Negotiating spaces, constructing identities and consuming symbolic resources: examining the complex interplay between identity formation, context and media consumption amongst black South African students at Rhodes University
- Authors: Willetts, Luke
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Mass media -- Psychological aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media -- Sociological aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media and culture -- South Africa , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Social movements -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Student movements -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Male college students -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Rhodes University -- Students -- Attitudes
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/95207 , vital:31127
- Description: This thesis has looked at the complex interplay between media consumption and identity formation amongst a group of black South African male students within the context of a racially homogenous communal viewing area located on the Rhodes University campus during the #FMF protests in 2016. Using qualitative research methods the study concluded that the group context of communal viewing helped the students structure and make sense of their daily lives. They actively divorced themselves from the main student populace in an attempt to escape lived experiences of a repressive institutional culture expressed through the university’s monolingual language policies, aesthetics and course material. These students embodied the characteristics of a diasporic community characterised by displacement, dispersal and the continuous re-articulation of differences across contradictory social, cultural and economic contexts. They grappled with an alienating environment by creating a safe space for cultural reproduction aided by the communal consumption of local television programmes. Preferences for local content broadcast in African languages were shaped by a linguistic marginalisation experienced on the Rhodes campus. The politicisation of the context through #FMF in turn politicised the students’ subjectivities leading to a need to be informed of the movement’s progression through evening news broadcasts. Discussions around campus life were dominated by #FMF and the collective experiences of marginalisation in and from the university space. Communal viewing of local television shows allowed this group of students to transcend decades of essentialised African ethnic divisions bringing forward a group identity premised on a lived hegemony signified by blackness.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Willetts, Luke
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Mass media -- Psychological aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media -- Sociological aspects -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Mass media and culture -- South Africa , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Social movements -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Student movements -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Male college students -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Rhodes University -- Students -- Attitudes
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/95207 , vital:31127
- Description: This thesis has looked at the complex interplay between media consumption and identity formation amongst a group of black South African male students within the context of a racially homogenous communal viewing area located on the Rhodes University campus during the #FMF protests in 2016. Using qualitative research methods the study concluded that the group context of communal viewing helped the students structure and make sense of their daily lives. They actively divorced themselves from the main student populace in an attempt to escape lived experiences of a repressive institutional culture expressed through the university’s monolingual language policies, aesthetics and course material. These students embodied the characteristics of a diasporic community characterised by displacement, dispersal and the continuous re-articulation of differences across contradictory social, cultural and economic contexts. They grappled with an alienating environment by creating a safe space for cultural reproduction aided by the communal consumption of local television programmes. Preferences for local content broadcast in African languages were shaped by a linguistic marginalisation experienced on the Rhodes campus. The politicisation of the context through #FMF in turn politicised the students’ subjectivities leading to a need to be informed of the movement’s progression through evening news broadcasts. Discussions around campus life were dominated by #FMF and the collective experiences of marginalisation in and from the university space. Communal viewing of local television shows allowed this group of students to transcend decades of essentialised African ethnic divisions bringing forward a group identity premised on a lived hegemony signified by blackness.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Race against democracy: a case study of the Mail & Guardian during the early years of the Mbeki presidency, 1999-2002
- Authors: Steenveld, Lynette Noreen
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Mbeki, Thabo -- In mass media , Mail & Guardian , South African newspapers , Press -- South Africa , Press and politics -- South Africa , Journalism -- South Africa , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Racism in the press -- South Africa , Mass media -- Political aspects -- South Africa , South Africa -- Politics and government -- 20th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3537 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015572
