Japhet, Travis, Karen and Taryn in The Cellars-Hohenhort's garden.

i. Digital crime cybervictimisation as a neglected research problem in the Global South

ii. Literature review

 iii. Research and key findings

iv. Broader implications from our research

v. Suggested areas for future research

Help support our future research

Gratitude

Written for visual design educators and social semiotic researchers interested in students' use of data visualisations for argument.

Our new chapter is a sequel to 'Exploring academic argument in information graphics' (2020), in which we proposed the framework for argument in data visualizations shown in Table 1. This social semiotic framework provides a holistic view that is useful for providing feedback and recognising students’ work as realised through the ideational, interpersonal, and textual meta-functions. For example, in addition to the verbal (written) mode that they are usually assessed on in Higher Education, students' digital poster designs must also consider composition, size, shape and colour choices.

Table 1. Framework for analysing and producing argument in data visualisation.
Designed by Arlene Archer and Travis Noakes, 2021.

Figure 1. Data Visualization in Society book cover, Amsterdam University Press, 2020.

1. Its e-book page is at https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789048543137/data-visualization-in-society.

Written for readers interested in the directions that my future Post-doctoral research will take (and won't!)

Doing a PhD helps one understand that there are many gaps in human knowledge. It helps clarify the existence of important gaps and challenges one to do appropriate research that help with closing them. As part of writing Post-doctoral Fellowship applications, it became important to reflect on what my inter-disciplinary media studies research contributions have been so far and how I might build on them, and move onto new topics, in the future:

In working for UCT's 'ICT Access and Use' project (2011/12), I explored how media students followed a form of connected learning for developing identities linked to creative industry as undergrads. Together with Associate Professors Cheryl Brown and Laura Czerniewicz, we addressed a gap in the literature regarding university students’ extramural creative production with varied online services. Three case studies illustrated how Connected Learning can be empowering: each student provided a vivid example of digital practices embedded within social contexts, exemplifying the processes students undertake when constructing meaning and knowledge in the digital world. Such cases have been lacking in the literature, especially from developing country contexts (GAP1). Future research can build on ours by exploring how Connected Learning is experienced in other South  African contexts and more broadly in the global South.

My PhD thesis contributed to closing a research gap concerning digital inequality. Its research described how the e-portfolios of young Cape Town visual arts students at two secondary schools were shaped by their privileged or marginalised circumstances. There is an opportunity to extend this pathfinder project by looking at completely underserved schooling environments. For example, what digital repertoires are young visual creatives in Cape Town's marginalised settings (poor suburbs in schools without support for visual art or design) developing (GAP2)? This focus also suggests an opportunity to combine research interests in connected learning and participatory culture for exploring the visual creative productions that occur in underserved contexts outside formal academic settings in Cape Town and how these repertoires link to academic cultural capital, or not (GAP3). Multimodal researchers could also explore the longitudinal changes to visual creatives' e-portfolios (GAP4). For example, how students change their e-portfolio styles after leaving school and preparing to apprentice in creative industries or helping justify future study).

African design is an understudied and emergent field, which could benefit from more scholarship documenting its existing practices (Venter, 2018)}. After lengthy consideration, I have decided to develop an inter-disciplinary proposal for this field that addresses three distinct, but overlapping, concerns related to bitmap design, digital access and collaborative software design:

The first concern is what bitmap designs are marginalised young creatives producing and sharing online? This online content analysis will serve as a starting point for exploring the second concern- what does 'access' to digital design really mean in under-served contexts. For example: How accessible are apps and open source software to mobile-centric designers in highly constrained circumstances? What role does English as a 'global language' play in shaping Xhosa mother-tongue creatives' access and use to bitmap software? What cultural repertoires (i.e. fashion, gaming) seem to motivate interest in being a bitmap designer? The final concern is to contrast what happens when design thinking and design strategy approaches are used for collaborative software design focussed on localisation. I will describe the benefits and limitations of both, using workshops for aspirant, but under-resourced, visual creatives. They will be  consulted for understanding how Create With's new functional specifications for https://www.createwithpixels.com might provide better access for young South Africans.

By addressing these three concerns, my Post-doc research should make a solid contribution to the field of African design. It addition to its novel exploration of bitmap designers' content and circumstances, it should also generate interesting findings concerning the meanings of 'access', plus the differences between two design approaches' outcomes for collaborative software localisation.

Written for Media Studies educators interested in teaching data journalism and infographic poster design.

Written for UCT students interested in doing a design thinking course at its new d-school.






1 Understand the problem;
2 Observe places, people and processes for developing empathy;
3 Exploring different points of view;
4 Ideating widely to explore solutions beyond the obvious;
5 Prototyping fast;
6 Testing the prototypes with stakeholders and communities.

Written for researchers interested in students' social media practices, creative content production and how both can reflect indicators of the Connected Learning educational framework.

Cheryl Brown, Laura Czerniewicz and I wrote 'Online content creation. Looking at students' social media practices through a Connected Learning lens' for the Learning, Media and Technology journal. Our paper contributes to closing research gaps concerning: the Online Content Creation (OCC) practices of African university students; how indicators of the Connected Learning (CL) pedagogical framework are present in university students' non-formal creative productions; and the potential benefits that becoming digital creators might have for supporting students' social trajectories.

While previous studies have addressed creative production by university students for specific purposes, there is a research gap concerning OCC in the everyday lives of African university students. In analysing both the formal and informal ICT practices of 23 first year students at four South African universities, the use of online networks was pervasive. However, just three undergraduates described developing and/or using online presences to pursue interest-based activities.

