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Using South Africa as a case study, this article presents a new argument for an adaptation of the Comparative Media Systems Model by Hallin and Mancini. The article proposes that factors of race, class and gender and intersections hereof as well as nation-building be added to the model to better suit the analysis of media development in post-colonial societies. The article looks at media development in societies that have undergone social and political transitions since the late 1980s and early 1990s and highlights differences between transitional societies and young democracies in Eastern Europe and East Asia vis-a-vis transitions in post-colonial societies in the global South.

Much has been said about the news media's role in instigating war, conflict and violence. Less attention has been paid to the news media's role in mitigating conflict. Criticism has been directed towards the ways in which journalists and war correspondents cover conflict with an emphasis on violence, suffering, polarization of the views of main stakeholders, and over-simplification of the underlying causes of conflict. The growing literature and scholarship around Peace Journalism stands as a response to this. In the context of the African continent, further critique has been levelled against frames and narratives of war, conflict and violence grounded in Western epistemologies and dominant discourses of African conflicts and stakeholders. Based on data collected from interviews with a selected group of journalists working on-and covering-the African continent, the article assesses awareness towards alternative narratives and news frames, as well as attitudes towards alternative practices and models for journalism. Particular attention is paid to ideas and responses regarding Peace Journalism as an alternative model for reporting.

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Comparative media systems theory has failed to pronounce on trajectories of media development in postcolonial societies in a meaningful way, as media development in postcolonial societies has been analysed from within normative liberal frameworks emanating from North America and Western Europe and later transitional societies in Eastern Europe and East Asia, societies with histories quite separate from the Colonial heritage and legacies that have, and keep, influencing the media–politics nexus in many postcolonial societies. To expand the analysis of media development in postcolonial societies, postcolonial studies have much to add to comparative media systems analysis, not only to expand the analysis beyond the global North but also for the analysis of global disruptions that are challenging normative models of media systems analysis.