Transforming the media: A cultural approach

The change from an Apartheid state to a liberal democratic one has wrought many changes at all levels of South African society: the economic, social, political, cultural. This paper explores the impacts of these changes on the South African print media industry, with a view to assessing their contribution to the development of a democratic citizenship. While acknowledging the constraining effects of economic structures of ownership, the paper locates these within the broader social and political context of post-apartheid South Africa. It thus attempts to synthesise elements of both a political economy and cultural approach to the analysis of cultural production.