Guest: Dr Prinola Govenden - Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study at UJ    

The media possess incredible power. In South Africa, the media could stagnate the racial justice progress achieved by liberation movements, democratic processes and activism. Even worse, it could take the country backwards. This is according to analysis by Dr Prinola Govenden, a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study at UJ. 

She notes that when formal apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994, several policies were introduced to address the racial and economic segregation of the past. One such policy was Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), the media was one of the sectors BEE legislation aimed to transform media ownership.  

But has an increase in black media ownership led to diverse, transformed content? In a context like South Africa’s racist past, has black media ownership in the democratic era led to a less racist framing of news content?