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AUTHOR Prinsloo, Jeanne, Ed.; Criticos, Costes, Ed. TITLE Media Matters in South Africa. Selected Papers Presented at the Conference on Developing Media Education in the 1990s (Durban, South Africa, September 11-13, 1990). INSTITUTION Natal Univ., Durban (South Africa). Media Resource Centre. REPORT NO ISBN-0-86980-802-8 PUB DATE 91 NOTE 296p. PUB TYPE Collected Works - Conference Proceedings (021)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC12 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Educational Television; Elementary Secondary Education; Film Study; Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Instructional Films; *Instructional Materials; Mass Media Role; Media Research; *Media Selection; Teacher Education; Visual Literacy IDENTIFIERS *Media Education; *South Africa

ABSTRACT This report contains a selection of contributed papers and presentations from a conference attended by 270 educators and media workers committed to formulate a vision for media education in South Africa. Pointing out that media education has been variously described in South Africa as visual literacy, mass media studies, teleliteracy, and film studies, or as dealing with educational technology or educational media, the introduction cites a definition of media education as an exploration of contemporary culture alongside more traditional literary texts. It is noted that this definition raises issues for education as a whole, for traditional language study, for media, for communication, and for u0erstanding the world. The 37 selected papers in this collection are presented in seven categories: (1) Why Media Education? (keynote paper by Bob Ferguson); (2) Matters Educational (10 papers on media education and visual literacy); (3) Working Out How Media Works (4 papers on film studies, film technology, and theory); (4) Creating New Possibilities for Media Awareness (9 papers on film and television and 4 on print media);(5) Training and Empowering (2 papers focusing on teachers and 4 focusing on training producers); (6) Media Developing Media Awareness (2 papers); and (7) Afterthoughts (I paper). Appendices include the Unesco Declaration on Media Eduction (1982), Recommendations from the Toulouse Colloquy on New Directions in Media Education (1990), and Resolutions and Conclusions of the First National Media Education Conference (Durban, 1990). Most of the papers provide their own bibliographies. (DE)

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'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETHIS MATERIAL HAS SEENGRANTED BY

Costas Criticos BEST Y AVAILABLE TO THE EDUCATIONALRESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." IA IN SOUTH AFRICA edited by Jeanne Prins loo and Costas Criticos

Media Resource Centre 1991

3 Published by the Media Resource Centre Department of Education University of Natal Durban

ISBN 0 86980 802 8

All righb reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the permission of the copyright holders.

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4 CONTENTS

Preface 8 Report on Media Studies in the Department of Education and Cultwe, House of Delegates List of Contributors 9 Lorraine Singh Assistant Superintendent of Education 42 introduction 11 Media in People's Education - a Discussion SACHED Collective 45 Wort WNT MEDIA EDUCATION? 17 Media-Education - a Progressive Terrain Janet-Louise Sutherland 51 What is Media Education for? Bob Ferguson 19 Can visual literacy be taught as a value free, non-situated, formal subject? John Van Zyl 56 II Port II Minns EDUCAIIONAL 25 An Overview of and report on the 'Die of media studies in English-Medium secondary schools in the Transvaal. Media and Film Studies in Schools of the Cape Jane Ballot 62 Education Deparbrient Nicol Faasen 29 II Port lll Visual Literacy and Film Study in Transvaal Schools WORKING OUT NOW MEDIA WORKS 71 S.P. Gosher - Chief Superintendent of Education 32

The Natal Education Department and Media Education The necessity of theory in Media-Education Mary Johnson Bob Feryuson 74 Supefintendent of Education: English 35 'Running on Empty': Film Studies in South Africa Media Education in KwaZulu Education Michael Chapman 83 Alistair Maytham Families at War: The Family as a Nanative Medium in Lecturer Eshowe College of Educallon 38 'A MAI Apart: 'Cry Freedom' and 'A Dry White Season' Developing Media Education in the 1990s: an Alternative View Alexander Johnston 87 Helene Perold Newsfront an Entree to Film Technology Assistant Director - SACHED Trust 39 John Hookham 95

rin Wort W MREIMM MATING NEW POSSIBIUTIES FOR MOM Event into Story: Teaching TV news 103 AWARENESS Eve Bertelsen 175 figLIMIBRI Understanding Media through Gender - Methods of Trust me - I am a Sceptic Developing Media awareness 184 David Basain 107 Alison Gil/weld

CriticalCinema and Reflections of Reality The Natal Violence: Developing a Model for Evaluating John Higgins 110 Newspaper Information Clive Emdon 190 Response to Higgins Michael Chapman 123 Political Cartoons: Unco-operative Forms of Communication? Approaching Media Studies in an Enalish Classroom; Reim Adendon7 206 A Lock at the Construction of Sympathy Joan Ashworth 125

Considerations of Narrative in Media Education PortV Jeanne Prinsloo 130 TRAINING A EMPOWERING 215

The Honor Genre and its Challenges in the Classroom Situation Empowering Teachers through Materials Development Mandy Jordan 142 Maureen Robinson and Sandra Mentor 218 Trailing Clouds of Glory: The Kiddie in Local Advertising Guy Willoughby 145 Developing Resources for a Media Education Programme Costas Cams 224 Playing the Detective; Parodic elements in 'The Big Easy' and *Chinatown' FOCUS ON TRAINING PRODUCERS 156 LesleyMarx Media Education-A Contemporary Cultural Studies I shall become a bat! - The identity of Batman Perspective 234 James Sey 168 Eric Louw Teaching Media Awareness in South Africa Media Education for Children - A Songololo Experience Anne McKay 242 Patrick So lomons 2840

An Auto-Critique of the Mass Line in Media Training: A Critical Analysis from a Socialist Perspective of Adult Warning in a Media Training Course IN Part VII Jonathan Berndt 256 AFTERTNINIONTS 283 Some reflections on hegemony and the hegemony of Education for a 'Third Cinema in South Africa. teaching Reflections on a Community Video Edwation Project in Mickel Urbasch 285 Alexandra, Johannesburg Jacqueline Maingard 267 Appendix I: UNESCO Declaration on Media Eduzation (1982) 293

Appendix II: Part 111 Recommendations from the Toulouse colloquy on 'Natl. MEDIA DEVELOPIN. MEDIA AWARENESS 273 Directions in Media Education' (1990) 295

'Heyta Ngwenyar 'Sharp! Sharp!' - Popular Visual Appendix III: Literature and a New Pedagogy Resolutions and Conclusions of the First National Media Peter Esterhuysen 274 Education Conference (Durban 1990) 298

7 This book is based on the proceedings of the conference Developing Media Education in the 1990s held at the University of Natal in 1990. The conference attracted 270 educationists and media workers committed to formulate a vision for Media Education in South Africa. The conference was not an isolated endeavour but is rather part of an annual series initiated in 1985 by the Media Resource Centre of the Department of Education. The conference series has focused on critical perspectives of educafional resources and has included the following: 1985 Educational Media and Development 1986 Design of Learning Spaces 1987 Resource Transfer 1988 Computers in Education 1989 Experiential Learning in Formal & Non-Formal Education. A number of books, a series of MRC Working Papers and educational videos have been produced as an outcome of the above conferences. In addition to this book which inclodes a selection of the Developing Media Education in the 1990s papers we have also produced two video tapes as support material. They are records of the key-note papers presented by Bob Ferguson: What is Media Education For? and The Neccessity of Theory in Media Education.

Costas Criticos Director: Media Resource Centre List of contributors

Ralph Adendorff lectures in the Department of Clive Emdon is head of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Natal, Durban. Journalism and Public Relations at Natal Technikon, Durban. Joan Ashworth teaches English at Glenwood High School, Durban. Peter Esterhuysen is a director of The Storytellers Gnaup in Melville, Johannesburg, and has a Jane Ballot teaches English at the Roosevelt High particular interest in oral tradition. School, Johannesburg and is a registered MA. student at the Centre for Cultural and Media Bob Ferguson is chairperson of the Joint Studies at the University of Natal, Durban. Department of English and Media Studies, Head David Basckin lectures in the Department of of Media Studies and Head of Educational Media Psychology at the University of Natal, Durban at the Institute of Education - University of and is a regular TV columnist for the Sunday London. Tribune. Alison Gillwald lectures in the Department of Jonathan Berndt co-ordinates the full-time Journalism and Public Relations at Natal training course of the Media Project at CAP in Technikon, Durban and is a registeted M.A. Cape Town. student in the Politics Department at the University of Natal, Durban. Eve Bertelsen is an associate professor at the Department of English at the University of Cape John Higgins lectures in the Department of Town, and teaches film, media and cultural English at the University of Cape Town and isco- studies. editor of Pretexts: Studies in Writing and Culture.

Michael Chapman is head of the English John Hookham is a filmmaker and lectures in the Department at the University of Natal, Durban, Department of Drama at the University of and has published extensively on South African Durban-Westville. literature. Alexander Johnston lectures in the Department Costas Critkos is a senior lecturer in the Depart- of Politics at the University of Natal, Durban, and ment of Education and is director of th*. Media has been film critic for the Su nday Tribune Resource Centre at the University of Natal, Durban, since 1985. Mandy Jordan teaches at Glenwood HighSchool, Patrick Solomon works for Molo Songololo in Durban. Cape Town.

Eric Louw is Acting Head of the Centre for Janet-Louise Sutherland teaches at Durban Girls' Cultural and Media Studies at the Universityof College in Musgrave Road and is a registered Natal, Durban. M.A. student at the Centre for Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Natal, Durban. Jacqueline Maingard lectures in the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of the Michael Urbasch is a part-time lecturer and Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and has also been researcher in the Centre for Cultural and Media active in the Film and Allied Workers' Studies at the University of Natal, Durban. Organization (FAWO) community video project. John van Zyl is asociate-professor at the School Lesley Marx lectures in the Department of of Dramatic Art at the University of the English at the University of Cape Town. Witwatersrand and teaches film and television studies. Anne McKay is co-ordinator of the Durban Media Trainers' Group, Durban. Guy Willoughby is senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Sandra Mentor works for the Materials Pretoria, with a special interest in cultural studies Development Project in the Faculty of Education and nineteenth century polemics. He has at the University of the Western Cape. launched a media studies programme as part of the honours course. Jeanne Prinsloo co-ordinates the Media Education Programme in the Media Resource Centre and is a part-time lecturer in the Centre for Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Natal, Durban.

Maureen Robinson works for the Materials Development Project in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Western Cape.

SACHED is an independent non-profitmaking trust producing educational publicationsand running educational programmes.

James Sey lectures in the Department of English at Vista llniversity, Tshiawelo.

10 Neck AkersSzcth kno3 I 0 This publication constitutes one record of the Visual Literacy, Mass Media Studies, Telditeracy conference 'Developing Media Education in the and Film Studies. Some people inteipreted Media 1990s' which was held in Durban from II to 13 Education as dealing with educational technol- September 1990. It must be stressed that this is ogy or educational media Uhat is media that is one record: over the three days, much took place: employed to support teaching). In advertising the papers and workshops invited discussion, films conference, the definition that has been devel- and videos were screened, and varied debates oped by the British Film Institute (BFI) was used occurred. Both the conference and this book are a in an attempt to define the area that wewere reflection of the interest, the participaGon and addressing, initiatives of both the contributors in particular, Media Education is essentially the mploration ot but also of all the delegates. In spite of the calibre contemporary culture, alongside more traditional of all of the formal contributions, not all have literary texts. A media education programme will been reproduced here. Forced by limitations of deal with fundamental questions of language, inter- space, we have selected those contributions most pretation and meaning. Such a programme seeks to relevant to the themes of the publication. In increase students' critical understanding of the me- addition, certain papers scheduled to bepre- dia. Interests include - the way media work, how sented at the conference and whichwere not for they produce meanings, how they are organized reasons of illness, are included in this publication. and how audiences make sense of them. When the idea of the conference was first The first part of this definition alerts us comeived, it seemed to offer an opportunity for immediately to the realiTation that whenwe people to come together to think about, extend address Media Education, we are dealing witha and discuss the issue of Media Education. It was complex area. The 'exploration of contemporary hoped that the conference and the publication of culture' does not simply remain subject specific, those proceedings would help to identify the but raises issues for education as a whele, for important issues and to act as a catalyst for traditional language study, for media, for further interest and initiatives. From the outset it communication, for understanding our world became clear that we needed to clarify many and for citizenry. aspects in the field of Media Education. The first The scope of the conference incorporated problem we encountered was a confusion about Media Education in general. This broad foci's the terminology, In South Africa this area of acknowledged that while language teachers of study has found itself described diverselyas secondary schools constituted the largest interest group, it needs to incorporatenon-formal, adult, tion appears to have been uneasy, or alternatively primary and tertiary (-dilution. Being the first hostile. Already overburdened teachers felt national conference of this nature, we hoped that confronted with an even greater burden. Their the contributions and presentations would firstly reasons for anxiety areunderstandable as they outline the area (as it has become defined in its sensed that this was indeed an addition to their present state) as the background to help existing load. It would be counter-productive to contextualize this enterprise, and to then instigatedismiss these concerns of teachers at the an examination and investigatonof both theory chalkfam who have articulated both their sense of and methodology. Only by evaluating all these being unqualified to teach this new addition and areas can we find a useful pathforward. the problem of how to contain this within their The initiation of Media Education into South teaching time. This becomes an issue that African education has been both gradual and educational planners should be taking up. tentative. Its introduction in formal educationhas Some teachers were able to accept the challenge been disparate, as it has followed differing and work with the skills and tools that they patterns according to the particular educational already had, after all they were already teaching authorities with their regional and racial segrega-analysis of particular texts. Perhaps they were in tion. Non-formal and project-based educational fact better equipped than they realized in many projects have also experienced sporadic develop- senses. Returning to the definitionquoted above: ment. Nevertheless, while the inclusion ofMedia A media education propamme will deal with fun- Education on the educational agenda is compara- damental questions of language, interpretation and tively recent and uneven, it has t3ken root; it is meankig. Such a programme seeks to increase students critical understanding of the media. now an aspect of the educationalagenda, and important work has been undertaken by South lt would apppear that they had indeed becti African educators. Among the objectives of this dealing with questions, language and meanin% conference was the appraisal of these initiatives. and critical understandings of texts, albeit only in addition, it was hoped that the probians that literary ones on the whole. They extended those must accompany any innovation of this nature skills to this new area. This publication recurds could be articulated and in this way would lay some examples of these approaches. themselves open to being addressed and indicate Another major concern that was articulated fresh ways forward. during the conference releed to the under- One concern that was articulated during the representation of non-formal and adult educators conference concerns the question of how and and papers. The organizers feel that this under- where Media Education fits into the curriculum. representation relates to practitioners within Positioned within the language syllabus for formal education as welt, within those depart- English, language teachers have questioned the ments where serious attention has not yetbeen intrduction and teaching of yet another compo- given to media. Perhaps what the organizers nent into the already weighty language syllabi. acknowledge is that within a conference of this The response from some teachers to its introduc- nature where we are attempting to bring together

12 me& mem South Alrico 12 interests from acroSs the country, we do mirror Ibor organization of Ibis publication our social and historical context to a great de,i'ree. The arrangement of the publication echoes the This context has resulted in great inequalities of structure of the conference in a small way by resources among different educatiorauthori- starting with the opening address to the confer- ties, some of which have to contend with prob- ence and an outline of certain initiatives in lems around basic literacy and numeracy in different areas of education.. overcrowded and inadequate situations. Absence The opening address, which forms Part One: of representation partially reflects this unequal Why Media Education? was delivered by Bob struchwing where certain groups have literally Fergusor in which he a,".ssed the reasons for not had the timetniesources to consider Media Media Educafion. This address forms thefirct Eduation. (This should not imply that Media chapter and sets a framework for the chapters Education does not have its place in basic literacy that follow. Within this very comprehensive as well.) The conference has mirrored a social rationale for Media Education, it would be very situafion to the extent that those educational difficult, perhaps impossible, to isolate any single formations that have had access to those re- aspect that is more worthy of attention or sovrces enabled by adequate fundin& have been possibly more important than any other aspect able to develop media consciousness. And However, there are three matters which we beyond that there exist those progressive identify in particular because they relate specifi- eduotional projects, which have frequently cally to focuses or debates picked up during the spearheaded informal and grassroot develop- conference. Firstly, based on the realization that ments in Media Education. What did become the presence ot mass media is of significance to evident was that while there are fewer examples all of us, and that representations in the media (as of these projects, there is a great need and interest well as their absences) are cultural issues, in developing Media Education in the non-formalFerguson stressed that Media Education consti- and adult education. tutes an engagement with media representations The conference attempted to provide a forum for over an extended period of time. Bearing in mind these concerns as well as to publicize the initia- the dilemmas expressed by teachers about tives of educators to be made public. By doing this, positioning Media Education, planners and the development and expansion of this pioneering educata-s need to consider the full implications work might be facilitated. Various concerns were of how we are going to adequately deal with this expressed informally but more specifically in the field of study, of how best it can be contained final plenary session. The resolutions contain a within the curriculi. Nor c-In it simply be rel- summary of some of these matters. What is vital egated to the status of a minor literary work by for the development of Media Education in South allowing an option between some film and a African education is to continue these debates literary work in some way deemed minor, In this even if they lead us to major transformations of way the first point drawn from Ferguson's those disciplines which have traditionally been introduction indicates the magnitude of the field considered discrete and sacrosanct areas. we have undertaken. Secondly, central to an understanding of the study.) It is with an understanding of things objectives of this field of study is the issue theoretical that this interlinked and coherent fiel, of study emerges and offers its challenges. that Media Education and styles of pedagogy or teaching are importantly linked. What this theory also achieves is the central realization that media representations are Thirdly, Ferguson also deals with the problem cultural issues. This is picked up by two contribu- of defining Media Education and the terrain of tions which by their deconstructive readings of this field of study. He extends the definition particular film texts emphasise these representa- borrowed from the B F I, which we quoted tions in their cultural contexts. earlier, by stressing three components that are This is followed by the part entitled Creating perhaps incorporated within that definition but New Possibilities for Media Awareness. This part is which he deems require clearer emphasis. divided into two sections, simply in terms of the Ferguson adds power, theory and pleasure. (Of media forms they consider. What this set of these three, theory forms the focus of the third contributions have in common is that they part entitled Working Out How Media Works, whileattempt an interdisciplinary approach to teaching the issues of power and pleasure, interlinked an understanding of the mediii. They mightrefer with all other aspects of media education, inform to individual texts, but their intention remains to part four, entitled Creating New Possibilities for develop critical tools or approaches for teaching Media Awareness.) that can be applied to categories of media and From Ferguson's introductory paper, the struc- can be adapted and inform teaching practice. ture of this publication picks up on these issues. These authors attempt very specifically to employ Matters Educational deals with the issue of theoretical ideas as tools in order to develop pedagogy. Representatives of some educational critical and analytic skills. They avoid a prescrip- authorities outline their approaches and initiative approach to any media text. While few tives. In addition, certain authors pick up and articles are directed at tertiary education, this develop aspects relating to educational aspects, section concludes with contributions by Marx with varying emphasis on the approach and the and Sey, demonstrating sophisticated under- pedagogic mode. standings of filmic theory relevant to rigorous Working Out How Media Works incorporates the study in higher education. major theoretical contribution of this publication The section entitled Training and Empowering in the form of Ferguson's second paper, The offers articles that deal with empowering teachers Necessity of Theory in Media Education. There is who are involved with Media Education as well considerable resistance on the part of some as potential media producers. They attempt to teachers to the slightest hint of things theoretical. deal with methodologies that will empower Yet unavoidably, an understanding of media callslearners. These include valuable critiques and for a theoretical basis. (No geographer, scientist, outlines of projects. historian or mathematician disparages the need The collection of conference papers in the for theoretical underpinnings in their field of following section, Media to Develop Media

14 maim Mears in Scah Africa 14 Awareness, gives some insight into media towards particular types of written texts is simply producers who react against mainstream media the consequence of historiol accident) Many of and pmduce texts that encourage and stimulate the considerations of language studies are critical readings. steeped in elitism, John Higgins made this point We also decided to include a theoretical paper during the final plenary session of the conference: by Urbasch in part seven, Afterthoughts, not Maybe here and now we ought to think of ways of presented at the conference, but written as a positively retraining ourselves towards a broader response to it. He confronts the problematic base conception of social and cultural literacy, which position of educators in their attempts to develop addresses not only wri ting but aU the semiotic codes which we use as part of our natural social abilities. liberating and empowering pedagogic practices. Perhaps such issues can be confronted in future What is needed at this historical juncture is also Media Education forums, to concentrate on our modern bards, such as TV Finally, the resolutions and declarations are or comics. This does not imply that the latest presented in the appendices. soap-opera is being judged as of greater worth During the final plenary session many del- than any other text, perhaps Shakespearean, egates expressed common needs and ideas. They perhaps South African poetry. It does not imply wanted to develop their understandings of this that media texts from abroad are being deemed area more in order to teach Media Education. more useful than things South African. They are Educational planners should consider imple- simply part of the vast mass media output and if menting in-service training courses and teacher they find our students amongst their possible education programmes that advance understand- audience, then we must consider them relevant. ings of Media Education. What Media Education should ideally achieve However, we need to be careful not to see this is the creation of a creative and analytic frame- new focus and need for understanding as a result work for dealing with information of any form. of this 'new' field. Rather Media Education has The scope of Media Education then surely leaves emphasized a need that already exists within the confines of ianguage subjects in its scope of education - the need for a new approach to that influence and permeates all understandings of area that has been defined as language study in texts. British media educationist, Len Masterman, secondary school or literacy in primary schools. considers Media Education as not m3tricted to Language study has already bridged some odd the domain of media teachers. bed partners: learning about job applications and We need to think of it as a specialist field in its own poetic interpretations. At the heart of all this is right, certainly, but also as an element that will need to inform the teaching of all sulnrcts. Perhaps most the fact that language study has traditionally importantly of all, media education should be dealt with communication at large although thought of as a lifelong process, within which many perhaps there has been an emphasis on high agencies, institutions and individuals will have im- cultural analysis. The ability to read and commu- portant roles to play. (Masterman 1985) Ill nicate within one's society is acknowledged in BIBLIOGRAPHY early learning. (Its subsequent orientation MasterMan, I leaching the %Via, COMMiki, London 1q85 111Part 1

Why Media Education?

