This study attempts to offer a political economic framework through which to understand the complexity of media industry restructuring in terms of processes unleashed by the demise of apartheid between 1990 and early 1997. The article offers: analysis of the historical relations between apartheid language and the media discourses of opposing ideologies; brief discussion of oppositional discourses from black movements in relation to struggles between Afrikaner Nationalism and English liberalism; an historical materialist analysis of the shifts in media ownership and allegiance between the apartheid and post-apartheid eras; discussion of post-apartheid media trends in terms of the new lexicons of ‘nation-building’ and ‘empowerment’; and analysis of contested terrains in both the public sphere and political economy. The study concludes with some remarks on the political and economic significance of changes in ownership.