This dissertation attempts to outline general problems regarding the appropriateness of the concept of public service broadcasting in the late 1990s, a direct result of the liberalisation of the global broadcasting environment. The work is an assessment of the SABC's fulfilment of its public service mandate, the general hypothesis being that the SABC has failed to fulfill its public service mandate due to its inability to remain financially stable and politically independent from the government of the day. The research examined feelings and opinions regarding the concept of public service broadcasting within the SABC in order to discover whether current changes in the broadcasting environment have influenced the SABC's fulfilment of its public service mandate. The assumption is that if the concept of public service broadcasting is shifting, commitment to the principles underlying public broadcasting will shift and therefore public broadcasters are no longer working along traditional lines. The research concludes that the SABC is facing many of the same problems that public broadcasters the world over have faced during the 1990s: the lack of stable funding, the withdrawal of financial support from the government in the face of increasing competition from other broadcasters and the resulting move towards a more business-like, strategic approach are all traits identified amongst public broadcasters the world over. This does not mean to say that the SABC's situation is not unique in some senses, for example it has been far more sUbject to political trajectory than many other public broadcasters due to its past status as a state broadcaster and its operation in a strongly political environment. The SABC also faces large-scale criticism from the South African press, which has proved to be an obstacle for the SABC with regard to its ability to move beyond its past. The fact that challenges facing the SABC are not new suggests that the changing environment is not catering for public service broadcasting and therefore its principle of a distancing from vested interests needs to be rethought. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

The aim of the study is to investigate and explore the role of community newspapers against the background of profit-driven media environment. The study adopted a qualitative research method. Data was collected using in-depth interviews with editors of the four community newspapers under study namely Public Eye, The Mirror, Echo and Edendale Eyethu, as well as readers of these publications. The study used focus group discussions as an additional qualitative instrument for data gathering. The SPSS software programme was used to present the data from the readers. Findings of the study The study found that media conglomerates and other businesses on the media possess both the human and financial resources to place them in a powerful position to determine the media content. However, while we know that this happens, some interventions could be considered to make sure that a more viable and sustainable balance between commerce and community is found and maintained. The study also showed that due to “market-driven journalism” embraced by the community newspapers, the right of the readers or consumers is increasingly compromised, and also that the profit-driven aspects of these publications confirm that media or journalism ethics of the community press is also at stake in that appear to benefit private and public sectors. This means the ample space allocated to advertisers as evidenced in almost every page of these newspapers, contribute to denying the readers access to relevant news or information. The study found that local content and political news are of great relevance to the readers, Community newspapers are vital in creating awareness amongst community members of different events taking place in the community hence enabling them to take an active part in different aspects of developments taking place. Community members would like to see more in-depth coverage in local news content, more coverage in events taking place locally such as community initiative projects, and more coverage on schools sports tournaments. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

The dramatic transition from South Africa's previous apartheid political system to a democratic dispensation, has posed unique challenges for the media. Ethical practices per se are difficult, with joumalists being faced with the demanding position of having to act ethically on a tightrope between a totalitarian heritage and a newly emerging democratic nation. This thesis begins with the mapping out of a new theoretical model of ethical practice for South African journalists - a model that is open-ended, context-sensitive, and emphasises critical and creative thinking, as well as diversity and relativity in the process of moral decision-making. Considerable debate - both nationally and internationally - currently surrounds the ethical role of joumalists. In South Africa, these polarised positions have tended to emerge as the two main discourses evident in the local press: the watchdog discourse, broadly corresponding to the libertarian theory of the role of the media; and the nation-building discourse, which approximates to the egalitarian or social responsibility model. This thesis argues that the two discourses are not necessarily mutually exclusive; the theoretical framework does not exclusively support either normative theory as such, but rather facilitates the fostering of both sets of values represented by each respectively. The case studies examined in this thesis are all underpinned by this idea. Attention is given to an examination of the violence coverage in KwaZulu-Natal, demonstrating an ethical breakdown in reporting during the years of apartheid, which shadowed journalists into the transitional period after the unbanning of the ANC and the lifting of all Emergency Regulations in 1990. The concepts of privacy and hate speech are examined, illustrating a lack in the culture of the South African press, of any concise articulation of its journalistic mission or what is expected of journalists. Finally coverage of the country's HIV/Aids pandemic is examined, the ethics involved in reporting such coverage are explored, and the ethical implications of an advocacy role vis-a-vis HIV/Aids, and reporting in general, are discussed. The thesis ultimately attempts to map out an ethics that creatively seeks to guide journalists in both binding people together, and exposing what is wrong between them, in order that they may participate in the crafting of a new moral order. / Thesis (Ph.D)-University of Durban-Westville, 2004.

