Globalization and the Restructuring of the Post- Apartheid Media, 1994-1999: Exploring Black Economic Empowerment

Abstract

 Gibson Mashilo Boloka’s study investigates the process of black economic empowerment within the South African media industry between 1994 and 2000.  Applying a political economy of communication which involves analysis of commodification, spatialization and structuration, Boloka examines the new ownership patterns which resulted from the shift to democracy in the context of globalisation.  This analysis of shifting patterns of concentration, and of ownership and control, is offered within a critique of the  new regulatory environments imposed on the media after 1996. 

Boloka explains how the interrelations between newly enacted regulatory mechanisms,  COSATU-controlled pension funds and accommodations of previously-owned white-dominated capital resulted in most of the major media companies coming under black ownership by the year 2000.