Group Essay

Work produced by Take a Leap

Audio slide

Our group has composed two audio slide shows: the first dealing with the litter problem in the Grahamstown location, and how this problem is being combated; and the second dealing with the failure of the Makana Municipality to install proper toilets in various areas of the location, despite promises to do so, and the effect this has on residents.

Television

Our TV media output took the form of a PSA and news feature, both regarding illegal dumping in Grahamstown. Although our news piece worked within the framework of standard news conventions our PSA required a creative eye to project emotion into what might be considered an everyday occurance – a child playing amongst dumped litter. This was achieved by first showing a close-up of a child playing, and only afterwards revealing the dump in which she is playing.

In addition to our PSA and news story we are also making a short collage of snippets of what our group of environmental activists have been up to. This will include shots of our banner, speaking to people about their environmental concerns, handing out posters and team meetings.

WED

As a WED group we have produced a number of items. First we produced two stories for Oppi Press, relating to the Albany water crisis and the other to energy saving light bulbs. Both these stories had vox pops as well as side bars telling people how to save electricity etc. Our other two stories will appear in Grahamstown this week, one being an opinion on Makana’s environmental policy implementation and the other a feedback on our Egazeni exhibition. We have also produced an educational banner which informs the people of Grahamstown what LEAP is and what their environmental rights are. Lastly we have produced a bilingual banner, which people from all over the town wrote their environmental concerns on.

Vision and Objectives

The environment is arguably the biggest global crisis of our time. Human beings continue to ‘develop’ and progress but to the detriment of the natural world and as predictions of what the future holds for our planet become increasingly bleak, it is more clear now than ever that something drastic needs to be done. While this environmental responsibility certainly falls to each and every individual, without effective policies and legislation in place from governing authorities the battle for the environment will be a losing one. It is of crucial importance that environmental policies are not only put in place, which does in fact seem to be happening, but also that they are properly implemented on both national and local levels.

It is in this regard that perhaps one of our group’s defining aims was to closely scrutinize Makana Municipality’s local environmental policies the ways in which they have, or have not, been effectively implemented. Indeed, one of our most important objectives was investigation. The municipality should be held accountable for the citizens of Grahamstown and part of that is carrying out that which it has proposed to do – particularly when this concerns the crucial topic of the environment, which can have a very real and direct impact on people’s lives. We hoped to look closely at the municipality’s Local Environmental Action Plan (LEAP) and find the discrepancies between policy and implementation and, where necessary, expose the municipality’s shortcomings or successes through investigate reporting.

Our vision for our group, however, was not simply to criticize what was or was not being done and leave it at that, but rather to use that information to facilitate change and to use our media outputs to work alongside the municipality’s aims and goals in some capacity, thus using our media to help the municipality to make a difference to the environment. One of our main objectives was to educate people and raise awareness about what the LEAP policies actually are and what they entail, as research we conducted indicated that most people actually knew very little about the municipality’s environmental policies. At the same time we wanted to encourage people to do their ‘bit’ for the environment by, for example, picking up litter and not dumping waste illegally. We would place ourselves, then, at around five on the scale of the second spectrum; while not pandering to or being the mouthpiece of the municipality and investigating the implementation of its policies, we also wanted to ‘advertise’ some of the municipality’s success stories and try to promote their aims and efforts in a kind of development journalism capacity.

We do, however, see ourselves as working mostly for the people. On spectrum one, we would place ourselves at around four on the scale. We didn’t want our journalism to be objective and detached, but wanted to get involved and engage with the citizens of journalism – the people who are affected by the municipality’s policies. Another important objective for us was to provide the citizens of Grahamstown with a platform for debate and discussion about their environmental concerns. We also wanted to make sure that some of this information made its way to the legislators who can actually make changes based on what they find out. What was essential for us was that our journalism was not simply created in a vacuum but that it would have real meaning and facilitate change.

We think that our objectives were realistic and credible. We brainstormed various ideas but I think that we stayed practical and almost all of our original plans came through somehow, even if we had to adapt them slightly. We think that our ideas were very well thought and, on the whole, we were very pleased with how they turned out.

Innovation and Journalistic approaches

Our topic, which deals with governance and policies, is one which almost lends itself to investigative journalism and playing the ‘watchdog role’ – a role which is very important. We did, however, want to be a bit more creative with our media outputs and explore the possibilities of journalism outside of traditional, mainstream approaches.

