Digital Humanities in precarious times

Adedamola T Akinlade obtained his PhD in Culture, Communication and Media Studies from the Howard College campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). He is currently a lecturer at the School of Social Sciences in the Department of Sociology at the Howard College and Pietermaritzburg campuses of UKZN. He lectures undergraduate and postgraduate students at an honours level in the clinical sociology subdivision. Before entering academia, he had years of industry experience in a number of corporate sectors; Akinlade worked in various agencies, non-governmental and clients’ sides, where he was in charge of media relations, community engagement and development in health, youth and women programmes, charitable establishments, communication management and public relations among others. Akinlade believes the nexus between his private sector and academic experience would benefit his academic prospects and the quest to impart young minds in the university learning space. He is a member of relevant professional bodies. He researched and published book chapters and worked on several journal articles while contributing to this book. Akinlade’s research interests include intersectional collaboration on social issues and the environment, interventionist approach to social problems, social change, multidisciplinary approach to culture and society, public health communication, inequality, social movements, tactical media studies and effects, social interventions and strategic application, community engagement, participatory communication and corporate social responsibility.

André Gouws is a digital and visual journalism lecturer at Akademia, an independent HEI in Pretoria, South Africa. Before joining Akademia, Gouws was a lecturer at the School of Communication at NWU, Potchefstroom, South Africa and the Department of Journalism at Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. He graduated with an MA in Journalism and Media Studies (cum laude) from Rhodes University, South Africa. He is completing his PhD at Stellenbosch University, focusing on the digital public sphere. Gouws was appointed an extraordinary researcher at NWU Potchefstroom campus in March 2023. His research interests include journalism education, peripheral journalism and digital journalism. Gouws has presented several papers at South African and international conferences. His most recent international presentation was a paper on peripheral journalism at OCP23 (conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research) in Lyon in 2023. Gouws published a chapter on decolonising the journalism curriculum through open educational practices in the scholarly book Contextualised Open Educational Practices: Towards Student Agency and Self-directed Learning (AOSIS Books, 2022). Gouws received a Teaching Excellence Award at NWU in 2021 for teaching with information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Anette Degenaar is an experienced communications specialist with expertise in the non-profit sector. Degenaar is a senior lecturer at the School of Communication, NWU, on the Potchefstroom campus in South Africa. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) and an MA in Communication. She obtained her PhD in Communication Studies at NWU, Potchefstroom Campus (2021), focusing on developing a strategic integrated communication framework for child protection organisations in South Africa. Her research aimed to address the unique communication challenges faced by these organisations.

Eliza M Govender is an associate professor and academic leader of the Centre for Communication, Media and Society (CCMS) in the School of Applied Human Sciences at UKZN, South Africa. Govender is an NRF-rated researcher and is internationally recognised in the field of health communication from a social change perspective. Her teaching and research interests include entertainment education, communication for social and behavioural change and participatory methodologies for implementation science research in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) combination prevention. Govender has been nominated as chair of the Health Communication Working Group of the IAMCR for a second term. She serves on the editorial board of Communicare and the Journal for Applied Communication Research. Her co-edited books Communicating COVID-19 Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Springer, 2021) and Communicating COVID-19: Media, Trust and Public Engagement (Springer, 2024) explore the interdisciplinary communicative responses from various countries and expand the conversations to highlight some of the communication and media challenges to address health and pandemics.

Elvis Madondo joined the Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, as a lecturer in 2019 in the Department of Marketing and Retail Management and later moved to the Department of Public Relations Management. Madondo obtained his PhD in Management Sciences, specialising in Marketing, from Durban University of Technology. Madondo has presented research papers at eleven international conferences and published six articles in various journals. His research interests lie in social media marketing, customer relationship management, digital marketing, advertising, ethics and consumer behaviour.

Gilbert Motsaathebe is a full professor at NWU affiliated with the Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA) research entity. He obtained his PhD in Film and Media Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. He was, until recently, the editor-in-chief of Communicare – Journal for Communication Studies in Africa. Motsaathebe previously lectured at the University of Johannesburg (Johannesburg) and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) (Cape Town) in South Africa, the United Arab Emirates University (Al Ain, United Arab Emirates), and several higher education institutions (HEIs) in Nagasaki, Japan, before working in the Media Relations Directorate in the Office of the Premier of the North West province of South Africa. He started his career at Bop Television, which later merged with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), where he was a news producer and sub-editor for the station’s primetime news before being recruited by e-TV in 1999. After a time at e-TV, Motsaathebe left for the United Kingdom on a two-year working holiday visa, and upon returning to South Africa, he joined CPUT, where he worked for ten years as a senior lecturer. He serves on the Panel of Judges for South Africa’s premier competition for journalists: the Vodacom Journalist of the Year (VJOY). He is an NRF-rated researcher with numerous peer-reviewed articles published in acclaimed journals. Motsaathebe has published eight books with publishers such as Palgrave Macmillan, Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington Books and Routledge.

