Visual methodologies through a feminist lens: South Africansoap operas and the post-apartheid nation

Sarah F. Ives

Published online: 21 October 2008

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract Using a discussion of South African soap

operas, I will place the idea of visuality in a discourse

analysis that incorporates a feminist epistemological

lens, or an epistemology that integrates reflexivity

and an acknowledgment of the dialogic nature of

visual media. Through this discussion, I will examine

the possibilities that dialogism provides for unpack-

ing and exploring the politics of imperfect translation

between the visual and the textual. These methodo-

logical interventions, I argue, will help enrich

discussions of the visual’s role in the contested realm

of geographic imaginations and move beyond the

distanced position of the masculine gaze.

Keywords South Africa � Media �Soap operas � Visual methodologies

Introduction

With the exception of anthropology, geography

is unique in the social sciences in the way it has

relied and continues to rely on certain kinds of

visualities and visual images to construct its

knowledges (Rose 2003, p. 212).

Geography has a long and diverse relationship to

the visual (Driver 2003). Early cartographers mapped

their views of the world, and explorers brought back

photographs of distant lands to show to various

geographical societies. Today, from GIS to Power-

Point slides in classrooms and conferences (Rose

2003), geographers still attempt to depict various

aspects of the world visually. During geography’s

‘cultural’ turn, analyses of the visual began to explore

the work that visual images do to naturalize social

constructions of identity (Rose 2003). And yet

visuality remains under-theorized. Rose (2003, p.

212) argues that the visual, though addressed sub-

stantially in anthropology, ‘‘hasn’t been analysed in

any sustained way in relation to geography as an

academic discipline.’’ Instead of asking how geogra-

phy is visual, I will extend Rose’s challenge by

asking how geography should be visual. James Ryan

(2003, p. 235) has argued that geographers tend look

at the visual as merely ‘‘illustrative of textual ideas

or, at best, something to be deconstructed from a

distance.’’ We need to, as Jennifer England (2004)

contends, explore the places ‘‘outside of the text.’’

But how do we employ visual methodologies in this

endeavor?

Joan Schwartz (2003) argues that visual images

play a critical role in the construction of geographical

imaginations, helping to transfer concrete space to the

mind. Through seeing, objects and ideas become

material and thus powerfully influence imagined

geographies. Given their role in consolidating and

S. F. Ives (&)

Department of Anthropology, Stanford University,

Building 50, Main Quad, Stanford, CA 94305-2034, USA

e-mail: sives@stanford.edu

123

GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255

DOI 10.1007/s10708-008-9226-9

materializing discourse, I argue for the importance of

visual methodologies in discourse analyses. Visual

methodologies, Rose (2001, p. 15) argues, should

take images seriously ‘‘in their own right’’ and

recognize that they are not completely reducible to

their context. Thus, Rose continues, researchers

should look at the visual images’ sites of production,1

the images themselves, and the audiences’ reactions

to those images.

It is not enough, however, to recognize the

importance of examining the visual in geography.

We should also critically examine how geographers

implement and engage with these methodologies.

Geographers such as Mona Domosh (2005) have

argued that there has been a disconnect between

cultural and feminist geography that includes a

‘‘mistrust’’ of visual interpretations of landscape.

This mistrust stems in part from the fact that ‘‘visual

representation has historically been used by and for

dominant groups’’ (p. 38) and in part because cultural

geography’s emphasis on interpretation ‘‘has run the

risk of accepting without question the authority of the

researcher/author’’ (p. 39). Drawing on these cri-

tiques (see Jacobs and Nash 2003), I want explicitly

to incorporate feminist epistemological consider-

ations in the use of a visual discourse analysis that

begins to move beyond the textual to the ‘unsayable,’

or that which cannot be expressed with words.

Through its recognition of the unsayable, a feminist

epistemological perspective would also emphasize

the importance of reflexivity and dialogue in exam-

ining the visual. Without these methodological

interventions, examinations of the visual run the risk

of re-asserting an authoritative masculine gaze.

A number of geographers have engaged with

visual landscapes as text (see, for example, Cosgrove

1985; Cosgrove and Daniels 1988; Duncan 1995).

While I hope that my discussion can inform those

debates, I will focus specifically on visual media and

television in particular, as significant—and some-

times neglected—sites of constructed and contested

meaning. In the first section of the paper I will

examine the discursive power of the visual. I will

then place the idea of visual power in a discourse

analysis that incorporates a feminist epistemological

lens, or an epistemology that integrates reflexivity

and an acknowledgment of the dialogic aspects of

visual media. Through this discussion, I will explore

the possibilities that dialogism provides for unpack-

ing and exploring the politics of imperfect translation

between the visual and the textual. I will then use the

example of South African soap operas to demonstrate

the ways in which this form of discourse analysis can

operate. Finally, I will begin to address how

audiences come both to incorporate and contest

visual images in their geographical imaginaries.

Placing the visual in discourse analysis

In the contemporary moment, people interact with the

world primarily through visual images (Rose 2001).

