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When Local Language Meets Global Default
South Africa's multilingual reality can get lost when local languages present a challenge for developing language technology. media update considers what it means when the language we use does not fit the systems built to understand it.
Roots to Reinvention — The Editor's Note
Spring notoriously signals new beginnings, meaning most industries lean on this symbolism for their own gain. media update considers how publicity campaigns can offer an edge to an overdone story by rooting a brand's future in its own history.
When Literacy Development Meets Easy Answers: A Deeper Look at South Africa’s Literacy Crisis
media update considers how our relationship with AI and the decline in reading for pleasure fit into South Africa's literacy crisis.
The Human Edge in an Automated Communications Industry: A Q&A With Kevin Welman
media update talks to Kevin Welman about how agencies can balance integration with specialist knowledge, creativity with commercial value and technological efficiency with human relationships to build lasting credibility.
Building a Data Profile: A Q&A With Melissa Mc Nally — Part One
media update talks to Melissa McNally about the assumptions behind audience research, from the limits of consumer personas to the risks of AI-led targeting, and how research can keep pace with changing needs and motivations.
The Cost of Disconnected Marketing and Operations
media update considers what happens when businesses experience misalignment in marketing and operations by looking at the recent SPAR Chairman and Deputy Chair's resignations as case study.
Taste as an Editorial Skill
media update considers how technology and trend culture shape our relationship with taste, and why developing discernment and an independent perspective remains essential to editorial judgement.
The Optics of Defence: AAD 2026 Through Communication's Lens
African Aerospace and Defence's (AAD's) air show is on everyone's lips after this past weekend's impressive display of skill, but the exhibition's story began decades before the first jet took to the Waterkloof skies. media update considers how AAD evolved from a simple air show into a major civil and military industry event.
The Digital Publishing Equation: From Traffic to Audience Relationships
AI crawlers continue to extract journalism with little traffic, if any, in return. Publishers from the United Kingdom (UK) debate newsletters and direct-audience strategies required for newsrooms to survive, while South Africa's Digital News Transformation Fund shows independent newsrooms already turning platform dependence into real self-built audience growth.
How Spaces Shape the Stories We Tell About Them
media update considers how the way we experience our surroundings can influence what we believe about them, and why changing that perception requires more than a fresh coat of paint.
Taking Local Global — What Durban FilmMart 2026 Asks of African Storytellers
Africa's leading film finance market returns this coming October under the theme Shifting Worlds: Turning Towards Ourselves. media update looks at how local stories reach global audiences without losing what makes them local.
When Purpose Meets People — A Q&A With Tarri Parfitt
media update talks to Tarri Parffit about how the Smile Foundation communicates humanitarian influence and keeps people at the heart of the cause.
Tshaamano Mabuba, Founder of education technology company Buddy Learning, has been named the winner of the 2026 edition of Jacaranda FM's 'Her Perfect Pitch'.
Daily Investor has announced that Shaun Jacobs has been promoted to its Deputy Editor, where he will be responsible for the editorial direction of the publication.
5FM has announced that DJ Tshepi and Das Kapital have been nominated for the South African Dance Music Awards.
The South African documentary Hearts Remember (Pelo ya hopola) will officially premiere in South Africa on Monday, 21 September, coinciding with World Alzheimer's Day. The film was recently presented at the International Alzheimer's Association Conference in London this past July.
Financial Times Weekend (FT Weekend), the Financial Times' flagship weekend edition, has announced that it is now being printed and distributed locally in South Africa for the first time, cutting the wait between London's presses and a Sandton breakfast table from days to hours.
Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. (GCPL), an emerging markets FMCG company, has appointed WPP Media as its global media agency partner for its international business spanning South Africa, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Argentina and Chile.
5FM has announced that, ten years ago, for Nick Hamman, walking from Johannesburg to Polokwane seemed like a reasonable way to take a radio show on the road.
SABC has announced that Magdaleen Krüger, presenter on RSG, will be presenting Loof die Here (Praise the Lord) for one final time on Sunday, 27 September.
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