Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Communication, Media and Society)

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A community media narrowcasting in Uganda : an assessment of community audio towers.
(2016) Semujju, Robert Brian.; Dyll, Lauren Eva.
This thesis is about Community Audio Towers (CATs). CATs are small media platforms that use horn speakers hoisted on a long dry pole, an amplifier and a microphone to communicate daily village events. This study shows that individuals depend more on CATs than other available mainstream channels. The thesis interrogates the level of individual (i.e. villager) dependency on CATs in Ugandan rural and semi-urban communities alongside the other three available platforms in Uganda: radio, television and newspapers. There is a gap in existing literature to explain dependencies in small (alternative) media like CATs. Therefore, the study uses the Media System Dependency (MSD) theory (Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur, 1976), a relevant media theory that explains dependencies on a communication platform similar to this case study. However, since CATs are a community media, they are also theorised in this study within the framework of development communication, which helps the study to argue that CATs are small media platforms that provide local information. However, due to the need to investigate dependencies in CATs, the study‘s main research questions are raised using the MSD theory. The study employs both quantitative and qualitative methods. To investigate the level of individual dependency on CATs, a survey was done among 100 respondents from two districts in Uganda (50 respondents from each district). Data was collected in the rural Masaka district and in the semi-urban Mukono district. Additionally, to understand how CATs are sustained, how they attract the community members, and their position in the national communication infrastructure, ten key informant interviews were conducted with various CATs stakeholders like: the State Minister for ICT, technical experts at Uganda Communications Commission, District information and Development officers, local council chairmen and CATs announcers. The study found that the level of individual dependency on CATs is higher than the individual dependency on any other mass communication platform accessed by the sample communities. CATs appear to attract the audience through localising the processes of information gathering, processing and dissemination. These processes are affordable and done by the locals themselves, something that increases attention whenever the community requires a channel to communicate an issue. The challenges include noise, lack of a licence or regulation, and weather variations that disturb sound waves. The thesis concludes by introducing Small Media System Dependency (SMSD) relations to explain dependency relations in small/alternative media platforms.
Discontinuity without change? the place and discourse of colonial memory in Zimbabwe’s post- Mugabe Zanu-PF politics.
(2024) Kupeta, Noah.; Lubombo, Musara.; Dyll, Lauren Eva.
Zimbabwean politics are notably complex and difficult to understand, even by scholars with a strong interest in African affairs with a long institutional memory of the historical determinants of the independence and post-independence struggles within Zimbabwe. Through the lens of political culture and functional theory campaign communication, this qualitative inquiry titled “Discontinuity without change? The place and discourse of colonial memory in Zimbabwe’s post-Mugabe ZANU-PF politics” scrutinizes the colonial narratives in the political discourses in Zimbabwe’s ruling party ZANU (PF) following the Robert Mugabe era intending to understand how colonial memory shapes the party’s the ideological foundations and policy directions. The study draws on eight speeches delivered by former president Robert Mugabe during the 2002 elections, as well as speeches by his successor and current president Emmerson Munangagwa during the 2018 election campaign. It also incorporates insights from key informants within ZANU (PF), Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), Zimpapers, and Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) to explore the role of media in influencing the nuanced interplay between historical legacies, political discourse, and contemporary governance. By examining the ebbs and tides of electoral politics in Zimbabwe spanning nearly decades through the prism of post-colonial memory, the study concludes that while Mnangagwa’s ascendance as President hinted at a departure from his predecessor’s politics, there is a notable continuity in the streams of colonial memory that informed ZANU-PF electoral strategies. This underscores how political discourses and power dynamics during elections are deeply entrenched within the broader context of Zimbabwean politics and pan-African pursuit of of self-determination (Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo), identity and independence. Despite certain shifts in Mnangagwa’s ‘New Dispensation’ that deviate from Mugabeism, the persistence of colonial memory underscores its pivotal role in shaping the principles and practices of representative democracy within Zimbabwe. The media’s influence in (re)shaping post-Mugabe discourse sheds light on the implications of memory appropriation in contemporary Zimbabwean political communication.
