A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies, April 2016 / Since 2007, Marie Claire South Africa (SA) — which is a glossy women’s magazine covering fashion and beauty trends, sex, relationships, body image, and celebrity news — has been running a special issue of the print magazine called the “Naked issue”. Each year celebrities pose naked in the special issue to raise awareness for a cause, and in doing so funds in aid of a particular organisation linked to the cause are raised. Marie Claire SA calls this awareness-raising initiative the “Naked Campaign”. For the 2015 Naked Campaign, the magazine had 35 celebrities pose in the nude to raise awareness about sexual violence, in aid of Blow the Whistle (BTW), an anti-rape initiative which supports women and children who are victims of abuse and rape.
This research is a case study of Marie Claire SA’s March 2015 Naked Campaign edition, and focuses on the Twitter reactions to this edition. It asks: to what extent did the Twitter reactions to Marie Claire SA’s 2015 Naked Campaign show engagement on the issue of sexual violence and can the use of nudity to attract attention to a social issue result in the kind of engagement that can be said to drive the cause forward? Using content analysis, it examines the tweets generated by the hashtag #MCNaked in the first week of the naked issue going on sale. It categorises the tweets according to gender, comments on nudity, celebrities and sexual violence, as well as the tone of the tweets and the understanding therein of the campaign and cause.
The research found that the majority (close to 70%) of the Twitter reactions were supportive of the campaign and the cause. Although over half of the comments focused on the celebrities, over 50% of tweets commented or focused on the issue of sexual violence, a positive outcome for the campaign. Despite the magazine catering mostly for female readers, there was an almost equal number of tweets by males and females, which meant men were also drawn to the discussion started by a media product followed mostly by women, another positive finding for the campaign. However, only a few of the tweets displayed more substantial engagement with the issue of sexual violence, through either sharing statistics or further information, or including anti-sexual violence statements in their tweets. The research suggests that, taken as a whole, the campaign can be considered as an example of social marketing, while also fulfilling the news values in terms of elements of surprise, personalities, power and marketability. / GR2017
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/22003 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Sibanda, Moagisi Refilwe |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (69 pages), application/pdf |
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