SOUTH AFRICAN AND FLEMISH SOAP OPERA: A CRITICAL WHITENESS STUDIES PERSPECTIVE by HANNELIE MARX KNOETZE submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY in the subject COMMUNICATION at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: PROF VC MILTON CO-SUPERVISORS: PROF PJ FOURIE and PROF A DHOEST NOVEMBER 2015 Student number: 33460213 I declare that “South African and Flemish soap opera: A Critical Whiteness Studies perspective” is my own work and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. I further declare that I have not previously submitted this work, or part of it, for examination at Unisa for another qualification or at any other higher education institution. H Marx Knoetze Dedication and acknowledgements DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I dedicate this thesis to my grandfather, Carel Cebastian Marx (25 February 1929 – 16 May 2014), my earliest example of academic rigour and the unconditional cultivator of my academic interests, and to my son, Marx Casparus Knoetze (2015.07.15-), who accompanied and enabled me on this journey in more ways than one. I would like to thank the following people and institutions for their contributions to this study: My supervisors Prof v.c. milton, Prof P.J. Fourie and Prof A. Dhoest for their expert guidance, mentorship and patience. The National Research Foundation for the grant which made a part of this study possible. The Erasmus Mundus Programme for providing me with the opportunity to complete a part of my thesis at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. On a personal note, I would like to express my gratitude to the following people: My father, Johan Marx, for his faith in me and his unwavering support. My colleagues at Unisa, but especially Dr van Dyk and Dr Greeff for their continuous support, motivation, interest and friendship. And finally, my husband, Gerhard Knoetze, for being my partner and my pillar, also in this endeavour. Abstract ABSTRACT The main goal of this thesis was an investigation into the ways in which whiteness is constructed and positioned in the South African soap opera, 7de Laan, and the Flemish soap opera, Thuis, with the emphasis on the possible implications of these constructions for local as well as global discourses on whiteness in the media. In conjunction with the above, this thesis endeavoured to answer a number of subquestions relating to the origin and history of the construct of “whiteness” and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) as a theoretical approach and its relevance in the South African and Flemish contexts, specifically as it pertains to the analysis of mass media texts like 7de Laan and Thuis. It, moreover, sought to explore if and how whiteness functions as an organising principle in the narratives and representations of these soap operas with the emphasis on potential similarities, differences and the kinds of whiteness constructed in these texts. Finally, the goal was to draw conclusions on the possible implications of these differences and similarities in the wider context of the way in which whiteness functions in the media. To that end I conducted a controlled case comparison of a sample from these two community soap opera texts, which was informed by a literature review and deep description of each context as part of the qualitative approach I chose to take. Despite a number of similarities between the two contexts, they still differ significantly, and this afforded me an opportunity to highlight both the consistencies and particularities in the ideological patterning of representations of whiteness, across seemingly unrelated domains, to illustrate its pervasiveness. Added to the emergence of three shared rhetorical devices perpetuating whiteness in both texts, I was also able to draw conclusions about the unique way in which whiteness functions in 7de Laan in particular, since South Africa remains the primary context of the study. KEY WORDS: Critical Whiteness Studies, Cultural Studies, Public Service Broadcasting, television, soap opera, whiteness, identity, national identity, diversity, representation, comparative study, imagined community, indigenisation, South Africa, Flanders. List of contents LIST OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT OF THE STUDY 1.1 Contextualising and rationalising the origin of the study 1 1.2 “If we could have a soap, we would have a nation”: a closer look at soap opera 8 1.3 Research questions 10 1.3.1 Main research question 10 1.3.2 Formulation of subquestions 10 1.4 Methodology 10 1.5 Structure of the thesis: chapter outline 12 CONCLUSION 14 CHAPTER 2: CRITICAL WHITENESS STUDIES (CWS): A THEORETICAL FOUNDATION INTRODUCTION 