WCJ Research and Publications

In a media landscape that is under constant reinvention, the Wits Centre for Journalism understands the importance of independent and collaborative research in staying ahead of the curve. Working journalists in the honours mid-career, master’s and PhD programmes produce research relating to pressing issues in journalism, media and communications. Academic staff and research associates contribute to a growing body of intellectual material on journalism in the Global South.

Browse a selection of research and publications from WCJ academic staff and associates below:

Dr Dinesh Balliah, WCJ Director

• Co-author: Breaking Barriers: A Study of People With Disabilities in the South African Media Industry  |  Wits Centre for Journalism (2026)
• Co-author: Putting Forward Sustainability as a Model for Journalism Education and Training  |  Journalism Practice (2024)
• Co-author: Digital Pathways for Citizen Health Reporting in South Africa. In: Mutsvairo, B., Orgeret, K.S. (eds)  |  The Palgrave Handbook of Global Digital Journalism (2025)
• Author: Digital transitions in South African print newsrooms – a case study of the Mail & Guardian  |  Big Tech and Media Sustainability – A Resource Guide for African Media (2025)
• Co-author: Promoting Gender Equity in Scholarly Journal Management  |  APN Briefing Notes (2024)
• Co-author: Championing Inclusivity: Underrepresentation of Women in African Academic Leadership and Scholarly Journal Management  |  Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (2024)

Dr Nechama Brodie, Senior Lecturer

• Author: Femicide and Necrodata: Ways of Counting the Killing of Women  |  Violence Against Women, 0(0) 2026
• Author: Farm Killings in South Africa  |  Kwela Books (2022)
• Author: Domestic Terror: Intimate partner violence in South Africa  | Kwela Books (2023)
• Author: South Africa’s own ‘Delhi moment’: news coverage of the murders of Jyoti Singh and Anene Booysen  |  Intimacy and injury: In the wake of #MeToo in India and South Africa (Falkof, Phadke, Roy eds). Manchester University Press (2022)
• Co-author: Context matters: The role of social sciences in advancing a public health approach to violence in South Africa  |  P. Liamputtong (Ed). The Springer Handbook of Social Sciences and Global Public Health (2023)
• Co-author: Femicide in South Africa  |  Routledge International Handbook of Femicide and Feminicide (Dawson, M. and Mobayed, S. eds) (2023)
• Author: Guidance in the communication of DNA evidence in the news media  |  Amankwaa, A. (ed). UNDOC Handbook on DNA Evidence Processing in Gender-Based Violence Cases for Criminal Justice Practitioners (2024)
• Co-author: Digital pathways for citizen health reporting in South Africa  |  Skare-Orgeret, K. and Mutsvairo, B. (eds). Palgrave Handbook in Digital Journalism (2025)
• Co-author: Death Notice/Body Copy: Representations of Death in Global Journalism  |  Media and Communication Vol 13 2025.
• Author: Ideal Victims and Familiar Strangers: Non-Intimate Femicide in South African News Media  |  African Journalism Studies (2021)
• Author: Femicide: A Need for Orientation  |  Sociology Compass (2024)
• Editor: Death Notice/Body Copy: Representations of Death in Global Journalism  |  Media and Communication (2025)
• Co-author: Responsible reporting on whistleblowing  |  Wits Centre for Journalism (2025)

Dr Lesley Cowling, Research Associate

• Author: In Conversation with the Nation: Sowetan’s Maverick Editor Aggrey Klaaste  |  In Broodryk, C. (ed) Public Intellectuals in South Africa: Critical Voices from the Past. Johannesburg: Wits University Press (2021)
• Co-author: Ungovernable Women of Southern Africa: The Non-Conformist Writing of Olive Schreiner, Noni Jabavu and Bessie Head  |  In Bak, J.S. and Reynolds, B. (eds) The Routledge Companion to World Literary Journalism. London: Routledge (2023)
• Author: The Perils of History: Approaches to the Past in Jonny Steinberg’s The Number  |  Literary Journalism Studies (2025)
• Editor: Special Issue: South African Literary Journalism  |  Literary Journalism Studies (2025)
• Co-author: Narrative Nonfiction and Literary Journalism in South Africa  |  Literary Journalism Studies (2025)
• Co-author: An Unsung Literary Journalist: Emily Hobhouse and Her Report on Anglo–Boer War Concentration Camps  |  Literary Journalism Studies (2025)

