Author: Sim Kyazze

By Patience Shawarira “The role of communication in networking, building collective identity, mobilising and protesting is central to collective action,” said Linah Nkuna, who is completing a PhD at the University of Johannesburg. As part of the parallel sessions for 31 August- 1 September Highway Africa – SACOMM conference, Nkuna’s research theorises the various communication practices of social movements with specific reference to #AbahlalibaseFreedomPark, #WitsFeesMustFall and #SaveSouthAfrica protests. It focuses on the use of different communication methods in the representation of different social causes and issues of service delivery. Nkuna traced her research back to the apartheid era when protests…

Read More

By Patience Shawarira “…News editors and editors are not on board about the value of science news. They should also be trained on the value of science news, not only the journalists. They are the ones who decide on publication. And unfortunately most of them (the editors) underestimate and undervalue science as news…” Presenting findings from his MA research on the second day of the Highway Africa -SACOMM (the South African Communication Association) 2017 conference in Grahamstown last week, Steven Lang said science is poorly reported in mainstream media in South Africa. The Department of Science and Technology (DST), and…

Read More

By Amina Asma On the final day of the Highway Africa-SACOMM Conference 2017, Rhodes academic Dr Vanessa Malila spoke about accountability in the Eastern Cape Education Department. Malila’s 1 September presentation was The Role of the Media in Social Accountability Advocacy—Understanding the Impact and Visibility in the Case of Education Service Delivery in the Eastern Cape; and it was part of a parallel session under the theme, Development Communication at Rhodes University. In the study Dr Malila, who is head of the Advocacy Impact Programme at PSAM (the Public service Accountability Monitor), looks deeper into who gathers information and how…

Read More

The SACOMM- Highway Africa dance By Lesedi Thwala and Thandeka Sithole Delegates to Highway Africa-SACOMM (the South Africa Communication Association) 2017 were treated a welcome dinner with sombre addresses by Director of Communications and Advancement at Rhodes University, Luzuko Jacobs.  Jacobs said South Africa was in dire need of accountability in governance structures. “South Africa’s poverty statistics are distressing while at the same time there is a lot of corruption in local government structures,” Jacobs said, adding that that the current governance of South Africa does not reflect Nelson Mandela’s notion of democratic accountability. “But I applaud the media practitioners present…

Read More

By Noko Pela “In the State, the federal government is largely viewed as a sight for stagnation, nothing is happening at the federal level,” said Prof. Catherine D’Ignazio of Emerson College. “Government has become more local. There has been recently a movement by mayors, they have conferences where they talk to each other and share information, what is getting done on a governmental level is that mayors have started to do their own coordination,” D’Igazio was speaking on 1 September, on the side-lines of the Highway Africa-SACOMM conference, held at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. She said that local government faced…

Read More

By Sim Kyazze In Uganda, authorities arrested over 100 people in a dragnet that was launched to catch criminals who have been brutalising parts of the capital Kampala, with machete attacks in the still of the night. The only problem is that Ugandan authorities have a history of arresting and parading innocent people to show. To wit, Dr. Stella Nyanzi, a fiery academic and foul-mouthed feminist at Makerere University, was recently arrested and charged with defaming President Yoweri Museveni. The learned woman had referred to the big man as a “pair of buttocks” in a Facebook post. Her defence? Well,…

Read More