New Needs, New Approaches11e98842-9317-4971-b0cf-55ee827e5ef5
Under apartheid our courses were critical in nature, but practical as far as anti-apartheid social movements were concerned. After 1990 we recognised the need to move into policy research, developmental issues, and a greater professionalisation of our course offerings. Jobs, strategic business skills, and new approaches to assist South Africa’s reintegration into the global information economy were now needed. To this end we established:
a) the MA Course in Media Studies in 1994; and then we
b) integrated the MA with the Honours level into a two year postgraduate programme. In the 1980’s students were expected, where possible, to work with community organisations in relationships of praxis; now they are encouraged to engage the cultural and media professions in their field research attachments and research essays. The results have been excellent as students have begun to revise theory in the practice and the practice in theory. The resulting Technical Reports are being used by employers in some instances to examine their own operations. This has led in many instances to a highly productive working relationship between CCMS and various sectors of the South African media industry, state task groups and so on.
c) We see the CCMS MA course in Media Studies as analogous to a Masters in Business Administration. This identification has arisen out of both discussions and contract research for various sectors of the media industry. The requirement by business and parastatal companies like SABC and Telkom is for CCMS to educate media professionals to have strategic business skills, long-term conceptual vision, and who are able to guide media organisations in terms of:
- the ideological demands of the post-apartheid era;
- the integration of South Africa into the global information economy; while
- at the same time being vigilant towards balancing bottom-line pressures with the democratic needs of the public sphere.
d) To produce researchers and creative and critical strategists rather than journalists and technocrats.
e) To develop our conceptual strengths and to focus our courses in an integrated way which reduces our reliance on expensive technological applications (e.g. towards policy studies, development models, management questions, and critical analysis within, and of, commercial and parastatal media practices).
