In South Africa the left-wing is currently in an ascendant mode. Yet it is not an unproblematic ascendancy. For one thing, because Marxism has been interwoven with so much of the South African struggle, the South African Left are now unable to disentangle themselves from the contemporary 'collapse of the Marxist dream'. And this translates into a South African socio-political issue because as the Left accumulates influence and power in South Africa so the problems and limitations of historical materialism acquire a wider social significance. This thesis will argue that a key problem with the historical materialist paradigm has been its limitations when dealing with communication and the media. However, there have been historical materialists (usually those who consciously stepped outside 'mainstream Marxist' discourse) who made considerable advances in attempting to develop historical materialism's capacity for dealing with communication, the media and the subjective. This thesis will examine some of the work which has attempted to 'reconstruct' historical materialism away from a narrow materialism. The aim will be to give some direction to the development of a New Left approach to communication. Such a reconstruction is seen as a precondition if the Left-wing is to find a formula for dealing with Information Age relations of production. A New Left communicology able to deal with the 'superstructuralism' of the Information Age offers a specific perspective on how to construct a development strategy for South Africa. This will be discussed, and the thesis will attempt to tie together the notions of communication, development and democracy. The relationship between communication and democracy will be especially important for the New Left approach that will be favoured in this thesis. So an important theme in the thesis will be the question of developing a left-hegemony based upon a democratic-pluralism. This will entail examining the role that media and an institutionalised social-dialogue can play in building a left-wing democracy. The extent to which the left-wing media in South Africa have contributed to a democratic dialogue is discussed. This will then be extended into a discussion of how media can contribute to the reconstruction, development and democratization of a leftist post-apartheid South Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1991.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MA (Anthropolgy))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Anthropology and Archaeology / unrestricted

Ruth First was an activist, journalist and sociologist trained by experience and credentialed by her numerous publications. Having lived most of her adult life as an intellectual and activist, First died in August 1982 at the hands of a regime and its supporters who intensely detested all these pursuits. This research project sketches the intellectual contributions made by the South African sociologist during her time at the Centre of African Studies at Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique. Her life like the newspaper she edited in the early 1970s was a Fighting Talk and this research project is about celebrating that life and valorising some of the life’s work that she left behind. Making use of qualitative research methods such as archiving, semi-structured interviews and contents analysis, this thesis sought to document Ruth First’s intellectual interventions while at the Centre of African Studies. Engaging with her work while she was in Mozambique and inserting her intellectual contributions, which like those of many African scholars have given way to debates from the global North, into our curriculum would perhaps be the real refutation of the assassin's bomb. This engagement is also crucial as it extends much further than the striking accolades which take the form of buildings and lectures established in her honour.

It is important that the story of organisations like the End Conscription Campaign be recorded. The narrative of the struggle against apartheid has become a site of contestation. As the downfall of apartheid is still a relatively recent event, the history is still in the process of formation. There is much contestation over the relative contributions of different groups within the struggle. This is an important debate as it informs and shapes the politics of the present. A new official narrative is emerging which accentuates the role of particular groupings, portraying them as the heroes and the leaders of the struggle. A new elite have laid exclusive claim to the heritage of the struggle and are using this narrative to justify their hold on power through the creation of highly centralised political structures in which positions of power are reserved for loyal cadres and independent thinking and questioning are seen as a threat. A complementary tradition of grassroots democracy, of open debate and transparency, of “people’s power”, of accountability of leadership to the people fostered in the struggle is being lost. It is important to contest this narrative. We need to remember that the downfall of apartheid was brought about by a myriad combination of factors and forces. Current academic interpretations emphasize that no one group or organisation, no matter how significant its contribution, was solely responsible. There was no military victory or other decisive event which brought the collapse of the system, rather a sapping of will to pay the ever increasing cost to maintain it. The struggle against apartheid involved a groundswell, popular uprising in which the initiative came not from centralised political structures, orchestrating a grand revolt, but from ordinary South Africans who were reacting to the oppressive nature of a brutally discriminatory system which sought to control every aspect of their lives.4 Leaders and structures emerged organically as communities organised themselves around issues that affected them. Organisations that emerged were highly democratic and accountable to their members. There was no grand plan or centralised control of the process. As Walter Benjamin warned in a different context, but applicable here: “All rulers are the heirs of those who have conquered before them.” He feared that what he referred to as a historicist view constructed a version of history as a triumphal parade of progress. “Whoever has emerged victorious” he reminds us “participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice the spoils are carried along in the procession.” 5 He was warning of just such a tendency, which has been repeated so often in the past, for the victors to construct a version of history which ends up justifying a new tyranny. To counter this tendency it is important that other histories of the struggle are told – that the stories of other groups, which are marginalised by the new hegemonic discourse, are recorded.This aim of this dissertation is thus two-fold. Firstly it aims to investigate “the story” of the End Conscription Campaign, which has largely been seen as a white anti-apartheid liberal organisation. The objective is to provide a detailed historical account and periodisation of the organisation to fill in the gaps and challenge the distortions of a new emerging “official” discourse.Secondly within this framework, and by using the activities and strategies of the organisation as evidence for its suppositions, the question of the role played by the ECC in the struggle.