The keynote address delivered by Bob Ferguson forms the first part of this publication and sets a framework for the chapters that follow. Based on the realization that the presel.ze of mass media is of significance to all of us, and that representations in the media (as wellas their absences) are cultural issues, Ferguson stressed that Media Education constitutesan engagement with media representations over an extended period of time. He stresses the mode of pedagogy advocating that the Media Education teacher should facilitate a truly critical analysis and understanding of the media. Ferguson also extends the definition employed by the conference organizers which we quoted earlier, by stressing three components which hesays requires greater emphasis. To this, Ferguson addspower, theory and pleasure. Media Education is not a remote or esotericarea of study, but one that should encourage active participation. Parallel with an understanding of media and media representations based on an analysis and understanding of media messages, should run a consistent emphasis on the production of such messages. Ferguson raises the issue of resources for Media Education and what might be considered the minimum resourcesnecessary for work to begin. If students are exposed to billboards or radios or other media, regardless how

MRT Why Media Education? 17 1 t; unsophisticated they might be technologically,teaching can or perhaps should begin. With access to anyrudimentary form of Fining, students can also begin to produce messages as partof their education. The theoretical, analytical and production aspects of MediaEducation are considered equally important and inextricably linked.Ferguson foresees the development of Media Education as just one of the pathways by which education canbecome truly democratic, open, fearless in its spirit of enquiry, enjoyment andintellectual rigour - and above all of relevance to all the people of South Africa.

17 OPENING ADDRESS: What Is Media Iducation For?

Bob Ferguson

The introduction of Media Education in South does a plurality of approaches produce more Africa is an exciting development, It is alsoone useful and wide-ranging educational mults? which raises important issues about the nature In order to understand what Media Education and purpose of the discipline and, without might be, we must first recognise that the sounding too grand about it, about the nature presence of the mass media is a significant one and purpose of education. For one of the points for all the citizens of South Africa. That presence that I will be arguing over the next day is that we can be felt in the cinemas, on television and radio, cannot separate off Media Education from the in the press and in all forms of magazines, rest of what goes on in our educational system - Ournals and comics. It is also a presence which nor from what goes on in our own society. Media provides certain kinds of representations of the Education is about the way the world is repre- world - whether they be of local, national or sented and !mediated - whether in forms which international issues. The representations in the would be desciibed as 'fictional', or in forms media are also concerned with what might in the which would be described as 'factual'. Both are most general terms be described as cultural equally within the remit of Media Education and issues. This second area covers a multitude of both require rigorous study. But before we get to possibilities from drama and feature films to this I want to spend a little time sketching out quiz shows and documentaries. We also need to what I consider to be the main possibilities and be concerned, in Media Education, with what is pitfalls of Media Education, based upon develop- not there. An odd suggestion at first, but I will ments in the United Kingdom. In doing so, I will return to it, So let met ask again - what is Media mention something of the history of Media Education? Education and attempt to make a case for certain It is, I suggest, an engagement, over a long specific approaches to the field. It will also be period, with all forms of media representations. It necessary to refer to certain educational prin- is concerned with how messages are put together, ciples which impact upon Media Education and by whom and in whose interests.lt is concerned which have had considerable influence upon with the concept of beauty and the concept of the approaches to teaching the subject. ordinary - with arguments about 'high' and 'low' Let me start, then, with some pretty basic culture. lt is also concerned with how to construct questions: What is Media Education? What is it media messages which are similar to those now for? (And what is it against?) Must Media available, and how to construct messages which Education follow a single line of development, or are different; and how to acquire production skills from the use of the pen to the use of the geatest of these diseases would be afalling off in tape recorder and camera. It is a subjectwhich standards of taste! should be on the agenda for all teachers and Of course it would be foolish to dismiss all of students and one which does not lend itself to this as mere fancy. Students do come into the brief encounters. It must be a part of our general classroom with a great deal of experience of their educational approach as well as a specific subject.own - but they also come intothe classroom with For, above all, Media Education is ad endless great gaps in their experience and with a great enquiry into the way we make sense of the world deal of what all we teschers have but do not like and the way others make sense of the world for to talk about, that is, ignorance. The teachers'task us. Above all it must begenuinely and openly is to replace that ignorance with knowledge, or critical. better, to provide the mous whereby that Let me now try to unravel the clutter of points Iignorance can be replaced by knowledge. And have made and impose some sort of order on this may include an engagement withdebates them. First, I want to turn to the main impetus about taste and standards in the media. But that behind much of the early teaching about the mass is clearly not enough. There are other aspects to media in the United Kingdom. I would argue thatMedia Education which I will come on to. But the much of the early work in schools relating to the approach about which I have beers speaking so mass media was elitist in the extremeand based far has one fundamental flaw - and that is in its upon fear. The teacher was cast in the roleof the mode of pedagogy. This flaw has to be relevant to defender of traditional values against the the development of Media Education in South onslaught of the mass media. There was little of Africa. It is a mode of pedagogy based upon a value to be found in the mass media, except the transmission model of education. This type of occasional respectable film which aspired to the approach believes that if you tell students what is higher things usually found in novels of a certain 'right', they will learn it, and hence change. They type. And of course there was the quality press - will become like you, the teacher. If there is a The Times and perhaps the Daily Telegraph. critical dimension to this approach, it is one Teachers wcre encouraged to help their students based upon acceptance of the premises and to ideutify quality and to identify thatwhich was approaches of the guide or mentor. And the flaw cheap and worthless. It was assumed that the - at least asfar as we can tell from our experience teacher would be in sympathy with this approach - is that the approachdoes not work! You cannot and indeed that the teacher would be 'in the tell students about the way the world is, or what know'. The poor students were innocents in need a 'good' film or newspaper is.The educational of protection. Indeed much of the teaching which truth about the mass n tedia, even if such a thing was advocated in the 1950s was described asthe were to exist, cannot be simply revealed toschool inoculation approach to the media. Successful students. And if teaching is undertaken which teaching meant that leaders stopped their adopts this transmission model, it either fails or students from catching terrible and usually the students become parrots of the teacher,' unnamed diseases from the media. But the words. (Another way of describing failure). 9 20 Mesisa Matters in Sao *I Africa Knock on effect - an analysis, no voice, no attempts to perpetuate relations of power and capacity for growth and change. subordination, and how they work to make What the Media Education teadier can do is to 'natural' relations which are plainly socially and present students with a range of possibilities and politically motivated. This brings me back to a range of tools for analysis and let them make upanother question I raised at the beginning of this their own minds. In this way you are encourag- introduction: what is Media Education for? ing them to think, to make judgments and to see Of course, part of the purpose of this confer- that their own judgments are valid and useful. ence must be to address this issue but I would There has been an unhealthy tendency in Media like to offer one or two ways into considering the Educeson for teachers of a variety of persuasions question. I will turn first to a recent definition of to lay down the law (a less polite way of describ- Media Education which was put forward by the ing the transmission model!) and then to com- British Film Institute Education Department. This plain or to wonder at their failure. I hope you willis an oft-quoted definition and it is the result of not be tempted in South Africa to follow that numerous debates over the last decade in path. It leads to frustration and to disillusion. England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland: The first point which arises for me from what I have been arguing so far is that Media Education Media education is a general term describing any and styles of pedagogy or teaching are impor- progressive development of a critical understanding which seeks to extend pupils' knowledge of the tantly linked. media and to develop their analytic and creative The second point which arises for me is that skills thrJugh critical and practical work. Such work Media Education should not fall into the trap of should increase their capacity to understand both defending students against the media. It would thecontents of the media and the processes involved in their production and reception. Media education seek, rather, to enable students to understand how includes teaching about the forms, amventions and the media operates - how individual media technologies through which the media are manufac- construct their messages. In the South African tured, their institutional arra ngementsand contexts, context one would perhaps be distinguishing and their social, political and cultural roles. It aims to between those messages constructed with create more active and critical media users who will demand, and could contribute to a greater range and subtlety, and those constructed with a metaphori- diversity of media products. cal sledgehammer. Put another way, one has to be concerned with the ideological implications of The emphasis here is clearly on the importance media messages, and with outright propaganda. of developing the critical, and creative and the The distinction is important for several reasons. It analytical - whether as skills or understanding. would be either patronising or plain stupid to There is also a stress on media forms, conven- teach the majority of students to recognise from tions and technologies. These last three are in a the mass media that which they already know sense a code for a multitude of studies and from their daily experience. What is perhaps not activities. These would include the study of a so patronising and has a validity for all South range of media; the production of media mes- African citizens, is to study how the media sages - from newspaper articles to video record- ings; the study of generic conventions, (whether absences to which I made brief reference earlier. it be romance, crime or news) in both fiction and What is not on the sawn, in the newspapers or in non-fiction media; the study of narrative and the dramas that we can watch in the cinema, etc. realism and the study of news and documentary is something which needs to be identified and in a variety of media. It would also include the analysed as much as that which is there. Media study of the cinema. The generality of the Education needs to try to identify how power is definition is one of its main strengths, because it exercised thieugh the defining process and to leaves quite a bit of space for movement. There develop ways of understanding the extent to are, however, three significant absences. These which the audience - all of us here and all those are dealt with a little more in my othercontribu- in society more widely - can accept or reject, and tions to the conference. (See 'The Necessity of act upon or against media definitions. For I am Theory in Media Education' in filis volume.) not suggesting that, merely because the media There is no mention here of theory, nor is there have the power to define, that the audience will any mention of either power or pleasure in relation necessarily agree with what is being said or that to the role and function of the media. Now that they will believe tne message. Not all of it. Not all does not mean that the staff of the BR and their of the time. But of course Media Education is also colleagues in the teaching profession are unawareabout recognising that there is not one audience of these issues. But it does mean that they did not for media messages, but several. And those consider them to be sufficiently central to include different audiences may make different kinds of them in their definition. I would wish to reinsert sense of different messages atdifferent times. them in any definition I had to write. Media Education has to address the ways in Let me say a brief word about each of the three. which the power of the media is felt, by whom First, power. The media have some powers which and under what conditions. are in the hands of the producers and some Secondly, I want to say something about theory powers which are in the hands of those who in relation to Media Education. I will be taking control the producers. This is not the time to this up in more detail in my next paper. The very attempt any detailed exposition. I would argue, word theory can generate hostile reactions from however, that one of the main powers which the some teachers in England. It is variously con- media exerts and which Media Education needs strued as that which is most boring, that which is to address, is the power to define. The power to most doctrinaire, that which is most obscure and define the world extends from the most global irrelevant in relation to Media Education. There issues to the most local; from the most overly are some reasons why this mightbe thought to be significant to the most trivial and mundane. It is the case, for the teachers of theory in relation to the understanding of how this defining process the media have not always been the most works, and in whose interests it works, which is inspiring, successful or open-minded. This has for me at the very heart of Media Education. And led to frustration and antagonism to the very it extends to the power of the media not to concept of theory by some teachers. But of course, discuss certain issues. These are the significant one cannot teach about the media without

22 mado /Om Soilih Africa 21 adopting theoretical positions. And then, these music, and all young people are involved with positions may be recognised or unrecognised, that in one way or another. They may also get formulated or unformulated. pleasure from watching films or reading certain I will give just one example at the moment of comics or magaimes. At the very least, Media what I am trying to get at Suppose I attempt to Education needs to recognise existing pleasures. teach my students that the media are corrupting This does not mean that the media educator their judgements and that they need to build would necessarily endorse all pleasures which defences against the corruption. Here I air students gain from the media. But neither should adopting a theoretical position which places the it mean that the Media Educator should condemn media as prime formulators of opinion. This pleasure without debate, discussion and analysis. position may or may not be correct, but my This is an issue which comes up when I consider argument is that Media Education has to considerrepresentations of race and gender in the media) constantly the theories on which it operates. So I The comments I have offered so far have tried would have to ensure that my teaching consid- to pose certain questions about what Media ered various theories about the influence of the Education might be and the purposes it might media. I would have to present these in some serve. I want to turn finally to who Media form to my students and give them the opportu- Education might be for. The answer to this is nity to discuss and debate the merits of various deceptively simple if I say it should be for theoretical positions about the influence of the everyone! But that is what I firmly believe. I media. If I do not associate media influence with believe in it as Chairperson for a Joint Depart- a theoretical position all I am doing is making ment of English and Media Studies which assertions on a kind of take-it-or-leave-it basis. recognises a continuum for more conventional Media Educators, I wish to argue, have to notions of teaching about language and commu- I. The presentation recognise and argue for or against theoretical nication - literature, narrative and so forth - delivered by Bob positions, and then let students debate the across to the various languages or signifying Ferguson on Race and theories. What they should not do is pretend that practices of the mass media. But I would wish to Gender, Putting theory they are somehow outside or beyond theory. I sustain my argument if I were a teacher of the into practice is not hope this '5 an issue which will be taken up visual arts, or history or geography. For media included in this volume elsewhere in the conference. representations abound in every academic field, as it relies on the Thirdly, I mentioned the notion of pleasure in and media representations are part of the audience being able to relation to the media. One of the things which everyday experience of all citizens of whatever view his examples. Ferguson has dealt with any media teacher soon discovers is that students race or station in society. Education about and this topic in other do gal-A an enormous amount of pleasure from through these representations is a key factor in papers. One of these is certain media at certain times. This may vary the development of all societies. It is of particular Ferguson, B. Multiracial considerably in relation to access to the media, of relevance I believe as South Africa moves into a Education, 'Race and the course. You can't watch videos when you have period of rapid change towards democracy. For Media: Some Problems neither TV nor video recorder. But Media Media Education is about participation in the in Teaching,' Vol. 9 Education can extend into the world of popular development of one's society. It is about being Number 2 Spring 1981.

PAtt t%filly Ma& Educcii'on; 23 'I) informed through the media and about the provision, needs to be made equally available to media. It is also about giving a voice to the all citizens. maximum number of people in that develop- feel a strong commitment to the development ment. For these reasons there must be as consid- of Media Education. Particularly here. Particu- erable and consistent an emphasis in Media larly now. It is just one of the pathways by which Education on the production of media messages as education can become truly democratic, open, there is on the analysis and understanding of fearless in its spirit of enquiry, enjoyment and media messages. intellectual rigour - and above all of relevance to This raises, in condusion, the issue of resourcesall the people of South Africa. for media education and what might be the minimum resources necessary for work to begin. I think that if one can see advertisements on hoardings, listen to a transistor radio or read a newspaper, one is already well-equipped to enter the field of Media Education. If one has access to any simple form of printing one has also the means to begin to produce messages as part of one's education. It is for Media Educators to ensure that their students are encouraged to see the theoretical, analytical and production aspects of Media Education as of equal importance and indissolubly linked together. It is also important that Media Education is seen as something which should permeate all levels of education, including informal and adult education. It may include a detailed involvement with the history of national or international cinema, an engagement with the way in which advertisements operate or a concern with editorials in newspapers or journals. The field is enormously wide and the potential very great. But is also about involvement in the development and analysis of one's society and the way in which it is represented and understood through the media. As such it is a discipline of particular relevance to the future South Africa. And it is a discipline which, like the rest of educational

24 Mocha Matters in SatiAfrica 23 Part Il

Matters Educational

The section entitled Matters Educational deals with theissue of pedagogy. First of all, some educational planners offer reviews of theinitiatives undertaken by the educational authorities theyrepresent. These introductions were describedas Visual Literacy, Tele literacy, etc. partly perhaps in response to their movementaway from the printed text. The first initiatives relating to the 'visual' media emanatedfrom the Natal Education Department which introduced studies of televisualand filmic materials in 1983 in certain schoolsas a pilot scheme, and the Transvaal Education Department with the inclusion ofa film study component in 1986. The Cape Education Department's introduction of filmstudies in 1989 and the inclusion of film componentson an experimental basis in the schools of the House of Delegates in Durban in 1990 followed. Nowit would be mistaken to see these dates as the introductory dates for MediaEducation per se. This would ignore that varied and important work that has been done relating to the print media that has been part of the agendafor much longer. However, these focuses mentioned above did beginto incorporate filmic media. However, this inclusion needs to be consideredcarefully by teachers, as certain approaches to film remain part of elite culture in terms ofsome canon of excellence. The remit of Media Education is infinitelymore inclusive and these articles indicate movement to other mediaforms.

PART II 't4 afters Educational 25 Maytham's brief note on Media Education in KwaZuluschools offers an important element to these reviews. Just as anymedia text is telling in its very absences, thisrelevantly draws attention to the lack of such development within black African education, a lack thatalso occurs in all those other educational authorities not represented(as has been outlined in the Introduction). The notion Ferguson raised of Media Education goingbeyond merely a field of study to an approach, is invoked by Pero ld'soutline of the development of Media Education within SACHED. Pero Idemphasizes a pedagogy which has concentrated on empowerment of learners throughdeveloping critical abilities and the democratization of education.The methodologies she discusses are developed within other progressiveprojects. (Of those mentioned, projects undertaken by the Durban MediaTrainers' Group, the Film and Allied Workers' Organization and theCommunity Arts Project are described or critiqued in the part entitled Training andEmpowering.) Following these reviews, other authors and Sutherlandin particular pick up this concern with matters directly educational, thoseissues of the pedagogic modes that must be addressed. They concede that toteach critcal awareness and to develop these critical tools is impossible toachieve unless the mode of teaching encourages it. They concur with Fergusonthat Media Education ...would seek, rather, to enable students to understand how themedia operate - how individual media construct their messages. The SACHED collective offer a political andeducational contextualization for their argument for linkages between the content ofpopular media, people's culture, people's education and critical pedagogy.

26 Media Matters in South Africa 25 No teacher can tell the student how and when to beaware and critical, or develop any critical understanding while sheor he employs what has been described as a transmission model of teaching. Rejecting suchan approach, van Zyl employs ethnographic understandings and insights into audiences and readings. Rather, each iconk system, he suggests, interacts witha specific audience in a specific way ata specific time within a specific culture. These concerns also find their echoes within the chapter by Ballot whenshe advocates a process orientation to Media Studies, rejecting the product- orientated approach she describes.

PART II *Nen EduaTtionot 27 Media & F11Studies In Schools of the Cope Uncut ion Deportment Nicol Faasen Curriculum ServicesCape Education Department fistroalueloo of mod% studios one of the prescribed books. Initially, the The formal introduction of media and film Transvaal Education Deparhnent lead was studies in the Cape Education Department (CEO) followed by selecting Chariots of Fire for 1990. was preceded by enthusiastic work in this field During this year (1990), teachers over the for more than a decade by a number of progres- province could attend a series of in-service sive teachers. There was, therefore, a most training sessions. valuable source af expertise among its teachers The CED therefore has a voluntary approach on which this department could draw. A further with the emphasis on experimenting and resource has been a number of lecturers at development and on using the experience and tertiary institutions who have been assisting theseknowledge gained by teachers through their teachers. Other departments of education with practice. experience in this field, especially the Transvaal The films selected for 1991 are Witness, The Education Department, also assisted us in a most Never Ending Story and The China Syndrome and helpful way. for 1992 they are Gallipoli, The Mission or any one A further impetus has been the present English of the others previously prescried. First Language syllabus, which provides for television and film study. During 1988 and 1989, a sub-committee of the CND Goldolhios Senior English Prescribed Books Committee As mentioned above, a set of guidelines, drawn made recommendations on a more co-ordinated up by teachers and head office staff, were introduction of media and film studies in schools.distributed to schools. Film studies are described An initial in-service course was held in March in the guidelines as part of the broader course in 1989 and guidelines were drawn up. All high Media Studies. The guidelines emphasise that schools received these guidelines. there are three areas at which teachers can look. 'Official recognition' of media and film studies These are: simply entailed that a film title was added to the *pupils' reception and enjoyment of the film and list of prescribed titles for English First Language their responses to it, HG and SG in Standards Sand 9. This meant that *pupils' criticaI analysis of the film, and schools could isse their money allocation for text pupils' personal integration of the meanings book5 it, buy video copi?s of the prescribed film they attach to the film within their own lives. and that pupils could study this in the place of Although the above order might in many ways

PART IIMatters EducasionaI 29 2 7 be the ideal, one could expect that teachers might and expression such as initially be inclined to strew the technical analysis aesthetic appreciation to the exclusion of the other aspects. This should informed perception of the power of the image. only be a temporary phase. These three areas The fifth objective includes the acquisiti 3n of an should also be seen as integrated areas of concern understanding of the basic 'grammaf or lan- and not three distinctly separate ones. guage of film and the vocabulary needed for critical appreciation: CID Aims composition: perspective, lighting, distance, The following aims for media and film study are framing, organisation of space, focus, point-of- at present generally accepted in CED schools view movement. primary, secondary, tertiary General aim editing: choice, montage, sequence, pace, The study of Media should be such that it juxtapositioning of Agnificant images combines sound: on-screen, off-screen, music, silence aesthetic appreciation of the medium as a setting: emotional and/or phyb,kal, by means of 'communication art form' and cultural milieu, realism, symbolism, expression- critical awareness of the techniques employed ism, colour, black/white, time sequence in its creation to achieve specific or implicit genre: characteristic formulae or conventions intentions. acting: the star system, characterisation, gesture, costume, Particular oliectives (It is important that terminology should not be Particular objectives incorporate the following: studied as an end in itself, but only to the extent Firstly, they attempt to achieve understanding of that it is helpful to the pupil.) the varied nature of communication by providing A final objective involves learning to identify a brief overview of and explore the central features of character, contexts (social, historical...) theme, plot, setting and style in the film art form components (transmitter, message, receiver...) by means of the customary methods of literary media (television, bumper stickers...) critique. styles (sitcom, editorial column...) models (encode - decode - feedback.), New insights and future They further aim to assist in bridging the gap possibilities between the written word (as in journalism and It was previously mentioned that the CED is literature) and the visual medium. following an experimental approach. Syllabuses A third objective incorporates the active are seen more as guidelines than as prescriptive promotion of participation in communication, and limiting documents. Teachers are therefore and creative interaction with the medium. encouraged to experiment and to explore ail Fourthly, this field of study aims to develop and possilities in the syllabuses. We trust that we will refine the skills of critical viewing, judgement learn from this approach and be able to imple-

30 Medu Matters in South Africa ment teaches' practical knowledge in future developments. It has already become apparent that we should be careful of overemphasising the electronic media, especially films, thereby neglecting media studies as a broader field of education. As chances of introducing a new subject like Media Studies are very slim at present, we should probably move towards a broader definition of language' than that which we are working with at present, namely one which covers mainly aural, oral and written codes. We should probably think of language' as covering a much wider continuum of codes and texts including a variety of visual media. The English First Language Third Paper the 'grammar paper'- writter. by OUT Standard Ten pupils last year already shows this shift, as a considerable proportion of the questions were set on mainly visual media. Such a widening of the scope of language teaching - while creating the danger of a further overburdening of our teachers- does, however, offer our pupils the possibilities of richer and more relevant educational experiences.

