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Faculty of Management Sciences

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    Magazines’ representation of women and its influence on identity construction : a South African perspective
    (MCSER Publishing, 2014-09) Govender, Nereshnee; Rawjee, Veena P.; Govender, Jeevarathnam Parthasarathy
    South Africa is now in its third decade of democracy and is characterised by a social and political dispensation based on the principles of freedom of expression, non-racialism and non-sexism. These values ought to be entrenched in all aspects of our society and likewise, in the media we consume. Media is a powerful tool and through its representation contributes significantly to the definition of the world around us, and thereby also to the definition of ourselves. One such area that the media influence is the way women are represented. The media takes on an interpretative role and teaches us how to ‘make sense’ of the world and therefore consistently privilege some issues and identities while devaluing others. The media landscape in South Africa is large, complex, robust and mature and arguably, ranks among the largest in Africa. Magazines in particular, are modern and are popular cultural forms of representation. They are one of the most influential forces in South African culture today. The aim of this paper is to explore the representation of women in magazines and the extent of how this representation influences gender identity in either empowering or limiting the development of women in society. It employs a qualitative research methodology to examine content of selected articles in South Africa’s two leading weekly magazines namely DRUM and YOU. Content analysis was used to analyse specific categories of text collected from these magazines. Overall findings reveal that stereotypical, dismissive and confining representations of women prevail in magazine media content. Creating and sustaining change must involve challenging this media content to not only increase the type of coverage of women but to extend the range of diversity to include coverage a range of stories about women including achievements and success stories of women.
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    Magazines’ representation of women and Its influence on identity construction: a South African perspective
    (MCSER, 2014) Govender, Nereshnee; Rawjee, Veena P.; Govender, Jeevarathnam Parthasarathy
    South Africa is now in its third decade of democracy and is characterised by a social and political dispensation based on the principles of freedom of expression, non-racialism and non-sexism. These values ought to be entrenched in all aspects of our society and likewise, in the media we consume. Media is a powerful tool and through its representation contributes significantly to the definition of the world around us, and thereby also to the definition of ourselves. One such area that the media influence is the way women are represented. The media takes on an interpretative role and teaches us how to ‘make sense’ of the world and therefore consistently privilege some issues and identities while devaluing others. The media landscape in South Africa is large, complex, robust and mature and arguably, ranks among the largest in Africa. Magazines in particular, are modern and are popular cultural forms of representation. They are one of the most influential forces in South African culture today. The aim of this paper is to explore the representation of women in magazines and the extent of how this representation influences gender identity in either empowering or limiting the development of women in society. It employs a qualitative research methodology to examine content of selected articles in South Africa’s two leading weekly magazines namely DRUM and YOU. Content analysis was used to analyse specific categories of text collected from these magazines. Overall findings reveal that stereotypical, dismissive and confining representations of women prevail in magazine media content. Creating and sustaining change must involve challenging this media content to not only increase the type of coverage of women but to extend the range of diversity to include coverage a range of stories about women including achievements and success stories of women.
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    A South African perspective of work-integrated learning and HIV/AIDS workplace orientation
    (Kamla-Raj Enterprises, 2015) Rawjee, Veena P.; Naidoo, Paulene
    Work integrated learning (WIL) aims to enable students to shift easily into their chosen profession upon graduation. WIL lends value to the learning process and has resulted in it becoming far more strategic within Universities of Technology (UoT’s) in South Africa. However, students entering the workplace are only afforded access to particular kinds of workplace experiences and possibly not those that are sufficient for the development of comprehensive workplace knowledge. The notion of employee orientation is of utmost importance to any student entering the workplace, more particularly employee orientation that provides information on policies and procedures regarding HIV/AIDS in the workplace. The overall objective of this study was to examine the perceived appropriateness and effectiveness of WIL students’ experiences regarding workplace orientation on HIV/AIDS. A quantitative approach was employed for this study. The study was conducted among final year public relations students completing their work-integrated learning. Findings reflected that majority of the students did not go through a formal orientation process and they were inadequately equipped to deal with HIV and AIDS in the workplace. Research implications for improving formalized workplace orientation on HIV and AIDS are reflected upon.