Vol 32, No 1 (2013)

This article explores the use of digital rhetoric in a social network environment with a view to
obtaining greater insight into how traditional rhetoric may be applied. In this article, digital rhetoric
refers to persuasive communication in different electronic formats. The article focuses on an
inductive logos communication technique used in a popular microblogging site to promote the
2011 Rugby World Cup event held in New Zealand. Sport readily lends itself to the viral spread
of information by means of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) because it generates excitement
among sport enthusiasts. Big sporting events thus provide an ideal medium for marketers of sports
events to use different marketing communication tools to communicate persuasive messages
regarding sport to a large target audience. The findings of the study on which this article is based
shed more light on digital rhetoric and can also serve as a heuristic tool for other researchers
analysing sports-marketing communication messages in social network environments.

Even though women actually fulfil many roles in real life, advertisements targeting female
consumers are often accused of depicting women in traditionally stereotypical roles. The purpose
of this article is to analyse the visual elements of the roles portrayed by female models in South
African magazine advertisements. The study on which this article is based has made a unique
contribution by investigating not only the relationship between the roles portrayed and the ethnicity
of the female models, but also the relationship between the product categories advertised and
the ethnicity of the female models. A total of 258 full-page and double-page advertisements were
sampled from two issues of nine consumer magazines published in South Africa. The research,
using content analysis, found that female models were predominantly portrayed as consumers
and as the decorative focal points in advertisements advertising apparel, accessories and
personal care products. A significant relationship was moreover identified between the product
categories advertised and the ethnicity of the female models

The economic reality of South Africa is that the industries responsible for the greatest contribution
to the country’s Gross Domestic Product are also those responsible for the greatest loss of life
among their employee population. The South African mining and construction industries are
notoriously dangerous and were responsible for the loss of more than 200 employees’ lives in
2011 – an improvement over previous years. This notwithstanding, many organisations still think
that occupational safety is an ethical consideration that either impedes or hampers business
outputs. This notion is one that stakeholder theory regards to be a fallacy, specifically the
separation fallacy, one that is in need of rejection and replacement by the integrated thesis, which
proposes that the term business ethics no longer be seen as an oxymoron but rather as tautology.
In this article, the significance of this proposition will be outlined, as empirically tested within the
mining and construction industries of South Africa at two organisations – the Gautrain Project
(predominantly located within the construction industry) and Diesel Power Opencast Mining
(predominantly located within the mining industry

This article investigates the relationship between corporate identity-management constructs and
the quality of employer-employee relationships at the North-West University. Internal stakeholders
such as employees are not so much concerned about how the organisation is visually represented
as about the behavioural aspects of the organisation.
Companies are continually finding themselves in positions where they are encouraged to manage
their corporate identities with a view to managing their reputations so as ultimately to strengthen
and maintain good relationships with their stakeholders. The realisation that employees form
part of the external corporate identity of a company has shifted the focus of corporate identity
management inwards towards employees as an internal stakeholder group. Although it is
assumed that good corporate identity management leads to good relationships, little research
has been done on the direct link between the two concepts. Research in this regard has found a
relationship between employees’ perceptions of how effectively the company upholds its values
(as part of the non-visual corporate identity) and the quality of its employee relationships.