By: Kirstin Kyle, Anele Ngwenya & Nicole Naicker
By using public journalism methods in the Critical Media Production course we were able to set up a sort of direct link with the community. We made relations with community members. We were also able to find out what problems the people of the community had. It was not us going in there and deciding what we thought was problematic in the community, and what we thought was good – it was what the people thought of their own community, and this helped set our news agenda. So in a way it was like seeing the community through their eyes momentarily. This also helped when it came to stories – we didn’t have to go out and search for things to cover because some things that came up in talks with the community proved to be useful. We avoided getting governmental institutions involved in case they would intimidate the people. This proved to be successful, and the people of the community agreed with this and asked that we not invite government officials to meetings in the future either.
However, we tried to facilitate the meeting ourselves, and people would go off on tangents about everything. It was a bit difficult trying to keep people in check and focused on the meeting. Another problem was the fact that our ward is predominantly isiXhosa speaking, so a lot of us in the group couldn’t understand what was being said and needed to ask for translations. As much as we were there as journalists, we were able to integrate with the community, and get them to open up to us.
Previously our work produced was for mere mark purposes, however, with the Journalism, Development and Democracy and Critical Media Production courses our work is being produced with an actual audience in mind. The stories that we have covered are from ward two, dealing with the people of the ward, and these are the people that will be reading the stories. When our stories are viewed by the people of the community we get to see the responses of the people. It is only once we went out in the community that we were able to see the possibility of us actually making a difference. Sarah and Fifi, from our group managed to make an actual physical difference for the Little Flower Day-Care Centre. They have set up a link between the day-care and Pick ‘N Pay – the proceeds of Pick ‘N Pay’s November trolley drive will go to the day-care, Pick ‘N Pay is throwing a Christmas party for the children and the centre and they are trying to set up a bread scheme whereby the left over bread from the previous day will be given to the day-care. This course has shown us that as journalists we can do something to make a difference, even by merely initiating a change in a community. As professionals we can serve the public.
After going into our ward we decided that we wanted to try and help the community, and make a difference, no matter how small. We didn’t want to just be a bunch of journalism students going in there and exploiting the community to get a mark and then leave. After our first public meeting we picked up on a problem with litter in the area. We thought that it would be a good idea to hold a litter clean up – this would help with the litter problem, and encourage the community that they can try and solve their own problems instead of just constantly complaining and waiting for the municipality. These objects were clearly thought through and realistic – it was not a huge problem that was beyond our means of solving, litter was something that we could deal with. We spoke to the municipality - got bin bags from them and organised for them to collect the dirt once it was picked up. We also advertised the event and invited other organisations, such as NGOs, to get involved.
We produced a three page wall newspaper, with a fourth page poster advertising our litter campaign. We called our paper Siyakhula which means ‘we are growing’ – our theme was growth and how the community is growing towards better things. The first page held a story about the Egazini Outreach Centre which trains young children in various art forms. This story was taken from the perspective of Linga Diko who works at Egazini. The Little Flower Day-Care Centre is the main story on the second page; the story gives a general idea of the centre, what it’s about and what they do there. The next story is about a clay initiative in Grahamstown. Our third page is a sort of ‘how to’ about recycling. This is to encourage people to try and solve the litter problem in innovative ways, and to also inform the community of what they can do. Finally, was the poster telling people about our plan to clean up the area and encouraging them to come along.
Our journalism encouraged people to get involved in the community - to not just sit back and wait for the municipality to come and fix every little problem in their own time. The people of the community should get together and tell the municipality about their problems, but not just leave it there, go out and try and solve the problems that they can and campaign. They can start by getting together and discussing the problems and seen what they can and cannot do. Our journalism was ‘alternative’ in that we included a sort of ‘campaign journalism’ with our litter campaign. We didn’t just go in and get our stories and leave; we tried to integrate with the community, and went to the municipality with the problem. We then went in and got involved with the campaign and picked up the litter ourselves, with people of the community.
Our objectives were achieved through our journalism. We were able to produce a well written and designed publication which was received well by the people in each story.
The process we have gone through has been very tiring but immensely rewarding. We feel that the people around us taught us more about what we were doing more than us teaching them about anything. A place like the “Little Flower Day-care” helped us with both story ideation and creativity towards our publication design. The process went well.
The target market was very clear. We had focused on the areas which we had travelled and met people such as the Egazini art centre and the Little Flower Day-care centre. Our target market catered to those people who needed to be promoted more and needed a break in having their stories out there. Our work has targeted the target market’s expectations as we have been able to write about them in the most positive way possible. The tone was positive and the language was easy enough considering that the people were mostly Xhosa speaking. Although they were Xhosa speaking, it was not a bad thing using English as we had hoped that the publication news would eventually spread to the town where most people would read them. The tone used thought was positive, progressive and promotional of their community.
The stories were surprising in the fact that we did not focus on negative issues within the society such as the lack of service delivery. We had figured that problems like that could be complained about anywhere else. So we stayed positive. We found a negative situation of litter at extension 6 and 7. Instead of focusing on how the municipality does nothing in cleaning up the area, we decided to have a ‘litter pick-up’ day where we were able to encourage the citizens to clean up their own environment. There was also a page within our publication which gave hints and tips on how to protect the environment. The paper was different and surprising as the stories moved towards a place of positivity more than negativity- people can reach out more than just read.
We were able to do research on the project by speaking to people from door-to-door and visiting public areas like sports centres and taverns where we spoke to people. Our research moved onto to meetings and opinion boards with the wall-paper magazine. We researched extensively by reading past reports of the stories and speaking to the municipality about issues like litter. For one of our stories about the Little Flower Day-care centre, one of our group members kept visiting the day-care centre and kept working with them to research more on their development. The Centre for Social Development (CSD) was also used in our preliminary research to get the right statistics and they eventually took an interest in one of our stories.
The people spoken to in all our stories were of leadership positions. They were either managers of places like the Sort Centre at extension six or they were owners of the day-care centre. We spoke to municipal leaders who some action in cleaning after our meetings. Our biggest sources were those that were closely linked to each story. Since our stories are mostly progressive and full of positivity, we worked on allowing them to speak for themselves. With all these sources, the relationship blossomed, it became easier to come to the people and speak about anything. Our most successful relationship was that between Sarah Couch, one of our group members, and Lungi- the owner of Little Flower Day-care centre. Sarah paid regular visits to Lungi, taking pictures and even sitting in on classes.
The stories which we had were stories which facilitated public deliberation such as the one about litter. A lot of people both in the meeting and from door to door have complained about the litter situation saying that it is unhealthy and dangerous for the cattle. This was our biggest issues as it affected everybody including the elderly. The story about the litter situation in extension 6 did have solutions offered to them in the form of information about keeping the environment clean. Unfortunately, that is the only way in which the streets could be kept cleans as the municipality would not change much in how they handle the litter situation. In our stories, we did offer alternative ways in which the community can take care of itself by educating children about keeping the environment clean and having more litter drives. In our publication, we advertised our litter drive in the hope that many would appear and practise cleaning up their own environment.
Our entire group held a public meeting for the community of extension 6 and 7. Which got the citizens talking about what their problems were?
In terms of our specific WED outputs we did not hold another public meeting. But we rather facilitated focus group meetings by talking to people who interacted with our newspaper. By putting the wall paper up in the areas of which we talked about (Little flower day care centre) we were able to get feedback from the citizens. On a whole the citizens were very excited about the wallpaper and wanted to talk more about what we were doing. By putting these papers up we immediately created a site for discussion. In order to aid this deliberation and problem solving we also left a page where comments could be left and people could fill this in. We hope that our layout of our wallpaper with its large photos will also attract attention and in that way attract more comments. We spoke to the owner of the little day care centre and some shebeen patrons about the paper and this got them talking.
We tried to champion the solutions suggested by citizens by organizing a litter cleanup where lots of the children from the surrounding areas came and helped. Ultimately we would have like for this to be created into a community organization with ties to the municipality and we are still looking into this. As of course only cleaning up litter for one day is not sustainable and not creating solutions. Thus we feel we need to do more in this regard by speaking to other organizations and liaising with the municipality, to see if clean up groups can be created or revived (as suggested there are environmental groups). We also included a recycling page which we feel will help to educate people on the benefits of recycling and perhaps this will reduce litter. We hope that our stories on our wall papers will inspire some sort of positive change as it has with the little flower day care centre which is now receiving help from pick n pay.