My research examines how Africa is represented within the meaning-making arena of travel journalism specifically focusing on the travel publications Travel Africa, Getaway and Africa Geographic. The principal focus for many postcolonial theorists is the (mis)representation of “less-developed”, “third-world” countries, often focusing on literature in the creation and maintenance of structures of discursive oppression. I have used the work of postcolonial theorists Said (1978), Spurr (1993) and Pratt (1992) to form the theoretical foundation of my analytical framework. A discourse analysis of the magazines for the years 2006 and 2007 reveal Africa to be a discursively constructed cultural package. Touristic understandings of what constitutes ‘real’ African experiences are underpinned and portrayed through eloquent and articulate descriptions or imagery which interpellates the prospective Western traveler. To borrow Spurr’s (1992) terminology Africa is portrayed as ‘absence’ metaphorically or through the rhetorical strategy of negation in an attempt to create a void which can only be filled through intervention by ‘the civilized’. However, in addition to this, the magazines offer active systematic proposals to foster change and appeal to audiences to trans-code representations, a notion that postcolonial theorist Elfriede Fürsich (2002) has discussed in studies focusing on television travel journalism. I am arguing that in some instances the travel journalists in these magazines challenge conventional, traditional journalistic practices in order to create more balanced representations of the African continent. It is these forms of writing that can harness social change and represent African people, places and politics in alternative depictions. These strategies may include various narrative or linguistic techniques such as an altering of the conventional, commercial travel discourse, or an increased and liberated feedback loop between the publication and its readers. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, [2010]

This thesis takes up the genre of the “Asian horror film remake” as a nexus for the illustration of the intersection between two significant theoretical perspectives that inform contemporary film theory: Lacanian psychoanalysis and Deleuzian transcendental empiricism. It employs concepts such as Lacan’s registers of the Real and Symbolic alongside Deleuze (and Guattari’s) theories on the actual present and the virtual past to interrogate terms such as ‘originality’, ‘authenticity’, ‘repetition’, and ‘difference’ in an attempt to account for the role of genre in the production of meaningful reality, both within the bounds of the text and in cultural life more generally. It first deconstructs the term genre as it has been employed throughout classical, structuralist and post-structuralist genre theory, in order to reveal its ephemeral nature, and to show it to be worthy of investigation in its own right as a central component of language, more than simply a critical tool. It goes on to elaborate the contingency of discourse that constructs verisimilitudinous reality, and explicates these ideas through analysis of the Asian horror remake films. It then turns to Lacan’s division between the registers of the Symbolic and the Real in order to explore the function of the repetition that is visible in generic film in relation to the subject’s experience of a coherent and authentic reality. Finally, it proceeds to engage with Deleuze’s ideas regarding virtuality and asignification and argues, with reference to the Asian horror remake, that it is the perpetual tension between sameness and difference that sustains meaningful life. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermartizburg, 2013.

In the absence of qualitative research in the field of American journalism education, a case study of a Duke University affiliated documentary tradition program is blended with a Scholarly Personal Narrative to answer the call for innovative journalism education models and to address the decades old debate related to teacher qualifications in journalism education. By blending the study of a particular type of journalism with a particular type of journalism educator, a new model for journalism education is offered for consideration by the journalism education community. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

South Africa, since 1994, has developed both politically and technologically resulting in an opening of communications both locally and globally. The 2009 national elections had been earmarked as a 'make or break' milestone for the political and social future of the young democracy. This election occurred amidst media analysts‘ concerns for the level of freedom of expression allowed to traditional forms of the South African media. New media, however, is not at present subject to the same regulations. Although a few cases of slander relating, for example, to Facebook have occurred, ephemeral cyber space appears to enjoy a greater degree of freedom of expression than the press and broadcast media. As a result the ability of these traditional forms of media to function effectively as a public sphere may be questioned, and some theorists claim that the Internet may offer an alternative medium for this function. This thesis looks at the potential of online communities to facilitate democratic expression by analysing a Facebook newsgroup text at the time of the election. In my exploration of the Facebook newsgroup Help us stop Jacob Zuma from becoming SA's next President I have analysed the text using two qualitative approaches. The critical discourse analysis traces competing South African discourses relating to the myths of the inherent violence of black men and the inherent racism of whites, the topics of crime and violence, Jacob Zuma and South Africanness. This approach‘s theoretical guidelines enforced a more objective view of the text, although interpretive methods in general grapple with subjectivity at a more observable level than do quantitative methods. The ethnographic hermeneutic component of the research is aimed at "making the obscure plain" (Blaikie, 1993: 28, cited in Neuman, 1997: 68) in the text, as well as documenting the inner workings of the online community and its relation to South African issues at the time of the national election. The findings are then measured against public sphere theory from Habermas' conception of the bourgeois public sphere to revisionist accounts (Fraser, 1997 and McKee, 2005) / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

