De Beers, Anglo American and Optima Magazine 1 MICHAEL SCHWARTZ AND DEBRA R. COMER ABSTRACT We consider in this article how the largest corporations in Apartheid South Africa used an in-house magazine to manipulate their shareholders’ perceptions of the current political scenario. We argue that in that era, business felt compelled to respond to the portrayal of events in South Africa presented by the international media. Further- more, we examine the motivation of business for doing so and why that motivation does not exist in post-apartheid South Africa. INTRODUCTION S ome have explored the relationship between the media and the government in post-apartheid South Africa (Wasserman and de Beer 2005), but we are interested in the business sector. We consider the relationship between the international media and the corporate sector in post-apartheid South Africa, and compare it with that relationship in Apartheid South Africa. In doing so, we heed Ciulla’s (2011) advice to look to Michael Schwartz is Associate Professor at the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Vic., Australia. E-mail: michael.schwartz@rmit.edu.au. Debra R. Comer is Professor at the Department of Manage- ment and Entrepreneurship, Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY. E-mail: Debra.R.Comer@hofstra.edu. Business and Society Review 120:3 329–361 © 2015 Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.