- Title
- Modern celebrity and inspiration in South Africa: an examination of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans
- Creator
- Lishivha, Welcome
- ThesisAdvisor
- Garman, Anthea
- Subject
- Youth in mass media -- South Africa
- Subject
- Youth -- Social conditions -- South Africa
- Subject
- Mail & Guardian
- Subject
- Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans
- Date
- 2017
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5165
- Identifier
- vital:20782
- Description
- The postapartheid condition of a majority of young people in South Africa is substantially similar to the apartheid conditions under which their parents lived. This results in a dominant narrative in the media and everyday talk circulating in South African that the youth are a ‘lost generation’ and also that they represent a significant danger and risk for the stability of our democracy. Against this backdrop The Mail and Guardian, one of the South Africa’s most influential newspapers has chosen to celebrate a small number of young people every year as inspirational and extraordinary in their achievements. This investigation into this representation of a significant - although small - group of young South Africans employed content analysis of the 2015 edition of 200 Young South Africans, interviews with profiled individuals across the years, and a focus group of readers. The study aimed to unpack the complexity of constructing certain young people as exemplary given the structural conditions that constrain and prevent a majority from attaining the education and mobility they need to make a difference in their own lives. The study found through the content analysis that the Mail&Guardian is setting up these young people as exemplary citizens whose actions should inspire other young people to similarly ‘make a difference’. Through the interviews the study found that those featured on the list found both that there was significant social capital in being valorised this way, but that this position was also a complex one to negotiate given the structural limitations of poverty and lack of education for those out of whom they had been chosen. The readers in the focus group did find inspiration in reading about their exemplary peers but they too were conscious of how small a group this was in comparison to the majority of young South Africans. In conclusion the study found that the narrative of hope, inspiration and making a difference is an important message in relation to a generalised hopelessness about South African youth but that it runs the risk of ignoring the significant structural constraints that young, poor, undereducated, unskilled young South Africans face.
- Format
- 81 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Journalism and Media Studies
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Lishivha, Welcome
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