PART IIMatters Educational 31 Transvaal Education Department Visual Literacy St Film Study inTransvaal Schools

S P Gosher Chief Superintendent of Education

Introduction tivity in video and film is a fairly meaningless Visual Literacy (including Film Study) was term: the director decides who shall be filmed introduced as an option into the National Core and who shall not; what shall be asked and left Syllabuses for English First Language (Standard unsaid; he decides on the lens and the camera 540) in 1986. When the syllabuses were angle. Lighting, soundtrack, dialogue and provincialised, the Transvaal Education Depart- editing all make meaning. Thus the finished ment (TED) decided to make the component product enshrines a point of view, and it is the compulsory from standard 5 to 9, and optional in educator's task to train pupil's responses which standard 10 (this was decided because a number tend to be formless, uncritical and perhaps even of private schools write the matriculation dangerously passive. examinations set by the TED). The decision to include visual literacy and film Empirical Study study as a compulsory component had not been In March 1977 the TED launched a pilot study in taken lightly or without reference to empirical film teaching. Benoni, Greenside, Lyttleton evidence. By 1976, when the TED's deliberations Manor, Potchefstroom Girls and Sandringham first commenoed, film study had already estab- High were chosen as the original participating lished itself as an essential and well-integrated schools. This first study cut away much under- componet of the curricula of many British, growth. An initial decision to study Zorba the American and Australian schools. While the Greek was rescinded as teachers felt too inexperi- statement that education was a creaking ram- enced. On a much humbler and more practical shackle construction - like an old windmill that note, and also one that has subsequently proved goes on flapping its great arms long afterthe to provide much of the basis for study up to miller has left - was not entirely credible, it was standard 9, it was decided to use the two short believed that schools needed to teach children films The Lady or the Tiger and The Red Kite. how to deal with their environment. Pupils need This was an easy choice because, incredible as to be competent in using and understanding the it may seem, these two films were the only uses of the dominant communicationmedia of suitable narrative films, short in colour, on their own culture. Our age demands an all- 16mm, with a running time of under 30 minutes, media literacy which enables understanding and that could be located in the country. Subse- assessing messages in the media of what is quently The Rocking Horse Winner and The Ugly tending to become a post-literate world. Objec- Little Boy were obtained and used as the basis for

32 Media Motters in South Africa 30 internal, and later matriculation examinations. Initially, in the lower sondards, still pictures, It was then decided to extend the project over a etc. form the focus of attention but teachers very wider socio-economic base. Five schools- Jeppe quickly move on to films themselves. Films of Cirls Alberton, Settlers Agricultural, John Orr short duration are studied, but a full-lergth film Technical, and Western High Schools- partici- may be studied in standard 8 and 9. The general pated from 1981-1985. Matriculation examina- approach is to study films in terms of the tions, based on these short films, were written in sequences (of approximately four to six minutes) 1984 and 1985, and the results, on analysis, were that constitute them. so pleasing and compelling that the decision to Std.10. The above approach- a combined one make film study com;ulsory in the 1986 sylla- of cinematic and literary preoccupations, based buses was easily taken. upon the unit of sequence - is recommended. Pupils should have reaped the benefit of at least Conon, Procthos five years of film study and thus should be able Std 5-4. Visual literacy is initially based upon to move immediately into the grammar of film teaching the pupil two things: firstly, the physicalimmersion. A prescribed full-length film is ability to see the image and, secondly, to under- examined externally. Films prescribeti so far stand, analyse, synthesize and see relationships. have been Chariots of hre, Witness, and The The pupil must learn to respond to visual images. Mission which is prescribed for 1992/1993. Cartoons, pictures, photographs, comic advertisements, etc. form the basis of scrutiny in this initialMatorial approach. Four pegs or markers are used in this Films Provided Centrally ta Schools methodology : colour, line, texture and composi- Primary School Six Short Films (approximately tion. After pupils have been familiarized with 10 minutes each) Dr de Soto; Corduroy; The these concepts, they are introduced to filmic Swineherd; The Amazing Bone; A Story, The Clown technique. This encompasses, among other, the of God. following: camera shots, camera angles, camera High School Big Henry and the Polka Dot Kid movement, transitions, special effects, lenses, (approximately 30 minutes). focus and framing. Study Guides Provided Centrally to Schools it must be stressed that the metalanguage of No. 36Visual Literacy (Std. 2-10) film is not an end in itself. The entire focus is on No. 37Worksheets on Film Study how meaning is made, and how it emerges via No. 42Big Henry and the Polka Dot Kid directorial intervention. The why of filmmaking No. 43Preparing a lesson Series : Chariots of Fin, is as integral to understanding as the how. No. 46Witness Traditional literacy techniques of analysis and No. 53The Mission (in preparation). interpretation run parallel to the cinematic Training Video approach. Theme, setting, plot and characteriza- A video, made by the Video Section 4.4 the tion feature, the whole idea being to blend the College of Education for Further Training, is cinematic and literary in a seamless unit. available to schools. Entitled 'Visual Literacy: A

31 PART itMatters Educational 33 Methodological Approach', it sketches the approach outlined above. Other Meter. al Useful films are available from the National Film Library in Pretoria. Films used ja TED schools and found to be of benefit are The Red Kite, Thr Hunt, The Ugly Little Boy, The ":oeking Horse Winner, and The Lady or the 7 iger. The Minding Media series is also very useful. ceachislen Film study, as practised in Transvaal schools, evidences the following advantages: it holds the interest of the pupils, and encourages involvement of all pupils; it raises the consciousness of pupils and enables them to discriminate and resist manipulation; the traditional skills of Arriting, language study and literary criticism are advanced by film study; the film has been shown as a valid medium by which literary themesand pre-occupations are conveyed; it equips our pupils with tools to interpret the increasingly dominant visual content of the communications media; and lastly, pupils and teachers have been led not tt, accept so blindly the second rate, the stereotyped zind the cheap.

Bibliography Transvaal Education Department St,,.iv (uides: No 36 Visual Literacy tStd 210) No.37 Worksheets on Film Study No.42 'Big Henry and the Polka Dot Kid" No.43 Preparing a LesSOPI Ceries. Thariets of Fire' No, 46 'Witness' No. 53Theftion' tin preparation), Visual Litcracy: AMethodological Approach,Video produced by College ot Education tor Further Training, Pretoria.

34 Media Matters in South Africa 32 The Natal liducation Dopariment & Modia Iducation Mary Johnson Superintendent of Education: English

In order to describe the inifiatives undertaken by literacy. I would like to underline that this was the Natal Education Department (NED) in the not the beginning of Media Education in the NED area of Media Education, I shall first briefly Considerable attention was given then in most attempt to characterize the NED's approach to high school departments of English to a study of curriculum development, hence to Media the rlfwspaper and the magazine and how they Education, before outlining our historical are constructed. In addition, teachers explored involvement in this field of study. symbols, visual and verbal, and provoked forays Within the NED, there are working committees into advertising and propaganda. Attention was made up of practising teachers, who are involved given to the radio and pupils engaged in con- in addressing the question of what to teach and structing radio programmes, advertisements, and how best to teach it, on an on-going basis. Debate reconstructing news programmes and popular is energetic and infused with the experience of serials. those engaged in working at the chalk face. What Keith Olivier initiated was an exploration Perhaps this is particularly the case for English, of how the study of film and television might partly as a consequence of the fact that the reconcile itself with our study of English. The Superintendent for English in Natal is at the sameexperimenting schools were given no more than a time the Chairman of the Curriculum Committee broad request to explore what options lay open to for English Main Language for the country and them, and as then Head of English at one, I can that I am privileged to chair the research commit- speak from a position of authority (or tee for curriculum development. Furthermore, victimisation). My English department and I the NED has always endorsed a bottoms-up were anxious and concerned. As we stumbled approach to curriculum development. This and blundered we felt very much as Alice does in means that curriculum change is rooted in the following exchange from Alice in Wonder- classroom experience. The NED requires of its land: teachers a high degree of professionalism, open- mindedness, readiness to explore, to challenge 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to and to refine. go from here In 1974, the then Inspector for English with the 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to', said the Cat. NED, Keith Olivier, invited a number of high don't much care where 2 said Alice. schools to experiment with the teaching of what 'Then it doesn't matter which way you go', said we called, in those days, film and television the Cat.

PART UMatters Educrstiorml 35 3 ' - So long as I get somewhere', Alice added as an financially advantaged. This meant that purchase explanafion. of televisions and video-recorders could be Then, many of the secondary and tertiary texts accommodated in the budgets of schools where available to us were written in a language which basic resources such as books, were in plentiful made them inaccessible - and so we were thrust supply. The research committee felt it important back on our own resources - the teachers, the that Departments be allowed the option which department and our very active English Teachers'would give them the opportunity to prioritise Association, NATE their needs. The experimentation provoked great interest Secondly, as teachers were in the main not au and debate. NATE organised a meeting at which fait with the demands of Media Education it was members of the experimenting schools shared felt that time should be allowed for the training their ideas and then my predecessor, Dr of teachers before making Media Education Manfredd Schmenn, was appointed Subject compulsory. adviser for English and, at the same time, given In addition, the research committee felt that the task of chairing the committee responsible for space should be allowed for further exploration revising the English Curriculum at national level. and consideration as to how to implement Media That revised English syllabus of 1983 was Education. By not being prescriptive it was hoped significantly different from the very short two that creative investigation would be facilitated. and a half page document which had preceded it. The Phase 3 core syllabus, approved in 1990 by The 1983 syllabus, and its subsequently amended the Committee of Education Heads at national form (as of 1988), is based on the assumption level, has removed the reference to 'optional'. In addition, the need to study the film - both on the that the receptive skills (listening and reading) and the expressive skills (talking and writing) cannot be large screen and small screen, and television has acquired in isolation but need to be developed in an been made much more explicit. integrated process including the pupilsw own expe- Natal's position in relationship to Media rience, the rt of their school experience as well as Education mirrors that of the core curriculum. their experience and needs beyond school. From the introduction of the revised syllabus of The syllabus is a goals based syllabus which 1983 considerable encouragement was given to takes cognizance of the personal growth model. teachers to explore the possibilities open in Film/ The syllabus of 1983 frequently made specific Television Study. The major problem Natal reference to film and television study in the teachers have encountered is the question of commentaries which explained the goals and copyright. suggested how a consideration of film/television, If teachers are to explore texts imaginatively or indeed all media, reconciled itself naturally and creatively they cannot afford to pay perhaps with the study of English. However, that syllabus R250 for every video they might want to use, did make the Ftudy of film optional for a number particularly as they are unlikely to use the full of reasons. tape. In brief, developments in Natal have been Firstly, certain schools (and departments) are as follows.

36 Mecha Matters in Soetil Africa 34 The Technikon organised a conference on I know that at times my teachers might prefer Media Education in 1987. This was attended by the security of a prescription but that mostly they many of our teachers and most of the papers know, as Gide so aptly states: were published as an NED Bulletin 44. One doesn't discover new lands without consenting NATE has hosted 2 major conferences (1987. to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. 1988) and one mini-conference (1989) on the Uneasy and uncertain we might be at times, subject of Media Education. but at least we won't say of ourselves as the I conducted a survey in Primary Schools in butler does in Kazuo Ishigurc's The Remains of the 1 .Accordingly, eleven schools indicated that Day: they were studying the video/film and 25 schools that they were engaged in studying some form of I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Media Education. Significantly courses dealing Really - one has to ask oneself, what dignity is with Media Education are offered at both there in that? Ill Colleges of Education involved with teacher training. In 1989, nine regional seminars for primary teachers were organised on Media Education. These seminars were voluntary and were organised by Regional Co-ordinators who also serve on the Primary Subject Committee. The form the seminars took varied from region to region in terms of the specific needs of the teachers of the group. At present a document is being compiled for distribution to all schools of the reports compiled by the co-ordinators on the seminars. There are some fourteen high schools which are engaged in extensive experimentation with the film/video. Material has been collected by me and a publication, Mediating Media, is in the pipeline. At this stage Natal is reticent about including film study as part of the external examination. Media Education in its widest sense can comprise part of the school assessment which constitutes fifty percent of the final mark. The NED emphasises the continuum of reading from the printed text to the celluloid and the plastic.

PART It Matters Edixdonal 37 5 Media Education in KwaZulu education? Alistair Maythain Lecturer, Eshowe College of Education

At this point there is no Media Education course being run by the Kwazulu Education Depart- ment. In some colleges, notably Eshowe, Media education is being dealt with to some extent in the Special English (English for Communication) course but the focus here is on comprehension rather than interpretation. Media forms such as videos and newspapers are used as a valuable source material with which to develop the competency of student teachers. At this stage little is being done in the creation of a critical awareness of the way in which the media operate although it is acknowledged that there is a great need for this in black education.

3; 38 Madia Matters in South Africa Developing Media liducation In the 1199011: An Altematina view Helene Pero ld Assistant Director, SACHED Trust

The SACHED Trust has had a history of involve- holistic manner. More recently we have been ment with media in education, mainly because of experimenting with a wide range of media in its work in the field of distance education. Over literacy work as well as at the secondary school the last 15-20 years the organisation has devel- level. oped extensive experience in print-based educa- Over time, three central issues have emerged, tional programmes. Learning materials have been all of which need to be addressed by educational developed and delivered in the form of study planners: guides, course books, magazines and newspaper the need to restore a learning culture education programmes. More recently, during the the struggle for democratic education 1980s, SACHED ventured into the field of the working for empowerment. visual and audio-visual media. Here our work took the sorm of slide-tape productions, photo- Restoring a Loofahs'; Whore graphic exhibitions, educational videos in the Learning as a social activity is an important ingredi- fields of poetry and literature, women's studies, ent in generating a sense of community. For the past labour histories and study skills. Attempts were 15 - 20 years education in this country has been also made to popularise visual collections in rtisrupted, undermined and underdeveloped and during this time the basis of learning as a social African history. activity has been destroyed. (John Samuel) Soon OUT work began to move beyond the provision of alternative audio-visual material. We We have lost a whole generation and face now started engaging in a media practice which the crucial task of reconstructing the educational sought to empower participants and learners in process in our country. an interactive educational process. This took a number of forms e.g. a documentary photographyluilding Democratic lidecotion project in oral history with tertiary level students; But what kind of education are we concerned to the exploration of appropriate methodologies in develop? People's education or democratic the field of worker education (e.g. role play, the education are the terms used to characterise the use of media in group discussion and learning goals here. They articulate the aspirations of circles, etc). SACHED educators became involved exploited and oppressed South Africans who in the conceptualisation of educational media now see the opportunity to participate in shaping production and we learnt how difficult it was to the democratic entity in our country. conceptualise objectives, production and use in a What do we mean by democratic education?

PART IIMatters fclucofionot 39 3 7 We are not referring here to a crude notion of critical thinking can be a powerful mechanism for students dictating to teachers what should be strengthening learning in this context. A commit- taught and how. We are talking about engender- ment to any empowering media practice is ing the mechanisms, attitudes and abilities that critical in building the capacity of learners to will enable our people to participate fully in the participaie in the democratic process. processes shaping the future of our country. Let me list some of the values which we believe Whet then ere the Issues are essential in this regard. In our view they Presently confronting Us? apply as much to media education as to all other The need te develop new curricula for our forms of educational endeavour education system i s being voiced more and more Active and participatory learning which builds loudly by teacher organisations, service on knowledge and experience already gained organisations and a wide range of educational Development of skill and confidence agencies. The search for creative ways of 'stretch- Providing access to information ing' or challenging restrictive curricula is no Demystifying knowledge longer sufficient. We need now to move beyond Presenting contesting viewpoints and finding integrating media education into existing subjects innovative ways of revealing an author's or and curricula. In other words, we need to look at producer's point of view media education in its own right. Media studies Encouraging independent and crit;cal thinking and cultural studies are increasingly being Providing choices and possibilities ranked as discrete areas of study - both in school and outside it. Empowerment But who will be developing the parameters and In many organisations in our country - trade content for these curricula? It is our view bt unions, community organisations, youth their development should not be confined to organisations, etc. - learners are struggling education departments - neither those which against the dominant visual, audio and verbal presently exist, nor the education department messages. The dominant culture of apartheid has which will emerge with the new dispensation. structured the way information is presented and Commissions set up by the NECC in maths, the way we receive it. Learners are seeking to history and English indicate the potential for make sense of the world through the images more democratic ways of evolving new curricula. presented and to be critical of the messages Indeed, a range of organisations have already conveyed. We need to understand the changing begun experimenting with new curricula and role of media here, particularly in regard to methodologies in response to developments over methodology. Basic worker education has as its the past years. purpose the strengthening of organisations, not A number of these organisations have consider- the passing of exams. The employment of media able experience in progressive educational work. such as pictures and video material by educa- They include: tional facilitators for the purpose of developing SACHED, which has worked in the field of 38 40 Mecho Matters in South Africa worker education, literacy, secondary school distance-education programmes, tertiary education, etc The Foundation for Education with Production which has produced a Cultural Studies Handbook (which still needs to be tested in the South African context) Media and cultural trainingprogrammes of the Community Arts Project in Cape Town The Culture and Working Life Project in Durban The Congress of SA Writers (COSAW) COSATU's cultural wing Various media organisations in the different centres such as the Durban Media Trainers Group and the Cape Educational Computer Society. If we are to ensure that the development of curricula is to be a meaningful, interactive process, these organisations - together with thew which represent the interests of parents, students, teachers and workers- must be brought into the process of building thenew educational agenda.

3! PART II Matturs Educational 41 Report on MediaStudies in the Departmentof Education & Culture, Houseof Delegates Lorraine Singh Assistant Superintendent of Education

In 1989 the English Subject Committee of the The texts selected for the course includedthe Department of Education and Culture decided to following: initiate a film study course in highschools. The For pupils:Image Wise (van Zyl 190 facility for this already exists in the current For teachers: Real Images (McMahon & Quinn1986) English syllabus under the heading alternate genre Red Life (During& Craig 1990) in the literature component. The idea of afilm Teachers were also given a comprehensive replacing a more traditional text had excited a reading list. great deal of interest, particularly in the Preparatory work for the launching of the Transvaal where the work of the Transvaal course included providingteachers with as much Education Department in this field had devel- resource material as possiblebeforehand and also I oped considerably. conducting a series of workshops for teachers. Because of our relative inexperience in this would like to elaborate a little on the actual field it was decided to introduce the course content of these workshops as thiswill give you through a pilot study in a few selectedschools. an indication of theapproach being used. This would allow us an opportunity to test the 1. The first workshop was held inApril after feasibility of such a course as well as provide us teachers had viewed the film and done their own with pinters on how to implement the coursein preparatory reading. We began with their the future. responses to the film as a viable textand the Six schools, located in different socio-economic problems they foresaw. Incidently these dealt areas in and around Durban, wereselected after largely with the technical aspects such as film consultation with principals and teachers language and form. The workshop included concerned. The idea was to work on a feature viewing segments of the film and commenting on film at Std 8 level initially and hopefully diffuse both the narrative and filmic aspects - very much this to more schools each year. It was hoped to as a lesson in theclassroom might do. Teachers extend the programme upward to include Std. 9 who initially expressed some trepidation about pupils and eventually Std. 10 pupils. being able to 'analyse' a sequence found it wasn't The film chosen for this project is called so difficult or foreign afterall. A cue sheet for Breaking Away, a 1970 Peter Yates film which latereach sequence was used, in which responses were inspired a TV series of the same name. The film noted under columns labelled sound track, image also boasts an Award-Winning screenplay by track and meaning/interpretation. Stephan Tesich. What emerged from the initial exercise was

42 Media Matters in South Africa Lw that teachers were at home in the narrative is well taken. I would also venture to suggest that aspects of analysis but were uneasy about film the film course be introduced into third phase form and language. The rest of the workshop wasEnglish on a progressive basis. devoted to film vocabulary and viewing of (The fact that film is being studied as a text as sequences with emphasis on how camera part of the literature component does not in any movement omen angles, lighting and montage way reduce the attention given to other forms of work together to create meaning. the media in the other aspects of English, 2. The second workshop held in May was less particularly language. Exercises in propaganda, specific in that it looked more broadly at film advertising, the use of emotive language and so theory. A paper on Narrative Structures in Film on still form part of basic English teaching.) was presented by Jeanne Prins loo who also We have taken this tentative step in media assisted teachers by providing them with education through the film study couise. We are excellent 'how to' exercises of the type found in aware that whilst the course is working well it Reading a Film by Ian Wall and Stephan Kruger. would perhaps have been better to have intro- This was followed by a 'hands on' type workshopduced media studies at a lower level. Our 3 main on 'Making a Video' conducted by Bill problems as I see them at the moment are: Isherwood. A dire lack of physical resources and facilities 3. The third workshop held in August about 5 in our schools, which would otherwise have weeks into the actual rouse, centred on feedback allowed large numbers of pupils access to from the teachers. This was very much a 'sharing' equipment at the same time. At the moment each session in which worksheets, teaching strategies of our schools has to share a singe VCR and and ideas were exchanged. The commencement monitor amongst 6-8 classes of Std. 8 (± 200 of the 3rd quarterly test gave rise to much pupils). This equipment is also used by other discussion about questions and testing. This was pupils in other subjects. an informal workshop and it was agreed that The primary aim of the film course at present is teachers would continue to meet informally in to develop critical thinking in the minds of our small groups to share ideas. Advisers would be pupils. It seems to me that by concentrating on called in if necessary. critical analysis only we are giving pupils only The response to the course has so far been part of the key to understanding. We need to generally very positive. Pupils and teachers have provide the opportunity for pupils not only to responded with enthusiasm to the project. deconstruct but also to construct their own meanings. critique of *a Course Budgetary constraints may kill this course: Upon reflection, it seems that we have jumped there is no money in the Department at the feet first into the deep end by introducing a present time for new stock/library allocations. complete feature film in the fourth phase. The Unless schools can be prevailed upon to purchase suggestion from Overport Secondary that the films and pupil texts and reference books out of study of 2/3 short films would be more beneficial their own school funds there is little hope of the

PARTII Matters Educationc: 43 4 film course being rapidly expanded to include all schools.

Consiesion convinced that in spite of the problems just listed, this aspect of English must and will continue. We cannot go backwards. The longed- for change to a unitary system of education, with all that this means in terms of a new and relevant curriculum, can only mean that media studies will have to be given their rightful place. I sincerely hope that once this change comes, projects such as our film study course will help us meet the exciting challenges in Education that lie ahead. Ill

Dibliograpt y During, D & Craig, C. Reel Life, Maskew Miller/Longman, Cipe Town 1990. McMahon & Quinn. Real Image,4 Macmillan, 19Pb. van Zyl, J. Image Wise. Hodder & Stoughton Educational 1987. Wall, I & Kruger, S. Reading a Film, Film Education, London

44 Media Mattersin$outh Africa 42 Media in People's Education A Discussion SACHED Collective

Pats&Context 1956 - 1991 Hons. Travelling photographic exhibitions, often There have been fundamental changes in the seen at cultural festivals and political meetings, hegemonic culture since 1986. Neither the school, became an 'alternative and accessible archive' nor the media, nor the other institutions of civil (Weinberg 1989 pp. 66). They spurred the society emerged untouched. Vicious restrictions development of the tradition of documentary on the press and camera contributed to major photography, of photographic collectives and of ideological realignments. These reached into the other popular forms of communication such as mainstream mass media, and even into the state posters and calendars. Various oral history itself. Numbers of former ideologists of the ruling projects were initiated. So were community and class began to discover 'yardstkks derived worker based video and film collectives. Espe- increasingly from African challenges and de- cially noteworthy was the 'incredible rise in mands' (M.Chapman, 1989), as they were forced awareness and consciousness in the use of video' to recognise that the colonised 'Other' was in trade unions (VN5 1989, pp. 14). becoming a 'Subject', was entering history. At the History will recall the later years of the 1980s same time, a falling white readership of newspa- as the period when artistic culture was forced pers has been accompanied by a massive growth into the vanguard of the political struggle of the of state television. oppressed. It was a time when 'the Emergency One of the main victims of the states of emer. clampdown and vicious media gags...spurred gency was the media. The media restrictions artists to commandeer artistic space for voicing sought to smother insurrection through denial of political ideals' (Meintjies 1990a, pp. 31/2), and a information about its existence. It was a time time when when context apparently silenced text, when ...much of our writing, especially our poetry, be- What is feared by the government is the dissemina- came the newspapers of the struggle, taking for- tion of factual information by the media, because ward campaigns, popularising organisational for- whatever happens, people must not be allowed to mations, celebrating leaders who were in constant find out. (Chapman, 1989) battle against repression. Other art forms also took A small but vigorous alternative press, born an activist stance...(F.Meintiies April199013, pp. 119) during the states of emergency, bore the bria.it of In this crucible of national struggle, English state censorship. The alternative press ranged was being purged of its colonial and consumerist from a few independent news agencies and taints. Afrikaans was being reclaimed by its black weekly or monthly papers to trade union publica- working class constituency. Recognition also

PART It Matters Educabonol , 45 4 3 began to grow that the rural areas are not photocopier found its way into many offices of necessarily traditional backwaters, nor the service, political and labour organisations. handmaiden of the urban. Associated with this, The use of personal computers also spread the indigenous African languages have started to outside of universities. Especially the computer come into their own. facility of DTP enabled the cheap high-tech Strident and propagandistic, a culture of alternative newspapers to be produced. At the resistance proclaimed its deep roots in history. same time, however, largenumbers of Cultural workers made people think, strength- organisational posters, pamphlets and newspa- ened their solidarity, and entertained (CWLP pers were either seized or banned,and the offices 1990, pp. 100), often through oral performance, and homes of media workers were petrol bombed and often in the indigenous African languages. A or raided. But the variety ofalternative media people's culture initially took refuge at cultural weapons which were used did increase.Media festivals on university campuses. But increasinglytraining workshops were begun all around the a nation in the making celebrated at mass countiy. These workshops were often organised gatherings, in local organisations, and through by members of the National Media Forum. the popular media. These organisations are now struggling to The cultural struggle was not only being forged come to terms with the fact that their'alternative' in the ideological factories of civil society, but or 'oppositional' role is changing.Major media also on the industrial shopfloor. Further, as conferences have begun to explore the role of the unions grew, the attempt to control and reshape media in education, development, reconstruction traditional or 'ethnic' symbols assumed an and nation building in the new South Africa. increased importance in class struggle. Other insistent themes are the need for a strong Reappropriating collective and oral cultural and independent press and broadcasting system, forms, worker culture was and for more effective training to counter dominant media practices. Some of the alterna- sharply pmbing the reality of workers experiences at the cu tting edge of capitalist exploitation. It has also tive papers are investigating their role in distance been instrumental in defining democratic education. Some are also taking steps to recast organisation as being part of the essence of progres- their images away from the often boring and sive culture (Meintjies and Hlatshwayo 1989, pp. 4). hack journalism of the left. The search for Activists found that the use of the electronic appropriate media, which will enable especially media and the press were invaluable in develop- rural people to express their preferences with ing their organisational skills, Moving out of the reference to development issues, has begun. universities, the plain paper-copier started making an impact on organisations from around Oducetional Context 1986 - ;991 1981. Together with the OW, it facilitated the Born in 1986, People's Education is a dynamic ingenious production of political banners. concept and practice whose development was Political symbols appearing on buttons, posters bedevilled by the states of emergency. At the and t-shirts also proliferated. By 1985, the heart of people's education is the struggle for

46 Media *ottersinSouth Africa 4 democracy in education. Hand in hand with the growth of co-operative forms of learning. In these building of democratic structures in the commu- and other ways were the undemocratic structures nity, people's education seeks to redefine in the schools undermined. But many of these classroom practices and methodology, to recreate developments were slow, hidden or initiated by a learning culture, and to challenge the ideologi- educators in universities or service organisations, cal content of school curricula. or outside of mass organisations. ;7. addition, the Together with the media, community and state and capital sought to co-opt the innovative youth organisations were among those most and democratic elements of people's education in crippled by the states of emergency. But, as with a number of ways. Recently, teacher organisation the media, the jackboot of repression had contn- has taken giant strides forward. FTSAs are also dictory effects. On the one hand, the development -1nsolidating. of mass organisation in the community, and People's education seeks to address itself to democratic practices in the schoc is, was hindered.both formal and non-formal education, to the Equally effected was the challenge to the ideologi-education of children and adults. Non-formal or cal content of school curricula. People's educationopen education has usually served to supplement awareness programmes had begin to be incorpo- weaknesses in the formal state school system. But rated into the timetables of some SC hools. this relationship has been changing, especially However, these were obliterated under gunpoint since 1986. The late 1980s saw the virtual collapse when troops moved onto school campuses. At a of Bantu education. Crisis also began to invade time when the cultural struggle outside the other educational departments. Overcrowding, boundaries of schools was at its peak, it was clear the extreme shortage of facilities and trained that cultural resistance of the 1976 genre would teachers, and the breakdown of authority and not be brooked by the state in the schools. discipline were unprecedented in black schools. On the other hand, innovative ways of 'stretch- Student activists were among those most badly ing' curricula continued unpublicised. For affected as new ways of denying access to example, career guidance by service organisationsstudents were implemented. Learners utilised in some schools served to deepen understanding informal learning networks to attempt to deal that the linkages between education and work are with the crisis. Many non-formal learning groups not neutral. Teacher resource forums also were set up by students r.r their parents or encouraged teachers to transform curricula community organisations all over the country. through the development of alternative teaching It is argued however, that developments in the materials. Creative methods were used. These sphere of worker education have been the most ranged from the use of the computer to the telling reason for the fact that the non-formal is holding of teachers' cultural festivals. now a key cite of educational transformation. Further, media training workshops in some Worker organisation oegan to assume a leading parts of the country helped to strengthen student role in political strugg:e arcund 1986/7. The representative councils. The mushrooming of main thrust of worker education is the building numerous study groups contributed to the of organisation, although the need for formal

-15 PART 11 Mutters Edurationot - 47 education has become more pronounced. should not be at the expense of content because People's education needs to address the issue of -.those who focus on content give priority to chal- worker education. lenging the dominant ideology and developing critical ideas, while those who focus on-. processes Media in Poop loss Education give priority to challenging the hierarchical social relations of the classroom-. New space is being won for effecfive education in Ole former fail to see the ideological dimensions of domestic or organisational settings, as well as in thelearning experience itself, (whilst) the processes- the schools. This is one nesult of the changing focussed group (fail) to locate clAssroom social rela- relationship between formal and non-formal tions within a critical analysis of the wider education, and between education and the other societyThe content of classroom instruction must be paralleled by a pedagogical style which is consis- organs of consent such as the media. Use of the tent with a radical political vision (Youngman 1986. mass media such as television and radio may be pp, 4-5). part of the solution to our educational problems. Large numbers of learners can be educated We need to draw linkages between the content rapidly and quite cheaply. Also, the ways in of the popular media, people's culture, people's which audio-visual media and non-technological education and a critical and democratic peda- media or oral cultural forms can facilitate gogy. There is a general feeling now that the democratic and collective learning need to be culture of resistance should transform itself, to explored. better meet the demands of the present period, Such methods would be useful in the 'training and to more effectively challenge ruling class of trainers' in worker and community education; culture. Probably the most urgent need is for the in creative mass education methodologies; in upgrading of the skills and for training. More distance education; in developing a reading resources to do this are needed. But mass access culture; in creating literacy codes for children and to the means of ideological production shall not adults; and in participatory research methods. become a reality without greater provision for But with the learning environment moving out of literacy training. the school, the issue of providing effective It is argued that the use of the mass media such learning and teaching environments is going to as television or radio would be one way of become a crucial one. With the rise of community widening the cultural scope of people's educa- based and working class 'intellectuals', the tion. But to be educationally valuable, people's teacher's role is a changing one. Use of the media culture needs to be reflected in the media. adds to this effect. Together with this, an active, creative, critical and Teachers have ceased to monopolise the collective learning should be fostered. If people's mediation or transmission of content. The issue ofculture is not equated with the mass consumerist methodology has assumed increasing impor- culture currently purveyed on state television, it tance. However, the increasing emphasis on should be accepted that education can entertain. process and technique in progressive education, Hegemony is both a political and pedagogical which is encouraged by the use of technology. process. The act of learning is a fundamental

48 Medics Matters in South Ahica 4 6 aspect of hegemony : more workshops, seminars and performances. A Bedagogy as a form of cultural production and ex- consolidated curriculum should be developed by change... addresses how knowledge is produced, cultural, media and teacher organisations where mediated, refused and represented within relations ...culture is seen as an elaborate system of social of power both in and outside of the school (Gimux meaning including books, films, television, music, and Simon 1988). videos, comics, language, and art...tThere should Consent is learnt. It is learned through the be) a co - ordinated search for primary materials in knowing of the mind, which is usually nurtured the various categories... These selected materials must be introduced into the national educational in the schools. It is also learned through pleasure cumculum Isom school to universities... (Ndebele or entertainment, or the knowing and feeling ot 1989. pp. 29) the heart and body. Such affective learning is not All ways of reading text, and context, should valued by the schools. Popular culture is the be explored. This implies the widening of the particular domain of affective learning. People's concept of literacy, and the co-ordinated devel- Education needs to mould the whole person. It opment of literacy campaigns. The historical also needs to better recognise that the language of growth of a reading culture in South Africa needs education is the language of culture creation, and to be traced. It should be recognised that a that cultural identity is formed not only in the reading culture does not preclude oral culture institutions of civil society, but also at the base of (Perold 1990, pp. 25), nor the 'secondary orality' society. (Ong 1982, pp. 1b0) associated with the electronic The ties between popular or people's culture, media. Literacy also needs to be unshackled from the processes of consent, and a critical and its association with schooling, high or colonial democratic pedagogy, need to be traced. Studies culture, and cognitive development. II of popular culture should not be seen merely as References Towards a analyses of texts, or as forms of consumption. Chapman, M. 'The Criticin a State of Emergency : Keynote Paper, S.A.Association of There is also the need to understand how studentTheory of Reconstruction.' of NataL Art Historians 5thAnnual Conference, University identities, cultures and political experiences Durban, 17 - 19 July 1989. provide the basis of learning. Bantu Education, as COSATU Congress 1989.'Report on Culture andMedia', a type of mass education, attempted to domesti- Staffrider, Vol. 8, Nos. 3 &4, 1989. cate an increasingly radical working class culture Project: DeKok & Press(eds.). Culture and Working Life Arguments by incorporation. But it is argued that this hidden*Albie Sachs Must notWorry, Spring is Rebellious - Books, Cape Town 1990. curriculum of social control has long been about Cultural Freedom, Buchu EWE. Education is Ours -Working in the EWE StudyProgramme, contested, particularly in the realm of student 1990. SACHED, Johannesburg /David Philip, Cape Town culture. Future - a Reflection onFilm and Feinberg, B. 'Shaping the W. and Ways of incorporating people's culture in the Video', Culture in AnotherSouth Africa, Campschreur development of a democratic pedagogy need to Divendal 5. (eds.), Zed Books,London 1989. Politics of be explored. This can be done through the Giroux, H. & Simon, R.I.'Critical Pedagogy and the Studies Vol. 2, No. 8,October 1988. development of suitable Media Studies and Popular Culture', Cultural and Organisation in theLabour Cultural Studies courses, and the organisation of Hlatshwayo, M. 'Culture Movement', Staffrider, Vol. 8,Nos. 3 & 4, 1989. Hyslop, J. 'The State andPolitics - Introduction',South African Review 5, South AfricanResearch Service, RavanPrresxst,ll ok rinOffers Educafiono) 4 7 Johannesburg 1989. Meintjies, F. & Hlatshweyo, M. Comment in Staffridtr, Vol. 8, Nos. 3 & 4, 1989a & b. Meintjies, F. 'Albie Sachs and the Art of Protest', Spring is Rebellious - Arguments about Cultural Freedom, DeKok & Press (eds.), Buchu Books, Cape Town 1990. Menthes, F. 'New Thinking - the Broader Political Context', DeKok & Press (eds.), 1990 Mkhatshwa, Fr.S. 'A Call on the People to Reappropriate their Education'. Input at the SACC National Consultation on Education at University of the Witwatersrand, 14 - 16 July 1989. Ndebele, N.S. 'The Challenges of the Written Word - A Reflection on Prose', Culture in Another South Africa, Campschreur and J.Divendal (eds.), W. Zed Books, London 1989. Ong, W. Orahty and Literacy - the Technologizing of the Word, Methuen, London and New York 1982. Perold, H. 'Book Distribution and the Development of a Reading Culture', SACHED Journal, 1990. Pinnock, D. 'Culture as Communication - the Rise of the Left Wing Press in South Africa', Race and Class, 31.2.1989. Robinson, M. 'People's Education' - talk delivered at Masa Border I Eastern Cape Regional Confertnce on Democracy and Education in South Africa, May 1988. SACC. Report of the SACC National Consultation on Education at University of the Witwatersrand, 14 - 16 July 1989. Video News Service. 'Collective Work and the Mass Media" , Staffrider, Vol. 8, Nos. 3 & 4, 1989. Weinberg, P. 'Apartheid - a Vigilant Witness - a Reflection on Film and Video' in Culture in Another South Africa, Campschreur and J.Divendal (eds.), W. Zed Books, London 1989. Youngman, F. Adult Education and Socialist Pedagogy, Croom Helm, London 1986.

50 Media Manors in South Africa 4S Media Education- AProgressive Sorrels Janet-Louise Sutherland

It was the British media educationist Masterman newspapers and magazines becoming increas- (1985, pp. 16) who suggested that teachers may ingly more visual and great advances being made become expendable if they are unable to prove in computer graphics. Why then, if schools stress that they have importance beyond being mere the importance of criticizing print, do they transmitters of information. After all computer- neglect the criticism of visual and other media? . ized education systems are able to perform this Surely, by understanding how media works, function at a fraction of the cost of a teaching pupils will be more able to understand their farce. However, what these systems are unable to world, which is largely constructed by the media. do, is to develop a critical consciousness in pupils, In this respect, media teachers should form a which will keep pace with the developments in vanguard in education. While traditional information and communication technology. education stresses content as the end, Media At present schools are not taking adequate care Education sees content as a means to an end- the of this vital aspect in pupils' education. Instead end being critical autonomy. Media Educators they cling to traditional modes of teaching which will have to TV .:sess their roles as teachers. They are dominated by print and emphamze a set of will have to take risks, in order to make their basic skills, embodied in the three Rs- reading, pupils take a greater responsibility for thei. writing and arithmetic. These basic skills are seen learning. This, I foresee as being one of the as being fundamental to any pupil's education. greatest challenges facing the media teacher on However, because these skills are seen as being their entry into the progressive tesrain of Media basic, we must not mistake them for being Education. Pupils are wary of taking such neutral. The emphasis placed on these skills is a responsibility after being disempowered for so conscious choice, made to produce a specific long by a system where the teacher was the educational result. The pupils we are teaching expert. Given this understanding, there was will be adults in the 21st century. Will these basic always a right answer, and what was being skills be adequate for survival then, and are they taught was accepted as natural, neutral and the in fact adequate in our present society? Surely, truth. Just as it is important to understand the full what education should aim for is the develop- implications of the ideological power of the ment of aptitudes and abilities for life then. While media, so too, must the media teacher confront schools still stress the importance of print, the the ideological power of education. As media visual medium has become the most powerful teachers, we need to realize that education is influencing force outside of schools, with print in never neutral, but instead political. It is political

PART IIMattor$ Educational 51 in tb- sense that it is either liberating and book Individualism Reconsidered (1954) illustrates develops critical thinking or that it is domesticat- the point that not even the noblest ideal or ing and serves to perpetuate the status quo. clearest truth is unarguable. Bereft of serious (Freire and Shor 1987, pp. 9-14). However, it is opposition, our ideas and truths lose their vitality almost certain that it will be found to further the and, eventually, their meaning (Postman 1979, aims of those in power and can thus never be PP. 22). value-free. It must be stressed that, Instead of making value judgements we need to increase understanding of how media work. the attempt to 'imprint' ideas, whether reactionary Pupils must be assisted to develop an under- If we or socialist, is not education but propaganda. standing of how the media produces meaning, encourage this form of 'learning' in schools, then our students will be vulnerable to other forms of ma- how it is organized, how it constructs reality and nipulation even more. it is upon the ability of stu- most importantly how this reality is understood dents leaving our educational institutions to think by those who receive it. So, when I speak of critically and make their own decisions that the pupils needing to understand the media, I mean future of our society depends. (Masterman,I985, that they should investigate the structures which PP. 37) make up what is known as media, rather than If media teachers commit themselves to making an evaluative judgement about its developing genuinely progressive edurational cultural and moral quality. This in itself is a methods, they will play a vital role in the tuture serious challenge to traditional methods of of education and society, as a whole. teaching where criticism of texts is still locked If we look to the origins of media education, weinto the Leavisite tradition, a tradition which see that initial studies grew out of distrustof the allows for particular texts to be chosen according media. It was established by educationalists who to their literary merits, and then for a close viewed mass media as low culture; something readiiv of these worthy texts to be undertaken. which pupils needed to be inoculated against. Pupils are told that the texts chosen, are chosen Pupils needed to be warned and protected because they are classics and thus constitute good against the negative effects of the media and literature, which is of high cultural value, because shown what was of high cultural and moral of the accuracy with which they reflect the value. All that this condemnation served to do, human experience. (Leavis 1948, pp. HD. The was to mythologize the media and heighten criticism which is generally undertaken, is carried curiosity about it. As media teachers, we need to out in such a way that it elucidates, for the pupil, remove all stress from questions of value. We general truths and serves to refine taste. Pupils need to challenge the validity of a concept such asare taught that if an adequate readingof the text 'universal truth'. Are truth and value not specific is made, then and only then can these general to a particular group of people working within a truths be reveak\d. (Bradbury and Palmer 1970, particular criteria of thought and feeling in a pp. 29). particular society? Postman feels that the state- Media teachers will need to go beyond an ment, 'AU value is contextual' from Riesman's investigation of content and investigate those

