“Media, poverty and social justice” was a theme adopted by the School of Journalism and Media Studies back in 2008. It informed some of our teaching, manifested in some of our student media productions. It also stimulated some staff research.

I've been itching for some time to look into how South African newspapers covered a debate in November 2007 around a claim that poverty had doubled over President Thabo Mbeki's term of office. I got the chance to do this for a paper presented in Sweden last month, and also to colleagues in our School at Rhodes, last week.

What inflation rate should one use to calculate whether a particular price increase is keeping pace with inflation? Is it legitimate to use various rates of inflation?

Out of a paper set for the postgraduate diploma students at Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies came an interesting set of answers to these questions.

The paper itself arose from a question JMS colleagues Guy Berger, Robert Brand and I discussed over a pizza lunch with some of those postgraduate students in the week of the unveiling of the 2008/08 Budget.

This refers to my research articles on the subject

Draft position paper for Sanef on spies and the media, April 2007.

Draft position paper (with Jeanne Prinsloo) on media literacy (rather than censorship), April 2007.