Point of order
How Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters drive political conversations in South Africa.
24 Articles by:
Herman Wasserman
Herman Wasserman is professor of media studies at the University of Cape Town.
What happened on Bird Island
The pain caused by the South African Apartheid government has been widely recorded. But we may not have heard the half of it.
Social media and political violence in Cape Town
Reporting on protests in poor communities where the mainstream media lacks, social media picks up the slack. This isn’t always a good thing.
Where the social is political
If media claims to be a tool for deepening democracy and development in Africa, why is it necessary for protesters to resort to burning and barricading?
A wild fig grows in Rowan Street
Professor Sampie Terreblanche, who passed away at 84 on February 17, 2018, was one of South Africa’s foremost political economists.
Jonathan Jansen’s Lopsided View of Fees Must Fall
South African students have confronted us with a range of political, economic and intellectual questions to be answered – not merely posed a problem that needs to be managed.
Inheritances of our fathers
History reminds us that the past is not something that can or should be left behind. Rather, we are morally obliged to keep reflecting on them.
Beyond the usual South African reporting on “Africa”
Journalism on and about the continent tends to veer between the extremes of neglect or stereotype on the one end, and touristic exoticism on the other.
The Dookoom Debate
What role should media play in the midst of controversial cultural expressions, like songs that address racist violence by white farmers against their workers in South Africa?
Make Ignorance History
That old excuse of ‘We didn’t know’ (previously also heard as ‘Ons het nie geweet nie’ and ‘Wir haben es nicht gewuszt’) may be factually accurate, but it is never an ethical defense.
To Come Back from Qunu
Herman Wasserman, at the site of the funeral of postapartheid South Africa’s founder, Nelson Mandela, contemplates Mandela’s legacy for his children.
Some of my best friends are braaiers
Barbecuing may be the perfect activity to remind South Africa that inequality is the first heritage we need to overcome.
Criminal Media
South Africa’s mainstream media has a blindspot: It mostly covers crime as it affects the suburbs and whites. No wonder the readers are misinformed.
This man is Afrikaans
On a visit to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, academic Herman Wasserman gets reminded of home and how people perceive him.
Actual questions from a South African journalist
The long-held and widespread attitudes some South African journalists share about the struggle for liberation.
The story of a lost white boy
The story of Happy Sindane, the lost white boy, who put a lie to South Africa’s rainbow shibboleths.