The study seeks to interrogate the gender constructions in the Daily Sun’s “Charter for a Man” campaign which ran from 7 November to 7 December 2007. It coincided with the 16 Days of Activism against gender violence and was designed to lobby support for this campaign and discourage men from physically abusing women. The “Charter for a Man” listed nine principles that signatories were to abide by. It included a section to be signed by men to be submitted to and collected by the Daily Sun. The campaign was constructed as an intervention into the issue of gender violence. Consequently, the 30 news stories, four editorial pieces and 11 letters to the editor that were published during the campaign period make up the textual data analysed in the study. The news stories consisted of testimonies from abused women and some women abusers. In addition, celebrity signatories were selected to endorse the campaign and encourage other men to follow suit. In the editorials, the campaign was consistently flagged as a nation building initiative which all men were supposed to support. The letters to the editor consisted of readers who either supported or rejected the campaign. The study takes place against the context of a patriarchal society characterised by high levels of violence. Given this scenario, the study is informed by a concern with gender justice and therefore considers whether such a campaign, ostensibly aimed at eradicating gender violence, has the potential of being transformative of gender inequalities. The study set out to establish the kinds of masculinities and femininities that were variously constituted in the campaign as well as the gender discourses that were privileged. It is informed by the theories of feminist poststructuralism and Foucault’s conceptualisation of discourse. As the campaign is the initiative of a tabloid newspaper, it is also considered within the framework of newspaper campaigns and arguments about tabloids and the public sphere. As text based research, the study employs critical discourse analysis as a qualitative procedure of textual analysis. It makes use of an eclectic approach to textual analysis that draws on linguistics, narrative and argumentation. The texts are analysed according to the categories of news texts contained which includes the Charter itself, signatory articles, testimonies, vox pops and letters to the editor. The overarching theme of nationhood projected in the editorials and other categories is also discussed as part of the analysis. The study concludes that the Daily Sun campaign might be a seemingly progressive action at first glance. However, it does not challenge the existing gender order but rather maintains and sustains patriarchal attitudes through the repeated representation of women as weak and in need of patronage and men as their protectors and providers. In some instances, women are constructed primarily as sexual beings as their physical attributes are emphasised, while men are constructed as working class citizens and rational beings. The study therefore proposes that the Daily Sun fails as an alternative public sphere that might make visible the concerns of women as a marginalised group in society. The campaign, it is argued, is self-serving in its promotion of the Daily Sun’s image as the “People’s Paper” rather than serious concerns about gender violence.

This dissertation explores how representations of women in the media function as heterodesignations in response to the current socio-economic cultural complex of globalization. In its merger with reality, the media has become the dominant discourse and the means through which prevailing modes of self-understanding are made available in postmodern society, of which the simulacrum is a key feature. Representations of women in the media in general, and in television advertisements in particular, are not, in any way, subversive of hegemonic discourse and, despite the prevalent ambiguity of these images, construct women in conformity with traditional gender stereotypes. Through practices of deconstruction, such as feminist counter-cinema, of which the film Female Perversions is an example, feminism has an important role to play in liberating women from the oppressive effects of these representations, even if these efforts are not, in themselves, free from ambiguity. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

RuPaul's Drag Race is one of the few realilty television shows focusing on QLGBT (queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) identified individuals that has made it into mainstream consciousness. Drag Race provides a unique perspective on the ways that gender identity, sexuality, size, class, race, and ethnicity intersect and interact in people's lives.The television show augments many of these intersedtions and the challenges related to these identities while still reflecting the daily struggles that people experience.The show works to promote messages of self-love and acceptance ; however, it also promotes many problematic and damaging stereotypes. This thesis conducts a feminist analysis in order to answer the question: How does RuPaul's Drag Race relate to hegemonic and oppressive stereotypes and roles associated with gender identity, sexual orientation, size, class, race and ethnicity? Does it challenge or reinforce such hegemonies? In order to answer these questions, this thesis examines visual imagery, narrative, and dialogue in the show, utilizes theories from cultural and women's studies, English and communications. It concludes that although Drag Race does engage in some subversive behavior, it ultimately reinforces harmful hegemonic stereotypes. / by Sarah Tucker Jenkins. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

