Journalists report the first draft of history in newspapers and magazines. Some then write the detailed backstory second draft in books. Academics provide the third, theorised draft – one that explains what happened.

Keyan Tomaselli is Distinguished Professor, University of Johannesburg. He is the author of “Contemporary Campus Life: Transformation, Managerialism and Academentia” (HSRC Press, 2021). This article is summarised from his just-published article “Unpacking History, Unpacking Corruption, and Unpacking Media Analysis: Some Recent Books on the South African Media” in Communicatio — South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research.

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