Our media outputs are, then, alternative in some ways. Most notably, we tried to incorporate aspects of public journalism by creating a platform through which the people of Grahamstown could create the journalism for us by expressing their environmental concerns and problems without us dictating the angle of the ‘story’. Our audio slides also encouraged people to tell their own stories. We also used development journalism approaches through our educational campaigns and also with the creation of a Public Service Announcement (PSA) on illegal dumping which we offered to the municipality for education purposes. Perhaps we could have gone further in this respect but we did face some constraints in terms of our topic, which was quite well suited to more traditional approaches to journalism.

We do think that our media outputs were approached with our objectives and group vision in mind, which is why they have been so effective thus far. The fact that we collaborated so closely as a group has given our media outputs a very clear coherence even if different media specializations employed different kinds of approaches to journalism.

Achieving objectives

It is perhaps still too soon to tell just how effective our media campaign really was but we do think that we managed to create media achieving our objectives. Our graffiti banner certainly got people talking and we had a very good response to it, as people became very roused by it and gave us their concerns about the municipality. Most importantly, we got our media out of the AMM and spread the word as our stories were published in local newspapers and the municipality agreed to use our illegal dumping PSA for their own educational purposes and we got our own educational posters out and around Grahamstown. We will also be having our own exhibition of our work in the Egazini Community centre and hope that this will be successful in raising some awareness and getting people talking. We have also utilized our blog quite effectively so hopefully in time this will also be able to add to our campaign. It is perhaps fair to say, however, that our work will have an effect but that it will take time for this to happen in some cases.

Target audiences

As a larger group, our main target audience was all the citizens of Grahamstown as policy is something that affects all people. However we used our different mediums of television, radio, photography, and writing and design to reach different members of the community on different levels.

The television productions, which focus on the issue of illegal dumping, take into consideration three audiences within the Grahamstown community, namely; policy makers, victims of illegal dumping and perpetrators of illegal dumping. The news story is aimed in some ways at all three. It portrays the complaints and grievances of residents with the aim of informing those who have the power to influence change of what the needs of the community are. The news piece is targeted at both Xhosa and English speakers due to the presence of subtitles. The public service announcement (PSA) was produced for the municipality to use as part of their campaign to create public awareness about the problems caused by illegal dumping. It is targeted at an older audience, as they are primarily responsible for disposing of their families/businesses waste. As the target audience is an older one, a child is used as the focus of the PSA, to appeal to ones maternal or paternal instincts. Both a Xhosa and English version have been produced, and so the target audience includes both language groups.

With respect to the audio visual slideshows these had similarly broad target audiences – those who are affected by the implementation/non-implementation of the policies, and those who are in charge of the policies. We did, however, focus on those who are worst affected, because these are the same people who don’t have access to the information and who need to know their rights. Both audio-visual slideshows are done in English, which makes it less accessible to those who don’t speak the language, but images do communicate, which is why we used the photographs that we did.

WED however targeted the whole of the Grahamstown community as Makana policies affect individuals at every level. The stories we produced were for OppiPress, and Grahamstown This Week, and thus targeted those specific audiences of both student and community, aiming to spread environmental policy concerns as much as possible. In terms of the banner, we created a bilingual platform for all sectors of the community to voice their concerns in terms of waste, water and electricity. We did this by placing it at Pick ‘n Pay and Checkers, hoping to engage with a large representation in terms of demographics. The language used in the educational posters was very basic English to ensure even those less literate could understand. The graphic appeal of the posters also reinforced this. Thus by having news stories, graphic educational posters and a bilingual banner for the community to give feedback to the municipality, we managed to use different forms and mediums to address environmental concerns, from more traditional types of journalism stories to allowing the community to participate.

The ‘so what’ and ‘audience appeal’ factors

Since our groups topic is one of governance this can very easily be misconstrued as boring and inaccessible. We tried to make governance and policy accessible to all members of the community and make it interesting for them. Each individual story produced by our group has a different but just as important appeal to the Grahamstown community at large. We decided to focus essentially on the issues of water, waste and electricity as these appear the most important environmental issues to Grahamstown residents.

The television students followed illegal dumping which is not a new problem in Grahamstown, but an ongoing one. The research into how other local journalists have covered the problem shows that it has never before been related to LEAP policy. Therefore it takes a fresh look at the problem and provides new information to the community. We believe the story will be of interest to the community as it is quite evident that illegal dumping is a problem in many areas of Grahamstown, which poses health and safety risks for those who reside near these dump sites. As our group’s beat focuses on municipal policies, our news story could have quite easily become very impersonal. However we included individual voices and characters from the community to personalise the issue. The PSA we have produced draws strongly on the audiences emotions and uses simple visuals, music and language so that the viewer is not distracted from the message. We believe the PSA is effective in the way in which it appeals to the viewer and in communicating that illegal dumping is wrong.

