Between exacerbation and alleviation?

Abstract

Problems of social transformation and inclusiveness are not just social problems, they arealso media communication problems; and they are not just South African problems they areinternationally shared. The same widening gap between rich and poor, the uneven and oftenskewed benefits of globalisation, and political disruption all sit alongside and intersect with achanging communication environment. While both our media content and our ways of payingfor media are stable, the ends they serve and the communication instruments to which they areattached are mutating. In an era of connectivity, both social media and new content priorities arerecalibrating our understanding of media, producing both new uses for media and new regimesof knowledge about media alike. Assessing the social and political significance of these changesbecomes all the more urgent when we consider that social transformation and inclusiveness willincreasingly need to work through these new communication settings.