- Title
- A critical analysis of representations of disability on South African public university websites
- Creator
- Ndayi, Viwe
- Subject
- People with disabilities in mass media
- Subject
- Web sites
- Subject
- Public universities and colleges -- South Africa
- Date Issued
- 2024-12
- Date
- 2024-12
- Type
- Master's theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/70368
- Identifier
- vital:78343
- Description
- Since the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, the dominant discourses in South African higher education have pertained to redressing historical injustices and imbalances. Digital media are among the tools that have been used to communicate, promote and advance transformation in higher education. However, when compared to race and gender, there have been minimal attempts to problematise the representation of disabilities on higher education media platforms. This potentially leaves a substantial number of students, prospective students, their parents and support systems, on the outside of institutional processes that seemingly aim to create a sense of unity and belonging. The process potentially renders persons with disabilities as either invisible or represented in ways that are often uncritically imposed from dominant discourses about disability. This study aimed to determine how disabilities are represented on South African public university websites. The analysis of the representational dynamics in these virtual spaces during the National Disability Rights Awareness Months in 2019 and 2020, sought to contribute to the expansion of the discourses about disability in the South African higher education sector. Although data were collected from all 26 of the public universities in South Africa, only 13 included disability-related content during the awareness months. Therefore, the findings reflect website representations from these 13 public universities. The representations of the provisions of reasonable accommodations to students with disabilities was found to be a dominant frame that the universities used to represent disabilities on their websites. Photographs, illustrations and textual content, worked together to construct a representation pattern about disability as that which requires reasonable accommodations, and that must be researched, designed and provided for by (other) members of the university community. This study draws attention to the under-theorisation of disability in higher education and the need for critical engagement with institutional media representations of disabilities in higher education.
- Description
- Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Language, Media and Communication, 2024
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (254 pages)
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Humanities
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
- Rights
- All Rights Reserved
- Rights
- Open Access
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Collections
NMU School of Language, Media and Culture
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | NDAYI, V December 2024.pdf | 6 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |