Browsing by Author "Scott, Claire."

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An exploration of how word choice and framing contribute to agendasetting in the reporting of gender-based violence in three KwaZulu-Natal community newspapers (November 2021 to December 2022)
(2023) Mangoro, Munyaradzi.; Scott, Claire.
This study primarily concerns how word choice and framing contribute to agenda-setting in reporting gender-based violence (GBV) in three KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) community newspapers from November 2021 to December 2022. Three weekly English community newspapers, namely, Zululand Observer, Maritzburg Echo and South Coast Sun, were purposively selected and provided the data for this study. The key objectives of this study were to look at descriptive and emotive words used in the GBV-related articles posted by the three publications; to determine if any changes occurred in the framing of articles during the 16 Days of Activism campaign period of November to December 2021 and November to December 2022, and to determine how word choice and framing prioritised the issue of GBV in terms of the media agenda setting. This study was guided by framing theory. A mixed-method research approach was used to collect and analyse the data. Quantitative content analysis was used to tally all GBV-related stories published during the period of study and to record all descriptive and emotive words used in these stories. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to group these words according to similarities and connotations to identify emerging themes on GBV. Because GBV is an issue that comes out of the private into the public sphere through being reported in community newspapers and other media platforms, it is important for this study to look at word choice and framing and, for this reason, initiate future debate on media responsibility when reporting on GBV. Looking at national stats-to-story-frequency and priority ratio, findings indicate that GBV was not given priority in the publications under review. Overall, 42% of all the GBV-related stories discussed in this study were posted during the two 16 Days of Activism time periods discussed. This indicates an outstanding visibility of GBV-related stories compared to the rest of the study period. Lastly, literature on GBV and the media in South Africa is very broad, but the study of word choice in the media, especially community newspapers in South Africa is yet to be thoroughly explored through research. This study acknowledges literature on analysing discourse around GBV in the South African media, that has been done by scholars such as Kulne Oparinde & Rachel Matteau Matsha, Floretta Boonzaier, Peace Kiguwa, Nechama Broodie, Amanda Gouws, Nicky Falkof and Mille Phiri, just to mention a few. The study of word choice needs attention as it is critical in understanding, significantly reducing and possibly eradicating GBV. This study suggests that the three publications need to increase the salience of GBV stories by dedicating more space to such stories weekly. Equivalency framing in the use of descriptive and emotive words is encouraged, as they are eye-catching, appealing and interesting to the readers.
"How do I understand myself in this text-tortured land?" : identity, belonging and textuality in Antjie Krog's A change of tongue, Down to my last skin and Body bereft.
(2006) Scott, Claire.; Brown, Duncan John Bruce.
This thesis explores the question, “What literary strategies can be employed to allow as many people as possible to identify themselves positively with South Africa as a nation and a country?”. I focus in particular on the possibilities for identification open to white South African women, engaging with Antjie Krog's English texts, A Change of Tongue, Down to My Last Skin and Body Bereft. I seek to identify the textual strategies, such as a fluid structure, shifts between genre and a multiplicity of points of view, which Krog employs to examine this topic, and to highlight the ways in which the literary text is able to facilitate a fuller engagement with issues of difference and belonging in society than other discursive forms. I also consider several theoretical concepts, namely supplementarity, displacement and diaspora, that I believe offer useful ways of understanding the transformation of individual subjectivity within a transitional society. I then explore the ways in which women identify with, and thereby create their own space within, the nation. I investigate the ways in which Krog represents women in A Change of Tongue, and discuss how Krog uses „the body‟ as a theoretical site and a performative medium through which to explore the possibilities, and the limitations, for identification with the nation facing white South African women. I also propose that by writing „the body‟, Krog foregrounds her own act of writing thereby highlighting the construction and representation of her „self‟ through the text. I proceed to consider Krog's use of poetry as a textual strategy that enables her to explore the nuances of these themes in ways which prose does not allow. I propose that lyric poetry, as a mode of expression which emphasises the allusive, the imaginative or the affective, has a capacity to render in language those experiences, emotions and sensations that are often considered intangible or elusive. Through a selection of poems from Down to My Last Skin and Body Bereft, I examine the way in which Krog constantly re-writes the themes of belonging and identity, as well as interrogate Krog's use of poetry as a strategy that permits both the writer and the reader access to new ways of understanding experiences, in particular the way apparently ephemeral experiences can be rooted in the body. I also briefly consider the significance of the act of translation in relation to the reading of Krog's poems. I conclude by suggesting that in A Change of Tongue, Down to My Last Skin and Body Bereft Krog engages with the project of “[writing] the white female experience back into the body of South African literature” (Jacobson “No Woman” 18), and in so doing offers possible ways in which white South African women can claim a sense of belonging within society as well as ways in which they can challenge, resist, re-construct and create their identities both as women, and as South Africans.
Panic! Looting! : the prevalence of disaster mythology on Fox News Online and CNN Online when reporting on Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma.
(2022) Fourie, Liezel.; Scott, Claire.
