Discourses of health, sexuality and gender in the H360° HIV/AIDS education portal on MXit.

The widespread adoption of mobile communication by South African teenagers is playing an increasing role in their formation of identities and construction of knowledge. This dissertation uses feminist critical discourse analysis as an explanatory framework in order to investigate what types of discourses around HIV/AIDS emerge from queries submitted to the mobile application H360°, which is an educational portal on MXit, South Africa’s most popular messaging platform. These queries are analysed in order to identify how gender and other power relationships inform young people’s discourse on MXit. This approach gives insights into how South African teenagers construct discourses about HIV/AIDS knowledge within an environment where unequal power relationships reflect gender, race and class divisions. In the face of such dynamics, attempts to halt the spread of the disease have so far proven ineffective.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Centre for Film and Media Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Kramper, Mareike Annette

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11012

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/11012