What meanings a selection of South African legal practitioners make of their role in the emerging digital media ecosystem
- Authors: Robertson, Heather Lillian
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Public sphere -- South Africa , Lawyers -- South Africa , Citizen journalism -- South Africa , User-generated content -- South Africa , Social media -- Authorship , Digital media -- South Africa , Online journalism -- South Africa , Liminality , Journalism, Legal -- South Africa , Gatewatching , New media ecosystem
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/114854 , vital:34042
- Description: This dissertation explores what a sample of South African lawyers understand about the roles they play in digital public spaces, and whether they perceive their contributions as impacting on journalism in general and legal knowledge among the public more broadly. The communications revolution triggered by web 2.0 interactivity has created a new media ecosystem in which mainstream media journalists co-exist with a variety of non-journalist content producers - including professionals like lawyers, who contribute to media content. This study specifically explores current debates about how the media ecosystem is changing in the digital age, including journalistic practices and routines and the role of journalism within a democracy and daily life. Thomas Hanitzsch and Tim Vos’s recent taxonomy of journalistic functions and roles in society is adapted by combining the domains of politics and daily life, to better describe the roles of non-journalists like the eleven digitally active members of the South African legal community in this study. Using qualitative interviews and content analysis research methods, the study suggests lawyers’ practices and routines challenge current theorisation about the new media ecosystem and digital public sphere in particular ways, suggesting that the affective nature of social media interactions between the lawyers and members of the public is more usefully understood via drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s concept of agonistic public spaces and Axel Bruns and Tim Highfield’s theorisation of ‘public sphericules’ than Jurgen Habermas’s conceptualisation of a rational public sphere. The study found that all of the digitally active lawyers played one or more active roles in contributing news, opinion and debate about legal and social justice matters on different digital public spaces, even though most were reluctant to describe what they do as journalism. The study concludes that this select group of lawyers do complement and enhance the work of journalists covering the legal field in the new media ecosystem in South Africa. It suggests that much more can be done by both journalists and the legal community to deepen co-operation to further enhance public knowledge about the workings of the South African legal system, in relation to legal rights and the rule of law. This dissertation explores what a sample of South African lawyers understand about the roles they play in digital public spaces, and whether they perceive their contributions as impacting on journalism in general and legal knowledge among the public more broadly. The communications revolution triggered by web 2.0 interactivity has created a new media ecosystem in which mainstream media journalists co-exist with a variety of non-journalist content producers - including professionals like lawyers, who contribute to media content. This study specifically explores current debates about how the media ecosystem is changing in the digital age, including journalistic practices and routines and the role of journalism within a democracy and daily life. Thomas Hanitzsch and Tim Vos’s recent taxonomy of journalistic functions and roles in society is adapted by combining the domains of politics and daily life, to better describe the roles of non-journalists like the eleven digitally active members of the South African legal community in this study. Using qualitative interviews and content analysis research methods, the study suggests lawyers’ practices and routines challenge current theorisation about the new media ecosystem and digital public sphere in particular ways, suggesting that the affective nature of social media interactions between the lawyers and members of the public is more usefully understood via drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s concept of agonistic public spaces and Axel Bruns and Tim Highfield’s theorisation of ‘public sphericules’ than Jurgen Habermas’s conceptualisation of a rational public sphere. The study found that all of the digitally active lawyers played one or more active roles in contributing news, opinion and debate about legal and social justice matters on different digital public spaces, even though most were reluctant to describe what they do as journalism. The study concludes that this select group of lawyers do complement and enhance the work of journalists covering the legal field in the new media ecosystem in South Africa. It suggests that much more can be done by both journalists and the legal community to deepen co-operation to further enhance public knowledge about the workings of the South African legal system, in relation to legal rights and the rule of law.
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- Date Issued: 2019
A mobile phone solution for ad-hoc hitch-hiking in South Africa
- Authors: Miteche, Sacha Patrick
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Cell phones -- Information services , Cell phone users -- South Africa , Hitchhiking -- South Africa , Mobile communication systems -- Social aspects , Digital media -- South Africa , Information technology -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4702 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013340
- Description: The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of mobile phones in organizing ad-hoc vehicle ridesharing based on hitch-hiking trips involving private car drivers and commuters in South Africa. A study was conducted to learn how hitch-hiking trips are arranged in the urban and rural areas of the Eastern Cape. This involved carrying out interviews with hitch-hikers and participating in several trips. The study results provided the design specifications for a Dynamic Ridesharing System (DRS) tailor-made to the hitch-hiking culture of this context. The design of the DRS considered the delivery of the ad-hoc ridesharing service to the anticipated mobile phones owned by people who use hitch-hiking. The implementation of the system used the available open source solutions and guidelines under the Siyakhula Living Lab project, which promotes the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in marginalized communities of South Africa. The developed prototype was tested in both the simulated and live environments, then followed by usability tests to establish the viability of the system. The results from the tests indicate an initial breakthrough in the process of modernizing the ad-hoc ridesharing of hitch-hiking which is used by a section of people in the urban and rural areas of South Africa.
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- Date Issued: 2014