My Manifesto
My beliefs and relevance to my production works
I believe in a world whereby information is available to everyone, whereby people know of the issues that affeI believe in a world whereby information is available to everyone, whereby people know of the issues that affect them and could affect them in the future. It is a world in which information is not affected by geographic area or data. The public can debate issues that are of both national or local relevance. The youth as key members of society can always stay informed about what is happening in the country and, just like the Fees must Fall movement, rise up and make demands if they see that something which is suppose to happen in society is not happeningsct them and could affect them in the future. It is a world in which information is not affected by geographic area or data.These are the values and beliefs that inform my vision for the future of journalism and the kind of media practitioner I aim to be. Journalism which allows people from the townships or rural areas to participate in debates, through the different media platform that are made available to them. These media platforms should include podcasts, newspapers, all kinds of social media platforms and many more. This is because as a person who grew up in a rural area the only media I would find to be part of the shared reality of my community was television and radio. And even though those media platforms do a great job in terms of informing people, they are not enough to provide us with a a fully informed understanding of current events. Sometimes you feel like that they are telling you what you need to hear and you have limited choice in terms of what you want to hear. No one could blame those media platforms as there is so much to say or do and little time is afforded for that.
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An overview of the problem, question, phenomenon i wish to research or communicate about.
Since the end of apartheid, the economic challenges many poor black students face and the way it impacts their studies has been a key has been a key concern to higher education in this country. At the end of 2015, a nation wide protest called Fees Must Fall rocked the country, as students across 26 Universities in South Africa were calling for decrease in student fees, and also free higher education learning. The protest continued in 2016 and 2017. The aim of the Fees must Fall campaign was to stop the increase of student fees, increase government funding at universities, and enforced a right to free quality education for all, especially people who come from disadvantaged background who don’t have funding to pay for their own fees. Following the Fees must Fall protest, former president Jacob Zuma announced that from 2018 going forward NSFAS funding would be converted from a loan to a bursary. This meant that no student should be left out of the system if he/she is deserving of higher education. This was great news for all South Africans, because higher education in South Africa is very expensive and lessening the restriction on it meant that more and more South African can have access to higher education. Furthermore, with education being key to a better life, people who are educated do not depend on the government for support they can support themselves, which will result in a positive boost of the economy. Unemployment is a huge problem in South Africa therefore the more graduate the country produce the better chances of employment for the country, because have the necessary skills to better themselves. One last thing about this announcement is that it promoted fairness, has we all know South Africa education has a deep and dark history of education segregation and discrimination.
In the mist of all the excitement of Fess Must Fall, no one seems to have payed attention to the economic problem in which Fees Must Fall has created. No one seemed to have paid attention to what Minister of Higher education and training Blade Nzimande statement in 2016, when he was addressing the 0% increase saying that “this may cause universities to start retrenching or close down certain program” because of limited limited funding. In addiction it has been pointed out that in a DHET and NSFAS 2020/21 special adjustment budget that” The number of students funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme had increased by an unexpected 20% in 2020 and the surge was expected to increase still further in 2021”. This means that the government has to increase funding at tertiary level. According to an article by times live is that “Government will spend R42.1bn on the scheme this year - up from the budget of nearly R35bn in 2020, which was already more than the R32bn the year before”. This is an increase in 7 billion compared to last year investment by the government. This seems to be stretching government budget for Higher Education and we saw the results of this in this year, as out of nowhere the Higher Education announced that Nsfas will stop funding certain courses because of shortage of funds. Therefore, I would like to explore more the financial crisis happening at National Student financial aid scheme (NSFAS). I will look at the sustainability of the Scheme considering that we still have the Covid-19 Pandemic happening, which is taking a lot from state funds. Look at how this could affect first time entering students in the future.
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Favored Normative approach
As theorized by Habermas (1989), the public sphere represents an ensemble of discursive spaces between civil society and the state where ordinary citizens, either on their own or as representatives of larger social groupings, can debate public issues of concern to them (Haas.2004:117).That’s why my favored normative approach is public journalism. Public journalism is the cornerstone of a democratic country. The debates, which ideally are unconstrained by political and economic elites, are aimed at the formation of public opinion and the shaping of governmental conduct. Indeed, in contrast to mainstream media, which consistently have been found to exclude the voices of ordinary citizens as well as to trivialize, marginalize and at times even demonize social movements (see Gamson and Wolfsfeld, 1993; Gitlin, 1980; McLeod and Hertog, 1999), alternative media offer sympathetic venues for ordinary citizens’ views. The reason for this is that many mainstream media do not like to explore controversial topic, until its to late. That's why the Nsfas issue needs to be paid attention to because even the protest that took place its not that they did not expect it, because it exposed a lot to a system which was struggling.
