Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation explores the contextual meanings of digital gaming for a group of children from the resource-constrained township of Ocean View, situated 45km outside of Cape Town. I document the domestication (Silverstone & Haddon, 1996) of mobile phones and PlayStations as technologies for gaming in this context, showing how the children appropriated the games technologies much as other household media are domesticated, in a process of double articulation.

This study critically analyses an alternative political economy framework to observe the decolonization of new media institutions in Africa. This is because "critically analysing media organisations and media processes in society have come from political economy perspectives." (Jansen, 2003, p. 90). This thesis has a specific focus on the decolonization of the film industry as a case study on new media institutions that are shifting given the fourth industrial revolution. A quantitative methodology was employed to conduct focus groups and interviews with key African film industry actors, this focus group took place at the Durban Film Mart, a Pan-African market for film and television content. The paper critiques the Marxist approach to the political economy of media. This is done to understand the extent that Western political economy frameworks, like Marxism, are relevant in analyzing ownership and media concerning racialized subjects as well as feminist and queer collectives. This paper posits that an Africa, Queer, Muslim, or Feminist political economy framework would explain the relationship between the film industry, industry players, and its audiences better than Marxist assumptions. In this instance, African Feminist, Muslim and Queer approaches to the political economy theory provide a subaltern lens. This study has the intention to investigate new ways in which the decolonization of the political economy of the new Media can create an ideological non-state apparatus or a consciousness industry as denoted by the Frankfurt School. This ideological apparatus would characterize and reflect societal discourses, outside of the nation-state, while creating a sphere for public engagement and deliberation that is equitable and ontologically sound. By ontologically sound, I ask what are the different assumptions about human nature concerning the political economy that can be deduced from a new lens into African media. The answer is that Africa collectives formed outside of class barriers display agency that explains media activity in the twenty-first century. Western ontology and epistemologies assume 4 that colonization robbed Africa of self-determination and agency. This ontological assumption is false. The focus group at the Durban International Film Festival provided the tightest fit to validate my claims that ideologically decolonizing the film industry is garnering public engagement and industry engagement. What are the solutions to the issues of the digital divide and geopolitics of difference that characterise limitations within the burgeoning film industry? This paper investigates to what extent do organic intellectuals, entrepreneurs or youth drive the need for capital and ownership in the industry given that the landscape is shifting. The study found that there is an impetus for decolonizing the industry and that alternative political economy frameworks are more appropriate in analyzing the new media landscape.

Three novellas exploring the short and long-term implications of Martian colonisation and an explication. The first part examines the necessity of a robust and mentally-fit crew along with the relationships between corporatism. The second, which happens a century later, explores the health effects of long-term living on Mars along with the Earth disconnect by Martian-born humans. In the third part, another century later, the long-term strains of sustaining such a project are examined on Earth and how Martians are used as scapegoats. The explication describes the scientific motivations behind some aspects of the novel, including how the conditions of Mars necessitates certain survival protocols.

Mobile communications have added an ever present layer to our personal communication through which social dynamics can be reconstructed. In youth culture specifically, instant messaging allows young people to achieve limited autonomy, explore peer groups and an evolving sense of self. This dissertation explores a model for understanding how instant messaging facilitates this. Theories of media ecologies provide useful ways of explaining media environments. Nonetheless ecologies are usually conceptualised in relation to mass media rather than networked media and tend to assume that ecologies are situated in a particular physical space. The theory is nonetheless useful in understanding the everyday experience of young people using media. By extending media ecology theory to account for the personal communicative ecologies of instant messaging, this study extends the notion of ecology to account for a sense of digital social space outside the constructs of physical space. Through taking an interactional epistemological stance, qualitative research was conducted. Two focus groups were conducted to explore how instant messaging channels meet the needs of a group of young people from middle class contexts in Cape Town. The resultant discussions are applied to the framework of a 'layered' communicative ecology, taking technology, social and discursive layers into account and establishing the centrality of social space within a new and expanded model of networked messaging ecologies. The central aim of this research is to explore how relevant the application of media ecologies would be to an exploration of digital spaces of communication and practice.

