A multimodal analysis of the representations of gender in contemporary South African children’s picture books produced by Book Dash
- Authors: Heydenrych, Ellen Frances
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Book Dash (South Africa) , Picture books for children -- South Africa , Sex role in literature , Patriarchy in literature , Children's literature, South African (English) -- 21st century -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164284 , vital:41106
- Description: In response to a demand for quality children’s picture books written and published by South Africans for local children, Book Dash – a South African non-profit organisation – has devised a publishing model in which they produce high quality children’s picture books in a twelve-hour period. Their aim is to publish books that represent a diverse range of South African children. However, while their objective is to create books that are representative of many races, this representation happens through gendered characters. In this thesis, I explore the representation of gender in Book Dash’s picture books. I use a combination of visual social semiotics, narrative theory, and critical discourse analysis, specifically focusing on the gendered ways in which the characters are represented. My analysis of these books shows how complex it can be to contest regimes of representation that work to fix patriarchal discourses and gender inequality. My findings reveal a paradox in the representation of gender norms in female characters, as some girl child characters are represented in roles that challenge gender norms, while female adult characters are consistently represented as conforming to the patriarchal feminine ideal. There is also a notable lack of father figures in these books. Such portrayals may contribute to the perpetuation of patriarchal discourses and gender inequality, particularly if these books are held up as examples of equality.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Heydenrych, Ellen Frances
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Book Dash (South Africa) , Picture books for children -- South Africa , Sex role in literature , Patriarchy in literature , Children's literature, South African (English) -- 21st century -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164284 , vital:41106
- Description: In response to a demand for quality children’s picture books written and published by South Africans for local children, Book Dash – a South African non-profit organisation – has devised a publishing model in which they produce high quality children’s picture books in a twelve-hour period. Their aim is to publish books that represent a diverse range of South African children. However, while their objective is to create books that are representative of many races, this representation happens through gendered characters. In this thesis, I explore the representation of gender in Book Dash’s picture books. I use a combination of visual social semiotics, narrative theory, and critical discourse analysis, specifically focusing on the gendered ways in which the characters are represented. My analysis of these books shows how complex it can be to contest regimes of representation that work to fix patriarchal discourses and gender inequality. My findings reveal a paradox in the representation of gender norms in female characters, as some girl child characters are represented in roles that challenge gender norms, while female adult characters are consistently represented as conforming to the patriarchal feminine ideal. There is also a notable lack of father figures in these books. Such portrayals may contribute to the perpetuation of patriarchal discourses and gender inequality, particularly if these books are held up as examples of equality.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Age is nothing but a number: Ben 10s, sugar mummies, and the South African gender order in the Daily Sun’s Facebook page
- Authors: Mlangeni, Ntombikayise Lina
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: May-December romances -- South Africa , Women in mass media , Men in mass media , Sex role in mass media , Masculinity in mass media , Feminism and mass media , Critical discourse analysis , Unemployment -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Daily Sun (South Africa) , Ben 10
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/167077 , vital:41435
- Description: This thesis examines how meanings of masculinity and femininity are negotiated by South Africans on a social media platform linked to a popular local tabloid newspaper. In particular it explores conversations surrounding the Ben 10 phenomenon on the Daily Sun’s Facebook page. A Ben 10 is commonly understood as a young man who enters into a sexual relationship with an older woman, mostly in township settings, and readers engage vociferously over the meanings of such relationships. Using a constructivist understanding of gender, a thematic analysis is used to examine the Facebook comments on the Daily Sun’s most popular Ben 10 stories. South Africa’s constitution promotes the right to gender equality and freedom, which contributes to the normalisation of sex in public conversations and political debate. However, with high levels of unemployment and poverty in South Africa, the narrative of masculine success through work remains relatively unattainable. This tension between the narrative of male-bread winner through work and the reality of South Africa’s poverty and unemployment has been referred to as the crisis of masculinity. This thesis will argue that tabloids can play a strong political role by providing an alternative public sphere and that they can also assist their readers in coping with life in a democratic society by creating an imagined community of people sharing common experiences.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Mlangeni, Ntombikayise Lina
