Browsing by Author "Jones, Nicola-Jane."

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An analysis of the representation of female and male politicians during the 2016 South African local government elections : a case study of the Pietermaritzburg daily newspaper, The Witness.
Ngubane, Thabiso Brilliant.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
The representation of female and male politicians within the media has been discussed and debated widely across the globe. This study uses The Witness newspaper to analyse the representation of the South African male and female politicians during the 2016 local government elections. This study implemented a qualitative research method with an interpretive paradigm which is a useful technique in qualitative research methods. Furthermore, this study also used a textual analysis, critical discourse analysis and frame analysis to examine data collected from The Witness articles, and government documents such as executive reports. The study explored whether The Witness reinforces gender stereotypes assigned to South African men and women in general, and whether these stereotypes are reflected in South African politicians. It examined whether The Witness equally represented South African male and female politicians. The findings of this research show that there are still some differences and inequalities that exist between male and female politicians in terms of their representation in the political realm, partly because women still have low representation in parliament. Furthermore, a substantial number of women struggle to enter executive or prominent positions within our society, which remains largely dominated by men.
Beyond homeland crisis: identity negotiation of Black Zimbabwean women migrants in the South African metropolis of Johannesburg.
(2017) Gadzikwa, Joanah.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
The thesis interrogates the identity creations/recreation and negotiations/renegotiations of Zimbabwean women migrants living in the metropolis of Johannesburg. The study combines the self-descriptions of women migrants with media narratives about Zimbabwean women migrants to unearth an area of research that has received little attention from the scholarly community. The research employs ethnographic, in-depth interviews with Zimbabwean women immigrants living in Johannesburg to gather narrative data about their lived experiences. Together with a qualitative content analysis of articles published in Johannesburg-based news websites on Zimbabwean women migrants, details of the immigrants’ experiences are extracted to determine the types of identities they construct. The media narratives provide the basis for identifying emerging themes using the Grounded Theory Method (GTM), and a theoretical framework for understanding how the migrant women’s experiences are constructed through the othering process. The underlying ideologies in the media narratives on Zimbabwean women migrants are further explored using a combination of Gee’s framework and a Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA). The second stream of data, the migrant women’s narratives, shed light on the growing phenomenon of the feminisation of migration. The interviewees described a transnational place of space, located in a realm somewhere in between, where their identities are negotiated. While home, as perceived by the women migrants interviewed in this study, remains their country of origin, belonging becomes a concept that requires redefinition. Using the metaphor of transnationalism and transmigration, their identities remain tied to what they become when they enter South Africa. To the people back home, the women migrants attain a saviour identity through remittances. Notwithstanding the challenges the metropolis poses to non-nationals, the women migrants interviewed in this study professed resilience, even self-sacrifice, for the sake of their children, parents, relatives and siblings. The analysis of the women’s narratives also reveals their agency in the migration matrix that goes beyond economic gains. While monetary gains remain an important factor in the feminisation of migration, the women’s narratives revealed other benefits that are in line with their caregiving and nurturing inclinations. Bringing together the findings from the two data streams through a triangulation, points of divergence and convergence between the women’s self-description and the media narratives are apparent. In terms of identities, the media has constructed demeaning discourses upon which the Zimbabwean women migrants’ collective identities can be deduced. The discourses of xenophobia, identity crisis, victimhood and vulnerability provide a fertile ground for the cultivation, culturing and subsequent harvest of identities such as prostitutes, criminals and vagabonds that the media presents to the public domain. In contrast, however, the women’s self-descriptions bring to the fore valorised identities of great benefactors, opportunists and agents who are the architects to their own personal growth and development in their land of exile.
Blogging : investigating the role played by blogs in contemporary South African journalism and the public sphere.
(2009) Atagana, Michelle Ishioma.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.; Michell, Lincoln.