Examining the visual, in addition to the textual,

allows for a richer understanding of the construction

and contestation of geographical imaginations. The

visual can reveal meanings at times hidden from

language. These meanings, I will argue, can provide

insight into both the construction and contestation of

power. In South Africa, the majority of people use

visual media, and television in particular, over most

other media forms. Television reaches 80–90% of the

population in a given week while only 3.5% of the

population uses the Internet over the same time

period (SAARF 2003). Newspapers have a weekly

readership of only 30.8% of the population (SAARF

2002). Today, South Africans watch television an

average of 3.2 h a day and 22.6 h a week (SAARF

2003; Ives 2007). Television thus permeates the

everyday lives of a majority of South Africans.

Through my case study of South African soap operas,

I will show how visual media help shape the ‘seeable’

in the contemporary moment. The seeable includes

both actual material forms—the city, the township—

and geographical imaginations—the inner city, the

ghetto—that make discursive constructions seem

‘real’ to audiences.

Drawing on Foucault, Gillian Rose (2001) con-

nects the idea of discourse with visual culture.

Visuality, she continues, ‘‘will make certain things

visible in particular ways, and other things unseeable,

and subjects will be produced and act within that field

1 While focusing on the site of production is a significant part

of visual methodologies, for the purposes of this paper, I will

focus on the images themselves, as well as the audiences’

responses.

246 GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255

123

of vision’’ (p. 137). Visual methodologies, therefore,

focus on unpacking the ways in which the visual

operates—not as a mirror of ‘reality,’ but rather as an

ideological and cultural object that produces and

contests ‘imagined’ notions of identity, place and

society (Hopkins 1994). But how do visual images

like South African television bring discourse and its

normative power to populations and individuals? As

Maria Helena B. V. da Costa (2003) argues, film is a

medium in which the world attains ‘life,’ and thus can

give way to analysis. Television and soap operas in

particular, I argue, play an even greater role than film

because they penetrate the everyday.

Using these frameworks, I connect the visual with

Anderson’s (1991) descriptions of the imagined

community. Nations and nationality, Anderson

argues, are cultural artefacts spread by the advent

of print capitalism and are ‘‘distinguished, not by

their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which

they are imagined’’ (p. 6). Visual media carry cultural

artefacts to greater populations in a more pervasive

manner than print capitalism. Unlike print media,

visual media do not require literacy. Through its

connection to the everyday, visual popular culture has

the ability to reach people of different races, genders,

classes, and ages. And beyond just the use of words,

visual media combine sights and sounds to create a

mimetic landscape that works to depict or visually

recreate images of the world. Paired with words,

images seem to reinforce and authenticate verbal

claims (Ives 2007).

This influence can become so great that ‘‘people’s

perceptions of reality based on the mass media’’ can

supersede all other stimuli (Lowry et al. 2003, p. 17).

In a study on the role of television and fear of crime,

Romer et al. (2003) argue that the visual images of

crime in television news caused viewers to believe

that violent crime had risen in the United States

despite statistics that showed its decline. Signifi-

cantly, newspaper descriptions of violent crime did

not have the same impact. Rather, the visuality of

television made violent crime concrete, material,

‘real.’ I argue that visual images allow people to

‘know’ places or people that they may never visit or

meet (or which may not even exist outside of media).

For example, in South African soap operas, rural

Black audiences see images of an urban, wealthy

South Africa in which interracial relationships go

largely unquestioned and everyone can readily

achieve financial success.

While many theorists have described the power of

the visual (see, for example, Hayes and Bank 2001),

articulating it as a ‘language’ may have limitations.

Visual images are not reducible to language. Philo

(1992), for example, discusses Foucault’s fascination

with Roussel’s geographical descriptions. Roussel

spends 50 pages attempting to write about a picture

on a bottle of mineral water:

Even after he has described all of the things that

he can see there, including the geography, and

has concocted stories about the personal lives

and thoughts of people frozen in the scene

depicted—there is still a sense that we have

indeed only remained on ‘the surface of things’

(Philo 1992, p. 147).

Foucault describes the ‘‘strange paradox between

‘this infinitely chatty landscape,’’’ the ‘‘proliferation

of words struggling to parallel the endless prolifer-

ation of things,’’ and the ‘‘unbearable ‘silence’ of

these things in their stubborn refusal to give up their

innermost truths’’ (Philo 1992, p. 147). Foucault

argues that the more we attempt to break through this

silence, the more the ‘‘mirror deepens in secrecy’’ (p.

148). The translation between visual and textual,

between the ‘seen’ and ‘known,’ is incomplete, and

ultimately futile.

How do we engage with that translation, that

futility? Mikhail Bakhtin (cited in Folch-Serra 1990)

argues that speakers can never truly understand each

other, that translation is never complete. But he does

not see this lack of understanding as disempower-

ing; rather, he says that multilingual environments

‘‘open a gap between things and their labels’’ that

allows for continued dialogue (p. 259). I want to

extend this idea of translation to the gap between

the visual and textual. I will argue below that

bringing a feminist epistemological lens to visual

methodologies could help both acknowledge and

unpack the imperfection of this translation through a

recognition of the situated nature of knowledge

production, the use of reflexivity, and an engage-

ment with the dialogic. This acknowledgment has

both the theoretical and empirical potential to

highlight the politics manifest in this ‘gap,’ in this

imperfect translation.

GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255 247

123

Visual methodologies through a feminist

epistemological lens: ‘Situated knowledges,’

reflexivity, and the dialogical

Feminist scholars have argued that positivist and

masculinist notions of science have elided certain

data (Madge et al. 1997; Domosh 1991). I contend

that relying on the textual in discourse analysis, or

even on textual readings of the visual, is a similar

elision, an elision that fails to recognize the con-

structed and contested aspects of the visual and the

power of the visual that remains beyond textual

description. Visual methodologies, like other dis-

course analyses, should draw on feminist

methodologies, such as a recognition of the situated

nature of knowledge, moments of reflexivity, and an

incorporation of the dialogical aspects of knowledge

production. Overlooking these facets of visual dis-

course analysis, I argue, ignores the important

contributions of feminist epistemology that call for

the incorporation of marginalized, silenced voices.

According to Meghan Cope (2002, pp. 44–45), a

feminist epistemology ‘‘requires thinking about how

socially constructed gender roles, norms, and rela-

tions influence the production of knowledge.’’

Knowledge production is influenced not just by

identity and norms, but also by context: where are

you, with whom are you, and so on. In other words, as

Haraway (1991) has famously argued, knowledge is

situated. While concepts of ‘‘situated knowledge’’

and reflexivity have come to influence much geo-

graphic research, they have been slow to reach visual

methodologies. One cannot assume a uniform, male,

patriarchic, heterosexual audience or gaze. Audiences

have multiple and situated positions. Each person

may interpret an image differently depending on his/

her subject position. She/he may be moved by the

images. She/he may contest them. Despite this

multiplicity, the images often contain a ‘preferred

meaning’ that the majority of people may absorb

(Hall 1980). In this way, the image’s messages can be

polysemic, meaning that they are open, but not

pluralistic or arbitrary. Rose (2001) adds that visual

images act on the researcher, even as the research

attempts to unpack them. We need to recognize that,

like other viewers, researchers are also simulta-

neously situated in networks of social relations.

Consequently, researchers engaging with visual

methodologies should be modest and theoretically

explicit, employ detailed case studies, and clearly

articulate their critical aims (Rose 2001).

A lack of reflexivity can lead to examinations of

discourse and media that valorize them as omnipotent

disciplining forces. For example, Rose (2001, p. 183)

argues that the Foucauldian methods often employed

in discourse analyses do not concentrate ‘‘enough on

the way these disciplines may fail or be disrupted’’.

Visual media relies on a ‘conversation’ between the

audience and media to construct meaning. A reliance

on discourse analysis alone reinforces the male gaze.

This idea, put forth by Laura Mulvey (1989), contends

that media depict women as passive subjects available

for male viewing. Thus, women lose agency while

voyeuristic male viewers hold the power. By analyz-

ing media without engaging audiences, researchers

essentially perpetuate the voyeuristic male gaze.

Using these aspects of feminist epistemology, visual

methodologies should include discourse analysis and

ethnographies that look at the context in which the

images emerge: What is the political and economic

context? Who created the images, and for what

purposes? Who is the intended audience? Who are

the actual audiences? How do different audiences react

to, absorb, and/or contest the images? To begin to

address these questions, I will use an examination of

South African soap operas as an, albeit incomplete (as I

will discuss below), example of visual methodologies.

I first encountered South African soap operas in 2001,

when I was studying in Pretoria, South Africa. At the

time, I was living with a Black2 family in a virtually all-

Black township. The family was passionate about the

soap opera Generations and insisted that I watch with

them. Although I had never watched a soap opera in the

United States, I was immediately enthralled. In Gen-

erations I saw an image of South Africa that differed

greatly from the South Africa that I was experiencing in

the mostly poor, segregated township. The Genera-

tions characters, all wealthy and powerful, lived in a

world in which the diverse people of South Africa

freely intermingled and apartheid seemed a distant

memory. Upon returning to the United States, I

realized that locally produced South African soap

2 I will use terms like race, racial boundaries, Black and White

throughout this paper. By employing these terms, I am not,

however, implying any essentialized categories; rather, I

acknowledge that the terms are both discursively constructed

and materially powerful (see Ives 2007).

248 GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255

123

operas, beyond just entertainment, could provide a

compelling medium for examining the national iden-

tity in post-apartheid South Africa.

To understand the role of soap operas in construct-

ing race, gender, and national identity, I employed a

discourse and content analysis of the South African

Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) press materials; I

did a discourse and content analysis of soap operas that

aired between 2004 and 2005. To understand the

specific visual images in South African soap operas,

and thus the images that audiences are tuning in for and

reacting to, I employed a discourse and content

analysis of six soap opera episodes, three from

Generations and three from Soul City. After reading

episode plotlines, I chose the episodes that aired in the

last 2 years that engaged with core themes of identity

and nationality. After viewing the episodes, I narrowed

down my coding to three main concepts that emerged

not just from the text, but also from the images: unity

and responsibility in the ‘New’ South Africa; ‘new’

identities in the ‘New’ South Africa; and the reaction to

and embodiment of the country’s economic policies.

To begin to unpack how audiences respond to the

soap opera’s images, I examined editorials about soap

operas in South African newspapers from 2004 to

2005. These methods allowed me to address the

public discourse surrounding South African soap

operas and identity. Through a discussion of this

examination, I hope to show the productivity of a

feminist epistemological approach to visual method-

ologies even though my particular case study could

not fully unpack the raced, classed, and gendered

dimensions of audience response and contestation. A

detailed ethnography would allow for a greater

engagement with dialogism. Therefore, I provide

my case study as a beginning and will discuss other

possibilities for engagement in the conclusion.

Performing the everyday: soap operas in post-

apartheid South Africa

The scene: an apartment in Johannesburg,

South Africa.

The characters: Daniel (dressed in a ‘tradi-

tional’ African tunic), a White South African who

is dating Queen, a Black South African; Karabo,

a female Black South African business executive.

Daniel: ‘‘I admire the way African people

respect culture and tradition—their sense of

self … my parents weren’t around a lot when I

was growing up, and my nanny Emma, she

practically raised me. She often used to go back

home … I used to beg her to take me with her.

But a Black woman on a trip with a White boy,

it was unheard of back then’’

Karabo: ‘‘The legacy of apartheid.’’

Daniel: ‘‘Emma used to tell me about her way of

life, her beliefs and rituals. I promised myself that

one day, I would experience it myself first hand.

Meeting Queen reawakened my desire again.’’

Karabo: ‘‘There’s nothing wrong with that, but

you tend to take things to extremes’’

Daniel: ‘‘What are you saying exactly?’’

Karabo: ‘‘Be yourself. You are trying so hard to

understand African culture that you are losing

your own identity’’ (Generations 2005 Episode

161).

Apartheid, Identity, Race, Culture and tradition.

These highly charged concepts emerge in the dialogue

between two characters in South Africa’s most

popular soap opera, Generations.3 At once come-

dic—Queen rolls her eyes at Daniel’s ‘traditional’

African clothing—and dramatic—the couple fights

over issues of identity and motherhood—Generations

supplies its audiences with escapist entertainment, an

educational forum for post-apartheid issues, and an

image of the myriad possibilities supposedly available

in the ‘New’4 South Africa. The striking visual images

of Queen and Karabo in ‘Western’ clothing and

Daniel in ‘traditional’ garb underscore these contes-

tations over identity, rendering them more powerful

than words alone. In the following section, I will use a

visual discourse analysis of South African soap operas

to illustrate—both verbally and visually—how visual

methodologies can reveal multiple meanings.

3 Television shows like Generations reach the majority of

South Africans. South African soap operas in particular reach a

large and diverse audience nationwide. Locally produced soap

operas have quickly outpaced foreign soaps in television

ratings.4 Despite the fact that this ‘new’ imaginary is now more than

10 years old, the discourse surrounding the country remains

one of ‘newness,’ emphasizing a transitional period. This

‘transition’ and its ‘newness’, work to mitigate critiques of

enduring political and economic inequality, an issue I address

further in another work (Ives 2007).

GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255 249

123

Soap operas, with their continuous narrative, work

to construct notions of identity through their storylines

and characters. Because soap operas air everyday,

viewers are constantly exposed to their characters and

images, and thus notions of identity are repeatedly

performed. The South African soap opera Genera-

tions airs Monday through Friday throughout the

year—even appearing during holidays. Thus, as

audiences go through their daily routines, the soap

operas characters do too, in a similarly continuous

temporal framework. The constructed temporality of

soap opera’s narrative framework informs these

everyday performances. The basic premise of soap

operas is that they will continue to air forever

(Modleski 1979). Soap operas have no real beginning

and no real end, but simply, as Tania Modleski (1979,

p. 12) points out, an ‘‘infinitely expandable middle.’’

Thus, Modleski continues, viewers do not watch soap

operas to see resolutions to conflicts, but rather to see

what new conflicts will arise. Anticipation becomes

the end in itself. This view of temporality lends itself

to the current notions of South Africa as an interreg-

num, always in a constant state of transition. In

addition to soap operas’ narrative framework, this

negotiation takes place in soap operas’ visual con-

structions of the ‘New’ South African citizen.

During apartheid, the White minority government

tightly controlled visual media, dictating every image

that crossed the television screen. Power over visual

media and thus dominant spatial imaginations long

remained out of reach for most Black, Indian, and

Coloured5 South Africans. As I have argued above,

visual representations greatly influence popular imag-

inations. Because of this performative and productive

role, control of visual media can greatly influence

popular imaginations of the nation—how people in

South Africa view themselves and how the world

views South Africa. These constructions rely heavily

on notions of both visibility and silences: who is

included on television, how are they depicted, and

what issues are addressed and ignored?

Generations is the first program in South Africa

produced, directed, and written by a Black South

African, Mfundi Mike Vundla. While exiled from

South Africa, Vundla studied script-writing as well as

film-production in Hollywood. This training most

likely affected the content and characters of Gener-

ations, which follows a classic soap opera formula,

greatly mirroring United States’ soap operas The Bold

and the Beautiful and Days of Our Lives. Like those

shows, also popular in South Africa, characters are

wealthy, and plotlines are thick with scandal. But

unlike US soap operas, the majority of South African

soap stars are Black, Coloured, or Indian. Thus, the

show’s primary challenge emerges from its visuali-

ty—depicting wealthy, modern, Black characters

interacting with White characters.

