Student Number : 0311003J - MA research report - School of Literature and Language Studies - Faculty of Humanities / This dissertation examines the representations of youth identity in print advertisements found in Y Magazine and SL Magazine. The researcher uses Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse the identities that are constructed in four fashion brands. The print advertisements are also interpreted by young people from Grade 11 classes in two Johannesburg high schools. Learners completed survey questionnaires and participated in focus group discussions. My interpretation of the advertisements reveals three over sexualized identities in the Soviet, Guess and Diesel advertisements. Soviet depicts an image of a male penetrative sexual fantasy; Guess depicts feminine self-centred sexual pleasure and Diesel communicates a message of funky, sexy, heterosexual male-female desire. It is proposed that advertisers base their strategies on assumptions that sex sells to the youth. The Levi’s advertisement differs from the rest by constructing a Hip Hop brand identity that appeals to a majority of the respondents. The learners’ responses are varied; some identify with the brands and accept the subject positions that are offered by the advertisements and others critique the sexuality that pervades the majority of the advertisements. Learners’ interpretations also reflect different reading positions, as well as unclear gendered target audiences. I conclude that media representations provide a range of powerful resources, which young people draw on in constructing their identities. I argue that print advertisements can be used productively in the language classroom as part of the body of literature that is studied in the English syllabus, especially because of their contemporary value and role in shaping post-modern subjects.

This thesis explores the pedagogical potential of images shared during intra-professional conversations held on the social media platform, Twitter. Twitter chats are loosely synchronous exchanges of tweets sharing a unique, identifying keyword or hashtag. They are increasingly being used among professionals to create professional networks in which practice-knowledge and opinion might be shared and where communal connections may be created. As such, they may serve as sites in which professional learning unfolds, both in relation to workplace practices and in relation to the development of new forms of professional practice around social media use. Because the exchanges and broadcasts on Twitter are, for the most part, public, and the conversations are ongoing, they also provide open, freely-accessible, and constantly renewing resources for use in pre-service learning contexts. The research focused on two example chats, one held among midwives and the other among teachers. Inspired by the increasing use of images in new forms of digital communication, the research used images tweeted during the chats as starting points from which to explore flows of knowledge and affect. Data were generated from observations of the two Twitter chats over extended periods, together with interviews with practising professionals, student professionals and their educators in which images were used as elicitation devices. The research combined an approach to reading and “being with” data inspired by ideas drawn from the work of Deleuze (1994; Williams 2013) and Deleuze and Guattari (1988; Massumi 1992), with approaches to reading images drawn from visual social semiotics (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996). The findings suggest that Twitter chats such as those studied here can provide rich opportunities for professional learning. Practice knowledge can flow from one participant to many others, and flows of affect can be used to remoralize individuals and communities. Both chats seemed to serve as sites in which professionals could experience a positivity and affirmation that was not always available in the workplace. However, the forces and intensities at play in these spaces influence both what is said and what is not said, creating new norms of online interaction that generally seemed to avoid negative comments or open disagreement. Educators saw potential to use images such as those shared in the chats in a variety of ways. For example, images could be used as prompts for examination and critique of practices. The educators I interviewed also suggested that the images could be used to help student professionals develop their sensitivity to the forces and intensities that produce particular practices. Group interviews with student professionals suggested that the former happened spontaneously when students encountered and discussed such images, but that the latter might need deliberate facilitation or prompting. The thesis concludes with some recommendations for: (i) educators considering using such images in pre-service professional learning; (ii) professional developers considering using Twitter chats; and (iii) policy-makers involved in drafting guidelines for professionals’ use of social media.

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