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: May-December romances -- South Africa , Women in mass media , Men in mass media , Sex role in mass media , Masculinity in mass media , Feminism and mass media , Critical discourse analysis , Unemployment -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Daily Sun (South Africa) , Ben 10
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/167077 , vital:41435
- Description: This thesis examines how meanings of masculinity and femininity are negotiated by South Africans on a social media platform linked to a popular local tabloid newspaper. In particular it explores conversations surrounding the Ben 10 phenomenon on the Daily Sun’s Facebook page. A Ben 10 is commonly understood as a young man who enters into a sexual relationship with an older woman, mostly in township settings, and readers engage vociferously over the meanings of such relationships. Using a constructivist understanding of gender, a thematic analysis is used to examine the Facebook comments on the Daily Sun’s most popular Ben 10 stories. South Africa’s constitution promotes the right to gender equality and freedom, which contributes to the normalisation of sex in public conversations and political debate. However, with high levels of unemployment and poverty in South Africa, the narrative of masculine success through work remains relatively unattainable. This tension between the narrative of male-bread winner through work and the reality of South Africa’s poverty and unemployment has been referred to as the crisis of masculinity. This thesis will argue that tabloids can play a strong political role by providing an alternative public sphere and that they can also assist their readers in coping with life in a democratic society by creating an imagined community of people sharing common experiences.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Whiteness under threat: Farmlands and the construction of whiteness in its YouTube comment space
- Authors: Kelly, Megan
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Farmlands (Documentary) , YouTube (Firm) , Mass media and propaganda -- South Africa , Afrikaners -- South Africa -- Attitudes , Propaganda, South African , Farmers -- Violence against -- South Africa , Racism in mass media , Whites -- Race identity -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/165722 , vital:41275
- Description: This study examines how whiteness, particularly South African whiteness, is constructed in a propagandistic YouTube documentary entitled Farmlands and how these constructions are taken up and negotiated by its viewers in its associated comment section. I suggest that these constructions are not only racialised, but resuscitate and popularise old colonial discourses that perpetuate the fear of a ‘white genocide’ and the perceived extermination of a ‘pure white civilisation’. A thematic analysis informed by theories of representation, the establishment of difference through meaning, discourse and critical whiteness studies show that there are several narratives constructed through binary oppositions informed by colonial understandings of race, juxtaposing whiteness and blackness. In analysing these constructions, I aim to demonstrate that whiteness often becomes violent and defensive when its power is perceived to be under threat, reproducing itself through binary constructions that aim to protect it. In doing so, I demonstrate how whiteness is globalising from previous narrow nationalist framings to embracing a globalised notion of ‘white civilisation under threat’. This study supports research that is sceptical of the democratizing ability of the internet and social media, focusing specifically on YouTube’s comment forum and how it is utilized to mobilize attitudes based on hatred, racism and profound social exclusion.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Kelly, Megan
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Farmlands (Documentary) , YouTube (Firm) , Mass media and propaganda -- South Africa , Afrikaners -- South Africa -- Attitudes , Propaganda, South African , Farmers -- Violence against -- South Africa , Racism in mass media , Whites -- Race identity -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/165722 , vital:41275
- Description: This study examines how whiteness, particularly South African whiteness, is constructed in a propagandistic YouTube documentary entitled Farmlands and how these constructions are taken up and negotiated by its viewers in its associated comment section. I suggest that these constructions are not only racialised, but resuscitate and popularise old colonial discourses that perpetuate the fear of a ‘white genocide’ and the perceived extermination of a ‘pure white civilisation’. A thematic analysis informed by theories of representation, the establishment of difference through meaning, discourse and critical whiteness studies show that there are several narratives constructed through binary oppositions informed by colonial understandings of race, juxtaposing whiteness and blackness. In analysing these constructions, I aim to demonstrate that whiteness often becomes violent and defensive when its power is perceived to be under threat, reproducing itself through binary constructions that aim to protect it. In doing so, I demonstrate how whiteness is globalising from previous narrow nationalist framings to embracing a globalised notion of ‘white civilisation under threat’. This study supports research that is sceptical of the democratizing ability of the internet and social media, focusing specifically on YouTube’s comment forum and how it is utilized to mobilize attitudes based on hatred, racism and profound social exclusion.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Empire in Lusaka: hip-hop, young men and masculinity in an African city
