Drumming up Readers: Zonk! African People’s Pictorial and Films for African Audiences in South Africa in 1949 and the Early 1950s

Abstract

This chapter focuses upon the format, structure and content of three key movie and entertainment magazines in South Africa: Stage and Cinema (1915–1928, 1946–1969); Zonk! African People’s Pictorial (1949–1964); and Drum (1951–1965 [original series]). Jacqueline Maingard argues that these magazines are primary source material for constructing histories of cinema and its audiences in South Africa, especially in the context of questions of race and gender. This chapter explores the complexities of the different forms of address of these magazines and their differing appeal to readers/audiences in relation to questions of race and gender.