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In an epoch-changing moment in Zimbabwean film history, Neria was produced by Media for Development (MFD) in 1991. It was the first locally produced film to portray relatively strong black women as shown by the titular character who resolutely fights her greedy in-law for her late husband's estate. Neria remains Zimbabwe's most popular film and has elicited analyses in books, films and reviews among other commentaries. Though they note empowerment of women in the film, most of these studies tend to pit women against men yet male and female characters support Neria's cause. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the contribution made by the Neria film in promoting gender equality in an African cultural context. Womanism which asserts that abuse of women is an aberration from African culture provided theoretical grounding to the paper. Research questions that guided the study are: (i) What is the representation of male and female relationships in Neria? (ii) To what extent does this reflect Zimbabwean society? (iii) What are the factors that influence this portrayal? The research methodology adopted for this study is qualitative and purposeful sampling since it involves visual analysis of the film that is reported in words. Research findings are discussed thematically using eight themes that emerged from collected visual data that is presented qualitatively. The findings revealed that Neria exposes gender inequality in Shona traditional culture and calls for its integration with western culture albeit at times it seems too moralistic. Apparently due to the film's external funding, it fails to link moral decadence to materialism brought by western cultures. This paper recommends concerted efforts from the government, individuals and organizations in training film personnel and funding films without undue interference. Moreover, films like Neria ought to increase the usage of indigenous languages such as Shona and Ndebele with English subtitles especially in emotional scenes for them to be more comprehensible.

African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS) are values that were passed among African generations by word of mouth. Despite the Fourth Industrial Revolution's (4IR) facilitation of rapid communication for every aspect of society, many Africans have not embraced it to store AIKS, mainly due to concerns over biases and prejudices embedded in aspects like information and communication technologies (ICTs). Using decoloniality theory, this paper aims to show the importance of AIKS, which faces extinction due to the combined effects of the deaths of members of the old generation and acculturation. In the methodology section, Afrocentricity, which celebrates rootedness in African culture and history, was used together with storytelling as a means to examine the perceptions of Afrocentric scholars as revealed in their folktale works that were analyzed qualitatively. Results revealed that lack of exposure to ICTs is one of the main reasons for the scant AIKS virtual literature. Many African people do not have access to other needs like food, education, clothing, electricity, and shelter, which effectively renders ICTs 'secondary, yet access to information and participation are fundamental rights. We urge stakeholders to implement policies that promote the preservation of AIKS in electronic repositories. Memory devices and other ICT accessories should be responsive to African cultures. Investment in ICT infrastructure and training, reliable electricity, and addressing all the basics are critical.

"Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" is a bestselling memoir that was written by Trevor Noah, a South African-born comedian of global acclaim. In the book, Noah relives his upbringing in South Africa, when apartheid policies and legislation were designed and harshly implemented to keep the country's citizens apart based on race and ethnicity. Yet, in relieving this oppressive and traumatic period and proceeding to the 1994 democratic era, Noah applies humor as a storytelling strategy to downplay this harsh period. Hence, this paper adopts the incongruity theory to present the juxtaposition that is evident in the form of surprises and tensions in the narrative, which the readers may find humorous. In addition, the paper draws on Apartheid Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as theoretical frameworks to conduct this qualitative study. CDA is used as a research tool to indicate how a text authored by a comedian from the global south is used to humorously resist political and social power relations. It is found that Noah manages to criticize the segregation that was there in a subtle manner and to educate the audience through humor about socio-economic challenges in the country. Even though his writing is mainly in a language of the global north for possible economic reasons, he draws from the languages of the global south to correctly represent the culture of the South African people he is part of.

This paper examined South African politicians' (re)presentation in Tony Leon's regular column, On the contrary, which appeared in The Times newspaper from 2012 to 2017. This period in South African politics is made interesting by the fact that it coincides with the time when there was mounting pressure for the then president, Jacob Zuma, of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), to step down, especially between 7 January 2015 and 21 March 2017. Tony Leon, who also once served as a councilor for the Democratic Party (DA), one of the major opposition parties in South Africa is the columnist who at the time authors the on the contrary column. This creates interesting research on how the columnist and the newspaper are able or not to maintain ethical journalism. In conducting the study, this article employs the framing theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA) as research tools to assess the columnists' objectivity and bias in his depiction of the then president and several prominent politicians during the examined period. Data analysis constitutes six newspaper articles which were purposively selected to obtain a representative sample. The results indicated that these articles were well-researched in respect of the information they presented. At the same time, biased tendencies were noted in favor of the political party aligned to the columnist.

Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the methodology and decolonial theory as the theoretical framework, this study sought to critique coverage of the Covid-19 crisis in Zimbabwe between March 2020 and July 2021 in Kwayedza newspaper's editorial comment. Twelve articles written in an African language were purposively selected to obtain a sizable sample. This study found that the newspaper effectively covered Covid-19 in an African language while focusing on its socio-economic and cultural impact on the country and offered precautions and prescriptions for dealing with the pandemic. Its major downside was that it downplayed certain key issues in the process due to its ownership by Zimpapers, which tends to support the government's policies. This violates ethical journalism principles such as independence, truth and accuracy and is an abrogation of the media's duty to bring accountability to public officials. This paper, therefore, recommends adherence to the values of journalism which centralize public interest over that of owners.