In relation to radio and photography both of the audiovisual slideshow’s topics are very relevant to our target audience. They both communicate some of the more extreme problems within the Makana Municipality’s domain – litter and sewage. So many people are living under terrible conditions, unaware that it is their municipality’s duty to do something about it. It is through this that we will empower those in our audience who are affected by the problems. We did not want to promote negativity about Makana, but still felt that the stories needed to be told truthfully, and so we carefully chose the way that the slideshows would develop. For example, our story on the litter problem starts off with scenes of destitution, where landscapes are ruined by rubbish and the sky is grey and slowly transforms into scenes where there are bright colours, smiling children and blue skies. We found it necessary to bring the positive to light too. The slideshow, while being informative, also had a story, which brings in the important human element.

As has been already mentioned it is difficult to make policies appealing to the people. However the WED group managed to construct an investigative news piece on the Albany Water Scheme for the OppiPress in terms of how it will effects students, and thus managed to relate it back to our audience. We also wrote a news piece on the energy saving light bulbs, which the municipality is using to replace normal light bulbs all around Grahamstown. Through this we managed to shed some positive light on the municipality and what they are doing for the environment. Other stories range from an opinion piece about people should take responsibility for the waste problem in Grahamstown and fix it themselves. The banner was a fresh, innovative way for people to voice their concerns and showed a definite need for a public space for the community to voice their grievances. We made it an appealing event, with balloons, colorful leaflets and sweets. The Grahamstown community responded with much enthusiasm, as well as showing that there is much tension between the municipality and themselves. The graphic educational posters worked in terms of making LEAP policies public and presenting to the community what the municipality should be doing, giving them the prerogative to judge on their own terms what they think the municipality is or is not doing. Thus we hoped to facilitate some change, for if our media audiences are aware of policies and know who to talk to in the municipality, then we have helped to bridge the gap between them.

Quality and depth of research

Since this project revolved around policy and the governance there was a great deal of research required to make sure we were aware of all the policies in place, and find out how or if they had been implemented. Our group began by conducting Xhosa and English surveys on a random selection of people to find out how many, if any, people knew about LEAP, and about Makana policies on the environment. The data collected showed that very few ordinary citizens knew that Makana policies on the environment even existed. We followed this with an in-depth investigation into Makana LEAP policies. We found that the Makana Local Environmental Action Plan (LEAP) was a local policy developed in 2005, to ensure more focus on environmental issues from the basis of Agenda 21. Agenda 21 seeks to reflect the needs, resources, and hopes of local community and place these in a global context. LEAP thus serves to address social, economic and environmental issues together and reinforce Makana Integrated Development Planning through municipality and community participation, by providing a vision for action projects, developing these projects and providing an understanding of environmental issues and risks in Makana. Thus by examining how these policies work around the development of action themes and action projects in terms of electricity, waste and water the Makana municipality’s role in the environment can thus be assessed.

After extensive background research and community feedback, we approached the municipality as well as environmental officers and professors in Grahamstown, to obtain more expert advice. The municipality, when available, was very cooperative, but it was difficult to get hold of them. The banner project served as research tool in itself. By allowing the Grahamstown public the space to communicate their environmental concerns, we as journalists could identify areas of dissatisfaction and report on those stories. Overall from the research conducted we identified that the public were not aware of the environmental policies and that they needed a platform to express their concerns. Therefore the educational posters and the banner project served a participatory journalistic approach, allowing the community to take part in our media, having their say. The educational poster provided the public with information to their basic rights whereby the LEAP policies were outlined in a simplistic and understandable way.

Within the particular specialization groups there was also extensive research done. For example the television students started their research into illegal dumping by looking at old Grocott’s Mail, stretching from 2006 up to this month. After gaining an idea on the general problem through these previous reports, we decided to investigate illegal dump sites ourselves to see if the issue is still relevant. We visited several sites and took pictures. After that we got in contact with one particular resident who had been named in one of Grocott’s articles, and conducted an interview with him to find out more. After interviewing him about the illegal dumpsite outside his home, we spoke to several other residents who lived nearby. We spent some time at the dumpsite talking to residents and documenting first-hand observation. Lastly we got hold of one of the people responsible for waste management at Makana Municipality, and interviewed him.We tried to break away from convention when it came to sources. We gave a lot more time to residents’ comments, since usually these are nameless faces on the screen for a few seconds of vox pop.

