Internationalising Media Studies

Abstract

A discussion of the history of journalism and mass communication studies, in relation to its alter ego, media studies, provides the backdrop to an analysis of the role played by the South African Communication Association (SACOMM) during the 1980s and after apartheid, up to 2006. The central argument is that SACOMM was criss-crossed by a particular kind of internal family argument in which specific contradictions were being negotiated: (1) pro-apartheid vs anti-apartheid (during the 1980s); (2) realists vs idealists; and (3) communication science vs media studies. The way these antagonisms had been negotiated by 2006 provides some insight into the way that media studies assisted in internationalizing the association and in exposing communication science to other paradigms.