Browsing by Author "Sewchurran, Anusharani."

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

An assessment of the Zimbabwean print media adherence to the principles of partiality and objectivity in election reporting : the case of the 2013 Zimbabwean presidential elections.
(2017) Muringa, Tigere Paidamoyo.; Sewchurran, Anusharani.
This study takes an exploratory approach in order to ascertain the extent to which the Herald and Newsday adhered to the journalistic principles of impartiality, fairness, and objectivity in the period leading to the July 31st 2013 presidential elections in Zimbabwe. The study used a qualitative methodology. It utilised a purposive sampling technique to collect news stories, headlines and extracts from the editorial section of the Herald and Newsday. The data was collected and gathered from the online archives of the two newspapers and then analysed using two content analysis techniques (content summative analysis and content latent analysis). The study argues that with the use of frames and agenda setting techniques (whether consciously or unconsciously) the news media when covering elections stories compromise the journalistic principles of objectivity, fairness, impartiality and truth-telling (that should ensure that they carry out their role in a professional manner). As such, the Herald and Newsday when reporting news in the period leading to the July 31st 2013 presidential elections, reported the election in a biased manner. Reports in the two newspapers were replete with editorial intrusions, reports of unconfirmed sources and clear attacks on other political candidates. Consequently, the two newspapers failed to a great extent to adhere to the principles of fairness, objectivity, impartiality and truth-telling. In this study, it materialised that the 2013 presidential elections exposed the polarisation that shaped the Zimbabwe media landscape even before the country attained its independence. It further revealed that this polarisation led to a manifestation of ideological warfare that was characterised by an array of partisan dichotomies, generating rough division and multifaceted biases. The credibility of print media (Herald and Newsday) in Zimbabwe is highly questionable as the press seeks to promote certain interests and ideologies while forfeiting its fundamental role as the fourth estate.
Decoding news and reception: an investigation into the discourses on selected Facebook news sites around reports of the South African farmland attacks (2017 to 2018)
(2022) Sheik, Laila.; Sewchurran, Anusharani.
This qualitative study investigates the encoding and decoding of farm attacks in South Africa during the period 2017- 2018. The corpus for analytical inquiry is drawn from the online news sites BBC News and IOL and the Facebook comments they elicited. Data was collected through nonprobability sampling in an unobtrusive netnographic approach. The study achieves theoretical triangulation by an application of Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding theory of reception as well as critical discourse analysis to the same corpus. Van Dijk’s (2001) ideological squaring was a useful heuristic to map the polarized ideological divide between white farmers and their support groups and black farm workers and their sympathizers. Rhetorical tropes of card stacking plain folks, emotional stereotypes and ad hominem fallacies as well as the use of celebrities were used to foreground the plight of white farmers in a hyperbolic claim of “white genocide”. Backgrounded in this discourse was the inequity stemming from blacks being dispossessed of land, white farmer assaults on black farmworkers and the exploitative economic relations that trapped farm workers in a cycle of poverty. Facebook inadvertently reinforced these polarised perspectives by algorithmic curation of news manifest in the form of filter bubbles and echo chambers that isolated users from alternate views. Hall’s theory of encoding/decoding showed that interpretation of the corpus emanated from individual subjectivities which ventilated pre-existing bias by hegemonic and negotiated readings when news corresponded to their interest and oppositional readings when it did not. Both critical discourse analysis and Hall’s encoding/decoding theories, when viewed in relation to citizen journalism in the form of Facebook comments, decentered the role of BBC News and IOL in communicating hegemonic ideologies and messages to consumers.
Exploring the effectiveness of interactive information and data visualisation for news web interface in the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: a South African perspective.
(2021) David, Kubenthran.; Sewchurran, Anusharani.
