Towards a critical understanding of media assistance for "new media" development
- Authors: Mathurine, Jude
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Mass media -- Technological innovations , Mass media -- Political aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3459 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002914 , Mass media -- Technological innovations , Mass media -- Political aspects
- Description: The field of media assistance has grown ever more complex with the inclusion of ‘new media’ networks, channels, tools and practices (such as the Internet, satellite television, mobile devices, social media and citizen journalism) to the media development mix. Adding to the ferment is the increasing convergence between the formerly discrete terrains of ICT for development, media for development and (mass) media development. Much of the discussion regarding the utility and objectives of media development in general and ‘new media’ in particular has been viewed through a modernist and techno-determinist prism which offers a limited ideological view of media development and its objects and consequently, a limited set of communication approaches and strategies. This study contextualises the assumptions of media development historically and critically, with particular focus on new media’s roles and relationships with the media environment, and its objectives democratisation and development. Through the application of literature, theory and various research studies, this thesis establishes a broader view of new media’s role and diverse consequences for media development, democracy and development. The study recommends greater collaboration, contextual research and theorisation of media development and new media as part of mixed media systems and cognisant of the multi-dimensional natures of its objects of democracy and development. One implication is the need for professionalisation of the media development and media assistance sector. In relation to the influences of new media on media use and the media as an institution, it motivates the need to address digital divides and emphasise the sustainability of the practice of journalism.
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- Date Issued: 2011
The political significance of the liberal media coverage of District Six from 1949 to 1970
- Authors: Marquard, Andrew Keith
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Mass media -- Political aspects , District Six (Cape Town, South Africa) , District Six (Cape Town, South Africa), In The Press
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2802 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003012 , Mass media -- Political aspects , District Six (Cape Town, South Africa) , District Six (Cape Town, South Africa), In The Press
- Description: The political significance of the media coverage of District Six is approached in the following way: the issue is approached theoretically by posing the question of the general political significance of news as a communicative form. This question is resolved by an examination of the complicated relationship between the tradition of political thought and the development of modem political forms, specifically the issue of the importance of communication in modern political forms. This is explored by considering the problem of the political outlined by Heller. Arendt reconceptua1izes the problem in terms of political judgement, which is discussed in relation to postmodernism and Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, to establish a new conceptualization of political judgement based on Arendt's view of narrative and Benjamin's writing on history. This conceptualization is used to formulated a notion of the general political significance of news, which is a form of political judgement related to a specific political culture. On this basis the media material is analysed in terms of two processes: the representation of District Six in the liberal media, and the representation of the political process surrounding its racial zoning and demolition. It is concluded that the media coverage of Distract Six during this period is characterized by a political culture termed the politics of the ordinary based on a reification of 'Europe' as part of a ' colonial attitude', and the idealization of specific urban forms, with a special relationship to urban planning. Thus the political significance of the media coverage resides in the perpetuation of this political culture, representative of the politics of the white English-speaking middle class, in terms of which an authentic urban politics is not conceivable. Additional conclusions are also drawn concerning the relationship between this political culture and the politics of Apartheid.
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- Date Issued: 1996