Reflection on the process of Critical Media Production

Reflection on the process of Critical Media Production


By Daneel and Ntombi

Our group had our public meeting on the evening of 9 September at Luvuyo Hall in Ward 8. For many of us, this was the moment where Haas’ conception of a public philosophy for public journalism moved from the realm of theory into practice. As is often the case, this type of transition was far smooth. Our pair’s main objectives (and the resultant journalistic processes and outputs) were rooted in the experiences of the public meeting. To briefly recap that episode would thus help to provide a base from which to reflect upon our subsequent journalistic approach.

As a group we had come to the public meeting enthusiastic, ready to hear the public’s concerns and to give them exposure through journalistic output in the hope of effecting a positive change in the community. Disappointingly, our optimism was largely reciprocated by apathy and scepticism in the community. This was illustrated by a much smaller turnout than we had hoped for (we had advertised and promoted the meeting quite extensively).

Through the public meeting and more private conversations it became clear the community’s disinterest was rooted in disillusionment towards Journalism students and Rhodes University in general. There was very much an attitude of “The university always comes here, makes these big promises, but they never achieve anything to help our community. They just use us to boost their image and P.R., and for journalism students to get their degrees and to move on and forget about us.” This was very concerning and we felt particularly angry (at the university) and hard done by the fact that we had automatically been disqualified in public opinion merely because of our affiliation to Rhodes and the JMS Department. Some of us wanted to make this public cynicism the main focus of our piece through highlighting Rhodes’ and the Journalism Department’s hypocrisy, despite the university’s rhetorical commitment towards development and community engagement. Luckily, once tempers had cooled, we decided that this strategy would be a little too cynical. We opted thus not to fester upon the shortcomings of the past, but rather to work towards becoming an exception to the community’s general experience of Journalism students. This required us to identify the main reasons for the public’s ingrained disillusionment and to avoid these pitfalls in our own efforts.

Once the disillusionment had been voiced, our public meeting went ahead quite successfully. The public where given equal opportunity to raise their concerns and issues, to be heard and to respond to one another. In this way thus we succeeded in creating a platform where a “deliberating public [could come] into being”. Many of the issues rose where rooted in major socio-economic problems – housing, employment, sanitation, electricity. We felt very much that public frustration was rooted in the fact that these issues are brought up time and again in the local press and covered by students, but very little improvement seems to actually stem from these reports. As we have come to understand, there is a generic sequence that has become common place in student journalists dealing with a community to produce media products. This sequence is accounts in part for the contempt with which journalism students are often received in a community:

i) Students access a community.

ii) They often identify the big, virtually insurmountable problems

iii) They compile a media package to highlight these problems.

iv) They present this package to an authority that should be able to address these problems

v) The authority is incapable or simply does not have the conviction to address the problem.

vi) The student leaves shortly after presenting the media, and is not further responsible for holding that official to account.

vii) The community sees no return for their participation in producing the media package.

viii) Next year the community are expected to accommodate a new batch of students.

In ‘A Public Philosophy for Public Journalism’, Haas states that “public journalism is as much about problem solving as it is about facilitating public deliberation.” If the objective of attaining public deliberation that could facilitate problem solving is not reached, then the public journalism product has not succeeded. This means that students should acknowledge the constraints within which they are working and identify problems that they can reasonably hope to assist in solving, or at least mitigating in some sense. These constraints include a limited time frame and limited capacity of a student journalist to influence authorities into action. In our view it is thus better for students working in the CMP course to adopt modest and reasonable goals rather than overly ambitious and untenable ones.

In light of this belief we thought it absolutely essential not to give false hope through making promises that would probably not materialise. Haas notes that journalists should help a community to identify “problems [that] could be adequately addressed by citizens themselves” and distinguishing these from problems that “require more deep-seated, systemic intervention by government officials.” We formulated our objectives of not disappointing the public around the assumption that problems that could be adequately addressed through local intervention by the citizens themselves had a higher chance of being solved than problems that would require “interventions of a broader regional, state or national scope.”

This assumption came to inspire our choice upon the final topic for our Critical Media Production Soundslide. One of the problems that came out our public meeting is that there was not enough recreational opportunities for children and youth, and this fact helped to encourage anti-social behaviour such as drug/alcohol abuse and petty crime. At first it seems that this problem is rooted in the fact that there is a lack of recreational facilities such as parks and sports equipment. Upon closer investigation we came to realise, however, that despite the presence of these same shortcomings there was still a big proactive soccer movement amongst the youth a mere ten years prior. This ‘soccer culture’ had died down, according to one source, because of an influx of television, alcohol and drugs into the community. It became clear that there was a shift in mindset between two successive generations of youth in the area, one that could not be adequately explained by a lack of resources. This was thus a problem that could be solved by local intervention.