- Authors: Mulolani, Happy
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Empire (Television program : 2015) -- Influence , Hip-hop -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Young men -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Young men -- Psychology -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Young men -- Social conditions -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Rap musicians -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Masculinity -- Zambia -- Lusaka
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92650 , vital:30736
- Description: This study examines young Zambian men who are aspiring hip hop artists in Lusaka and the meanings they make of the representations of masculinity in Empire, a popular US television drama. Broadcast locally via satellite on the South African cable network, DStv, Empire narrates the story of a family of powerful men as they battle for the control of Empire, a successful hip-hop label. Of significance is how the programme’s representations of masculinity resonate with the young men’s own ideas of masculinity within a highly patriarchal and conservative urban African space. The young male hip-hop artists encounter their everyday experiences in a context of a range of socio-economic challenges within the urban space of Lusaka which presents them with very limited economic opportunities and resources. Underpinned by a constructivist approach, this reception study explores how these young male artists encounter their everyday experiences in the city and how its structural constraints are navigated through hip-hop, a highly popular local cultural form. The male artists’ reactions to the programme are dependent on their socio-economic location and the types of skills and resources they draw on in order to traverse their everyday experience of city life which concurrently is perceived as exclusionary and as impacting on their livelihoods and aspirations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Mulolani, Happy
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Empire (Television program : 2015) -- Influence , Hip-hop -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Young men -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Young men -- Psychology -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Young men -- Social conditions -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Rap musicians -- Zambia -- Lusaka , Masculinity -- Zambia -- Lusaka
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92650 , vital:30736
- Description: This study examines young Zambian men who are aspiring hip hop artists in Lusaka and the meanings they make of the representations of masculinity in Empire, a popular US television drama. Broadcast locally via satellite on the South African cable network, DStv, Empire narrates the story of a family of powerful men as they battle for the control of Empire, a successful hip-hop label. Of significance is how the programme’s representations of masculinity resonate with the young men’s own ideas of masculinity within a highly patriarchal and conservative urban African space. The young male hip-hop artists encounter their everyday experiences in a context of a range of socio-economic challenges within the urban space of Lusaka which presents them with very limited economic opportunities and resources. Underpinned by a constructivist approach, this reception study explores how these young male artists encounter their everyday experiences in the city and how its structural constraints are navigated through hip-hop, a highly popular local cultural form. The male artists’ reactions to the programme are dependent on their socio-economic location and the types of skills and resources they draw on in order to traverse their everyday experience of city life which concurrently is perceived as exclusionary and as impacting on their livelihoods and aspirations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
If you strike a woman: an analysis of how women are represented in political cartoons of South Africa’s Women’s Day, 2009-2017
- Authors: Levin, Bianca
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Caricatures and cartoons -- South Africa , Women in mass media -- South Africa , Political cartoons -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92661 , vital:30731
- Description: On 7 August 2017, two days prior to South Africa’s National Women’s Day, video footage of a representative of the State, Mduduzi Manana, beating up a woman went viral. This marred the Women’s Day celebrations of that year, as it became clear to the public that the he was not going to be punished. As important political commentators, cartoonists used Manana’s actions as an opportunity to depict the violence women face, even in a month dedicated to women. In these cartoons, Manana became the face of a patriarchal system, one which has deeply affected the quality of life for women who, to date, cannot claim their Constitutional rights. This thesis is interested in the mini-narratives of such cartoons, ones which offer a view on the status of South African women. Through this qualitative study, a textual analysis in the spirit of Critical Discourse Analysis of seven selected cartoons leads to a discussion of what their representations of women means for gender justice. What this research shows is that the representations that cartoons offer of the position of women in South Africa are complex. These cartoons articulate that South Africa has a long way to go to reach equality and gender justice. In order for gender justice to be realised, the representation of women needs to evolve into one which recognises women’s plight but does not relegate them to the state of victimhood.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Levin, Bianca
