is deeply committed to moving beyond generalisations about media performance, and the limitations of policy and structural analysis. It is a pleasure to read as it is accessible while being academically rigorous, so it will appeal to a wide audience." - Professor Jane Duncan, University of Johannesburg "With the crisis in mainstream media in South Africa and elsewhere - we journalists should shoulder much of the blame - this timely book places television coverage of general elections in South Africa post-1994 under the magnifying glass, pleads for more depth and proposes ways to improve narratives, visual rhetoric and framing. My hope is that this book will encourage deep introspection and debate among media practitioners from Africa and elsewhere. Jones' book is necessary, incisive and informative." - Max Du Preez, Journalist This book takes television news seriously. Over the course of nine chapters, Elections and TV News in South Africa shows how six democratic South African general elections, 1994-2019, were represented on both local and international news broadcasts. It reveals the shifting narratives about South African democracy, coupled with changing and challenging political journalism practices. The book is organised in three parts: the first contains a history of South African democracy and an overview of the South African media environment. The second part is a visual analysis of the South African elections on television news, exploring portrayals of violence, security, power, and populism, and how these fit into normative news values and the ruling party's tightening grip on the media. The final part is a conclusion, a call to action, and a suggestion to improve political journalistic practice. Bernadine Jones is Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Stirling, UK. She was the Next Generation in Social Science Fellow at the University of Cape Town where she completed her PhD, and has published on visual analysis methodology, African representation in news, and political journalism during elections. She is proudly South African.

Responding to mounting calls to decenter and decolonize journalism, The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South examines not only the deep-seated challenges associated with the historical imposition of Western journalism standards on constituencies of the Global South but also the opportunities presented to journalists and journalism educators if they choose to partake in international collaboration and education. This collection returns to fundamental questions around the meaning, value, and practices of journalism from alternative methodological, theoretical, and epistemological perspectives. These questions include: What really is journalism? Who gets to, and who is qualified to, define it? What role do ethics play? What are the current trends, challenges, and opportunities for journalism in the Global South? How is news covered, reported, written, and edited in non-Western settings? What can journalism players living and working in industrialized markets learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa? Contributors challenge accepted "universal" ethical standards while showing the relevance of customs, traditions, and cultures in defining and shaping local and regional journalism. Showcasing some of the most important research on journalism in the Global South and by journalists based in the Global South, this companion is key reading for anyone researching the principles and practices of journalism from a de-essentialized perspective.

Journalists and Job Loss explores the profound disruption of journalism work in the 21st century’s networked digital media environment. The chapters analyse how journalists have experienced and navigated job loss, re-employment, career change and career re-invention as traditional patterns of newsroom employment give way to occupational change, income insecurity and precarious work in journalism globally. The authors showcase the design, methodology and results of the New Beats project, a ground-breaking longitudinal study of change in the work of Australian journalists, as well as related case studies of job loss and career change in journalism based on research in different national settings across the global North and global South. The book also considers the wider implications of changes in journalism work for media sustainability, gender equity, and journalism work futures. The book provides a theoretically informed and empirically grounded analysis of job loss and the new contours of journalistic work in a critical political, cultural, economic, and social industry. It will be an important resource for researchers and students in disciplines including journalism, media and communication studies, business, and the social sciences in general.