Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Communitas features wide-range of articles

02 February 2021 | Story Dr Willemien Marais | Photo Supplied

The current issue of Communitas, academic journal of the Department of Communication Science in the Faculty of the Humanities at the University of the Free State (UFS), features scholarly articles ranging from indigenous knowledge systems for science and health communication to online discourses about male rape and the use of social media to increase social capital.

Communitas is a nationally accredited, open-access academic journal publishing scientific articles in the context of community communication, information impact and related disciplines, including corporate and marketing communication, development and health communication, media studies, and journalism.

These articles address real-world challenges in the field of communication, as well as the impact of communication and information in developing societies, including Southern African communities. While the articles range in focus from global participation to area-specific issues in remote rural areas, they all highlight areas or aspects that form part of or contribute to the rich tapestry of the Southern African communication landscape, thus contributing to African knowledge creation.

Interdisciplinary experts write on real-world issues

In the latest issue of Communitas, Dr Anton Binneman and Dr Corne Davis write about the use of indigenous knowledge systems for science communication in the context of the Square Kilometre Array radio astronomy project, while Lesego Radebe et al. investigate how traditional folk media can be used to convey diabetes mellitus messages at public health-care services.

In an article by Dr Tsitsi Mkomde and Dr Estelle de Beer, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) can benefit from their analysis of the communicative decision-making processes used by corporates to make decisions about funding NGOs and other donor recipients. In another NGO-related article, Prof Retha de la Harpe presents a conceptual model for NGOs and volunteer-based organisations to use data generated by an online platform to understand the invisible user.

For marketers and brand communicators, Dr Abyshey Nhedzi provides valuable insight into improving brand-linkage effectiveness for consumers from an African perspective, while Vuyelwa Constance Mashwa et al. focus on the consumer’s perspective in their article on the use of fictional spokes-characters in brand advertisements and communication.

The increased focus on pro-environmental reputations by consumer brands and how this is reflected in South African print media, provides marketing-communication practitioners with guidelines to distinguish between types of green advertising, as identified by Prof Angelique van Niekerk and Dr Marthinus Conradie. Dr Patrick Mupambwa and Prof Norman Chiliya look at factors that influence the adoption of an e-marketing orientation among Zimbabwean churches.

Heterosexual responses to lesbian and gay-themed advertisements are the focus of an article by Nkosiville Welcome Madigana et al., while Dr Karabo Sitto and Prof Elizabeth Lubinga analyse online discourses on gendered myths, risks, and the social amplification of male rape.

With an increasing number of digital natives joining social media and the growing popularity of influencer culture, Dr Stenford Matenda et al. are looking at young people’s use of social media to increase social capital. An article by Dr Mvuzo Ponono investigates the implications of current debates on fake news for South Africa and how we understand these insights in the context of histories of conflict and high inequality. Dr Ponono is a lecturer in Communication Science at the UFS.

*Communitas uses a continuous publication (CP) model and authors are invited to submit manuscripts online or email the Editor-in-Chief, Dr Willemien Marais, at maraisw@ufs.ac.za for assistance. The journal is one of the accredited journals of the University of the Free State. Visit the Kovsie Journals webpage for more information.

News Archive

UFS sets trend for higher education institutions

2005-09-21

The University of the Free State (UFS) offers more service-learning courses than any other higher education institution in the country and has the highest number of students enrolled for these service-learning courses.

This was the research findings on higher education institutions conducted between 2001 and 2004 by the Joint Education Trust (JET) into service-learning courses. These are courses which seek to integrate service to the community into the academic core of higher education institutions.

The results of this research indicated that the UFS is one of the few higher education institutions in South Africa that have made progress in integrating community engagement into the mainstream academy.

According to the findings 2 233 students at the UFS participated in service-learning courses supported by JET, while 858 students at the University of Transkei (UNITRA), 636 students at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and only 600 students at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) participated in service-learning courses.

In total there were 6 930 students participating in service learning courses supported by the JET at 10 institutions throughout the country.

The research also found that out of a total of 182 service-learning courses supported by JET countrywide, the UFS had the highest number of such courses at 42, followed by WITS with 28, the University of Kwazulu Natal with 26, UWC 24 and UNITRA with 22.

Nationally, most of the service-learning courses at higher education institutions are offered in the human sciences (62), followed by health sciences (37), education (26), agriculture (14), and economic sciences (11).

According to leading academics, service-learning is a credit-bearing, educational exercise in which students participate in an organised service activity that meets identified community needs and helps the student to gain a deeper understanding of course content and a sense of civic responsibility.

Reacting to the research findings, the Rector and Vice-chancellor of the UFS, Prof Frederick Fourie, said the university feels strongly that there should be integration of service-learning into the academic core of the institution.

“Through service-learning modules the UFS can give expression to its role of service to the community as an institution of higher learning, producing quality graduates who understand the communities in which they will have to function for the rest of their lives,” Prof Fourie said.

According to Mr Jo Lazarus, the project manager of the Community-Higher Education – Service Partnership (CHESP), which falls under the JET, a number of institutions have identified community engagement as a strategic priority and have allocated significant resources from their central budget towards its implementation.

Mr Lazarus said most students have an overwhelmingly positive attitude towards service learning.

“A large percentage of students surveyed indicated that their service-learning course helped to improve their relationship skills, leadership skills and project planning abilities. As significant is the fact that these courses also benefited them in terms of their awareness of cultural differences and opened their eyes about their own cultural stereotypes,” said Mr Lazarus.

“The key challenge still hampering the integration of service-learning as a core function of academic activity is that some institutions still see service-learning as an add-on, and nice-to-have activity,” he said.

According to Mr Lazarus higher education must demonstrate social responsibility and commitment to the common good by making available expertise and infrastructure for service-learning as a form of community engagement.

Media release
Issued by:  Lacea Loader
   Media Representative
   Tel: (051) 401-2584
   Cell: 083 645 2454
   E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
   20 September 2005

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept