Vol 20, No 1 (2001)

The M-Net Face of Africa competition was conceived as a platform for African models to
showcase their talent to the international fashion world, and to present a positive
image of contemporary Africa. Other goals of this competition were to comply with MNet's social responsibility in the greater African community where the broadcasting
company functions, and to develop inter alia television broadcasting programmes for
M-Net's rapidly increasing audience across the African continent. The Excellence Study
(Dozier, Grunig & Grunig, 1995) formed the theoretical basis of the present study.
This study argues that public relations (PR) contributes to organisational effectiveness
by "using programmes to build relationships with the strategic constituencies of an
organisation" (Grunig, 1992:65).
The major theoretical concept in the present study was the public relations campaign
built around the M-Net Face of Africa competition, and the following three constructs
were identified for the purposes of the present study: the seven steps in the PR
campaign, the goals/objectives of the campaign and the evaluation thereof.
The research goal of the study was to evaluate the M-Net's Face of Africa public relations
campaign by means of a standard, internationally accepted evaluation model for public
relations programmes. It was established that M-Net has never formally and scientifically

It has been said that there are three things that are going to drive the world's economic
future. Firstly, computers; secondly, communications; and thirdly, direct marketing.
There are countries that have reached the stage where direct marketing-oriented retailers
have driven out the conventional retailer. The lack of South African retailers' use of
direct marketing and their hesitant attitudes towards direct marketing communication
media, such as direct mail, is cause for concern. This exploratory study investigates
retailers' attitudes towards direct mail in an attempt to gain some insight into retailers'
views of this marketing communication medium. The results indicate that retailers'
attitudes towards direct mail differ with regard to factors such as the retailers' use of
the medium, their age and their perceptions of consumer acceptance of direct mail.
The study further identifies a need to communicate the advantages of direct mail to
South African retailers.

This paper develops the idea of humour as a multidimensional construct and attempts
to examine its effects when used as a strategy of advertising. A conceptualisation of
humour based on previous research is presented. The humour taxonomy is used to
categorise a sample of advertisements appearing on South African television between
1994 and 1996. The content analysis is measured for its advertising effects by correlating
the types with the noting and liking scores of South African audiences. The results
confirm that different types of humour generate different advertising effects. The
implications for practitioners and for researchers are explored.

Sport is just not cricket any more. Seems like just yesterday the only way we
Johannesburg folk could follow a nail-biting international rugby test happening at
Newlands in Cape Town was by listening to Gerhard Viviers' commentary on Afrikaans
radio. I remember my grandfather sitting on the stoep, a map of the playing field
drawn on a large sheet of paper on his lap, plotting team moves, attacks, defences and
scores, as Gerhard's staccato commentary poured through the speakers of an old Grundig
medium wave receiver next to him; definitely a case of what Marshall Mcluhan would
call 'a very cool medium'.
In the days before mass media, the sports message sent to those absent from the
action on the field contained little else of fact other than a score, and a winner, and
the message reached the receiver a day, a week or a month later. Messages then gradually
expanded to include match details and perhaps a grainy photograph or two as newspapers
started reporting on sport. Radio revolutionised sport in that it provided the impetus
for the massification of sport as teams and individuals developed followings, and the
concept of 'the fan' was born. Radio truly took sports matches beyond the stadium
gates for the first time.