1,721,162 research outputs found
Tomaselli, Keyan G. — Encountering Modernity
Full text linkKeyan G. Tomaselli est professeur et directeur du département Culture Communication and Media Studies à l’University of KwaZulu-Natal, à Durban (Afrique du Sud). Son livre le plus connu, The Cinema of Apartheid (1988), traitait des liens entre le régime d’apartheid et l’industrie cinématographique sud-africaine, en s’appuyant principalement sur une analyse de l’économie politique à l’origine du développement de cette industrie. Après ces premiers travaux, Tomaselli avait orienté ses centres d..
A self-reflexive analysis of Communicare: Inter-paradigmatic repositioning
Full text linkThis partly autoethnographical account of my experiences as an author, editor and researcheroffers an experiential framework with which to make sense of publishing in the contemporaryera, governed as it is by neoliberal managerialist principles that tend to reduce activities tomeasureable units so as to render academic disciplines comparable. This is the context withinwhich Communicare is repositioning itself in communication and media studies, situated as it isbetween positivist communication science and interpretivist critical theory. Historical elements ofthe journal are examined via the author’s long-term association with it. The article ends with anexamination of the problems that scholarly work faces when universities measure finite productsat the expense of processes
Issues of identity in relation to the Kalahari Bushmen of Southern Africa : a comparative analysis of two different Bushmen groups during the late 1990s and into 2001.
Full text linkThesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.No abstract available
Freirean pedagogy as applied by DramAidE for HIV/AIDS education.
Full text linkThesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.This phenomenological study discusses the problem of whether the agents or actors who design strategies take full account of the concepts that their plans are designed to change. Therefore, I critically assess DramAidE's methodology in order to show how efficient it is in the light of Freirean pedagogy. In that, the study investigates whether there is an analytically bulletproof communication form that necessarily achieves behaviour change, as has occasionally been attributed to Freire. The theoretical framework of this study includes development communication theories along with the Entertainment-Education approach (EE) used in health
communication. More specifically, the study is informed by Freirean critical
pedagogy and behaviour change theories. On the other hand, the Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), the Fixation of Belief Model (Peirce, 1877) and the concepts of intimate and social realms (Arendt, 1958) are also used to explain the realities observed in DramAidE's programmes.
The methodologies used, in addition to the literature review, consisted of semistructured in-depth interviews along with focus group discussions with DramAidE's staff, schoolchildren, teachers and caregivers. Among the results established by this study, it is worth mentioning the growing
interest displayed by beneficiaries towards DramAidE's programmes. Life-skills claimed by learners included aspects such as self-confidence, assertiveness, decision making skills, informed sexuality, and improved communication. However, serious discrepancies were noticed between these life-skills, how well they were mastered and how effectively the learners put them into practice. Reasons for that proved to be rooted chiefly in peer pressures and cultural stumbling blocks, for example gender
inequality and violence against females. This means that peer educators needed a more supportive environment to extend DramAidE's action
'They have ears but they cannot hear' : listening and talking as HIV prevention : a new approach to HIV and AIDS campaigns at three of the universities in KwaZulu-Natal.
Full text linkThesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.Sexuality is made relevant in the way language is used as a matter of the identity of a group or individuals. Sex, for human beings, is not merely instinctive behaviour. It is meaningful-cultural behaviour and as such is semiotically loaded with meaning. Listening and talking about sex highlights conventions, taken-for-granted assumptions about the way things have to be done. Language as the most powerful representational system shapes our understanding of what we do and how we do them in relation to sex. Our understanding of sexual scripts about the sexuality of a particular group of people is through language as a signifying practice. The study of listening and talking is not merely an investigation of how sex is talked about, but how respondents enact sexuality and sexual identity vis-à-vis its linguistically loaded forms of representations in a variety of discourse genres. Representation and its inherent process of signification draws on lived experiences and the daily talk of people in interaction. A theoretical perspective is presented not as a model to be tested, but as testimony to the rich literature on the nature and function of language as a political arena, semiotically loaded with meanings that are taken for granted. It is concluded that the appropriation of cultural myths is encoded in language and as such language is a legitimate area of inquiry especially in understanding sexual scripts in the context HIV/AIDS. The study engages reported high risk sexual encounters such as multiple and concurrent partnerships, as well as unsafe sex practices which have been identified in literature as fanning the embers of the epidemic. Ideologies influencing developing communication campaigns in light of these discourses become a serious challenge as the conventional basis for such campaigns is in socio-cognitive theories, few of which can be assumed to apply with regard to the discursive representations of sexual practices and the inherent risks. Drawing on a cross-sectional survey of 1400 students on seven campuses, conceptually triangulated via focused-ethnography, listening analysis and discourse analysis, this research examines perceptions, interpretations, attitudes, and practices of sexuality and HIV/AIDS. The research is a multi-method and inter-disciplinary approach located within cultural studies to interrogate the gap between knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour modification in the light of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This research discusses these findings and offers a critical appraisal of sexual behaviour in the context of ABC (Abstain, Be faithful, Condomise) as ideologically encoded in cultural and relational myths. I found that students are sexually active with reported multiple and concurrent sexual partnerships. Postgraduate students were less likely to report having had used a condom at their last coital encounter compared with the often younger undergraduate students. Condom use continues to be a norm in the universities surveyed. This is truer for students who reported multiple sexual partnerships. Amongst the dominant scripts that came out in the ethnographic inquiry are: sex as uncontrollable biological drive; females are responsible for safe sex practices; strong social scripts elevate male sexual prowess and show disdain for female affirmative sexualities, risk is discounted using a form of post modern fatalism (resistance to regulation); and physical status, based on appearance of a possible partner, is used to select ‘sexually safe’ partners. I have concluded that a deeper understanding of the cultural and sexual scripts obtained from students is critical for appropriate design and implementation of interventions aimed at stemming the tide of the HIV epidemic. I have also demonstrated that interventions that only emphasise the rational dimensions of human behaviour are more likely to miss their target audience as sex is more than a choice of Cartesian rationality (linear choice)
Cultural pillages of the leisure class? : consuming expressions of identity.
