Gamified communication is increasingly recognised as a powerful modality in education, fostering interactive learning and behavioural transformation. This study explored how game-based communication strategies contribute to entrepreneurial skill development in childhood, with a focus on South Africa’s Eastern Cape. While gamification is well researched in Global North contexts, little is known about how it functions in early entrepreneurial development within African childhood settings. Drawing on an interpretivist paradigm, the study investigated how parents experience and make sense of gamified tools that promote entrepreneurial mindsets in their children. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 parents, and data were analysed using the Gioia methodology and narrative analysis. The findings revealed that gamified platforms act as dynamic communication environments through which children engage in simulated entrepreneurial scenarios. Themes such as strategic risk taking, creative problem solving and financial decision making emerged as communicative competencies fostered through these interactions. Through foregrounding gamification as both a pedagogical and communicative practice, this study contributes to African-centred communication scholarship. It highlights the potential of gamified media in localised development contexts, particularly in addressing youth unemployment and social inequality. The research underscores the importance of adapting global digital communication frameworks to African childhood learning environments, opening up new avenues for policy, pedagogy and participatory communication.
Reality television has challenged our understanding of modern life since its rapid rise in the early 2000s. Reality wedding shows, in particular, claim to portray the authentic expression of love shared by the participants. Research within this genre of reality television has mainly focused on audience reception as well as engagement with the content. However, the steady proliferation of reality wedding shows in Africa has gone largely uncritically celebrated as a sign of romantic love on the continent. Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis of episodes from the South African, Kenyan and Nigerian wedding show Our Perfect Wedding, we argue that the production choices of wedding reality shows are not value free but represent a profit logic co-opting of love by consumerist capitalism in order to perpetuate its existence even within non-Western contexts. We borrow from the concepts of conspicuous consumption and utopia to argue that audiences of reality television wedding shows in Africa are invited to consume displays of opulent consumption under the guise of celebrating utopian love.
Although scholars and practitioners increasingly recognise the strategic importance of public relations in the private and public sector, many government ministries have poor public relations, which affects service delivery. This is coupled with limited scholarship on public relations in developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa. This article draws on a case study of government ministries in Lesotho to establish how public relations is practised, contested and can be repurposed in the African context. To collect data, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were employed to solicit views from 20 public relations officers working in 10 government ministries in Lesotho. Data were analysed through an inductive thematic analysis. The findings suggest that public relations professionals face many challenges in executing their duties. These include a lack of communication; a lack of resources; misunderstanding (specifically from management) as to what public relations entails; bureaucracy, political influence and manipulation of information released to the public; information presented in one language only; and the absence of a public relations cadre. Collectively, these challenges suggest limited awareness of the full scope of public relations and a predominance of routine technician tasks over strategic advisory roles. The proposed directives for improvement present an opportunity for public relations practitioners working in government ministries to strategise their work.
This article reviews changes in communications at the South African Reserve Bank since the adoption of inflation targeting in February 2000. In particular, it examines the shift towards evolving methods of communication by the South African Reserve Bank through the use of new technologies and approaches intended to increase accountability and transparency. The analysis extensively evaluates the South African Reserve Bank’s communication tools and how they affect the effectiveness of monetary policy implementation in the South African context. Notably, this study employs the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level metric to assess the effect of communication readability on domestic inflation expectations. By using readability scores as a proxy for clarity, the research measures the impact that central bank communication standards have on market agents’ inflation expectations and their interpretation of monetary policy. The findings reveal that the South African Reserve Bank’s communication clarity has a significant inverse relationship with South African market participants’ long-run inflation expectations, highlighting the vital role of clear central bank communication in anchoring inflation expectations.
This article investigates the effectiveness of domestic media in mobilising rural citizens towards national identity registration in Nigeria's southwest region, based on Yoruba-language media. Rural involvement has been low, despite the government’s efforts to increase enrolment. A culturally responsive survey was administered to 960 rural participants to measure their involvement with 10 of the most significant indigenous media outlets. Radio broadcasts, banners and interpersonal messages were the most effective ways to communicate the message, with religious and community leaders playing a central role in mobilising citizens. However, these efforts were hindered by systemic challenges such as insufficient registration centres, inconsistent service availability, misinformation and the corrupt monetisation of ostensibly free services. Discussion transcript analysis uncovered ethical concerns in media content, including fear-based tactics, panic-inducing messaging and false information. Contrary to common assumptions, rural citizens did not always fully comprehend their indigenous language, as questionnaire responses revealed discrepancies in understanding, reading and speaking. Expanding grassroots infrastructure, employing culturally appropriate media outlets and developing more partnerships with community leaders to establish credibility are critical to complementing the media in raising enrolment. These findings have the potential to overcome system barriers and incorporate cultural sensitivity into national identity programme planning and execution.
