By:

Within the context of debates concerning the impact of global media on local audiences, this study explores how a sample of South African youth responds to texts which were produced internationally, but distributed locally. Recognising the profound rootedness of media consumption in everyday life, the study examines the way these youth, differentially embedded in the South African economic and ideological formation, use these texts as part of their ongoing attempts to make sense of their lives. The paper rejects the 'either/or' formulations that often accompany competing structuralist and culturalist approaches to text/audience relationships. Instead, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, it seeks to highlight the interplay between agency and structure, between individual choices and the structuring of experience by wider social and historical factors. The paper points to the complex individual and social reasons that lie behind consumption choices, and the diverse (and socially patterned) reasons why local audiences are either attracted to, or reject, global media. The paper thus points to the deficiencies of the media imperialism thesis with its definitive claims for cultural homogenisation, seen as the primary effect of the globalisation of media.

Stream: Globalisation

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

I currently teach in the Dpt. of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University specialising in Media Theory. For the last few years my research focus has been on text/audience relationships, and in particular how local youth experience global media. I have published my research in numerous book chapters and journal articles (including the British journal "Media, Culture and Society"). I have just completed a manuscript, dealing with this research theme, for book for publication with the University of South Africa Press.