The mental health effects of social media on young adult South Africans in the COVID-19 pandemic: a thematic analysis of social media posts by Rhodes University students
- Authors: Jubase, Hlumelo
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- , Social media and college students South Africa Makhanda , College students Mental health South Africa Makhanda , Social media Influence , Action theory
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425122 , vital:72212
- Description: The COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa has been mainly discussed in terms of its socioeconomic effects and loss of life. While these are important, its mental health effects are given attention in this dissertation. In particular, this is explored through social media platforms, which saw increased usage as a result of regulations on movement to slow the Virus’ spread. This is explored during the hard lockdown (or ‘Alert Level 5’) and further, focuses on young adults, key users of social media platforms. Max Weber’s ‘social action theory’ and Michel de Certeau’s ‘theory of everyday life’ are drawn on, which help to analyse social relations from an individual level; and are used to explore the kinds of expressions made on a social media platform, and what can be said in mental health terms. These theoretical frameworks are applied to a university “Confessions” page, used mostly by young adults, where submissions were made anonymously. Findings indicate a great deal of trauma associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also evidence of the emergence of collective responsibility. They show the immense sacrifices made by participants for the opportunity of an education, and provide a window into the kinds of subjectivities experienced by South African young adults. Further, they show the importance of having more substantive mental health discussions in South Africa, a country familiar with traumatic experiences. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
- Authors: Jubase, Hlumelo
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- , Social media and college students South Africa Makhanda , College students Mental health South Africa Makhanda , Social media Influence , Action theory
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425122 , vital:72212
- Description: The COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa has been mainly discussed in terms of its socioeconomic effects and loss of life. While these are important, its mental health effects are given attention in this dissertation. In particular, this is explored through social media platforms, which saw increased usage as a result of regulations on movement to slow the Virus’ spread. This is explored during the hard lockdown (or ‘Alert Level 5’) and further, focuses on young adults, key users of social media platforms. Max Weber’s ‘social action theory’ and Michel de Certeau’s ‘theory of everyday life’ are drawn on, which help to analyse social relations from an individual level; and are used to explore the kinds of expressions made on a social media platform, and what can be said in mental health terms. These theoretical frameworks are applied to a university “Confessions” page, used mostly by young adults, where submissions were made anonymously. Findings indicate a great deal of trauma associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also evidence of the emergence of collective responsibility. They show the immense sacrifices made by participants for the opportunity of an education, and provide a window into the kinds of subjectivities experienced by South African young adults. Further, they show the importance of having more substantive mental health discussions in South Africa, a country familiar with traumatic experiences. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
Investigating the interplay between Grade 9 learners’ home visual literacy and their development of school visual literacy in English First Additional language classrooms
- Authors: Mnyanda, Lutho
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Visual literacy , Digital literacy , Action theory , Culturally relevant pedagogy , English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers -- Case studies , English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50191 , vital:25966
- Description: Visual literacy is one of the critical aspects that English First Additional Language teachers and learners battle with. The focus of this investigation was on developing learners’ performance in visual literacy and helping teachers improve teaching practice. This thesis reports on efforts in developing critical visual literacy in two Grade 9 classrooms; a rural and a township school in the King William’s Town District in the Eastern Cape. The research spread over four week, spending two weeks at each school as an ethnographic researcher, being assimilated to the culture of the each school. In understanding the kind of visual knowledge that these learners brought from home between the rural-urban divide, the learners displayed an interest in visual literacy, used the necessary language and appeared to design certain visual materials around the school. Data was collected in the form of questionnaires that learners filled, informal Facebook conversation screenshots, as well as the researcher’s field notes. Learner focus group discussions were conducted, tape recorded and transcribed. Two lessons each were observed with the two teachers, and these were recorded and transcribed. A camera was used to take shots in the classroom to show the interaction between the teachers and the learners. Also, semi-structured interviews were held with each teacher and these were recorded and transcribed. The data revealed that there were no major differences between rural and urban school learners. However, the research has provided a valuable insight into the mismatch between home visual literacy practices and school visual literacy teaching. The learners’ digital visual literacy practices were far ahead than those of the teachers who are not able to capitalise on these visual skills; the cultural capital that learners bring to school. Learners also displayed a low reading culture but the medium for reading has shifted considerably and learners developed communication skills through digital technology. Teacher agency in the classroom revealed that teachers need to first engage with the cognitive functions of the visual images that they teach by the prevalence of low level questions that they ask. Moreover, there is a place for translanguaging in visual literacy lessons. These indicate important areas for teacher development to promote the emergence of transformative agency.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Mnyanda, Lutho
