Media and Democracy in Africa by Michael Leslie

Author:Michael Leslie [Leslie, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Political Science, Media Studies, General
ISBN: 9781351506380
Google: 9TIrDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 35635172
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

Emergence of the Apartheid Psyche

An examination of apartheid should include the study of how racial discourse evolved into political and social practices that were incorporated into the ideology of the state. The establishment of language or race-specific radio and television stations provides one example of how state institutions were created according to legislated spatial boundaries defined along race and ethnic population categories. In practice, however, this kind of race-space symmetry was not always or easily attained. Each radio station was administered by bureaucrats co-opted from each of the race groups, each transmitting culturally inflected interpretations and languages manufactured by the semantics of apartheid. The semiotics of apartheid would thus also examine how racial capitalism arose out of particular politico-economic, social and psychological conditions fashioned by colonialism, neo-colonialism and fractions of capital within the state (Louw and Tomaselli 1989). This is the background against which the subsequent discourses of diversity and empowerment of the post-1990 period is examined.

Beginning in the mid-1950s, blacks were re-settled from areas designated "white" to "homelands" that were located on the geographical peripheries. Job reservation secured supervisory positions for even unskilled whites. Wealth was transferred from English-dominated capital to the now Afrikaner-run state bureaucracy. This reorganization became the material basis and spatial organization for a consciousness of "natural" race-based perceptions in which blacks "entered" into the "white" world only as laborers. In turn, the consciousness of blacks was manipulated through broadcasting and the Bantu education system, to ensure that blacks understood the benefits of apartheid. These so-called benefits included the value of black self-determination, independence, and cultural integrity (Tomaselli, Louw and Tomaselli 1990). Similarly, apartheid discourse was legitimitized to whites initially on the basis of white racial superiority. Racial separation was feasible as long as migrant labor dominated the mining and agricultural economy until the early 1970s. However, with blacks urbanizing as a result of the maturing industrial economy of the 1970s, cultural differentiation began to emerge in the urban areas. This put pressure on whites to de-emphasize racial differences and accept blacks as urban workers and dwellers who could also fill supervisory positions in the industrial sector. This relexification was necessary to maintain economic growth and contest the growing international anti-apartheid movement. The latter was beginning to affect the ability of South Africa to attract foreign investment.

Overt racism disappeared from official South African discourse after 1979. Instead of the language of apartheid, Western libertarian terms like protection of minorities and multiculturalism appeared, linguistically eluding the material reality of white political control. With the impending unbanning of the ANC in the late 1980s, the National Party inserted into its discourse slogans such as power sharing without domination, an attempt to assure the minority white population of racial protection in the emerging "new" South Africa. This modified concept of multi-racialism was also reflected in television content, with blacks and whites now inhabiting the same frames without the one being subordinate to the other (Tomaselli R.E. et al. 1989).

The linguistically reformed apartheid ideology of the 1980s served the material interests of white bureaucrats and the middle classes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.