Zanetta L. Jansen completed her undergraduate and master's in sociology at Natal University in Durban. She the took up a full-time teaching post at the distance education University of South Africa where she has served since 1996 and is in the position of senior lecturer in sociology. She completed her PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in which she focused her research on the economic, political and social interrelationships among global (international), national (SA) and pan-African news agencies. Her research attempts to establish the more positive contributions that media, in all its forms, can make to enhancing the lives of people in communities and in social change. Finally, she has published in the areas of news agencies, ethics in research, media in Africa and environmentalism, with her recent interests being in inner city transformation and change in perceptions of homelessness and its criminalisation.