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The Mass Media Project approach is based on the following:
Firstly, in order to impact on both the positive and the negative behaviours that influence South Africa's major social problems, there is a need to impact on the drivers of this behaviour.
In recent years, a similar approach has been adopted in the field of public health, where the focus has been to deal with the underlying determinants of disease, rather than the diseases themselves. For instance, it has been found that for every year of a woman’s education, there is a 10% drop in infant mortality. Thus, while still dealing directly with issues such as measles, polio and diarrhoea, major efforts are being made to ensure that the girl child is in school.
Similarly, when dealing with social problems including HIV&AIDS, we believe that as well as focusing on positive behaviours, we should also deal with the underlying determinants of behaviour. These we would identify as values.
Positive values such as self control, respect, trust, perseverance, integrity and selflessness all contribute to the decision to abstain from or delay sex. If, when we deal with HIV&AIDS prevention, we explicitly promote these values and create debate around them, we may then also impact on other social issues that require a similar values base - like violent crime.
For articles on the importance of values, read further here.
Thirdly, while a positive value system may not necessarily give rise to positive behaviours, it is an important starting point for these behaviours. International and local behaviour change research bears testimony to this fact.
Fourthly, an intervention that is catalysed by the mass-media is a highly effective way to promote positive values. It can also move people from belief in a positive value system to implementing positive behaviours. Local and international research shows that connection is not always direct, but that it correlates with the efficacy of the mass media to stimulate debate, impact on social norms and promote community mobilisation. These are important precursors to behaviour change.
In South Africa TV is the most powerful and pervasive medium, with at least 85% of the population having access to television.
Fifthly, in order to capitalise on a the public discourse stimulated by the mass media and its supporting materials, communities and individuals need to be mobilised.
Articles on the importance of values:
A national campaign is under way to promote a public discussion on values. Using the power of storytelling and the mass media, Heartlines aims to get South Africans thinking about what drives our behaviour. Sharon Davis gets to grips with the meaning and value of values. Read Story
BUSINESS
- You can count all your degrees and money, but at the end of the day, all a person is, is a conglomeration of the ethics they have lived by, writes Sizwe Nxasana, CEO of FirstRand Bank.
Read Story - Ubuntu and good governance gain ground in business. But, writes Claire Gordon-Brown, compliance with norms or laws is not necessarily a true indication of an organisation’s values. The real indication is how people in the organisation behave.
Read Story - A national public conversation on values was launched this week to get South Africans thinking about their behaviour? Are positive values relevant in business? Clem Sunter says yes.
Read Story
- A national conversation is under way on positive values. This conversation is critical for business, writes Cynthia Schoeman, and compassion is key for bosses.
Read Story - South Africans are being urged to reflect on their individual and collective values. But, asks business consultant Itumeleng Mahabane, do values really count in business?
Read Story - We need to be build intolerance towards violence, writes Kenny Fihla, CEO of Business Against Crime
Read Story - South Africans want to work for companies with solid values, writes Michael Jordaan, CEO of First National Bank
Read Story - Experts say an ethics crisis is sweeping South Africa’s corporate landscape. Do positive values impact on the bottom line and the workplace? Yes, writes Stuart Graham, as South Africans submerge themselves in a public national conversation about values.
Read Story
SPORT
- Being true to yourself and honest with your teammates is critical for sporting success, writes Francois Pienaar as South Africans embark on a public conversation about positive values.
Read Story - With more than 200 caps to her name and two Olympic Games under her belt, 37-year-old Lindsey Carlisle finally decided to quit her 11-year career after the Commonwealth Games in March and is now focusing on coaching youngsters.
Read Story - Faith and solid values bring joy to cricket for Jonty. Karien Jonckheere asked him for his secret to such phenomenal success.
Read Story - He’s the only South African to have won four boxing world titles. And even four years after his retirement from the sport, Baby Jake Matlala is one of the most recognisable, popular characters in sport. He spoke to Karien Jonckheere about the values that drive his success.
Read Story - Many administrators fall short - five minutes with Oregan Hoskins, the new president of the SA Rugby Union
Read Story - As South Africans engage in a national conversation about positive values, golden girl Penny Heyns stresses the importance of faith, good values and having a moral compass. Karien Jonckheere reports.
Read Story - Sports stars attribute success to good values. By Karien Jonckheere.
Read Story
CELEBRITIES
- Just as my parents instilled in me the values of ubuntu, respect, perseverance and discipline, I want to pass on to my children values that can help them live their lives.”- Yvonne Chaka Chaka, FNB ambassador.
Read Story
OTHER
- Wealth creation is not about driving the latest 4X4, it’s about making a difference in the lives of those less fortunate, writes Zama Mkosi, chairperson of HEARTLINES and senior legal adviser at the Industrial Development Corporation.
Read Story - The reality of commercial pressures on journalism makes it more important to define and defend professional ethics – not less, writes Franz Krüger, journalist, author and lecturer.
Read Story - Are we teaching our children to accept difference, to contribute to and thrive in a complex and dangerous world? Our children don’t think so and we should listen to them, writes Professor Jonathan Jansen, Dean of Education at the University of Pretoria.
Read Story
THE MEANING AND VALUE OF VALUES
A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN IS UNDER WAY TO PROMOTE A PUBLIC DISCUSSION ON VALUES.
