Conferences

Conference question

W, W, W, W, W and H

1979

In 1979 the Rhodes Department of Journalism called a national conference on the "Survival of the Press". Graeme Addison read a paper and explains that "a row of English-language editors sat stony faced while I reeled off evidence of how white capitalist bias and collusion with the State was infecting news coverage. This was soon after the Info Scandal, which had given a brief morale boost to liberal journalists; but the mood was sombre, and criticism was interpreted as enemy talk," (Addison, 1993: 1).

Freedom of Information (International Conference) 1995

Freedom of Information. In the dawn of democracy there was a modern constitution and bill of rightsdrawn up but no Freedom of Information Act. Some questions that were issued on the agenda for this conference included "Will South Africa be more transparent than the old?... What new ideas and technologies are there to promote freedom of information?... Where do press freedom, state security and the right to privacy fit in?" This was an international conference hosted by the department and included perspectives of local and foreign media professionals, academics, lawyers and politicians (Rhodes Journalism Review, 1994: 47).

1996

The Department's first major photojournalism conference was officially opened on June 30, 1996... with more than 137 photographers and their students that gathered to discuss their passion and work (JQ, 1996, 3(3): 1).

The Rhodes Journalism and Media Studies department hosted the second SA Photojournalism Conference (1997)

The first day of the conference was dedicated to multimedia prsentations of the work of the 'great photographer'. The rest of the conference featured seven major seminars dealing with Education and Photojournalism: Documentary developments in South Africa; Community Photojournalism — documentary projects; Photojournalism Ethics; Copyright on the Internet; Photojournalism on the www — how websites should be set up to the advantages of the photojournalist; and Digital technology — where is it going? Has it threatened the craft of photojournalism? There was also a digital workshop with a demonstration of the complete process, from working with different digital cameras to outputting the image (JQ, 1997 4(1): 1).

1997 Consultative Conference on Journalism Training

In conjunction with the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef), Indepenent Newspapers, and the Department of Journalism and Media Studies, this conference highlighted the importance of journalism 'training' as a site of transformation of journalism, especially in the context of the new democracy (and the development of a new South Africa Qualifications Authority (SAQA) (Steenveld, 2006).

New Media 2000 (1997)

Telkom donated R50 000 to the department's New Media Lab for an international conference on the impact of the internet on journalism in Africa. The event covers themes of electronic data retrieval, robot-assisted research, the virtual newsroom, the global library, the wired journalist, multi-platform publishing and other topics. (JQ, 1997, 4(1): 1).

Highway Africa Conference (1998) - present

First gathering was in 1998 hosted by the department and has since become the biggest African conference which still runs today. Its beginning themes dealt with the Internet and the media in Africa and the conference was (and still is) a rendezvous between new media (digital technologies) and the notion of the African Renaissance.