Journalism education and practice in South Africa and the discourse of the African Renaissance

Abstract

At the turn of the century there was sheer optimism that ‘Africa's time’ to address all its problems had come, and as a result the 21st century was widely hailed as the ‘African century’ (Ban 2008; Makgoba 1999; Mbeki 1999; O'Reilly 1998; Zoellick 2009). This pronouncement was accompanied by the parallel call for the African Renaissance, which challenged many institutions to align themselves with this ‘crucial phase’ in the history of Africa. In the process, expressions such as ‘de-Westernisation’, ‘Africanisation’, ‘indigenisation’ and ‘domestication’ became buzz-words. Yet, after almost a decade of such claims, there appears to be very little, if anything, gained from these confident pronouncements. This article is situated within embryonic debates on the Africanisation of the curricula. The article explores the current thinking on journalism education (the teaching of journalism) and practice (the practice of journalism) in the country, with a view to furthering our understanding of journalism agility deemed important for the ‘African century’. It further explores the opportunities and limitations of situating journalism education and journalism practice within the discourse of the African Renaissance. The key data that form the basis of this article were collected through interviews and an open-ended questionnaire from a sample consisting of journalists, journalism educators and senior journalism students. The findings point to the need to rethink journalism education and journalism practice, given the trends of globilisation and the equally compelling need to Africanise.     

An analysis of responses to climate change by local government in South Africa: The case of Capricorn District Municipality

Abstract

Climate change poses challenges to the socio-economic life globally, though in varying degrees. Southern Africa is one of the regions that has shown signs of changes in climate. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007), temperatures in the region have risen by 0.5 degrees Celsius over the past hundred years. In addition, climate change has resulted in fifteen incidents of drought in Southern Africa between 1988 and 1992. This has consequently had a negative impact on the socio economic life of the inhabitants of the region. While climate change is an issue that requires attention from all spheres of government, it is posited in this article that the local sphere of government needs to be the focal point for redress as it is the sphere closest to the people. Mutanga, Pophiwa and Simelane (2013: 165) note that insufficient human and financial resources, inability to adapt technologically and politically driven climate change related programmes are some of the challenges faced by municipalities in tackling climate change. Capricorn District in Limpopo Province, South Africa has agriculture as one of its critical economic activities; thus climate change is a serious concern in the area. The article seeks to investigate how local government is responding to the climate change phenomenon. The Capricorn District Municipality is used as a case study. It must be noted that, although this municipality is not a typical representation of how the other local authorities in the country are responding to climate change, it however sheds significant light on how this phenomenon is viewed at this sphere of government. The guiding questions are: to what extent is climate change viewed as a challenge by local authorities? Secondly, what measures are local authorities taking to address both the causes and effects of climate change? It is postulated that local government in South Africa is not effectively proactive and innovative in dealing with climate change. There is a need for policies and mechanisms in municipalities that address challenges that are posed by climate change. This is only possible if both elected and appointed officials treat the issue as a priority. Interviews were conducted with key informants and official documents were consulted in order to gather data that would either support or refute the suggested hypothesis.     

AFRICAN RENAISSANCE AND NEGOTIATION OF YORUBA IDENTITY IN THE DIASPORA: A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIAN STUDENTS IN CAPE TOWN

ABSTRACT

Drawing on poststructuralist discourse analysis and Hall's (1990) notion of diaspora cultural identities, this article explores the discontinuation and maintenance of Yoruba identity options by students at three Western Cape Province universities. Interviews and observations data are used to consider how different forms of representations and cultural practices associated with Yoruba in Nigeria lead to equally fragmented and hybrid lifestyles and identity options in the Diaspora due to the changed socio-cultural conditions. The argument shows the ruptures and fragmentation of Yoruba cultural elements as students try to fit into the South African socio-cultural contexts while trying to live ‘home’ life away from home. It also shows cultural appropriation by local South Africans who claim Nigerian [Yoruba] affiliation through wearing Yoruba attire and partaking in Nigerian [Yoruba] cuisine. The authors argue that identities are produced across national and ethnic boundaries not only through language choices, but also through dress, food and other semiotic resources, and that to promote the ideals of an African renaissance, there is need to recognise that Africa is a consequence of not just similarities, but more so of various critical points of profound difference and discontinuity. The article concludes that African renaissance entails embracing shared African cultural heritage and differences as the norm; and transnational competition, interdependency and interconnectedness are critical ingredients for the technological and socio- economic development of Africa.     

Building bridges? South African foreign policy and trilateral development cooperation

As questions concerning international development climb the international agenda, so countries find themselves drawn into a burgeoning number of negotiations on issues ranging from the future shape and direction of the post-2015 development agenda to ‘aid effectiveness’ and international development cooperation. Moving from the position of a ‘beneficiary’ state in the traditional donor–recipient aid hierarchy, South Africa is looking to define its own niche within the wider development diplomacy context as a development partner. This paper provides an assessment of South Africa's evolving approach towards international development cooperation, with a particular focus on trilateral development cooperation, and what this means for Pretoria's foreign policy in bridging the divide between developed and developing country positions within the international development regime.     

