Vol 41, No 2 (2022)

The South African Copyright Amendment Bill of 2017 was passed in 2022. In justifying the weakening of copyright protections with regard to the educational arena, the Bill’s proponents have largely applied rhetorical discourses published in the popular media, also aggressively propagated at their public meetings. In contrast, the publishing industry has generated many hundreds of pages of economic impact studies supported by detailed legal arguments with reference to global treaties. My analysis assesses the different positions taken by the pro-Bill lobby, ReCreate, in comparison to the Copyright Coalition that questions the importation of an American fair use doctrine. The potential implications of the Bill for South African authors and artists operating in the educational environment are described. Since the object of study has been a moving target, and still was at the time of submission of this article, the conclusions that arise out of the ongoing debates are tentative – but prescient for the current conjuncture. The analysis relies on cross-referencing stakeholder submissions, newspaper articles and statements made by all parties to the discussion. In addition, a number of rejoinders were invited, which are published below. The study reveals the stark contradictions within emerging state policy relating to the creative industries in an era when information has economic value. 

Many extensions have been made to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), one of the foremost theories which speak to why and how people adopt technologies, including new media technologies, by introducing various constructs. It is contended in this study that an important construct to consider when studying teenagers’ use of new media technologies is gratifications obtained (GO). With the aid of the stratified sampling technique, 300 students of two senior high schools in the Greater Accra region of Ghana, representing 10% of the total population, were recruited to take part in a study to explore whether there would be substantial empirical evidence to support the stance that gratifications obtained could potentially account for teenagers’ adoption of new media technologies. The minimum and maximum ages of participants were 13 and 19, respectively. The study matched gratifications teenagers sought from the use of new media technologies with gratifications they ultimately obtained and advanced that the ability to adequately satisfy needs sought from new media technologies contributes to teens’ use of the technologies. The statistical measures for GO and other constructs in the TAM, Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), were within similar range. It was concluded that although PU and PEOU are strong factors in the adoption of new media technologies, gratifications obtained (GO) is a factor that must also be given ample attention when it comes to teenagers’ use of new media technologies. 

This article discusses the institutionalisation of public relations at executive level in large organisations, based on research applied to a purposive sample of the top 100 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa. Based on an examination of recent literature on public relations as a strategic management function, the study aimed to determine the extent to which senior public relations practitioners in the selected companies are involved in strategy formulation and decision-making at executive level. Current and recent literature provided a conceptual framework based on the premise that organisations have much to gain by involving senior practitioners in top-level decision-making and strategy formulation. The following theories informed the primary research, which took the form of qualitative semi-structured interviews with the participating practitioners: excellence theory, the dominant coalition, the relational approach, the reflective paradigm and roles theory, with the main focus on the strategic role of public relations. Apart from indicating the extent to which public relations is practiced as a top-level management function in the selected companies, the study also sought to identify barriers that prevent the participating practitioners from providing strategic input at an executive level, and to offer recommendations to overcome these barriers.

In 2009, South Africa saw another landmark with the introduction of political advertisements on television. Literature is littered with studies of political advertisements on television. In these studies, 1) background music is merely an accompaniment to advertisement voiceover and images, rather than an argument itself. Little is known about 2) the discursive role of background political music as a means of conveying political messages in political television advertisements, 3) the underlying ideology and 4) Afrocentric rhetoric in political music used in political television advertisements. Considering the above, this paper interrogates the Afrocentric perspective underlying the rhetoric of background music in the political television advertisements of the South African opposition political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) from 2014 to 2021. This study employs the decolonial thought of the Afrocentric perspective as a theory and a research method to interrogate underlying rhetoric in political music. Findings of the paper revealed that the EFF background music is highly political, Afrocentric and inherently rhetorical.

The coverage of the war in Ukraine has unravelled inherent biases within the South African online commercial media. These biases are largely driven by its location within the global capitalist power structures, thus confirming continuities of media imperialism. By relying on Western sources, this media invariably exports Western norms, standards, hegemonic narrative and worldview. This paper employs content analysis to examine the coverage of the war by five South African online publications (News24, IOL, TimesLive, Citizen.co.za and BusinessTech) between January and February 2022. The coverage was largely negative because of concerns about the impact on global markets. The West’s dominant views are discernible due to the chosen sources, with over 80 per cent coming from its newswires. Similarly, the opinions of Western political and business leaders and their business and economic analysts are prevalent. While it is expected for stories to be framed from a conflict perspective, it is the economic consequences frame that also drives the coverage, with Russia blamed, as reflected in the predominant theme “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine”. While there have been fundamental developments since the concept of media imperialism emerged, this coverage points to some continuities. It is precisely for this reason that the South African media should develop partnership beyond the West, more so, in the context of the growing importance of BRICS.

Internal communication plays a pivotal part in an organisation’s survival. It is regarded as an investment in an organisation’s success and underpins organisational effectiveness. However, when organisations face internal communication challenges, these can threaten internal relationships, with dire consequences for the organisation. This is particularly so in the volatile, uncertain, complicated and ambiguous South African corporate context, which presents direct challenges for internal communication management.

Internationally there has been an increase in studies exploring challenges for internal communication, with various authors indicating a need for further research. Our study addresses this gap by probing the internal communication challenges experienced in the South African corporate environment as a developing world view, to make recommendations for mitigating action.

This exploratory qualitative interview-based study focused on the perceptions of practitioners working in large organisations, as well as consultants with acknowledged expertise in the field of internal communication.

The findings confirmed that internal communication is a complex and multifaceted profession full of challenges. We identified 12 challenges, grouped into four clusters, namely access to technology, lack of formal communication training, parameters for inclusion of internal stakeholders, and management styles and structures. Contributions include recommendations for practice, together with suggestions for further research.

This study investigates the definition of “vulnerability” in the visualisation and underpinning index of Stats SA’s South African COVID-19 Vulnerability Index (SA CVI)’s data visualisation dashboard. The paper establishes definitions of vulnerability in relation to literature before COVID-19, research in the time of the pandemic, and in relation to data visualisation. The discussion finds that while the pandemic is widely perceived as a “health crisis”, South African vulnerability to this pandemic is mostly constituted by factors that fall outside of normative “health” concerns – beyond “straightforward” medical, biological and epidemiological factors. Instead, South African vulnerability to COVID-19, and the “health” of its citizens in this context, are largely to be understood as systemic, socio-economic, and necropolitical conditions. It is found that these conditions have not been generated by the pandemic but have rather been exposed by it.  

Strikes and labour issues have caused havoc both locally and globally over the last decade. Social dialogue in the form of collective bargaining has not been successful in addressing these issues as labour conflict persists, highlighting the need for improved multi-stakeholder engagement. This paper explores stakeholder engagement from the perspective of collective bargaining in the context of the South African Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC). Using an interpretivist paradigm, the research used exploratory, descriptive, and qualitative research to uncover a misalignment between what the SALGBC envisions stakeholder engagement to be and how it is experienced by the relevant parties. Stakeholders in the SALGBC perceive the employer's engagement as conducted in bad faith, coercive, lacking consultation, and accepting industrial action as engagement. To address these, a purposeful multi-stakeholder learning dialogue (PMSLD) is proposed, that blends dialogic communication and dialogic orientation with stakeholders who are receptive, reciprocal and valued for their social roles.