Gustav Butler started his academic career at Vista University in Bloemfontein, South Africa. After that, he was employed at Technikon Northern Gauteng (now known as Tshwane University of Technology) and the University of Pretoria, both located in Pretoria, South Africa, lecturing on academic language ability and literacy. He completed his PhD in 2007 with a focus on developing the academic writing ability of postgraduate students. Butler joined NWU as senior lecturer and subject chair of the Subject Group: Academic Literacy at the Vanderbijlpark campus in 2009 and served as the director of the School of Languages at the Vanderbijlpark campus from 2015 to 2018. He is the director of the Understanding and Processing Language in Complex Settings (UPSET) research entity affiliated with North-West University’s School of Languages. His research falls within the Applied Language Studies sub-programme, one of three sub-programmes within UPSET. Butler’s primary research interests include the design of academic literacy interventions and determining the impact of such interventions on student success. His research further focuses on the development of academic writing, explicitly referring to the writing difficulties experienced by postgraduate writers. He is also a permanent staff member of the School of Languages in the Subject Group: Academic Literacy, which focuses on providing support to first-year students towards developing the specific academic literacy abilities required for successful study at the tertiary level of education.

Jonathan van der Walt is an artist and academic based in Gqeberha, South Africa, focusing his practice primarily on the discipline of sculpture. Van der Walt obtained his Bachelor’s (BA) degree, cum laude, in Fine Art (Sculpture) at Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa, in which he explored the blurred lines between high and low art within contemporary society. This exploration became the launching pad for research into craftsmanship in contemporary art, which was the central theme of his Master of Fine Art (MAFA) (Sculpture) thesis, for which he was awarded his degree in April 2017. Van der Walt is an associate lecturer in the Department of Visual Art at Nelson Mandela University, gallery manager and curator of the department’s Bird Street Gallery. He has furthered his professional practice and visual art portfolio through persistence in developing his professional art career, nationally and internationally, specifically distinguishing himself through a focus on traditional art practices combined with 3D technologies. Van der Walt participated in the Luciano Benetton Foundation Small Canvas Project, exhibiting in Venice, Rome and New York as part of the South Africa collection, as well as exhibiting in the ‘Through Our Eyes’ exchange at the Ritz Theatre and Museum in Jacksonville, Florida, USA.

Liam R Rothballer is an MA student in History of Art under the guidance of Dr Louisemarié Combrink at NWU on the Potchefstroom campus, South Africa. He is a co-curator of the Cloud Matters group exhibition, which accompanied the NWU Digital Humanities in precarious times conference in November 2022, alongside Dr Annemi Conradie-Chetty and Nokukhanya S Khumalo. Rothballer was working on a study on the anthropology of space, eclectic architecture and environmental storytelling tropes of the dystopian in visual media while contributing to this book.

Lynnette M Fourie is the Focus Area Social Transformation director and a lecturer in the School of Communication Studies, NWU, South Africa. She obtained her MA in 1997 and PhD in 2004 from NWU, focusing on political communication. Her primary research focuses on electoral communication in a developing democracy. Fourie has also published widely on the concept of participation in the field of development communication and stakeholder relations in the field of corporate communication. She is particularly interested in how development and corporate communication intersect in the non-profit South African sector as a developing country. Fourie served on the executive committee of the South African Communication Association (SACOMM) from 2008 to 2009 and was president from 2009 to 2011. Fourie is a member of the IAMCR. She received the IAMCR Award as a promising young researcher in 2008. Fourie serves on the editorial board of the journal Communicare.