The audio slide group conducted comprehensive research, and scrutinized the LEAP implementation plans in relation to the eradication of the bucket system in the township, and in relation to the plans to minimize littering and illegal dumping in Grahamstown. We found that the deadline for the complete implementation of these plans were 2004, but that the municipality had not made these deadlines, and that they had once again extended the deadline to 2014. The audio slide photographers and radio students first conducted preliminary interviews with residents in the township, and with spokespeople from the municipality, to give us a broad understanding of the issues, before we narrowed down our focus.

Quality of media outputs

Each media group produced media outputs of a high quality, yet shaped in a manner suitable for an ordinary, grassroots audience, since they are our main target audience. However we also targeted the municipality because it is their role to provide a service to the people. We wanted to conscientise those most affected about their rights to a clean environment and clean water. We also hoped to make media of a high quality so we could use our outputs to educate the municipality about the concerns and comments of the citizens. Doing this we would also be helping the municipality provide a better service. Overall one of our greatest successes has been that each subgroup has created media of a high quality, which all is united and is clearly from the same campaign.

We were very happy with the television and audio slide show outputs that we produced. In terms of quality they conformed to the initial plan of incorporating a development/public approach. However, we did not move to the complete opposite end of the journalistic spectrum – there were many traditional journalism elements that we stuck to, and by doing so we made sure the quality of our productions wasn’t compromised. We experimented with the opportunities the new approach gave us, but also worked to our strengths by keeping some elements of traditional journalism, since this is where our previous experience lay. In doing so the production quality was high. With reference to the television outputs, the news story does work in synergy with the PSA in many ways, since it allows us to reach a different audience, with a slightly different message, about the same thing. The two pieces cover different ground, and reach roughly the same conclusions. This is what we had intended and were satisfied when this was achieved.

Moreover our stories worked through local newspapers to reach those specific audiences and served a more traditional journalistic approach. This combined with the banner allowed the Grahamstown community to respond to both good and bad perspectives of the municipality, allowing them a chance to become more aware of what is occurring at a municipality level and thus giving them the opportunity to approach the municipality on such issues. The banner further improved the quality of our overall media output, allowing the community a chance to produce their own media, channeled through us, and thus a chance to voice their concerns, addressing the municipality. The quality of our media products were diverse in nature whereby we integrated traditional media with more alternative approaches in order to create an interest in our topic, municipal policies.

Appropriate journalistic platforms

One of our biggest objectives was being able to create a platform whereby the work we produced could reach the public. This we feel was ultimately achieved as through each of our mediums we have been able to reach and involve different sectors of the Grahamstown community. In order to do this we have chosen to exhibit all our work at an exhibition in the Egazeni Outreach Project building in Extension 6 of the location. We feel that, by bringing the exhibition to the residents of Grahamstown who are worst affected by the shortcomings of the Makana municipality, we can spread a message of hope, and show residents that there are measures they can take themselves to combat environmental problems.

The people portrayed, and voices sampled, in the audio slides and television outputs will be of a familiar nature to residents of the location, making the media easy for such residents to relate to, and enabling them to realize that they, like those portrayed in the slides, can make a difference, or at least remain positive. The slides combine strong visuals and interesting dialogue, ensuring that they will engage and interest viewers. The television outputs provided a very visual platform which covered a different environmental story within LEAP. Further, by inspiring, motivating and encouraging residents, while critically analyzing Makana legislation and its implementation, our objectives of educating and stimulating residents to make a difference environmentally are being fulfilled.

The news stories also worked well, addressing both students and the community who engage with newspapers. Even more so the banner campaign had a good response, sparking interest and allowing the community to become more familiar with municipality policies as they were represented in a public space. Having the banner in Checkers and in Pick ‘n Pay allowed Grahamstown residents from different parts of the town to take part. The banner was sponsored by a local printing company called ‘Ad-Venture’, whereby a professional printed banner emphasised the professionalism of our campaign. The banner will also be placed in the shop afterwards so that even more residents can see what was said. The high quality of this media output encouraged citizens to contribute their concerns as the printed photo’s combined with text and graphics created a visually appealing space.

Creativity, enthusiasm and effort

The creativity, enthusiasm and effort of the entire group was evident from the start. We began this project with constant debating amongst each other, as well as starting to do survey research within the first week. We were immediately eager to find out what the citizens of Grahamstown knew about LEAP and Makana’s environmental policies, so we could see where our objectives lied. We were interested in covering stories that impacted the public in their day to day lives, as well as inform and educate people of the policies in place. Thus, our enthusiasm to produce as good a product as we possibly could was significant in our knowledge that by exposing people’s problems and their solutions for them, we could make a difference, however small it may be. We also realised that by absorbing ourselves in alternative forms of media in which we had never partaken would be beneficial to our academic learning, enriching our practical experience and journalistic skills.

