Creator
Mandla J Radebe
Mandla J Radebe is an associate professor in the University of Johannesburg’s department of strategic communication and director of the university’s Centre for Data and Digital Communications. He is the author of Constructing Hegemony: The SA Commercial Media and the (Mis)Representation of Nationalisation (UKZN Press) and The Lost Prince of the ANC: The Life and Times of Jabulani Nobleman ‘Mzala’ Nxumalo (Jacana Media).
AI and the battle for SA’s 2026 elections
This does not necessarily mean that physical campaigning will disappear. Politics remains fundamentally human. Voters still value personal interaction, community engagement and…
May Day and the disappearance of the labour beat
As the country marks another May Day, the central question is not nostalgia for an earlier media moment. It is whether democratic communication can still make workers visible in…
Western bias in South African media threatens press freedom
Coverage of the war in Ukraine shows shows Western views are perpetuated in the media, without balance and an alternative perspective
The Lost Prince of the ANC and ‘the people’s war’
This extract from The Lost Prince of the ANC: The Life and Times of Jabulani Nobleman ‘Mzala’ Nxumalo 1955 – 1991 by Mandla J Radebe is based on the publication in July 1987 of…
South African media, nationalisation and the spectre of investor confidence
Commercial media reproduces the views of the dominant class and has been unable to unpack the underlying failures of capitalism