Browsing by Subject "social semiotics"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Open Access
    Desperately seeking depth: global and local narratives of the South African general elections on television news, 1994 - 2014
    (2018) Jones, Bernadine; Evans, Martha; Chuma, Wallace
    Eric Louw, Jesper StƶmbƤck, and W. Lance Bennett call the trend in late-20th century political journalism "mediatisation", where the televisualisation of Western elections favours episodic, dramatic, fragmented, and event-driven reporting. This "hype-ocracy" results in narrow and shallow frames that entertain rather than enlighten. This thesis, titled "Desperately Seeking Depth", examines this trend in both international and local news about South African elections. While scholarship of Western elections on TV news is blossoming, analyses of news coverage of South African elections is sparse. There is particularly little analysis of the visual dimensions of TV news coverage, which remains a methodological challenge for media and communication scholars. This thesis draws together a comprehensive analysis of South Africa's general elections on international and local television news over two decades. It develops an innovative, multimodal analysis method dedicated to television news and adds meaningful data to the overall study of South African media and politics, and international communication. It combines analysis of previous studies of each election with the original analysis of over 150 news broadcasts to uncover the news narratives about the South African general elections between 1994 and 2014. This thesis demonstrates the difference between global and local journalism about South African elections. Restricted by mediatised news values that favour episodic reporting, Western journalists present entangled, contradictory narratives over the years. The fixation on 1994's violent-turned-miracle election narrative ignored the complexities of the new democracy, while an increasingly detached approach in covering the 2009 and 2014 ANC victories left journalists perplexed and unable to explore deeper narratives. Meanwhile, South African channels become progressively more hesitant to investigate controversial topics or criticise the ruling party. Avoidance of important issues such as the 1994 election violence, the AIDS crisis in 2004, and Zuma's Nkandla fiasco in 2014 results in narrow reporting that limits the substantive information available during the election periods. All channels to some extent seek narratives that attempt to explain and explore South Africa's complex democracy, but these narratives are often contradictory. The decline in journalists' engagement with political leaders and citizens means that the full picture of the elections is reduced to a few easily digestible frames that confirm neoliberal news values. This thesis offers a new model for the analysis of TV news coverage of elections that can provide the basis for future studies. "Desperately Seeking Depth" ultimately uncovers a picture of news industry that, both locally and globally, works as an echo chamber of sound bites that focused on elite voices.
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    A multimodal social semiotic analysis of a museum rock art display
    (Common Ground Publishing, 2009) Rall, MedeƩ
    This paper will report on research on different design aspects of museum displays in a permanent and a mobile museum context. This research has been undertaken in order to understand how different aspects of museum displays contribute to meaning making. It looks at the interrelationship between different design elements and how these influence meaning making. Drawing on Kress and van Leeuwen's (1996; 2001) theory of multimodal discourse and on recent research on communication in museums (Ravelli: 2006; Meng in O'Halloran: 2006), this study considers why it is apposite to consider museums as multimodal, co-deploying different modes to make meaning. The paper investigates the design elements employed in museum displays, which include: linguistic design (labels and captions); visual design (objects on display, photographs and drawings); audio design (video recordings) and spatial design (lay-out of the display). The paper discusses a multimodal analysis of the rock art and rock engraving displays, drawing on inter alia the work of Kress and van Leeuwen (1996; 2001), which is done with the intention of formulating a metalanguage. It is envisaged that this metalanguage will enable museum practitioners and educators to talk about and better understand meaning making in museum displays and contribute to current debates on communication and meaning making in museums.
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    Red socks and purple rain: the political uses of colour in late apartheid South Africa
    (SAGE, 2011) Archer, Arlene; Stent, Stacey
    This article explores the extent to which colour functions as an independent mode in a particular context and explores the culturally produced regularities in the uses of colour in this context. Drawing on a Hallidayan metafunctional view of text, we look at how colour instantiated systems of knowledge and belief (ideational function) and social relations and identities (interpersonal function) in South Africa during the last decade of the apartheid government. In this type of repressive socio-political context, colour was a less policed mode, and thus had different affordances to images and the verbal modes. We argue that colour can function as an independent mode under certain conditions, such as stringent press restrictions, where the use of colour in a range of media (clothing, flags, posters) can play a crucial role in communicating.
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    Shamanism and science: curriculum as reciprocal and transformative
    (Taylor & Francis, 2010) Archer, Arlene
    This paper examines how students' resources can be drawn on in curriculum design in tertiary education to develop a pedagogy of diversity. It asks what kinds of resources are privileged through existing academic practices, and how certain traditionally unused resources can be included in teaching, learning and meaning-making. With reference to a case study in engineering in South Africa, an argument is made for a 'reciprocal curriculum', an exchange of cultural practices and not just bridges to established norms. In this conception of curriculum, students' practices and resources can be utilised, whilst the discourses and knowledge of the discipline can also be made accessible. The parameters of 'science' and scientific discourse are explored by analysing students' texts from a multimodal social semiotic perspective. The paper ends by proposing that students' resources be harnessed through using metalanguages to describe and reflect on their own practices as well as on academic practices, and the need to create less regulated spaces in the curriculum in order to enable this reflection.