This study explores the role that Seventeen magazine plays in the lives of its readers. More specifically, it investigates how the content and advertising in Seventeen influences the behaviour and identity development of Black, South African, teenage girls. This research focuses on three primary areas of study: • The role of the reader in message interpretation • The media’s role in identity development and behaviour • The socio-cultural influence of readers’ backgrounds on message interpretation and acceptance The research methodology of this study is primarily of a qualitative nature, using different methods of qualitative research to gather information. The data collected as part of the ethnographic research was linked to existing theoretical research regarding Reception Theories – including the ‘Hypodermic Needle’ model; ‘Uses and Gratifications’; and the ‘Active Audience’. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

This study examines the sacred dance in the Nazaretha Church and Isaiah Shembe's hymns as “agency” and not “response” (Coplan, 1994: 27). A number of studies on the Nazaretha Church and Isaiah Shembe posit that Shembe created his popular texts (especially the sacred dance) as a response to colonialism and the oppression of black people. In countering such a proposition I argue that in exploring the sacred dance we need to look at the motivation for members to participate in the dance. With that view in mind, I examine the sacred dance and the hymns as examples of a popular culture which is both „transnational‟ and „transglobal‟, to use Hofmeyr‟s terms (2004). This is because it is common in the Nazaretha Church that members taking part in the sacred dance claim to be doing so on behalf of their dead relatives, as it is believed that ancestors are able to participate in those dances through the bodies of their living relatives. In return, those in the ancestral realm will reward the living performers by offering them „blessings‟. In the Nazarite Church, and through performances like the sacred dance, the physical and spiritual worlds are perceived to be integrated. I therefore examine these hymns and performances as examples of popular culture “that is more than sub- or trans-national, [that] is trans-worldly and trans-global” (Hofmeyr, 2004: 9). In other words, I examine the sacred dance as performances and the hymns as texts whose audience is not only living people but also people in heaven. This means my study goes beyond the view that Nazarite performances are rituals of empowerment for the members, a majority of whom are economically, socially and politically marginalised (Muller, 1999), to look at them as significant on their own account. In undertaking the abovementioned task, I examine these hymns and performances in relation to “oral testimony of their significance to the people who [perform] and [listen] to them” (White, 1989: 37). Oral testimony of dreams and miracles suggests that Nazarite members who take part in the sacred dance do so primarily because of the imagined relationship between the individual and divine power. As Mbembe states, “it is the subject‟s relation to divine sovereignty that serves as the main provider of meanings for most people” (2002: 270). I argue that Nazarite members take part in the sacred dance mainly as an attempt to “manage the „real world‟ on the basis of the conviction that all symbolisation refers primarily to a system of the invisible, of a magical universe, the present belonging above all to a sequence that opens onto something different” (270). / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

This study discusses the potential for promoting cyber democracy through interactivity, on the Internet. Both interactivity and cyber democracy will lead to a broadening of the Zimbabwean public sphere by including online newspapers in the media circle. It views interactivity, cyber democracy and the public sphere as central to free expression. Zimbabwean online newspapers are not fully exploiting the Internet’s potentials to promote the threefold ideal for public deliberations identified in this study. The content analysis of 22 Zimbabwean online newspapers revealed that many newspapers are providing interactive tools that are of limited relevance to interactive communication. The different models for assessing interactivity, cyber democracy and the public sphere in the online newspapers that were employed in this study point to very low levels of interactivity, hence the rest of the components were affected. The three aspects of public deliberation identified in this study were found to be interdependent on each other. The qualitative research procedure confirms and provided reasons for low interactivity on Zimbabwe’s online newspapers from the editors’ perspectives. The online editors are cautious in their approach to a free-form type of public deliberations. Interactivity, potentials for cyber democracy and possibilities of a broadened public sphere were found to be very low on Zimbabwe’s online newspapers. However, the Internet itself is endowed with great possibilities for political deliberations that remain untapped. The onus is upon the newspapers to accord citizens opportunities for participation by making available tools for higher levels of interactive communication. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of KwaZulu-natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.