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In view of the Brazil–South Africa Journalism Research Initiative, the purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to some of the main themes and topics in South African (SA) journalism research, and to contribute to the further theoretical conceptualisation of the initiative against the background of the opinion raised in this article about the nature of SA journalism research. The article is structured around four arguments: how the legacy of apartheid has guided, if not dictated, SA journalism research and continues to do so; how the dichotomy of SA society, being both a Third and a First World, affects SA journalism research; how being primarily quantitative, empirical research has produced a mainly self-reflexive and self-indulgent body of journalism research and has obstructed the way for a more phenomenological approach to SA journalism, as being first and foremost a communication phenomenon and a part of cultural production and the production of the SA semiosphere of mediated me...

This article emphasises the importance of context in mass communication and media research. A brief summary is offered of some of the main characteristics of postmodern society and the new media landscape, and explained as the impetus for the postmodern and postcolonial paradigms in mass communication and media research. From these paradigms ‘new’ theories have developed, such as ‘chaos theory’ and ‘practice theory’, with their emphasis on diversity, the pervasiveness and the anchoring role of the media. Given these new paradigms and theories, many of the tenets and basic assumptions of the positivist and critical paradigms need to be revised, as does normative theory, which is still dominated by Western conceptualisations. With the above as background and an argument for the study and research of the media as a semiosphere of meaning, four research priorities for future South African mass communication and media research are introduced: (1) fundamental research about the new media; (2) (media) d...

This article is based on research done for a doctoral thesis titled Indigenous language programming and citizen participation in Ugandan broadcasting: An exploratory study (Chibita, 2006). The purpose of the thesis was to investigate and show the importance of first-language media for the participation of citizens in democratic processes. The thesis covered a wide range of topics including linguistic perspectives on language and participation, the history, structure and operation of the media in Uganda, the regulatory environment for linguistic diversity in Uganda's broadcast media, debates about indigenous language broadcasting in Uganda, and policy recommendations. In this article, the emphasis is on one of the topics dealt with in the thesis, namely key political, economic and cultural factors in Uganda's history and how these factors, including the right to the use of indigenous languages, have had an important impact on citizens' capacity to participate in public debate through the media (es...

In this article the need to revisit South African normative media theory and communication policy against the background of fundamental audience research is emphasised. This is done in view of the postmodemist argument that ‘classic’ normative media theory is no longer suitable as a yardstick for the measurement of media performance, quality and ethics in postmodern societies, in a changing media landscape. Bearing in mind that South Africa cannot be fully characterised as a postmodernist and advanced capitalist society, but based on the nature of its First World media system functioning in a multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic society, the tendency to see ubuntuism as a point of departure for such revision is questioned. This is done in favour of an approach in which difference and diversity are acknowledged, including the different roles the media can play and the different forms in which it can (and do) contribute to social responsibility. As far as policy research ...

Journalism trainers and educators (with the emphasis on education) should take the criticism against journalism seriously, including the deep-rooted mistrust of journalism, and use it as a point of departure in their curriculum development. This article paraphrases the early criticism against journalism, after which the two main streams of contemporary criticism, namely critical political economy and professional criticism are briefly discussed. Pierre Bourdieu's views about the structural limitations of journalism and the fact that these limitations are not questioned by journalists, as well as Kenneth Minogue's views about journalistic ideology and how it has become transparent and forms the basis of the public's mistrust of the media, are emphasised. Against this background, it is argued that, to raise the quality of journalism, journalism studies should adopt a more fundamental approach to the understanding of journalism and the journalist's work. Instead of focussing predominantly on professional ski...

SUMMARY The purpose of this article is to describe two main paradigms in media research preliminary and synoptically, namely the empirical or administrative paradigm and the critical paradigm. In d...