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Theses and dissertations (Arts and Design)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://ir-dev.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/8

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Start date: 2020Subject: search.filters.subject.Social media

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    Analysing Instagram pages of South African fashion models with Vitiligo using multimodal communication for a practice-based study
    (2023-03-01) Sarupdeo, Emilia; Mchunu, Khaya Jean; Rapeane-Mathonsi, Maleshoane
    An increase in fashion models with vitiligo are observed from the sharing of representations of themselves and the skin condition on multimodal forms of communication on social media platforms, notably Instagram. The study is located in fashion and focuses on vitiligo that has been widely discussed in the medical field. Vitiligo is a skin condition where the deterioration of melanocyte cells lead to white patches that present in various areas of the body (Vallerand et.al 2019: 1371). The significance of this study is to understand the representations led by fashion models with vitiligo and to join them by using my profession as a fashion designer with vitiligo to shift the beauty narrative through inclusivity and raising awareness about the skin condition. The study is framed by a multimodal discourse analysis and specifically a four-step analytical process of modal transfer (Kress 2000 and 2010). This frame is used to focus on how fashion models with vitiligo use multimodal communication in the form of photographs, captions, and hashtags to communicate themselves, as people with vitiligo through their public Instagram pages. This form of communication is argued to be their practice of challenging and expanding accepted notions of beauty. An analysis is followed by a practical component framed by Sullivan’s (2010) and Skains (2018: 86) creative practice as research. The study results show how the models have represented themselves and their skin condition. Some posts touch on themes that seek to shift the narrative and expand notions of beauty. They share perspectives on inclusivity and diversity, self-love, self-affirmation, body-positivity, perceptions of the gaze, and what should not be regarded as fashion trends. Optimism expressed by such themes resulted as psychological healing and promotes good mental health towards the incurable skin condition. I designed a body of fashion artefacts for this practice-based study as my contribution to using fashion as communication to shed light on vitiligo and body positivity. A new Instagram page has been created to display the practical collection through my own use of multimodal communication. This process has resulted in 6 fashion artefacts that use hashtags as titles to speak about vitiligo. The fashion artefact collection celebrates inclusivity and diversity, depicts the types of formation which vitiligo presents in, and concludes by perceiving all as beauties, expressed in both in practice and theory.
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    Perceptions of dark-skinned beauty on social media using social identity theory : the case of #melaninmagic on Instagram
    (2022-09) Naidoo, Alicia; Usadolo, Sam Erevbenagie; Soobben, Deseni
    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.
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    An advanced ensemble approach for detecting fake news
    (2021-12-12) Hansrajh, Arvin
    The explosive growth in fake news has evolved into a major threat to society, public trust, democracy and justice. The easy dissemination and sharing of information online provide the unabated momentum. As such, it has become crucial to combat the menace of fake news and to mitigate its consequences. Detecting fake news is an intricate problem since it can appear in a multitude of forms, thus making it both automatically and manually very challenging to successfully recognise. Furthermore, fake news is intentionally created to mislead and is often interspersed with real news. Studies have shown that human beings are somewhat unsuccessful in identifying deception. The majority of people accept that information they are presented with in virtually any form is reliable or veracious. The relevant literature reveals that a considerable number of people who read fake news stories report that they find them more believable than the news that is disseminated via mainstream media. Furthermore, there are predictions that by 2022, the greater population within mature economies are likely to consume more false than true information. The importance of combatting fake news has been starkly demonstrated during the current Covid19 crisis. Social media networks are significantly increasing their efforts to develop fake news detection mechanisms, as well as to enlighten subscribers on how to recognise fake news, however most people are naturally predisposed to spreading sensationalist news without any fact-checking process in place. It is therefore evident that the creation of automated solutions is vital and urgent for the detection of untruthful news and as such, the goal of this study is to aid in the detection of fake news. Prior studies have included many machine learning models with varying degrees of success but many non-conventional machine learning models have not yet been exploited despite evidence to suggest that they are the best in several text classification scenarios. Consequently, an ensemble learning approach is suggested to assist in resolving the gap that has been identified. Contemporary studies are validating the efficiency of ensemble learning methods and have provided encouraging outcomes. This study investigates how machine learning and natural language processing methods are pooled together in a blended ensemble in order to build a model that will utilise data from past news articles, to forecast whether a current news article is likely to be false or true. A variety of performance metrics such as roc, roc auc, recall, precision, f1-score and accuracy are used in comparing the proposed model to other machine learning models. The measurements are applied in evaluating and gauging the efficiency of the proposed model. The results obtained show that the proposed model’s performance is better than several other learning models, which is very encouraging.
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    Exploring audience inclusion in Facebook and Twitter reporting among young university students in South Africa: The case of #FeesMustFall
    (2021-04) Olagunju, Anu Christianah; Frankish, Tarryn
    Studies have shown how social media, including Facebook and Twitter are reshaping communication, news and Journalism. With the growing popularity of Social media for news sharing, there is a need to explore the audience-inclusion of these social media tools in news reporting. The audience approach expands our theorisation of social media especially for campaigns. In particular, it is important to explore the role social media plays in student protest, campaign or uprising in other to determine to what extent social media allows participation and audience inclusion in political (#FeesMustFall) and other contemporary discussions among students. This study considered the hashtag (#) FeeMustFall campaign that sprang up in the year 2015 (there are still elements of the campaign as of 2020) as a case for this study. The South African university students used this hashtag on different social media platforms to campaign against corporate education and largely payment of fees in institutions of higher learning across South Africa. This study also looks at the media-audience relationship and explore how audience inclusion in Facebook and Twitter are increasingly changing the ‘News’ habits of young South Africans students. The approach used for this study was a qualitative exploratory study with an interpretive approach. Thirteen (13) students were interviewed one-on-one and audio-recorded using a semi-structured interview guide. These students were selected through purposive and convenience sampling and the interviews were transcribed verbatim. This study identifies the relevance and relationship social media posed for students in including them in public participation. Findings indicate that students find recourse in social media as an avenue for inclusion and participation on social issues surrounding youth especially during the peak of #FeesMustFall. There is also a change in news reporting as a result of the audience inclusion provided by social networks. The outcome of this study can be relevant to communication researchers studying news and social media especially among young people and most importantly students.