Browsing by Author "Ngwane, Simphiwe Blessing Mthokozelwa"

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    Igeza lensizwa as fashioned by ILanga le Theku
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03-15) Ngwane, Simphiwe Blessing Mthokozelwa; Mupotsa, Danai S.
    The objective of this study is to explore, analyse and interpret igeza lensizwa fashion inspired photographs on the back page of the first isiZulu-language lifestyle supplement called ILanga le Theku. These were photographs of street-casted young black men from around eThekwini that were being foregrounded as public scripts of youthful Zulu masculinities. Through a discursive approach to Critical Masculinities Studies, I interrogate how young Zulu men made situated decisions in the fashioning of their masculinities. The study engages other interlocutors that were involved in the fashioning of igeza lensizwa. These were the female-led editorial team, the mostly male photographers that street-casted and photographed young men, the young men that agreed and those that did not agree to be street-casted, and the female readers, as represented by the female persona. All these interlocutors had a hand in shaping the form of igeza lensizwa. The archive of the fashion inspired photographs of amageza ezinsizwa and their accompanying captions were approached as key sites where masculine representations were being articulated and contested. The study demonstrates how ILanga le Theku devised various literary techniques to cater for its two implied readers/audiences of igeza lensizwa. Through analysing these literary techniques, the study crafted two concepts to offer more context-based readings of Zulu masculinities as represented in ILanga le Theku. The study foregrounds a concept of igeza lensizwa as being comprised of ukuzithemba [self confidence] and ukuzizwa [self-regard]. The other concept is, thirst-trap which is achieved if the image of igeza lensizwa complies with ukuheha [to entice] and ukuchaza [to have an affect], in relation to the implied female audience. The study demonstrates how these two concepts offer insights on Zulu masculinities by engaging how young people eThekwini were changing dual gender systems norms and matters of desire. Moreover, the study shows how the section was also a site that challenged the myopic limits of homosocial desire with its limitation of masculine desire only incorporating interpersonal attractions. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that through shifts in spectatorship, facilitated by an auto-ethnographic queer lens as method, I inferred looking relations that, inter alia, explored how young men were asked to introspect, and confront masculine beauty.
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    Kwashuba, kwabhalwa, kwaphola?: A study of mediated perceptions of the Alexandra xenophobic riots
    (2015-02-04) Ngwane, Simphiwe Blessing Mthokozelwa
    My thesis aims to analyse the print media and broadcast media, and how they communicate, mediated and crafted meaning around the May 2008 xenophobic riots. This study adopts a ‘whole-age’ analysis of news coverage, so as to examine the topological layout and the relationship between continuous texts, photographs, captions and most importantly latent and manifest messages in the media. It aims to broaden and deepen the social, political and historical thrust of analyses of various narratives in more intrinsic ways. The thesis is informed by the school of thought (Hanks, 1989; Briggs, 1996) that narratives have dialogic characters, extracting discourse from one setting and inserting it in a new setting so as to facilitate and foster understanding by drawing on common frames of reference and from readers’ memories. Through a critical discourse and semiotic analysis, this study analyses mediations of violence and starts with perceptions, through the reportage of a multilingual sample of news: iSolezwe (isiZulu daily newspaper), iLanga (isiZulu biweekly newspaper), Alex News (fortnightly community newspaper), the Daily Sun (daily tabloid), and the Mail and Guardian (weekly newspaper). I examine how in a span of three weeks (11 May - 3 June 2008), these five newspapers covered the xenophobic riots – I pay particular attention to what emphases they foregrounded and how they narrated the violence. I further analyse three television news reports, two SABC news reports produced by Special Assignment and one eTV news report produced by 3rd Degree. I examine how they commentated on the riots and what silences existed in their commentary. Lastly, I examine the Bona Fides civic movement as a mediating lens for the enactment of citizenship and negotiation of democracy. The interviews conducted in Alexandra uncovered respondents’ understanding of citizenship and local discourse pertaining to insiders and outsiders. The interviews act as a mediation vehicle and give glimpses of local perceptions which exist in 2013 and, from my reading, also existed back in 2008. This selection of the media showed how pan-African identity, and interestingly, a Zulu Diaspora narrative were used to mediate the violence and foster a culture of integration. The various modes of the media illustrated South Africa’s vibrant political economy in 2008. Moreover, this sample illustrates how a strategic usage of autochthony was employed and deployed by frustrated South Africans, and also how the negotiation of democracy was central to this media selection and selected respondents.