Media

“Irony 101: #thingsdarkiessay is not racist in South Africa — What’s NOT racist in South Africa? Apartheid wasn’t Disneyland.” A virtual war between the United States and South Africa was full-on yesterday, the weapon of choice being Twitter. Unfortunately, the weapon was an American one too. Of course in the bigger scheme of things, even […]

Jissie Joost, couldn’t you have shocked us all a bit sooner? Like, when I was still completing the sex chapter in my new collection of insults (out soon in a bookshop near you and perfect Christmas gifts for people you don’t really like and can’t think of anything to get them, hint hint). That’s the […]

By Janice Winter Last week saw one of Britain’s biggest media controversies with BNP leader Nick Griffin’s appearance on the BBC’s Question Time. Public debate pivoted on the media’s role in guarding democratic space, with interpretations of this responsibility in contradistinction: on the one hand, the view that by inviting the BNP onto Question Time, […]

By Janice Winter This month has been a very encouraging one for media freedom in South Africa. Reporters Without Borders released their Press Freedom Index 2009, seeing South Africa rising in rank to position 33 (from 36 last year in 2008 and 43 in 2007), now outranking countries such as France, Spain and Greece. This […]

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned an ad by Reckitt Benckiser SA promoting Bosch dishwashers by claiming that dishwashers use less water than hand washing. Why is the ASA singling out Bosch? Advertising on TV is full of wild, inaccurate or deliberately misleading claims. Take the ad for Three Ships. The ad would have us […]

“Got Eggs? Donate some!” Even you have to admit that is an arresting headline, especially when it appears, not in your local Pick n Pay, but a doctor’s waiting rooms. The brochure on which this headline was displayed was a soft pretty pink, so it was immediately clear what kind of eggs they had in […]

I got Barack Obama to answer my question, thanks to social media. I’ll get into that in a second. (Excuse me while I go on Twitter to see what my friends are saying.) I’m back. So what the heck is this social media thing? Unlike newspapers, TV and radio, it is not one-way. It is […]

We are living in a material world, and though I wouldn’t call myself a material girl I’m not going to lie and pretend that I’d love to live a comfortable life in a home that has furniture, with access to some good wine every now and then. Reading through any women’s magazine you will begin […]

By Adam Wakefield The spaceship hovers over Johannesburg as the restlessness that lies below grows to a point that will engulf the whole city. People are complaining that the uitlanders, the prawns, are a societal nuisance and that they should “go back to where they came from”. The above is a very, very condensed and […]

South Africa — Alive with Possibility. So trumpets SA Info, self-proclaimed “gateway to the nation”, and echoed by Brand South Africa, “custodian” of SA’s image. SA Tourism opts for the slightly less in-your-face “It’s Possible”, but the theme remains common. It’s an alluring slogan. It speaks of vibrancy and vitality. It resonates with promise and […]

  Hitler’s unmistakable moustache leers up to camera as he gyrates away at a beautiful woman at the climax of a new Aids awareness advert in Germany. The payoff is: “Aids is a mass murderer”. There’s 44 seconds of face-obscured graphic nudity before you get to see she’s brought Adolf home at 2.33am, a man […]