Jane Duncan
Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society
Prof Jane Duncan is Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University. Before that she worked at the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) since its establishment in 1994 and was its director from 2001 to mid-2009. She was also coordinator of the FXI's predecessor organisation, the Anti-Censorship Action Group. She also worked at the Funda Centre in Soweto and then at the Afrika Cultural Centre in Newtown. She obtained a BA as well as honours and master's degrees at the University of the Witwatersrand, and completed a PhD through the Wits School of the Arts in 2007.
News
Rhodes university will be collaborating with two other universities on a research project on youth and media, funded by the South African Netherland Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (Sanpad). The title of the research project is ‘Youth identity, media use and consumption and the public sphere in South Africa’.
Latest Research
Monthly Column:
Book Chapters:
- ‘Beyond human rights ideology: struggles for freedom of expression in Africa’, in Bond, P.; Sahle, E., Sharife, K., and Lazar, J. African crises and social protest. Pambazuka Press (forthcoming).
- Co-authored with Ian Glenn: ‘Television Policy and Practice in South Africa’ in Moyo, D. and Chuma, W. 2010. Media Policy in a changing Southern Africa: critical reflections on media reforms in the global age. More information about the book is here: www.unisa.co.za
- ‘Thabo Mbeki and dissent’ in Glaser, D. 2010. Mbeki and after: reflections on the legacy of Thabo Mbeki. More information about the book is here: Wits Press
- ‘The bounds of the expressible: Zapiro and political cartooning’, in Positions: contemporary artists in South Africa, edited by Matthew Krouse and Peter Anders by Jacana Media and the Goethe Institute. More information about the book is available here: www.jacana.co.za
Book:
Co-authored with Libby Lloyd, Hendrik Bussiek and Jeanette Minnie. Public broadcasting in Africa: South Africa, published by the Open Society Institute Network. Available at: www.osf.org.za
Journal Articles:
- ‘The uses and abuses of political economy: the ANC’s media policy’. Transformation. Number 70. December 2009. 1-30.
Conference Presentations:
- ‘The ANC’s poverty of strategy on media accountability’. Rhodes colloquium on Media, Democracy and Transformation since 1994, October 2010.
- ‘Forward to the past: voice, political mobilisation and repression under Jacob Zuma’, South African Research Chair in Social Change symposium entitled ‘A Decade of Dissent: Reflections on Popular Resistance in South Africa, 2000-2010, November 2010.
Other articles:
- ‘Power and principle: the ANC alliance and the Media Appeals Tribunal’. Amandla Magazine. Issue number 16. October 2010. 13-16.
Working papers:
- ‘Mobile network society? Cellphones and the overreach of social theory’.
Research projects:
2011-2012. A baseline study of youth identity, the media and the public sphere in South Africa and Holland. Joint research project with Prof Jane Duncan (project leader), Prof Larry Strelitz, Prof Lynette Steenveld, Ms Priscilla Boshoff (all from Rhodes), Mr Wadim Schreiner (Media Tenor), Dr Tanja Bosch, Dr Adam Haupt and Dr Musa Ndlovu (of UCT), Prof Irene Costera Meijer and Nico Drok (Free University of Amsterdam). Funded by Sanpad.
