4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Evaluating the factors that influence news preferences on digital platforms
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Khumalo, Zama Xolile; Mosala, Thabo
    The ‘always connected’ nature of digital media means that reaching and connecting with consumers is more difficult than ever. Evaluating the factors that South African consumers use for news preferences is important, as these will provide new media organisations with insights on how consumers navigate, manage, and process the infinite news content that is aggressively vying for their attention on digital platforms. The Uses and gratifications (U&G) theory is a powerful media-use framework to decipher consumer motivation for media preference. Recent adaptations of U&G theory describe three critical dimensions namely, content, social and process. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine whether the measures of the three constructs are consistent in the South African news mediated context. The study found content and process factors as the most significant when making news preferences. Whilst social gratifications factors as least influential to consumers.
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    The impact on brand product sales of transitions from traditional to digital marketing solutions
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Sekati, Moseki
    A lot of FMCG companies have been investing money in marketing activities with the aim of improving their business sales turnover, and this has been seen in both traditional marketing and digital marketing. However, literature show that there has been lack of knowledge on which strategy, digital or traditional, to invest in and what their benefits are. This study serves to address the identified research gap with regards to FMCG companies in South Africa. The main objective of this study is to investigate the positive effect of investment, implementation and understanding of digital marketing on financial performance. This study engages a quantitative research approach and collection of data through a research questionnaire that was constructed to answer the research questions. A causal design with a purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from a sample size 100 participants. The data was analysed using SPSS. The research findings had 4 out of 5 the hypotheses that were found to be significant, and another 6 th additional hypothesis that was computed. These hypotheses proved that investment in digital marketing; implementation and utilization of digital marketing have a positive impact on financial performance; and utilization of traditional marketing has a positive impact on financial performance. The 6 th computed hypothesis test showed that financial performance has an impact on preference for digital marketing. Companies in the FMCG and students in marketing can benefit from the finding of this study. This study makes recommendations for future research for understanding or knowledge of digital marketing, and what other important operations are a benefit of digital marketing
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    The role of Mzansi Magic’s ‘Makoti, Are You the One’ in facilitating gender discourses
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Vabaza, Ncumisa; Muparamoto, Nelson; Vanyoro, Kudzaiishe
    The South African Bill of rights prohibits all forms of discrimination based on gender and sex. The government through the National Development Plan encourages stakeholder involvement in the promotion of gender equality. Yet, the experiences of women in various spheres reveal that normative patriarchal socialization persists. This research evaluates the role of local media in facilitating gender discourses that permeate modern-day South African society. This research employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) and critical diversity literacy (CDL) to interpret the dominant gender discourses on the locally produced reality television show Makoti Are You the One? CDA and CDL are used to interpret the representation techniques used to empower and disempower men and women respectively. The research adopts a qualitative research approach, specifically non-participatory observation to comprehend the dynamics in the relationships between the show’s male-female participants as well as the inter-group relationships between female participants on the show. Using discourse, framing and gender theories the study provides an understanding of the techniques used by the media in representing gender, and how these contribute to the co-construction of social meanings assigned to gender. The findings show a persistent imbalance in the representation of gender through local programming, by hegemonically positioning men in superior standing to women who are represented as subjects in their homes and the broader society. These imbalances are contrary to the ideals of gender equality.
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    The Intersection of Systemic Racism and Technology and the Consequences for Video Games
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-08) Flusk, Timothy; Reid, Kieran
    The paper documents and reviews the process by which consequences of systemic racism is found in video games through the medium of technology. The principal idea of technology is used broadly to accommodate all media produced by society as tools for wielding and enforcing capitalist ideology. This is used as a means of revealing and mapping the cultural epistemic domain that dominates the West and its former colonies. The principal methodology is drawn from D. Fox Harrel’s Phantasmal Media: An Approach to Imagination, Computation and Expression. The process focuses on using the idea of the phantasmal generation within media, by individuals within systems. As such the process of these phantasm expressing or revealing themselves in various media is tracked and studied from both sides of the process: where they come from and how they are expressed. The principal approach situates the discussion of developing video games within the West, specifically the United States of America. The case studies used to illustrate and apply the methodology include Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and NBA2K17. These are placed in context along side their appropriate phantasmal sibling and representation. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is interrogated through the lens of capitalism and the representation of Black criminals in media. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is placed in context of fantasy genre and colonialism. NBA2k17 is placed in context of traditional racist perspectives of Black, athleticism and sport. All case studies utilise the principal twin approach of separating phantasms into hegemonic teleological expectation and ontological racist assertions. This allows the encapsulation of ludic systems as well narrative and character representation within the games.
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    Constructing the Afrocyborg in VR 360 Cinema: A Critical Investigation into how Two African Women Filmmakers Collaborate to Construct Prosocial African Science Fiction in Virtual Reality Filmmaking
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-10) Passchier, Shmerah; Koba, Yolo; Sakota, Tanja
    The Afrocyborg semiotic construct is a neologism inspired by cyborg scholarship, beginning with Donna Haraway’s 1985, A Cyborg Manifesto, which materialised at the zenith of the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR), and the appearance of the domestic personal computer (PC) in the late twentieth century. This contribution to cyborg discourse re-focuses the Western science/fiction gaze of “cyborgology” by foregrounding African cyborg realities at the centre of the new zeitgeist of 4IR-driven XR technologies, specifically the VR HMD as an immersive computing device, which is a cyborg prosthetic extension of human ocular abilities (Gray 1995: 1). Moratiwa Molema and I formed the Afrocyborg VR Collective as an Afro-technofeminist coalition, and solidarity support group for collective womanist filmmaking. This methodology foregrounds the technological empowerment of women in relation to VR as a medium while focusing on prosocial subject matter in the domains of eco-justice and racial-gender-justice (Ogunyemi 2006: 21). For this reason, the Afrocyborg VR Collective make Prosocial VR films in the genre of African Science Fiction, which is a counter-hegemonic narrative lens through which to generate “cyborg consciousness” about “oppositional consciousness” (Sandoval 2020: 408; hooks 1992: 264). Cyborg oppositional consciousness is expressed as “Fourth VR” (Wallis & Ross 2020: 1). An Afro-technofeminist, technopolitical framework advances filmmaking discourse and praxis by autodidactic online learning of how to operate VR equipment, thereby overcoming our tech-inferiority complex with a thought experiment we call the “Dora Milaje mind trick” (Coogler 2018). As we learn, we also teach VR skills to our students and communities of youth to share knowledge of 4IR tools, specifically with women, to empower them with 4IR STEAM skills as a technopolitical, educational and future-proofing empowerment strategy. The Afrocyborg Collective has made two VR films in the genre of Prosocial VR as part of the creative praxis of Quantum Botho/Ubuntu in the making of The Cosmic Egg, which is a call to elevated environmental consciousness, and The Eye of Rre Mutwa, which confronts “white fragility” about the technological developments of the 4IR (DiAngelo 2018). By experimenting with new gaze regimes offered by the exponential medium of VR, with its multiple lenses that create 360-degree spherical story worlds, we demonstrate how the “medium is the muthi” when used in the mode of Prosocial VR. Therefore, the construction of an expanded prosocial gaze in VR, in the genre of African futurism, contributes to the decolonial undoing of oppressive power structures by generating representations of Africa that seek to apprehend the stereotypes of Hegelian racial prejudice and “poverty porn” that persist in global media representations (Kahiu 2017).