"This book is the first of its kind within the African region to combine scholarly perspectives from the fields of Strategic Communication Management and Communication for Development and Social Change. It draws insights from scholars across the African continent by unravelling the complementary nat
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ure of scholarship between the two fields, through the lens of prevailing governance and sustainability challenges facing African countries, today. This edited volume covers issues that have adversely affected the achievement of goals related to humanitarian upliftment, development and social change for all African nations. Consequently, citizen participation, which lies at the heart of these challenges when considering the question of sustainable governance and policy development for social change in an African context is addressed. To this end, a reflection is also made on various case studies that exist where local citizens do not inform sustainable development programmes, while the promotion of bottom-up development and social change is largely replaced by top-down instrumental action approaches and hemispheric communication instead of strategic communication." (Publisher description)
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"The article discusses the coverage of politics in South African women’s magazine Fair Lady in selected years from democratisation in 1994 to ten years later in 2004. In a democracy, the media has the explicit duty to inform society. Within this context three questions are asked: (1) Which politic
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al themes are covered? (2) In what genres do the political items feature? (3) In what ways does the magazine focus the reader’s attention on political items? These aspects were selected to provide a clear view of the extent and manner in which Fair Lady presents politics in its content. This study was done by means of a qualitative content analysis. By focusing on these issues and by drawing on the functions of the media; the agenda setting theory; the schema theory and the on-line evaluation theory, it is argued that the magazine deems politics as important and incorporates it on its agenda to provide readers with necessary political information which they might not otherwise attain. Fair Lady overcomes the fact that politics does not traditionally feature in women’s magazines by taking care in attracting and keeping readers’ attention to political items. The publication (especially in 2004) can be held up as an example to other women’s magazines trying to fulfil their function as a medium to educate and inform readers whilst at the same time not alienating the entertainment-seekers." (Abstract)
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