The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
The media play an important role as information mediators in today's world, occupying an important space where public debates about national and international issues take place. SACSIS seeks to understand the role and the impact of the mainstream media in achieving public interest journalism.
David Bollier -
In 2013, the government of Ecuador launched a major strategic research project to “fundamentally re-imagine Ecuador” based on the principles of open networks, peer production and commoning. Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation would be leading the research team for the next ten months, and seeking to “remake the roots of Ecuador’s economy, setting off a transition into a society of free and open knowledge.”
The announcement of the project...
Jane Duncan -
One year ago today, The Guardian newspaper published National Security Agency (NSA) spy Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance in the US. Digital activists are marking this day by launching a ‘reset the net’ campaign to encourage internet users to take back the internet from the spies and to make it secure for use: a campaign that has received Snowden’s endorsement.
Other forums have taken place recently, focussing on the broader principles that should...
Jane Duncan -
Most South Africans are aware of the public spat between South Africa’s largest cellphone operators, MTN and Vodacom, on the one hand, and the smaller cellphone operators and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on the other.
The spat relates to Icasa’s attempt to bring down the cost of communications by gradually reducing the Mobile Termination Rates, or interconnection rates, through regulations. These are the rates that one network operator...
Jane Duncan -
Sick and tired of too much foreign content on television and too much political meddling in the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)? Fed up with some of the most exploitative communications costs in the world? Well, now is your opportunity to say and do something out these problems, in theory at least.
The Department of Communications is reviewing all policies impacting on the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and Parliament intends to review the laws as well. This...
Michael Albert -
Glenn Greenwald and Michael Albert discuss the difficulties of doing good journalism within the confines of mainstream media, secrecy and corporations and Greenwald's new media project - The Intercept.
MICHAEL ALBERT: Glenn, you have been asked over and over about journalism, with the questions often coming from folks eager to somehow discredit you as being too concerned or too involved, and therefore not reliable as a journalist. So I have a question for you about journalism - but coming...
Jane Duncan -
And another one bites the dust. Yet another Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Lulama Makhoba, has left the beleaguered South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) before her term of office expires. Speculation has been rife that her position had become untenable given the growing power of Chief Operating Officer (COO), Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
This leadership saga has grabbed the headlines, eclipsing another, less-well publicised process, the SABC’s editorial policy review. The...
