The Centre for Communication, Media and Society
School of Applied Human Sciences
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Howard College, Durban
Degrees Offered: HONOURS, MASTERS and PHD
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CCMS offers a supportive and highly structured learning environment comprising postgraduate students only. CCMS also hosts visiting professors and students from across the world – all of whom contribute to the life and work of the Centre.
Head of School: Prof Nhlanhla Mkhize
School Manager: Ms Shanta Maharaj
School Research Leader (Acting): Prof Donal McCracken
School Postgraduate Administrator: Ms Ausie Luthuli
School Teaching and Learning: Dr Barbara Simpson
The list below introduces students to the additional lecturers and staff with whom they will be interacting in 2013.
Full-Time Professors and Lecturers
Senior Professor Keyan G Tomaselli (PhD) established CCMS in 1985. He is Academic Coordinator of the graduate programme in Culture, Communication and Media Studies. He has served on various panels for the Academy of Science in South Africa, the National Research Foundation and on other local and international organisations. Tomaselli started his media career in the film and TV industries. He is a member of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) working group on Communication and HIV/AIDS. Occasionally known to smile, he laughingly drags his students all over the world on field exercises, teaching them how to camp and drive off-road. They get very dusty, go stir crazy, and have great fun in the sun.
Senior Professor Donal McCracken (PhD) was Dean of Humanities for 15 years. McCracken is a historian whose interests include media and cultural history. He has been advisor on BBC-TV programmes on South African history and has published extensively on a variety of cultural topics such as the Zululand Wilderness, the Durban Botanic Gardens, and the Anglo-Boer War, Irish History and so on. A wonderful raconteur, McCracken is the life and soul of any party, conference opening and book launch. Not to be missed.
Professor Ruth E Teer-Tomaselli (PhD) was previously Deputy Dean (Graduate Studies). Her research includes the political economy of global media, broadcasting and telecommunications, media memory, and research methods. She holds the UNESCO Chair in Communication and was a two-time SABC Board Member. She was Vice-President of the IAMCR, and is a member of the IAMCR working group on Political Economy of the Media. She has consulted for international agencies across Africa including UNESCO, UNDP, the Forum for African Women Educationists and the World Bank. Known from Cape to Cairo, and Mexico City to Moscow, everybody wants a bit of Teer-Tomaselli’s extraordinary talent.
Dr Lauren Dyll-Myklebust (PhD) lectures Development, Communication and Culture (DCC), and Communication for Participatory Development (CFPD). She is a key contributor to the Rethinking Indigeneity project which interfaces academic research and fieldwork with the tourism industry, government policy and economic development. Her topics include development communication, cultural tourism and identity, and critical indigenous qualitative research. She is a member of the Participatory Communication Research Section of the IAMCR. A long-time member of CCMS, from first year to PhD studies, Dyll-Myklebust is an intrepid explorer and photographer of the wilds of Africa and expert in cosmetics.
Eliza Govender (MA) is Programme Manager. She is responsible for strategic planning, fund raising, and international liaison with regard to Development, Communication and Culture, Communication for Participatory Development and the public health communication learning and research track. Govender has extensive NGO experience and serves on the advisory board on the Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa project. Govender is a member of the IAMCR working group on Communication and HIV/AIDS. Having been with us on and off since first year, Govender is someone who gets things done and whose portfolio balances the CCMS budget.
Mike Maxwell (MBA) has 30 years of professional experience in the print industry as a writer, designer and editor, both nationally and internationally. He is a former Head of Department of Journalism and Public Relations, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Dean of Academic Planning and Development at the Durban University of Technology. He is contracted as a marketing consultant for the Centre. Maxwell produces SUBtext, the quarterly CCMS magazine to which all students are invited to contribute and teaches Media in the Global World. Maxwell feeds us well and is a serious biker and adventurer who has survived 8 of his 9 lives. Catch him while you can.
Dr Julie Grant (PhD), is a Post-Doctoral Fellow. She hails from African Studies, Edinburgh University, and conducts her research in the Kalahari on land rights, development issues and is a top class teacher of field research methods. She contributes to the Visual Athropology/ Documentary Film module, but does not play the bagpipe.
Dr Nyasha Mboti (PhD), Post-Doctoral Fellow in Film and Cinema Studies, a graduate of the University of Zimbabwe, was previously Head of Education Services, National Gallery of Zimbabwe and lecturer in film, Zimbabwe Film and Television School of Southern Africa. His PhD topic was Visual Forensics: An Investigation of the Function of the Gaze in Hollywood Films about Africa and selected Television Texts. Mboti contributes to the Visual Anthropology/ Documentary Film class. Mboti's areas of expertise are film analysis software and critical indigeneous research methodologies. Hi is director of the research project od Durban as a Media City. He is also a software fundi.
CCMS also draws on a number of external part-time research advisors. Amongst these are Dr Emma Durden, an expert in education entertainment and public health communication; Professor Jeanne Prinsloo, now retired from Rhodes University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies; Dr Josianne Roma-Reardon, amongst others.
In addition to the above, CCMS hosts numerous visting professors and lecturers under the auspices of Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa programme. Amongst the visitors expected in 2013 are: Dr Warren Parker, Mr Richard Delate, Dr Sue Goldstein (Soul City), Harriet Gavshon (Curious Pictures), Professor Maria Figueora, amongst many others.
Research Advisors/Mentors
Mary Lange (MA), coordinates the ARROW SA (Art: A Resource for Reconciliation Over the World) Project which is spearheaded by the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre at The College of St Mark & St John, Plymouth, UK. Her research interests include oral narratives, visual anthropology, and theatre in development. Lange is research advisor on DCC and CFPD projects. ARROW is a CCMS research affiliate. Lange is multi-talented, a Culture and Heritage programme facilitator who does drama, a visual anthropologist who educates students in the field. She is currently directing a rock art project in the Northern Cape. Fellow passengers never go hungry when traveling with Mary-the-dynamo.
Emma Durden (MA), CCMS Research Advisor, will be advising students on their DCC projects. Durden is a CCMS graduate and previously coordinated the CFPD module and has just submitted her PhD. Emma is a hot shot consultant in the area of entertainment education and public health communication. A real livewire to work with.
Professional and Research Staff
Santie Strong is JHHESA Monitoring and Evaluation Officer; and Financial Administrator. Strong has admirable networking and system skills with the gift of the gab and makes sure that staffers do their jobs properly.
Sarah Strauss (BSocSci Hons) is an editor for SUBtext, webmaster, coordinator, office manager and researcher. A multi-tasker of note. ‘The boss’ (When the real boss is away).
Kieran Tavener-Smith (BSocSci MA) is editorial coordinator of Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies (Taylor & Francis, UK), edited from CCMS and published internationally. A bookworm who reads everything.
Andrew Dicks (BSocSci MA) is a researcher/ editor for Professor Keyan Tomaselli. The Centre's expert in Comics.
David Nothling is editorial coordinator on Journal of African Cinemas (p/t) (in collaboration with Murdoch University, Australia and Intellect, UK). Quiet but not to be underestimated.
Graduate assistants are employed from the Honours and MA classes on a variety of tasks, depending on funds available.
Honorary Appointments
Professor Jeanne Prinsloo (PhD), CCMS Honorary Professor, now sharing her time between CCMS and the Dept of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University. Prinsloo’s interests are media education, feminism and social theory. A CCMS graduate, Prinsloo keeps returning to CCMS for pragmatist refreshment. She will also advise students on their research projects.
Dr John-eudes Lengwa Kunda (PhD) CCMS Honorary Lecturer, based in Zambia, is also tutor for the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine. Kunda’s expertise is in public health communication and research methodology. He is a CCMS PhD graduate and Post-doctoral Fellow and now manages the PEPFAR programme at the US Embassy in Lusaka. Previously a motor vehicle importer, his sense of humour rivals that of Prof McCracken. Watch this space when they are in the same room.
Dr Warren Parker (PhD) CCMS Honorary Lecturer was the Executive Director of the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE). A CCMS graduate, Parker has been involved in wide-ranging research in entertainment education and has also developed and implemented various national communication programmes addressing the epidemic. A man for any cause, he takes on giants and tames them as did David of Goliath.
Prof Walter Peters (PhD), CCMS Senior Research Associate, recently retired from the School of Architecture. He is now employed at the University of the Free State where the weather gets awfully cold in winter.
Professor Franco Frescura (PhD), CCMS Senior Research Associate. Frescura has published on indigenous architecture, housing, indigenous value systems, colonial planning, and postal history. He is interested in symbology and supervises MA students on music and architecture topics. Frescura is a character in his own right, a man known to send apartheid prime ministers into apoplexy. A cartoonist of note, he tells tall stories about marriage scams pulled by the women employed at the Post Office in Pretoria in the 1980s. 419 scams had nothing on this.
Affiliates
Frans Prins (MA), CCMS Research Affiliate, runs a cultural heritage consultancy in Howick. Prins is the originator of the term, `Secret San’, and has found them everywhere. Frans takes on holy cows but does not tint at windmills.
Dr Mark Nielsen (PhD), Psychology, University of Queensland, will join the Kalahari field excursion. His research is on imitation behaviour amongst preschool children. Nielsen also consorts with primates of various kinds, his research subjects. His impression of an Australian cow mooing is really impressive.
Astrid Treffrey-Goatley (PhD), works for the Africa Centre, UKZN, and with CCMS on a Media Cities project. A music graduate from CCMS she studied South African cinema at UCT via her PhD. A really serious scholar who has thankfully returned to her home town.
Major Research Funders
Visual Anthropology / Documentary Film / Cultural Tourism / Rethinking Indigeneity is funded by the National Research Foundation, the National Heritage Council and various local and international agencies. This learning track involves researchers also from the Leeds University Centre for Post-Colonial Studies; School of Psychology, Queensland University; Anthropology, Towson and Atabasca Universities, and contributors from Leiden University and Free University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, and Bayreuth University, Germany. Other funders have included the British Research Council, the Australian Research Council, Atabasca University, and the Northern Province’s Dept. of Economic Development and Tourism; and the Smithsonian Institution.
Development, Communication and Culture and Communication for Participatory Development. These highly sought after Hons/MA modules are funded via Johns Hopkins Health and Education in SA (JHESSA), a branch of Johns Hopkins University, Balitmore, USA, via USAID. In this track students will be exposed to the world’s top communication for social change practitioners: Prof Patrick Coleman, Dr Warren Parker, Richard Delate and the one-and-only Dr Larry Kincaid, one of the founders of development communication theory.
CCMS’s partnerships with separately funded NGOs in which students are embedded for research and internship purposes contribute directly to our capacity. These include Drama in Aids Education, the HIV Network, and ARROW SA (based at UKZN) and the 20 JHHESA partners including SABC Education, the Valley Trust, Turn Table, OneVoice, Soul City Institute, AIDS Foundation of SA, etc.
Cooperating tertiary partners include Universities of Gävle and Malmo, Sweden; Reading University, UK; and the Bayreuth International Institute for African Studies, Germany.
CCMS also engages in consultancies which help to fund particular activities. Where possible we include recent graduates in these real-world learning experiences.
Our Graduates get Jobs
POSTGRADUATE STUDY AIMS to equip graduates to easily adapt to the world of work, in a variety of sectors. While registered for Honours, CCMS places students in real-world environments where they conduct research in consultation with the best professionals in the industry/profession/NGO sector who facilitate the kinds of conceptual expertise, professional competencies and skills that are required in business, commerce and the civil and state sectors.
Our degrees are worth the paper on which they are written and our graduates can compete with the world's best. Unlike some other institutions, we offer highly structured degrees with weekly seminars and close supervision.
In the professional sector our graduates are or have been employed by UKZN (Corporate Relations, Administration, Access, Faculty, Schools), Caxton's Community Newspapers, Independent Newspapers, SABC, eTV, CNN, Media24, the video industry, advertising, marketing and PR, publishing, magazines (Oprah, Country Life, Get it, sports magazines), tourism and events, marketing, etc. Many of our graduates are directly involved in South African media and developments (policy, community radio, community TV, video etc); they are employed increasingly in the cultural industries sector.
