Unifying and Dividing Processes in National Media: The Janus Face of South Africa

Abstract

The article aims to open up a theoretical space where the nation building project's inherent contradictions can thrive, making it possible to see the construction of a new South Africa as a dialectical area of both converging and diverging processes. Using the national broadcaster South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the frequently used discourse of African renaissance as its central examples, the article argues that both processes of nation building and tendencies of globalisation must be seen as multidirectional processes to allow for a more consistent picture. Both the SABC and the current discourse of African renaissance are influenced by unifying and dividing processes.


Critical Arts Vol.18(1) 2004: 147-162