52 Media Mutters in South Africa 5 (ft forces which contml the media. The ideological practical realms. Ultimately, pupils should be power of the media as well as of education lies in encouraged to extend their creative powers, by the apparent naturalness of representations. If thecreating their own media within the framework illusionism of media is to be investigated, then of their criticism of the existing media. Their own those studying the media will have to deconstructmedia should thus challenge the existing media the texts mth which they are dealing. They will and not simulate it. By using media equipment to have to reverse the process which created the produce their own media material, pupils may final ptoduct and show the ways in which the develop even greater insight into some of the meaning was produced. In looking at the selectiveproblems and issues, experienced by those who nature of the media, areas such as editing, work in media agencies. This hands-on experi- censorship, self-censorship and propaganda will ence may also help with their deconstruction of have to be studied. Pupils will have to be made media texts and bring home more clearly the fact aware that that which they are viewing or that the media is highly selective, r.only experiencing is not reality but a representation because of the ideological restrictions placed on thereof. This will be particularly necessary when it, but also because the equipment used to record investigating newspapers and television, as both events has certain limitations. This is only one mediums strive for absolute authenticity. aspect of interaction with the media, which can However, as media educators, our primary be investigated. Pupils may have challenged the objectives should not simply be critical awareness media and the society reflected in it, within the and understanding, but rather critical autonomy. confines of the classroom. Pupils must now be Teachers need to encourage critical insights, self- encouraged to actively challenge and interact confidence and a critical faculty which will extendwith the media. Letters to the press and to beyond school learning and develop as the pupil companies, posters, photographs, articles or matures and their interests change. In order for video material which pupils feel warrant these critical faculties to develop it will often be exposure by the media, should be submitted to necessary for pupils to look at information which newspapers, magazines and television stations. is outside the texts they are studying. Access to Pupils can become involved in their l-,:al and the ability to work with these kinds of newspapers or in a school publication. Whatever information is of the utmost importance in any their contribution, they will be contributing Media Education course. Often information gaps toward the democratization of the media and of need to be filled by the teacher and media society. This is not the only way in which Media teachersmust accept that critical autonomy is not Education stimulates democratic ideas. The automatic but is something which develops discourse, between the teacher and the pupils slowly. and between fellow pupils, which is integral to However, our task as media educators does Media Education introduces pupils to democratic not end with the attainment of critical autonomy. concepts, such as bargaining, negotiation and We need to move beyond the realm of critical compromise. consciousness, into the more creative and When faced with these prospects, many 5 PART IIMatters Ednetionol 53 teachers lack confidence as they feel that their and pupils need to enter into genuine dialogue knowledge of media technology and media on all aspects of course content. Pupils must feel structures is inadequate. However, media free to question the views of the teacher and teachers need to accept that in teaching media must begin to make ludgements and analyses they do not need to control the learning environ- without depending on the teacher/expert for ment as an expert, but rather enter into it as a clarification. lf pupils are able to find information learner, alongside their pupils. They become a and resources on their own and take responsibil- facilitator of the learning process, rather than ity for their learning environment the need for dominating it and selecting what is to be learnt. traditional transmission teaching will cease. The success of Media Education depends upon What I have been proposing is an ideal. I have those who teach it adopting a non-autocratic been looking at the perfect teacher, working with mode towards teaching. The media teacher needs the perfect class, in the perfect school. When I to accept that `non-hierarchical teaching modes look at the realities of teachers and pupils and are necessary and that a methodology which schools, especially in the South African context, promotes reflection, critical thinking - lively, my ideal suddenly becomes remote. In South democratic, group-orientated action' (Masterman Africa, we have schools with wonderful audio- 1985, pp. 27) is integral to Media Education. This visual rooms, equipped with the latest in scenario is the antithesis of the traditional technology. And, we have schools without teaching/learning environment, with the teacher electricity and drastic shortages in books and as expert and the confidence of knowing that desks. We have pupils who go home to stereo there is a right answer. In Media Education there systems, televisions and video recorders, not to are few right answers. If we aim to make pupils mention personal computers and video cameras. critically autonomous, then we have to break And there are those who go home to homes their dependence on the teadivr We have to devoid of any modem luxuries or appliances. dispense with the rigidity of the traditional When approaching the issue of Media Education, learning environment and allow for group there are a host of problems relating to the dialogue to take place. This is not as easy or as availability of equipment and funds which have safe as that of traditional lessons where the to be investigated and overcome wherever outcome of proceedings is highly predictable. Thepossible. Other problems likely to be encoun- Media Education learning environment needs to tered, once we start introducing Media Educa- be flexible. Learning also needs to placed in the tion into schools, apart from those of suitable pupils' field of experience and their preferences venues and adequate equipment, are problems need to be considered. Teachers need to accumu- such as time-tabling and assessment. Earlier, I late as many perceptions as there are in any stressed that flexibility was vital to the teaching group and in so doing they will have at their of media. However, once inside the rigid school disposal a wider range of percer 'dons, cultural system, we will often find that we are unable to viewpoints and experiences than any one teacher exercise the flexibility we would like. can ever hope to achieve on their own. Teachers If we are serious about Media Education, we

54 Media Matters in South Afr co 52 must tackle these problems and work for viable reception. I feel that these attitudes were first solutions within existing structures. Time-tabling nurtured in the school environment and have allowances will have to be negotiated to accom- been fuelled by traditional teaching methods. If modate the screening of films or the additional pupils are to develop a critical autonomy, which time required for a workshop in which pupils will preclude them from falling prey to the produce their own media. Assessment 1 see as seduction of the media, then teachers working in one of the main areas of concern. If we want the field of media are going to have to rethink Media Education to have the effects which I have their own perceptions and attitudes about outlined, then it will have to cease to be a education. In order to keep abreast of advances in peripheral part of the syllabus. An assessment media technology, they will have to dispense procedure which remains true to the progressive with the protective armour of the traditional ideals of Media Education, while at the same timeapproach to teaching and learning and become meeting the requirements of education depart- pioneers in a field of education which is still ments and, ultimately, tertiary education shrouded in a pall of mistrust. III admission requirements, will have to be developed. Such an assessment programme would References have to assess the areas such as the pupils' Bazalgette, C. (ed.).Primary Media Education: A Curriculum Institute Education Department, abilities to recognise the levels of realism em- Statement, British Film London 1989. ployed in a media text, as well as the representa- Bradbury, M. anti Palmer.D. (ids).Stratford-Upon-Avon Series tive nature of the media. It would have to assess a 12: ContemporaryCriticism,Edward Arnold, London 1970. p3pirs ability to place media texts in their Freire, P. and Shot,1. A Pedagogy for Liberation: dialogues on appropriate categories and to link these catego- transforming education,Macmillian, London 1987. ries with interpretation of the media. Pupils Leavis, F.R.The t;reat Tradition,Penguin, Harmondsworth would have to be assessed on their ability to 1948. imagine how and why, by whom aud for what Masterman, L.. 'Theoreticalissues and practical possibilities', reason, for which audience and with what effect a Media Education, Morsy,Z. (ed.), UNESCO, Paris 1985. media text is produced. Pupils would also have Masterman, L1'1-Aching the Media,Comedia, London 1985. to display an understanding ot the selective Postman, N. Te.hiing asa Conserving Activity, Delacorte Press, nature of the media, in terms of issues such as New York 1979. the Eighties - editing and censorship. (Bazalgette 1989, pp. 85). Taylor, K. 'The MediainEducation',Education in The Central Issue, Simon,B. and Taylor, W. (eds), Bdtford The problematics surrounding the field of Media Academic and EdueationalLtd., London 1981. Education are numerous, but these problems must become part of the discourse between teachers and pupils. The field of study must constantly be problematized, in order to keep it dynamic and flexible. The mass media, and especially television, have been blamed for nurturing passive attitudes to

sP7 PART IIMatters Educattorrai55 The Ethnographyof Visual Literacy John Van Zyi

It is important to locate this discussion ofvisual meaning of being competent ina wider culture literacy in South k..a in 1990. Thecontext is or literature? obvious and we are anaware of the list of Even the question of 'functional literacy' is statistics regarding the enormous inequalities fraught with problems of exploitation (likemine- locally in educational facilities,social opportuni- workers being given a vocabulary that will ties, welfare and health services, as well as the enable them to perform limited functionson a basic problems of universal franchise andthe mine). items that a Bill of Rights should ensure. French proposes a definition of literacy thatis The fact that there isa move towards a unitary, useful: democratic, non-sexist and non-racistSouth (It) encompasses the varied skills and qualities that Africa lends an urgency tomatters like verbal diverse organisations deem itnecessary to help, illiteracy, as well as visual illiteracy. enable, empower, make more efficient,or liberate As Ed French has written adults who have been deprived ofa useful degree of formal education. (French 1988,pp 26.) Were a history of adult literacy workin South Africa to be written ...the volume would be regrettably The operative phrase is 'empower',act more thin. (French 19$8, pp. 26) freely, have greater choice, haveaccess to He goes on to discuss the problemsfaced in previously monopolised information. But French literacy work- social, economic and cultural, as warns that even with a more acceptable defini- well as the notoriously difficult taskof defining tion of literacy we must take intoaccount the literacy. twin problems that bedevil mostprogrammes: Given that the term 'literacy' in 'visualliteracy' questions of legitimacy and outhenticity. is problematic and that we should kxik for a morePowerful groupings and organisationstry to appropriate term, we can however, learn from establish their legitimacyor credentials through verbal literacy to tread carefully when trying to literacy programmes that will createa consumer teach visual literacy. The typicaldictionary middle-class or vaguely aid reformor help definition of literacy is 'the ability to read and present a charitable facade, or even try topresent write' but this avoids issues like: Whatdo people a liberation programme. ln all of thesecases it is need to read and write? To what ends and in the agency rather than the illiterate thatis of whose interests? Whatare the minimum qualifi- greater importance. cations to be seen as literate in specific...ircum- Authenticity, on the other hand, is broughtinto stances, or does literacy have a less specific question because most literacyprogrammes are

56 Meriia Manors in Sou+ Africo 54 initiated and run by whites. This means that the Both card and board games need a high degree of real needs of the illiterate are often not addressed visual competences, these generally being because they, being illiterate, lack a voice. overlooked rather than considered as aspects of Bearing these observations in mind, we can visual competence. now move towards a discussion of the problems A seminal essay in the ethnography of literacy in visual literacy. (which has interesting implications for visual How does an ethnographic perspective help us literacy) is The Anthropology of Literacy in reformulating the issue? If we regard visual Acquisition'. David Smith questions the tradi- literacy as being a social and cultural phenom- tional assumption that illiteracy is the cause of enon, something that exists between people and poverty and exclusion from the good things of that connects individuals to a range of experi- life, showing that many adults live a reasonably ences at different points in time, then it lends successful life while being classified functionally itself to ethnographic investigation. illiterate. A mechanic may operate quite success- By ethnogaphic we mean descriptions that take into fully while being unable to read a manual. For account the perspectiveof members of a social group, him illiteracy is only an inconvenience in this including the beliefs and values that underlie and workplace, although he might well be totally lost organise their activities and utterances. (Smith 1990) in another situation. This means that we must move away from the Analogously, the inability to recognise the simplistic formalistic taxonomy that usually genre of a film will probably not seriously affect passes as a discussion of visual literacy. We must a filmgoer's enjoyment of a movie. An immigrant focus on the social and cultural contexts and may not be able to read of write English, but may processes involved in the acquisition of visual be literate in his or her home language. This is a literacy. These should include an investigation of specific illiteracy that has little effect on the how children interact with adults in different person's self-concept. Similarly, a person who is cultures to acquire their visual competence. (Let us a movie-buff might have great trouble in introduce that term now, and define it later.) interpreting a complicated Flemish still-life filled Adults make visual texts comprehensible to their with arcane symbolism. children through personal relationships in the Or, to use a personal anecdote: when I wrote home by building on and developing existing an approving review of Gideon Mendel's communicative patterns. From conversational photographic essay of the AWB The Last Trek 1 interaction children are introduced to media kompared a photograph of a dejected AWB images like picture books and movies, or natural member on a swayback nag to a Don Quixote images like the distinguishing markings on the without a lance who would not even recognise a skins of cattle or patterns in beadwork or woven windmill, or horseman who could not make the material. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I was taken to These competencies are developed in informal task by a young Black activist who insisted social peer-interaction through hidden or merely by imaging the AWB, Mendel was secretive visual literacies like children's games. lending them respectability. The activist saw

PART 11 Matters Educational 57 flags and racism, I saw irony and allusion. I still primarily as a pedagogic issue, but as a relational think that I was right and that the exhibition was issue. a devastating expose of the bondage and lackof An ethnography of linguistic or visual literacy inspiration of the AWB. that is true to its cte.tuial roots will examine, Professionally, I knew Mendel's previous work,without preconception, both the social conse- and I was aware of August Sander's similar quences of the particular illiteracyunder investi- expose of German society. But then, of course, mygation as well as the various levels of meaning interpretative response was not blocked by the that individuals perceive it has for them. sheer insult to Blacks of the existence of the AWB. Paulo Freire has argued that before one can One student who is unwilling to pay the social learn to read and write the word, one has to learn and psychological price for the acquisition of to read and write the world. This will enable the school literacy. The boycotting of classes by Black individual to determine whether the price of pupils in South Aflica is a case in point. The becoming literate is worth paying. So the realities such pupils experience in everyday life educator must take into account the extent to belie the promise that literacy will lead to a betterwhich each individual's reading of his or her life. wc-Id is respected as being legitimate and Again analogously, individuals or groups can accurate, while recogMsing that no-one else can be turned off the the visual culture or another experience it. group if that group is seen as thri atening, This is where we finally take leave of linguistic colonial of alien. Even (on a smaller scale) a literacy, having taken note of the complexities schoolchild will not risk peer ridicule by appear- involved. ing t,be 'clever' by knowing about intings or If we take Paulo Freire's statement as a point of photographs. departure then one realises that it is not wholly Bearing these examples in mind we can see appropriate for visual literacy. Most people how the two requirements of ethnographic before they attempt to interpret the image, can research - participant observation and the already see the world. discovery of what situations means to those in There is already a basic visual competency that them - reveal that the meaning of a situation may enables individuals to see pictures, colours, firstly be different to different participants, and shapes, patterns whether they be on paper, secondly, not necessarily what it seems to be fromcanvas, screens or cowhide. the outside. Ethnography's committment to But, as Osborne puts it: holism consigns a particularly important role to In ordinary life we are accustomed to use our per- context in its investigations. One can therefore ceptions as clues to practical situations, signposts to argue that illiteracy is not simply a single action and the raw material of conceptualising problem taking on various forms, but that it is a thought. We do not notice the perceptual qualities of the things we see. beyond what is necessary to social issue defined by social context. That means classify and place them. (Osborne 1970, pp. 21) that there can be many illiteracies (or literacies), linguistic or visual, which should not be seen Looking is commonplace, seeing is rare. This

58 Media Mutton in South Africa

5 f; explains the popular delight in naturalistic art Visesi compasses* as which can be appreciated for its verisimilitude Nuspowsnment sod Viand Maws* because here perception of the painting involves Cessuseskative ikiaspetemse little more than identification or recognition. Lany Gross has noted that within the broad Since visual competence is not taught at school, category of symbolic competence there ate at even a child's ability to see, its natural visual and least five-subcategories or modes: the linguistic, perceptual acuity, is subordinated to the word. the iconic or visual, the social-gestural, the Gradually visual images are relegated to illustra- musical and the logico-mathematical. He goes tions to written texts, while all the attention is on: focused on explication and criticism of the written text. The existence of competence is dependent on extensive and continual action. Skilful action in a sym- Somehow the child acquires the necessary bolic mode is intelligence and knowledge itself, and visual competence to di)al with his or her immedi- at the same time it is the only way such knowledge ate life, the abi gnise advertisements in can be acquired, maintained, extended and utilised magazine, under:,.. a movie in a cinema, in creative and productive activity. Intelligence is skill M a medium, or more precisely skill in a cultural realise why a photograph is in a newspaper and medium. (Gross 1974, pp. 76). know that moving images on television at 8 o'clock at night convey the news. Gross is underlining the active participation of In the same way that the peasant woman might the individual and is also emphasising the arena be mathematically illiterate but still be able to cut of culture within which the acquisition of and sew a complicated geometrical dress pattern, symbolic competence occurs. or the street newspaper vendor who cannot pass It is clear that, with the active participation of Standard Two maths can easily give a motorist the individual, visual competence will increase change, people acquire a basic visual compe- through the process of maturation. This means tence. that the barriers that hinder this process sho,..:1 It might therefore be argued that there is no be eliminated. such thing as visual illiteracy, and even if there Visual competence should be presentedas were, it would not be as serious as linguistic attractive, as desirable and as a means towards empowerment. This is not going to be easy in There is some truth in this, but it in no way South Africa either for children or for adults. detrads from the importance of visual lit- Whites should be persuaded that visual compe- eracy. tence in Black art (or transitional art if you wish) It is commonplace that we are increasingly is important. The redi, ,rv of Black art that subjected to a world of images as global satellite started with the 'Neglected Tradition' Exhibition television increases in scope. This means greater at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1987 and has production of news, documentaries, images of continued with the awarding of prizes to artists cultures and colonisation pi , rful American like Jackson Hlungwani and Gerard Sekoto must or Eurocentric cultural images. become a significant part of art education. The

7 PART iiMatters Educational 59 move of Black art from ethnographic museums women!) and curio shops into art galleries, where it is Fmally, the whole question of visual compe- beginning to command high prices, is a major tence must be taught or encouraged withinthe process of cultural recognition. framework of visual discourse. This means that We should also not make the basic ethno- the production as well as the distribution and graphic mistake of trusting the so-called 'native visual texts must be taken into account. The little informant' and assume that every Black will be bit of formalistic expliotion of a film that passes able to discourse on the nature of, say, Venda for film study in schools these days if fairly sculpture. There should also be a conscious effort worthless. Any formal study must take into to teach Black children to understand and account the ideological context of a visual text: appreciate Black art, At the same time, the historyWho made it, with whose money, for what of Western art and photography must be seen as purpose and who saw it? Discoursewill take into essential knowledge for all, both Black and White.account the synchronic and the diachronic Let us not make the same mistake and assume meaning of a visual text. Issues pertaining to the that all Whites are competent in interpreting and synchronic would establish whether there are understanding Western visual art. others like it and how it relates to similar texts in The importance and significance of television other media. Then diachronically, debate or must be stressed. It is both a threat and a gift to enquiry could include the genesis, the tradition all cultures. Global satellite television will be a of the work, as well as the way the individual fact of life in South African within the next five makes the visual text produce meaning. All of years, posing a great threat to the culturaland the implications of Reception Theory should be intellectual possession of smaller cultures, It can borne in mind, as well as the Theory of the both drown them or misuse them. On the other Subject in the way that meaning is negotiated. hand, community television can prove to be a giftThe demystification of this process is a signifi- and antidote to this imperialism and help cant part of acquiring visual competence. preserve and promote indigenous cultures.Both Only then should the text be examined types of television need visual competency. formally. There should be a careful distinction There is a need for a South African film drawn between the frirmal visual competencies industry that can draw on the best models of appropriate to film, television, photography, Europe, America, the East and Africa as well as painting and graphic art and even more specifi- developing a local style and content. cally between the sub-categories of, say portrait The same may be said of South African photography, photojournalism, social documen- photography. Luckily this is an area where Black tation, landscape photography or art photogra- photographers have established themselves. The phy. The same is true of film, of painting and so name of Peter Magubane, Ernest Cole,Ben on. Gosani, Alf Kumalo and Omar Badsha rank with There are many visual giteracies", not just one. those of David Goldblatt, Paul Weinberg and And the end of the acquisition of visual compe- jenny Gordon. (Note the absence of Black tency is not the production of consistency of

60 Media Matters in South Africa 5S vision or even uniformity of interpretation. It is knowledge of the processes involved and awareness of the self. In Nelson Goodman's words The eye comes always ancient to its work obsessed by its own past and by old and new insinuations of the ear Not only HOW. but WHAT it sees is regulated by need and prejudice. It selects, rejects, organises, discriminates, aysociates, classifies, anlayses and constructs. (Goodman 1969, pp 7-8).

Knowledge of this situation, and ways of dealing with it are the first steps towards visual competency.

References French, E. 'Adult Literacy work in South Africa: A history to be made', African Insight, Vol 18, 1989. Goodman, N. Languages of Art, Oxford University Press, London 1969. Cross, L. 'Modes of Communication and the Acquisition of =cute Competence', Media and Symbols: The forms of kation, Expression and Education, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1974. Osborne, H. The Art of Appreciation, Oxford University Press, London 1970. Smith, D.M. 'The Anthropology of Literary Acquisition', The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives, B.B. Schieffelin and P. Gilmore (eds), Ablex Publishing Company, Norwood, New Jersey 1990.

PARTII MattersEducation& 61 An Overview of, & Re en, the Role of Media Studios In English ant Secondary Schools In the Transvaal- lane Ballot

Introduction dom, North America and Australia indicated the In Transvaal schools we do not study 'the media: importance of such study. (Throughout his We are involved with the study of the visual dissertation, Grove m?.?..-..s no distinction between media only, under a section of the English tee terms 'film study', 'media study', and 'visual syllabus entitled 'Visual Literacy'. Mostcom- literacyl. monly, however, due to the informalway in Then, in 1977, an experimentwas instituted at which visual literacy is structured and the fact six secondary schools in the TransvaaL Thiswas that a film, or parts of film,are studied, the terms an experimental film study course, conducted become confused and teachers and pupils alike from 1977-79, which laid the foundations for the talk about 'film study'. eventual introduction of visual literacy into the The history of Visual Literacy in Transvaal English syllabus. secondary schools is about fifteenyears old. In Grove also indicated that, as childrenare the mid 1970s, English teachers did teacha very exposed to so much television, film study would limited part of the visual media- as advertiriing. help them to deal with this- and their immediate The study of English has always been verbally environment. orientated, and so this was the study of wards The experimental film course began with the working with pictures to createa message. The study of the full-length film, Zorki the Greek, in emphasis was on the advertisementsas part of Standards Eight, Nine and Ten. This filmwas the language. In keeping with this emphasis, found to be too long, and too advanced for setwork material studied at all levels of high school children. The Projec; Group had to school was comprised of print literaturepoetry, narrow down their approach, which they did by plays and prose. confining film study to Standard Eight in 1977,so A comprehensive report on thiscourse appears that they could 'find thPir feet'; and alsoto two in Johann Grove's Master's dissertation, The short films (The Lady or the Tiger and The Red Theory and Practke of Film Study at the Second- Kite), which aided organization and administra- ary School Level. According to Grove, the tion. In 1978 the study of film was extended into experiment was instituted as a result of the Standard Nine, and then into Standard Ten in conclusion having been reached that .herewas a 1979. need for some form of media study at secondary The methodology of the film study experiment schools. The fact that film study alreadyexisted involved an initial analysis of the 'larger,more as part of school curricula in the United King- literary issues' (Grove 1981,pp. 2), and a

62 Media Matters in So titil Africa secondary 'more critical, technique-orientated' including Visual Literacy. This paper also study (Grove 1981, pp. 6). Evaluation of the study assumes that 'visual literacy'Pfilm study are a was by means of essays or paragraphs based part of the 'language' referred to in the syllabus, upon class discussion& The final Standard Ten the introduction to which indicates the need to evaluation was in the form of a filni study paper foster pupils' expression of their lives and needs, as part of the six schools' internal matriculation through the integration of all language skills system. muted firmly in culture, community and context. The final result of the experimental course was Despite the fact that the syllabus utilises a recommendation by the Working Committee to generalised statements about the language, it is the Joint Matriculation Board that film study be possible to read the Assumptions and Aims and included in the syllabus for English First Lan- place film study/visual literacy in where it is guage. Further pioneering work by Grove and theintended to be. Most obviously, as visual literacy Subject is part of the Reading section of the syllabus, it Committee for English in the Transvaal must fit in where the reading skills do. Education Department (TED), resulted in the The Assumptions upon which the English inclusion of film study into the English curricula syllabus is based refer to the 'questions of at all English medium secondary schools in the value....implicit in all language experience' (TED TransvaaL This falls under the subsection 'Visual 1986a, pp. 1). Film and television may be re- Literacy', which is part of the Reading section of garded as an expression of the pupils' lives in the syllabus for English First Language. terms of what they choose to view. Thus the As set out in the syllabus, Visual Literacy incorporation of the study of the visual media comprises the study of visual material - pictures, into a language is a means by which discernment cartoons, advertisements, tape-slide programmes,and critical awareness may be taught - and the film and television. In the Standard Ten syllabus, pupils will learn about values and how to assess in addition to the three literature setworks (a playsituations. The syllabus indicates the importance by Shakespeare, a novel, 600 lines of poetry), of integrating the receptive and expressive there is a fourth setwork. This is a choice betweenlanguage skills. This indicates that pupils are to a 'substantive body of work' (TED 1986a, pp20) be encouraged rot to just view films passively, (anthology of short stories/novel/play) and a but to speak and write about them too. film. The set film for 1988/9 was Chariots of Fire; In the Assumptions, the importance of a study and for 1990/1 is Witness. of language rooted in the pupils' personal experience is emphasized. As has been estab- lb* Intention lished by various sources, a great amount of a In the general Assumptions and Aims for the pupil's experience is vicarious, via the media - syllabus, the terms 'film', 'television', 'screen particularly television. Thus the inclusion of the material' and 'visual literacy' are not mentioned. visual media into the syllabus should satisfy the lt is possible, though, to assume that the Assump- demand for a language study that takes into tions and Aims apply to all facets of English - account the pupils' experience. This is often

