Monday 4 October, 10:00am – 11:30am
Presenters
Anne Carson, ‘Visual evolution of an idea – the poet/scholar house’
Organising material for a PhD thesis is a hugely challenging task. In creative practice PhDs, this involves managing both creative and critical material, as well as ideas about the capacity of both parts to be ‘knowledge-generating’. How we choose to represent these elements in the final thesis has epistemological implications, manifesting attitudes to how ‘the creative’ contributes to knowledge generation. As creative practice research progresses within the academy, creative possibilities for the format of the PhD proliferate, including various methods of blended, braided, woven (Krauth, 2018) theses.
In my own creative writing PhD, these reflections led me to conceive of my thesis as an architectural model, where I could present the creative on an equal footing with the critical, as well as representing the way each mode seeded and fed into the other in practice, in an iterative model of creative practice (Smith and Dean, 2009). My model commenced life as my own simple line drawing, (representing a primarily physical space). I then worked with two artists (René Carrasco and Bridget Nicholson) and my supervisors to formulate and finesse my ideas. As it progressed the model became more metaphoric and ephemeral, morphing into a representation of a reconfigured heart-space, grounded in affirmative philosophy (Rosi Braidotti, Jane Bennett, Corrine Pelluchon) and ‘love-of-life’. This presentation maps the visual evolution of an idea.
Belinda Glover, ‘Media Representation of Female Politicians in the 2020 Elections in Ghana’
The representation of female politicians by the media in Ghana is noted to influence the political success of female politicians. Previous studies have shown that female politicians are being represented negatively by the media with a focus on their physical appearance. Similarly, female politicians who participated in the 2020 general elections were not an exception. The 2020 elections in Ghana saw female politicians being represented by the media negatively. This was seen in the cases of Professor Naana Opoku-Agymang who was nominated as the first female Vice-Presidential running mate, on the ticket of the largest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Ghana. Her nomination as the first female Vice-Presidential running mate resulted in negative representation by the news media and political opponents.
Therefore, through a qualitative methodology using methods such as content analysis and digital ethnography, the paper examines how female politicians who participated in the 2020 general elections were represented by the news media and political opponents.
The findings suggest that the media including political opponents represent female politicians negatively. This was seen in the case of Professor Naana Opoku-Agymang who was nominated as the first female Vice-Presidential running mate on the ticket of the NDC during 2020 general elections in Ghana. The findings contribute to new knowledge on the current trend of how female politicians are represented by the media and political opponents in Ghana. It also extends on other studies with similar focus on Ghana.
Ekaterina Ostapets, ‘Nutritional Influence’
Delivering science-based nutritional health information to young adults is more important than ever. Public trust in nutritional science is steadily diminishing, as misinformation regarding nutrition is being shared by some popular social media influencers who hold no formal qualifications but have achieved high online engagement from their followers. Social media influencers know how to communicate with their followers powerfully and engagingly with studies showing that they can positively affect their followers’ food choices.
This thesis will investigate the social media communication approaches that food and nutrition social media influencers use to engage with their followers. The first aim of this research is to establish which aspects of this communication process have been previously studied. Then, building on existing knowledge, the second aim is to identify the communication tactics that successful social media influencers are using on Facebook. The final aim is to discover which tactics result in the strongest engagement, positive sentiment and response to the ‘call to action’ from their followers. The insights from this research will help health organisations be able to mimic social media influencers’ communication style to better disseminate science-based nutritional information to young adults, thereby improving their health, quality of life and potentially decreasing healthcare costs.
The presentation will focus on the current social media communication approaches of food and nutrition social media influencers, as established using a scoping review. The highlighted approaches include how social media influencers build source credibility, encourage parasocial relationships and find congruence with the products and services they promote.