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Volume 14, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 2040-199X
  • E-ISSN: 1751-7974

Abstract

This article provides insight into the media as ‘reproducers’ of racist ideologies in an African postcolonial context. In South Africa, a ‘racist’ Clicks TRESemmé advert, released in September 2020, triggered public outcry and protests and exposed pertinent issues to consider about a lack of diversity and transformation as well as colonial tropes of Blackness still circulating in the post-apartheid media. This article locates the ‘racist’ Clicks advert historically within apartheid-era constructions of Blackness, as well as globally and locally within a wider pattern of Blackness representation. I problematize the advert as a manifestation of systemic weaknesses in the media transformation agenda in terms of race, specifically (1) racial substitution, (2) racial hierarchy and (3) beyond policies of non-racialism. I argue for a need to adopt decolonial visibility (Maldonado-Torres 2007) of Blackness to strengthen the media’s transformation efforts and dismantle the embedded racial hierarchy that emanated from capitalist modernity (Grosfoguel 2007).

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS)
© 2022 Intellect Ltd
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2022-09-01
2024-09-11
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/content/journals/10.1386/jams_00082_1
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Racism and the post-apartheid media: Problematizing the racist Clicks advert as a manifestation of token transformation
Journal of African Media Studies 14, 347 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00082_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jams_00082_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jams_00082_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Africa; Blackness representation; decolonizing; media policy; media transformation; postcolonial context; racism; South Africa

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