Includes bibliographical references (74-75). / This creative project offers three stories that explore the value and objectives of animal welfare using the genre of narrative literary journalism. The project required extensive fieldwork specific for each article, as well as the careful analysis of the style and history of narrative literary journalism. I have also written a short essay reflecting on the process of writing these articles which clarified for me the learning curve that I have experienced on this project.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / This research paper uses content analysis to analyse the subtext of Obama's campaign messages and virtual ethnography to analyse the way that information technology was used to further his campaign's goals. The findings suggest that while historic forces, such as economic turbulence and the unpopularity of outgoing President George W Bush, helped propel Obama to power, his campaign was nonetheless revolutionary. It will be argued that it contained several elements of trail blazing innovation that are likely to redefine political communications in the U.S and globally.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-93). / This thesis is an in-depth investigation into the weekly lifestyle/magazine programme Top Billing, aired on SABC3 (South African Broadcasting Corporation) – primarily in South Africa and in other surrounding African nations – to a total of over 6 million viewers. In its eighteenth year on South African television, Top Billing has entered the domestic lives of its viewers weekly, and has markedly become one of the country’s longest-running lifestyle and entertainment programmes. This study investigates the various meanings and pleasures that loyal viewers of Top Billing make of the programme, and how these "meanings" relate to their identities as middle class South Africans. Categorised as the "lifestyle" programme, it arguably has significant effects on the lifestyle and lives of its viewers. Studies on the "lifestyle" programme genre, especially in context to contemporary television studies, has not been widely written about. Further, as there is growing interest and a need for ethnographic and audience studies on the impact of television, particularly in Africa, this study thoroughly examines Top Billing in situ - in a media-saturated, post-modern, post-apartheid society in South Africa, while simultaneously locating the study in a larger, cross-disciplinary landscape. Since "meanings" are a cultural and social formation, the study examines the concept of "ideology" as a site of struggle; a place for the negotiation of race, gender, and other identities. The study brings to the fore the hegemonic ideology projected and "re-presented" by Top Billing, by taking an in-depth look at the makeup of the programme – both externally and internally, its relationship with its broadcaster and other social markers of society, and its audience. Through the use of content analysis, in-depth interviews and ethnography, this thesis examines issues of imbalanced representation of race and class, and the effects of commercialisation which take toll on the media landscape today. By further investigating the signifying role of the media and the ways in which Top Billing is constructed, the study determines ways in which identity is informed by Top Billing.

Includes bibliographical references. / In this paper I explore and explain the thinking and production process behind my Masters Degree creative production work for the University of Cape Town. I will be looking into the challenges I faced but also the logic according to which I worked. My project includes an e‐book called Thinking and Doing: content based audio and an audio documentary mini‐series There is a Human Being by the Side of the Road which consists of two parts called Woman and Man. This paper looks into the broad concept that all my submitted work relates to; the audio documentaries. Having explored many sides of documentaries in my e-book, in this paper, I am connecting some of those ideas together with my own production work and the existing academic literature relevant to my topics. I will also critically engage with both rather distinct aspects of my production; audio documentaries and the e‐book, and offer the logic behind my choice of licensing of all my work, before finally concluding this paper.

Includes bibliographical references. / Due to recent developments in digital video technology, the documentary film format is increasingly being used and adapted in unconventional ways, including in the illustration of research in academia and as an educational tool in corporate contexts. Generation Wine is a feature-length research documentary created by Gosia Podgorska and myself between 2012 and 2013 and submitted as a Master's in Media Creative Production at the University of Cape Town. The aim in creating the film was to use the documentary format as a research tool to investigate key contemporary marketing and media-related issues in the South African and French wine industries, and to ultimately communicate these research findings to academics, industry professionals and other interested parties in a highly engaging manner, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the documentary format in research contexts. This paper serves as an explication to accompany the Generation Wine video, which uses the documentary as a departure point for discussing theoretical issues regarding the use of documentary film as a research tool, as well as the production process and wine industry-related content explored in the documentary.

Includes bibliographical references. / The eponymous collection of 64 photographs accompanying this text constitutes the creative research component of my M.A. in Media Theory & Practice. I chose to photograph the men (and to a lesser but nonetheless significant degree women) that we see being transported in bakkies and trucks on our roads on a daily basis, compiling a photographic essay engineered to provoke contemplation of current societal discrepancies.