This thesis seeks to investigate the role that blogs play in contemporary South African journalism through examining six blogs in the South African blogosphere and their content choices. This thesis draws on four key theoretical frameworks around which the research questions have been formulated: New Media and Journalism, Journalistic Blogging, Audiences and the Public Sphere. There are three key research questions: 1. What is the role played by blogging in contemporary South African journalism? 2. To what extent has the blogosphere become a Public Sphere? 3. How have blogs influenced/changed/impacted on the style and content of South African journalism? The qualitative data collected through blog observation, interviews with blog owner/ editors and concluded focus group discussions with blog readers, is designed to help reveal the role blogs and bloggers play in contemporary South African journalism, and through discussions with the audience and monitoring conversations online, help explore the possibilities of a public sphere. The conclusion of this thesis is that blogs do play a role in contemporary South African journalism and can serve as an effective public sphere. Defining what it means to be a journalist and recognising the differences between blogger and journalist is an issue that needs to be effectively understood before a conclusive agreement is to be reached in the blogger/journalist debate. However, for now the relationship between South African news agents and South African bloggers is promising.
Brand new : assessing the applicability of the recently published non-profit brand idea framework to the South African context : a case study of eight South African non-profit organisations.
Williams, Kristen.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
The increasing pressures on the non-profit sector, in particular reference to funding, has meant that many non-profits in South Africa are having to adapt to compete in a global funding market and to professionalise to align with funders’ demands. Many non-profits view their brand in a commercial light, primarily as a fundraising and marketing tool, however the Non-Profit Brand IDEA Model is a recently developed model that proposes a specific communication plan for brands in the non-profit sector. This model suggests that a strong brand can assist in achieving organisation impact, the ultimate goal of most non-profits. In addition, it proposes that the brand can be used to harness partnerships which alleviate the pressure for funding. As South Africa has a growing non-profit sector, this study assesses the applicability of the Non-Profit Brand IDEA framework in the South African context as it could provide a solution to the pressures facing this vital sector.
Contemporary Afrikaner cultural identity and the Suidlanders: a discursive analysis of the Suidelanders Inligting DVD 2.
(2012) Lategan, Nicolette.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
This dissertation is a discursive analysis of the Suidlanders DVD2. It explores white Afrikaner identity through discourses such as those offered in the Kill the Boer debate, and an all-encompassing fear discourse that flourishes through crime, a South African terrorism as experienced through farm attacks, and a perceived 'white genocide' conspiracy. The dissertation examines through critical discourse analysis how ways of talking about ANC rule and the 'problems' experienced in the new dispensation are used to validate an Afrikaner identity that, were it not for a prevailing fear discourse, would otherwise remain on the fringes of identity in the country. The dissertation concludes that a traditional, apartheid era Afrikaner identity persists when opposing discourses across the cultural divide are pitted against each other, that 'white' cannot conceive of itself without 'black' and vice versa, and that Afrikaner identity as portrayed through an extremist group like the Suidlanders, is an identity caught in discursive limbo where everyday experience of fear paralyses all other means of rationalising a sense of self beyond that of a potential victim.
Deviant doodling: contextualising the discourses of Zapiro in a socially responsible press.
(2016) Pitcher, Sandra.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
Abstract available in PDF file.
In the public interest : news values, ethics and the need for a new focus in South African journalism.
(2004) Jones, Nicola-Jane.; Wade, Jean-Philippe.; Michell, Lincoln.
The dramatic transition from South Africa's previous apartheid political system to a democratic dispensation, has posed unique challenges for the media. Ethical practices per se are difficult, with joumalists being faced with the demanding position of having to act ethically on a tightrope between a totalitarian heritage and a newly emerging democratic nation. This thesis begins with the mapping out of a new theoretical model of ethical practice for South African journalists - a model that is open-ended, context-sensitive, and emphasises critical and creative thinking, as well as diversity and relativity in the process of moral decision-making. Considerable debate - both nationally and internationally - currently surrounds the ethical role of joumalists. In South Africa, these polarised positions have tended to emerge as the two main discourses evident in the local press: the watchdog discourse, broadly corresponding to the libertarian theory of the role of the media; and the nation-building discourse, which approximates to the egalitarian or social responsibility model. This thesis argues that the two discourses are not necessarily mutually exclusive; the theoretical framework does not exclusively support either normative theory as such, but rather facilitates the fostering of both sets of values represented by each respectively. The case studies examined in this thesis are all underpinned by this idea. Attention is given to an examination of the violence coverage in KwaZulu-Natal, demonstrating an ethical breakdown in reporting during the years of apartheid, which shadowed journalists into the transitional period after the unbanning of the ANC and the lifting of all Emergency Regulations in 1990. The concepts of privacy and hate speech are examined, illustrating a lack in the culture of the South African press, of any concise articulation of its journalistic mission or what is expected of journalists. Finally coverage of the country's HIV/Aids pandemic is examined, the ethics involved in reporting such coverage are explored, and the ethical implications of an advocacy role vis-a-vis HIV/Aids, and reporting in general, are discussed. The thesis ultimately attempts to map out an ethics that creatively seeks to guide journalists in both binding people together, and exposing what is wrong between them, in order that they may participate in the crafting of a new moral order.