16 2.1 Whiteness and CWS 18 2.1.1 Unpacking the construct of “whiteness” 18 2.1.2 CWS as a theoretical approach 23 2.1.3 CWS in South Africa 29 2.2 Manifestations of whiteness 33 2.2.1 Strategies of whiteness: the maintenance of white skin privilege 33 2.2.2 Narratives of whiteness in the South African context 38 CONCLUSION 44 CHAPTER 3: SOAP OPERA: THE DIVERSIFICATION OF A GENRE INTRODUCTION 46 3.1 Soap history 47 3.2 Characteristics of the soap genre 51 3.2.1 Format and medium 52 3.2.2 Subject matter, plots and characterisation 54 3.2.3 Diversity and evolution of soap opera forms 57 3.2.4 Fact versus fiction: reality and verisimilitude 61 3.2.5 Viewer and subject positions 64 3.3 Why soap opera? Soap opera as a site for struggle and negotiation 68 3.3.1 Differences and similarities between soap operas and “traditional” narratives 68 3.3.2 Politics or pleasure? 70 CONCLUSION 78 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY INTRODUCTION 82 4.1 A qualitative paradigm: designing the research approach 83 4.2 Sampling 85 4.3 Research methods and strategies of analysis 91 4.3.1 Literature review 92 4.3.2 The case study(ies) 93 i List of contents 4.3.3 Cross-national comparative research: the controlled case comparison 95 4.3.4 Narrative textual analysis 102 4.4 Trustworthiness and authenticity 105 4.5 Role of the researcher 107 CONCLUSION 109 CHAPTER 5: THE SOUTH AFRICAN CASE INTRODUCTION 112 5.1 Constructing the “rainbow nation”: the South African historical, national and cultural context 113 5.2 The South African mass media, PSB landscape and the representation of the nation 126 5.2.1 Background to South African broadcasting media 127 5.2.2 South African PSB and the representation of the nation 135 5.2.3 Soap opera and the national broadcaster 139 CONCLUSION 141 CHAPTER 6: 7de Laan: SOAP FOR THE NATION INTRODUCTION 143 6.1 Contextualisation 144 6.2 7de Laan as a community soap opera 151 6.2.1 Graphic depiction of 7de Laan’s family and social structure 152 6.2.2 Setting and community: social and cultural reality as constructed in 7de Laan 153 6.2.3 Language: guilt-free/guilty Afrikaans pleasure? 160 6.2.4 Diversity and difference 166 CONCLUSION 176 CHAPTER 7: THE FLEMISH CONTEXT AND MEDIA LANDSCAPE INTRODUCTION 181 7.1 Constructing the Flemish nation: the Flemish historical, national and cultural context 182 7.1.1 Flanders in the Belgian context 182 7.1.2 The Flemish imagined community: an “us” versus “them” ideology 185 7.2 The Flemish PSB landscape and the representation of the nation 194 7.2.1 Background to the Flemish media 194 7.2.2 Flemish PSB and the representation of the nation 197 7.2.3 Soap opera in the Flemish context 203 CONCLUSION 205 CHAPTER 8: THUIS INTRODUCTION 209 8.1 Contextualisation 210 8.2 Thuis as a community soap opera 214 8.2.1 Graphic depiction of Thuis’s family and social structure 216 8.2.2 Setting and community: social and cultural reality as constructed in Thuis 217 8.2.3 Language 222 ii List of contents 8.2.4 Diversity and difference 225 CONCLUSION 232 CHAPTER 9: COMPARISON OF 7de LAAN AND THUIS: A CWS APPROACH INTRODUCTION 238 9.1 Contextual comparison: nationalism, diversity and PSB 239 9.2 Beyond the national framework: whiteness in 7de Laan and Thuis 242 9.2.1 Imagined communities 244 9.2.2 Language 247 9.2.3 Diversity and difference 249 9.2.4 Mutton dressed as lamb: homogeneity tinted white? 256 9.3 The case of 7de Laan and the “hot potato” 260 CONCLUSION 264 CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION 271 10.1 Summary of chapters: structure and synthesis 272 10.2 Conclusions and implications 279 10.3 Limitations of the study 283 10.4 Suggestions for further research 287 10.5 Contributions of the study 289 LIST OF SOURCES CONSULTED 297 ADDENDUM A 318 ADDENDUM B 322 iii List of illustrations LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 4.1: Liebes and Livingstone’s (1998) graphic depiction of the family structure in the community soap opera 90 Figure 4.2: The controlled case comparison (Wester et al, 2006) 96 Figure 6.1: Graphic depiction of 7de Laan’s family and social structure 152 Figure 6.2: 7de Laan’s logo 153 Figure 8.1: Graphic depiction of Thuis’s family and social structure 216 iv Chapter 1: Introduction and context CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT OF THE STUDY The quest for a new white humanity will begin to emerge from a voluntary engagement by those caught in the culture of whiteness of their own making, with the ethical and moral implications of being situated at the interface between inherited, problematic privilege on the one hand and, on the other, the blinding sterility at the centre of the “heart of whiteness” (Ndebele, 2000: 46–47).