Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur genus representeras i tidningen Cosmopolitan genom att analysera tidningsomslagen i en kvalitativ studie. Vi diskuterar även bakomliggande stereotyper och myter som finns kring män och kvinnor i vårt samhälle, och hur de förmedlas på tidningens omslag. Metoden som används i denna studie är en semiotisk analys. Vi har valt ut femton omslag från respektive utgåva där de kvinnliga och manliga modellerna bär liknande klädkod som kostym, kavaj och skjorta. Anledningen till att vi valde en mer formell klädkod är för att kunna observera likheterna mellan de två könen – och även analysera varför skillnaderna är så omfattande trots samma typ av klädkod. I studien analyseras omslagen genom att ett teoretiskt perspektiv baserat på R.W. Connells och Judith Butlers genusteorier som hegemonisk maskulinitet och performativitet. Vi undersökte också representationen mellan de två könen i omslagen utifrån Stuart Halls representationsteori. Detta för att få en bättre bild av stereotyper som visas på omslag. Med tanke på att Cosmopolitan är en industri, är denna studiens teoretiska ram också baserad på David Hesmondhalghs teorier om kulturindustrierna. Det huvudsakliga resultatet i denna studie visar att män och kvinnor skildras olika i tidningar baserat på deras kön. Studien visar att media, särskilt reklam, spelar en stor roll i konstruktionen och reproduktionen av normativa stereotyper. / This study aims to examine how gender roles are represented in the magazine Cosmopolitan by analyzing the covers in a qualitative study. Additionally, we discuss underlying stereotypes and myths that exist around men and women in our society, and how they are expressed through the magazine covers.  The methodology used in this study is a semiotic analysis. We have selected fifteen covers from each magazine, where the female and male models are wearing similar dress codes such as suits, blazers, and shirts. The reason we chose a more formal dress code is to be able to observe the similarities between the two genders – and also to analyze why the differences are so significant despite the same type of clothing.  In the study the covers are analyzed by using a perspective based on R.W. Connell's and Judith Butler’s gender theories including hegemonic masculinity and performativity. We also examined the representation between the two genders in the covers based on Stuart Hall’s representation theory. This to get a better view on the stereotypes that displays on covers. Considering that Cosmopolitan is an industry, this study’s theoretical framework is also based on David Hesmondhalgh’s theories about the cultural industries.  The main findings in this study depicts that men and women are portrayed differently in magazines based on their gender. The study shows that media, particularly advertisements, manage a huge role in the construction and reproduction of normative stereotypes.

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Sex in advertising can be just as fun as it can be offensive, depending on how it is portrayed.Small details can make big differences, and although there are frameworks for ethical advertisement issued by ICC, the border between what is right and wrong in the means of sexual allusions, can appear very narrow. With consumers as the final judge of ethics, this study aims to answer the question of what consumers find to be appropriate sexual allusions, versus inappropriate ones. This, with the goal and purpose of clarifying the narrow border just mentioned. The study was executed through a structured focus group interview, where seven consumers were exposed to ten commercials and surrounding questions and topics for discussion. The result generated overall answers as well as more specific elements of both appropriate and inappropriate sexual allusions. To follow social norms was said to be of most value and if not done right the sexual allusion becomes inappropriate. As a more specific example, humor and especially wit, was said to have the power to ensure that the sexual allusion came off as appropriate.

In seminal work, Yarbus examined the characteristic scanpaths that result when viewing an image, observing that scanpaths varied significantly depending on the question posed to the observer. While early efforts examining this hypothesis were equivocal, it has since been established that aspects of an observer’s assigned task may be inferred from their gaze. In this thesis we examine two datasets that have not previously been considered involving prediction of task and observer sentiment respectively. The first of these involves predicting general tasks assigned to observers viewing images, and the other predicting subjective ratings recorded after viewing advertisements. The results present interesting observations on task groupings and affective dimensions of images, and the value of various measurements (gaze or image based) in making these predictions. Analysis also demonstrates the importance of how data is partitioned for predictive analysis, and the complementary nature of gaze specific and image derived features. / May 2016

