20 August 2026
By Khensani M.
South Africa has always prided itself on its stories–histories of great triumph, resistance and perseverance. Where would any of these stories be without the people who make them? There is perhaps no better way to trace the changing face of South Africa than through the women who appeared on screens, spoke through radios, wrote the glossies and eventually began creating their own media platforms.
The country’s media landscape has changed almost as dramatically as its politics. The final years of apartheid, the transition to democracy, and the decades that followed brought new possibilities for who could speak, who could be seen, and, eventually, who could own the platforms themselves. South African women quickly positioned themselves as more than just beneficiaries but agents of change.
For Women’s Month, we look at some of the women who have shaped that story.
The 1990s: Excellence
The early 1990s were an extraordinary moment for South Africa. Apartheid was coming to an end, political prisoners were being released, censorship was loosening, and a country that had been deliberately divided was beginning to imagine how people would actually speak with, not to, each other.
And what better way to mark this transition than with a talk show? In 1990, Felicia Mabuza-Suttle launched The Felicia Show with the SABC. The format was novel to local television, but its timing was divine, capturing the spirit of a transition marked by talking, intimacy and reckoning rather than violence and punishment.
She represented a moment when women were beginning to occupy the public sphere not simply as decoration or supporting cast, but as hosts, media and cultural authorities. Following in her path, Basestana Khumalo rose to fame after being the second Black woman ever to grab the Miss South Africa title in 1994, leveraging the visibility into a career spanning television, production, business and entrepreneurship.
Carol Bouwer similarly moved between entertainment, television production, and business, becoming one of the country’s most recognisable media entrepreneurs. On radio, Dudu “Lady D” Khoza established herself as one of the country’s most influential broadcasters, while on television Vinolia “V-Mash” Mashego became a defining youth voice through Jam Alley.
Around the same time, Noxolo Grootboom began what would be an almost 40-year long career as the Xhosa news anchor on SABC news, becoming known as the ‘undertaker’ for how she mediated the funerals of monumental leaders and activists such as Chris Hani, O.R Tambo, Walter and Albertina Sisula, and Nelson and Winnie Mandela. She brought familiarity to these shattering and sometimes contentious periods while ensuring she paved the way for the journalists and anchors who would follow her.
And who could ever forget Connie Ferguson, whose role as Karabo Moroka on Generations would make her a member of every South African family home.
In their different ways, these pioneering women were turning the power of visibility and representation into something long-lasting: ownership.
The 2000s: Experimentation
By the 2000s, the question was no longer simply whether women could or should be in the industry, but what new heights could be achieved once they broke through. In a way, the path had been laid and it was up to a new generation to run with it.
This was an era of experimentation, particularly with youth-centred media, celebrity culture and lifestyle publishing. Women began moving into the most desirable positions in broadcasting — breakfast and drive-time radio, prime-time television and influential editorial roles.
Anele Mdoda, Dineo Ranaka, Azania Mosaka and Thando Thabethe became major voices on radio and television, demonstrating that women could command airwaves, numbers and audiences. Carol Tshabalala, the “First Lady of Sport”, not only entered but completely thrived in the male-dominated arena of sports broadcasting. At this time, Connie Ferguson was a household name, which may be how the character, Karabo Moroka so personified the zeitgeist.
Karabo represented a new kind of South African Black woman: educated, ambitious, glamorous, wealthy, desired and deeply embedded in urban life. She could be a mother and a businesswoman, and feminine. It was peak “women can have it all” feminism, which while trite in modern day, was a bold concept at the turn of the century. And one we rarely saw inhabited by Black women.
That idea extended into print when Khanyi Dhlomo launched Destiny in 2007, creating a publication explicitly centred on the ambitions of Black women. Its readership was imagined as women who could care about business and careers as much as fashion, relationships, beauty and personal fulfillment.
Jackie Burger, one of South Africa’s most influential fashion editors and creative figures, similarly helped establish the authority of women as cultural tastemakers at ELLE Magazine. Aspasia Karras brought her own editorial vision to Marie Claire, contributing to a generation of publications that treated fashion as a space of culture, identity and aspiration.
Meanwhile, Nonhle Thema and Bonang Matheba began to destabilise the very idea of what a TV presenter was. Their reach didn’t end at hosting competitions and awards shows. Rather artfully, their fashion, lifestyles, opinions, personalities and commercial identities became more exciting than whatever they were MC’ing ever was. They were proto-influencers, early innovators in turning personality into personal brand.
