When Purpose Meets People — A Q&A With Tarri Parfitt

media update talks to Tarri Parffit about how the Smile Foundation communicates humanitarian influence and keeps people at the heart of the cause. 

When Local Language Meets Global Default

South Africa's multilingual reality can get lost when local languages present a challenge for developing language technology. media update considers what it means when the language we use does not fit the systems built to understand it. 

The Human Edge in an Automated Communications Industry: A Q&A With Kevin Welman

media update talks to Kevin Welman about how agencies can balance integration with specialist knowledge, creativity with commercial value and  technological efficiency with human relationships to build lasting credibility.

Roots to Reinvention — The Editor's Note

Spring notoriously signals new beginnings, meaning most industries lean on this symbolism for their own gain. media update considers how publicity campaigns can offer an edge to an overdone story by rooting a brand's future in its own history. 

The Optics of Defence: AAD 2026 Through Communication's Lens

African Aerospace and Defence's (AAD's) air show is on everyone's lips after this past weekend's impressive display of skill, but the exhibition's story began decades before the first jet took to the Waterkloof skies. media update considers how AAD evolved from a simple air show into a major civil and military industry event. 

When Literacy Development Meets Easy Answers: A Deeper Look at South Africa’s Literacy Crisis

media update considers how our relationship with AI and the decline in reading for pleasure fit into South Africa's literacy crisis. 

The Cost of Disconnected Marketing and Operations

media update considers what happens when businesses experience misalignment in marketing and operations by looking at the recent SPAR Chairman and Deputy Chair's resignations as case study.

Building a Data Profile: A Q&A With Melissa Mc Nally — Part One

media update talks to Melissa McNally about the assumptions behind audience research, from the limits of consumer personas to the risks of AI-led targeting, and how research can keep pace with changing needs and motivations.

Taste as an Editorial Skill

media update considers how technology and trend culture shape our relationship with taste, and why developing discernment and an independent perspective remains essential to editorial judgement.

The Digital Publishing Equation: From Traffic to Audience Relationships

AI crawlers continue to extract journalism with little traffic, if any, in return. Publishers from the United Kingdom (UK) debate newsletters and direct-audience strategies required for newsrooms to survive, while South Africa's Digital News Transformation Fund shows independent newsrooms already turning platform dependence into real self-built audience growth. 

How Spaces Shape the Stories We Tell About Them

media update considers how the way we experience our surroundings can influence what we believe about them, and why changing that perception requires more than a fresh coat of paint.

Taking Local Global — What Durban FilmMart 2026 Asks of African Storytellers

Africa's leading film finance market returns this coming October under the theme Shifting Worlds: Turning Towards Ourselves. media update looks at how local stories reach global audiences without losing what makes them local.