The aim of this research project was to establish whether or not the known sociological concept of disaster myths were used by CNN and FOX in their online coverage of 2017 Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. After investigating if disaster myths were used, further analysis was conducted as to how the disaster myths were used and represented. By conducting a content analysis, a framing analysis and a discourse analysis, it was established that when reporting on disasters in the USA both CNN and FOX in their online coverage of Hurricane Harvey seldom used disaster myths. When disaster myths were used, these were primarily the myths of panic and low community morale. In contrast location appeared to factor greatly into the reporting and representation of Irma, with FOX online primarily reporting on the impact Irma was having on the USA. In contrast CNN online focused on the impact of Irma both inside the USA and outside the USA. However CNN made frequent use of the disaster myths of looting and anti-social behaviour when reporting on events outside the USA. Disaster myths appear to be uncommonly used when reporting on events occurring inside the borders of the USA, however disaster myths are frequently used when reporting on events occurring outside the USA. The myths of panic and looting are still being used despite years of research proving that people tend to not abandon all societal norms during and after a disaster situation.
Race trouble: An exploration of race relations in Zebra crossing, coconut and the book of memory by Meg Vandermerwe, Kopano Matlwa and Petina Gappah.
(2020) McCabe, Travis Guy.; Scott, Claire.
Despite the formalised abolishment of both apartheid and colonialism, it would in many respects be remiss to conclude that the legacy of these systems of oppression do not continue to exert some level of influence on the attitudes and behaviour of individuals and groups. Alistair Fraser (2007) refers to this phenomenon as the “colonial present” (836) which “highlights the endurance, persistence or reactivation of particular colonial-style relations” (836, italics in original), alluding to a framework of relations that persists in the post-colonial and post-apartheid setting that is characterised by inequality and oppression despite systemic changes to national systems of government and the introduction of policies that have sought to redress past racial inequalities and introduce racial equity. In Coconut (2007), Zebra Crossing (2013) and The Book of Memory (2015) by Kopano Matlwa, Meg Vandermerwe and Petina Gappah, my central research question is to investigate how the conditions of race relations that were set up in the colonial past continue to influence the colonial present as it is depicted in the novels. While much research has been done in examining the respective eras of colonialism and apartheid, focus has often not been placed on the nuances of conflict, anxiety and competition that characterises these new spaces as it relates to issues of identity, belonging, exclusion and interracial interaction. Complicating this transition into a new democratic dispensation in both Zimbabwe and South Africa is the intrusion of the past into the present, in the form of the influence of whiteness that problematises racial relations, creating situations of crisis and conflict. To determine to what extent the practices that characterise the everyday lives of individuals and groups invoke the legacy of apartheid and colonialism and what effect this potentially has on race relations as it is depicted in the novels, the perspective of race trouble, conceptualised by Durrheim, Mtose and Brown (2011), is used as a central framework. Within the perspective of race trouble, three constructs will be used to analyse the novels, namely that of discourse, practices and ideology. Ideas regarding the nature of discourse, with particular emphasis on whiteness as an institutional construct, will be primarily used in examination of Coconut, while the notion of everyday practices will be used to analyse The Book of Memory and finally, ideology to look at Zebra Crossing. Within the construct of practices, I primarily explore the nature of the practices that characterise the everyday lives of the characters in constructing notions of place identity and a sense of attachment to various environments and how these environments influence identity, self-perception and belonging. In Zebra Crossing, I analyse how dominant ideology constructs subjects to behave and think in certain ways, with the concept of ‘othering’ providing a tangible link between the presence of ideology and the emergence of the subject.
Telling tales: life writing from the inner-city and a critical reflection on the ethics of non-fiction storytelling.
(2020) Groves, Sarah Anne.; Scott, Claire.
This thesis comprises a creative component entitled They won't come for us here, and a reflective component which examines the ethics of non-fiction storytelling. They won't come for us here is a compilation of life-writing and memoir produced and recorded during a three and a half year period spent living in the South African inner-city of Pietermaritzburg. It is a collection of lyric essays, and free-verse poetry, that investigates and narrates the lives of inner-city inhabitants, whilst reflectively interrogating the life of the narrator. The compilation adopts a chronological approach, telling peoples’ stories as the narrator meets them. This chronology is then interspersed with reflective records from the narrator’s childhood in apartheid South Africa, records which attempt to explain and self-interrogate the perceived prejudiced and classist response of a white, middle-class narrator to a mixed-race, mixed-class inner-city. The creation of They won’t come for us here raised a number of ethical issues common to non-fiction storytelling, issues most commonly divided into the categories of privacy protection and creative license. To engage with these issues effectively the reflective component focuses on analysing the ethical decision-making of a selection of creative non-fiction writers. These writers include American essayists, such as David Sedaris and Joan Didion, and South African literary journalists, such as Antjie Krog and Jonny Steinberg. The ethical choices that confront creative non-fiction writers range from the challenge of the unequal power balance experienced by immersion journalists to the challenge of recreation by imagination or memory experienced by most memoirists. After analysing the discussions and choices around the ethical decisions of a selection of creative non-fiction-fiction writers, the reflective component develops three frameworks that could support writers as they analyse their work: the framework of emotional truth versus factual truth, the framework of artistic clarity versus ethical clarity, and the framework of obligation to subject, topic and reader. Finally, these frameworks are used to analyse They won't come for us here, reflectively questioning the ethical decisions that were made in the creation of this document, decisions that range from those common to all forms of immersion storytelling to those common to the South African context, in which, predominantly, white voices record black stories.