Vol 42, No 1 (2023)

This paper reflects upon disciplinary developments since the publication of the seminal article by Overton-de Klerk and Verwey in 2013 on emerging paradigm shifts in strategic communication. It also reflects upon the implications of several disruptive global events for these paradigm shifts since the untimely passing of Verwey in 2019. It is argued that the paradigm shifts, as they are currently framed, can lead to a continuing linearity dilemma and binary trap of either-or thinking. A prognosis for the future of strategic communication in paradigm and practice in five statements is provided. The author suggests that the time has come to move beyond postmodern thinking towards both-and thinking and embrace a more comprehensive approach of critical complexity, acknowledging the reciprocal relationship between the parts and the whole. Within a complexity framework, it is proposed that a reflective regeneration of strategic communication includes a scrutiny of new logics and lenses relevant in an African context, including Radical Reason and metamodernism, coupled with lateral, collaborative transdisciplinary responses to digital and other complexities facing humanity, also in the workplace.

Using semi-structured, in-depth interviews with a group of ten middle-class, internet-connected, South African millennials in Johannesburg, Gauteng this analysis explores the psychosocial gratifications derived from their self-declared active sourcing and consumption of self-help media texts. Developing within the uses and gratifications theoretical framework, the article finds that self-help media texts (books, blogs, videos, etc., significantly sourced from digital platforms via the internet) are sought as tools that offer a psychological “quick fix” to the day-to-day psychosocial “problems” that push the interviewed participants to seek coping mechanisms. The article presents evidence to demonstrate that self-help media texts are consumed by the interviewees to gratify a psychosocial need for self-knowledge where they engage self-help media texts as surveillance mediums on which they rely to better “find” and “know” themselves in relation to others, as far as socially “acceptable” interpersonal behaviour is concerned. As such, these Johannesburg-based South African millennials consume self-help media texts, and the moral grammar of norms, beliefs, and values about successful living encoded therein, as tools for self-management with the goal of “mastering” the self – in relation to others – to understand how best to behave to avoid the “mistakes” that impede the smooth-sailing of what these participants describe as their life journeys.

The globalised media tend to influence the content of local and regional media. This study sought to find the nature of mediated mothering discourse in Kenya and the extent to which it promoted the hegemony of intense mothering discourse; vis-a-vis indigenous mothering discourses such as co-mothering found among the collectivistic cultures of sub-Saharan Africa. Most workingclass mothers employ caregivers – house helps to mind their children. A total of 71 stories from 2009 to 2022 related to mothering were collected from two leading newspapers in Kenya – Daily Nation and The Standard – which feature lifestyle issues. These stories were analysed using inductive coding and constant comparison to identify categories. Findings show that most of the discourses were the extent to which mothers were allowed to pursue personal ambitions in relation to the needs of their children (have-it-all), the level of delegation of core mother duties to the house helps, and the quality of caregiving that was associated with good mothers. There was no consensus on the level of delegation permitted as both extremes were highly criticised. Mothers were not yet ready to co-mother with the house helps – showing the hegemony of mediated intense mothering discourse.

This study sought to explore how the Fourth Industrial Revolution tools or platforms such as digital media technology, social media, and the internet are employed to publicise indigenous language posters for political election campaigns in South Africa. The study was underpinned by a theory of communication in political campaigns to ascertain the importance of communication or linguistic features in political campaign posters. A phenomenological qualitative research method and exploratory research design were employed to address the research problem and objectives of the study. Furthermore, a semi-structured interview was used to collect data from 10 purposively selected respondents. The collected data were thematically analysed to identify, describe, and explain the major themes and sub-themes that emerged. The study established that the previously disadvantaged and marginalised South African indigenous languages were seriously underutilised for political election campaign posters on social media platforms by various South African political organisations. Therefore, the article recommends that, in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, for political parties to participate in the development, preservation, digitalisation, and promotion of these indigenous languages, they should strive to use and post on social media accounts political election campaign posters that are written in the various South African indigenous languages.

