Your South Africa image search is over!
30 March 2009
With an exciting new 2010 Fifa World Cup section and over 2 000 high-resolution photos, the MediaClubSouthAfrica.com image library is a stunning free resource for publishers, media practitioners - and anyone else with an interest in South Africa.
Published by the International Marketing Council of South Africa, www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com offers free content on the country, including high-quality news and feature article feeds - and a comprehensive library of up-to-date images produced by professional photographers.
Quick, non-intrusive registration on the website gives the user immediate access to a wealth of visual "takes" on contemporary South Africa.
Available either as quick copies for webmasters or as print-quality, high-res downloads, the photos are sorted into 12 categories.
These include some of the travel-type categories one might expect - people, cities, nature, arts and culture, tourism and leisure - but the photos are more realistic than brochure-style, in line with the site's aim of providing content that journalists can take seriously.
And, taken together with other categories such as infrastructure, development, business and industry, buildings and structures, and South Africa at work, the photos combine to give a true sense of a growing young democracy and a dynamic African emerging market economy.
Shaping perceptions
MediaClubSouthAfrica.com complements the World Cup-dedicated media services offered by the 2010 Local Organising Committee, South African Tourism and the Government Communication and Information System.
The initiative took its inspiration from Germany's Land of Ideas campaign, which established a similar media service for the 2006 Fifa World Cup.
Brand South Africa General Manager Tyrone Seale, speaking at the launch of the site, said MediaClubSouthAfrica.com would provide "relevant, mind-opening, up-to-date and verifiable information in the build-up to 2010."
While not explicitly tied to the World Cup, the new service will take advantage of the unprecedented international media interest in the country that the event will generate.
"We took this step because we recognise the importance of media - local, African and throughout the world - in shaping perceptions of South Africa and our continent," Seale said.
SAinfo reporter
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