A tale of two paradoxes: Media censorship in South Africa, pre-liberation and post-apartheid

Abstract

Prior to liberation from apartheid, South Africa's information system laboured under a draconian system of censorship that could have crippled the media. Yet the tradition of defiance and the rise of a strong civil rights movement challenged censorship and nurtured a surprisingly wide-ranging documentary record of the national condition. The advent of democracy in 1994 heralded an era of constitutional rights and liberal legislation. But the climate of paranoia within which these operate and the demise of activist-run non-governmental organisations have ironically meant that South Africa now seems less well documented than it did during the last days of apartheid.

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Christopher Merrett

Christopher Merrett 〈[email protected] is University Librarian, University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg) where he has worked since 1979. In 1991 he was the recipient of the John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award presented by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the American Library Association.