In this thesis, authors’ main goal is to test two hypotheses to compare if the tourists are more likely to make their destination choice based on user generated photographs on social media, as well as, tourists’ sustainable destination choice based on photographs with sustainable green content. The quantitative research method was used to conduct the survey with experimental design. It was aimed to compare the tourist’ trust in different photo types, the consumers’ trust was expected to be measured by three dimensions: first impression, intention, and persuasiveness, recommended by previous studies. However, the findings revealed that the tourists are not more likely to trust user generated content on social media to make their destination choice.

This thesis takes the form of a meta-criticism of the hermeneutics of the art-historical enterprise. I begin with an immanent critique of the discipline, paying careful attention to where art historians shift the interpretive focus in the spectrum of maker--object--viewer. After advocating for an increase in our consideration for the viewer in the present context, I then present a synoptic reception model for the interpretation of images in both their original forms and reproduced states. These two modes of viewing hinge upon spatial constructions: that of real spaces (e.g., museums, galleries, etc.) and virtual spaces (e.g., the Internet and other ephemeral media). Instead of relegating reproduced images to the art-historical basement, I argue for the productive interpretation of reproductions through a staged theoretical intervention between Jacques Derrida, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Walter Benjamin. In order to demonstrate the use of my reception model, I conclude with a case study of a particular image--Francisco de Goya's Untitled (Saturn Devouring One of his Children) of 1820-1823. From the painting's beginnings in a farmhouse in Spain through the vicissitudes of nearly 200 years of grafting--from mural to canvas, Madrid to Paris and back again, and as a reproduced image in its "afterlife"--I analyze the aura of the image as imputed by its viewers. I argue that each subsequent reproduction of the image does not necessarily cause a loss of aura, but that conversely and paradoxically, aura actually increases. I analyze the act of viewing itself not as a passive act of visual consumption, but as an interactive process of cumulative production. In this fashion, the reproduced image can play a significant role in the formation of identities and possesses the phenomenological potential to lead to increased self-awareness. / text

Barn är konsumenter, får reklam riktad till sig och syns i reklam. Men om det är rätt och på vilka sätt det bör ske ger upphov till diskussion, såväl i som utanför akademin. Den här studien granskar hur barn görs till en del av konsumtionssamhället genom det lag- och regelverk som omgärdar barn, konsumtion och reklam samt i tre typer av vardagsreklam där barn på olika sätt synliggörs; adresserad direktreklam som skickas hem till tre nyblivna föräldrar under barnets första år, reklam i ett års utgivning av 12 tidningar för barn samt annonser med bilder av barn publicerade i ett års utgivning av fyra tidningar med en vuxen målgrupp. I studien undersöks hur barn framställs och görs som social kategori och som konsumenter i materialen och vad det säger om barns roll och plats i konsumtionssamhället. Med hjälp av kritisk visuell diskursanalys och begreppet barnighet visar analysen med vilken komplexitet och ambivalens barn uppfattas, framställs och bemöts. Lag- och regelverket är komplicerat och ger en dubbeltydig bild av barns rätt till skydd respektive rätt till deltagande. Vardagsreklamens bilder av barn gör dem till objekt att konsumera visuellt samtidigt som normer om den ideala barndomen och den goda betraktaren produceras och reproduceras. Till nyblivna föräldrar framställs diskurser av barn som konsumtionsbehövande på sätt som osynliggör reklamens övertalande budskap. Reklam som riktas till barn själva utgörs av hybridformer där annonser bara är en del, vilket innebär att det som är reglerat som reklam inte är detsamma som det som gör reklam till barn. Utsatthet och skydd, kompetens och rättigheter samt lärande och ålder är tematiker som på olika sätt aktualiseras i samtliga empiriska material. Studien bidrar med förståelse och problematisering av vad barn är och tillåts vara i dagens visuella konsumtionskultur. / Children are consumers and they are marketed to and visible in advertising. But how children, consumption and advertising should be combined cause debate, both in the public sphere and in academia. The dissertation investigates how children are visualized and made as a social category and as consumers in the consumer society by studying the legal framework regarding children, consumption and advertising as well as three types of advertising that people encounter in their everyday lives; advertisements showing children published during one year in four magazines with an adult target group; and addressed direct marketing that was sent to three first-time parents; advertisements in one year's publication of 12 magazines for children. Using critical visual discourse analysis and the concept of childity, the analysis shows the complexity and the ambivalence that characterizes the ways in which children are seen, represented and addressed. The legal framework is complicated and is ambiguous regarding children's right to protection vis-à-vis their right to participate. Advertisements that visualize children produce and reproduce norms concerning the ideal childhood. In order to get parents to consume on behalf of their children, neutral and factual discourses about children's character and needs are articulated. Advertising that is aimed at children consists of hybrids between adverts and editorial material, indicating that it is not only marketing that is regulated by the legal framework that actually markets to children. Vulnerability and protection, competence and rights as well as learning and age are themes that are actualized in different ways in all of the empirical material. The study contributes a new understanding and problematization of what children are, and are allowed to be, in our contemporary visual consumption culture.

This study explores the visual consumption of food and its meanings through the study of narrative and nostalgia in a selection of five South African cookbooks. The aim of this study is to suggest, through the exploration of various cookbook narratives and the role that nostalgia plays in individual and collective identity formation and maintenance, that food, as symbolic goods, can act as a unifying ideology in the construction of a sense of national identity and nationhood. This is made relevant in a South African context through the analysis of a cross-section of five recent South African cookbooks. These are Shiny happy people (2009) by Neil Roake; Waar vye nog soet is (2009) by Emilia Le Roux and Francois Smuts; Evita’s kossie sikelela (2010) by Evita Bezuidenhout (Pieter-Dirk Uys); Tortoises & tumbleweeds (journey through an African kitchen) (2008) by Lannice Snyman; and South Africa eats (2009) by Phillippa Cheifitz. In order to gain an understanding of cookbooks’ significance in modern culture, it is necessary to understand that cookbooks – as postmodern texts – carry meaning and cultural significance. Through the exploration of cookbooks, as material objects of culture, one is also able to explore non-material items of culture such as the society’s knowledge, beliefs and values. Other key concepts to this study include the global growth of interest in food; the shift from the physical consumption of food to the visual consumption thereof; the roles that consumption, narrative and nostalgia play in constructing and maintaining personal and collective identities; and the role of food as a unifying ideology in the construction of a sense of nationhood. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Visual Arts / unrestricted