- Description: This thesis examines the 1998 complaint of racism against the Mail & Guardian, a leading exponent of South Africa's alternative press in the 1980s, and important contemporary producer of investigative journalism. The study is framed within a cultural studies approach, analysing the Mail & Guardian as constituted by a 'circuit of production': its social context, production, texts, and audiences. The thesis makes three main arguments. First, that the claim of racism cannot be understood outside of a consideration of both the changing political milieu, and subtle changes within the Mail & Guardian itself. Significant social changes relate to the reconfiguration of racial and class identities wrought by the 'Mbeki state'. Within the Mail & Guardian, the thesis argues for the importance of the power and subjectivity of the editor as a key 'factor' shaping the identity of the paper, evidenced in its production practices and textual outputs. In this regard, the thesis departs from a functionalist analysis of particular 'roles' within the newsroom, drawing instead on a post-structuralist approach to organisational studies. Based on this production and social context, the thesis examines key texts which deal with aspects of South Africa's social transformation, and which exemplify aspects of the Mail & Guardian's reporting which led to the complaint of racism by the Black Lawyers Association (BLA) and the Association of Black Accountants (ABASA). Their complaint was that the Mail & Guardian's reporting impugned the dignity of black people, and in so doing was a violation of their rights to dignity and equality which are constitutionally guaranteed. However, as freedom of the press is also guaranteed by the South African constitution, their complaint to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) resulted in public debate about these contending rights. My second argument relates to the jurisprudential approach to racism, and the related issue of affirmative action, which informed the complaint against the paper. Contrary to the 'normative', liberal approach to these issues, this thesis highlights Critical Race Theory as the jurisprudential basis for both the claimants' accusation of racism against the Mail & Guardian, and aspects of its implicit use in South African human rights adjudication. The thesis argues that in failing to recognise these different philosophical and political bases of legal reasoning, the media, including the Mail & Guardian, in reporting on these matters failed in their purported role of serving the public interest. The thesis concludes by applying Fraser's critique of Habermas's notion of a single, bourgeois public sphere to journalism, thereby suggesting ways in which the critiques of some of the Mail & Guardian's own journalists could be employed to enlarge its approach to journalism - giving voice to constituencies seldom heard in mainstream media.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Steenveld, Lynette Noreen
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Mbeki, Thabo -- In mass media , Mail & Guardian , South African newspapers , Press -- South Africa , Press and politics -- South Africa , Journalism -- South Africa , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Racism in the press -- South Africa , Mass media -- Political aspects -- South Africa , South Africa -- Politics and government -- 20th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3537 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015572
- Description: This thesis examines the 1998 complaint of racism against the Mail & Guardian, a leading exponent of South Africa's alternative press in the 1980s, and important contemporary producer of investigative journalism. The study is framed within a cultural studies approach, analysing the Mail & Guardian as constituted by a 'circuit of production': its social context, production, texts, and audiences. The thesis makes three main arguments. First, that the claim of racism cannot be understood outside of a consideration of both the changing political milieu, and subtle changes within the Mail & Guardian itself. Significant social changes relate to the reconfiguration of racial and class identities wrought by the 'Mbeki state'. Within the Mail & Guardian, the thesis argues for the importance of the power and subjectivity of the editor as a key 'factor' shaping the identity of the paper, evidenced in its production practices and textual outputs. In this regard, the thesis departs from a functionalist analysis of particular 'roles' within the newsroom, drawing instead on a post-structuralist approach to organisational studies. Based on this production and social context, the thesis examines key texts which deal with aspects of South Africa's social transformation, and which exemplify aspects of the Mail & Guardian's reporting which led to the complaint of racism by the Black Lawyers Association (BLA) and the Association of Black Accountants (ABASA). Their complaint was that the Mail & Guardian's reporting impugned the dignity of black people, and in so doing was a violation of their rights to dignity and equality which are constitutionally guaranteed. However, as freedom of the press is also guaranteed by the South African constitution, their complaint to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) resulted in public debate about these contending rights. My second argument relates to the jurisprudential approach to racism, and the related issue of affirmative action, which informed the complaint against the paper. Contrary to the 'normative', liberal approach to these issues, this thesis highlights Critical Race Theory as the jurisprudential basis for both the claimants' accusation of racism against the Mail & Guardian, and aspects of its implicit use in South African human rights adjudication. The thesis argues that in failing to recognise these different philosophical and political bases of legal reasoning, the media, including the Mail & Guardian, in reporting on these matters failed in their purported role of serving the public interest. The thesis concludes by applying Fraser's critique of Habermas's notion of a single, bourgeois public sphere to journalism, thereby suggesting ways in which the critiques of some of the Mail & Guardian's own journalists could be employed to enlarge its approach to journalism - giving voice to constituencies seldom heard in mainstream media.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Struggle in discourse the International's discourse against racism in the labour-movement in South Africa (1915-1919)
- Authors: Caldwell, Marc Anthony
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: International (Johannesburg, South Africa) -- History , International Socialist League (S.A.) -- History , South African newspapers -- Language , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Mass media and language -- South Africa , Labor unions and mass media -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3419 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002872 , International (Johannesburg, South Africa) -- History , International Socialist League (S.A.) -- History , South African newspapers -- Language , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Mass media and language -- South Africa , Labor unions and mass media -- South Africa