This thesis is about the resources that speakers can draw on when producing actions, both verbal and non-vocal. It considers how identity categories, gaze and touch can contribute to action in everyday interactions. The study stemmed from an interest in how lesbian identity is made relevant by lesbian speakers in everyday co-present interaction. A corpus of approximately 23.5 hours of video-recordings was gathered: households self-designated as lesbian (including couples, families, and housemates) video recorded some of their everyday interactions (including mealtimes, watching television, and playing board games). Using the tools of Conversation Analysis and working with the video recordings and transcripts of the interactions, several ways of making a lesbian identity relevant through talk were identified. As the analysis progressed, it was found that many references to sexual identity were produced fleetingly; they were not part of or integral to the ongoing talk, and were not taken up as a topic by participants. Rather, this invoking of a participant s sexual identity appears to contribute to a particular action that is being produced. It was found that invokings of other identities, for example relating to occupation, nationality, and race, worked in a similar way, and this is explored in relation to explanations and accounts. Where the first half of the thesis focuses on verbal invokings of identity in relation to action, the second half of the thesis considers some of the non-vocal resources that participants incorporate into their actions. It was found that when launching a topic related to something in the immediate environment, speakers can use gaze to ensure recipiency. Also, when producing potentially face-threatening actions such as teases, reprimands or insults, speakers can use interpersonal touch to mitigate the threat. In addition to showing how identities can be made relevant in everyday interaction, the findings of this thesis highlight the complexity of action design, and that in co-present interaction the physical resources available to participants also need to be taken into account.

ABSTRACT Today our physical appearance is more important than before. The way we physically present ourselves is how many of us would like to be seen. By acting a certain way, dressing a certain way or spend time with a certain social group we identify ourselves. A certain style that an individual presents can say something about what that individual are interested in and how the person spends his or her time. Today many complement their physical appearance with a physical attribute like a beard. Beard is seen as something that is trendy and masculine. Many men identify themselves with their beard, even thou it is only a part of the male physical appearance. In Sweden there is a beard contest called “En Karl Med Skägg” this is an event with an audience that nominates Sweden’s best beard of ten final contestants. Men all over the country apply for the contest. A jury then selects ten men that will be the final contestants for the best beard of Sweden.   This thesis is going to analyze the social meeting that the participants create while participating in the contest and the importance of that meeting to them. While participating in the event, participants give the place of the event a meaning and the place of the event also got a meaning to the participants both socially and geographically. These men create a social place that is time-stretched with an importance to them. This thesis is also going to examine how this type of event symbolizes modern culture and how the male gaze is of higher importance than before historically. The thesis is going to analyze the connection between the male self-identification and participating in a social meeting between others, by appearance similar individuals.

This project chronicles an in-depth character study on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope in film. The term was coined in 2007 by a film critic about a very specific kind of female character—one who exists “solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” The MPDG has often been written off as nothing more than a stereotype or sexist characterization of a woman, but I argue that the MPDG can be much more than a flat character, as evidenced by the increasingly complex characterization of the MPDG in independent film. Based on case studies of several films, I discuss how the MPDG has grown from a supporting archetype into a well-rounded and multi-dimensional character. Based on a history of female depiction in film, a discussion of the critical interpretations of the MPDG, and these case studies, I argue that the MPDG has the potential to exist as a complex and realistic character rather than just an archetype.

Although language usually occurs in an interactive and world-situated context (Clark, 1996), most research on language use to date has studied comprehension and production in isolation. This thesis combines research on comprehension and production, and explores the links between them. Its main focus is on the coordination of visual attention between speakers and listeners, as well as the influence this has on the language they use and the ease with which they understand it. Experiment 1 compared participants’ eye movements during comprehension and production of similar sentences: in a syntactic priming task, they first heard a confederate describe an image using active or passive voice, and then described the same kind of picture themselves (cf. Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland, 2000). As expected, the primary influence on eye movements in both tasks was the unfolding sentence structure. In addition, eye movements during target production were affected by the structure of the prime sentence. Eye movements in comprehension were linked more loosely with speech, reflecting the ongoing integration of listeners’ interpretations with the visual context and other conceptual factors. Experiments 2-7 established a novel paradigm to explore how seeing where a speaker was looking during unscripted production would facilitate identification of the objects they were describing in a photographic scene. Visual coordination in these studies was created artificially through an on-screen cursor which reflected the speaker’s original eye movements (cf. Brennan, Chen, Dickinson, Neider, & Zelinsky, 2007). A series of spatial and temporal manipulations of the link between cursor and speech investigated the respective influences of linguistic and visual information at different points in the comprehension process. Implications and potential future applications are discussed, as well as the relevance of this kind of visual cueing to the processing of real gaze in face-to-face interaction.