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Caricatures and cartoons -- South Africa , Women in mass media -- South Africa , Political cartoons -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92661 , vital:30731
- Description: On 7 August 2017, two days prior to South Africa’s National Women’s Day, video footage of a representative of the State, Mduduzi Manana, beating up a woman went viral. This marred the Women’s Day celebrations of that year, as it became clear to the public that the he was not going to be punished. As important political commentators, cartoonists used Manana’s actions as an opportunity to depict the violence women face, even in a month dedicated to women. In these cartoons, Manana became the face of a patriarchal system, one which has deeply affected the quality of life for women who, to date, cannot claim their Constitutional rights. This thesis is interested in the mini-narratives of such cartoons, ones which offer a view on the status of South African women. Through this qualitative study, a textual analysis in the spirit of Critical Discourse Analysis of seven selected cartoons leads to a discussion of what their representations of women means for gender justice. What this research shows is that the representations that cartoons offer of the position of women in South Africa are complex. These cartoons articulate that South Africa has a long way to go to reach equality and gender justice. In order for gender justice to be realised, the representation of women needs to evolve into one which recognises women’s plight but does not relegate them to the state of victimhood.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Making meaning of reality television celebrities: the reception of South African Idol by young adults in Joza, Grahamstown
- Authors: Magade, Mncedi Eddie
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Talent shows (Television programs) -- South Africa , Television viewers -- South Africa , Television programs -- South Africa , Mass media -- South Africa , South African Idol (Television program) , Reality television shows
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/94217 , vital:31018
- Description: Reality television or “factual entertainment” is a hybrid of old television formats and factual programming in order to create a “new” entertaining show designed to draw the attention of audiences and increase viewership ratings. South African Idol is one popular local example. Adapted from the British programme Pop Idol, the show promises upward mobility for the young star who wins the competition. This show has become a subject of conversation amongst young people in South Africa who aspire to the “success” and “celebrity” status that is produced by participating on the show. This paper uses a Cultural Studies framework in order to examine the relationship between texts and audiences as an aspect of the “circuit of culture,” with its interrelated moments of production, texts, consumption and lived experience. My research focuses on the text and audience “moments” of this circuit. Audience studies research suggests that we should situate television viewing and the meanings made of TV programs in the natural setting of the home, and that this setting should be taken seriously as a unit of analysis. This study therefore, seeks to understand the ways in which audiences make meaning of this television programme within the domestic context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Magade, Mncedi Eddie
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Talent shows (Television programs) -- South Africa , Television viewers -- South Africa , Television programs -- South Africa , Mass media -- South Africa , South African Idol (Television program) , Reality television shows
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/94217 , vital:31018
- Description: Reality television or “factual entertainment” is a hybrid of old television formats and factual programming in order to create a “new” entertaining show designed to draw the attention of audiences and increase viewership ratings. South African Idol is one popular local example. Adapted from the British programme Pop Idol, the show promises upward mobility for the young star who wins the competition. This show has become a subject of conversation amongst young people in South Africa who aspire to the “success” and “celebrity” status that is produced by participating on the show. This paper uses a Cultural Studies framework in order to examine the relationship between texts and audiences as an aspect of the “circuit of culture,” with its interrelated moments of production, texts, consumption and lived experience. My research focuses on the text and audience “moments” of this circuit. Audience studies research suggests that we should situate television viewing and the meanings made of TV programs in the natural setting of the home, and that this setting should be taken seriously as a unit of analysis. This study therefore, seeks to understand the ways in which audiences make meaning of this television programme within the domestic context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