In Generations the idea of race remains largely

untroubled. Interracial relationships and friendships go

unquestioned in the episodes that I analyzed. White and

Black South Africans regularly dine together in restau-

rants and drink together in bars without commentary or

mention. Queen and her White partner Daniel argue

about his desire to be more ‘African,’ but they do not

discuss any cases of discrimination. In rendering racial

tension invisible, Generations shows a world in which

the united ‘rainbow’ nation seems already achieved.

Black and White characters, all smartly dressed and

distinctly urban, provide a compelling visual image of

the ‘hope’ of the ‘New’ South Africa.

And yet there is more to the scene between Queen,

Daniel, and Karabo that began this section than I can

explain with words (Fig. 1). What might the image of

an interracial relationship mean in South Africa today?

The depiction would have been shocking under

apartheid. Yet, few people publically commented

about the pairing in South African newspapers. Have

such images become blase in the post-apartheid media

Fig. 1 Photographic still of Queen and Daniel from

Generations (visuals by SABC 2)

5 ‘Coloured’ people, predominately those of ‘biracial’ heri-

tage, in South Africa tend to be considered a separate racial

group in South Africa (Ives 2007).

250 GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255

123

world, as the government attempts to depict a ‘Rain-

bow Nation’? What is the importance of the body

language, the way the camera frames the shot, the

background images? Daniel dominates the middle of

the frame, smiling, while Queen stands in the back-

ground. Does his visual dominance reflect the

continuing hegemony of patriarchy? How might

audiences viscerally and emotionally respond to the

image in ways that they might not respond to textual

descriptions of interracial relations? How might their

reactions defy textual description? Answers to these

questions would require an ethnographic approach.

Another image (Fig. 2) from Generations provides

a compelling visual representation of South Africans.

Here, we see the principal cast of the show—modern,

mostly Black, expensively and fashionably dressed,

urban, smiling. These are the people that inhabit the

mediascape, or the imagined geography of the ‘New’

South Africa. Mike Crang (2003) asserts that we

should not critique visual images for their skewed

vision of a distorted reality, but rather think of them as

working within multiple and competing visions. Thus,

visual images should not be analyzed against a ‘real’

world. And yet, there is power in juxtaposing two

depictions of South Africa, one visual and one

statistical. Each depiction provides a strikingly differ-

ent image of post-apartheid South Africa and each has

its own productive power in the geographic imagi-

nary—regarding both how South Africans view

themselves, and how the world views South Africa.

Each depiction supplies a competing narrative to read

the social landscape. The images, of wealth, happiness,

and success, mask the enduring racial and economic

tensions in the country. The statistics below construct

their own silences.6

Despite the end of apartheid, marked social and

economic disparities remain. In 1996, just after the

end of apartheid, 26% of the population was below the

poverty line. By 2001, that number had actually

increased to 28% (Leibbrandt et al. 2004). At the

same time, household income at the higher end of the

spectrum also increased. Overall, the Gini coefficient7

Fig. 2 The multi-racial cast of Generations (visuals by SABC 2)

6 I explore the questions that arise from these silences in

another work (Ives 2007). Who benefits and who suffers from

these particular visions? Who harnesses this ‘visual power’ and

to what ends? Perhaps the biggest beneficiary has been the state

and its neoliberal aspirations. By showing already-achieved

economic prosperity and racial harmony, soap operas seem-

ingly place the responsibility of enduring hardships on

individuals. These depictions allow the government to put

forth its neoliberal economic vision without appearing to

disrupt the idea of a ‘rainbow’ nation. The millions of South

Africans living in squatter camps and facing continuing racial

discrimination, rampant disease and extreme poverty find their

lives nearly as invisible as they did during apartheid.7 The Gini coefficient measures income inequality. The

coefficient is represented by a number between zero and one.

Zero indicates perfect equality (everyone has equal income),

and one indicates perfect inequality (one person has all the

income, and everyone else has no income).

GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255 251

123

for South Africa is 0.73, showing high levels of

economic inequality (Leibbrandt et al. 2004). The

Gini coefficient within population groups helps to

show how these inequalities breakdown. Among

White South Africans, the coefficient is a relatively

low 0.51, while among Black South Africans, the

number is 0.66. These numbers indicate that income

inequality among Black South Africans is quite high,

with most Black South Africans remaining in poverty,

while an elite few have gained wealth and power since

the end of apartheid. In 2001 Black South African per

capita income as a percentage of White per capita

income was only 6.9%. This number has actually

decreased from 8.2% in 1996 (United Nations Devel-

opment Programme 2004). Thus we see that the

economic disparity between White and Black popu-

lations, as well as within Black populations, has

actually increased in the post-apartheid era.

The two representations of post-apartheid South

Africa—visual and statistical—each engender differ-

ent reactions from audiences and construct different

silences. For example, by depicting wealthy, ‘mod-

ern,’ Black South Africans interacting and even

having romantic relationships with White South

Africans, the programs put forth images radically

different from those allowed under apartheid, and

radically different from the everyday experiences of

most South Africans, who still largely live under

virtual de facto segregation. In this manner, South

Africa television attempts in part to depict a ‘new’

vision for the country, a country freed from apartheid

and united through a ‘rainbow’ ideology, but also a

country supposedly united by the homogeneity of the

urban business elite.