This dissertation presents an investigation into the notion of the freak in the guise of exotic characters as these appear in the strange creature-figures in Jane Alexander’s (b. 1959) installation artwork African Adventure (1999-2002). The installation artwork reveals issues pertaining to the way in which the exotic nature of the freak is made manifest in its hybrid spatio-temporal nature, with reference also to the understanding that freaks are often presented as strange yet awesome consumer objects. Alexander’s view of art and her oeuvre are contextualised within the South African milieu which is characterised by change, and laced with utopian as well as dystopian sentiments. The interpretation of African Adventure is theoretically entrenched in certain key concepts: the freak, the exotic, and hybridity, as these are made manifest in the reading of the characters, time and place presented in the installation artwork as allegorical reflection of contemporary South African society. The exploration of the work’s spatio-temporal dimensions are guided by establishing a link between, on the one hand, the desire for experiencing the thrill of the unusual (both in terms of a perspective of a colonial safari as well as the contemporary tourist gaze) and, on the other hand, a number of problematic issues in contemporary South African society. I demonstrate that the South African landscape, people and most likely also history are regarded as exotic – with the freakish associations this implies – also because post-apartheid South Africa has the status of a rarity that can be experienced as an adventure landscape. I further demonstrate how the freak’s exotic figuration ironically reverses the experience of empowered looking, with reference here to the notion of spectacle. In a space where contradiction is exposed for contemplation, this ironic reversal in its hybrid embodiment is understood as a space of reconstitution. In this manner, the presumed notion of a stable South African collective is challenged; South African society comprising of so many hybrid identities is rather understood to be the sum of contestible information where the possibility of fragmented experiences of chaos and reconciliation can coexist. As such, cultural reconstitution and renewal are not based on the exoticism of multiculturalism, but on the articulation of a culture’s hybridity. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

In her article “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” (1975) Laura Mulvey explains how film portrays the female characters as passive sexualised objects, on display for the male (erotic) gaze. Although, Mulvey did make amendments to the original article after it was criticised, her original article is still influential and referenced in academic writing on film. This dissertation investigates how the three selected mainstream American films, namely, Alice in Wonderland, Monster and Transamerica, have female protagonists who deviate from Mulvey’s initial standpoint and enact a new dynamic, whereby the female characters possess active bodies. In order to explain this new dynamic, the dissertation provides an overview of relevant theory in order to establish the necessary analytical tools to investigate the representation of the female body. These tools are taken from feminist notions of the body, most importantly Mulvey’s notions, in order to establish what constitutes an active female body that subverts the male gaze. This subversion is most notable when examining the iconography of the active female body. The dissertation also draws from the overview the importance of place and space, the embodiment of the characters’ inner workings in specific locations, and their relationship with the locations in which they are depicted. Since all three films include a physical journey on which the respective protagonists embark the examination of borders and border crossings is included. The dissertation shows that journeys bring with them the opportunity for the body to be active, as each female protagonist is on a journey to self-discovery. The changing settings in which the protagonists find themselves are an embodiment of their inner workings. Topographical borders mark the entering of new locations. However, concomitant symbolic and epistemological borders are also crossed. The female protagonists need to make choices concerning their lives and as a consequence alter the representations to reflect bodies that subvert the male gaze. These female bodies are active. However, they are active in different ways. Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, delves into her psyche to emerge a changed and independent Victorian woman. Bree, from Transamerica, heals the relationships with her family and is able to have her gender reconstructive surgery to become a physical woman. These two female protagonists have positive representations of the active female body. The protagonist from Monster, Aileen, is represented in a constant state of abjection and her active body is portrayed in a negative light. Whether represented in a positive or egative light, these chosen films all portray an active female body that does subvert the male gaze, and hence represent a new dynamic different from the one Mulvey described. / MA (Language Practice), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014