Is Tsotsi (2005) a South African film? Implications of a transnational film theory for stylistic analysis in South African film studies.
(2018) Hatton, Michael John.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.; Van der Hoven, Anton.
The aim of this dissertation is to explore the question: “Is Tsotsi (2005) so Hollywoodised as to be unrecognisably South African?” It is a question that relates to the style of Tsotsi from a perspective of a national paradigm. Using Appadurai’s (1990) global flow theory that shows the flow of money, people, technology, media and ideology across and through borders, this dissertation begins to question the limitations imposed by a national framework. In the first chapter, the history of South African cinema shows that film emerged in a relationship with audiences as a transnational medium from its inception. Themes that emerge are those of hybridisation, indigenisation and a porous Hollywood/World cinema binary. The audience can be seen as active, and as supported by Hall’s (1973) theory of reception, they contest, negotiate or accept dominant encodings. Various readings of Tsotsi are investigated highlighting the contestation that emerges from critical discourses involving race and Third cinema. These discourses themselves are subject to global flows as is Hollywood cinema that shows hybridisation and heterogeneity through the impact of various flows. A textual analysis of Tsotsi using the transnational methodology of directing craft, reveals that the film uses a sophisticated and heterogeneous style that is indigenised in many ways through the mise-en-scène, sound and lighting. Other cinematic codes, such as narrative structure and editing, show conventional approaches that are at times challenged by the breaking of rules. In conclusion, the dissertation finds that films allow for audiences to emotionally engage and transform themselves through “a series of elements (such as character, plots and textual forms) out of which scripts can be formed of imagined lives, their own as well as those of others living in other places” (Appadurai, 1990:299). This provides the final challenge as to whether Tsotsi is a South African film and the final answer can only be that it resides with the audiences of transnational cinema.
Legislation, policy and regulation in the post-telecommunication era : the role of OTT service’s (WhatsApp) consumption and sense-making in the everyday lives of black-middle class employees of Parliament of the Republic of South Africa.
(2017) Nene, Sandile Thabani Alphoes.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
The world has become increasingly “hyperconnected.” Hyperconnectivity refers not only to the means of communication and interaction, but it also brings people (and things) together from anywhere and at any time. In today’s world, citizens are increasingly sharing information via the so-called Over-the Top services (OTT) and virtual reality tools, rather than from the front porch. This hyperconnectivity has given rise to a globalised “168” world (24 × 7 = 168), where the work day continues around the clock. A plausible reason for the popularity of OTTs is that people no longer want to be passive ‘spectators’; instead, they want to be interactive, co-create content, discuss, modify usergenerated content and connect with organisations. The above illustrates that media culture provides the materials to create identities into which individuals insert themselves in contemporary techno-capitalist societies, and which is producing a new form of global culture. But media culture is also a high “techno-culture”, deploying the most advanced technologies that are of value to business or professional life. This study examines how black employees in Parliament interact and make sense of the text (WhatsApp) as an OTT service. An OTT is any application or service that provides a product over the Internet and bypasses traditional distribution. Services that come over the top are most typically related to media and communication and are generally, if not always, lower in cost than the traditional method of delivery. The research analyses how and why employees use and integrate WhatsApp into their everyday lives, asks what WhatsApp means to these employees, and questions whether the use of WhatsApp is prohibited by policies of the institution or whether its usage has been ‘naturalised’. The study also looks at the key provisions of Constitution of Republic of South Africa, relevant laws and policies governing the ICT ecosystem; how the sector has evolved and is regulated and managed as well as significant policy and regulatory debates which have emerged since the introduction of OTT services.
Legislation, policy and regulation in the post-telecommunication era : the role of OTT service’s (WhatsApp) consumption and sense-making in the everyday lives of black-middle class employees of parliament of the Republic of South Africa.
