1,720,986 research outputs found
Intercultural competence among theatre arts students at the University of Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria
No full textThis book is an academic adventure that addresses issues of communication and interculturality in higher education
Decoding government publications : a reception study of the Metro Ezasegagasini
No full textSubmitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Master of Journalism, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2024.The government is responsible for transparently communicating with the public about its work. To fulfil this mandate, the eThekwini Municipality distributes the bi-weekly Metro Ezasegagasini publication as a communication tool, with almost similar content to community newspapers. Community newspapers have survived the decline in newspapers as their news coverage is of interest and focused on the communities they cover. This study explored how readers of the Metro Ezasegagasini decode the content and the influence this may have on how they perceive the municipality. The Theory of Reception was used as the analytic lens in the study because the theory focuses on the way an audience decodes text. A qualitative research approach was adopted because this study aimed to gain insight from the readers’ experiences with the metro publication. Data was collected from three focus groups in rural, township, and urban settings. A thematic research approach was used to analyse the data by identifying, analysing, and then reporting on themes. The study found that the Metro Ezasegagasini was fulfilling its role of educating and informing the public about developments in the city. It also emerged that the different backgrounds of participants impact how readers interact with the text and whether they view it as a credible source of information. Participants from the township and rural areas adopted a more favourable position to the publication, while participants from the urban community were more critical of the content. The study also found that participants enjoyed reading the publication because of its strong community focus. Another issue that emerged during the study was the accessibility and distribution of the publication, with many readers highlighting the lack of easy access to the publication.
Perceptions of dark-skinned beauty on social media using social identity theory : the case of #melaninmagic on Instagram
No full textThesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirement of the degree Master in Journalism, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2022.The saying, “If you’re white, you’re alright, if you’re brown, stick around, but if you’re
black, get back” has been around for generations and has racial connotations linked
to colourism, a social issue that ranks light skin as the epitome of beauty. While most
people of colour have fallen victim to colourism, Indians idolise light skin so much that
dark-skinned people are villainised and discriminated against, and skin-lightening
businesses thrive on Indian people’s desire to be of a lighter skin tone. Millennials and
Gen Z are fighting the stigma of colourism through hashtag activism. The hashtag
#MelaninMagic has influenced many dark- and medium-skinned individuals to
embrace and celebrate their skin tone despite the discrimination faced in previous
generations.
In this study, the hashtag #MelaninMagic is investigated, using social identity theory
and how #MelaninMagic shapes the perceptions of dark-skinned beauty on Instagram
and influences users to embrace the social category into which their skin colour falls
is explored. The reasons Instagrammers use filters and the likelihood they will
compare their selfies to others before posting was also explored. The research
approach is a qualitative paradigm within the interpretivist paradigm. Sixteen (16)
Indian South Africans between the ages of 23‒30 were purposively selected for oneon-one, semi-structured interviews.
The findings indicate that #MelaninMagic is used as a tool of empowerment for darkand medium-skinned Instagrammers to express pride about their skin tone, and social
media is being used as a tool for change such that the representation of dark-skinned
beauty is more evident on Instagram than in traditional media. The aim of Millennials
and Gen Z is to end the toxic cycles passed down from generation to generation
through having open minds. The phenomenon of skin lightening was also investigated
and filters emerged as a modern-day skin lightener. The reasons filters are used to
lighten skin in selfies was explored and narrowed down to the influence of family on
social categorisation and the caste system. It is also worthy to note that medium-skin
tone individuals identitifed as dark-skinned because of the way others made them feel
about their skin colour. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that a mixed-method approach and more participants across different cities in South Africa
can be considered in future studies.
Social context and the use of technology in teaching African languages : a case study of public universities in KwaZulu-Natal
No full textSubmitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Language Practice
at the Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2024.This study uses the concepts of Bourdieu’s sociological theory to investigate factors influencing technology use in teaching African languages. The study contends that language lecturers’ choices in teaching with technology were affected by the social phenomena of the field in which they operate. By adopting Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital, and field, the study offers a multi pronged approach to understanding the complex nature of the relationship between practices of individuals and social structures. A thematic textual analysis was used to investigate the attitudes of lecturers who taught African languages in selected public universities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The analysis reveals a mutually reinforcing relationship between individuals who operate in the teaching field and their behavioural attitudes towards using technology in teaching African languages. The study contributes to understanding how individuals and groups navigate different social and cultural contexts and how they could use their resources to the advantage of their fields. In addition, the study showed how agents actively try to shape their current teaching practices and adopt new approaches while subtly resisting external pressures that conflict with the practical realities of their field and their audience (students). The results of the interviews indicate that individuals' behaviours were influenced by the forces of the field where they operated, external factors and their habitus. This study recommends that policymakers collaborate with stakeholders like communities, governments, institutions, and lecturers to ensure technology development for teaching African languages yields desirable results. It also suggests African countries create an enabling environment for African languages to thrive, and future research adopts an integrated approach examining various factors influencing technology use in language teaching.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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