We thus aimed at creating a package that would appeal to the nostalgia of the older generation and instil admiration in the younger generation. We wanted to create a dialogue between old and young that would see the youth readopting soccer as recreation under the guidance of the older generation. In this way we hoped that the anti-social behaviour that had replaced soccer would be re-replaced by soccer. In line with this we wanted to make the point that soccer is more than just recreation, that it instils discipline amongst individuals and solidarity between individuals. This solidarity could, in the opinion of our two main sources, assist in mobilising people to work together in other spheres for mutual benefit. We adopted this project because its success did not depend on help from outside sources, it was almost entirely dependent upon co-operation of the community.

We have opted to use two primary sources to be the two respective voices in the documentary. Our first source is concerned with framing the past i.e. how the soccer culture used to be. Our second source, also a remnant from that generation of soccer players is speaking about his efforts in retaining a soccer spirit amongst the youth through organising training sessions during the school vacations. In this way we have tried to create an identifiable link between the past and the present, one that would hopefully appeal to the youth to pick up soccer.

At this stage our Soundslide story is still in production and has not yet been presented to its intended audience. Whilst this is an obvious shortcoming, we have tried to nurture our objectives through other means. In very early stages of the course our CMP group came up with the idea of helping organise a soccer tournament for the youth in the community. In light of the objectives of our production we thought that this would be an apt substitute for a focus group. We thus resolved to volunteer ourselves for a position to be pivotal in ensuring that the soccer tournament was a success. In line with our belief that change should come from within the community we decided that mobilisation of the youth should be done by individuals within the community. The idea was thus that we provide refreshments, the necessary equipment (such as goals from Rhodes Soccer club and sponsored soccer balls from Albany Sports) and other logistical aspects of hosting the tournament, whilst adults in the community would mobilise and encourage the youth. In this way we hoped to pave the way for a better working relationship between the older and younger generation in mobilising around soccer. The event was an overwhelming success; our estimate is that around a hundred and fifty children and youth were involved over all.

Despite the on-the-day success of the tournament, we still have to identify the long term problems faced in terms of long term sustainability of this initiative. Soccer balls get easily punctured, and without a mobilising force in the community (one that acts independently of incentive from journalists) the soccer tournament will forever remain as pleasant memory of an isolated event. Despite our best intentions, we predict it to be unlikely that this desired sustainability will be attained unless we help to nurture it in a timeframe that transcends the CMP course. This is unfortunate, but brutally realistic. Our only hope is to try and encourage our two sources (who have taken on the sentiments of our production goals and were instrumental in mobilising youth for the tournament) to continue the initiative. Ideally we would be able to remain available if we can assist in the future.

I think that the above description of our journalistic approach and thinking goes some way in pre-empting a discussion of how the ideas of how the ideas raised in the JDD-CMP courses have helped reshape our identities as professionalising journalists. It may however be helpful to explicate this ‘reshaping’ somewhat.

First and fore mostly, we have tried to involve the public in every stage of our research and production. We have been encouraged to not only use the public as sources, but to use immersion in the community as a means to better understand and conceptualise the issues that we hoped to address through our journalism.

One of the most valuable aspects of this course has been the fact that one can spend a sufficient amount of time in researching the issues and communicating with one’s sources. This has had the effect of making the success of our productions and other initiatives a deeply personal matter. We befriended our sources. This had the added advantage of making us more trustworthy to them, and becoming privy to more private and nuanced information. Fore mostly though this helped to create a collaborative relationship. Our sources become empowered and as involved as us in shaping and framing the story. In this way, i.e. as pseudo co-producers, they also developed an interest in making the story become a success and in realising the goals that we were aiming for.

We have thus learned to private as well as professional interests vested in our work. This type of sensitivity allows for us to go into the world of professional journalism and really empathise with the bereaved people that may form the sources of our future projects. Also, this new concern would encourage us to create journalism that can be mobilised towards creating solutions (rather than mere exposure) for people’s problems.

All in all it was a empowering, eye opening and rewarding experience for both us and, I’m sure, the citizens that we worked with.