News organizations committed to public journalism pursue the overarching goal of increasing citizen participation in democratic processes. Prompted by flagging popular interest in public life and declining newspaper readership and influenced by ideals of deliberative democracy, public journalists think the promotion of reasonable and informed dialogue among citizens should be part of the role journalists play in a democracy (Dzur.2002).They have reconstructed traditional reporting practices by advocating public listening in newsgathering, by producing purposeful news, and by encouraging public debate. For public journalism the people are not created as consumers of news, they are an important part of a democratic country, they are the ones who are important and without their participation, producing news does not make sense. The public should be the one who are in control of what should happen in the country. Instead of being driven by the agendas of officeholders, party leaders, and other elite sources, news is to reflect the interests of citizens (DZUR.2002: 316).
An Overview of the context I am working with.
The relationship between the media and the people has always been a shaky one especially here in South Africa with the media being accused of working with these elite organizations, providing news which do not benefit the public. For instance some time ago in South Africa SABC was always blamed for always portraying the ANC has the only political party doing something in South Africa by giving them more air time. Also recently ENCA was accused of that when EFF arrived. That sometimes show where the power of media resides with. The people who are in power sometimes control what should people see and not see whether that maybe good or bad.
According to Wasserman is that the South African media state could be categorized into three state and those are commercial media, public media and community media (Wasserman.2020:453). Community and public media are seen to work for the ordinary citizens and working class of people in the country, giving news which are off interest to those groups of people, whereas the commercial is said to work for the minority of the country. However, has much imbalance South African society is, these three spheres of media have tried to bridge that inequality, giving the public exposure to different genres of news. The majority is the country is still unemployed and living below the poverty line which means that the most common media they have access to are radio and television, with the SABC providing them with the latest current news. There have been also cases of social media platform being accused of spreading propaganda for these elite organization whereby advertisement is being selected to benefit those organization. Therefore I hope with my research I wont be viewed as working against the people, has there is still a long way to go for the South African journalism to be trusted considering the history of it. Based on the societal structure in the country media is sometimes influence by geographical space, with people from the urban areas enjoying more media exposure than people from rural areas in terms of affording data so that they cant stay up to date with the country, because people now days get news form social media more than in Television or radio.
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Description of my target audience.
Nsfas was designed to help and provide financial aid to students from poor and working-class families in a manner that provides access to, and success in South African higher education. Therefore my target audience are parents, students who are funded and defunded by Nsfas in South African Universities and colleges, and also High School learners. There reason why I want parent to pay attention to this is bacause these are their children they are sending to these institution. Furthermore, many parents the problems of NSFAS are not known that much that much as a result they get shocked when they see students protesting and voicing out their concerns that NSFAS is not treating right or that there are shortfalls in the system. I do believe that once parents know about this then things might end up working well in the system. There are more students who are funded than the once who are defunded, however that does not take away the problem in the system. I want students to pay attention to each other problems and not only pay attention its affecting him or her. Lastly I want to give awareness to High School learners, so that they can be aware that this is happening and how they one avoid such.
Description of my intended media platform and media project
The focus of my research will be based on Nsfas has a student bursary and the sustainability of that. It will also look at the student protests which happened earlier this year and how that signals the fallout which students have with nsfas these days. Nsfas was established in 1999 and since then it has made millions of South African students to have access to higher education and better the lives of themselves and also their families. However, with the recent shortfalls in which nsfas is showing this year and the year before that since it has been changed to a bursary is a sign of concern especially for future first time entering students.
Therefore, I do plan to use radio to communicate my research and hope that those who are affected by the issue will tune in and listen to what is been said. Since my target audience include parents, they get more news on radio and tv , so it will be a good platform me to get them aware of this issue
For students and high school learners I am going to use social media platform like Facebook, WhatsApp Instagram to keep people up to date with the latest developments of my research. In addition, use podcasting as a way to give awareness about the issue and because with a podcast you can download episodes, you don’t have to listen to it live unlike radio whereby if you miss the episode then you will have to listen to another one on another day. With a podcast you can download episodes even they have been uploaded 3 weeks ago. Therefore, I plan to use also podcasting.
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