- Description: The International, as the weekly newspaper of the International Socialist League, articulated from 1915 to 1919 an ideology which stood opposed both to organised labour and nationalist movements in South Africa. This situation reflected significant historical struggles during this period, which constitutes essential background to the discourse of the International. The International's writers opposed the institution of trade unionism in the labour movement because it was fragmented on the lines of skill and race. They opposed both the National Party and the South African Native National Congress because they advocated racial (and national) rather than working class interests. Instead, these writers, according to their international socialist paradigm, advocated a working class united irrespective of race and skill at the level of industry. To analyse these ideological positions, discourse analysis provides a fruitful method for locating its dynamics in relation to other positions and extra-ideological (contextual) practices: The International's writers g~nerated a socialist position against racism by engaging in an ideological struggle in discourse. They articulated their anti-racist position from international socialism's critique of the 'languages' of both militarism and trade unionism in the discourse of labour. Within the discourse of militarism, the working class was signified as divided between hostile nations. These writers applied this as a metaphor to the division of the local labour movement and criticised the latter accordingly. In their view, just as workers were divided between the nations (nationalism), so they were divided within the nation (racism) in South Africa. One context cohered with the other, and both agreed with imperatives of international capitalism. This was fundamentally opposed to the principles of international socialism which characterised the International's discourse. Within the dominant discourse oflabour, workers were signified as divided between different trade unions on the basis of skills. Furthermore, in the South African context, trade unions organised only white workers, and ignored the far larger proportion of black labour. In this context, the International advocated industrial unionism, and criticised the narrow base of the white trade unions for fragmenting and weakening the working class in South African. The International's writers were thus led by the discourse of international socialism to a new discourse, whereby not white workers alone, but a racially-united working class movement would be the key to a socialist future in South Africa. Their struggle entailed a bid in and over discourse to rearticulate the sign of the 'native worker' within their own discourse as the dominant discourse type. Underpinning their struggle was a fundamental opposition to capitalist class relations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
- Authors: Caldwell, Marc Anthony
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: International (Johannesburg, South Africa) -- History , International Socialist League (S.A.) -- History , South African newspapers -- Language , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Mass media and language -- South Africa , Labor unions and mass media -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3419 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002872 , International (Johannesburg, South Africa) -- History , International Socialist League (S.A.) -- History , South African newspapers -- Language , Mass media and race relations -- South Africa , Mass media and language -- South Africa , Labor unions and mass media -- South Africa
- Description: The International, as the weekly newspaper of the International Socialist League, articulated from 1915 to 1919 an ideology which stood opposed both to organised labour and nationalist movements in South Africa. This situation reflected significant historical struggles during this period, which constitutes essential background to the discourse of the International. The International's writers opposed the institution of trade unionism in the labour movement because it was fragmented on the lines of skill and race. They opposed both the National Party and the South African Native National Congress because they advocated racial (and national) rather than working class interests. Instead, these writers, according to their international socialist paradigm, advocated a working class united irrespective of race and skill at the level of industry. To analyse these ideological positions, discourse analysis provides a fruitful method for locating its dynamics in relation to other positions and extra-ideological (contextual) practices: The International's writers g~nerated a socialist position against racism by engaging in an ideological struggle in discourse. They articulated their anti-racist position from international socialism's critique of the 'languages' of both militarism and trade unionism in the discourse of labour. Within the discourse of militarism, the working class was signified as divided between hostile nations. These writers applied this as a metaphor to the division of the local labour movement and criticised the latter accordingly. In their view, just as workers were divided between the nations (nationalism), so they were divided within the nation (racism) in South Africa. One context cohered with the other, and both agreed with imperatives of international capitalism. This was fundamentally opposed to the principles of international socialism which characterised the International's discourse. Within the dominant discourse oflabour, workers were signified as divided between different trade unions on the basis of skills. Furthermore, in the South African context, trade unions organised only white workers, and ignored the far larger proportion of black labour. In this context, the International advocated industrial unionism, and criticised the narrow base of the white trade unions for fragmenting and weakening the working class in South African. The International's writers were thus led by the discourse of international socialism to a new discourse, whereby not white workers alone, but a racially-united working class movement would be the key to a socialist future in South Africa. Their struggle entailed a bid in and over discourse to rearticulate the sign of the 'native worker' within their own discourse as the dominant discourse type. Underpinning their struggle was a fundamental opposition to capitalist class relations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
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