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Visual literacy , Digital literacy , Action theory , Culturally relevant pedagogy , English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers -- Case studies , English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50191 , vital:25966
- Description: Visual literacy is one of the critical aspects that English First Additional Language teachers and learners battle with. The focus of this investigation was on developing learners’ performance in visual literacy and helping teachers improve teaching practice. This thesis reports on efforts in developing critical visual literacy in two Grade 9 classrooms; a rural and a township school in the King William’s Town District in the Eastern Cape. The research spread over four week, spending two weeks at each school as an ethnographic researcher, being assimilated to the culture of the each school. In understanding the kind of visual knowledge that these learners brought from home between the rural-urban divide, the learners displayed an interest in visual literacy, used the necessary language and appeared to design certain visual materials around the school. Data was collected in the form of questionnaires that learners filled, informal Facebook conversation screenshots, as well as the researcher’s field notes. Learner focus group discussions were conducted, tape recorded and transcribed. Two lessons each were observed with the two teachers, and these were recorded and transcribed. A camera was used to take shots in the classroom to show the interaction between the teachers and the learners. Also, semi-structured interviews were held with each teacher and these were recorded and transcribed. The data revealed that there were no major differences between rural and urban school learners. However, the research has provided a valuable insight into the mismatch between home visual literacy practices and school visual literacy teaching. The learners’ digital visual literacy practices were far ahead than those of the teachers who are not able to capitalise on these visual skills; the cultural capital that learners bring to school. Learners also displayed a low reading culture but the medium for reading has shifted considerably and learners developed communication skills through digital technology. Teacher agency in the classroom revealed that teachers need to first engage with the cognitive functions of the visual images that they teach by the prevalence of low level questions that they ask. Moreover, there is a place for translanguaging in visual literacy lessons. These indicate important areas for teacher development to promote the emergence of transformative agency.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Can expansive (social) learning processes strengthen organisational learning for improved wetland management in a plantation forestry company, and if so how? : a case study of Mondi
- Authors: Lindley, David Stewart
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Mondi Group , Wetland management -- South Africa , Wetland conservation -- Study and teaching (Continuing education) , Employees -- Training of -- South Africa , Action theory , Critical realism , Social learning , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2003 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015661
- Description: Mondi is an international packaging and paper company that manages over 300 000 ha of land in South Africa. After over a decade of working with Mondi to improve its wetland management, wetland sustainability practices were still not integrated into the broader forestry operations, despite some significant cases of successful wetland rehabilitation. An interventionist research project was therefore conducted to explore the factors inhibiting improved wetland management, and determine if and how expansive social learning processes could strengthen organisational learning and development to overcome these factors. In doing so, the research has investigated how informal adult learning supports organisational change to strengthen wetland and environmental sustainability practices, within a corporate plantation forestry context. How individual and/or group-based learning interactions translate to the collective, at the level of organisational change was a key issue probed in this study. The following three research questions were used to guide the research: 1. What tensions and contradictions exist in wetland management in a plantation forestry company? 2. Can expansive learning begin to address the tensions and contradictions that exist in wetland management in a plantation forestry company, for improved sustainability practices? 3. Can expansive social learning strengthen organisational learning and development, enabling Mondi to improve its wetland sustainability practices, and if so how does it do this? Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and the theory of expansive learning provided an epistemological framework for the research. The philosophy of critical realism gave ontological depth to the research, and contributed to a deeper understanding of CHAT and expansive learning. Critical realism was therefore used as a philosophy to underlabour the theoretical framework of the research. However CHAT and expansive learning could not provide the depth of detail required to explain how the expansive learning, organisational social change, and boundary crossings that are necessary for assembling the collective were taking place. Realist social theory (developed out of critical realism by Margaret Archer as an ontologically located theory of how and why social change occurs, or does not) supported the research to do this. The morphogenetic framework was used as a methodology for applying realist social theory. The expansive learning cycle was used as a methodology for applying CHAT and the theory of expansive learning; guiding the development of new knowledge creation required by Mondi staff to identify contradictions and associated tensions inhibiting wetland management, understand their root causes, and develop solutions. Through the expansive learning process, the tensions and contradictions become generative as a tool supporting expansive social learning, rather than as a means to an end where universal consensus was reached on how to circumvent the contradictions. The research was conducted in five phases: • Phase 1: Contextual profiling to identify and describe three activity systems in Mondi responsible for wetland management: 1) siviculture foresters; 2) environmental specialists; 3) community engagement facilitators. The data was generated and analysed through through document analysis, 17 interviews, 2nd generation CHAT analysis, and Critical Realist generative mechanism analysis; • Phase 2: Analysis and identification of tensions and contradictions through a first interventionist workshop. Modelling new solutions to deal with contractions, and examining and testing new models in and after the second interventionist