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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

Prof Britz heading to Yale
2013-04-22

 

Prof Dolf Britz
Photo: Supplied
22 April 2013

Prof Dolf Britz has been awarded the honour of an appointment at Yale Divinity School (YDS) at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States. Starting in August 2013, Prof Britz will be involved in research initiatives and the teaching of post-graduate seminars at the university, which was founded in 1701.
The appointment is the natural progression of a collaboration agreement between the University of the Free State (UFS) and Yale University which dates back to 2009 with the formation of the Jonathan Edwards Centre Africa. The strategic partnership focuses on increasing African access to quality education and is geared towards empowering new-generation African leaders in academic and faith-based organisations with primary scholarly resources, research, education and publication.
Prof Britz’s appointment is equally exciting to the respective faculties involved at the UFS and Yale.
“We are most grateful that the generous support by the University of the Free States makes it possible for Prof Britz to be with us in this capacity,” said Prof Carolyn Sharp, Interim Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at YDS.

Prof Adriaan Neele, the Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale and extraordinary professor at the UFS, thinks Prof Britz’s appointment can be just as beneficial to YDS students.

“Prof Britz’s keen insight in historical primary sources will be very beneficial to Yale’s students and the faculty. His appointment demonstrates the strategic nature of the academic relationship between the UFS and Yale,” he said.

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