Our wallpaper we feel was engaging and achieved our objectives. We used large photos, bright colours and easy to read layout. We feel this attracted the reader in to find out more. The writing itself achieved our objective in that we wanted to highlight what the rest of our group was doing, so the community got a sense of what we wanted to do until we can show them the video footage etc. The writing informed the reader and was written in a plain style that will helpfully be easy for people who are not fluent in Xhosa to read. Thus are colour choices, photos and writing has made this an engaging wall paper. We also used printed arrows to navigate the reader around the pages which we feel also adds to engaging the audience as they will want to find out more about the paper by questioning what the arrows are for.
Our group was extremely independent of commercial government. We went about designing our paper and including the stories and pictures we wished to use. On the one hand we gained from this in that we weren’t restricted by what other influences thought we should do and they had no influence over our content. On the other hand our litter cleanup was independent of any government influences although we did borrow black bags from the municipality this we feel was a weakness as we were not able to create a relationship with the community and the government so as to improve the litter situation.
Our group was organized into two designers and one writer. The writer covered stories that we all thought were relevant and the designers split the work. This was done democratically as the designers split the design work fairly. Unfortunately we only had one writer so this writer had to maybe work a bit harder, but we were all easy going on story deadlines and gave her sufficient time. Our editorial processes were conducted by holding group meetings where we brainstormed ideas and came up with a concrete plan. Group stories were evaluated by what would work best on the wall paper and what had the best photos, we wanted to cover all the other specializations work, so we ran those stories and as a group decided on the importance of each story and picture preference. We worked well with the other multi media groups as we got content from them and they took photos for us and discussed their stories. Within our own group we worked well together as we assigned what needed to be done and when this needed to be done. We were very lucky in that all of our sub group members contributed and there was not a problem of non contribution.
The positives of our group organization is that everyone knew what they had to do because we had meetings and set out plans. The negatives were that we didn’t have enough contact with the other groups to cover their stories at a larger level as we worked in seclusion from the other groups. Also as the writer was not there when we did design work sometimes there was confusion as to when the articles needed to be in. But we all worked well together and contributed equally.
The collaborative role is a theory that looks at journalists and the state working together to help development in times of social or economic unrest. The relationship between this theory and the concept of development journalism is that both aim to work with the government to try and help the community. We believe at some level that yes they do have some validity as change can not come about without the help of the higher levels and thus collaboration is necessary in some regards to benefit the community. However we also see this theory as relying to much on the government which might be a detriment as it could become biased and only show case the governments beliefs and views. The press is not independent and this we feel is not valid as the press should be independent to report fairly and showcase all sides to an argument.
We do not feel it had any usefulness in this course. The government was often not willing to help us or hear our complaints and thus we could not collaborate with them even if we wanted to. It would be useful if the government wanted to get involved and contribute to what we are trying to do. However this has not occurred and the community and us as journalists remain far removed from the higher powers. Which we feel as hindered us in developing our ideas further (litter cleanup program).
The radical role of journalism sees journalists going against the dominant cultural in an effort to bring about change. It sees that journalists should oppose what the dominant political parties and other parties are about in order to question them and help citizens become active members of society who do not merely accept the dominant hegemony but because of radical journalists stories oppose and question these hegemonies. The theory is that journalists should cover media in such a way as to oppose dominant streams and to do this they need to talk to citizens, go to alternative sources and not accept what traditional media is saying. These journalists provide alternative views of the media and question the roles and ideas of those in charge. There is no objectivity as journalists must give their opinions to try and exact a change within society. The differences are that public journalism still acts within the framework of traditional journalism and still seeks to create a joint relationship with dominant powers such as getting the municipality to work with the community whereas radical journalism departs from the long standing traditional professional journalistic structures and do not aim to create a vertical relationship but to facilitate a horizontal relationship that rejects higher powers. Public journalism refrains from advocating for one side like radical journalism which promotes standing against the dominant and has specific political interests. The similarities are as follows. Both facilitated citizen to citizen interaction to discuss problems, issues and solutions at a ground level. Both also go further as to organize citizen meetings and other areas of discussion to discuss issues. Also both follow up on citizen progress through ongoing coverage. Yes they do have usefulness in South Africa. This is because politics needs to be covered in a radical format to educate people and make them question what is going on. Journalism should not just accept the way things are but try and change them through illustration of what dominant parties are doing. This can facilitate change within communities who are urged to communicate with one another by radical journalism. This type of journalism can hopefully exact a change by illustrating what is really going on and being subjective. We think in terms of this course it has not had much validity as it is difficult to impose such radical ideas on a community being just a group of students. We think it could be valuable in that it will help the communities not accept what is happening to them (bad sanitation) and question the people in charge.
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