workshop; • Phase 3: Implementing new models as wetland management projects and involved project implementation. This included boundary crossing practices of staff in the three activity systems, reflection and re-view in a further five progress review/interventionist workshops, and a management meeting and seminar; • Phase 4: Reflecting on the expansive learning process, results, and consolidation of changed practices, through nine reflective interviews and field observations; • Phase 5: Morphogenic/stasis analysis of the organisational change and development catalysed via the expansive social learning process (or not). The research found that expansive social learning processes supported organisational learning and development for improved wetland management by: 1) strengthening the scope, depth, and sophistication of participant understanding; 2) expanding the ways staff interact and collaboratively work together; 3) democratising decision making; 4) improving social relations between staff, reducing power differentials, and creating stronger relationships; 5) enhancing participant reflexivity through deeper understanding of social structures and cultural systems, and changing them to support improved wetland and environmental practice of staff, and developing the organisational structures and processes to strengthen organisational learning and development; and 6) using the contradictions identified as generative mechanisms to stimulate and catalyse organisational learning and development for changed wetland/environmental management.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Lindley, David Stewart
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Mondi Group , Wetland management -- South Africa , Wetland conservation -- Study and teaching (Continuing education) , Employees -- Training of -- South Africa , Action theory , Critical realism , Social learning , Environmental education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2003 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015661
- Description: Mondi is an international packaging and paper company that manages over 300 000 ha of land in South Africa. After over a decade of working with Mondi to improve its wetland management, wetland sustainability practices were still not integrated into the broader forestry operations, despite some significant cases of successful wetland rehabilitation. An interventionist research project was therefore conducted to explore the factors inhibiting improved wetland management, and determine if and how expansive social learning processes could strengthen organisational learning and development to overcome these factors. In doing so, the research has investigated how informal adult learning supports organisational change to strengthen wetland and environmental sustainability practices, within a corporate plantation forestry context. How individual and/or group-based learning interactions translate to the collective, at the level of organisational change was a key issue probed in this study. The following three research questions were used to guide the research: 1. What tensions and contradictions exist in wetland management in a plantation forestry company? 2. Can expansive learning begin to address the tensions and contradictions that exist in wetland management in a plantation forestry company, for improved sustainability practices? 3. Can expansive social learning strengthen organisational learning and development, enabling Mondi to improve its wetland sustainability practices, and if so how does it do this? Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and the theory of expansive learning provided an epistemological framework for the research. The philosophy of critical realism gave ontological depth to the research, and contributed to a deeper understanding of CHAT and expansive learning. Critical realism was therefore used as a philosophy to underlabour the theoretical framework of the research. However CHAT and expansive learning could not provide the depth of detail required to explain how the expansive learning, organisational social change, and boundary crossings that are necessary for assembling the collective were taking place. Realist social theory (developed out of critical realism by Margaret Archer as an ontologically located theory of how and why social change occurs, or does not) supported the research to do this. The morphogenetic framework was used as a methodology for applying realist social theory. The expansive learning cycle was used as a methodology for applying CHAT and the theory of expansive learning; guiding the development of new knowledge creation required by Mondi staff to identify contradictions and associated tensions inhibiting wetland management, understand their root causes, and develop solutions. Through the expansive learning process, the tensions and contradictions become generative as a tool supporting expansive social learning, rather than as a means to an end where universal consensus was reached on how to circumvent the contradictions. The research was conducted in five phases: • Phase 1: Contextual profiling to identify and describe three activity systems in Mondi responsible for wetland management: 1) siviculture foresters; 2) environmental specialists; 3) community engagement facilitators. The data was generated and analysed through through document analysis, 17 interviews, 2nd generation CHAT analysis, and Critical Realist generative mechanism analysis; • Phase 2: Analysis and identification of tensions and contradictions through a first interventionist workshop. Modelling new solutions to deal with contractions, and examining and testing new models in and after the second interventionist workshop; • Phase 3: Implementing new models as wetland management projects and involved project implementation. This included boundary crossing practices of staff in the three activity systems, reflection and re-view in a further five progress review/interventionist workshops, and a management meeting and seminar; • Phase 4: Reflecting on the expansive learning process, results, and consolidation of changed practices, through nine reflective interviews and field observations; • Phase 5: Morphogenic/stasis analysis of the organisational change and development catalysed via the expansive social learning process (or not). The research found that expansive social learning processes supported organisational learning and development for improved wetland management by: 1) strengthening the scope, depth, and sophistication of participant understanding; 2) expanding the ways staff interact and collaboratively work together; 3) democratising decision making; 4) improving social relations between staff, reducing power differentials, and creating stronger relationships; 5) enhancing participant reflexivity through deeper understanding of social structures and cultural systems, and changing them to support improved wetland and environmental practice of staff, and developing the organisational structures and processes to strengthen organisational learning and development; and 6) using the contradictions identified as generative mechanisms to stimulate and catalyse organisational learning and development for changed wetland/environmental management.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Participation and dialogue in development
