Lissa Juliet Tapiwa Nyamuranga

Zimbabwean Females' Identity Formation: Television and Identity Formation: a Case Study of the Tyra Banks Show and the Msu Female Students Lissa Juliet Tapiwa Nyamuranga

The media often act as the bridge between our personal or private lives and the public world. Through the social imagination we see ourselves in and our place in the world through the mass media. Particular symbols and images are used to call out to certain people so that they recognize themselves in them and identify with the group being portrayed. Hence through such exposure a show like the Tyra Banks Show has brought about the formation of identity in developing countries like Zimbabwe particularly at an institution like the Midlands State University. An institution which has youths mainly exposed to globalization and its influences particularly the female student in which thus the group the show mainly focus on. The meanings that are gathered from the media do not have to be final but are open to reshaping and refashioning to suit an individual?s personal needs and consequently, identity. This book shows how mass media provides a wide-ranging source of cultural opinions and standards to young people as well as dissimilar examples of identity.