(2017) Nene, Sandile Thabani Alphoes.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
The world has become increasingly “hyperconnected.” Hyperconnectivity refers not only to the means of communication and interaction, but it also brings people (and things) together from anywhere and at any time. In today’s world, citizens are increasingly sharing information via the so-called Over-the Top services (OTT) and virtual reality tools, rather than from the front porch. This hyperconnectivity has given rise to a globalised “168” world (24 × 7 = 168), where the work day continues around the clock. A plausible reason for the popularity of OTTs is that people no longer want to be passive ‘spectators’; instead, they want to be interactive, co-create content, discuss, modify usergenerated content and connect with organisations. The above illustrates that media culture provides the materials to create identities into which individuals insert themselves in contemporary techno-capitalist societies, and which is producing a new form of global culture. But media culture is also a high “techno-culture”, deploying the most advanced technologies that are of value to business or professional life. This study examines how black employees in Parliament interact and make sense of the text (WhatsApp) as an OTT service. An OTT is any application or service that provides a product over the Internet and bypasses traditional distribution. Services that come over the top are most typically related to media and communication and are generally, if not always, lower in cost than the traditional method of delivery. The research analyses how and why employees use and integrate WhatsApp into their everyday lives, asks what WhatsApp means to these employees, and questions whether the use of WhatsApp is prohibited by policies of the institution or whether its usage has been ‘naturalised’. The study also looks at the key provisions of Constitution of Republic of South Africa, relevant laws and policies governing the ICT ecosystem; how the sector has evolved and is regulated and managed as well as significant policy and regulatory debates which have emerged since the introduction of OTT services.
The mass collaboration of digital information : an ethical examination of YouTube and intellectual property rights.
(2010) Pitcher, Sandra.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.; Michell, Lincoln.
The Internet has been lauded as an open and free platform from which one is able to engage with, and share large amounts of information (Stallman, 1997). As one witnesses the shift from analogue media to digitalism, so too is it possible to note a change in cultural practices of media consumers. Users of the media can now be viewed as “prosumers”, producing as well as consuming media products (Marshall, 2004). Digital media users have been given the ability to engineer their own unique media experiences, especially within the realms of the Internet. However, this process has seemingly led to mass copyright infringement as Internet users appropriate various movies, music, television programmes, photographs and animations in order to create such an experience. The art of digital mashing in particular, has been deemed an explicit exploitation of intellectual property rights as it re-cuts, re-mixes and re-broadcasts popular media in a number of alternative ways. YouTube especially has been at the forefront of the copyright furore surrounding digital mash-ups because it allows online users the facility to post and share these video clips freely with other online users. While YouTube claims that they do not promote the illegal use of copyrighted material, they simultaneously acknowledge that they do not actively patrol that which is posted on their website. As such, copyright infringement appears seemingly rife as users share their own versions of popular media through the art of digital mashing. This dissertation however, explores the concept that the creation of mash-ups is not undermining intellectual property rights, but instead produces a new avenue from which culture can emerge. It highlights how Internet users are utilising the culture which surrounds them in an attempt to navigate the new social structures of the online, subsequently arguing that mash-ups are an important element of defining a new postmodern culture, and that the traditional copyright laws of analogue need to be modified in order to secure the development of new and emerging societal structures.
Online media and democracy : a critical analysis of the role played by Zimbabwe's online English newspapers in the run-up to 2008 elections.
(2009) Gadzikwa, Joanah.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
This study discusses the potential for promoting cyber democracy through interactivity, on the Internet. Both interactivity and cyber democracy will lead to a broadening of the Zimbabwean public sphere by including online newspapers in the media circle. It views interactivity, cyber democracy and the public sphere as central to free expression. Zimbabwean online newspapers are not fully exploiting the Internet’s potentials to promote the threefold ideal for public deliberations identified in this study. The content analysis of 22 Zimbabwean online newspapers revealed that many newspapers are providing interactive tools that are of limited relevance to interactive communication. The different models for assessing interactivity, cyber democracy and the public sphere in the online newspapers that were employed in this study point to very low levels of interactivity, hence the rest of the components were affected. The three aspects of public deliberation identified in this study were found to be interdependent on each other. The qualitative research procedure confirms and provided reasons for low interactivity on Zimbabwe’s online newspapers from the editors’ perspectives. The online editors are cautious in their approach to a free-form type of public deliberations. Interactivity, potentials for cyber democracy and possibilities of a broadened public sphere were found to be very low on Zimbabwe’s online newspapers. However, the Internet itself is endowed with great possibilities for political deliberations that remain untapped. The onus is upon the newspapers to accord citizens opportunities for participation by making available tools for higher levels of interactive communication.
