Thesis (M. A. (Media Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The study investigates the popular South African feature film entitled Safarina (1992) and its depiction of young South Africans’ resistance against the apartheid system during the 1970s through the 1980s. It analyses how Sarafina portrays the socio-cultural and political environment that characterised the apartheid modus operandi; explores the film’s ideological frames of societal dissent during apartheid and examines Sarafina’s cinema verité and application of symbolism in portraying the historical context and narrative of the South African struggle for freedom. The study refers to extensive literature about film as an artistic medium, dynamics in film genre, its role in representing societal dissent, application of filmic elements in technical production and relevance of symbolism in film criticism. The theoretical framework entails two theories, namely Framing and Ideological Film Criticism. The study adopted the qualitative descriptive case study design cognisant of its ability to provide a complex visual and audio-textual description of the events represented during the period under study. It used purposive sampling to select the film Sarafina to elucidate the contours and experiences of the apartheid system in pre-democratic South Africa. Methodological techniques used in the study involved audio-visual content analysis during the data collection process and thematic analysis from which discursive themes were generated and findings were derived. The findings of the study demonstrate the representational etiquette of Sarafina to bring out significant political and cultural memories of the struggle for freedom with potential to create conducive spaces for positive social, cultural and political benefits for the contemporary South African society. The study concludes by recommending the usage of Sarafina and other forms of film genre, not only as artefacts for preserving historical experiences, but also to promote active citizenship, good democratic governance, and effective service delivery in post-apartheid South Africa.

Student Number : 9908223M - PhD thesis - School of Social Sciences - Faculty of Humanities / This thesis examines the status and role of parliamentary committees in democratic theory with a view to critically assessing the performance of one such committee, the South African version of the PAC, SCOPA. It advances a pluralist theory of popular sovereignty according to which there is no single institutional complex or site, which exclusively expresses the will of the people. The latter is the case in monist theories, which reduce democracy to its practice in a single site. Rousseau and Weber are critically examined in this connection. In the pluralist notion advanced in this thesis the popular will is expressed and realized in a plurality of institutional sites and modalities of exercise. On this perspective parliamentary committees perform a function vital to the constitution of popular sovereignty itself. They are indispensable to the formation by the people of an accurate perception by it of what the Executive is doing in its name. Their investigative work is thus constitutive of the formation of a democratic subject and will. Parliamentary committees are thus central to the satisfaction of the conditions of the deliberative dimension of democracy. On this definition, parliamentary committees must in addition themselves conform to the principles of deliberation in their own practice. This specifically deliberative conception of democracy is then further delineated by distinguishing it from the aggregation – majoritarian perspective and defending it against a variety of criticisms, including that of Chantal Mouffe. With this conceptual and normative framework in place, the British and American committee systems are examined in order to establish some reference points in terms of the institutional practice of parliamentary committees. The focus then shifts to the parliamentary committees of the South African Parliament. The constitutional and legal foundation for parliamentary committees (in the South African system) is examined with particular reference to SCOPA itself and the first five years of the new parliamentary committee system identified as a period during which several South African parliamentary committees, including SCOPA, effectively exercised their “oversight” function. Once the Government’s SDP entered the scene all things changed. This thesis examines the formation of the JIT, paying particular attention to the exclusion of the HSIU and the interventions of the Speaker, Hon Frene Ginwala. It identifies in close detail all the flaws in the SDP procurement process as well as the contradictions and lacunae in the final JIT Report itself. These are of such a magnitude as to render unreasonable any claim to the contrary and in endorsing the Report SCOPA thus clearly failed in its essential function. The notion of a threshold concept of reasonable adequacy is introduced as limiting the conditions under which committee decisions can legitimately be taken via majority voting. The argument is advanced that these were clearly not met in the case of the SCOPA decision under discussion. The implications of this “collapse” of SCOPA for South African democracy more broadly are then identified and discussed in terms of deliberative democratic theory.