The study deals with the extent to which change should be implemented by
institutions. It is of paramount importance that staff be at the centre of the change
throughout the entire process. It is worth noting that in the absence of this serious
phenomenon, there seems to be little hope of raising employee confidence, as is
notable from the responses of the employees of MNet and SABC.
The sociopolitical history of South Africa has played a major role in language used in
the country's media: television, newspapers and radio. English is by far the most
widely used language in the media, followed by Afrikaans and the African languages
in that order. Except for multilingual programmes, it was relatively easy to determine
the amount of airtime allocated to each individual language. A previous study shows
that the distribution of airtime on South African television is strikingly uneven, with
English taking up 91,95% of the total weekly airtime, Afrikaans 5,66% and all nine
African languages sharing a mere 2.39% of airtime collectively.
The study further deals with the origin and development of the Afrikaans language in
South Africa. For many years Afrikaans took centre stage in South Africa.
Especially during the apartheid years the use and power of Afrikaans increased
dramatically on the SABC. Since 1994 English has gained more territorial political
clout than Afrikaans in virtually all the country's institutions, including the media. The
SABC took a political decision to cut vigorously on Afrikaans programming. That
triggered MNet's decision to embark on a business decision to establish a dedicated
Afrikaans channel. This study shows that employees at the SABC are generally
unsatisfied with the broadcaster's decision and staff at MNet are in agreement with
the fact that Afrikaans has lost most of its privileges and political prestige it had
during the apartheid era, it could still present a challenge to the hegemony of English
in all the higher domains, except diplomacy. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/1049 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Stevens, Nicklaas |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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