“Bold Distinguished You”: a critical discourse analysis of the representation of masculinity in Destiny Man, 2012 - 2013
- Authors: Hutcheson, Lauren
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/56032 , vital:26767
- Description: Radical social and economic changes have transformed the employment opportunities available to black men in South Africa, and consumer magazines like Destiny Man have been quick to respond. Historical shifts in the configuration of an ideal black masculinity have been proposed over time in magazine representations of black men. Critiques of the representations of black men in consumer magazines pre- and post- independence interrogate the politics of the ways in which black masculinity has been, and is, configured around classed identities. In this study, I present the findings of a critical discourse analysis (CDA) on the construction and representation of masculinity within a contemporary South African’s men’s lifestyle magazine, Destiny Man. This study presents an analysis of the subject positions that this magazine constructs for its male readers. Destiny Man proposes particular kinds of discursive subjects in its sets of representations, both in word and image. The images and copy validate a neo-liberal elite masculinity achieved through self-surveillance and a variety of technologies of self, with the ultimate focus on material success. I argue that these representations have implications for the development of masculinities in a context marked by extreme inequality.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Hutcheson, Lauren
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/56032 , vital:26767
- Description: Radical social and economic changes have transformed the employment opportunities available to black men in South Africa, and consumer magazines like Destiny Man have been quick to respond. Historical shifts in the configuration of an ideal black masculinity have been proposed over time in magazine representations of black men. Critiques of the representations of black men in consumer magazines pre- and post- independence interrogate the politics of the ways in which black masculinity has been, and is, configured around classed identities. In this study, I present the findings of a critical discourse analysis (CDA) on the construction and representation of masculinity within a contemporary South African’s men’s lifestyle magazine, Destiny Man. This study presents an analysis of the subject positions that this magazine constructs for its male readers. Destiny Man proposes particular kinds of discursive subjects in its sets of representations, both in word and image. The images and copy validate a neo-liberal elite masculinity achieved through self-surveillance and a variety of technologies of self, with the ultimate focus on material success. I argue that these representations have implications for the development of masculinities in a context marked by extreme inequality.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
“Please don’t show me on Agataliiko Nfuufu or my husband will beat me like engalabi (long drum)”: young women and tabloid television in Kampala, Uganda
- Authors: Nakacwa, Susan
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Television broadcasting of news -- Uganda -- Kampala , Reality television programs -- Uganda -- Kampala , Sexism -- Uganda -- Kampala , Women in mass media , Sensationalism on television , Sensationalism in journalism , Mass media -- Moral and ethical aspects , Sex role on television , Uganda -- Social conditions -- 1979-
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3551 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020968
- Description: The “tabloid TV” news genre is a relatively new phenomenon in Uganda and Africa. The genre has been criticised for depoliticising the public by causing cynicism, and lowering the standards of rational public discourse. Despite the criticisms, the genre has been recognised for bringing ‘the private’ into a public space and one of the major ‘private’ issues on the public agenda is women and gender equality. Given these critiques, this study set out to interrogate the meanings that young working class women in Kampala make of the tabloid television news programme Agataliiko Nfuufu and to ask how these meanings relate to the contested notions of femininity in this urban space. In undertaking this audience reception study I interviewed young women between the ages of 18-35 years by means of individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The study establishes that Agataliiko Nfuufu is consumed in a complex environment where contesting notions of traditionalism and modernity are at play. The study also establishes that while mediating the problems, discomforts and contestations of these young women’s lives, Bukedde TV1 operates within a specific social context and gendered environment where Agataliiko Nfuufu is consumed. The study concludes that the bulletin mediates the young women’s negotiations and contestations, but it provides them with a window into other people’s lives and affords them opportunities to compare, judge and appreciate their own. Furthermore, the gendered roles and expectations in this context have become naturalised and have achieved a taken-for-grantedness. Therefore, patriarchy has been legitimised and naturalised to the extent that the respondents define themselves largely in relation to male relatives, and marriage. While the women lament the changes that have taken place in their social contexts which disrupt the natural gender order, they construct themselves as subjects of the prevailing discourses of gender relations that see men as powerful and women as weak and in need of protection.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Nakacwa, Susan