Bibliography: leaves 258-281. / This study seeks to develop an understanding of the evolution of state policy towards Africans in Cape Town, and to document the resistance engendered by discriminatory and oppressive laws. Utilizing both primary and secondary sources, the thesis describes and analyses complex social problems and political struggles which originated and developed in the period before 1936. By emphasizing the material and political dimensions, as well as the class interests and social categories involved in this uneven process of struggle, the thesis attempts to transcend the limitations not only of functionalist and "conflict pluralist'' perspectives, but also of the more simplistic Marxist formulations propounded within the field of South African urban studies.

Thesis MA (Political Science. International Studies))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / Liberation movements came into being across the entire African continent as a political response to colonisation. However, Africa has in this field, as in so many others, been largely understudied, in comparison to revolutionary movements in South America and South East Asia. While many case studies on specific liberation movements exist, very few are comparative in nature. This study will do precisely that using the framework of Thomas H. Greene. The resistance movements in South Africa and Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, consisted of several organisations, but the ones that emerged as the most powerful and significant in the two countries were the ANC and ZANU respectively. Although their situations were similar in many ways, there were other factors that necessarily led to two very different liberation struggles. This study looks closer at these factors, why they were so, and what this meant for the two movements. It focuses on the different characteristics of the movements, dividing these into leadership, support base, ideology, organisation, strategies and external support. All revolutionary movements rely on these factors to varying degrees, depending on the conditions they are operating under. The ANC and ZANU both had to fight under very difficult and different circumstances, with oppressive minority regimes severely restricting their actions. This meant that the non-violent protests that initially were a great influence for the leadership of both movements – especially with the successes of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa and India, inevitably had to give way to the more effective strategies of sabotage and armed struggle. Like other African resistance movements, nationalism was used as the main mobilising tool within the populations. In South Africa the struggle against apartheid was more complex and multidimensional than in Zimbabwe. Ultimately successful in their efforts, the ANC and ZANU both became the political parties that assumed power after liberation. This study does not extend to post-liberation problems.

Thesis (M.A.)

The focus of this study is on South Africa's transition to democracy. It is argued in this thesis, that an analysis of the transition to democracy in South Africa and the transformation of the con ict that prevailed in this divided society could generate new avenues for theorising about transitions to democracy in divided societies amidst con ict. The aim with this thesis is to contribute towards a more comprehensive understanding of the complex nature of the process of transition to democracy, and the relevant theory involved, particularly with regard to transitions in divided societies. One consequence of the deep divisions within South African society has been the increase in violence, which followed liberalisation. The transition to democracy in South Africa, as a result, was characterised by continuing and escalating violence. In South Africa, the authoritarian regime deteriorated mainly because of internal factors, but external factors also played an important role. The analysis of the transition has been guided by the hypothesis that the democratisation of South Africa was accomplished through a compromise that was negotiated between the major political actors and which re ected the intra-, as well as the inter-dynamics in the domains of, state - political society - civil society. Thus, the main theme of this thesis is, that in the analysis of the dynamics of the tran- sition to democracy in South Africa, a basic framework in which the domains of, state - political society - civil society, are the domains where structural variables (such as culture, economic development, class structures, increased education and the international environ- ment) and behavioural variables (such as major political actors, elite factions, organisations from civil society) interact. Thus, in the diachronic analysis of South Africa's transition, an interactive approach, that seeks to relate structural constraints to the shaping of contingent choice, is followed. At the same time, the institutional substitution of a new democratic political dispensation is examined. In conclusion, democracies are complex phenomena, and they are caused by many di er- ent forces and synthesizing the relevant theoretical approaches to political change provides a more cogent and comprehensive explanation of democratic transition in South Africa. / (D. Litt. et Phil. (International Politics))