- Authors: Neves, David Telles
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: Action theory , Communication in economic development
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3148 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007456 , Action theory , Communication in economic development
- Description: "Participation" is a frequently articulated requirement within the context of community development. Yet despite this, the concept of participation is neither comprehensively theorised, nor entirely unproblematic. The theoretical paucity surrounding participation is particularly marked within accounts of its interactional and relational dynamics . This thesis is accordingly concerned with theorising the interactional and relational features of participation in, and for, development. To this end a small development intervention, constituted as an agricultural co-operative within a rural area of South Africa, is examined. In this inquiry the phenomenon of participation is viewed through the lens of dialogical-activity. This enables explication of the "joint activity" directed towards participatory development, within the focal research setting. The overarching theoretical framework for this thesis is conferred by Activity theory. Orientated towards examining the collective and artefactually mediated nature of human action, Activity theory is foregrounded in Y. Engeström's (1989; 1999b) analytic schema of the Activity System. This Activity System framework is expanded by the inclusion of communicative and semiotic elements; an inclusion effected by reference to R. Engeström's theory of communicative action (1995,1999), which in turn, draws on theoretical precepts gleaned from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. The resultant fusing of dialogue and activity therefore serves to extend Activity theoretical insights. The results of this research are based on data collected from a multitude of sources within the focal participatory development research setting, including internal project documentation, interview transcripts and field notes. The dialogical Bakhtin-derived an alytic categories of speech genre , voice and social language were drawn on in order to examine this textual data , and to explicate the interactional and relational features of participatory development. Analysis of these served to reveal the polyphony of (speech genre constituted) voices, wherein the phenomenon of participation is disparately accentuated. The results chapter moreover discusses the substantial mismatches and discontinuities in the referential object invoked by the various roleplayers, within the focal research context. This thesis considers the sources of these discontinuities and tensions, including how they point to historically constituted contradictions within participatory development. It furthermore briefly examines the opportunities and affordances these offer up for expansive new forms of activity. Finally, in re-examining participation and development, the complex, and sometimes antithetic relationship that exists between these two concepts and their associated social practices, are considered.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
- Authors: Neves, David Telles
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: Action theory , Communication in economic development
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3148 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007456 , Action theory , Communication in economic development
- Description: "Participation" is a frequently articulated requirement within the context of community development. Yet despite this, the concept of participation is neither comprehensively theorised, nor entirely unproblematic. The theoretical paucity surrounding participation is particularly marked within accounts of its interactional and relational dynamics . This thesis is accordingly concerned with theorising the interactional and relational features of participation in, and for, development. To this end a small development intervention, constituted as an agricultural co-operative within a rural area of South Africa, is examined. In this inquiry the phenomenon of participation is viewed through the lens of dialogical-activity. This enables explication of the "joint activity" directed towards participatory development, within the focal research setting. The overarching theoretical framework for this thesis is conferred by Activity theory. Orientated towards examining the collective and artefactually mediated nature of human action, Activity theory is foregrounded in Y. Engeström's (1989; 1999b) analytic schema of the Activity System. This Activity System framework is expanded by the inclusion of communicative and semiotic elements; an inclusion effected by reference to R. Engeström's theory of communicative action (1995,1999), which in turn, draws on theoretical precepts gleaned from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. The resultant fusing of dialogue and activity therefore serves to extend Activity theoretical insights. The results of this research are based on data collected from a multitude of sources within the focal participatory development research setting, including internal project documentation, interview transcripts and field notes. The dialogical Bakhtin-derived an alytic categories of speech genre , voice and social language were drawn on in order to examine this textual data , and to explicate the interactional and relational features of participatory development. Analysis of these served to reveal the polyphony of (speech genre constituted) voices, wherein the phenomenon of participation is disparately accentuated. The results chapter moreover discusses the substantial mismatches and discontinuities in the referential object invoked by the various roleplayers, within the focal research context. This thesis considers the sources of these discontinuities and tensions, including how they point to historically constituted contradictions within participatory development. It furthermore briefly examines the opportunities and affordances these offer up for expansive new forms of activity. Finally, in re-examining participation and development, the complex, and sometimes antithetic relationship that exists between these two concepts and their associated social practices, are considered.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
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