Shifting Patterns in South Africa's Press Oligopoly

Abstract

Between 1910 and 1990, an oligopoly of four newspaper chains developed in South Africa. Their emergence and growth - which are traced in this article - largely mirrored wider patterns within the white ruling hegemony. Many developments in the South African press merely replicated trends elsewhere in the world, but some aspects were uniquely South African. The end of apartheid, and the emergence in 1994 of a post-apartheid Government-of-National-Unity (GNU) completely transformed the context within which this press had to operate, imposing many transformative challenges upon it. The South African press has consequently experienced a wide range of socio-economic changes that have arrived rapidly and cumulatively. Coping with the potential threats that these changes heralded, meant that the newspaper chains initiated a series of shifts within the press industry. It is these shifts that are examined.