Browsing by Author "Bosch, Tanja E"

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    Mediating identity, 'mobile-ising' culture : the social impact of MXIt in the relational lives of teens
    (2011) Van der Linde, Keith; Bosch, Tanja E
    The primary aim of the study was to examine the mediating role that MXit plays in the identity formation of 16-18 year old adolescents. Little is known about the social impact of MXit on adolescents’ identities when this usage is so deeply embedded in the relational exchanges of teens’ everyday experiences. Nine focus groups, four group interviews and two one on one interviews were employed across six schools located in four socioeconomically divergent Cape Town suburbs demarcated using middle to upper-income (Milnerton and Newlands) and lower-income (Khayelitsha and Cloetesville) operational definitions.
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    The performative nature of talk on commercial music radio in South Africa : the cases of 5FM, Metro FM and 94.5KFM
    (2010) Kondile, Unathi; Bosch, Tanja E
    Commercial Music Radio is one of the largest radio formats in the country, attracting millions of listeners per week, yet little academic attention has been afforded to its components such as music, talk and accompanying sounds that garner listeners. This thesis pays particular emphasis on initiating South African literature on the nature of talk on commercial music radio. There resides a general perception that music on music radio stations is the primary reason why listeners listen to radio, yet within music radio there are recognisable on-air personalities who speak, announce or link songs. In as much as these presenter voices are deemed 'salutary' reminders (Starkey & Crissell, 2009) of the live nature of radio, there is further evidence, within my thesis, that interrogates the significance of talk on commercial music radio through qualitative methods that seek to understand, describe and explain the social phenomena of on-air talk on music radio. Three South African radio stations ' MetroFM, 5FM and 94.5KFM' are used to foreground my research on the production, stylisation and performance of commercial music radio's talk.
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    Public relations via Twitter : an analysis of South African commercial organisations
    (2015) Moyo, Lungile; Bosch, Tanja E
    Background: As more people are using mobile phones to receive and read news, Twitter has become a popular communication tool, particularly for commercial brands in South Africa. This thesis investigates twelve South African organisations’ use of Twitter. It portrays Twitter as an informational network that allows conversational communication. It seeks to identify how commercial brands in South Africa use Twitter as a public relations/communication tool. Aim and Objective: In attempt to learn whether current South African tweets among certain organisations follow Western practices of public relations, the study aims to understand and identify how commercial brands in South Africa communicate with their publics through Twitter. Revealing the content of these organisations’ tweets facilitated the fulfilment of this objective.
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    Radio convergence: young people's radio listening habits in Cape Town - a comparative study
    (2016) Ngomani, Noluyolo; Bosch, Tanja E
    The purpose of this study is to explore young people's radio listening habits in a time of radio convergence in South Africa. This study explores how the radio listening practices of youth studying and living in a township, for example Khayelitsha, differ from the practices of those who attend school in an urban area, for example Rondebosch, and acknowledging the University of Cape Town as a 'grey area' where diverse youth come together, by comparing Humanities and Science students. Drawing on Bourdieu's theories of capital, the study argues that various issues related to Internet access in South Africa, including communicative ecology, the historical background, and 'cultural capital' (Bourdieu, 1986; 1990), make the radio listening experience different for different groups, and strongly influence young people's radio listening habits. This argument is contextualized in relation to radio convergence which is seen through the use of social networking sites by radio stations, young people and people at large, and focusing especially on the growth of online-only radio with evidence of it being accessible to those that have access to the Internet. Furthermore, this study used both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the uses and gratifications as well as the social and individualistic act of radio listening, and the phenomenon of online-only radio. This study analyses the online radio stations Assembly Radio, CliffCentral and Ballz Visual Radio as case studies to show the dynamics of this medium, specifically highlighting programming, revenue, access to stations, and the reasoning behind their conception. In conclusion, the study argues that radio convergence should not be viewed as an erosion of the nature of traditional radio, but rather argues for convergence as an extension of the medium.
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    The representation of female journalists and the female voice in the South African newspapers: a case study of the Cape Times
    (2016) Graff, Lara A B; Bosch, Tanja E
    Over the past 15 years, there has been limited research regarding gender and journalism in a South African context. Existing research implies that there is almost complete gender balance across all media. Yet, despite the gender parity in the workforce, women are underrepresented in senior and key decision-making positions, indicating that a glass ceiling still exists for female journalists in South Africa. Furthermore, newsrooms are still dominated by patriarchal practices, norms and values. This study investigated the representation of female journalists in South African daily newspapers via one case study: the Cape Times. It shed light on what type of stories female journalists report on in comparison to their male colleagues and identified patterns in female reporting. The study also investigated how transformative policies may have affected newsrooms. Further, attention was paid to the female voice in the print media in terms of the use of female sources and women as the subject of news stories. The data for this study was generated through a content analysis and interview research. The content analysis was conducted on articles of the Cape Times newspaper and was based on three research questions regarding representation, female voice in the media and topic assignment/ contribution. As part of the interview research, in-depth informant interviews were conducted with female journalists and editors; the aim was to collect industry insight and opinions regarding the representation of female journalists and female voices in South African newspapers. The study revealed that the assignment of stories has been characterised by constant fluctuations over the past 20 years. It became apparent that effort is put into gender balance not only when it comes to the representation of journalists, but also the assignment of beats. However, the study indicated a significant difference between the representation of female journalists and the female voice in the print media. It also highlighted issues of gender inequality in reporting. The study revealed that while South Africa's newsrooms might be progressing towards gender balance, patriarchal structures and views are still embedded in the print media. These findings are congruent with the existing academic literature. This research further revealed that structures and issues of the newsroom or the media reflect issues and structures of South African society. Past research in a South African context has been very limited, making this study one of a few of its kind and its findings are indicative for other print media, filling a gap in the literature.