From a global perspective, news production and consumption is becoming increasingly digitised. The world is changing very fast, and big will not beat small anymore, but rather the fast beating the slow (Murdoch, 2016). Comparatively, South African news media organisations are not adapting fast enough to the new normal with respect to the deployment of innovative solutions to revamp their online platforms. They, therefore, need to adapt quickly and innovatively to the accelerated demands of the digital revolution in order to compete with international online news disrupters. The problem that this research identifies is that information and data visualisation for online news in South Africa is somewhat deficient regarding the use of non-linear interactivity for innovative news graphics. In South Africa, online news is a digital replica of a traditional newspaper, extensively relying on the use of still photographs that accompany text in a linear format despite the acceleration in digital development whereby the nonlinearity and interactive nature of Web 2.0 allows for interactive user engagement. While it is true that digital technology has beaten down the entry barriers to publication, it is also true that publishers need to do everything in their power to raise barriers that will prevent people from leaving their world of meaning. This research study undertook to comparatively review the information and data visualizations used in two international online news sites: The New York Times (NYT), and The Straits Times (ST) and the information and data visualisations used in two national online news sites: Times Live (TL), and E-News Channel Africa (eNCA) online to determine novel ways in which information visualisation can be incorporated into news websites in South Africa. The key finding was that non-linear interactive information and data visualisation is a neglected area of specialisation notwithstanding the fact that it can enhance the multimedia narrative output for South African news websites if implemented appropriately. Since this is a fairly new creative discipline, and with the increasing information and data deluge due to the advancement of technology, the results of this study underline the impact of visualizing an influx of information and data, providing a roadmap for an innovative and interactive execution of information and data in the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
A political economy of mobile telecommunications in South Africa.
Sewchurran, Anusharani.; Wade, Jean-Philippe.
The thesis is in part a political economy of telecommunications in South Africa, in part a discourse analysis of the field. While the thesis investigates issues around ownership, control and regulation of the big telecoms companies in South Africa, it also considers some facets that do not really fit comfortably into traditional political economy approaches. The dominant discourse within telecommunications is a neoliberal technological determinism, despite the developing context. However, there are lesser known narratives of consumption, commodification and control, which demand a cultural studies approach. Together these form alternate, ignored yet important facets emerging from the sector. The thesis foregrounds these alternate discourses as they relate to wider systems of control in the modern empire’s hegemony.
Social media activism and simulated democracies: a comparative exploration of #FeesMustFall (South Africa) and #Jallikattu protests (Tamil Nadu, India)
(2024) Govender, Kameshwaran Envernathan.; Sewchurran, Anusharani.
Social media's transformation into public spheres has influenced activism and shifted protests and social movements into digital spaces. The #FeesMustFall movement (2015) campaigned for free education in South Africa. #FMF was precipitated by the #RhodesMustFall movement (2015) which called for the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town, which represented colonialism. #RMF called for the decolonisation of education and #FMF reiterated the same. In parallel, the #Jallikattu protests (2017) in Tamil Nadu was against the Supreme Court's ban of 'Jallikattu’ a 2000-year-old cultural sport with bulls. The protests were triggered by the cumulative grievances of the people of Tamil Nadu against India's union government. The temporal proximity, student-led activism, social media influence of the protests and the nations being post-colonial democracies invoked the interest for this inter-continental comparison of protest cultures. This study explores a unique comparison of democracies via protest movements in South Africa and India. The researcher has collected data from blogs, e-newspapers, e-magazines, online news aggregators, e-editions of mainstream media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and personal interviews to compare the discourses, which emerged from both these social campaigns. A snowball sampling method and open-ended interviews were used to collect data from student protestors, university faculty, media persons and the general citizenry. Foucault's discourse analysis and Yin's explorative case study analysis were used to analyse the collected data. Gidden's structuration theory provided a theoretical lens to how colourism, police brutality, racism, casteism, sexism, centres of protests, media bias, and diaspora support affected the social movements. Baudrillard’s simulacra and simulation theory afforded further analysis of the levels of democracies in both these nations. Drawing from the above events and narratives the researcher posits a simulation of democracy in South Africa and India disrupting normative ideals.
Social media as an alternative voice for the social movements: exploring the opportunities and challenges of alternative media in the digital age.
(2023) Nkuna, Jabulani Master.; Sewchurran, Anusharani.
