Two academics from the Media and Communication Department recently presented their work at the Annual South African Communications Association (SACOMM) Conference, hosted by the Departments of Journalism and Visual Arts at Stellenbosch University.

Lecturer Dr Adelina Mbinjama presented on her National Research Foundation (NRF) Thuthuka grant project, which ran from 2021 to 2023. Her presentation was titled: An Investigation of Cyber-Ethics among Digital Media Marketers in a changing Media Landscape: A Case Study on Black-owned SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Upasna Maharaj, nGAP Lecturer in Film Production, presented her research article: Decolonising Film Education in South Africa: A Review of Approaches and Challenges, as part of the New Pedagogies panel at the Conference.

Mbinjama, who is the Chair of the Media Department Research Committee at CPUT, where she chairs the master’s proposal defences, also serves as a mentor on the Sisonke 3.0 Mentorship Programme, where more experienced supervisors give support and advice to CPUT employees who are new to postgraduate supervision.

Through a qualitative approach, her study investigated the use and practices of cyber-ethics among digital media marketers and employers in 50%-100% black-owned Small and Midsize Enterprises (SMEs). The study revealed the ethical and moral behaviour-related challenges that black businesses encountered during the period of COVID-19. Limited technological and legal infrastructures proved challenging for SMEs considering their loss of revenue during the pandemic.

“Due to my work on cyber-ethics for Thuthuka, I noted certain topics that emerged from my study but need to be expanded on, so I have a call for book chapters with Emerald Publishers, which I am working on with two other editors with research interests in the digital world, Dr Janelle Vermaak-Griessel (Nelson Mandela University) and Prof Bianca Wright (Coventry University in the UK).

She is also part of the University Capacity Development Programme (UCDP) CPUT Cohort as a supervisor to master’s and doctoral students.

Mbinjama recently attended the Humanities International Spring School at North West University, where postgraduate supervisors and students are capacitated to do research.

“The exposure to research is important to me as an emerging scholar and postgraduate supervisor. Through conference presentations and attendances, I believe that I will be able to enrich my knowledge and speciality in cyber-ethics and digital media. I also feel that my research activities will expand from an interdisciplinary approach to a more multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach.

Maharaj joined CPUT in November 2023.

“My presentation explored the ‘decolonisation’ of film education in South Africa, attempting to address questions of how to make film education more relevant, accessible, and context-specific in the post-colonial university. Decolonisation in film education involves interrogating and decentring Western and dominant theories, methodologies, and assumptions. It requires experimenting with curriculum design, teaching delivery, and shifting power relations within the classroom, where new approaches are underpinned by a desire to make education more relevant and accessible to students.

“The study synthesises existing literature and insights from South African film educators to investigate how ‘decolonisation’ translates to tangible efforts and specific actions that assist in equipping students with the skills and knowledge to succeed in our current globalised/glocalised mediascapes. Additionally, the research explores barriers and challenges faced by academics and institutions attempting to engage meaningfully in context-sensitive pedagogy.”

She will be presenting an updated version of this research at the CPUT Research Festival on 31 October 2024.

Maharaj serves as an editorial intern for Intellect's Journal of African Cinemas and freelances as a story consultant in the film industry.

She holds an MA in Media Theory and Practice from the University of Cape Town and is currently pursuing a PhD in Film Studies.

Written by Ilse Fredericks

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Department of Media Studies lecturer, Dr Adelina Mbinjama-Gamatham, has been awarded a Thuthuka Grant for 2021 which will further her research in the field of cyber-ethics.

The grant is not the only feather in the academic’s cap – she is the author of four book chapters published in 2021.

According to the National Research Foundation the Thuthuka Funding Instrument aims to develop human capital and to improve the research capacities of researchers and scholars from designated groups (Black [African, Indian and Coloured], female or persons with disabilities) with the ultimate aim of redressing historical imbalances.

“I am extremely happy to receive this grant for 2021 because it reaffirms that my research project meets Thuthuka’s transformative research agendas. I am also grateful for the grant because it will help me keep to my research focus and support me in producing research outputs tailored towards my research theme on cyber-ethics,” she says.

“Since a Master’s student is attached to the project, I have faith that the grant will help in kickstarting and completing her treatise timeously with the extra resources made available from the funding. I also know that the student will benefit from being exposed to presenting at a national or even an international conference. Applying for the grant has helped me think through some possible research areas and I now have a strategy. During this period, I know things will be difficult, but I  firmly believe in the ‘you reap what you sow’ metaphor and am looking forward to seeing what results emerge from my collaboration with my master’s student under the NRF’s Thuthuka Grant.”

Mbinjama-Gamatham’s project is titled: The Effects of Cyber-Ethics among Digital Marketers: A Case Study on Black SMEs in South Africa in the wake of Covid-19. 

“The study aims to explore the ethical and moral experiences of 12 digital media marketers or social marketers from black-owned Small- and Medium-Size Enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa during the wake of COVID-19. To explore what these businesses are doing to reach their markets and to ascertain what informs their choices and decisions, six managers from these businesses will also be interviewed.”

The project emanated from her doctoral work.

“After completing my Master’s, (resulting in a peer-reviewed paper) which centred around investigating social media as a dimension of the social identity formation among black female adolescents, ‘cyber-ethics’ sprung out to me.  I wanted to further my studies and I knew from the beginning that I wanted to tackle a research topic that would have ‘legs of its own’ and lead me to see opportunities for further research, especially within the African context.”

The title of her PhD was: “An investigation of the question of cyber-ethics in social media-communications within selected South African NGOs”.  

Her co-authored paper with Honorary Professor Bert Olivier entitled ‘Dark Technology’, Aggressiveness and the Question of Cyber-Ethics, was recently published in the journal Acta Academica.

The four recently published book chapters that she authored relate to social media, black feminism and the representation of women in the media. They are:

• #BlackGirlMagic: How to Get Away With Murder Is Not Evil in Dilan Tüysüz’s International Perspectives on Rethinking Evil in Film and Television.
• “The R. in R’nB”: Rape, Race and Representation in Surviving R. Kelly’ in Maria Marron’s Misogyny across Global Media.
• ‘Shonda Rhimes’s Grey’s Anatomy and My Year of Saying Yes to Everything’ in LaToya T. Brackett’s Working While Black: Essays on Television Portrayals of African American Professionals.
• ‘Black Woman: High-Powered but not Balanced in Shondaland’ in LaToya T. Brackett’s Working While Black: Essays on Television Portrayals of African American Professionals.

Mbinjama-Gamatham holds a DPhil in Media Studies from the Nelson Mandela University, where she worked as a Communications Lecturer from 2009 until 2017. During this period, she also served as the institution’s Head of Department of Public Relations and Communication Studies 2013-2014 and was appointed Acting Head of Department from June 2017 to September 2017 until her family relocated to Cape Town. 

 Her research interests are in social media-communications, cyber-ethics, black feminism and representation of women in the media.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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