Vol 22, No 1 (2003)

A communication task team appointed by the Government of South Africa in 1996
suggested that there should be one corporate identity for the government. A problem
resulting from this suggestion was what this unitary corporate identity should reflect
and which elements it should include.
This article is based on a study into the viability of creating one corporate identity for
all the South African government departments.
Background is given for a government decision to create one corporate identity. The
view that corporate identity consists of the integration between visual identity and
behavioural identity and its possible application on the government departments of
South Africa is discussed.
The main finding of this study is that the current corporate identity of four selected
government departments consists of corporate service and behaviour, dynamism and
visual identity

This study determines the role of public relations as a marketing communication function
in University X’s integrated marketing communication approach. The research topic was
selected for numerous reasons. Firstly, dramatic changes have occurred in the tertiary
educational domain, which causes universities to adapt their marketing communication
approaches. Based on these environmental changes, the Public Relations Division at
University X commissioned the study on the research topic, which is the second
consideration for the study. The debate on integrated marketing communication shows,
in the third place, that this approach is increasingly important. On closer investigation
there is a definite need for a thorough literature review with an authentic integrated
marketing communication approach, driven by the integrated organizational functioning
and processes. From a public relations perspective, on closer investigation, there is a
need for the direct empirical examination of the role of public relations as a contributing
function of integrated marketing communication in order to narrow the gap between
literature and empirical evidence. The study was enhanced by two phases of research
conducted within University X to meet the objectives of the study. The first, quantitative
phase determined the extent to which University X’s communication activities are
integrated. The measuring instrument used is the integrated marketing communication
mini-audit scale. In the second, qualitative research phase, the role of public relations
as a marketing communication function within University X’s integrated marketing
communication approach was determined. The issue that became apparent throughout
this study was that integrated marketing communication in any organizational context
is of strategic importance for the “unity of effort” of the greater well-being of the
organization. It was found in this research project that there are fundamental concerns
for University X regarding integrated marketing communication, and that public relations
is practised on a technical, traditional level

This paper summarizes the findings of four studies executed from 1983 to 2003 to
determine how marketers in South Africa portray children in magazine advertisements.
This longitudinal study reports on aspects such as the incidence of child models in the
advertisements, the roles they depict and whether there are differences as to the way
in which marketers use children from different races in the same advertisements. A
conceptual framework or marketing communications model is presented to illustrate
how marketers can use the child as a substitute communicator in various roles to convey
the firm’s advertising message. The relevance of the findings for South African marketers
is highlighted and suggestions for further research are proposed.

Technological innovations have changed many aspects of public relations practice, and
public relations is believed to have entered the “fourth wave” of technological change
in the field. To achieve its ultimate objective, namely to build and maintain beneficial
relationships, thus contributing to achieving organisational goals, it is pivotal to explore
the impact of technology on the profession and practice of public relations. Knowledge
of the impact of these innovations will equip public relations with the required knowhow to contribute to the overall objectives of an integrated communication approach.
While technology in itself cannot build or destroy relationships as maintained by Kent
& Taylor (1998:324), the way in which technology is used can influence organisationpublic relationships, hence emphasising the need for public relations professionals to
come to terms with new technology and the opportunities and challenges it holds.
An exploratory study was undertaken to provide new insights into the impact of new
communication technology on the profession and practice of public relations in South
Africa. The primary purpose of the study was to determine the availability and use of
new communication technology by South African public relations professionals for
internal and external relationship management. It comprised a theoretical and conceptual
analysis of public relations practice and models, dominant business approaches and
other concepts related to the objectives of this study. The literature study was
supplemented by a pilot study concerning the availability and use of technology by
PRISA-accredited public relations practitioners. This article reports on the findings of
the empirical section of the study

IT departments use project teams to bring key people together to achieve specific goals.
Yet many struggle to achieve this effectively because of poor communication within
teams. Research done in this area indicates that management and team leaders have
to focus on specific soft issues to support the effective functioning of software project
teams. In this research project the authors investigated the impact of a large number
of soft issues on sound communication within project teams. Only four of these soft
issues, namely those of mutual support, cooperation, commitment and a knowledge
base, were found to be of vital importance to ensure that communication within software
project teams will remain on a sound basis during the course of such a software project.

This article explores different viewpoints about the question of journalistic independence
in the current South African dispensation by taking the Presidential Press Corps (PPC)
as an example. It is argued that when seen from a libertarian point of view, the PPC
presents some problems with regard to the normative ethical framework that sees media
independence as a position that brings the media and the government in opposition.
The views of journalists and editors are canvassed to illustrate some of the concerns
about the PPC. The article concludes by suggesting different ways to view the relationship
between the government and the media that would not present the same ethical
difficulties as when this relationship is viewed from an orthodox libertarian perspective.

None

This article is based on qualitative research, which structurally analyses commentary
on the September 11 (2001) attacks on America and the divide between the American
administration and the Al-Qaeda network (personified respectively by President George
W. Bush and Osama bin Laden) in Africa editions of Time magazine for a period of six
months following the September 11 (2001) carnage in the United States. The structural
analysis focuses on the identification of the binary oppositions at play, uncovering the
cultural code predominant at Time through its viewpoint and essay columns. It was
found that the cultural code translates into: the United States and the Western World
are the beacons of democracy and freedom, while Islam (more specifically Muslim
fundamentalists) represents authoritarianism, repression and bondage. It appears that
Time in its commentary role in the aftermath of the attacks was an able and willing
partner of the United States administration in predominantly naming the world along
American lines, and attempting through words to impose the named world on adversaries.

The study on which this article was based was part of an international news study,
conducted in 10 countries (Australia, China, Chile, Germany, India, Israel, Jordan, Russia,
South Africa and the USA). In this article, the way in which crime as a topic is dealt with
in selected news media is explored. Focus group results were also analysed to establish
how people perceive crime reporting. Shoemaker’s theory on news values is applied to
analyse media content and results from focus groups. From the analysis, it emerged
that the media perform a surveillance function on behalf of their audiences and that
the news media apply regular news values to decide on the reporting and presentation
of news items dealing with crime events. Media audiences make practical use of
information provided by the media on crime events to take precautions or to become
aware of dangerous situations and people. Shoemaker’s theory also provides a valuable
framework according to which news content can be analysed and understood.
The data used in this study was collected as part of the What’s News? Project, based at
the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New
York, USA, and is part of a larger study of the definition of news in ten countries. The
principal investigators are Dr Pamela J. Shoemaker (Syracuse University) and Dr Akiba
Cohen (Tel Aviv University, Israel). Additional researchers participated in the study from
the following countries: Australia, China, Chile, India, Israel, Germany, Jordan, Russia,
South Africa and the United States. Syracuse University acknowledges the support of
the John Ben Snow Foundation.

The real possibility exists that the overemphasis of a party’s image in advertisements
could lead to the neglect of important political information for voters. Emotional and
negative advertisements could therefore be detrimental to any young democracy.
Against this background this article investigates the use of emotional persuasive appeals
and negative messages in political newspaper advertisements in the North-West Province
during South Africa's general elections in 1999.
The results indicate that although all the parties in the study used emotional appeals,
they mostly connected them to a policy issue. However, these policy issues were not
elaborated on. The opposition parties mostly used appeals of uncertainty, fear and rage.
The ruling party in the province (the ANC) concentrated on appeals of hope and
achievement.
The ANC virtually abstained from using negative messages, while the DP, the NNP and
the FF "attacked" one another in order to emphasise their differences. They did not harm
the sustainability of the South African democracy as such, but they also did very little
to promote it actively through their media advertisements.