Marenet Jordaan is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Journalism at Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa. She graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree, specialising in Publishing (cum laude) from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, where she was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s medal for the best student in the Faculty of Humanities. After completing her Bachelor of Philosophy (BPhil) in Journalism at Stellenbosch University, she worked in various roles at Die Burger and Rapport newspapers. Between 2009 and 2014, she was a lecturer in the Journalism Programme at the University of Pretoria. While working at the University of Pretoria, she obtained her Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Journalism from Stellenbosch University, focusing on the role of the then-still-new phenomenon of social media use in newspapers. Jordaan returned to Stellenbosch University in 2015 to lecture on the honours and MA programmes. She completed her PhD focusing on the Afrikaans online news publication Netwerk24 in 2018. In 2020, she received a Stellenbosch University institutional teaching excellence award. Jordaan has presented papers at various academic conferences, including two iterations of the World Journalism Education Congress and in 2023 at the International Communication Association’s annual conference. Jordaan’s current research interests include newsroom ethnography, newswork cultures, journalism ethics, journalistic role conceptualisations and journalism education.

Micaela Scholtz is a trained graphic designer and researcher engaged within a multidisciplinary space, known to articulate and author complex visual communication solutions in unique and carefully considered ways. In 2020, Micaela obtained her MA in Graphic Design from Nelson Mandela University, South Africa, and has since lectured in the subject area. Scholtz’s practice and research mainly concern two distinct subjects: the representation of women and its impact on personal experiences with the invisible illness, endometriosis. Secondly, her interest lies within hybrid visual arts education, identifying problems about portfolio practice teaching and learning (T&L) and providing logical solutions and processes to overcome them.

Mirna Nel is a qualified speech therapist who worked for fifteen years in the support services of the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE), South Africa. Nel was appointed senior lecturer in 2006 and promoted to associate professor in 2013 and full professor in 2018 at North-West University (NWU), South Africa. Nel’s teaching expertise includes inclusive education, learning support and life orientation, for which she initiated and developed several modules at NWU. In 2016, she was appointed as a research professor in the Optentia Research Focus Area and in 2019 as Deputy Dean for Research and Innovation in the Faculty of Humanities. Nel has been involved in several national and international collaborative research projects focusing on inclusive education for the last 20 years. She has published several articles in national and international journals, written numerous chapters in national and international books, co-edited and sole-edited textbooks, and supervised and delivered Master’s (MA) degree and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) students. Nel has presented conference and keynote papers at national and international conferences, where she has also conducted workshops and presented lectures at various European universities and was a panellist at international colloquiums and conferences. She was awarded a C1 rating by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF).

Nina Liebenberg has spent the last ten years working at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Curating the Archive, convening a selection of courses for its curatorial programme. Using curation as a methodology, Liebenberg explores overlaps and connections between various university departments and regularly draws on the expertise of individuals from disciplines ranging from chemistry, medical imaging, physics, engineering and botany to create artworks and curate shows portraying the intersection between the quantifiable and the poetic. Her PhD thesis (2021) took the form of an object study that exposed the limitations of insider knowledge and categorisation systems within the academic departments of the University of Cape Town and demonstrated the explanatory, interdisciplinary potential of curatorship and artmaking. While contributing to this book, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland.

Phil van Schalkwyk holds a PhD in Linguistics and Literary Theory from NWU, South Africa. He is an NRF-rated professor in the School of Languages at NWU, where he lectures on Afrikaans and Dutch literature. His previous experience includes almost five years teaching South African Studies at the Institute of English Philology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland (2001–2006). Mainly active in the field of comparative literature, he focuses on relationality and rhetorical constructions in Afrikaans, South African and Dutch prose and poetry. Van Schalkwyk has presented research papers at conferences in South Africa, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and the USA and published in the following peer-reviewed journals: Dutch Crossing, Konteksty Kultury, Critical Arts, Journal of Humanities, Stilet, Literator, Tydskrif vir Nederlands en Afrikaans and South African Journal of Linguistics. His book chapters include contributions to: Anna M. Louw: Fassinerende, veelkantige skrywer (South African Academy for Arts and Sciences, 2021); Verbintenis en venster: Die Nederlandstalige letterkunde van aanvang tot hede (Van Schaik Publishers, 2019); Perspektief en profiel: ’n Afrikaanse literatuurgeskiedenis (Van Schaik Publishers, 2015); Crossing Borders, Dissolving Boundaries (Brill, 2013); Shifting the Compass: Pluricontinental Connections in Dutch Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), and Beyond the Threshold: Explorations of Liminality in Literature (Peter Lang, 2007). Van Schalkwyk was awarded the 2019 South African Academy’s Esther Greeff Prize for his article on the novel Wolf, wolf in the context of Eben Venter’s oeuvre, published in the Journal of Humanities in 2017. He has been co-editor-in-chief of the accredited journal Literator since 2017. In June 2021, he was appointed research director of the Languages and Literature in the South African Context research unit at NWU.