An interpretive study of the representations of South African Zulu masculinities in the soap operas, Uzalo, Imbewu and Isibaya.
(2021) Nzimande, Melba Belinda Melissa.; Dyll, Lauren Eva.
Since their origins in the 1930s, soap operas have been known as a feminine genre. Contributing to soap opera scholarship, this study explores the interpretations of masculinities that are presented in three South African soap operas by Zulu male audiences living in KwaZulu-Natal - Uzalo, Imbewu and Isibaya. A constructivist approach guides the study in understanding that masculinities are fluid and influenced by social and cultural factors. It articulates the complexity and ambiguity of contemporary South African masculinities, thus working against stereotypical representations of black South African men. An indigenised cultural studies approach includes how the study’s focus group participants read the soap opera preferred messages of Zulu masculinities and reasons for their dominant, negotiated or oppositional readings of these. This is enabled through a comparison of data collected through in-depth interviews with producers from each of the soap operas, with responses from 30 focus group participants in rural and urban areas of Durban and Pietermaritzburg. Data is analysed through the development of deductive and inductive thematisation where the relationship between the theme and international and local theoretical positions are explained. Typically, soap opera scholarship argues that the genre subverts discourses of hegemonic masculinity. This study found that contemporary South African soap opera representations of masculinities both uphold and subvert dominant discourses of Zulu masculinities. The significance of this is twofold. Firstly, soap opera producers are creating narratives that no longer conform only to traditional soap opera codes and conventions. They encode messages through narratives that draw in male viewers and use the power of cultural proximity in representations, meaning that there is a move to the indigenisation of settings, storylines and languages to attract audiences. Secondly, male audiences decode the messages through parasocial relationships and cultural proximity. The study adds to understanding the specificities of viewing within the African context, and the importance of creatives to be aware of the ways in which these habits shape the meanings of the programmes they produce. In sum, the study contributes to African masculinity studies, but particularly masculinity studies in soap operas in terms of representation and audience engagement in a “post” era, from the perspective of the global South.
'Lodge-ical' thinking and development communication : !Xaus Lodge as a public-private community partnership in tourism.
(2011) Dyll, Lauren Eva.; Tomaselli, Keyan Gray.
This thesis explores the interface between community development via tourism and the field of development communication vis-à-vis a case study of the community-owned and privatelyoperated !Xaus Lodge in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The research is informed by Critical Indigenous Qualitative Research that employs interpretive research practices that aim to be ethical, transformative, participatory and committed to dialogue. The study valorises the voices of all lodge stakeholders analysing their expectations and how they negotiate the processes involved in the establishment and operations of the lodge. As a longitudinal study from 2006 until 2011 it focuses on the processes involved in transforming a failed poverty alleviation-built tourism asset into a commercial product with a range of benefits for the community partners. The processes involved are studied and shaped via participatory action research. This thesis generates a generalised public-private-community lodge partnership development communication model based on the findings of the !Xaus Lodge case study. The analysis of !Xaus Lodge is guided by development communication principles and practice such as the Communication for Participatory Development (CFPD) model, as well as the notion of pro-poor tourism (PPT). The applicability of these policies, approaches and models is problematised highlighting the complexity of development on the ground, particularly with indigenous and local communities. This study sets out the importance of cultural relativity in development projects whereby possible differences in the stakeholders‟ history, epistemology and ontology should be taken into consideration if a project is to negotiate both the demands of commercial viability as well as the symbolic and spiritual needs of the community partners.
The role of communication in addressing sociocultural factors that influence pregnant women to drink alcohol in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
(2021) Akpan, Udoh James.; Dyll, Lauren Eva.; Govender, Eliza Melissa.
