Health Communication In Southern Africa ~ Edutainment Television Programmes: Tackling HIV/AIDS On The South African Broadcasting Corporation

The last couple of decades have seen an increase in the use of edutainment to intervene in the socio-political problems faced by people in the developing world. Drama, soap operas and even children’s programmes are used to educate citizens about issues ranging from sanitation to safe sex. In South Africa today, edutainment is especially utilised to intervene in the country’s ongoing battle with HIV/AIDS. While many studies laud the success of these programmes, this article argues that the programmes are not without flaws. Though great strides have been made in terms of de-stigmatizing the disease in certain communities by encouraging open discussion and in some cases even nationwide policy changes, the often racialised, gendered and classist portrayal of people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS remains problematic. To some extent, much of these portrayals are a manifestation of the increasing ressure on South Africa’s public service broadcaster (SABC 1 & 2) to commercialise. This article explores the representation of HIV/AIDS on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (the SABC) in the context of the SABC’s increasing dependence upon advertising revenue. Introduction This chapter evaluates the role of the SABC in South Africa’s fight against HIV/AIDS through an ideological analysis of television texts and qualitative interviews. It asks what happens to HIV/AIDS when it is mediated through a public service broadcaster in a highly politicised country. In this respect, the chapter explores the extent to which the SABC functions as an empowering public sphere, with regard to HIV/AIDS intervention in South Africa. Can the SABC play an advocacy role in the fight against HIV/AIDS that would be true to its public service mandate without marginalizing certain groups or stigmatizing others? The chapter argues that the SABC’s role in the fight against HIV/AIDS is strained by the difficulty to develop focused messages for specific groups as the country’s history of segregation makes it difficult to distinguish and define risk groups and other addressees in ways that would avoid old apartheid divisions of issues, groups and people. This chapter therefore concentrates on the SABC’s constitution of audiences for development communication and the implications thereof for edutainment. The constitution of audiences figures programmatically in the programmes and frameworks of development communication on the one hand, and it also occupies a prominent position in the SABC and their policies. It figures pragmatically in the actual conduct of programmes and media operations and it figures representationally in the edutainment genre supported by the SABC. Because representation does not happen devoid of context, one should also focus on the relationships and processes through which representations are produced, valued, viewed and exchanged. Thus, this chapter strives to bring together theories of the public sphere and public service broadcasting with theories of health communication (specifically edutainment) to contextualise the analysis of the SABC’s HIV/AIDS-centred edutainment programmes. To this end, three general purposes emerge: 1. First, to explicate the theories of the public sphere as it concerns public service broadcasting. In this respect, the extent to which the post-apartheid SABC revised its audience segmentation strategies will come under scrutiny. It will be argued that the SABC’s revised segregation policies, and especially its increasing reliance upon advertising revenue and the resultant focus on lucrative audiences can potentially lead to a stereotyping, caricaturing and even marginalisation of issues of importance to the poor. 2. Secondly, an exploration of the theories and practice of edutainment will follow. This explication will pay attention to stages of change-theory’s usefulness for edutainment and will also explicate post-colonial theory’s concern with the power-relations of development communication. It will then be argued that the commercialisation of the SABC has had a dire impact upon the broadcaster’s interpretation of the place and focus of edutainment. 3. Finally the chapter will strive to illustrate the arguments advanced in the first two sections by providing an ideological analysis of Gazlam and Tsha Tsha drawing on theory from edutainment and identity politics. The analysis will focus on an explication of the ways in which the SABC’s audience segmentation policies and commercialisation initiatives shapes the broadcaster’s representation of HIV/AIDS. Literature review This section discusses theories of the public sphere in relation to Public Broadcasting Services (PBS, specifically the SABC) and health communication. The discussion will open with an overview of theories linking the public sphere to public service broadcasting. This will be followed by a discussion of the SABC, focussing specifically on