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    Respectability and shame: the depiction of coloured, female murderers in the Daily Voice and Son tabloids - 2008 to 2012
    (2014) Samson, Sean; Haupt, Adam; Bosch, Tanja E
    This work analyses the depiction of coloured women on trial for murder in South Africa’s Western Cape tabloids, the Daily Voice and Son. It argues that these depictions preserve conservative race, class, and gender norms. The coverage of the murder trials of Najwa Petersen, Ellen Pakkies, Zulfa Jacobs, and Chantel Booysen constructs a notion of illegitimate femininity that is rooted in apartheid and colonial discourse on coloured femininity. The ideologies present in this coverage indicate how themes of sexuality; motherhood; victimhood and trauma; class and community; and religion expel the threat female offenders pose to traditional performances of identity. This work is motivated by the shortage of local research on the depiction of female offenders. While international research have developed useful typologies for how female offenders are represented, and have shown how these depictions are sites for the communication of gender expectations, an acknowledgement of the diversity of women’s experiences necessitates a focus on how local discourses of race, class, and gender further influence these representations. Moreover, this work is motivated by the opportunity to offer an indication of how tabloid content works ideologically. By focusing on the depiction of women on trial for murder, this work offers a snapshot of the discourses on race, gender, and class that circulate in the publics created by these titles. The construction of deviant femininity, and its intersection with 'colouredness’ and a working-class identity, is the means through which the status quo is communicated. This work relies on a Foucauldian frame to privilege the power of discourse to construct identity, and the work of Judith Butler to consider how identity is produced and performed under constraint. In line with this focus on language, and due to a specific consideration of the Cape Flats vernacular, this work employs critical discourse analysis to analyse a purposive sample of the coverage of Petersen, Pakkies, Jacobs, and Booysen’s murder trials. Interviews conducted with journalists who have authored these tabloid accounts, and focus groups with tabloid readers who hail from the Cape Flats supplement this analysis. The results of this triangulation indicate the complex interaction between discourses in subduing the threat female offenders pose to normative identities. It also indicates the potential for tabloid newspapers to cement hegemonic and essentialised notions of racialised gender identities, despite South Africa’s post-apartheid context. Tabloids’ recognition of marginalised subjects does not automatically signify democratic transformation, partly because such subjects are represented by corporate monopolies who rely on cultural translators to communicate fixed ways of being. If media are to transform, they need to break from the apartheid era's subjugating and pathologising discourses. This work demonstrates that an interrogation of race, class, and gender politics is crucial for analysing South African tabloids’ contribution to public discourse.
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    Television, race and national identity : a study of South Africa's lifestyle programme Top billing
    (2010) Jeon, Jin; Bosch, Tanja E
    This thesis is an in-depth investigation into the weekly lifestyle/magazine programme Top Billing, aired on SABC3 (South African Broadcasting Corporation) – primarily in South Africa and in other surrounding African nations – to a total of over 6 million viewers. In its eighteenth year on South African television, Top Billing has entered the domestic lives of its viewers weekly, and has markedly become one of the country’s longest-running lifestyle and entertainment programmes. This study investigates the various meanings and pleasures that loyal viewers of Top Billing make of the programme, and how these "meanings" relate to their identities as middle class South Africans. Categorised as the "lifestyle" programme, it arguably has significant effects on the lifestyle and lives of its viewers. Studies on the "lifestyle" programme genre, especially in context to contemporary television studies, has not been widely written about. Further, as there is growing interest and a need for ethnographic and audience studies on the impact of television, particularly in Africa, this study thoroughly examines Top Billing in situ - in a media-saturated, post-modern, post-apartheid society in South Africa, while simultaneously locating the study in a larger, cross-disciplinary landscape. Since "meanings" are a cultural and social formation, the study examines the concept of "ideology" as a site of struggle; a place for the negotiation of race, gender, and other identities. The study brings to the fore the hegemonic ideology projected and "re-presented" by Top Billing, by taking an in-depth look at the makeup of the programme – both externally and internally, its relationship with its broadcaster and other social markers of society, and its audience. Through the use of content analysis, in-depth interviews and ethnography, this thesis examines issues of imbalanced representation of race and class, and the effects of commercialisation which take toll on the media landscape today. By further investigating the signifying role of the media and the ways in which Top Billing is constructed, the study determines ways in which identity is informed by Top Billing.
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    Using online social networking for teaching and learning: Facebook use at the University of Cape
    (2009) Bosch, Tanja E
    Web-based learning has made learning content much more freely and instantaneously available to students who can download course notes and readings with a single mouse click. Facebook is one of many Web 2.0 tools – wikis, delicious, YouTube, podcasts – that are listed as having potential applications for teaching and learning. Moreover, it has been argued that the current generation of youth, often described as Net Geners or Digital Natives, may be resistant to traditional methods of teaching and learning. This article explores student use of Facebook at the University of Cape Town, as well as lecturer engagement with students via the new social media. Drawing on a virtual ethnography and qualitative interviews, this article shows that while there are potential positive benefits to using Facebook in teaching and learning, particularly for the development of educational micro-communities, certain challenges, including ICT literacy and uneven access, remain pertinent.