The purpose of this research is to explore gender representation in music videos on MTV Base Africa. The study attempts to determine if dominant hegemonic portrayals exist or whether space is made for alternative gender portrayals. The research involved observing and analysing a range and recurrence of masculine and feminine constructions. A random sample of 20 local and international music videos broadcast between January and May 2009 formed the basis of the analysis. A qualitative research design was used and data collected through a focus group method and semiotic analysis of music videos. The focus group sample was representative of selected groups in KwaZulu-Natal (Bluff and Westville). The results show that contesting discourses of power relations (race, class and gender) are in play. It appears that both counter hegemonic and hegemonic gender representations were present within the sample of music videos. The study demonstrates that competing gender discourses, including subordinate, ambiguous, high-class, low-class, middle-class, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic femininities and masculinities are operative. The conclusion reached is that contending gender constructions are present in music videos on MTV BASE Africa. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

This study was designed to investigate the portrayal of violence on SABC Television News programmes, these being CCV News, presented at 19h.00 and TVI News at 20h.00. The literature reviewed reveals that Television News is an ideological construct that differs from one media organization to the other. This study focuses on the theories of media organizations which inform ideas about how Television News is produced. It is believed that to understand why Television News is presented the way it is, depends on ideologies applicable in the media organizations. It became difficult to write about violence without broadly looking at its producers. Data was obtained by comparative analysis between the SABC News broadcasts, CCV News and TV1 News, recorded at the Centre for Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Natal in Durban. The comparative analysis also included a reception study of the viewers from four areas. Two urban and three semi-urban areas were chosen as research sites using questionnaires, and interviews were conducted at Temba location which is a semi-urban area. The major findings of the study were that in its News broadcasts, the SABC appears strongly to favour certain parties, notably the African National Congress. There were few reports of ANC's involvement in the shooting of people. There was also a lack of consistency in the reporting of violent incidents. This is indicated by much reliance on the security forces and the police as News sources and the use of maps and graphics instead of showing video material of the actual incidents. The attitudes expressed by the respondents to the questionnaires reflected a dissatisfaction with the status quo and indicated that perhaps the SABC faced a mammoth task in covering both the election campaigns and violence. Some respondents suggested that the SABC could have extended its News programmes' duration to accommodate more crucial items. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1994.

Mobile phones are everywhere in contemporary society. They have permeated most facets of society, and can be described as a culturally prominent feature of contemporary society. The focus of this dissertation aims to identify and simultaneously distinguish the different types of mobile phone convergence existing among mobile phone users in Durban, South Africa. This “identification” will analyse whether or not any of the identified forms (of mobile convergence) are present among mobile phones of Durban based users. This broad “umbrella” identification will then be followed by a number of sub‐questions that will be answered throughout the dissertation. These questions will identify mass adoption traits among mobile phone users, and will attempt to chart the difference in adoption and usage function as articulated by Marc Prensky’s digital immigrants and digital natives. The hypothesis is based on mobile phones being a “converged medium”. The mobile phone seems to have been universally embraced, growing in usage almost exponentially over the last decade or so. Because the mobile phone has become a multipurpose device, marketed as an essential prerequisite for modern life, it has become ubiquitous in most societies around the world and is an important medium to study, and more importantly to understand. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

This study was designed to investigate the representation of gender roles in advertisements in popular South African newspapers, namely, the Sunday Times, Rapport, City Press, Post and Ilanga. The literature reviewed shows that media play a role in agenda setting and reinforcing existing gender role stereotypes through advertising. The study focused on the trend towards equal representation of gender roles in advertisements in popular South African newspapers. The research revealed some stereotypical representations of women in the newspapers. Although women were depicted in a variety of professions in the workplace, the advertisements showed some stereotypical depictions. The research also found out that, to some extent, men were depicted performing roles such as beautification and consumption, which have been stereotypically limited to women. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