Other than ourselves : an exploration of "self-othering" in Afrikaner identity construction in Beeld newspaper.
(2014) Vanderhaeghen, Yves Nicholas.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
This thesis explores Afrikaner identity construction in Beeld using the concept of “self-othering”, by which is meant first, the representation of the group as “othered” or marginalised, and second, the re-articulation of Afrikaners as “innocent”. “Self-othering” takes place within discourses of guilt, loss, fear, belonging, transformation and reconciliation, at a time when a national identity imagined as a “Rainbow Nation” is being contested by discourses of Africanism, nativism and minority rights. These discourses are articulated in the context of the globalisation of South Africa’s economy, which has consolidated the economic fractures that characterised Apartheid. The thesis is formulated in an interpretive paradigm, uses the post-structuralist Discourse Theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as a theoretical framework, and draws heavily on Judith Butler’s concept of “grievable life” to analyse the ambivalences in the mediation and utterance of an identity positioned in “otherness”. A qualitative research methodology is employed to interpret the discourses that emerge in my Beeld case study. I argue in the thesis that articulation, a concept central to the theory of Laclau and Mouffe, seeks to achieve for Afrikaners moral equivalence in a chain of meaning hegemonised by the liberation narrative, so as to restore a legitimacy of common citizenship compromised by Apartheid and subject to contemporary discourses of exclusion. In considering how the Afrikaner self is positioned to the racial “other” in and by Beeld, I conclude that these relations are, in spite of prevailing discourses of reconciliation, “antagonistic”, while the intra-group construction of Afrikaners within the discursive space of Beeld is “agonistic”, thereby reinforcing the sense of an ethnic group identity over other identities. I also conclude that the utterance of Afrikaner innocence renders 2 reconciliation with the “other” of Apartheid redundant (as opposed to denied) as an element of identity because the rearticulated subject of reconciliation has been (self)absolved of guilt, leaving the historical (racial) victim “ungrieved” as the boundary of difference hardens into a frontier of antagonism. This study makes a contribution to media studies by, first, introducing and developing the concept of “self-othering” as a mode of rhetorical displacement in representation, and second, by suggesting that it establishes a structural oscillation and an irreconcilable stress between the discursive ontological objectives embodied in “readers” and the ethical journalistic objectives which guide not just individual reports but the newspaper as a performative utterance in itself.
The print to digital transmediation of the visual rhetoric of comic books : a comparative case study involving Marvel's Uncanny X-Men 328 (Print) and Madefire's motion book titles (Digital).
(2014) Tomaselli, Damien Rinaldo.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.; Pitcher, Sandra.
No abstract available.
The representation of women in Hollywood film musicals : a qualitative, critical and visual analysis of gentlemen prefer blondes and Nine.
(2017) Hohls, Vyonne Linda.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
Dance, musical theatre, and drama have always been such a passion for me. The magical worlds that these art forms create allow for escapism that we as humans crave, and show us. Being a feminist myself, and a woman in the 21st century, I have had a growing interest in the field of feminism and women’s rights, and feel that there is always something new to learn, and there are always different ways of looking at the ways of the world and representations of women that are given to us through the media. This study looks at how women have been, and are still represented in Hollywood film musicals. Specific examples of popular film musicals and their dance sequences are explored, and I look at the way women are generally represented, and the negative as well as the positive implications and opportunities these representations offer. Based on the textual analysis of my chosen films, as well as examples from other musicals, I look at the concept of the male voyeur, and how women primarily serve as the objects of consumption within these films. I go on to look at whether this representation can at all be empowering for women. My study also provides options for further research into this topic.
Who should teach journalism? : a scholarly personal narrative.
(2012) Greenbank, M. Fern.; Jones, Nicola-Jane.
In the absence of qualitative research in the field of American journalism education, a case study of a Duke University affiliated documentary tradition program is blended with a Scholarly Personal Narrative to answer the call for innovative journalism education models and to address the decades old debate related to teacher qualifications in journalism education. By blending the study of a particular type of journalism with a particular type of journalism educator, a new model for journalism education is offered for consideration by the journalism education community.