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Television broadcasting of news -- Uganda -- Kampala , Reality television programs -- Uganda -- Kampala , Sexism -- Uganda -- Kampala , Women in mass media , Sensationalism on television , Sensationalism in journalism , Mass media -- Moral and ethical aspects , Sex role on television , Uganda -- Social conditions -- 1979-
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3551 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020968
- Description: The “tabloid TV” news genre is a relatively new phenomenon in Uganda and Africa. The genre has been criticised for depoliticising the public by causing cynicism, and lowering the standards of rational public discourse. Despite the criticisms, the genre has been recognised for bringing ‘the private’ into a public space and one of the major ‘private’ issues on the public agenda is women and gender equality. Given these critiques, this study set out to interrogate the meanings that young working class women in Kampala make of the tabloid television news programme Agataliiko Nfuufu and to ask how these meanings relate to the contested notions of femininity in this urban space. In undertaking this audience reception study I interviewed young women between the ages of 18-35 years by means of individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The study establishes that Agataliiko Nfuufu is consumed in a complex environment where contesting notions of traditionalism and modernity are at play. The study also establishes that while mediating the problems, discomforts and contestations of these young women’s lives, Bukedde TV1 operates within a specific social context and gendered environment where Agataliiko Nfuufu is consumed. The study concludes that the bulletin mediates the young women’s negotiations and contestations, but it provides them with a window into other people’s lives and affords them opportunities to compare, judge and appreciate their own. Furthermore, the gendered roles and expectations in this context have become naturalised and have achieved a taken-for-grantedness. Therefore, patriarchy has been legitimised and naturalised to the extent that the respondents define themselves largely in relation to male relatives, and marriage. While the women lament the changes that have taken place in their social contexts which disrupt the natural gender order, they construct themselves as subjects of the prevailing discourses of gender relations that see men as powerful and women as weak and in need of protection.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Negotiating family planning radio messages among Malawian rural men of traditional authority Kadewere, Chiradzulo district
- Authors: Ntaba, Jolly Maxwell
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Family planning -- Malawi , Birth control -- Malawi , Radio advertising -- Campaigns -- Malawi , Men -- Attitudes
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3548 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018258
- Description: Family planning campaigns, using the media among other advocacy interventions, are produced and disseminated by both government and nongovernment organizations in Malawi, with an aim of reducing fertility and promotion of reproductive health. This qualitative audience study looks specifically at the reception by rural men of radio broadcast Public Service Announcements produced by the NGO, Banja La Mtsogolo, a leading provider of family planning services and products based in Blantyre. The aim of the study is to understand how the appropriation of these messages relates to traditional concepts of gender, masculinity and kinship within an area that has not been spared the influences, values and accoutrements of modernity. Underpinned by Hall’s encoding and decoding model, the study reveals that at most men make an oppositional reading of the texts based on their lived and shared cultural experiences. The results show that while people understand and appreciate the importance of family planning, cultural and traditional influences play a major role in how these messages are appropriated by and incorporated into the everyday lives of their listeners. Given the above understandings, the research asks what are the implications for the success of family-planning media campaigns by government and other non-governmental organisations such as Banja La Mtsogolo
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Ntaba, Jolly Maxwell
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Family planning -- Malawi , Birth control -- Malawi , Radio advertising -- Campaigns -- Malawi , Men -- Attitudes
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3548 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018258