Parts of it have been referred to as the “Imperial Ghetto” (Badsha: 2001) or the “Duchene” and “Casbah” (Hassim: 2009) or simply “town” by the many who have frequented its markets, mosques, bus ranks, cinemas, schools, shops, cathedral and temples. The area is known for its “bunny-chows”, tearooms, saris, American Clothing stores, spices, jewellers, tailors, fah-fee and the feared Duchene gang. Central to the life of this “town” was Currie’s Fountain sports ground, popularly known as “Currie’s”, which served as a sports, cultural and political protest venue for seven decades. This urban experience of blacks, who were referred to as “non-Europeans”, during the apartheid era, and the institutions and places that are of cultural, educational, religious, sports and political importance, and thus part of the city’s heritage, is largely absent in publications on Durban’s history. This dissertation addresses this issue and focuses on an old part of Durban, referred to as the Warwick Junction Precinct (WJP), that was shaped by colonial and apartheid policies and planning, from the 1870s to the 1980s, identifying the “non-European” presence and what the nature of this presence was. It focuses on the micro level of the spatial development of a precinct, spawned in the aftermath of indenture and identifies the tapestry of facilities, institutions, places and spaces that collectively comprise and symbolise “non-European” Durban. It traces the establishment and growth of this other “invisible” precinct, since the settlement of Indians in Durban in the 1870s and the urbanization of Africans, until the 1980s when the apartheid ideology and its structures started to implode. Spatial information in the form of maps, diagrams and photographs, combined with the social history, laws and planning responses over a hundred and ten year period, identifies and maps out a substantial area that traces residential, religious, educational, commercial, sports and struggle sites that are of historical significance and thus part of the heritage of a multi-cultural city. Although restricted to a fairly small area, it has all the elements that comprise a city, such as commercial and residential areas, worship sites, a burial site, educational institutions and libraries, numerous markets, bus, train and taxi transport nodes, recreational and struggle sites that are of cultural and socio-political significance to Blacks in the city of Durban, for more than a century. This study documents the evolution of the Warwick Junction Precinct which has become a city in its own right with a rich heritage spanning both the colonial and apartheid eras. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012

Community participation is a fundamental element of community radio. Therefore in countries where this form of radio exists, community participation is one of its most important licence criteria. It is no different in South Africa. Community radio in this country is a relatively young form of radio, just over a decade old, and is based on models in countries where community radio is a long established institution. Many of the South African community radios are faith-based stations. However, existing research on community participation in such radios are based mainly on Christian stations. The focus of this paper is on Muslim community radio. The study evaluated the extent of community participation in the ownership, management, programming and other aspects at Radio Al-Ansaar, a Muslim community radio based in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. As this radio serves a Muslim constituency characterised by ideological, racial and class divisions, the study sought to find out if optimal and meaningful community participation from all sectors of the community is actualised. Furthermore, given this diversity in the Muslim community, the paper examined if Al-Ansaar, through its programmes, induces transcendence of or accentuates differences through discourse of divergent ideologies, views and beliefs among Muslims. In addition to the examination of the level of community participation in Radio Al- Ansaar, the paper assesses the economic viability of the station. It highlights the significance of advertising as an important revenue stream and assesses the prospects for financial sustainability within the context of the hegemonic influence of vested mercantile interests. The evaluation of the Al-Ansaar project took place against the stipulations of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) and against the backdrop of key Islamic precepts. Furthermore, in the analysis of the various elements mentioned, cognisance was taken of the perceptions of the varied individuals associated with the station. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

Whether virtual reality will have positive or negative implications on the social structure is debatable, but one thing is certain- virtual reality will play an increasingly important role in public and private life as we move toward the future (1). Over the years there has been a notable increase in the amount of people playing online virtual reality games. World of Warcraft (WoW) alone has an estimated eight million account holders, making it the largest Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG) in the world. Although the Internet has been appropriated by social practice, it does have specific affects on the social practice itself. Role-playing and identity building form the basis of online interaction (Castells, 2001:118), which suggests that social patterns of communication are starting to change. This study starts with the basic explanation of the Internet and Globalization which lends a hand to those wanting to escape into parallel online worlds, where they are able to reinvent themselves. This will lead into a discussion on how virtual reality online gaming can aid in the erosion of social communication as well as enhance it, through communities, the identity, and addiction. Theorists such as Rheingold (1994), Turkle (1998), Robins (1998) and Yee (2006) discuss how virtual reality gaming provides a window to a different world, where players can experiment with their identities as well as interact with people from around the world; all of which aid in the shift of normal social patterns and self construction. Finally a close look is taken on why these virtual reality online games hold such an allure to its players, turning them into gaming addicts, or is it an online communication addiction. During this dissertation a preliminary case study was under taken with a collected group of the Durban youth, regarding WoW and their online interactions with people abroad. It is evident that further research needs to be conducted in order to fully understand the extent of virtual reality online games and their effect on social behaviours and communication patterns. As a transformation in the relationship between the self and the social outside worlds, tends to blur when gamers enter into their fantasy society. (1) www.bilawchuk.com / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