Audience response: The dialogical characteristics

of television

A danger exists in simply relying on discourse

analysis of visual media—a significant part of the

dialogical nature of media involves the way in which

audiences react to and understand them. Rose (2001,

p. 192) argues that formalist analyses pay ‘‘too much

attention to the formal qualities of the visual image

and not enough attention to the ways actual audiences

[make] sense of it’’. Researchers cannot assume that

audiences are passive, voiceless, uniform subjects.

Interviews and ethnographies of television audiences

would allow for an examination of dialogism in

visual media—how audiences both absorb and con-

test images. A brief examination of the South African

press’s response to the soap operas provides an, albeit

incomplete, opportunity to address audience recep-

tion. Simply looking at the press does not incorporate

voices outside of the mainstream media, including the

often silenced, illiterate population that responds to

the visual in decidedly non-textual ways. Despite

these clear methodological limitations, I argue that

exploring editorial responses to South African soap

operas will begin to elucidate the ways in which

visual media becomes a dialogic forum for absorbing

and contesting visually constructed imagined geog-

raphies. I will propose other possibilities for

methodologies in the conclusion.

Generations figures prominently in regional and

national South African newspapers.8 Viewers often

seem to blur the fictional and ‘realistic’ attributes of

soap operas. One actress regularly encounters viewers

who ‘‘can’t distinguish between fact and fiction and

actually believe she is Anne [her character]. On more

than one occasion she has been approached by girls—

members of the public—offering to work for her.

Then there are the zealots who get at the actress

because of the role she plays’’ (Call in the Pros 2004).

Another actress complains that ‘‘one of the hazards of

starring in a soap is that fans frequently forget who

you really are. They identify you with character so

strongly that they often don’t even remember your

real name’’ (Wilhelm 2005). Actors’ and actresses’

identities become elided as the visually constructed

world of the soap operas supersedes that of their lives

outside of television. Viewers think that they know

the characters, that the characters play a role in their

8 I focused primarily on the Sunday Times, the most widely-

read newspaper in South Africa. The Times reaches people in

most racial and income-based demographics. However, like

many aspects of South Africa, newspaper readership is highly

demarcated based on race and socio-economic status. Though

the Sunday Times has the widest readership, I examined

newspapers that reached larger Black audiences like The CityPress (the paper that refers to itself as ‘‘Distinctly African’’ and

tends to attract and target a Black and largely urban audience).To round out my findings, I also analyzed other papers that

reach a variety of demographics: The Daily News, The Star,

The Cape Argus, The Pretoria News, and The Mail andGuardian. Interestingly, though each paper had a different

intended audience, the treatment of the soap operas was

strikingly similar.

252 GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255

123

lives as friends, enemies, or even potential employ-

ers: ‘‘How often have I heard my sister, an ardent

Generations fan, speak of Karabo [a character] and

co. as if she knew them personally,’’ one author wrote

(Wilhelm 2005).

Others, however, criticize the alleged ‘reality’ of

the program, calling it ‘stereotypical’ or ‘‘an unin-

tentional satire’’ (Revenge of the killer stylists 2005).

The show, one author complains, provides ‘‘a never-

never land of aspirations: a place where apartheid

memories are flattened and rewritten’’ (Anderson

2005). One response in particular berated the show’s

depiction of Black South Africans:

No Black people in Africa talk like that! In fact,

most White people don’t even use that high

brow phraseology. As urban, sophisticated

South Africans we don’t know ANYONE who

speaks like that. And where do they come from?

Mars, London? Who gave birth to them? Do

they never go home to visit their parents? Why

is their [sic] no mention of townships? We

never hear any of them speaking about Soweto

or Umlazi or Khatlehong. Don’t they know

anyone who lives in a township? These are

really funny Black people (Mutuba and Owen

2005; Ives 2007).

These criticisms reveal that, though the show is

widely watched and discussed, the audience does not

necessarily buy into its depictions of South Africa.

The authors challenge the language of the characters,

but also the imagined geography created by the show.

By questioning the world that the characters inhabit

and linking it to actual geographic spaces (Soweto,

Umlazi, Khatlehong9), the authors engage with the

mediascape in ways that both reify its material

presence and challenge its reality. For example, one

newspaper author argues that the programming

contains ‘‘a degree of wish-fulfillment’’ (Anderson

2005). Women in soap operas, he continues,

have more power than they do in real life. The

villainess reigns and plots; she has a hearty

sexual appetite and has been on intimate terms

with more than one man. She is power-hungry,

scheming and manipulative. In the real world,

the villainess’s power might be stripped away

by patriarchy; in the soap opera this situation is

reversed. The weak become the strong.