We feel we have gone beyond the bare minimum. As will be explained below, we worked very closely, helping each other and facilitating each medium in a productive way. The overall success of our campaign stems from the fact that each group member was actively involved in each area, whereby we were able to reach consensus and produce media outputs which are united with the group’s identity, objectives and visions.

Group political economy and internal dynamics

Our group as a whole was unique. We worked exceptionally well as a team, and all members of the group were willing to help out with other specializations. For example our entire team was present for the banner campaign, and this event was photographed and documented by the television students. Our entire group will also be present at the Egazeni Exhibition. The different enthusiasm and interest levels of the group played out beneficially, since the right amount of work got done in the right amount of time by different people - enough that each person was happy with their own involvement, without having to ask for more assistance from the other members. However it is still important to discuss the dynamics within the smaller specialization groups.

I would say our TV group worked very independently from other influences. True, our initial story lead was found in Grocotts Mail but their influence was little to none. We did our own investigation. It was an initial idea of ours to hand over our PSA to Makana once we had made it, since we found that LEAP contains public awareness policies that the municipality are trying to follow, involving videos. Despite this, there was never a sense of towing the official line. The PSA was made totally independently, and then offered to the municipality afterwards as a possible resource for them, if they wanted it. The TV subgroup consisted of three people, which made the process democratic and productive. There were editing ‘shifts’, and two of us at every shoot, meaning combinations of who did what changed each time and balanced out the workload. Once all footage was in, the three of us worked as a team, each giving input for the final story script-one we were all happy with.

Within our audio slide group there was a positive political economy whereby all group members were continuously willing to help other sub-groups in order to ensure the best possible outcomes. As a group consisting of photojournalism and radio students we were independent from editorial influences such as commercial and governmental. By being independent of the government we were able to focus on the actual people of Grahamstown and concentrate on their issues and problems concerning the municipality in order to promote development journalism. We acted as a platform for the people of Grahamstown to be given a chance to voice their opinions and feelings concerning the environmental policies set out by the municipality. Our stories were developed through brainstorming ideas regarding Makana municipality and looking at angles that could allow for photographic opportunities and sound. Within our group we were allowed to choose which story we wanted to work on and what interested us personally. The photographic stories and audio slides were edited in conjunction with each other in order to ensure there was a correlation between the sound and images. This way we were able to receive positive criticism in order to do the final adjustments to the audio slide. The internal dynamics of our group were particularly good and everyone seemed to get along and work well together.

The WED group however took a standard neutral position, aiming towards being more of a facilitator between municipality and community. We wanted to show the community what government should be doing in order to allow them the chance to respond on their own terms to those policies and whether or not implementation is occurring. As we are not environmental experts, we had to rely on expert opinions and research to facilitate our understandings of what is going on. Without community response, we would also have no stories, ideas or media as they are the ones who are affected by policy, implementation, or lack there of. As a subgroup we worked very closely, corresponding with the larger multimedia group on a regular basis, putting in equal effort, enthusiasm and work. The writers, as mentioned before, collaborated in terms of stories to generate the best quality stories that we are capable of as a team. The designers also shared projects and were able to assist one another when needed. Our close teamwork only served to have a positive effect on our media outputs, helping and aiding each other constantly. As a subgroup we have agreed to share the marks we get, as we fell we worked exceptionally well as a group.

In conclusion our group “Take a Leap” feels that we met many of the objectives we set out in the beginning. We have created a platform for the public to involve themselves in environmental issues that affect them. We have also educated people and made them aware as to what their environmental rights are, and what Makana municipality is doing to make these a reality. Further than this we were able to show both the positive and negative sides to what Makana is doing, and in return we hoped to have created an atmosphere of change. Some of our many successes as a group is that our news stories are going to be printed in local newspapers and read by citizens around the town. Our banner was also an immense success, as it brought together many people within the community and got people debating amongst each other how they felt about these issues.

Another great success of ours was the Public Service Announcement made by the television students. The municipality has agreed to use this PSA as a tool for educating school children about illegal dumping. Overall our work produced was a group effort and is of the highest quality. We are all really proud of the results and cannot wait to take all our productions into the public sphere at our Egazeni Exhibition.