The Entropy of Built Things: Postapartheid Anxiety and the Production of Space in Henrietta Rose-Innes’ Nineveh and Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City

Two recent novels reveal two interrelated clusters of postapartheid anxiety in twenty-first-century South Africa: one type is a dread of invasion, contamination, infestation, and other encroachments of the new, alien, and other. A second set of preoccupations involves subterranean spaces—basements, mines, tunnels—and a distrust of the solidity of built environments. Both Nineveh and Zoo City strip away the surface layers of Cape Town and Johannesburg and show us the layers of infrastructure, mechanization, and human labor that constitute or produce the city itself. But the two novels show us different understandings of the urban “underneath”: Beukes’ imagined Johannesburg is one in which spatial inequalities that seem chaotic, in fact structure the city and allow for social regimentation, while Rose-Innes shows us a Cape Town where spatial structures and entrenched inequality appear to be designed to ward off the intrinsic “entropy of built things.”     

From the Subject of Evil to the Evil Subject: “Cultural Difference” in Postapartheid South African Crime Fiction

This article takes up the question of “crime writing” and rejoins the debate around whether such literature stands in for the “political novel” in postapartheid South Africa. What social function might crime writing be serving? Research by political economists and cultural anthropologists suggests that acts of writing in “social detection” mode (rather than “crime writing”) serve as an allegory for occulted sociopolitical conditions. Cultural difference is seen, once again, to play a pivotal role in the legitimation of power, and writers in the detection mode are correspondingly seen to be probing the possibility of a resurgence of “bad” difference. This notion, it is argued, is a key differentiator in an otherwise murky scene in which the borderline between licit and illicit, and right and wrong, has become obscure. While many South African writers are brought into the discussion, including but not restricted to crime authors, a key novel by leading crime writer Deon Meyer is read as a case study to illustrate the more general points made in the article.     

The Mechanism of State Charter School Policy Adoption: The Case of American States

This article concentrates on charter school policy that is regarded as the fastest growing innovative policy in America. Its adoption is more impressive than other innovative policies in the public educational area. By 2008, 40 states among 50 American states have passed charter school law since Minnesota became the first pathfinder to create charter school law about two decades ago. However, 10 states have not adopted charter school law. Based on this dichotomous policy phenomenon, the primary research question of the study focuses on clarifying what factors drive American states to adopt charter school policy. To obtain answers for this research question, the study dedicates to analyzing main hypotheses from the regional diffusion model and state characteristics, using event history analysis. The results demonstrate that the three predictor variables—regional diffusion, similar innovation, and gubernatorial political tendency—positively have significant effects in explaining the adoption of American state charter school policy.     

Predictors of Electronic Government Services Adoption: The African Students’ Perspective in China

This study investigated the willingness of African students in China to adopt and use e-government services. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was used as the theoretical framework for this study while the data were analyzed with SPSS. The results indicate that performance expectancy, social influence, culture, and facilitating conditions were significant in determining the willingness to use e-government services. Contrarily to our expectations, effort expectancy, trust in the internet and perceived service quality were not significant in influencing the willingness to use e-government services. Also, while social influence had a significant influence on the trust in the internet, it was, however, demonstrated that social influence does not have a significant impact on both the effort expectancy and performance expectancy of e-government services. The implications of these and other result findings of this study are thoroughly discussed.     

Practising homeland security across the Atlantic: practical learning and policy convergence in Europe and North America

Abstract

Despite different traditions, interests and perceptions characterizing North American and European approaches to homeland security, since 9/11 policy-makers across the Atlantic have formulated increasingly similar policies to deal with terrorism and other international security threats. Challenging mainstream accounts elaborated in the policy convergence literature, and drawing from sociological works in performance studies, this essay argues that the recent evolution of homeland security policies in Europe and North America can be understood as an instance of ‘practical learning’. From this perspective, this outcome is the result of the acquisition on the part of European and North American policy-makers of the practical knowledge necessary to carry out the new policies, policies learned by mimicking the practices of their counterparts across the Atlantic. This argument is then applied to examine two cases of policy convergence in Europe and North America – the proposal for a ‘European Passenger Name Record’ system and the project of a regional ‘Security Perimeter’.     

Substance Use Among African American Adolescents in the Midwest

The purpose of this article is to examine the attitudes and substance use behaviors of African American adolescents living in the Midwest. A baseline survey was administered to 463 African American teens between the ages of 11–19. The article examines the relationship between attitudes toward drugs and drug-using behavior in this African American sample. Drug use will be compared to national drug use norms established by the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey. Overall participants had fairly negative attitudes toward drugs. Sixty percent of the sample reported that they were committed to a drug-free life, 74% had made a decision to stay away from marijuana, 79% reported making a decision not to smoke cigarettes, and 71% reported they would not get drunk in the next year. Females were more likely to stay away from marijuana than males. In this current study there is cause for alarm; participants reported higher percentages of ever smoking cigarettes and marijuana than the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey. This study shows there is a need to provide substance abuse prevention programs for African American adolescents. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.