The South Africa Program has been suspended for a year.

To read the press release on the suspension of the program, click here.

Students and Classes

Students who select the production option will research, produce, and edit weekly stories in formats – written text, audio, video, or multimedia web. Students will also work in small teams on a longer documentary project. Production meetings will be held each morning and students will then go into the field to work on stories. Students who select the research option will research and write weekly research papers on topics ranging from mass media, social media, and the rapidly changing political, social, cultural and economic issues in post-Apartheid South Africa. Research students will participate fully in the daily production meetings as well as weekly research and discussion seminars. Weekly guest speakers will include documentary makers, journalists, politicians, civil society activists, and academics.

Please view the video below, which was completed by Rebecca Kerner, an alumna of the program, for an example of what students produce for their weekly stories.


We will spend the first and last weeks of the program in Philadelphia. Week one will focus on preparing for the trip. We will watch a series of films and documentaries about South Africa, read about the history of the country, and get acquainted with current events in order to generate story ideas and research topics. We will then travel to South Africa and stay for four weeks. We will return to Philadelphia in week six and complete our documentary post-production work or complete the final stages of the research papers.

The 2011 Faculty Director

Shenid Bhayroo is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism in the School of Communication and Theater at Temple University. His research interests include; the political economy of media; immigrant, ethnic and alternative media; and media culture and technology. He teaches courses in audiovisual newsgathering, ethnic media, and news writing and reporting. Prof. Bhayroo is a South African national and has worked as a documentary producer and a reporter for the South African Broadcasting Corporation and as a freelance videographer for foreign media based in South Africa.