“The intelligence and concentration span of the average viewer is that of a 12-year old”; “never say it in five words if you can say it in four” – the editor’s words rang down the passage.
It was my first serious assignment, and I clutched these nuggets of wisdom in the one fist as I clasped a microphone in the other to make off on the journey of storytelling.
In those first heady months, more such nuggets were dispensed. They would become part of my being — but I did sometimes wonder: could it be that the people we write for do not develop much beyond their twelfth year?
Research just completed suggests news audiences are much more sophisticated than that editor would have it.
Tasked to look into the “reception and recall of HIV/Aids-related news in a defined community”, I chose to focus on Cato Manor, in Durban, with its mix of 1950’s township housing, informal settlements and housing projects.
No structured audience research on HIV news stories had been undertaken in South Africa, and the participants’ memory of news items would give a first indication of the stories and issues most valued. Ultimately, it was hoped the findings would stimulate editorial strategies around writing the Aids story.
Illness, death and despair burden Cato Manor, so it was not surprising that research participants had high HIV awareness – respondents recalled with relative ease key news moments of the epidemic. But what took our research team by surprise was the level of political savvy and editorial sophistication embedded in the responses. Moving beyond “what” the news reported, many respondents also offered a critique on “how” it was reported, and noted the political nuances of South Africa’s Aids response.
In terms of methodology, focus group discussions and individual interviews were conducted to allow analysis of in-depth exchanges with people stratified by age, gender and HIV status. The most popularly consumed news sources were identified as Ukhozi FM (SABC Radio News), SABC 1 (News bulletin), and the newspapers Isolezwe and Ilanga.
The Media Monitoring Project (MMP) provided a content breakdown of HIV/Aids news broadcast/published in these media for the monitoring period in September and October 2003. Recall of stories for this period was measured, while cumulative recall indicated the degree of relevance attached to news developments over time.
But we were in Cato Manor when one of biggest Aids stories of the year broke. In late September, when Thabo Mbeki told the Washington Post he didn’t know anyone who had died of Aids, we were in a community where HIV prevalence at the ante-natal clinic is 45%.
Researchers can only hope for respondent buy-in when conducting this kind of ethnographic field study, yet on that day we were implored to take statements. People who hadn’t been earmarked for interviews urged us to record their feelings on the president’s statement:
“People want the president to apologise to the public because they have lost many relatives through Aids.” – Nthombfuthi, Cato Manor
“Journalists must write a letter to our president to come and visit Cato Manor, and he will see infected people – plenty.” — HIV+ focus group participant, Cato Manor
“Where does he live? Mars?” – Thandeka, Cato Manor
Media studies theorists have long overturned early beliefs about an all-powerful mass media impacting (mostly negatively) on the lives of passive recipients. The community outbursts at Mbeki’s statements must be one of the clearest illustrations of a news audience rejecting a message because its content had been mediated by their own real life experiences.
Apart from the above, the stories most frequently remembered were those relating to anti-retroviral treatment. At the time of our field work, government’s treatment plan announcement was imminent, yet the participants had grown cynical.
“It will be best if Manto can just come forward and say there is no cure for Aids, because the way they change the news every week is confusing to us.” – Zinhle, Cato Manor
Others questioned the motives of a government they had come to see as uncaring in the light of the Aids burden, saying officials may promise free treatment now, but in real life it would prove difficult to access.
Some responses indicated attempts at analysis of the power interplay of government’s HIV stance.
“I am confused about who has most power between the president and Manto. Is it she or he who doesn’t really care about us?”
But respondents also took journalists to task:
“I don’t think journalists are handling the issue of treatment well— otherwise I would not be confused.”
In fact, almost half of the respondents offered incisive criticism of examples of bad editorial practice they had observed.
Most prominent was a call for more enterprising stories and news analysis:
“Journalists are not talking about how Aids patients are treated in hospital – this is something they should investigate and expose.” – Vusi Ngema, HIV+ participant, Cato Manor
Three respondents suggested, for example, a journalistic exposé of an HIV cure claim in the classified section of Ilanga.
In addition, respondents were highly critical of factual errors in reporting. This in their minds tarnished the credibility of the publication/broadcaster.
Some respondents noted differences in the news selection criteria of the respective media. For a third of the individuals interviewed, poor attention to news follow-ups led to dissatisfaction. All these concerns were borne out by MMP’s analysis of HIV-related news content. During the monitoring period, every single HIV/Aids story published and broadcast was event-driven. No human interest or analysis, no enterprise.
The people of Cato Manor expect more. They had been asked which stories they remembered best. Some of their responses indicate an interrogation of news practice at a much deeper level – nuggets of wisdom produced by the grit of living with the disease.
“I think journalists are not talking about all the issues that are related to HIV/Aids, e.g. what about support groups, CD4 counts, state grants —many more things that we never hear about in the media.” – Bazamile, HIV+ participant, Cato Manor.
Ida Jooste is an SABC (Fokus) journalist and a research fellow with the Journalism Programme and the Perinatal HIV Research Unit at Wits University. To read more about the research, visit The Observatory at www.journalism.co.za.