Using the power of storytelling and the mass media, Heartlines aims to get South Africans thinking about what drives our behaviour. Sharon Davis gets to grips with the meaning and value of values.
What binds a country? Since the demise of apartheid in 1994 South Africa has embarked on a struggle of another kind – to find the ties that bind, a common set of values.
Now a nationwide Mass Media Project campaign, Heartlines, has been launched to get South Africans talking about these values and how they impact on behaviour. Using the power of storytelling, Heartlines comes in the form of a series of eight movies, the first of which was broadcast on SABC2 on Sunday (July 16).
But, what are values and why are they important to South Africa?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a person’s values as “beliefs about what is right and wrong and what is important”. The word value, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, dates back to the 13th Latin word ‘valere’, meaning “be strong, be well, be of value”, and was first used in 1918 to refer to a social principle.
These social principles or values refer to qualities of behaviour, thought and character that society regards as good. A value is an ideal accepted by an individual or a group on which they base their life’s actions. There is a personal value system – which includes religious, cultural and socially accepted values or norms and a communal value system that is upheld by law.
“Values emerge out of particular socio-cultural and religious contexts. In a country like ours, made as it is by various socio-cultural and religious contexts, the quest and place for values is a terrain of struggle,” says Reverend Desmond Lesejane of the Ecumenical Service for Socio-Economic Transformation based in Johannesburg.
“People have different perceptions of values,” says Professor Suleman Dangor from the School of Religion and Theology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
“There are personal or human values, and religious values,” adds Dangor, “and they don’t always coincide. In essence there are many shared values that most of us can agree on – like honesty and responsibility – these are universal; common to all human beings. These are essential values that we should teach our children at home or in schools.”
“Moral Values are a set of basic and beneficial human decency habits which people live by, or should live by,” says Dave Metzler, founder of the Cool Values programme that provides a systemic programme for teaching values to school children.
“Values are formed at a young age, prior to teen years,” says Metzler. “Their importance cannot be overstated, they are profoundly that part of us all that determines our safety, security and happiness as well as our prosperity. For society, it means prosperity in countless areas of their lives. Less crime, divorce, abuse...”
Dangor adds: “Values are formed very early in childhood; in the first five to six years. At home, or in the crèche – that’s where values are inculcated. Children can learn other values later on, but the groundwork is laid here. If they don’t have a good foundation at the primary age, there could be problems later.”
In South Africa with our multi-cultural heritage we are going to have a conflict in values, says Dangor. “It is important for us to understand other cultures and their outlook – we need that type of context – and we need to focus on the values that are common.”
“Moral values are implicit in the respect for equality, human dignity and human rights as embodied in the constitution,” says Karthy Govender, professor of constitutional and administrative law at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, currently seconded to the South African Human Rights Commission. Implicit, explained Govender, in that the constitution does not only guarantee rights; it confers a corresponding obligation to respect those same rights.
“Before 1994 there was a distinct overlap between Christian morals and values and State accepted norms, but this is not necessarily the case now,” says Govender. “Right living doesn’t mean that the core messages of Christianity can’t play a leading role in shaping mores – but the same applies to other religions too.”
“We will have to try to find a commonality of values. With the diverse cultural background we will battle to find a uniform set of norms – even in terms of marriage with monogamy and polygamy. In terms of the constitution it may not be an immoral system of living. We are going to have to disagree on many issues – like gay marriages. We are going to have to respect individuals and society. South Africa will have to become quite tolerant,” he adds.
“An attempt to forge a ‘new’ value systems from a combination of the best values within our diverse cultures will itself become a contested process,” says Lesejane. “We should only look at the moral fallouts around the promotion of gender equality as a value. There are just too many religious and cultural groups which see this as wrong, insisting for themselves that men have the moral right or obligation to be leaders of women and children.”
Professor Jonathan Hyslop, Deputy Director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, says that while core values are important, he feels there is such diversity within South Africa that looking at consensual values is not appropriate.
“Most belief systems would regard murder as a bad thing,” said Hyslop in explanation. “But most systems would also consider war justifiable under certain circumstances – but those circumstances would differ.”
“We need a process of negotiation,” says Hyslop, where people can discuss problems around differing sets of values. “South Africa is changing rapidly. There is often the feeling that traditional values are good values, but this is not necessarily the case. Not all traditional values are reconcilable with the constitution. Even within the constitution there can be a conflict of values with judges balancing a number of different considerations.”
Hyslop added that Jacob Zuma suing the media was a case in point, with conflict between the value placed on the right to human dignity versus the media’s right to freedom of speech.
“With the plurality of religions and beliefs of different kinds, respect is going to be the essential ingredient,” Hyslop says this does not mean you have to agree with a person’s set of values, but you have to respect their right to believe differently on issues where there are not clear-cut bottom-line universal values.
“This struggle is not made easy by the paradigmatic shift from authoritarian moral systems where values were defined by those in power (political, economic, cultural or religious) to the current democratic dispensation we now live in. Values, if they have to be sustainable, must be intrinsic to individuals and communities and not be externally defined and enforced for them to be effective. This should simply not be domination by the majority,” says Lesejane. - Heartlines
“At the moment we can do well as a country to cherish the values entrenched in our constitution as these are the most collectively defined and accepted and can be a base for socialisation and entrenchment of the social cohesion we so desire,” he adds. – Heartlines Features