Full text linkThesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2011.Society ‘obscures itself’ by presenting a world that is self-contained and logical (Barthes, 1973) – a
world underpinned by a transparency of its underlying systems of meaning. This formulation maps
the theoretical location of the dissertation, by which an investigation into tourism, as an economic
and political expression of contemporary culture, occurs. More specifically, the dissertation
addresses the type of tourism that bisects narratives of history and of cultures – that popularly
described under the label of cultural tourism. Thus it employs an array of critical tourism and
cultural theory, to offer an exposition on how best to understand the articulation of meaning in the
consumption of ‘place’, formations of heritage and Otherness.
The study also explores the epistemological nature/agendas of the so-called ‘Image of Africa’ and
the ‘Absolute Other’, and how these are recycled in the parameters of modernity. Using a
genealogical approach to studying discursive formations articulating some kind of Zulu Otherness,
the dissertation grounds these conventions of identity predominantly in the symbolic practice of a
colonial Western society. This exposes the arbitrary, constructed nature by which contemporary
society governs itself.
Methodologically, the research applies participant observation and semiotic analyses,
predominantly in the cultural/filmic village of Shakaland, near Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal, to explore
how the constructions of identity manifest and are negotiated and consumed in the activity of this
tourism
Assessing teenagers' knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards teenage pregnancy. The case of a Durban High School.
Full text linkTeenage childbearing is a global social and health concern. South Africa is not spared from the problems of teenage pregnancy be they related to health or to the social sphere. Researchers have been entreated to investigate teenagers’ sexual behaviour and the determinants to their behaviour especially in light of HIV/AIDS and other sexually related diseases. Various programmes and interventions have been developed and implemented in an effort to manage prevalence rates and address the challenges of teenage pregnancy. Inspite of these concerted efforts, pregnancy rates continue to increase.
These efforts have been hampered by the absence of the voice of teenagers in research as interventions implemented do not adequately capture the complexity of teenage pregnancy. Research has also divorced teenagers from the environment within which teenage pregnancy takes place and as a result come up with interventions that are not pro teenagers. The absence of teenagers’ input in these interventions results in little uptake of interventions as teenagers feel no ownership or entitlement to these intervention. This study therefore seeks to bridge the gap by addressing teenage pregnancy from the perspective of teenagers themselves and locates teenage pregnancy within the lived experiences of teenagers. Guided by the Social Ecology Model and The Health Belief Model, this study seeks to analyse teenagers’ knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards teenage pregnancy.
This study is qualitative in nature and is situated within the interpretive paradigm that enables the researcher to explore people’s lived experiences. Using the case study approach, the study employs focus group discussions to elicit information from participants on their knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards teenage pregnancy.
The study concludes that knowledge; attitudes and perceptions are influenced and affected by various factors such as peer pressure, lack of adequate information and gender dynamics. To address teenage pregnancy challenges, there is a need for addressing the structural factors that influence teenagers’ knowledge, attitudes and perceptions. Knowledge on safe sex and contraception abounds though this knowledge does not to translate to positive health affirming behaviour. This gap is attributed to the structural factors that influence and affect health behaviour. As such these factors, such as entrenched poverty and lack of proper sexual health communication need to be addressed if teenage pregnancy is to be managed
Investigating students' sexual risk behaviour, risk and protective factors and their responses to the Scrutinise Campus Campaign at universities in KwaZulu-Natal.
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.The high levels of HIV prevalence amongst young people in sub-Saharan African countries, have led to the clarion call for researchers to investigate the determinants to young people's sexual risk-taking behaviour while others are exploring the usage of entertainment education (EE) so that effective prevention and interventions may be developed. One critical aspect is that research efforts so far have been hampered by the adoption of models and perspectives that are narrow and do not adequately capture the complexity associated with young people's sexual experiences. The distinctiveness of this study is therefore grounded in the focus on the risky sexual practices students engage in and their underlying risk and protective multisystemic factors and their response to the EE interventions, in particular the Scrutinise Campus Campaign. Thus, using the Problem Behaviour Theory, Reception Theory and the Social Cognitive Learning Theory, this study investigates the phenomena of students' sexual risk behaviour and their response to the Scrutinise Campus campaign. The study is situated within the interpretative paradigm. It used a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology underpinned by in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation and field notes to draw data for this study. The study sample included students and the Scrutinise Campus Campaign officers. Findings of this study sustain the conclusion that students' sexual risk behaviour is influenced by interrelated, interactional and transactional factors from the multisysternic factors: biological, environmental/social, behavioural and personality domains that either instigate or buffer against students' sexual risk behaviour. However, Scrutinise Campus campaign's messages do not fully address students' sexual risk practices and their underlying factors as experienced by students. It is critical to employ a comprehensive and continuum of EE interventions that are broad in scope arid target factors from multiple systems of influence including the multisystemic factors. Most significantly, sources of protective influence should not be ignored when designing and implementing EE prevention programmes and, to the extent possible, both risk arid protective
factors should be addressed in the interventions. This may help to effectively address students' sexual-risk taking behaviour in universities
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