PART 11 Matters Educational 63 belied by the real situation, however, particularly many schools who have utilised educational in the choice of setwork material. Here, there is films, slides and videos in other subjects for no reflection of the pupils' social environment. many years. The Assumptions also state the Films such as Chariots of Fire and Witness depict necessity for schools to develop an across- the- unfamiliar communities and nationalities that are curriculum language policy. With the conime- not really part of a teenager's world. The choice rnent of Visual Literacy to the English syllabus of such films does, however, satisfy another merely as an alternative source for literature Assumption that points out that study, there is little - if any - indication of this occurring with the visual media. language reflects communities, cultures and nation- There is one general Aim for teaching English: alities which deserve full acknowledgement and respect (TED 1986a, pp.1). `to help pupils to develop their potential as individuals and as members of society through Further, an assumption is made that language developing their competence and performance in study best occurs in 'an atmosphere of free and using language and through enriching their open enquiry' (TED 1986a, pp. 2). As the system experience and enjoyment of language.TTED of education itself belies this ideal, perhaps 1986, pp. 2) In terms of the previous Assump- setwork films have been chosen that deal with tions, 'language' refers to English as a means of 'safe' issues. And they are films that can be communication through writing, speaking, discussed at a distance. listening and reading - a part of which is Visual There is a clear indication in the Assumptions Literacy. And the visual media become used as that language teaching should relate to the texts to be 'read' /interpreted in the study of the pupils' needs. One strongly perceived need of language. Were the pupils to become involved in pupils is the necessity to be instructed in the any image production, this could be regarded as media. In the TED syllabus, however, there is no an extension of the expressive skills (writing and approach towards a general awareness of the speaking) of the language. The aim to enrich the media and their power. The need is apparently pupils' experience and enjoyment of part of the satisfied by the fostering of critical awareness in language is fulfilled by the fostering ei discern- the pupils so that they can make reasoned choices ment in the choice of viewing material in pupils. when selecting material to view. Following the general aim, there are five Although the syllabus mentions that most explanatory aims for the teacher. The first three learning across the curriculum takes place are expressed as noble aims to promote the through language, there is not a strong indication child's development, enhance their dignity and that film (as part of this language) should move sustain cenfidence in themselves in order that out of the confines of English and be stressed as a they may understand themselves and live more universal learning medium - effectively enabling fully. information to be depicted clearly and to be kept Thc study of the visual media is valuable in for many years. The value of i.he screen as a helping teachers to achieve these aims. Most learning medium has, in fact, been recognised by teenagers are far more visually lite-ate than

64 Media Matters in South Africa 62 print-literate, and therefore it is often easier to visual literacy, the pupils are extending their encourage pupils to respond to visual material abilities to discriminate. than to print. This also provides a way to 'reach' There is no statement of the inclusion of visual children who are visually orientated. Further, material in the introduction to, and aims of, the those pupils who are not as verbally literate as Reading section of the syllabus. All the points others are often able to achieve in the study of that are made refer to reading skills and reading visual texts and are therefore able to retain their material, not viewing and visual sources. Visual dignity and to sustain confidence in themselves. literacy does form a part of this section, though, The fourth of these explanatory aims is to and so it is possible to apply a broader under- 'promote the pupils' ability to use language as a standing of the term 'reading'. This includes the means of communication' (TEO 1986a, pp. 3). interpretation of visual texts as forming part of Very little chance is given to pupils to become the practice of analysis, or reading. An indication involved in video/film production and thus truly of the appropriateness of such an extension of the to use the visual media to communicate. One of term 'reading' is a utatement of the need to the reasons for this absence of active production extend pupils in all aspects of reading. And, part is a practical one - it is very difficult to allow of the Subject Content is a statement that the twenty-five to thirty children to produce, for pupils should be introduced to visual literacy as example, a video in a thirty-to-fifty minute an extension of the reading technique. Thus it perkxi. becomes dearer why visual literacy has become Without overworking the interpretation, part of Reading - and how to begin to approach however, it is possible to regard pupils' viewing teaching this section. habits, responses to setwork visual material and It is in the Aims of the Reading section that one comments about television as being a channel via finds even clearer indications as to where visual which they commnunicate. One may infera lot literacy fits into the syllabus. The first aim is for about what a child feels and /or wishes to express pupils to 'develop good reading habits and a love through such responses. Thus, if not in a truly of reading' (TED 1986a, pp. 19). This, together productive sense, the pupils can use the visual with the second aim- 'to develop discrimination aspect of English to communicate. in the choice of reading materiar(TED 1986a,pp. The final aim is for the pupils 'to extend their 19) - place further emph,asis upon, and explain, ability to observe, to discriminate and to order the focus in visual literacy on fostering critical their thoughts coherently' (TED 1986a, pp. 3). attitudes to films and television. This aim for the whole of English is borne out by The third aim provides the most motivation the TED's approach to teaching visual literacy. In discovered thus far for the inclusion of visual the explanation of the Reading section of the literacy into the Reading section. Here teachers syllabus, it is stated that work on visual material should aim to help the pupils to become aware of 'should always be aimed at encouraging pupils tothe 'range and power of language' (TED 1986a, develop a critical and discerning attitude to film pp. 20) - and, of course, part of the range of and television' (TED 1986a, pp. 19). Thus, throughEnglish is its visual component.

PART IIMatters Educationol 63 In the senior syllabus, the aims express the increasing the pupils' understanding and desire for the pupils to develop their awareness appreciation of the visual media. and understanding of themselves, others and The Subject Content of the syllabus is useful in society. This can be achieved through the studyofassessing what it is that is to be studied, but is not the visual media, particularly as films and, very useful as a clear guide to anapproach to the especially, television, do claim to reflect the world media. The syllabus calls for the study of various around them. One of these aims indicates thatthe types of screen material - as well as various pupils should 'develop an understanding and elements of the visual media. One may assume, appreciation of their literary and cultural from the itemization of what to teach, that the heritagelTED 1986a, pp. 18) - and so the study of intention is to study films as products as well as some South African literature.The absence of what makes up the product& There is a no order South African films/video programmes from indication as to which elements should be amongst setworks and also from amongst studied in which standards as well as an obvious material available from the TED must be noted, lack of developmental structure of the section. however. Thus the practice of teaching visual literacy is The first time that any visual media are almost forced to occupy a minor role in the mentioned as sources for study is in the list of process of teaching English -and to be stnictured Reading Resources in the syllabus for Standards and developed by teachers themselves. Five to Seven. This list comprises five subhead- ings (Print, Sound, Stage, Screen, Prose), with The Present illtuatIon explanatory examples. The subheading, 'Screen', During the period 11 January to 3 Apri11990, I refers to television programmes, news, films, conducted a programme of research at English advertisements. This strongly suggests that the medium secondary schools in the Transvaal. This intention is for pupils to 'read' visual material as comprised a series of questionnaires which were well as printed matter. There is also a statement completed by the Heads of the English depart- that 'reading and viewing are part of a con- ments at a representative sample of theschools. tinuum' (TED 1986b, pp. 21), once again linking The results of these questionnaires revealed how the two processes together. Visual Literacy is being studied in schools. In the syllabus for Standards Eight to Ten, no The vast majority of English medium second- list of reading resources is given. There is, ary schools in the Transvaalstudy visual literacy. however, a fairly clear statement of the proposed This is generally a study of film and/or television role of visual literacy. The first statement is that programmes as part of English fromStandard Six 'Screened material should be studied in its own to Ten. The major reasons for theschools having right' (TED 1986a, pp. 19). This and the subse- begun to study the visual media are: that visual quent explanation clearly indicate that films and literacy was introduced as part of the syllabus; to other visual material should be studied sepa- teach discernment in viewing; because film and rately. The emphasis of visual literacy teaching, it television are interesting and challenging; and in is clearly indicated by these aims, must be on order to prepare pupils for future trends in

66 Media Matters in Soutfi Africa 6 .1 teaching. This latter reason does not appear to be process of film production in Standards Six to particularly important among the other reasons, Eight/Nine, and then this knowledge is applied but it could become increasingly more vital as in the study of a film in Standard Ten. Thus the television in South Africa moves into education. product is being studied via an analysis of the The eventuality of this is imminent, as reported elements making up the jinxes& In several by the South African Broadcasting Corporation schools, film is contextualised by studying its recently. The corporation has announced its history; and also genre - the study of which is intention to broadcast educational programmes mainly finked to genre in literature during the morning for the use of schoolteachers Setwork screen material in the schools com- from as early as 1991. prises various films and television programmes. The methods of teaching visual literacy in the The films vary in length and genre, and are schools vary. The most common are to use screen mainly obtained through TED sources. Television material as the source for written and oral work; material includes situation comedies and and to study a film as a setwork. Films and advertisements. The greatest variety of titles is television programmes are also used to intro- studied in Standard Eight, and the least in duce/illustrate concepts in English; and as a Standard Ten, where most schools study only the contrast or in parallel to written setworks. It was setwork film. There are exceptions, however, and noted, in particular. that the study of visual these schools study films in conjunction with the material has served to develop ideas of bias and books, or informative television series on visual propaganda, denotation and connotation, style, media. There is an indication that the presence of tone and intention - not only in English, but in a setwork film in Standard Ten influences the other subjects too. way in which schools approach Visual Literacy - There is a remarkable degree of overlap in the studying a separate film in each standard. There screen material and elements of visual media is a strong concentration on film as film; and actually studied at the schools. schools wish to establish film study more in the All the schools included the language of film junior standards in order to prepare the pupils early on in their film study courses. The lan- for the matric examination, it is important to note guage' taught was essentially a meta-language- here that the visual literacy study in the junior useful terms and jargon used to talk about the standards tends to focus on the elements of film new medium. Most schools regarded the knowl- and the process of film production. ks pupils edge of the 'correct' terminology essential in and teachers have become more familiar with the order that the pupils could speak knowledgeably visual media, there has been a broadening of the about film and television. Some schools indicated amount of visual material studied, and also the that this was a necessary part of the complete depth in which the products are analysed. study of the visual media. Most schools also teach The questionnaires requested that the teachers the process of film production- what goes into a provide the aims for teaching film/visual literacy film to make it work, in order to study all aspects that they had devised for their individual of film properly. Generally, schools study the schools. These aims provide interesting insight

PART 0Matters Edinotional 67 into how teachers regard the role of visual environment. Great influence on teenagers is literacy in secondary school& exerted by family, school and peers ar0 issues The overall most important aim is to enable such as drug abuse are universal. But the family, pupils to interpret the visual media and to alert school and peer group all operate within a them to the manipulative powers of these media. specific socio-political environment that exerts an It is only the second most common aim to guide influence on them and, therefore, on individual the pupils to develop critical awareness of the teenagers too And it is this part of their experi- visual media. The third most common aim is to ence that is not adequately covered invisual develop the pupils' ability to express themselves literacy. Films and television programmes tend knowledgeably about the visual media. Fourth is to reflect, to a certain extent, at least some partof to develop an awareness of film as art; and fifth is an environment. And thestudy of such screen to reach the visually-orientated child. The least material would be rooted in the pupils' experi- most common aim is to prepare pupils for the ence. matric examination. According to Criticos, the practice and content of media studies 'should be indigenous to local Intimtlen s Prue** context and interests'. (1988, pp. 5). The choiceof There are areas in which the intention and the screen material actually studied inschools - and prartice of teaching visual literacy differ. One of especially the matric setwork films - beies this the overall impressions left by the Assumptions aim. The matric films Chariots of Fire and Witness and Aims of the syllabus is that of a need to are set in the United Kingdomand the United practise a study of language that integrates the States of America respectively. Neither film deals expressive and the receptive skills. This study with characters, situations or events typical of a should be firmly rooted in the pupils' experience. present day South African context. The maiority If one considers closely the notion of pupils' of other screen material available - and recom- experience, we find that it can be divided into mended for study - follows this principle too. two broad areas. One part of the experience of It may be argued that these films deal with teenagers is that of the family, school and friends. issues that are universal and therefore valid Here the child is generally involved with institu- study material. The study of such universal tions and related issues that arise, not only in our issues depicted in a foreign context and by events social context, but ;n others too. Then, to study setunfamiliar to the average South African child, is screen material that reflects issuessuch as peer- not rooting study of the language in the pupils' group pressure, divorce and how to copewith it experience. It may be that there are not many or drug and alcohol abuse, is a manner inwhich South African films considered suitable for education deals with the pupils' experience and study; there may also be a lack of shorter South also teaches to the perceived needs of pupils - African films that are more easily-managed in which is another aim of the English syllabus. the short class time; yet there are some films that Then there is the second broad area of the deal with benign (non-political) issues, yet whose pupils' experience, that of their socio-political depicted world is South African - and therefore

68 Media Molten in South Africa part of the pupils' experience. And then there is written or oral work. television - dramas and series that are rooted in a A number of schools do approach screen South African experience, as well as documenta- material as a separate entity. This is noticeable in ries, news etc. However, visual literacy in the some of the methods of teaching film: studying Transvaal is essentially film study. We need to the language of film through photographs; move away from this and, instead of studying teaching film study in, say, a three week block; films on a television screen, to many the two and building up the study of the visual media as media in order to truly study visual literacy. And distinct from the print media. then setwork material could be television programmes that are South African. The Rohm The English syllabus clearly states that screen Although several schools do regard screen material is not to be considered as subordinate to material as a separate entity, the overall ap- literature, but is to be studied as a separate entity. proach to visual literacy would appear to be to This approach is supported by the structuring of integrate it into the overall study of English. This visual literacy for Standard Ten. Here, a film is is most likely the result of the product-orientated present in the syllabus content as a separate approach to film utilised by the TED Were there setwork. The pupils do not study the film of a to be a greater focus on the process of the visual book, but an individual film. media and how they work- thus emphasizing lt is in the manner in which these setwork filmstheir relevence as a separate discipline- perhaps are to be studied that one finds a discrepancy teachers would begin to remove the visual media between syllabus and practice. In study guides to a certain extent from the rest of English and and notes suggesting bow to tackle setwork films,study screen material as a separate entity. Thus there is a fair amount of emphasis placed upon visual literacy would be developed as part of, but the more traditional 'literary' aspects, suchas not subordinate to, the subject English. plot, character or themes. This is essentiallya A more process-orientated study of the visual product-orientated approach. There are indica- media would also point the children more tions that the filmic aspects should be studied, butcarefully towards how films and television work, this is added almost as an afterthought. and therefore to the effects that they may have on There is a degree of ambiguity in the ways in a viewer. The importance of this sort of analysis whirh teachers approach visual literacy. hi the has been identified by teachers. The overall most matric year, the set film is generally studied as a common aim of teaching visual literacy/film product - and a separate entity. In Standards Six study supplied by teachers themselves is to to Nine, however, a number of schools indicated enable children to be able to deal with the media that they studied films of set books. One school through becoming aware of manipulation by the studied a book and the film of it in Standard Ten. media. Schools also used screen material to introduce or We live in a social context that is fast becoming illustrate concepts in English, suchas theme and even more media-orientated than it already is. setting. Film is also used as source material for Children no longer go out to play in the after-

67 PART IIMatters Educational 69 noons, they rather spend an hour or more so the product communicates aspecific - hidden - watching television. Teenagers tend to spend message. And pupils need tobecome aware of - more time watching videos at partiesthan and learn how to deal with - this manipulation. socialising. Numbers of studies have been done on the Conclusion effect of television on children. A large past of the Teachers at secondary schools in the Transvaal justification for the introduction of visual literacy do not call for an increased study of television as into the school cuiliculum is the great amount of opposed to film. There is a need, however, for time for which teenagers are exposed to the Transvaal secondary schools to begin to root the visual media. And yet, the syllabus makes study of film in a more general study of the absolutely no mention of the fact that the media media. This would enable the curriculum to do manipulate viewers, or the need flr pupils to expand to include a more extensive study of all become aware of this manipulation. the visual media,and particularly television; and The visual medium that manipulates perhaps would move the pupils into learning to deal with most easily and most rapidly is television, yet the all the media operating within their social emphasis in Transvaal schools is on film study. environment. Media study of this nature would The English syllabus does not call for the study ofhave to be firmly rooted in the pupils' experience film to the exclusion of the other visual media. in in order to truly enable them to develop the fact, as has been noted, the syllabus requires a abilities to deal with all facets of the media and Bibliography study of what is termed 'screen material', of their environment competently. Critkos, C. 'Medi. Literacy which film is only a part. The stress placed upon Although they do not deal with the issue of a Through Process' Presentation at Talking a single film as a setwork in matricand the broader media (as opposed to visual media/film) About Motion rams generally product-orientated approach to visual study, the way to more effective media study in Conference and Exhibition, literacy studies have, however, tended to place a Transvaal secondary schools is being indicated Baxter Theatre, University by English teachers themselves. of Cape Town, 1988. greater emphasis on the study of film over the Their concern at this time with the manipula- Grove, J.H.M. 'The Theory other visual media. Teenagers are exposed to and Practice of Film Study many more hour of television than offilm. It tive powers of the visual media, and their at the Secondary School emerges, therefore, that there is aneed for the practice of teaching the elements and process of Level', (A Dissertation producing screen material, indicate an awareness submitted to the School of focus of visual literacy studies in the Transvaal to Dramatic Art, University ofmove away from film and towardstelevision that a product-orientated study of one type of the Witwatersrand, One of the prime functions of television is to visual medium is not an adequate analysis. And Johannesburg), 1981. operate as a state apparatus and to communicate it is not enough to simply aim at developing the TED Syllabus for English the dominant ideology. This communication is, child's critical awareness and responses to the First Language (Ordinary Grade, Standards 5, 6 and naturally, not obvious and is not done with media. There is a need for the child to discover 7), Pretoria 1986. general announcement of intent. The message is how these media work. II TED Syllabus for English hidden and the control exerted by the medium First Language (Higher insidious. The way in which this is achieved is Grade, Standards 8-10) Pretoria 1986. through manipulating the processes of the media

70Media Meets in Swift Africa IPart 111

Working Out How Mediu Works

Because media are used so frequently and with so little effort usually, and because everyone has ideas about the popular media forms they enjoy, there is often a sense that theory is unnecessary. It is exactly because media forms have become so naturalized that we need to attend to the theory to draw out how in fact media do work. To return to the definition quoted earlier, specific aspects therein cannot simply be dealt with in common-sensical ways: the way media work, how they produce meanings, how they are organized and how audiences make sense of them.

An awareness of theoretical understandings becomes an intrinsic aspect of Media Education as it does with any other field of study. To start with, Ferguson's comprehensive and concise outline maps out this vast and complex terrain in an accessible manner. Ferguson stresses the central importance of theory. He attends in particular to those theoretical debates relating to language, to audience and to ideology. Insights into these three areas develop an awareness of the role of power and pleasure, the remaining two elements in his definition of Media Education. Considerations of power and pleasure invoke both ideas of audience, readings, organizations, institutions and society's discourses. What is thus mapped is an intricate and interlinked field of enquiry wherein key concepts can be

PART IP Wwking Out ticm Maio Wor6 71 8 ! identified and even concentrated upon, but that never really can be dealt with in isolation from all the other facets of Media Education Like any other discipline, theoretical rigour is essential to create a coherent body of work that deals both with understandings and methodology in the field. Ferguson suggests that it is the responsibility of Media Educators to make theoretical understanding, and the potential for theoretical development, accessible to students at all levels of education. With understanding of things theoretical, this interlinked and coherent field of study emerges. What we have emphasized is the central realization that media representations are cultural issues. Certain cultural discourses are picked up when individual contributors examine particular texts with this understanding and offer readings of these cultural products. Chapman offers a particular deconstructive approach to the film, Running on Empty, simultaneously disputing the place of studying film in South African schools in its present educational position. (Higgins reacts against this position in his chapter.) Johnston addresses certain cultural representatives, those apparent in recent films, not made locally, but that focus on South African themes. He contextualizes an interest in South Africa as a setting and a subject for the three films he deals with in relation to the agendas of the (foreign) filmmakers. His understanding of these cultural products is developed from his deconstructive approach and identification of elements such as a similarity in both plot and the narrative medium, which employs the family as a central theme. Hookham uses the Australian film, Newsfront, to explain certain aspects of film technology, working from the premise that the 'meaning ofa film and its technique are integrally related.' This outline also enables the development of particular deconstructive media work.

