Despite apparent feminist advancements within contemporary South Africa, media representations continue to reproduce discourses that inhibit processes of gender transformation. As such, the media represents an important site of continued struggle over gendered meanings and power. While prolific research on gender and the media has been undertaken, there is still a need in South Africa to explore the ways in which media professionals themselves perceive their role in generating gendered media texts. This research therefore aimed to unpack media professionals’ perceptions of gender transformation through their work. Furthermore, given the perceived limitations of certain approaches to gender and the media in South Africa, feminist theory conceptualised as “progressive” was applied in the study towards strengthening engendered media production research. The study involved a thematic, critical discourse analysis of newspaper texts and interviews with journalists and editors from three weekly news publications. The study revealed a high level of discursive contradiction in gender representations, especially in the tabloidised newspapers. Gendered meanings were effected through different discursive devises, namely complicit, advocate and spatial discourses, which played out variously within different spaces of the newspapers. In particular, gender transformative representations of the “private” sphere lagged significantly behind those related to the “public” sphere. In addition, important negotiations over gendered meaning were being undertaken in the more “informal” newspaper spaces, such as columns and jokes pages, often neglected in news media research. The interviews further highlighted lags in feminist trajectories pertaining to the “private sphere”, with liberal-inclusionary feminist conceptions of gender transformation, focused on women’s public participation, predominating. With a few exceptions, progressive feminist perspectives, moving beyond numerical representation towards greater attention to symbolic, relational and integrated understandings of gender, were generally lacking. In addition, many participants conveyed a largely positivistic discourse of objectivity through the media. However, various discursive strategies through which social transformation values were imbibed into newspaper texts were identified, and the research highlighted potential discursive opportunities for gender transformative change. The central strategy identified was the need for the development of a progressive gender lens and the decentralisation of a liberal-inclusionary feminist paradigm within the media and broader society. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Sociology / unrestricted

The focus of this research was to describe gender role experiences and gender transformation from a systems psychodynamic stance. Women have fought to overcome past oppressions but society intended to label women continually as traditional homemakers. In organisations, women are still subjected to receiving certain non-challenging jobs, such as administrative tasks, secretarial and office assistant duties as compared to men who fulfil professional and managerial roles. Men, on the other hand, experience the daily pressures of living up to societal brandings, which regard them as tough bosses and breadwinners. Hermeneutic phenomenology enabled participants to share their lived gender role experiences. Furthermore, the hermeneutic paradigm assisted the researcher with an in-depth understanding of participants’ phenomenological experiences. The researcher therefore explored, analysed and described the phenomenological gender experiences of male and female employees and a transgender employee from a systems psychodynamic stance. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four male and four female participants. Men and women often projected positive behaviours onto each other that would result in them challenging and breaking the obsolete, stereotypical thinking handed out by society. The isolation and loneliness experienced by transgender persons manifest in unauthentic and false living. The organisation created high levels of anxiety in its employees’ which contributed towards male, female and transgender role experiences. Individual defence mechanisms were used as a method of addressing anxieties. Men, women and v transgender persons were affected by their constant need for recognition and advancement in the organisation but refused to show any concerns for fear of consequences from the leaders of the organisation. Men, women and transgender persons became containers and shared the emotional burdens of the organisation and their family life in different ways. Recommendations for gender transformative approaches are discussed to address issues of inequality in the organisation. / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