- Description: Family planning campaigns, using the media among other advocacy interventions, are produced and disseminated by both government and nongovernment organizations in Malawi, with an aim of reducing fertility and promotion of reproductive health. This qualitative audience study looks specifically at the reception by rural men of radio broadcast Public Service Announcements produced by the NGO, Banja La Mtsogolo, a leading provider of family planning services and products based in Blantyre. The aim of the study is to understand how the appropriation of these messages relates to traditional concepts of gender, masculinity and kinship within an area that has not been spared the influences, values and accoutrements of modernity. Underpinned by Hall’s encoding and decoding model, the study reveals that at most men make an oppositional reading of the texts based on their lived and shared cultural experiences. The results show that while people understand and appreciate the importance of family planning, cultural and traditional influences play a major role in how these messages are appropriated by and incorporated into the everyday lives of their listeners. Given the above understandings, the research asks what are the implications for the success of family-planning media campaigns by government and other non-governmental organisations such as Banja La Mtsogolo
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Negotiating the global : how young women in Nairobi shape their local identities in response to aspects of the mexican telenovela, Cuando seas mia
- Authors: Jiwaji, Aamera Hamzaali
- Date: 2011 , 2010-09-15
- Subjects: Cuando seas mia (Television program) , Television soap operas -- Kenya , Motion pictures and youth -- Kenya , Emigration and immigration in motion pictures -- Kenya , Ethnicity in motion pictures -- Kenya , Arts and society -- Kenya
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3532 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013364
- Description: Latin American telenovelas have been exported to more than a hundred countries across the globe. While they are popular in their country of production because their messages resonate with their audience’s everyday experiences, their popularity amongst global audiences with whom they share neither a social nor a cultural history is unexplained. Kenya has been importing and airing Latin American telenovelas since the early 1990s, and telenovelas have permeated many aspects of Kenyan daily life, when compared to other foreign globally-distributed media products that are aired on Kenyan television. As global media products, telenovelas remain open to criticisms from the media imperialism thesis. This research adopts an ethnographic approach to the study of audiences, and looks at the reception of a Mexican telenovela, Cuando Seas Mia, by a group of young Kenyan women in Nairobi. It reflects upon the media imperialism thesis from an African perspective by investigating the meanings that these women make from Cuando Seas Mia, and how these shape their changing local identities and cultures. The young women in this study, most of whom have moved to the city from the rural areas, are influenced by traditional, patriarchal Kenyan society and by the modern, Western influences of an urban environment. They experience a tension between their evolving rural and urban roles and identities and are drawn to telenovelas because their exploration of rural-urban themes holds a relevance to their own lives. They negotiate their contemporary African youth identities, gender roles and heterosexual relationships in relation to representations in the telenovela, questioning and destabilising African and Western definitions. These women select aspects from their traditional, African cultures and from their modern, Western experiences (and consumption of global media) and reconstruct them into a transitional youth identity which suits their day to day lives as young women living in an urban African environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Jiwaji, Aamera Hamzaali
- Date: 2011 , 2010-09-15
- Subjects: Cuando seas mia (Television program) , Television soap operas -- Kenya , Motion pictures and youth -- Kenya , Emigration and immigration in motion pictures -- Kenya , Ethnicity in motion pictures -- Kenya , Arts and society -- Kenya
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3532 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013364
- Description: Latin American telenovelas have been exported to more than a hundred countries across the globe. While they are popular in their country of production because their messages resonate with their audience’s everyday experiences, their popularity amongst global audiences with whom they share neither a social nor a cultural history is unexplained. Kenya has been importing and airing Latin American telenovelas since the early 1990s, and telenovelas have permeated many aspects of Kenyan daily life, when compared to other foreign globally-distributed media products that are aired on Kenyan television. As global media products, telenovelas remain open to criticisms from the media imperialism thesis. This research adopts an ethnographic approach to the study of audiences, and looks at the reception of a Mexican telenovela, Cuando Seas Mia, by a group of young Kenyan women in Nairobi. It reflects upon the media imperialism thesis from an African perspective by investigating the meanings that these women make from Cuando Seas Mia, and how these shape their changing local identities and cultures. The young women in this study, most of whom have moved to the city from the rural areas, are influenced by traditional, patriarchal Kenyan society and by the modern, Western influences of an urban environment. They experience a tension between their evolving rural and urban roles and identities and are drawn to telenovelas because their exploration of rural-urban themes holds a relevance to their own lives. They negotiate their contemporary African youth identities, gender roles and heterosexual relationships in relation to representations in the telenovela, questioning and destabilising African and Western definitions. These women select aspects from their traditional, African cultures and from their modern, Western experiences (and consumption of global media) and reconstruct them into a transitional youth identity which suits their day to day lives as young women living in an urban African environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