Pat

wolfing ait How Mesh Wcwis 73 The Necessity of Theory In MediaEducation

Bob Ferguson

Media Education is an intensely practical activity of matters theoretical by many media educator& in which, when it is successful, a great deal of Indeed a new set of pseudo-theorists came along both teaching and learning take place. For the whose business was to deny theory at all costs enthusiasts who first took up teaching about the and to look instead towards the disintegrationof media in the post-war years, much of the impetustheory (and back at the disintegration of many for working came from a love of the medium (if societies or social formations) and make it a new they happened to be film buffs for instance), or and intense focal point for developing Media disdain or hostility if they were of the persuasion Education. that the mass media were leading everyone What I have just outlined is, of course, a (barring themselves) down the road to barbarism. caricature of what actually happened, but I have Either way, the: e is little evidence to su. est that set it out in this polemical manner for aspecific theory was an issue on the top of the agenda for reason. I wish to argue in this paperfor the such educationahsts. In the near half century central importance of theory to the development which has seen an interest in studying the media of Media Education. 1 w:sh, further to add several grow in many parts of the world, there hasbeen, caveats about the ways in which we might particularly with regard to general education, a consider approaches to theory and the media at distinct lack of enthusiasm for matters theoretical.all levels of education. I also wish to argue that There was, however, a brief period in the theory is important in the media education of seventies and eighties when theory was debated young children and in the media educationof vigorously by a small minority of those who wereadults, It is not something to be confined to the interested in the media. This intense debate had a classes of those who expect to become academic great influence upon the development of Media types. Nor is it something which renv:as a Education, but it was never, in England, a jealously guarded possession of the educator. burning issue for most teachers. It was, rather, a Theory in relation to Media Education is some- scholastic issue for the tiny minority who had the thing which needs to inform the practice of wit and the time to enter the debate. The espousal teachers, but also to be at the disposal or espousal of attempts and Grand Theory in relation to of all student& It is not a mystery to be guarded Media Education was also, perhaps, a way of by the high priests of Media Education. it is a exerting a mild form of intellectual terrorism ove practical necessity if Media Education is to fulfil the ignorant masses of educators. By the end of its potential as a subject which engages in open the eighties there was a strong sense of rejection and free critical enquiry, and which seeks

74 Mao Meets in Smith Africa 7 2 practical applications for all its fmdings. This is I will discuss three areas relating to Media equally valid for aspects of theory dealing with Education where theory is of central importance. aesthetic matters, with political and economic They are not supposed to be exclusive ofor all- matters, and with ideological issues. Ina nutshell,inclusive, but I think they will provide sufficient theory is a necessity if Media Educationis not to material for the development ofmy argument. I ossify, to die on its feet, to lose its cutting edge. will not, indeed could not, do justiceto the All this is by way of introduction. What Inow complexity of thought and research which these wish to address is just whatwe might mean by areas have generated. My concern is to argue for theory and what might be its importance- I the necessity of theory in relation to teaching would argue necessity- for the development of about the media. The threeareas are: the media Media Education in South Africa. I have been and language; the media and audienceand the studiously avoiding the old adage that thereis media and ideology. nothing so practical as a good theory becausethat is not the core of the case I wish topresent. What The Meal. and Langwark I do wish to argue is that we all - teachers, A non-theorised approach to language andthe students and researchers - make use of explicit or media is one which teaches students aboutthe implicit theoretical positions inour work and codes of representation and significationas daily life. And further, that it is the responsibility though these codes were naturalor eternal. This of Media Educators to make theoretical under- type of approach tells students whata close-up standing, and the potential for theoretical 'means' in film, or what a low angle shot'means'. development, accessible to students at all levels Or to take another example, it tells students how of education. In order to doso I will be referring they can make a video 'properly',or how to write to selected points of development in Media a 'good' editorial Now I am not suggesting that Education and touching upon what I considerto there is not merit in suchan approach. For it is be some of the more interestingor contentious important to know the codes and conventions theoretical issues with which Media Educators through which the media make theirmeaning. have to engage. My arguments will focuson the But it is equally important, from the pointof secondary level of education, but I believe that view of a media educationalist, that students they have a validity in relation to all levels of the should question the conventions andcodes educational spectrum. These arguments willnot, which are in commonuse. Another result which of course be prescriptive. I realise that they are often follows from a non-theorised approachto open to much discussion and debate. It is my teaching media language is that both the inter- hope and intention to generate such debate. pretation of decoding, and the production of The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary media messages becomesa constrained and descaes a theory as 'an explanation ofsystem of mechanical affair. At its worst itmeans that anything', and that seems as good a place as any students learn a set of rules which haveto be to begin. If we ale to teach about the mediawe applied uncritically in the production and will heed to do some explaining. analysis of mediamessages.

PART IIIWorking Out How Maio WOdU 75 salute. This is its meaning. Attempts to teach the 'language' of amedium man giving the French according to Barthes as though it wassomething to be learned by nate But the form of this picture, that form we can will have only a limited value They canlead to is something different. From he has no the production of students who arelikely to be obtain a further message. Barthes says It has to conventional rather than innovative intheir trouble in making sense of this image. Empire, and to quote thinking as well as in their prvductionof media mean that France is a geat colour messages. But if there is aneed to theorise about him 'that all her sons, without any flag, the different ways in which specificmedia discrimination, faithfully serve under her the detrac- construct their messages, there isalso a need to and that there is no better answer to than the zeal shown theorise about the use of spoken and written tors of an alleged colonialism oppressors.' language within parhcular media. Theformer is by this Negro in serving his so-called second level the contern of semiotics and the latterleads us And if one is to go along with this and France's into a consideration of languageand discourse. of meaning - concerning the Empire greatness, certain things have tobe suppressed. These include the history of the salutingfigure. Semiotics with some The work of Roland Barthes has had aconsider- For although the image is of a person disarmed by the concept able influence upon the developmentof Media presence, it is somehow Barthes Education, particularly his work entitledMytholo- which comes with the image and which the gies (Barthes 1972). This short workcontains characterises as 'fully armed'. And that is We are not numerous brief andlucid essays which deal with concept of French imperiallty. subjects as diverse as the face of Garboand encouraged to think of how France happened to this soldier wrestling on television, but it is at its mostuseful be in Africa or what kind of family encouraged to relate this in the final essay entitled "MythToday". Here conies from. Nor are we slavery Barthes describes the ways in whichlanguage saluting figure to a past which includes can be used to connote atthe level of myth. For and despoliation. muc) Barthes, myth is another word forideology. What Now I know that I have not done . the does he mean by this? Well there is not timeto go to J.tie sophistication ofBarthes'analysis, that through his into this in detail here, but I willoffer, stripped aspomt I am trying to get at is much as possible of specialist language, one analysis, based upon a theory of signification. which much-quoted example for those of youwho have Barflies is able to articulate the way in but one not come across it. myth operates. It is a small example, important Barthes was sitting in a barber's shopwhen he which is still very pertinent. And it is him or found himself looking at the front coverof the for the Media Educator because it allows meaning is journal Paris Match (he was in Franceand her to find ways of articulating how everyday French!). On the cover there was a youngblack being offered at a complex level in an do well man in French uniformsaluting, his eyes up- representation. Media Educators would of lifted. Presumably he was salutingthe French to return to a study of Barthes as a way flag. On one level it is simply a picture of ablack developng their own forms of media teaching.

76 Me 6a Aden iTt South Africo 7 -4 And the importance of devising theories of measure - would be the wartime speeches of interpretation is that they can be tested out Winston Churchill to the British people. As an against numerous examples. They can be example of the stating of dramatic discourse in an modified or rejected. They can be put to use by open way I would cite the musical Annie Get Your students of the media. Without the theory, one is Gun. For those of you who are not familiar with reduced to offering opinions about what an the musical, it is a highly fictionalised account of image might mean, rather than making judge- the life of Annie Oakley. She was a very good ments based upon an established set of terms for shot with a rifle - better in fact than the man she debate. This is of crucial importance in the wanted to marry. So when she found herself development of Media education. involved in a shooting competition with him, she deliberately lost to hint She then sang a song Discourse entitled 'You can't get a man with a gun', the I want to say a word now about the importance general gist of which was that if you want to get of the concept of discourse in relation to the your man, then you better let him be better at media and language. Discourse is a strange and 'manly activities than you are! elusive term, but I do not think that that should But if what I have just suggested is an example deter the Media Educator or his or her students of explicit discourse, then what one finds just as from entering into an investigation of its ubeful- often in the media are examples of implicit ness. It is probably easier to define what a discourse. Without drawing this out too far at the discourse does rather than define what it is. moment, the implicit discourse in 'You a.'t get a Gunter Kress has given a succinct and helpful man with a gun' is interesting I think. It is definition which I will quote to you: something to do with women wanting to get their A discourse organises and gives structure to the man at all costs - even if it means denying their manner in which a topic, object or process is talked own skills or dropping their own principles. about. (Kress 1989). Now the purpose behind my giving these There are discourses about what it means to be rather brief examples, I would remind you once a 'good citizen', or a 'real patTior or a 'good again, is to suggest that it is important to attempt Englishman'. These discourses will often find to theorise language use in relation to the media. their way into the mass media and this can And it is important to devise strategies for the happen in at least two different ways. One is analysis of media texts which will allow you and when a particular discourse is stated openly, and your students to test out the possible validity of this is more likely to happen in times of crisis. the theories on which you are working. The crisis may be political in the sense that it has I want to turn now to the second area relating to do, for instance, with developments within or to Media Education where the concept of theory between nations, or it may be narrative and is important. dramatic, in that it is stated as part of an adventure film. A classic example of the open stating of The Moodie and Itudiones discourse - with a little rhetoric added for good Theories of the audience have undergone various

PAM **Ow How MAI Works 77 mutations since the beginning of research into the4. Some researchers are considering television mass media. Such theories are very often linked and its effects as though all the arguments of the to what has become known as the 'Effects' Frankfurt School, Marx on alienation, or simply tradition in media research. There was a time twentieth century 'angst' did not exist. when the audience was theorised as one 5. Crude behavioural approaches to the effects of undifferentiated mass. Something at which you television have been discarded. aimed you; messages and you either hit your 6. There has been a swing away from the theoreti- target or you didn't. But in the last ten years or so cal engagements with the concept of ideology. there has been a quite radical shift in the way This registers itself in an insistence that the theories of the audience and research into audience is out there doing its own thing - using audience perceptions have been undertaken. It is television for its own multiple purposes. And impossille to make sense of work on the media most essentially - not being duped. audience without engagng with some of these If the points outlined above have any validity, theoretical positions. In this paper it will be they must su ;4.est that theoretical conceptions of possible to mention three examples, relating only the audience are an essential aspect of Media to television. Once again it is with the aim of Education. What will, I am sure, become appar- demonstrating the significance of theoretical ent, is that the different theoretical conceptions of perspectives for the media educator. the audience which various researchers put to Before considering each of these publications work for them do not sit happily alongside each individually and briefly, I wish to provide a other! There is a disagreement which is some- schematic outline of what might be described as times fundamental, and it relates to the theoreti- the main trends across the spectrum of audience cal positioning of the researchers. research at the moment: 1. There is a general move away from the older Family Tekvision - David Morley research methods which were based upon Morley is concerned to examine the changing hypotheses concerned with the 'bad' effects of patterns of television viewing in the 'overall television. (Postman and Lodziak are the possiblecontext of family leisure activity.' He rightly exceptions here.) emphasises that television is a domestic medium. 2. There is a general realisation that we need a This research project was also designed to investi- great deal more audience research. This is gate the increasingly varied uses to which television coupled with two key notions: (a) There is not can now be put. We are now in a situation where one homogeneous audience for television, but people can 'do' a number of things with their television set besides watching broadcasting television. audiences; (b) people use; television. They do not (Morley 1986) merely watch it. 3. Research work on audiences is now concentrat- Without attempting to go into detail, it is quite ing more on the complex ways in which small dear that Morley has a conception, or theory if groups of viewers make sense of particular you like, of the audience as active. He also television texts. stresses that the usage of television has to be set

78 Maio Matta in Soirth Africa 76 in the context of other activities in the home and visited upon Egypt. lOf all the enemies of television- teaching, including continuity and perplexity, none outside it. Morley seems to make a positive virtue is more formidable than exposition. Arguments, out of the therapeutic uses to which television hypotheses, discussion, reasons, refutations or any can be put. He suests that the viewer can and of the traditional instruments of reasoned discourse does give attention to more than what is on the turn televiskm into radioor,worse, third-rate printed matter. Thus, television teaching always takes the screen. This is not, of course, the same relation- form of story-telling, conducted thim0 dynamic ship with television as the potential viewer for an images and supported by music .... Nrig will be Open University course might have - one taught on television that cannot be both visualised and placed in a theatrical context The name we may assumes. properly give to an education without pre-requisited, I want to leave Morley now and turn briefly to perplexity and exposition is entertainment.) Postman and his book Amusing Ourselves to Dalth. (Postman 1986) This is a book with a I have allowed myself to quote a little mom of broader and more ambitious project than that of Postman because his work is controversial, his Morley. Postman was responsible for the publica- theoretical position challenging, and his books fion of certain progressive educational texts in theare a potential source of some lively media United States of America in the 1960s. education sessions. His conception of the And Postman is worried about television. He audience - in this case children - is one where argues that television has managed to link they are the ghosts at the feast. He writes about teaching and learning with amusement. Televi- them rather than researching with them. This sion is, for him, 'a curriculum'. does not, however, necessarily invalidate his arguments. I should perhaps point out that the As I understand the word, a curriculum, is a spe- citilly constnicted information system whose pur- examples I have chosen here are not chosen pose is to influence, teach, train or cultivate tire mind because I agree with them. They are, however, and character of youth. Television, of course, does valid and interesting for the media educator. exactly that, and does it relentlessly. In so doing, it competes successfully with the school curriculum. I want to turn now to my last example in By which I mean, it damn near obliterates it. relation to the media and the audience. It is book written by a lecturer in social theory. This is He then identifies what he calls the three Lodziak's The Pouter of Television. (Lodziak 1986) I commandments that form the philosophy of would recommend all who could to read this education that television offers: work. There is no time now to do more than LThou shalt have no prerequisit. !Every television mention one or two examples of the points which programme must be complete in itself. Abolish the possibility that learning might be hierarchical etc I it argues. I consider it to be of fundamental 2. Thou shalt induce no perplexity I This means that importance because it shifts a great deal of the there must be nothing that has to be remembered, ground of debate about the influence of television studied, applied or, worst of all, endured. It is as- on the audience. It does not deny the various sumed that any information, story or idea can be made inunediately accessible, since the contentment, approaches to one or other 'effect' of TV. What it not the growth, of the learner is paramount.) does do is to stress the importance of TV in 3. Thou shalt avoid exposition like the ten plagues relation to the rest of the pattern of everyday life.

77 PART III WAN OutHOW Maio WO& 79 In this sense television can be seen as a medium understandings of the term? which allows one to recover from or prepare for Common sense definitions of ideology are not work (if one has a job!): of much help when approaching Media Educa- tion. What I mean by these are those types of In this context television viewing ministers to the needs which have been generated by the realm of definition which consider ideology to be some- necessity. Television invades lives already weary thing that your enemy suffers front Or those fron work and understandably already indined definitions which use ideology as a synonym for towards effortless leisure. In this sem, television becomes an extension of the econcsnic system which propaganda. has created the needs which viewing 'satisfies'. Lei- Instead, Media Education requires us to engage sure-time, instead of being used to meet 'vital needs' with a more complex and productive set of necessary for the development of autonomy, becomes the arena in which individuals settle fur the theorefical debates - which have, I would argue, instantaneous, insubstantial pleasure served up by vezy practical consequences. For the concept of the culture industry. (1..W11986) ideology has been and continues to be an One of the most telling observations which is intellectual battlefield on which various positions made by Lodziak is that television helps to are taken up and defended. These range from the maintain social fragmentation. His conception of argument that there is no such thing as ideobgy the television audience is one of a private, and never has been, to arguments about the vice- perhaps lonely and certainly disjointed or like grip in which ideology holds all members of fragmented set of small groups of viewers. It is a social formation. Ideology has also been clear, however, that Lodziak's theoretical conceptualised as a process which is lived perspective in relation to the audience is far from through in daily life, and a process which has that of Postman. This is the crucial point for my very material aspects and consequences. In a argument. particularly telling example, the French philoso- I will turn now to the third of the areas I pher Althusser once suggested that the ideologi- mentioned at the beginning of the paper. cal formation of an individual is being determined before he or she is born. This process involves choices of possible name types and Media and Ideology colour of clothing, and career aspirations from This is for me one of the most fascinating and the parents. The opposite would also be the case - complex areas for theoretical investigation in where ideological formation stems from parents relation to Media Eclucation. It should be noted, without hope for change or betterment in their however, that part of the reason for the impor- condition. tance of the concept of ideology is the debate Debates about ideology have also raised very which can be had about what the concept means. specific issues in relation to the mass media. Is ideology something which has a meaning in an There have been researchers and theorists who etymological sense, or is it something about have set out to prove that the audience is a which you have to have a theory? How do malleable and helpless mass to be moulded into theories of ideology relate to common sense any shape, form or opinion by the media moguls.

$O Meta Mdtri in WI Africa 78 There have been others who have argued for the ideology is an issue which demands rigorous existence of something called 'false conscious- theoretical perspectives that I choose to ness' - an ideological disease which, by definition,emphasise it at the monwnt. is suffered from by others. I have attempted to address three areas where And there have been important pedagogical theoretical issues are important to the develop- consequences when educationalists have adopted ment of Media Education; Language and Media, particular positions on ideology. If, for instance, Audience and Media and Ideology and Media, Of school students are suffering from false con- course there are many other areas foc study and sciousness - meaning that they don't know what these have been conceptualised differently at you know - then as a teacher you may be different times. Masterman (1985, 23) provides a required to 'demystify' ideological messages. By list of key concepts, which include ideology and lifting the ideological veil you may offer hidden audience, from which teachers might work. The truths about the mass media to those whom you important thing is that one should try to draw up teach. You become a kind of magician. one's own list. It is not enough, however, to have There are also very sophisticated theories of some thing called a 'key concept', unless one ideology associated with such thinkers as recognises that any given key concept may be Antonio Gramsci (Gramsci 1971) and Stuart Hall interpreted differently according to the theoreti- (Hal11977, 1982, 1988). For an excellent introduc- cal perspective (or perspectives) adopted by the tion to debates about ideology I would recom- teacher. Key concepts do not exist in a vacuum. mend David McLellan's short book entitled Nor should key concepts be uncritically accepted simply Ideology (McLellan 1986). Another or institurionalised. There is a tendendency in somewhat more sophisticated approach to the England at the moment for a neW set of key issue of ideology can be found in John B concepts for Media Education to be adopted as Thompson's Studies in Theory of Ideology (Thomp- the new orthodoxy. Once this happens, the rot son 1984). Thompson is particularly interested in sets in. For Media Education, if it is to have the ways in which ideology is related to language practical application, must engage in genuine and signification. He writes: theoretical discussion and controversy. It should ... to studyideology is to investigate, not a particular never degenerate into theoretical dogma or type of discourse linked to a particular type ot sod- theoretical complacency. ety, but rather the ways in which meaning (significa- On the other hand, if you lx.gin to develop tion) serves to sustain relations of domination. The study of ideology is fundamentally concerned with Media Education in South Africa without regard language, for it is largely within language chat for theoretical issues, I do not think you will get meaning is mobilised in the defence of domination. very far. There is always the possibility that, (Thompson 1984) devoid of theory, the subject would become It is because the study of ideology is interwo- tedious and remove from students whatever ven with the study of language, discourse and enjoyment they had from the media before signification, that it is so essential to the develop- education intervened. I would argue that the ment of Media Education. And it is because students will want to explain to themselves, or

PART MO Viviuts Out How Me6o Work 8 1 References have explained to them or both, just how and Hall, S. 'Culture, tbe Mediaand the Ideological Effect', Mass why the media operate the way they do. TheyCommunkalion and Society, Curran,J. Gurevitch M. will want to know who decides what is pleasur-Woollacott, J. teds), EdwardArnold, London 1977. able and according to what criteria. They will Hall, S. 'The Rediscovery ofIdeology: Return of the Repressed Society and the Media, Curran, I. et want to know how to produce their own mes-in Media Studies', Culture, al (ads), Methuen, London1982. sages and how to obtain the resources necessary Thatcherism among the for this process. They will also want to explainHall, S. 'The Toad in the Garden: Theorists', Marxism and theInterpretation of Culture Nelson, G., just how the media interrelate with forces of & Grossberg, L. Macmillan,London 1988. domination and subordination. And how the Hoare, Q. Nowell-Smith, G.Antonio Gramsci: Selections From media can be blade more accountable to the The Prison Notebooks Lawrenceand Wishart, London 1971. general populace whilst striving always to be Kress, G. Linguistic Processesin Sociocultural Practice,Oxford free. University Press, Oxford1989. And in order to answer those questions, I amLodziak, C. The Power of Telerli$ion,Frances Pinter Publishers, forced to utter what I tried to avoid earlier in thit1986. Television, The Macmillan Press, paper - there is nothing so practical as a good Masterman, L. Teaching about London 1980. theory. Masterman, L. Teaching the Media,Come`dia Publishing Group, London 1985. McLellan, D. Ideology, OpenUniversity Press, Milton Keynes 1986. Thompson, J.B. Studies in theTheory of Ideology, Polity Press, Cambridge 1984. Morley, D. Family Tekvision:cultural Power and Domestic Leisure, Comedia, London 1986. Postman, N. Amusing Ourselves toDeath, Heinemann, London 1986. Running on Empty: Film Studios in South Africa

Michael Chapman

If you have electricity in your school and a achievement over and above social reality while Protector in the storer001n, you in;ght be planning'naturalizing' (placing beyond critical investiga- to introduce film studies in your English syllabus.tion) the values aod culture of British upper class As one student said in the Transvaal when the society. Reading not only through the visual study of films was first considered: 'At last! The allure of the film but in and around its text, we movies and TV are our world. Books belong to thecould go on to ask what purchase the ideology of past!' We may disagree, and film studies were Chariots of Fire can have in a South Africa, in 1990, obviously not intended as a diversion from the struggling towards democracy. In the context of task of reading print. The student, nevertheless, abortive cricket tours and debate about the has a point: films, TV, videos, advertising images, redistribution of resources is the film finally glossy magazines all speak to us in manifold, feeding the white middle classes naive and persuasive, perhaps even insidious ways, and the comforting myths? To refer to Craig Mackenzie's challenge is to channel the students' initial, article To Kill a Student's Pride' (Crra, 24,1, probably unreflecting enthusiasm for films into an1990), in which we are reminded that TED schools experience that has educational and social value. had the choice of studying Chariots of Fire or a We have to begin from the premise, I think, thatselection of South African short stories, should the film is the twentieth century equivalent of moral and social responsibility not have guided melodrama or farce, and that, in consequence, ourus to study the stories? In pursuing the argument, approach will be primarily "deconstructive': that do we feel as strongly as the Kenyan writer Ngugi is, we will not simply grant the film the authority does about the need, in a colon:al or post-colonial it desires, but will read in, around and through itssociety, to seize back history and art from the presentation of character and theme to uncover itsdominating presence of the metropolitan culture, ideology, which might be concealed by the powerand to insist on the primacy on syllabuses not of of immediate emotional appeal, or not even be the 'first-world' imperialism of the film, but of the fully conlprehended by the film's own director. Inmore relevant, humanizing possibilities of African their article 'Chariots of Fire and Docudrama' literature? Whatever the replies to these ques- (Crux, 24,1, 1990), for example, Denise Newfield tions, the deconstructive method begins to locate and Stanley Peskin identify behind the 'simple, film study in a real situation of challenge and dean metaphor of sport' in the film Chariots of Firedebate. a simplification of characters and relationships, At the outset, we become acutely aware of how and an ideology Nhich praises individual many films serve trivial, sentimental, sexist,

