Media

Marshall McLuhan predicted a Global Village of interdependence based on new communication technology in the 1960s. Since then the concept has taken on new connotations with the advent of the internet and its assumed ubiquitous. However, the negative connotations of McLuhan’s Global Village have largely been forgotten. Moreover, from an African geographic perspective the Village […]

Africa Addio was an Italian documentary shot in the 1960s that showed Africa as a land filled with savagery and ruination as colonial powers withdrew (by Jacopetti and Prosperi, 1966). The book that accompanied the film was somewhat sympathetic to the plight of Africans with an appraisal of the burdens and damage wrought by unchecked […]

“South African’s should be worried. Without an aggressively free press your whole democratic system collapses. If you don’t have a democratic system informing society, people will elect leaders the enmities. Zimbabwe placed no limit on advertising, the only limit was on editorial comment. When you do that you land up with a completely stuffed up economy.” – Martin Weltz, Publisher, Noseweek.

On July 8, Britain finally abolished its archaic blasphemy laws. It is no longer a criminal offence for we Brits to speak or publish any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous words relating to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible. Yet already a new system of blasphemy is filling the gap. Now, anybody who blasphemes against […]

The SABC’s board of directors is on its way out, but later rather than sooner. And what happens then? Those wanting them out don’t seem to have given enough thought to this. This conclusion emerges from current discussions in Parliament about a legal amendment that would force President Thabo Mbeki to fire the board. To […]

The Sunday Times again continues to advance with remorseless regularity its branch of “gutter journalism”. This newspaper has over the years re-established itself as a Sunday tabloid. The story it ran on August 3 2008 about the bribe of R30-million alleged to have been paid to Thabo Mbeki is important, but the sensationalism of these […]

To listen to Jacaranda 94.2 is to step back and across into an alternate dimension — one where the soundtrack is pure eighties pop. Bizarre. George Michael, Sheena Easton, Marc Alex, Billy Idol … And then there’s Just Plain Darren, erstwhile Supersport, 5FM and East Coast jock, along with his trusty sidekick John Walland. Damn, […]