This study investigates the impact of the Times of Zambia gender policy on journalistic practices. The policy was formulated to address issues of representation of women both in news coverage and at an institutional level. In spite of the implementation of the editorial gender policy, no change in gendered representation is evident. As a media practitioner and a Zambian woman concerned with social justice, I set out to investigate the impact of this policy on journalistic practices. The study is informed by a Cultural Studies approach to media studies, specifically drawing on the 'circuit of culture' (du Guy et ai, 1997) and focused on two specific 'moments', namely representation and production. Data was collected using two qualitative methods, namely document analysis and semi-structured in-depth interviews. The document analysis established that this policy is informed by a liberal feminist approach to media and identified the weaknesses in its formulation. The subsequent semi-structured in-depth interviews probed the practices and perceptions of male and female journalists and editors in relation to the degree of change in gendered representation in the news. This study finds that the editorial gender policy at the Times of Zambia has not had any significant impact on the journalistic practices and it probed the reason for this lack of effectiveness. It argues that this can be partially attributed to the orientation of the policy within a liberal feminist paradigm which neglects the internal and external factors that influence the representation of women and men in news production. Further, this position ignores the societal structures and power relations which impact, albeit unintentional, on the treatment of news. Inter-organisational factors such as profit maximisation, political interference, the use of news values and news beats are identified as leading to the exclusion of representations of women in hard news. At an intra-organisational level, lack of importance attached to the policy by senior staff and their attitudes to news production in general have meant that the policy was not enacted or ensured in any meaningful way. The study also established that the patriarchal values that characterise Zambian society influence journalists ' and editors' treatment of news, thus making the implementation of the policy ineffective. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

This study investigates the Zimbabwean women listeners of a gender-focused radio programme Nguva yevanhukadzi (Time for Women) to find out what meanings they take from the programme. Located within the broad theoretical framework of cultural studies and drawing on audience reception theories, the study focuses on the ways in which Shona-speaking women bring their understandings of their social roles, derived from their lived socio-cultural experiences of patriarchy, to their decoding of the text. The study was set in Harare’s high-density suburb of Mbare and used the qualitative research methods of individual and focus group interviews. The study was conducted against the backdrop of the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) of September 2008, which ended the impasse among the warring political parties, ZANU PF, MDC-T and MDC and introduced a new era of collectively tackling socio-economic development, including redressing gender disparities through women’s empowerment. This study examines the factors shaping the audiences’ readings of the programme and seeks to establish whether the mass media has determining power on its audience in the reception of messages or if the audiences (women) have interpretive freedom. Using Hall’s (1980) Encoding/ Decoding model, the study examines the factors that influence the audiences’ choice in making preferred, negotiated or oppositional readings and the arguments they advance in line with those readings. While the interviews revealed that most of the female listeners “negotiated” the dominant encoded meanings, seeking their relevance to their varied situations and contexts (O’ Sullivan et al. 1994:152; Ang 1990: 159), of interest is the manner in which the women dealt with the discourse of patriarchy within the context of promoting women empowerment. The contestation between women empowerment and addressing patriarchy reflected the subverted notions of maintaining the status quo, while applauding the women’s commitment and ability to interrogate the practicality of issues under discussion and drawing lessons relevant to their day to day lives prior to making the preferred reading. As such, the study revealed that preferred readings are not always automated, but can be a result of intense interrogation among media audiences.

This study examines how working women are represented in the news media, and its main aim is to determine to what extent ‘social class’ figures in the representations of women in news content. Using language, visual and narrative analysis, the thesis comprises four case studies each focusing on portrayals of different women from different socio-economic backgrounds determined by their occupation. The first two case studies examine portrayals of low paid working women through coverage of the National Minimum Wage introduction into Britain in April 1999 and the Council Workers’ Strike in England and Wales in 2002. The latter two case studies focus on women in particular professions: elite businesswomen, military women and women war reporters. The study concludes by noting that multiple voices occur in news texts around the key contrasting themes of progress/stagnation and visibility/invisibility and which can give contradictory discourses on the intersection of gender and class. From the massification and silencing of working class women, to the celebrity and sexualisation of the business elite, and the professional competency news frames of middle class women, class was shown to be a determining factor in how women figure in news content. However, these class determinants combined with other news frames pertaining to gender, whereby powerful and established myths of femininity can come to the fore. These myths can be particularly powerful when women enter non-feminine work ‘spaces’ such as business and the military, and class, particularly in the latter case, can tend to slip out of view, as sexist coverage is commonplace and debates are formed about the right and wrong behaviour for women.