Blogging continues to get attention in the field of communication studies for reasons such as its differences with traditional media and its various effects in societies. The first part of this dissertation provides the reader with a background of the use of the Internet in Zimbabwe highlighting how it has offered individuals a platform to publish their own content, thus increasing the documentation of the 2008 Zimbabwean elections. This research analyses how national identity and the construction thereof emerges from online personal narratives. The research also investigates the discourses shaping the country‘s identities such as humanitarian, anti-Mugabe and democratic discourses that emerge from the blogs and how these blogs communicate events that occurred during the polls. This dissertation is primarily concerned with how citizens have arguably become recognized as sources of information and how Zimbabwe is perceived. Finally, the blogs are critically examined for how they create spaces of resistance. I argue that the blogs challenged and destabilized the older patterns of identity creation within Zimbabwe. Whereas national identity constructions have been largely a result of the majority or ruling class, the production of counter discourses in the blogs suggests that at an individual level, citizens use the Internet as a platform to express their dissent and do not automatically internalize these projected national identities. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

This study explores the relationship between the government, private sector and local communities (public-private-community), through tourism and a culture-centered approach to communication for social change. Its focus is on the role of communication processes in amplifying the voices of the subaltern and how power relations affect this resonance in public-private-community tourism partnerships. Grounded in a pragmatic cultural studies approach which is self-reflexive, this study seeks to explore the connection between forms of power and lived experiences. The study is informed by Critical Social Science, which advocates a radical ethics concerned with power and oppression. It encourages the researcher to act as a bricoleur by taking up moral projects which serve to weave collaboration, agency and transformation. Case studies of two tourist camps in the African Ivory Route, which are government-funded, communityowned, and privately-operated, provide the ‘hunting ground’ for exposing the existing communicative processes between the partners and manifestations of power. The relationship between the government, community and private partner will be examined through Lauren Dyll-Myklebust’s (2011) schematic Public-Private-Community Partnership model, which was developed to account for the multiple dimensions of the type of development communication strategies employed in inaugurating operations in a public-privatecommunity partnership tourism initiative. This, together with my own reflexive analysis, will elucidate the kinds of communicative processes that exist in the partnership. An objective of the study is to identify ways in which communication in tourism development partnerships can facilitate subaltern agency. Tourism has often been criticised for its inability to function as a positive vehicle for development. This study aims to show that by listening to the voices of the subaltern, fostering dialogue and encouraging collaboration, tourism development initiatives can empower communities. / M.A. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2013.

Questioning notions of authenticity through the dynamics of Zulu culture as expressed by Zulu beadwork in the cultural tourism industry, allows this study to evaluate the historical perspectives of Zulu culture. It further provides a genealogical perspective of Zulu beadwork, and explains the nature of Zulu beadwork within the tourism industry of KwaZulu-Natal. The literature of this dissertation specifically evaluates the historical foundations of Zulu cultural history and heritage and further gives an evaluation of the literature related to issues of authenticity and cultural tourism. This dissertation is framed in the theories of identity and culture; borrowing from cultural anthropology studies; tourism studies and cultural communication studies. The dynamics of cultural tourism, which are created in the relationship between the bead makers and their prospective consumers (the tourist), are also to be the focus of this study as this will work to facilitate unpacking the reasons which add to tourism destinations offering cultural experiences and as well focus on development strategies that are in place for developing cultural tourism for economic gain. This study will employ a qualitative research methodology, which is concerned with non-statistical information about the notions of authenticity in cultural tourism; used as a medium to Zulu beadwork symbolism, as viewed by Zulu bead makers and the cultural tourists based in the Durban South and North beach regions. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the notions of authenticity as applied through the tourism process that occurs in the KwaZulu-Natal, Durban’s beach front; through the stall keeping that occurs in the area, where Zulu beadwork is one of the key items sold to the tourist. / M. Soc. Sc. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2014.