In the tertiary sector our graduates are (or have been) employed as lecturers at UKZN, University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, Zululand, Fort Hare, Johannesburg University, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Durban University of Technology, Tshwane University of Technology, UNISA, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, and in the private sector at Varsity College, Vega School of Advertising, Boston College, Rosebank, Damelin, and AFDA (SA School of Motion Pictures and Live Performance). Overseas, our graduates are or have been employed at universities like Monash and Queensland (Australia), London School of Economics, Westminster, Atabasca (Canada), Arizona, St Thomas (USA) etc. We have also educated lecturers who are now senior academics at top universities all over Africa (Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Malawi).
In the state sector, our graduates have been employed by Durban Municipality, as communication managers in Cabinet and provincial ministries, and as policy makers in the Department of Communication, the Department of Health, the Department of Transport, Development Bank, etc. Many students and graduates have contributed to state policy making, and many students are drawn from the state sectors of many African countries.
In the health communication and NGO sector our graduates have been employed by the Department of Health, JHHESA, the Centre for Development, Research and Evaluation, DramAidE, HIV Network, ACCORD, UKZN Medical School, CAPRISA, UNAIDS, and in media, the Freedom of Expression Institute, SOS – Support Public Broadcasting Campaign, amongst others.
Our overseas students are attracted by our world class reputation. Such visiting students usually come from places like Norway, The Netherlands, USA, Germany, Canada, the UK, Scotland, Italy, and so on.
Our Links With Employers
OUR LECTURERS (and many of our students) have extensive professional and industry experience and have close links with all sectors and the representative bodies of the media and cultural industries in which employment is sought by our graduates. Employers talk to us when wanting to employ our graduates because they value the competencies that are imparted to our students. They invite personal references from lecturers who have professional reputations that can be trusted by the industry. Can the graduate do the job? Employers know us and trust us. That means that they trust our referred graduates also. Our graduates remain active in our alumni community even after leaving the University. They feed extensive resources back to our Centre and often request referrals from us.
Employment: Procedures for Recruitment
MECS: employs undergraduate tutors, funds permitting. Recruitment is done by the Undergraduate Administrator, Ms Pam de Beer. CCMS: employs students in a number of capacities, under different conditions, funded by different donors, under financial obligations specific to each project, with different reporting requirements Existing appointments continue. Students wanting to be considered for positions should approach Ms Govender.
Where part-time employment possibilities do exist, CCMS applies the following criteria in selection:
- Budget conditions and project equity criteria
- Project appointments depend on student module choices, e.g., a visual anthropology student would be
sourced for research assistance on the Rethinking Indigeneity project
- Requirements of registration and bursaries held
- The degree to which the applicant is voluntarily involved in the life and work of the programme as a whole
- A record of community service is always a good indicator of social commitment
- The excellence of the applicant’s academic record and CV
- The likelihood to the applicant continuing to MA and/or PhD studies (to ensure continuity)
- Initiative, reliability and professionalism, enthusiasm and commitment
- Recommendations from students’ undergraduate lecturers
- Appointments will be continued where performance is excellent, otherwise they will be terminated
Students appointed will be paid at University rates and will be accountable to the employing academic/researcher/manager and the CCMS Programme manager. Appointments are made through the University’s Human Resources Division.
Extra-Curricular Activities
CCMS is often invited by external organizations to nominate students to participate in events, publishing and media production. These offer wonderful opportunities for students to get professional experience and build a portfolio. Remember, it is the portfolio that employers are primarily interested in.
Some recent examples include:
- Students interning with a SuperSport video crew on the Dusi canoe marathon.
- Publishing commentary articles in Durban and PMB newspapers
- Contributing to media research on JHHESA health communication campaigns like the TV Brothers for Life, medical male circumcision TV inserts, etc.
- Interning with video production companies, writing for SUBtext, and writing their own blogs (which often are republished in the news media)
- Writing for industry journals like The Media, and in academic journals and books.
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