the broadcaster’s history as a divisive institution and its currentsegregation policies. To conclude, an overview of theories of edutainment will be presented, highlighting the possibilities that this genre holds for the SABC to act as an empowering public sphere. The SABC The SABC can be seen as a metaphor for the South African society: it is unsettled, it is in transition and is in many ways not unlike the society it represents and reflect on. It is therefore important to examine the impact that the changing local (and global) environment has on the SABC’s construction of its audience. These constructions are of crucial importance if the broadcaster wishes to become a bona fide public service broadcaster, operating as a public sphere that adheres to the principles stipulated above. The broadcaster’s construction of its audiences is also pertinent for its activism policies as it pertains to HIV/AIDS in South Africa. South Africa’s socio-political and economic content is an important subtext to understanding the way meaning is constructed through the processes of production and consumption (interpretation). Thus, it is necessary that the structure of the SABC be studied within the context of a changing South African society. [Before 1994], in line with the apartheid philosophy, [the SABC’s] service provision was meant to favour the advantaged according to the criteria of colour, class, geographic location and language. Apart from disseminating racial stereotypes and fragmenting the South African population on racial lines under the apartheid policy of ‘divide and rule’, content provided by the system was often political, particularly, the coverage of news and political events. The hallmarks of this broadcasting system were political censorship and the dissemination of the White Minority regime’s propaganda on all services (Mtimde, 2003, p.3). The SABC’s apartheid-history has been adequately dealt with in other publications (Duncan, 2000; Nixon, 1994; Steenveld & Strelitz, 1994; Theunissen et al., 1996), therefore I will suffice with the acknowledgement that for decades the South African broadcasting system was one of the most politicised broadcasting systems in the world. For this discussion, it is more important to focus on how current changes in the SABC’s audience segmentation policies impact upon its ability to intervene in South Africa’s HIV/AIDS crisis. Following the first democratic elections in 1994, SABC television transformed into a national public broadcaster funded through TV license fees, advertising and sponsorship revenue, and other business services. It is under the control of a board, which is selected through public hearings (of Parliament) and appointed by the country’s president. Under a new law, the Broadcasting Act of 1999, the SABC became a limited liability company with the state as 100 shareholder, and was restructured into two arms: commercial service (SABC 3) and public services (SABC 1 and SABC 2). As is the case in broadcasting elsewhere, the new Government’s move to downscale direct state support in the form of subsidies to the public broadcaster led to a greater reliance on programme funding through advertising. In television, the results have been major cuts in programming, and its replacement with infomercials, rebroadcasts of cheap imported programmes, and a re-racializing of the audience into ‘market’ segments which coincide with the racial divide and the emerging class divisions within the majority black population (Jacobs, 2004). Thus, at the same time as South Africa witnessed the separation of state and broadcasting, reduction in state subsidies have meant just as television held the promise of greater access for the black majority, it would be governed more indirectly by the market. Its programme choices and audiences are increasingly being dictated by market decisions as its management and board scrambles and competes for revenue from advertisers (Jacobs, 2004). Given that the SABC has identified “talking, listening and hearing” as part of its core values, this increasing reliance on advertising revenue has led to a crisis of accountability for this public service broadcaster (Tleane & Duncan, 2004). As argued above, public (service) broadcasting should play a critical role in shaping the ability of individuals to participate effectively in the normal life of a society – i.e., create publics, not audiences for advertisers. When a public (service) broadcaster is faced with the contradiction of delivering service to the public mainly on a commercial funding base however, it could lead to a marginalisation, caricaturing and stereotyping of those groups and issues not deemed saleable to advertisers (Tleane & Duncan, 2004; Jacobs, 2004). This claim is substantiated by the Freedom of Expression Institute’s (hereafter the FXI’s) response to the SABC’s application for the amendment of its licence. Focusing mainly on PBS radio, their research noted several trends flowing from the SABC’s reliance on revenue income. Some of these trends are equally applicable to