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This paper presents a case study of online learning. It is based on the researcher’s participation in an inter-university collaborative module at two higher education institutions in South Africa and the United States from August to December 2001. The paper addresses the advantages and disadvantages of the online learning environment and learning in a Virtual Classroom. It provides a critical interpretation of the virtual classroom experienced in this collaboration between institutions. It finds that there are benefits from applying this technology in educational practices and programs particularly in the African context where a large majority of school-leaving learners have little or no access to higher education. However, it also expounds the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) initiative to produce ICT in schools throughout Africa to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals on education in developing countries.

This is a paper on student mobilisation or youth activism in South Africa from a critical race theory, black consciousness and cultural studies perspective with an emphasis on meaning construction, symbolic action and locating the author centrally in the empirical-analytical process. It is presented through the personalised experiences and reflexive-narrative style (i.e. story-within-the-story) of the author's own point of view, which makes it an auto- (personal experience), ethno- (rich cultural and historical context) -graphic (descriptive and visual) piece. Using the autoethnographic method of narrating observations in the field, at the event of the 23 October 2015 "Fees-must-fall" gathering at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the paper offers a reflexive comparison of the experiences of the author present at two distinct (but historically related, i.e. past related to present and vice versa) political junctures of student mobilisation for higher education in South Africa—first as a student in the late 1980s and then as a passive observer-cum-social science researcher at the 2015 student protests at the Union Buildings, in Pretoria. In adopting this novel qualitative method of interrogating student mobilisation from a personal experiential point of view, this paper offers a different approach to reporting qualitative field research that conventionally presents the ideas and opinions of its participants as the main interrogation point, not that of the author's. The main narrative is therefore premised on the author's own experiences with student mobilisation for educational reform during the height of apartheid and under this current democratic social context of the "hashtag fees-must-fall" (#FMF) movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to interrogate the usefulness and applicability of theory in the realm of international media organisation in society, the article demonstrates the evolution in theoretical construction. It outlines the critical political economy approach drawn on by various theorists of political economy of the mass media -- including Mosco, Schudson, Golding and Murdock. It seeks to illuminate the relevance of this integrated approach to theorising global media in local context (or 'glocalisation') and hence, the also reciprocal relationship of media organisations to society. For this purpose it introduces the case study of the Reuters global news agency in South Africa. An extended case method, which is especially relevant to an integrated theoretical approach, is used to present the so-called adaptations at the Reuters and other news organisations in the face of a globally transforming media environment. The extended case method advances a 'reflexive' (i.e. interpretive) approach, which works well with critical political economy. A critical political economy is an integrated theoretical approach that draws on various streams of political economy and cultural studies. Furthermore, it sees the integration or cross-pollination of various social science disciplines including sociology, international relations, political science, journalism, and cultural studies in researching the media institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]