We followed "Jake", "Vince" and "Odette" into their third year and learnt about: the social media they utilised; their trajectories; their linkages with career interests; and the types of online presences they created, maintained or discontinued. The pedagogical framework of CL proved an appropriate heuristic since all case studies spanned digital practices that, although non-formal, were: peer-supported (PS), interest-driven (ID) and academically oriented (AO). The cases also demonstrated the production-centred (PC) and shared-purpose (SP) of using openly networked (ON) new media for self-expression. PS, ID, AO, PC, SP and ON are all important indicators for CL.

There has been a tendency in CL literature to focus on secondary school youth, aged 12 to 18. We show how this emphasis can be extended to university, as students are likewise engaged in forming new interests and emergent social identities. By engaging in OCC, Jake, Vince and Odette could expand on the academic creative production interests they were formally taught. We describe how each student leveraged non-formal OCC practices for orientating towards new learning opportunities and social trajectories. Complementing these three student's formal production interests with rare OCC practices, seemed likely to give them an edge in our globally competitive society, as digital creators:

Jake used his productions as a student journalist, editor, poet and book writer to develop an online presence as a writer. He currently works as a communications trainee for a state agency. Vince's successful video production in an extra-curricular, online Ghetto Film School of LA course resulted in him being sponsored to present his short at the Sundance Film Festival Showcase. He currently works in multimedia and directs video-productions. Odette strategically developed separate online presences to promote her availability as an actor/model and scriptwriter. She also shares productions as a fiction writer, poet and personal journal diarist.

For more on African students' online content creation and social media use and how both reflected Connected Learning indicators, click on http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SqgVIjCFNzhQsXx5TKRF/full.

Written for SA iTunes users with US iTunes Store accounts.

With the release of iTunes version 11, the iTunes Store was officially launched to South Africans in December, 2012. The entertaining shopping experience it provides is impressive. This begs the question for locals with iTunes US accounts, should we close the latter?

In making this decision, I suggest you weigh up the benefits of having two accounts against the inconvenience (and added risks) of managing accounts for multiple territories:

Under benefits, account holders of more than one iTunes Store can benefit from being able to select the best one for; i. speediest access and easiest browsing; ii. a wider product range or one better suiting their tastes, iii. lower prices and iv. quicker delivery. In my case, as a local iTunes Store and iTunes US customer (who predominately shops for music), my experience of these benefits has been:

i. Ease of access and browsing.
Accessing the SA store via iTunes is speedy and I seem to have less difficult being interrupted for  repeat logins which the US service requires when I'm purchasing music on my laptop or via other devices. Overall, the local service is better.

Written for South African satellite television subscribers.

My DIS'-SA-TV-A rant bemoaned the lack of a truly customized, pay-per-view service for South African television viewers. Now, here's a contrarian view as to why local satellite television subscribers who want to pay only for programming they are interested in (rather than subsidising the ridiculous lifestyles of the "Dim {Kardashians} and Dangerous {Snooki & Sitch}") should not 'hold their breath' for such a product offering from DSTV:

One of Umberto Ecco's most humorous articles 'Does the Audience have Bad Effects on Television?' (from Apocalypse Postponed) saw him confronting the belief amongst certain intellectuals that television is "bad for its audience" by showing that the inverse was true; television audiences had rejected many state-subsidised efforts aimed at promoting High Culture to them. This came to mind after a recent u-turn by Multichoice: I was pleasantly suprised and impressed that DSTV had ditched daily scheduling from their April subscriber magazine. However, it later became clear that I was in the minority. Multichoice did a subscriber poll in May and promised to return to the old format by August due to customers' negative feedback concerning this change.

This may reflect several truths about DSTV television subscribers:

1. They resist change;
2. They prefer to read their magazine to know exactly when shows will appear on their favourite channels (even though the reason DSTV initially gave for dropping scheduling from its magazine was their concern that it became outdated during the month);
3. They do not want to use their electronic TV guide to get more accurate information on programming;
4. They may find it easier to search the magazine for content they are interested in, rather than using the electronic TV guide (and, yes, IMHO its 'search for' function could definitely benefit from a Google-sque makeover);
5. They like to know for a month-in-advance what's on television, rather than the week-in- advance that their electronic TV guide shows them;
6. They may prefer to schedule their daily lives around television programming times rather than to set recordings and watch them later.

If these preferences apply to most of the one million viewers (a quarter of DSTV subscribers responded to the questionnaire), then this suggests to me that the bulk of their audience would not be desirous of changing to more customization, and the extra-efforts this would likely entail. The flipside of this is that DSTV can now readily cite potential audience disinterest as yet another reason for not offering a more customized pay-per-view service. That's in addition to the growth of its subscriber base and the absence of strong competition from satellite television providers in our local market:

• At around 300 000 subscribers as of November, 2011, TopTV offers no existential threat worth evolving for;
• If media visibility determines reality, MyTV would not to exist (the only reason I know about it is thanks to Wikipedia);
• And Free2view "South Africa's only free to air satelite TV platform" is dead, according to Teevee with Thinus, quite contrary to what its Wikipedia entry's PR rep seems to have wrote!

While DSTV's new BoxOffice and OnDemand may point in the direction of more user choice, there seems no sound business reason why Multichoice would ever combine these into a fully customized, pay-per-view satellite television service. So, if you want to spend less on your monthly television bill; your local video store, PushPlay, online video services, an iTunes US Account with AppleTV, GoogleTV, et al. is your best bet for the foreseeable future.

If you agree, or not, let us know in the comment box below. Ta.