This thesis focuses on strategies of representation in South African anti-apartheid documentary film and video from the late 1970s to 1995. It identifies and analyses two broad trends within this movement: the first developed by the organisation called Video News Services; the second developed in the Mail and Guardian Television series called Ordinary People. Two history series are analysed against the backdrop of transformations in the television broadcasting sector in the early 1990s. South African documentary film and video is located within a theoretical framework that interweaves documentary film theory, theories of Third cinema and of identity, rid working class cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. The concepts of ‘voice’ and the ‘speaking subject’ are the two key concepts that focus the discussion of strategies of representation in detailed textual analyses of selected documentaries. The analysis of three documentaries that typify the output of Video News Services reveals how these documentary texts establish a symbiosis between representations of the working class as black, male, and allied to COSATU, and the liberation struggle. The analysis of selected documentaries from the Ordinary People series highlights those strategies of representation that facilitate perceptions of the multiplicities of identities in South Africa. This focus on representations of identity is extended in analysing and comparing two television series. The strategies of representation evident in the Video News Services documentaries and the meanings they produce about identify are repeated in the series called Ulibambe Lingashoni: Hold Up the Sun. In Soweto: A History, strategies of representation that follow the trend towards representing identity as multiple are used to present history as if from the perspective of ‘ordinary’ people. The thesis creates an argument for South African documentary film and video to move towards strategies of representation that break down the fixed categories of identity developed under apartheid. With policy moves for creating more ‘local content’ films and television productions there is opportunity to re-shape the documentary film and video movement in South Africa using representational strategies that blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction, and between individualised, discrete categories of identity.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-07-11T12:27:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Viviane Oranges Cezarino.pdf: 803265 bytes, checksum: 81b0fef4aadb19d15d165e21e32bf83b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-11T12:27:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Viviane Oranges Cezarino.pdf: 803265 bytes, checksum: 81b0fef4aadb19d15d165e21e32bf83b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This study analyzes how the opposition composed by state representatives of the MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement) acted in the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo during military dictatorship. The objective is to describe the strategies developed by the members of the MDB to difficult the work of the people at ARENA´S (National Renewal Alliance) party. The focus is to address the opposition's actions when it was a minority in the State Parliament (they were 15 representatives of MDB against 51 ones of ARENA). And subsequently, from 1975 onwards when it became majority. Opposition used regimental instruments, such as speeches, to disturb military dictatorship and report disappearances and deaths. In addition it found gaps that made ALESP an "island of freedom" in such dark times. Sixteen ex-state representatives from MDB provided information to this monograph elaboration. These were testimonies and reports i listened to during the recordings of the documentary show "Memories of Legislative Power", from SP Assembly TV. The trajectories that these men have created to reach State Parliament of Sao Paulo point to fight ideals and political participation. Together, these aspects contributed to São Paulo Legislative Assembly in becoming a stone in the middle of the general's road / Este estudo analisa como a oposição, formada por deputados estaduais do MDB (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro), agiu dentro da Assembleia Legislativa de São Paulo durante a ditadura militar. O objetivo é descrever as formas encontradas pelos deputados do MDB para dificultar o trabalho da bancada da ARENA (Aliança Renovadora Nacional). Pretende-se abordar a atuação da oposição quando era minoria no Parlamento Estadual (chegaram a ser 15 deputados do MDB contra 51 da ARENA). E, posteriormente, quando passou a ser maioria, a partir de 1975. A oposição usou instrumentos regimentais, como os discursos, para incomodar a ditadura militar e denunciar desaparecimentos e mortes. Mas também soube encontrar brechas que tornaram a ALESP uma “ilha de liberdade” em tempos tão sombrios. Dezesseis ex-deputados estaduais do MDB contribuíram para a realização desta monografia. São deles os depoimentos e relatos, que ouvi durante as gravações do programa “Memórias do Poder Legislativo”, da TV Assembleia SP. Os caminhos que estes homens percorreram até chegar ao Parlamento Estadual apontam para ideais de luta e participação política. Juntas, essas características contribuíram para que a Assembleia Legislativa de São Paulo se tornasse uma pedra no caminho dos generais