Jane Duncan

Jane Duncan

Jane Duncan is a Professor of Journalism at the University of Johannesburg. Before that she was Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society, School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University. Jane is a prominent media activist and former executive director of the Freedom of Expression Institute. She has three post-graduate degrees, and has written widely on media policy and media freedom issues.





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The Sex Regulators

Picture: Ciao5.com Jane Duncan - Any sensible person who has seen the film ‘Of Good Report’ will be scoffing at the Film and Publications Board's effective banning of the film on the grounds of child pornography. The film narrates the descent of its main protagonist, a school teacher, into madness, leading to his murdering three of the four main female characters. The scenes depicting the teacher having sex with one of his pupils is descriptive, but by no means explicit, which makes the accusation of child porn...

The Bugging of South Africa

Picture: politicalblindspot.org Jane Duncan - Recent revelations by former National Security Agency (NSA) computer analyst Edwin Snowden that the NSA was undertaking unwarranted mass surveillance of Americans has thrown the communications surveillance activities of governments into sharp relief. Can the abuses that are taking place in the United States (US) happen in South Africa too? The communications of South Africans are probably already being caught in the NSA dragnet, given that cloud services like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo...

The Securitisation of Everything

Picture: An American soldier in Afghanistan courtesy DVIDSHUB/Flickr. Jane Duncan - The images of 22 year old Londoner Michael Abedowale, hands dripping with blood from his fatal attack on soldier Lee Rigby, created shock waves around the world, including in South Africa. His explanation for his actions, caught on camera, portrayed the attack as revenge for the excesses of British foreign policy in prosecuting the war against terror. This incident, and the recent bombing of the Boston marathon, have given Britain and the United States (US) the justification to continue...

The Future of Information Leaks

Picture: leeulekker.com/Flickr Jane Duncan - As South Africa commemorates another World Press Freedom Day, this day will no doubt focus minds on Parliament’s decision to pass the controversial Protection of State Information Bill, or the Secrecy Bill. It will now be forwarded to the President for signing. There are still many fundamental problems with the Bill, but it is greatly improved from previous versions. These improvements have shown that the most secretive sphere of government – the security cluster – is...

Getting Away with Murder

Picture: Lost in Transit [Keep St Joe Weird]/Flickr Jane Duncan - Many people were shocked by the judgement in the Andries Tatane case, who was killed by police rubber bullets in a service delivery protest in Ficksburg, and are even more shocked that the National Prosecuting Authority has decided against appealing the judgement. The fact that his fatal shooting had been caught on camera led many to assume that it would have been an open and shut case, and the responsible police officers would be found guilty of murder, convicted and sentenced. But this...

Towards a Political Economy of Rape

Picture: The Gender ADs Project Jane Duncan - Many South Africans have decried the recent, terrible cases of rape. South Africa’s pervasive culture of hyper-masculinity has been blamed for the problem, as has the patriarchal nature of its society, where men remain the central figures around which society is organised in spite of the country’s constitutionally enshrined commitment to gender equality. But are these explanations adequate? Radical feminists tend to blame the problem on the continued existence of patriarchy,...