This paper presents the findings of sentiment analysis as a refined approach to detecting impression management that may be present in the Chairman’s Statements of companies during an exogenous event such as the Corona virus pandemic. FinBERT, a more advanced machine learning model of natural language processing (NLP), was used to investigate the change in net sentiment expressed in the Chairman’s Statements of a sample of South African JSE-listed companies before and during the pandemic. A computation of net sentiment for each report was performed. Overall, no generic pattern of communication in the Chairman’s Statements emerged between the periods researched. Impression management tactics may vest within reports on an entity-specific basis and may be the exception, not the rule. Considering the increasing amount of unaudited narrative disclosure presented in formal corporate communication, consideration must be given to whether the sentiment expressed in these formal corporate reports is balanced, clear and transparent. Content analysis has historically been labour-intensive. More accurate ways of analysing growing bodies of financial text would be relevant to investors, analysts, key stakeholders, policy makers and academics. Pre-trained NLP models such as FinBERT offer a specialised way of understanding the sentiment of financial text. Research exploring impression management in corporate narrative sections using FinBERT is still gaining momentum across the world and is limited in South Africa. To the researchers’ knowledge, this is one of the first South African studies to employ FinBERT as an innovative, accurate and efficient approach to analysing the sentiment in the Chairman’s Statement.

This research explored views on ethically acceptable public relations (PR) practices on social media held by Zimbabwean PR practitioners. There are several distinct findings that provide insight into PR practice and inform future studies on the role of social media in PR in the region. First, Zimbabwean practitioners were not unanimous in their assessment of whether examples of social media practices can be considered ethically acceptable, suggesting that many ethically ambiguous practices are perceived as a norm. Second, Zimbabwean PR practitioners overwhelmingly stressed the need for social media training and organisational policy to engage on social media ethically. Finally, practitioners believed that social media promoted the role and status of PR within organisations and afforded increased control over the reach and impact of organisational messages.

Globally, the smoking of hubbly bubbly tobacco pipes is a growing trend among young people. However, the promotion of health awareness about hubbly bubbly (HB) smoking risks does not appear to be common, especially in South Africa. This study intended to assess awareness of the HB smoking health risks among students; to determine the students’ knowledge levels about its risks; to examine the students’ perceptions of HB smoking and to determine whether their knowledge and perceptions on smoking health risks would influence their HB smoking behaviour intentions. The Extended Parallel Process Model was applied. A quantitative approach was applied with a sample of 350 students participating in the study: n = 175 HB users and n = 175 non-users. A 2×2 experimental design between and within participants was followed. Results indicate that most participants (75%) had not heard or seen any health communication awareness campaigns about HB risks and that knowledge about HB smoking health risks was inadequate. Most participants in the study, including both HB users 74% (129) and non-users 80% (140), were able to identify lung cancer as one of the health risks of HB smoking. This study is important to health promotion organisations including government departments to enable them to construct effective health communication messages.

Numerous South African political parties have a social media presence to create more awareness around the political issues which they stand for, and thus to attract more voters. Nowadays political parties act as political brands and adopt brand strategies to gain a competitive advantage over opposition parties. This article proposes adopting a social identity theory as a novel approach to how political brands could drive political issues on social media. It is further suggested that due to the complexity of the South African political scene, more attention could be paid to how political brands could leverage political brand stories in conjunction with an online political brand persona on social media to position themselves in a chaotic online political space. To test this, semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with communication professionals in South African public relations agencies who were responsible for creating content for political parties’ Facebook and Twitter accounts. Four themes that became evident in the data collectively indicate that political brands will successfully drive political issues on social media only when they are able to connect emotionally with the political consumer. In this regard, an online political brand persona may be critical in not only eliciting an emotional reaction from political consumers, but also establishing a long-term connection with them based on how credible the political brand is in terms of what they care about and their ability to solve issues.