And yet beyond masking inequality, television

also provides a forum for dialogue about the images

of the ‘New’ South Africa, a forum to contest the

uncomplicated images of financial achievement put

forward by the African National Congress’s neolib-

eral agenda. Some authors question whether South

Africans even want to aspire to the images that

Generations puts forth:

Generations prides itself on being up-market,

aspirational and an example of Black empow-

erment. I know this is only a soap and no one is

going to watch a show filled with touchy-feely

do gooders, but if rogues and out-of-control

men are our business models, what are we

saying about our nation? (The Thug Jack

Mabaso 2005).

These critiques demonstrate the dialogical nature

of television, yet do not diminish its importance.

Whether the audience believes or contests the

images put forth in South African soap operas, they

remain a constant part of everyday articulations of

identity.

Conclusion

Visual images help make objects and ideas material

and thus influence imagined geographies. Given their

role in consolidating discourse, I argue for the

increased inclusion of visual methodologies in dis-

course analyses. It is not sufficient, however, simply

to recognize the significance of examining the visual

in geography. We must also critically examine how

geographers implement and engage with these meth-

odologies to respond to the tension between cultural

and feminist geography highlighted by Domosh

(2005). A feminist epistemological perspective would

9 These ‘townships’ are politically charged spaces in the South

African imaginary. During apartheid, the government relegated

Blacks (and other non-White South Africans) to segregated

townships. Soweto, in particular, was a site of uprising and

violence during the struggle to end apartheid. In 1976 (also the

same year that television first came to South Africa), students

protested, in part, the imposition of the Afrikaans language in

schools. The police responded with force, and hundreds of

school children were killed or injured. Today, the townships

retain virtually the same level of segregation, as well as high

levels of poverty.

GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255 253

123

emphasize both reflexivity and dialogue in examin-

ations of the visual.

Examining visual media helps uncover meanings

not revealed through textual analysis alone. If one

simply reads the text of Generations, the program,

with its focus on scandal and romance, might appear

to mirror its US counterparts like The Bold and the

Beautiful. And yet, soap operas do present a

challenge to the status quo in South Africa, and the

challenge is visual. By depicting wealthy, ‘modern,’

Black South Africans interacting and even having

romantic relationships with White South Africans,

the programs put forth images radically different

from those allowed under apartheid, and radically

different from the everyday experiences of most

South Africans, who still largely live under de facto

segregation. In this manner, South African television

attempts, in part, to depict a new vision for the

country, a country freed from apartheid and united

through a ‘rainbow,’ ‘multicultural,’ non-racialist

ideology. These visual images powerfully influence

the national imaginary, constructing visual silences—

poverty, racism, disease—that mask enduring racial

inequalities and construct an imagined geography

that seemingly justifies the government’s neoliberal

policies. For example, rural Black South African

audiences see an image of an urban, wealthy South

Africa that they may never experience (or may not

even exist) outside of visual media.

Employing ethnographies that engage with audi-

ences would provide a crucial first step to a more

dialogistic engagement with the visual. Popular

culture mediums like soap operas serve as ideolog-

ically charged spaces that provide a compelling

medium for examining not only how governments

and corporations attempt to envision a nation, but

also how people react to those visions. And yet, there

are limitations to both my methods and my repre-

sentation of those methods. In this article, I find

myself trapped by text. Even as I attempt to escape

the limitations of text and engage with its imperfect

translations through the use of images, the images

remain framed by my words. Text remains primary in

academia. As John Jackson, Jr. (2004) has argued,

academia retains a textual fetishization. How can we

begin to unpack and move beyond this limitation?

Perhaps the work of scholars like Marlon Riggs, who

creates films that combine language, sounds, and

images to challenge and subvert representations of

race and sexuality, could provide a clue (see Behar

1993 for a discussion of his work). Similarly,

geographers could look to critical performance artists

like Guillermo Gomez-Pena, who employs another

form of creative expression and critique, or discus-

sions of indigenous media that seek to destabilize the

role of the author in constructing visual media (see

Jackson 2004). Regardless of the path we choose,

engaging with the privileging of text and employing a

feminist epistemological lens in visual methodologies

are integral to the continuing de-colonization of the

discipline advanced by feminist and post-colonial

geographers.

References

Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on theorigin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

Anderson, M. (2005). Soapies mirror SA’s soul. http://www.

mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=45250&area=%2

finsight%2finsight__nat. Accessed November 3, 2005.

Behar, R. (1993). Expanding the boundaries of anthropology:

The cultural criticism of Gloria Anzaldua and Marlon

Riggs. Visual Anthropology Review, 9, 83–91.

Call in the Pros. (2004). The Sunday Times. http://www.

sundaytimes.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=1329753.

Accessed September 8, 2005.

Cope, M. (2002). Feminist epistemology in geography. In

P. Moss (Ed.), Feminist geography in practice (pp. 43–55).

Oxford: Blackwell.

Cosgrove, D. (1985). Prospect, perspective and the evolution of

the landscape idea. Transactions of the Institute of BritishGeographers, 10, 45–62. New Series.

Cosgrove, D., & Daniels, S. (Eds.). (1988). The iconography oflandscape: Essays on the symbolic representation, designand use of past environments. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Crang, (2003). On display: The poetics, politics and interpre-

tation of exhibitions. In A. Blunt, P. Gruffudd, J. May,

M. Ogborn & D. Pinder (Eds.), Cultural geography inpractice (pp. 255–268). New York: Oxford University Press.

da Costa, M. H. B. V. (2003). Cinematic cities: Researching

films as geographical texts. In A. Blunt, P. Gruffudd, J.