This dissertation aims to interpret holiday imagery in the media, as a site of South African cultural production, on the basis of newspaper images of local white and black people published in the Natal Mercury from 1966 to 1996. A strong historical approach (the history of the Western holiday) has been taken in order to analyze existing social structures relating to the holiday in South Africa, specifically gender, race and class. These social structures have been examined in depth, with the result of numerous interpretations being made about behaviour and the depiction of behaviour in the context of Durban beaches and leisure. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa consists of a vast, culturally diverse population, entrenched in customary tribal influences which are essentially based on stringent patriarchal directives. These spilt over into other societal spheres, one of which is the media, which is part of an existing male hegemonic society. The rationale for this study is essentially to determine the role played by the media in their representation of women, before and shortly after the liberation of South Africa. This study will establish whether the voices of women were represented, or not, in the media, in the period shortly after the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) and affiliated organisations in 1990. By interviewing and recording the oral histories of a few female ANC Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) soldiers, the need is evident to, through this oral tradition process, give a voice to these voiceless women. The theoretical foundations for this study is firstly based on “womanism”. Womanism was born from the shortcomings of feminism (a largely Western concept) that was unable to address the issues unique to the situation of black women. A second theoretical point of departure is the Social Responsibility Theory, a media theory that could, based on research done for this study, play a profound role to the benefit of women. The methodological investigation is based on a mixed method research approach where Content Analysis (CA) and Grounded Theory (GT) are triangulated with the literature review. The GT processes gave a voice to some unknown female MK soldiers by conducting interviews based on in-depth interview questions. The CA process led to the conclusion that the voices of women who contributed to the struggle were largely ignored by the media. The researcher found that given the contributions and sacrifices women have made in democratising South Africa, acknowledgement of these efforts are sorely lacking, especially in the media. This study therefore seeks to contribute to the lost and repressed voices of women, and to redress a history of omission to a history of commission. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Suid-Afrika beskik oor 'n kultureel diverse bevolking met tradisionele stam-invloede wat essensieel gebaseer is op streng patriargale riglyne. Dit het oorgespoel na ander sosiale kontekste, waarvan een die media is, en wat deel uitmaak van 'n bestaande manlike hegemoniese gemeenskap. Die rasionaal vir hierdie studie was om vas te stel watter rol die media gespeel het in die representasie van vroue kort ná die eerste stappe tot 'n bevryde Suid-Afrika. Hierdie studie wou vasstel of die stemme van vroue verteenwoordig was, of nie, in die media, in die tydperk kort ná die ontbanning van die African National Congress (ANC) en ander geaffilieerde organisasies in 1990. Die veronderstelling is dat vrouestemme nie in die media waarneembaar was nie, en dat die situasie teengewerk kan word deur die toepassing van mondelinge geskiedenis. In hierdie geval is die verhale van 'n paar vroulike Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)-soldate geboekstaaf om sodoende deur die mondelinge geskiedenistradisie 'n stem te gee aan stemlose vroue. Die teoretiese grondslag vir hierdie studie is eerstens gebaseer op “Womanism”. Dié teorie het ontstaan weens die tekortkominge van Feminisme (grootliks ‟n Westerse konsep), wat nie in staat was om die kwessies wat uniek is aan die situasie van swart vroue aan te spreek nie. 'n Tweede teoretiese vertrekpunt is die Sosiale Verantwoordelikheidsteorie. Gebaseer op die navorsing vir hierdie studie, kan dit 'n groter rol in die media in die belang van vroue speel. Die metodologie is gebaseer op 'n gemengde metode-navorsingsbenadering waar Inhoudsanalise en Grounded Theory (GT) trianguleer met die literatuurstudie. Die GT-proses gee 'n stem aan 'n paar onbekende vroulike MK-soldate deur onderhoudvoering wat op in-diepte onderhoudvrae gebaseer is. Die inhoudsanalise proses het bevind dat vroue wat bygedra het tot die Vryheidstryd grootliks deur die media geïgnoreer is. Gegewe die bydraes en opofferings wat vroue gemaak het in die demokratisering van Suid-Afrika, ontbreek erkenning van hul pogings in ons geskiedskrywing, en beslis so in die media. Hierdie studie was 'n poging om by te dra tot die omkeer van hierdie situasie, naamlik om 'n “geskiedenis van uitsluiting” te herstel na 'n “geskiedenis van insluiting”.

The thesis “When birthing makes the news: the depiction of women as a newsworthy item in Die Burger (Oos-Kaap)” analyses a common, yet complex news topic in the South African print media due to the sensitive, often sensationalised, nature of the topic. The private experience of birthing is featured more and more in the public domain of newspapers because of widespread service delivery problems within the South African health department. Focussing on the Eastern Cape, I examine the representation of birthing in Die Burger (Oos-Kaap) in texts printed between 2005 and 2007, and scrutinise the media’s monitorial role of a self-appointed public hero acting on behalf of the women, to expose the poor conditions at government hospitals, specifically in the Nelson Mandela Bay region. How the women and their bodies are reported on, creates a discursive tension between the negative portrayals of the birthing women and the monitorial role of the media. The news values of sensationalism and profit are achieved with visceral representations of the reproductive functions of the birthing women. A poststructuralist feminist theoretical framework reveals discourses that perpetuate race, class and gender inequalities in the apparently socially-concerned sample of texts. A Critical discourse analysis (CDA) provides an approach and method to inform a close textual analysis of both the lexical and visual elements of the texts. The discourses in the sample differed from text to text. Despite these differences, the monitorial role of the media is still achieved. My research argues that acting in the public interest with sensationalist copy is still acting in the public interest. I conclude that it is not easy for newspapers to separate sensationalism from accountability. Media practitioners should be aware of their role in constructing women’s identities and be particularly thoughtful when reporting on birthing. In doing so, this research aims to improve the manner in which women and their bodies are reported on within the news industry.