And at the right time, as the 2010s would completely disrupt the landscape across the world.
The 2010s: Expansion
The next decade was all about world domination. For decades now, most women had to contend with being big fish in little ponds. What could it actually look like to go overseas and actually make it?
In 2011, we watched Nonhle Thema attempt to make it on her reality show, Nonhle Goes To Hollywood, perhaps just a few years too early to the rise of African art, music and culture on the world stage. Talent and drive alone do not always guarantee a successful career; some things can come down to luck. But, of course, you have to be talented and driven at just the right time.
In 2016, Pearl Thusi appeared on ABC’s Quantico alongside Priyanka Chopra. A few years later she would lead Netflix’s first African Original, Queen Sono. Kim Engelbrecht landed a recurring role in CW’s The Flash from 2017 to 2018.
One might think of Charlize Theron here as the South African actor to build a world-renowned career, but she does represent an era when global success for local talent often required complete emigration. The late 2010s saw a rejection of that–South African talent refusing the binary and building careers that were both local and global.
Later on, we’d see Thuso Mbedu achieve critical acclaim in The Underground Railroad after cutting her teeth in local soaps like Scandal, Isibaya and Saints and Sinners. Next year, she’s one of the anticipated faces of Children of Blood and Bone, the film adaptation of the Yoruba-inspired fantasy young adult novel series. Nomzambo Mbatha had a starring role in Coming 2 America but has also returned home to executive produce and star in award winning Shaka Ilembe.
But this decade wasn’t exactly the best time for South African media overall.
The internet and social media fundamentally altered the media industries that had sustained many of these careers. Magazines lost circulation and advertising revenue. By 2020, magazines such as ELLE, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan became distant memories, closing their doors one after another. Streaming fragmented television audiences. Social media made it so that anyone with a device and something interesting to say was a publisher now.
It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. The real test was in adaptation and transformation.
Bonang Matheba became one of the clearest examples of the new media personality: television presenter, radio host, fashion figure, entrepreneur and social-media personality, with each aspect of her career reinforcing the others.
But the disruption also forced former media professionals to reconsider where to place their expertise in a turbulent time. Asanda Sizani, after her years working at publications including ELLE and Glamour, turned towards storytelling, cultural work and championing women’s and social histories.
Jackie May’s work with Twyg offers another response to the decline of traditional fashion publishing. Rather than simply attempting to recreate the old fashion magazine online, Twyg developed a purpose-driven platform centred on African sustainability, fashion, textiles and systems change.
And Felicia Naiwa Sithibe, a playwright, actor and director, introduced a structural response. Through co-founding Actors Spaces, she has helped established and emerging actors navigate an increasingly difficult creative industry, focusing on locally developed solutions rather than waiting for traditional institutions to provide them.
That was the lesson of the 2010s: South African women could go far, but it wasn’t going to be with the old institutions.
The 2020s: Elevation
There is now no single media industry to enter. A woman can be a journalist, YouTuber, podcaster, producer, entrepreneur, influencer, publisher, creative director and community builder simultaneously. In fact, survival often depends on being able to do it all. The boundaries between entertainment, journalism, advertising and personal expression have fallen away.
Renaè Mangena, Anastatia Nkhuna and Hlengiwe Mkwayi represent this emerging generation and the direction South African media might take next: a balance of IRL and URL, collaborative, communal, and less dependent on traditional institutions.
With iQhawe Magazine, they’re publishing stories, providing brand strategy, doing community activations, and building networks of local creatives.
Popi Sibiya is similarly reshaping what journalism can look and feel like with The Popi Show — a format that sits somewhere between interview, entertainment and conversation, meeting audiences where they are and on platforms they already use. In doing so, she isn’t simply adapting to the changing media landscape; she’s helping write its rules on her own terms, showing how new forms of journalism can be more immediate, personal and participatory.
It’s perhaps too soon to say what exactly defines this decade, as we’re still watching it unfold. But it can be said that there’s no longer any question of where women can go and what they can do. Instead, what’s shaping South African media today is less about breaking glass ceilings or transforming existing landscapes and rather about how we can build things completely new? And not just new but independent–platforms, networks and new institutions that are for Africans and by Africans. Whatever media looks like in the next years, it will undoubtedly be led by women.
THE POPI SHOW