Dr Collen Chambwera, Lecturer

• Author: Towards decolonizing media economics curriculum in Africa  |  In Ulrike, R., von Rimscha, M. B. & Raats, T. De Gruyter Handbook of Media Economics (2024)
• Author: Business news coverage of covid-19 induced economic shutdowns in South Africa and Zimbabwe: A framing analysis  |  African Journalism Studies (2025)
• Co-author: Decolonising AI: A Pan African Collaboration  |  African Perspectives of Research in Teaching and Learning Journal (2025)

Dr Thandi Bombi, Lecturer and Researcher

• Co-author: The 1927 Mapleton Train Disaster, memorialisation, and the media’s role in narrating the dead  |  Media and Communication Journal (2025)

Pheladi Sethusa, Lecturer

• Co-author: Journalism Education in Africa: A Review of Excellence in Practice in 10 Countries  |  Journalism & Mass Communication Educator (2026)
• Author: Reimagining through crisis: How the Covid-19 pandemic changed the fortunes and futures of journalism schools and graduates  |  African Journalism Studies (2024)
• Author: Decolonising journalism education: critical perspectives  |  African Journalism Studies (2022)

Dr Franz Krüger, Research Associate

• Author: The ethics of privacy and the public interest: from principle to application  |  Price, L.T., Sanders, K., & Wyatt, W. (Eds): Routledge Companion to journalism ethics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021)
• Co-author: R@dio in South Africa – an exploratory study  |  Chiumbu, S., & Motsaathebe, G. (Eds) Radio, Public life and citizen deliberation in south africa (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021)
• Author: Public support for local and community media in three countries: a comparative study  |  African journalism studies, 44:4, pp 310 – 326 (2023)
• Author: Strings attached: Sustainability and dependence in five models of media in marginalised communities  |  Journal of Alternative and Community Media, 7:2, pp 179 – 197 (2023)

Prof John Bak, Research Associate

• Author: “These Scattered Idioms”: Thoughts and Reflections on the Tennessee Williams Archives  |  Book Practices & Textual Itineraries 13: Imperfect Itineraries: Literature and Literary Research in the Archives. Ed. Mike Paduano. Nancy: Éditions de l’université de Lorraine (2025)
• Author: Some Words of Introduction to Tennessee Williams’s Radio Play The Strangers (1938)  |  The Strand Magazine (2025)
• Author: Paratexts and the French Press of the Fin de Siècle: A Case for Meta-Literary Journalism  |  Prose Studies (2025)
• Editor: Narrative Nonfiction and Literary Journalism in South Africa  |  Literary Journalism Studies (2025)
• Co-author: Unsung Literary Journalist: Emily Hobhouse and Her Report on the Concentration Camps during the Anglo–Boer War  |  Literary Journalism Studies (2025)

Dr Job Mwaura, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2023 – 2025)

• Co-author: “You Cannot Sway Them with Logic”: Journalists’ Responses to Public Support for Censorship in Kenya  |  African Journalism Studies (2025)
• Author: The Elgar Companion to War, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Africa  |  African Journal on Conflict Resolution (2025)
• Author: Who Owns the News?  |  In Trust Matsilele and Lungile A. Tshuma, 2025. The Political Economy of Generative AI Journalism in Africa (2024)
• Co-author: Citizen journalism revisited: A case study of Kenya’s Kibera news network  |  Journalism (2025)
• Co-author: Activist contestations in contemporary socio-political change making in Kenya  |  Henri Onodera, Martta KaskineN, Eija Ranta, (eds), Citizen Utopias in the Global South (2024)
• Co-author: Championing Inclusivity: Underrepresentation of Women in African Academic Leadership and Scholarly Journal Management  |  Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (2024)