Landscape

The research analyses the significance of language in post apartheid South Africa in fostering common civil and political rights of citizenship through public media. After a decade of post apartheid democracy, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) continues to facilitate an inclusive, multicultural and syncretic national identity through equitable allocation of broadcast time to the country’s eleven official languages. The complexities of South African society are addressed in the current constitution through the institutional medium of the Independent Broadcasting Authority and Pan South African Language Board, that was created to recognize hitherto underprivileged languages and ethnicities. As a result, the SABC finds itself negotiating for consensual management of differences and diversity in the society. However, an existence of contradictions is emerging with Afrikaans speakers fearing language diminution as English gains dominance as the lingua franca and indigenous African languages become significant. The research proves that managing language and cultural pluralism is anchored in developing institutiona