Social media has evidently revolutionised communication, giving end-users the freedom to produce and consume media products. This has been evident in recent social movements such as the Arab Springs, Occupy Wall Street, and the Fallist movement. Whilst various social movements have embraced social media to communicate their alternative discourses, the extent to which social media serves as an alternative media for social movements is underexplored. This dissertation critically analyses the pitfalls and potentials of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook as alternative media. The theoretical basis of this study is located within the critical theories of the network society, critical political economy, the public sphere, and the post-colonial theory of subaltern. The findings reveal that social movements have adopted social media to communicate their discourses, challenge the dominant narrative, and set the news agenda. Whilst social media is an important medium of communicating their discourses, this study also observed that the discourses of social movements on social media are undermined by low engagement rates, digital divides and rapid commodification of culture. The study also found that social media ownership is ideologically counterposed to social movements that subscribe to subaltern politics. The capitalist owners’ desire to make money has led to re-circulating the ideas that affirm the place of the dominant in society. Social media tend to use algorithms to prioritise entertainment, celebrity lifestyles, conspicuous consumption and in some instances social media can be used to influence the political decisions of the masses. This effectively means that whilst the social movements have done well to create an alternative space for their community, the potential to counterbalance the force of power is still determined by dominant members of society who also set the agenda for inclusion and exclusion. In this case, the study proposes a blended approach in which social movements integrate new and traditional media to tell their stories to the general populace.
A study on how community participation in community radio stations can have a positive impact on the sustainability of community radio stations in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality.
(2021) Msileni, Asanda.; Sewchurran, Anusharani.
This qualitative exploratory study examines the sustainability of community participation in community radio within two community radio stations located in Buffalo Community Metropolitan Municipality. The study is an in-depth exploration of the complexity of community participation in two community radio stations and the impact this has on their sustainability. The theoretical framework underpinning this study provides a theoretical foundation upon which the research is built. The study draws from normative theories, namely the Social Responsibility Theory and the Democratic-Participant Theory. The study employed semi-structured interviews and questionnaires as data collection techniques. The research problem that has prompted this study is that the instability often experienced by the community radio sector is habitual and a result of the exclusion of communities from the running of community radios. Instability often threatens the sector’s independence and ability to play a crucial role, as a broadcasting service, to fulfil its mandate. The conclusions drawn from the exploratory study of the two community radio stations, namely: Kumkani FM and Wild Coast FM reveal the almost non-existent relationship between the two sampled stations and their communities as the two stations lack clear policies that encourage community participation in the production of programmes. Precisely, the study reveals that the participants did not relate to the community radio stations. This has far-reaching consequences for the stations; for instance, the lack of social acceptance leads to dire straits for community radio stations based in poor and resource-constrained communities. Knipe (2003) emphatically states that once the relationship between a community radio station and its community ceases to exist, then the community radio station has no reason for continued existence. A comprehensive approach to the sustainability of community radio stations ought to be developed in order to create strategies or policies that encourage community participation in the production of programmes, governance and other key operations.
Using self-identity and brand personality in advertising appeals: a Unilever Dove case study.
(2020) Dube, Mavundura Layla Nomcebo.; Wade, Jean-Philippe.; Sewchurran, Anusharani.
The rise in popular culture and the growing power of brands led to factoring consumers and their self-concept, their buying power and interests as a part of the strategies implemented for the purpose of advertising. Brand development and the sustainability of brands over time required the adjustment of looking at brands from a singular lens of mass production to that of consumer-driven interest. Meanwhile, within consumer studies, an in-depth look into consumer habits and behaviours from their everyday life experience garnered the attention of cultural studies academics. Thus, slowly resulted in the academic debate of consumer consumption power and what that power meant for the lives consumers lived and impact consumption power has on different cultures and subcultures. Both frontiers of academia, namely that of cultural studies and marketing resulted in corpus discoveries of academic literature that contributed to the understanding of consumers within the market. Consumer Cultural Theory (CCT) was born out of the necessity to try and understand the ever-evolving role of the consumer within the market and the impacting role that the consumer can play based on their levels of consumption. CCT was an attempt taken by scholars to try and integrate marketing and cultural studies with the hopes that this integration will provide beneficial results in the development of consumer studies. The diversity in the academic approaches to studying consumers within these disciplines became an integral reason behind researching from an interdisciplinary standpoint. With this study, it is pertinent to investigate brand development through consumer cultural meaning by studying to understand the influence of an individual’s self-identity and brand personality could impact the advertisements they chose to engage. The Dove Real Beauty Campaign utilised as a reference to brand managers understanding consumers and a means of looking into the beauty industry. This study focuses on the resonance of the self-identity (widely studied within cultural studies) to the creation of advertising appeals (studied at great length within marketing).