<p>Drawing on broader discussions that attempt to envision new ways of negotiating identity, nationalism and race in a post-colonial, post-apartheid South Africa, this thesis examines how whiteness is constructed and negotiated within the framework of literary-journalistic narratives. It is significant that so many established journalists have chosen a literary format, in which they use the structure, conventions, form and style of the novel, while clearly foregrounding their journalistic priorities, to re-imagine possibilities for narratives of identity and belonging for white South Africans. I argue that by working at the interstice of literature and journalism, writers are able to open new rhetorical spaces in which white South African identity can be interrogated.</p> <p><br /> This thesis examines the literary narratives of Rian Malan (My Traitor&rsquo / s Heart, 1991), Antjie Krog (Country of My Skull, 1998, and Begging to be Black, 2009), Kevin Bloom (Ways of Staying, 2009) and Jonny Steinberg (Midlands, 2002). These writers all seem to grapple with the recurring themes of &lsquo / history&rsquo / , &lsquo / narrative&rsquo / and &lsquo / identity&rsquo / , and in exploring the narratives of their personal and national history, they attempt to make sense of their current situation. The texts that this thesis examines exhibit an acute awareness of the necessity of bringing whiteness into conversation with &lsquo / other&rsquo / identities, and thus I explore both the ways in which that is attempted and the degree to which the texts succeed, in their respective projects. I also examine what literary genres offer these journalists in their engagement with issues of whiteness and white identity that conventional forms of journalism do not. These writers are challenging the conventions of genre &ndash / both literary and journalistic &ndash / during a period of social and political flux, and I argue that in attempting to limn new narrative forms, they are in fact outlining new possibilities for white identities and ways of belonging and speaking. However, a close reading of these literary-journalistic narratives reveals whiteness in post-apartheid South African to be a multifaceted and often contradictory construct and position. Despite the lingering privilege and structural advantage associated with whiteness, South African whiteness appears strongly characterised by a deep-seated anxiety that stems from a perpetual sense of &lsquo / un-belonging&rsquo / . However, while white skin remains a significant marker of identity, there does appear to be the possibility of moving beyond whiteness into positions of hybridity which offer interesting potential for &lsquo / becoming-other&rsquo / .</p>

<p>Drawing on broader discussions that attempt to envision new ways of negotiating identity, nationalism and race in a post-colonial, post-apartheid South Africa, this thesis examines how whiteness is constructed and negotiated within the framework of literary-journalistic narratives. It is significant that so many established journalists have chosen a literary format, in which they use the structure, conventions, form and style of the novel, while clearly foregrounding their journalistic priorities, to re-imagine possibilities for narratives of identity and belonging for white South Africans. I argue that by working at the interstice of literature and journalism, writers are able to open new rhetorical spaces in which white South African identity can be interrogated.</p> <p><br /> This thesis examines the literary narratives of Rian Malan (My Traitor&rsquo / s Heart, 1991), Antjie Krog (Country of My Skull, 1998, and Begging to be Black, 2009), Kevin Bloom (Ways of Staying, 2009) and Jonny Steinberg (Midlands, 2002). These writers all seem to grapple with the recurring themes of &lsquo / history&rsquo / , &lsquo / narrative&rsquo / and &lsquo / identity&rsquo / , and in exploring the narratives of their personal and national history, they attempt to make sense of their current situation. The texts that this thesis examines exhibit an acute awareness of the necessity of bringing whiteness into conversation with &lsquo / other&rsquo / identities, and thus I explore both the ways in which that is attempted and the degree to which the texts succeed, in their respective projects. I also examine what literary genres offer these journalists in their engagement with issues of whiteness and white identity that conventional forms of journalism do not. These writers are challenging the conventions of genre &ndash / both literary and journalistic &ndash / during a period of social and political flux, and I argue that in attempting to limn new narrative forms, they are in fact outlining new possibilities for white identities and ways of belonging and speaking. However, a close reading of these literary-journalistic narratives reveals whiteness in post-apartheid South African to be a multifaceted and often contradictory construct and position. Despite the lingering privilege and structural advantage associated with whiteness, South African whiteness appears strongly characterised by a deep-seated anxiety that stems from a perpetual sense of &lsquo / un-belonging&rsquo / . However, while white skin remains a significant marker of identity, there does appear to be the possibility of moving beyond whiteness into positions of hybridity which offer interesting potential for &lsquo / becoming-other&rsquo / .</p>