May, M. Ogborn & D. Pinder (Eds.), Cultural geographyin practice (pp. 191–201). New York: Oxford University

Press.

Domosh, M. (1991). Beyond the frontiers of geographical

knowledge. Transactions of the Institute of BritishGeographers, 16, 488–490.

Domosh, M. (2005). An uneasy alliance? Tracing the rela-

tionships between cultural and feminist geographies.

Social Geography, 1, 37–41.

Driver, F. (2003). On geography as a visual discipline. Anti-pode, 35, 795–797.

254 GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255

123

Duncan, J. (1995). Landscape geography, 1993–94. Progressin Human Geography, 19, 414–423.

England, J. (2004). Disciplining subjectivity and space: Rep-

resentation, film and its material effects. Antipode, 36,

295–321.

Folch-Serra, M. (1990). Place, voice, space: Mikhail Bakhtin’s

dialogical landscape. Environment and Planning D:Society and Space, 8, 255–274.

Generations. (2005). http://generations.sabc1.co.za/template.

asp?ID=1. Accessed November 1, 2005.

Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In Center for Contempo-

rary Cultural Studies (Ed.), Culture, media, language:Working papers in cultural studies (pp. 128–138). London:

Hutchinson.

Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, and women: The rein-vention of nature. London: Free Association Books.

Hayes, P., & Bank, A. (2001). Judging books by their covers.

Kronos: Journal of Cape History, 27, 1–14.

Hopkins, J. (1994). Mapping cinematic places: icons, ideology,

and the power of (mis)representation. In S. C. Aitken & L.

E. Zonn (Eds.), Place, power, situation and spectacle: Ageography of film (pp. 47–65). Lanham: Rowman and

Littlefield Publishers.

Ives, S. (2007). Mediating the neoliberal nation: Television in

post-apartheid South Africa. ACME, 6, 153–173.

Jackson, J. (2004). An ethnographic filmflam: Giving gifts,

doing research, and videotaping the native subject/object.

American Anthropologist, 106, 32–42.

Jacobs, J., & Nash, C. (2003). Too little, too much: cultural

feminist geographies. Gender, Place and Culture, 10,

265–279.

Leibbrandt, M., Poswell, L., Naidoo, P., Welch, M., &

Woodlard, I. (2004). Measuring recent changes in SouthAfrican inequality and poverty using 1996 and 2001census data. Working Paper No. 84. Centre for Social

Science Research.

Lowry, D., Ching, T., Nio, J., & Leitner, D. (2003). Setting the

public fear agenda: A longitudinal analysis of network TV

crime reporting, public perceptions of crime, and FBI

crime statistics. Journal of Communication, 53, 61–74.

Madge, C., Raghuram, P., Skelton, T., Willis, K., & Williams,

J. (1997). Methods and methodologies in feminist

research. In Geography Woman Study Group (Ed.),

Feminist geographies: Diversity and difference (pp. 86–

111). London: Longmans.

Modleski, T. (1979). The search for tomorrow in today’s soap

operas: Notes on a feminine narrative form. Film Quar-terly, 33, 12–21.

Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual and other pleasures. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press.

Mutuba, I., & Owen, T. (2005). Sistah’s are doing it to them-

selves. Tonight. http://www.entertainment.co.za/index.php?

fSectionId=360&fArticleId=2632219. Viewed November

3, 2005.

Philo, C. (1992). Foucault’s geography. Environment andPlanning D: Society and Space, 10, 137–161.

Romer, D., Jamieson, K., & Aday, S. (2003). Television news

and the cultivation of fear of crime. The Journal ofCommunication, 53, 88–104.

Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies. London: Sage

Publications.

Rose, G. (2003). On the need to ask how, exactly, is geography

‘‘visual’’? Antipode, 35, 212–221.

Ryan, J. (2003). Who’s afraid of visual culture? Antipode, 35,

232–237.

SAARF. (2002). Highlights of the SAARF all media andproducts survey. http://www.saarf.co.za/ppt/2002Bamps.

pdf. Viewed September 8, 2005.

SAARF. (2003). Highlights of the SAARF all media and prod-ucts survey. http://www.saarf.co.za/ppt/AMPSRAM2003

Ahighlights.pdf. Viewed September 8, 2005.

Schwartz, J. (2003). Photographs from the edge of empire. In

A. Blunt, P. Gruffudd, J. May, M. Ogborn & D. Pinder

(Eds.), Cultural geography in practice (pp. 154–171).

New York: Oxford University Press.

The Thug Jack Mabaso. (2005). Sunday Times. http://www.

sundaytimes.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=1485245.

Viewed September 21, 2005.

United Nations Development Programme. (2004). Develop-ment Progress in South Africa.. http://www.unpd.org.za/

NHDRF.htm. Viewed September 20, 2005.

Wilhelm, J. (2005). TV soaps. Sunday Times. http://www.

sundaytimes.co.za/Article/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=1413656.

Viewed September 16, 2005.

GeoJournal (2009) 74:245–255 255

123