The World Health Organisation report (WHO, 2016) states that one in 10 women consumes alcohol during pregnancy globally, and 20% of these women binge drink. Drinking while pregnant harms the foetus with the possible consequence being Fetal Alcoholic Spectrum Disorder (FASD). South Africa has the highest reported FASD prevalence rates in the world. The South African Department of Health (DoH) recognises this as a severe public health issue affecting pregnant women. Studies show that the factors that motivate maternal drinking are more socio-cultural than medical and psychological. There have been global efforts to address this public health issue with pregnant women but the phenomenon still persists. This study addresses the issue by exploring the localised responses of pregnant women who drink while pregnant in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, through a qualitative investigation of the sociocultural factors that encourage alcohol consumption amongst this population. The study employed Participatory Health Communication as the theoretical framework and mobilised the Social Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC) as the process to identify and analyse the socio-cultural issues in Durban. This theoretical framework and process was supported by the Culture-Centred Approach (Dutta, 2008) to engage with the influence of culture and structure to understand the socio-cultural factors that contribute to their health choices and possible avenues for agency to address this. Communication plays a central role in this agency. The study adopted the Applied Thematic Analysis (Guest, McQueen and Namey, 2012) to interpret the data gathered from interviews with the participants at King Edward VIII Hospital. The study found that social and environmental factors are family, friends and access to shebeens and taverns in the neighbourhood which support a drinking culture that encourages social tolerance of alcohol consumption and the reluctance to stop drinking. The study identified the need for ongoing communication through preferred communication channels that are readily available for women to request support. The study found the importance to extend beyond knowledge acquisition, but to mobilise communication as a culturally nuanced tool to facilitate psycho-social support during times of alcohol consumption when pregnant.
Transcending GIPA : towards an Ubuntu framework for mainstreaming participation of South African people living with HIV (PLHIV) in social change communication for HIV prevention.
(2015) Lubombo, Musara.; Dyll, Lauren Eva.
HIV/AIDS is a significant health, social, political and economic challenge whose devastating impact on development and subsequent threat to the human, national and global security is well documented. Early responses to the HIV epidemic are known to have dislocated people living with HIV (PLHIV) at the margins of society, crystallising them as patients who need treatment, care and support (Osborne, 2006). This thesis focuses on participation of PLHIV in social change communication for HIV prevention, an aspect that has only recently been acknowledged in the HIV response. It explores how South African PLHIV experience and perceive the framework guiding participation of PLHIV - the Greater involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS (GIPA) - which by virtue of it being a product of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has become accepted as universal. The objective of the thesis derives from issues that arise from the dialogue between extant theory and local practice and thoughts about what constitute positive social change communication for HIV prevention and how such change can be achieved. To achieve this objective, thirteen AIDS Activists based in KwaZulu-Natal were interviewed to make sense not only of the ways in which they configure involvement of PLHIV in the HIV response but also to understand the philosophy that informs such configurations. The findings suggest that South African AIDS Activists predicate their involvement in the HIV response on visible participation, placing emphasis on serostatus disclosure as a signal for safer intentions meant to protect other people from HIV infection. They regard confidentiality of one’s serostatus as negating feasible gains that could be realised from the HIV response involving PLHIV. However, this configuration of participation is contrary to GIPA guidelines which, based on individual rights, provide for the involvement of PLHIV without necessarily disclosing their serostatus (UNAIDS, 2007). The study concludes that GIPA’s emphasis on individual rights atomises people and presents challenges for HIV prevention in local communities where cultural beliefs are such that individual health is inseparably bound to other people. It also considers the AIDS Activists’ configuration of participation as bearing hallmarks of Ubuntu, an African worldview which perceives humans as relational beings who have weighty duties towards each other (Mbiti, 1969; Metz, 2007a/b). The study, therefore, proposes an Ubuntu model for future design and implementation of social change communication for HIV prevention with South African PLHIV in a manner that can not only account for their worldview and cultural frames through which they make behavioural choices but can also allow for the creation of a conducive environment for their visible participation in social iv change communication for HIV prevention. That the model has been developed from the perspective of local people demonstrates the importance of regarding local realities and frameworks that members use to make sense of their lives as the basis upon which interventions must be formulated.

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Communication, Media and Society) by Author "Dyll, Lauren Eva."