“Beautiful powerful you” : an analysis of the subject positions offered to women readers of Destiny magazine
- Authors: Jangara, Juliana
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Destiny Magazine , Women's periodicals , Women, Black -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Sex role -- South Africa , Femininity -- South Africa , Women -- Identity , Feminism and mass media , Femininity (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3533 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013395
- Description: Women's magazines are popular cultural forms which offer readers representations intended to advise women on how to work towards and achieve idealised femininities. They perform such a function within the wider socio-historical context of gender relations. In a country such as South Africa, where patriarchal gender relations have historically been structured to favour men over women and masculinity over femininity, the representation of femininity in contemporary women's magazines may serve to reinforce or challenge these existent unequal gender relations. Informed by a feminist poststructuralist understanding of the gendered positioning of subjects through discourse, this study is a textual analysis that investigates the subject positions or possible identities offered to readers of Destiny, a South African business and lifestyle women's magazine. Black women, who make up the majority of Destiny's readership, have historically been excluded from the formal economy. In light of such a background, Destiny offers black women readers, through its representations of well-known business women, possible identities to take up within the white male dominated field of business practice. The magazine also offers 'lifestyle content', which suggests to readers possible ways of being in other areas of social life. Through a method of critical discourse analysis, this study critically analyses the subject positions offered to readers of Destiny, in order to determine to what extent the magazine's representations of business women endorse or confront unequal gender relations. The findings of this study are that Destiny offers women complex subject positions which simultaneously challenge and reassert patriarchy. While offering readers positions from which to challenge race based gender discrimination – a legacy of the apartheid past – the texts analysed tend to neglect non-racially motivated gender prejudice. It is concluded that although not comprehensively challenging unequal gender relations, the magazine whittles away some tenets of patriarchy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Jangara, Juliana
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Destiny Magazine , Women's periodicals , Women, Black -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Sex role -- South Africa , Femininity -- South Africa , Women -- Identity , Feminism and mass media , Femininity (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3533 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013395
- Description: Women's magazines are popular cultural forms which offer readers representations intended to advise women on how to work towards and achieve idealised femininities. They perform such a function within the wider socio-historical context of gender relations. In a country such as South Africa, where patriarchal gender relations have historically been structured to favour men over women and masculinity over femininity, the representation of femininity in contemporary women's magazines may serve to reinforce or challenge these existent unequal gender relations. Informed by a feminist poststructuralist understanding of the gendered positioning of subjects through discourse, this study is a textual analysis that investigates the subject positions or possible identities offered to readers of Destiny, a South African business and lifestyle women's magazine. Black women, who make up the majority of Destiny's readership, have historically been excluded from the formal economy. In light of such a background, Destiny offers black women readers, through its representations of well-known business women, possible identities to take up within the white male dominated field of business practice. The magazine also offers 'lifestyle content', which suggests to readers possible ways of being in other areas of social life. Through a method of critical discourse analysis, this study critically analyses the subject positions offered to readers of Destiny, in order to determine to what extent the magazine's representations of business women endorse or confront unequal gender relations. The findings of this study are that Destiny offers women complex subject positions which simultaneously challenge and reassert patriarchy. While offering readers positions from which to challenge race based gender discrimination – a legacy of the apartheid past – the texts analysed tend to neglect non-racially motivated gender prejudice. It is concluded that although not comprehensively challenging unequal gender relations, the magazine whittles away some tenets of patriarchy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
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