PART IR WorkingCkrt HowMechWoris 83 81 eonsenrative, or even ntactionary ideas. Most an approach to this film. blatantly, we have the tough individual (Rocky?) Running on Empty presents the story of Danny playing the vigilante because liberal courts Pope (River Phoenix), a talented musician who, cannot be trusted to keep criminals off the streets. after spending his life moving from school to (We are persuaded to applaud Rocky's methods, school, has reached his senior year. Not only has which are a romantic or bizarre version of he met his first love Lorna (Martha Plimpton), American/capitalist self-sufficiency.) More but he wants to go to college to study music, Yet deceptively, we sympathize, or empathize, with family loyalties and commitments intervene in the good-hearted individual who loves children both his love life and his musical ambitions. The and animals and, utilizing both initiative and trouble is that Danny's parents, Arthur and superior technology (a neat encapsulation of the Annie Pope, were political activists in the 1960s. American dream), defeats darker-hued villains, Protesting at the time against the continuing who are motivated by nothing as laudable as Vietnam war, they bombed a napalm laboratory coherent political opposition to Uncle Sam, but and, unintentionally, critically injured a janitor. by another version (perversion?) of the energies As a result, they have been on the run from the of capitalist enterprise: personal greed. To FBI for fifteen years. The ending of the story is complicate matters, the chief of police to whom predictable within the 'morality' of American our individual-saviour reports is likely to be a individualism and freedom. Sensing that the FBI black man: that is, a 'white' black man (Cosby?). is onte more on their trail, father Arthur must As in mass entertainment generally, the idea of a again move the family. Wife Annie - who as a romantic or sentimental individualism is pre- thwarted music student has taught Danny to play sented as liberating, but is effectively divorced the piano - realizes that Danny cannot forever from the totality of any political or power pay for his parents' choices. And Arthur is made structure. We are, of colirse, assailed in the daily to see thia too. After some chauvinist bluster round by mass entertainment, and our ability to about his fine son, he cuts Danny free. As we analyze its 'meanings' should be seen as impor- reach for our kleenex, we know that Danny will tant as our study of so-called great books. Where be okay - he has maternal grandparents who are the deconstructive analysis is particularly useful prepared to care for him and finance his studies, is when we are faced with a film - like Chariots of My remarks and tone should have already Fire or Witness - which disguises its melodrama suggested that I do not agree with the fulsome behind a pretence of seriousness. Another such praise of many critics concerning the 'ous- film is Runniny, on Empty, which was described by ness' of Running on Empty. Its very title an- sever,i1 reviewers in the daily press as a moving nounces that the director has adjudged the and an honest examination of the effects of political commitments of the film to be devoid of political action on the life of a sensitive teenager substance, and what we are offered is a melo- in his last year of high school, The subject seems drama using the stock Hollywood motif of the suited for film studies at school, and, in the light American family as the core-unit of stable, of my comments so far, I should like to suggest middle-class society. Nonetheless, some

84 Me& *Offs in Sou* Africa 82 deconstructive analysis proves to be education- violence, and he appears more as the father than ally illuminating. First, we need to pursue the the political activist. If he mumbles about his spurious 'seriousness' of the film. What has led Jewish, Communist working-class roots, he does critics to see social weight rather than cliché so in asides as he plays the heavy (concerwd) probably has something to do with the quirky father to the nostalgc background of 1960s James political frame in which director Sidney Lumet Taylor lyrics. Wife Annie's crisis of political places his family. We may be beguiled into vision is even more severe. Increasingly tor- thinking that the film is raising large social issues mented by the fact that her actions in the sixties when it is promoting standard suburban moral- had almost led to the death of a precious ity. Danny is not in any significant way shaped individual (note, the janitor did not die, so we do by his parents' political choices; he survives as his not have to raise the question as to when a death own self, and - American society demands it - he in a political scenario becomes a murder), Annie must pursue his own freedun, talent and genius. is deciding to give herself up to the authorities as (Of course, his own self is a kind of ideoiogical soon as her children can support themselves in 'type' - whether he is Danny, Superman or Clint life. With her role as wife and mother Eastwood's man with no name depends more on marginiuing her memory as activist, she costumery than real socio-psychological credibil- arranges to meet her wealthy, conservative father ity.) In fact, it is the American system against who agrees - tears in his businessman's eyes - to which flis parents had reblled, that effortlessly pave Danny's pathway into the American dream. moulds itself around Danny, thus giving him tht: 'You could have had so much, Annie,' he tells his opportunity to be himself. Jaughter over his untouched martini, 'but you The promise of any debate concerning the threw it all away.' The film does not subject this relatinn oi the individual to sociaty, therefore, is --mark to any scrutiny. It stands as 'American -ted, and we are manipulated into avoiding wisdom'. any t e4i questions about the validity of political ;ie deconstructive analysis identifies, relent- at.tiogn. Th:.. activists of the 1960s. fo: example, lessly, the governing ideology of Running on appear as nensionable hippies who h, ve taken to Eny,y. With Reaganite middle-class values rt.,bbirir banks '.0 finance what is now viewed as firmly back in fashion, the film suggests, almost rebellion without a cause. Reagan we recall - by absence of interrogation, that the Popes hal resk -nd American pride in itself as the had no real need to take the drastic action against leader of tile free world, aad we are told that as the manuf.--ture of napalm that their youthful America has left Vietnam were is no longer any Impetuosity/idealism led them to do. Rather, justification for protestini, 3gainst its imperialist American napalm bombing may be seen, in designs - the parallels with Nicaragua and the retrospect, as an unfortunate aberration which a financing of Gyitras are not addressed. Not all deep-grained American integrity would itself 'radicals' are c'epicted as a lunatic fringe, have struggled somehow to correct. The scarred however, and we are allowed to sympathize with napalm victims are not, of course, given a voice Danny's parents. Arthur Pope condemns in the film. Politically, Running on Empty is

PART IIIviuTiting w me& Wait. 85 conservative in its fudging of political issues at the expense of romantic individualism. At the level of the family, it endorses the naivety of the depoliticised life. With such muddle-headed political thinkers, or non-thinkers, as Danny, it is no wander that Americans were so easily led, by the golden individualist Kennedy, to believe that they were serving freedom and democracy in South East Asia. The central purpose of this approach has been to show students how, and to suggest to them why, Running on Empty performs a sleight of hand with its own political metaphor. As a corollary to deconstruction, we might then turn to 'reading' the alterneve media (New Nation or Weekly Mail) as an exercise in literarypolitical 'reconstruction'. The two approaches, conducted dialectically, shoied reveal some useful insights about the relation of 'texts' to social reality. As a concluding exercise, we could examine the wider, sociopolitical implications of film studies in South Africa. In a country where most students encounter overcrowded classrooms, a lack of desks and books, and undertrained teachers, should any of us be bothering about film studies? Is the whole venture a paradigm - we can make it a parody - of mass entertainment itself, as a superfluity of ,:tyle running, morally and socially, on empty? II

Hiblloguphy Crux, 24-1-14'40

S 4 MINIMS AT WAR Family In Theme & Narrative in Cry Freedom, A World Apart, and A Dry White Season

Alexander Johnston

Cry Freedom, A World Apart, and A Dry White unfavourable to the white minority government Season, were all completed within a year of each set in in the mid-seventies and intensified from other at the end of the nineteen eighties. This then. This, coupled with greatly heightened black burst of activity brought to an end a long period resistance to apartheid, gave the situation a in which the international film industry on the dynamism and a short-term uncertainty, within a whole steered clear of South Africa as a setting longer-range projection of inevitable liberation. and subjeci for major feature films. Such films as The growing ability of the Anti-Apartheid were made tended to appropriate the setting, Movement to highlight South Africa brought without attempting to come to terms with the issues like sanctions and disinvestment onto the subject It is not difficult to suggest some reasons mainstream of political and corporate agendas, for this. Western economic complicity in apart- and the growing ability of the electronic media to heid and fears of uncomfortable reflections on cover the increasingly dramatic events with American or British domestic racial problems, immediate, on-the-spot reportage, meant that by made apatheid a difficult matter to approach the mid eighties there was substantial public head-on, anu given its centrality in all aspects of interest, and a substantial potential feature film South African life, it was difficult to portray the audience well-schooled by television in the country without tackling it. Problems with imagery of the South African situation. censorship and other interference from the South Given the context in which these films were African government, aad as the Anti-Apartheid made, it is not surprising that they display a movement grew in strength, from that quarter number of similarities. The context is that of an too, made South Africa a subject fraught with international film irdustry dominated by pitfall. Despite the rich sources of historical and American studios and markets, geared to making dramath: material, the poignant, the tragic, the feature films for audiences whose expectations violent, one of history's great human interest are heavily influenced by repetitive experiences stories had, for the most part to be left alone. of genres, and fonns of plot, narrative, and That all this changed from the mid-eighties characterization. Despite the dominance of onwards can be attributed to the way in which America, British individuals (Richard South Africa came to occupy a prominent place Attenborough, director of Cly Freedom is a good on the Western media and political agenda. A example) ran gain strategic positions in the number of factors were influential in this. Firstly, industry, and with careful marshalling of secular cnanges in the balance of power resources, small British companies (like the

PART RI %Wing Ovt How Meek] Wosis 87 consortium which produced A W.vid Apart) can either on the page or on the screen. It is not make an impact. All three films then, are prod- difficult to see why. To be part of a family is a ucts of Anglo-Anwrican mainstreim feature- virtually universal experience, one which offers making, although the participation of big numerous points of contact between the viewer American studios (respectively Universal and (or reader) and the text. The family also offers a MGM) set off Cry Freedom and A Dry White Season ready made dramatic structure in which charac- from A World Apart. This influence reached as ters are recognizable immediately by role, but far as the main roles of white South Africans, all within which there is room for flexibility. This of which were taken in the films by European or structure can contain universal experiences in a American actors. By contrast, the black South manageable compass, it can portray continuity African roles were taken by South African blacks, over generations, it is a theatre of conflict, it is at with the exception of Denzel Washington's Steve the heart of many social structures and processes, Biko in Cry Freedom. The only other Third World like mobility and stratification. It can translate influence in the making of these films was that of and express social change at the individual level, the director of A Dry White Season, Euzhan Palcy, and vast communal experiences like war and a black woman director from the French Antilles. revolution can be made comprehensible and Despite this, all three films were derived from meaningful through it. individuals who had first hand experience of So prevalent is the family as a narrative South Africa's struggles. A Dry White Season was medium, that to say that three films portraying an adaptation of the novel by André Brink, the contemporary South Africa use A., is not to say engage Afrikaner writer; Shawn Slovo's screen- very much. But certain features of South African play for A World Apart was based on her own society under apartheid make it particularly childhood experiences as daughter of under- apposite to this social reality. ground political activists, and Cry Freedom is For blacks, apartheid is an invasive system of based on two books by Donald Woods, relating social engineering and control that is totalitarian his friendship with Steve Biko, subsequent in its reach. It is totalitarian in the extent to which harassment by the authorities and flight. it destroys individuals' ability to control aspects The similarities go deeper than that. All three of their lives which are considered to be private films are variants on the same plot. A white in more open societies. So invasive is apartheid, Personbecomes aware of the realities of black life that some of its heaviest costs are borne at the under apartheid, comes to feel an identification, level of the family. Among the most important and then a kinship with blacks, and as a result features of a system which has been used to deny has to bear costs of persecution and loss. If all blacks political power, and exploit them as cheap three films tell (broadly speaking) the same story, labour, are race classification, racial apportion- all of them use similar devices to tell it, an ment of land and forced removals to enforce it, important element in all three being the family. the migrant labour system, and the prohibitions The family is of course one of the principal on mixed marriages and sex across the colour media in and through which a story can be told, line. (Although these last two acts have been

8 8rita Mews in South Alma S6 repealed, they were in force in the periods when just how degrading township life can be, and by all three films were set. A recent film squarely the crass intransigence of the South African confronts issues raised by them. A Private Lift, authorities. Pervading the whole process directed by Francis Gerrard, and starring Bill however is the sense of kinship and community Flynn and Jana Cilliers, deals with the true story extending beyond the nuclear family which black of a tragic case of a family destroyed by these South Africans are portrayed as enjoying. This is acts, and as such would be directly relevant to shown in Woods' visits to a rural clinic, and the this paper. As far as I know however, it has not self-help community Biko runs. Crucially to the been shown in South Africa, although itwas film's values, by the time Woods and his wife made here, and until I have seen it, it will have to attend Biko's funeral, this kinship and commu- be excluded.) Each of these, in its way, is destruc- nity seem open to them, despite Biko's own tive of settled family life, and it is widely teaching on black self-reliance, and the r..?ed to acknowledged that this aspect of apartheid isone keep white liberals at an arm's length. This of its most serious iniquities. For thesereasons, aspect of the film has given rise to a certain there are particular incentives to use the familyasamount of controversy, with one account a narrative device in telling South African stories, claiming that Biko merely manipulated the to add to the general utility of the medium. relationship to gain a platform (Woods'newspa- What follows is an attempt to analyze the place per) for his views. Woods defended himself of families in each of the films in turn, leading to against this accusation by listing several of Biko's a comparative discussion of all three. white friends, other than himself. But whatever the case, the film does not resolve the tension Cry Freedom between Biko's philosophy of Black Conscious- The only literal family which is portrayed in Cry ness, and its own portrayal of the kinship Freedom is the Woods family. Donald Woods between black and white opponents of apartheid. (Kevin Kline) is the liberal editor of the East Certainly Woods' relationship with Biko is London Daily Despatch. To his principled opposi- idealized well beyond the point of sentimental- tion to apartheid, another dimension is added ity, partly in the gently sparring dialogue, but when he acquires first hand knowledge of the mostly in the visual treatment, with its pastoral conditions under which blacks live. He achieves backdrops bathed in golden light (one of which this through association with Steve Biko (Denzel was extensively used in the film's publicity Washington), an association which begins when material). Indeed, so idealized is this relation- Woods writes an article denouncing Biko's ship, that it is reminiscent of the blood brother philosophy of black self-reliance as another form theme typical of colonial fiction, in whicha white of racism, and then retracts when Bike puts the man and a black man seal brotherhood in a blood case at first hand. covenant, usually with disastrous results for the Woods' conversion to a more activist political black party (a good recent example is the film of stance is achieved through the force of Bike's John cordon Davis's Hold My Hand I'm Dying). personality and argui 1ents, by the revelations of Of course it is not an equal relationship. Biko is

PAU Working Cte How Maio works89 the teache:, Woods the novice, but still the conversion. associstion perpetuates the myth that race relations are essentially personal Mations, affairs A World Apar. of the heart, tc be improved, notsmuch by Three families are depicted in A World Apart, the accommodation of power to power, but through Roths, the Abelsons, and the family of Elsie, the personal conversion. Roths' maid. (No source that I have seen, Woods' journey is from a position where he including the published version of Shawn Slovo's opposes apartheid on grounds ofabstract prin- screenplay gives the family name of Elsie and her ciple, to one where he becomes involved in the brother Solomon.) The dynamics within and stru e against it through a fleshand Hood between them are central to the film's narrative understanding of what it does to people. lf he structure, and, its values. begins from a point where he is predominantly The Roth family is based on the family of Joe against the government and its laws, he ends at a Slovo, Ruth Rrst and their children, and the point where he is predominantly for black screenplay is based on Shawn Skives memories liberation; from a point where his principles of the period (the film is set in 1963) when her (applied he believes even-handedly) lead him te father was away from home doing underground denounce Biko, to a point where black people say work for the African National Congress, and the to him, 'You and Wendy are our brother and South African Communist Party, and her mother, sister'. also involved in activism and political journalism, The conflicts and the costs engendered by this was detained without trial. Thecentral relation- conversion are seen in the context of the Wools ship in the film is between Diana Roth (Barbara family. Although Wendy Woods in interviews Hershey) and her 13 year old daughter Molly subsequent to their flight mourned the loss of qodhi May). The secrecy and urgency of Diana's intimacy of small town life, in fact the Woods work, her wholehearted commitment to it, and family is depicted as largely self-contained and the austerity and tight control of her character self-sufficient, in contrast to the more open and (partly no doubt inherent, partly imposed by the flexible patterns of black family life depicted in thedemands of her cause), leave Molly alone, film. Security police harassment, subsequent to confused and resentful. She lacks the emotional Donald Woods" inning, which culminates in the support she needs to cope with school, the sending of an acid-impregnated T-shirt to one of fickleness of friends, and the threatening adult their children, forces the Woods to contemplate vi.ld. But Llecause this is a political film as well escape an issue which at first causessharp drama if personal relationships, the family dissension between Donald and Wendy. motif appears in order to make points other than Although the principal medium for carrying thethose of mother-c'sughter conflict. When Molly story and its values in Cry Freedom is the relation- goes to Diana's newspaperoffice, Diana is ship between Woods and Biko, the idea of family dictating a story about the destruction of African provides powerful support in illustrating tile family life an ironic ce -nterpoint to the effect of means, the rewards. and the costsof Woods' the struggle on her own. Another irony comes

90 Melo Mattel in South Africa ss when her interrogator shows her a drawing done life from afar and through glass. by his six year old son, emphasizing his closeness Elsie's family also has an important role to in age to one of Diana's younger daughters, play. In what is a classic South African situation, trying to use her pain of separation, and the Elsie, separated from her own children by revelation of his own humanity to persuade her apartheki laws, has a special relationship with to believe that only her own perversity and not Molly (economically, but powerfully suggested, his unjust laws and erbitTary powers are keeping more in visual than dialogue references). It is her from her family. through Elsie that Molly goes to an African The Abelsons are the family of Yvonne, who at township, and experiences the direct, the beginning of the film is Molly's best friend. uncomplicated welcome into another family June Abelson (Kate Fitzpatrick) provLies a situation that seems to be missing in the white contrast to Diana Roth, illustrating for Molly's world. Solomon, Elsie's brother gives her on that benefit what she has gained and lost by having occasion a bracelet in the ANC colours. He Diana for a mother rather than June. June is speaks powerfully and movingly at a political exuberant and hedonistic, free and generous with gathering which Molly attends, and as a result is her affection, the warmth of her personality arrested and murdered in custody. The accep- reflected in the scarlet of her lips and party dress, tance, the keepsake, the speech and his martyr- by contrast with Diana's habitually sombre dom, all help to validate Diana's committment in shades. For a minor role, June's is quite a Molly's eyes, and his funeral seals a reconcilia- complex character; despite her warmth, she is tion between them, one which promises a new shallow, but despite her shallowness, she is basis for their relationship. sufficiently aware of Diana's work to offer her help, an offer that Diana knows is not a serious A Dry Whits Season prospect. June's version of motherhood is not a A Dry White Seasontakes as its themes the large- credible alternative to Diana's. Warmth and scale subjects of apartheid's repression, the affection expressed only behind walls and renewed black liberation struggle in opposition intercom systems, not daring to confront issues ofto it which began with the Soweto rising of 1976, justice beyond the security perimeter, are not and the passibilities of white identification and enough, but even within these limits, they point involvement in this struggle. These themes are up the things that Molly lacks in her life. Gerald woven into a narrative which relates the destruc- Abelson (Toby Salamin) is defensive and tion of two families. Gordon Ngubene's family is suspicious, ineffectively masking his anger at the destroyed, almost erased, by the coercive power Roths for being what they are, in exaggerated of the state. That of Ben du Toit, his employer, is concern for Molly's safety when she visits them torn apart by dissension over his involvement in on foot. We are left with the impression that all investigating, and publicizing the collective will not be 41 wit!. she Abelson's, as June martyrdom of the Ngubenes. develops a drinking problem, condemned by her Ben du Toit is a Johannesburg schoolteacher, a shallowness and subordination to Gerald, to viewlaw-abiding, patriotic Afrikaner with an integrity

;,3 PARTinWAN OW Plow Mato Wolio and sense of justice which, within the narrow disinclined to interfere, beyond sympathy and a confmes of family, job, and ethnic group, he has cautionary word to steer dear of politics. When had no great need to test and exercise. The there is a larger demonstration on June 16, opportunity to do so arises when the family of hisJonathan is again involved, and like many others gardener, Gordon Ngubene, becomes caught up is shot dead. In an implacable sequence of events, in the murderous events of June 1976 in Soweto. Gordon investigates the circumstances of his son's Up to this point, the relationship between Ben death, and a shaken, but as yet unchanged Ben and Gordon, and the two families has obviously takes the case up through the 'proper channels' followed a South African stereotype. Within the with the police. Gordon in turn is arrested for prevailing codes, Ben is a good employer, and in gathering affidavits concerning the shootings, and a paternalistic way takes some of theresponsibili- he is tortured to death in custody. Having viewed ties which in a free society would be Gordon's his battered corpse (on his first visit to a town- own that of paying for the Ngubene childrens' ship), Ben resolves to investigate and publicize education for instance. A closeness exists betweenthe case. As a result of his involvement, he is the two sons which illustrates another South ostracized socially and at school (and so is his African stereotype, e.' 'hood as a time when son), while at home, his family divides neatly. He black and white can relate to each other naturally,and his son are for involvement, while his wife before the `proper' relations of master and and daughter are unable to come to terms with servant have to be asserted. It is worthwhile the changes this would bring in their lives, and looking at the scene which makes this point, the costs it would involve. Ben's wife leaves him, because complexities can be read into it which go taking the children with her. The family has beyond its rather superficial surface. In an broken up, though the boy remains loyal to his extended credit sequence without dialogue, the father. The destruction of the Ngubene family is two boys happily play football together. Their completed, when Emily, Gordon's wife, having pleasure in each others' company is important in lost her right to remain in the township with his that it signals at the very beginning how the boy death, is sent back to her tribal 'homeland' and will later choose with h.s father to adopt the blackdies resisting the forced removal. The parallel cause. Quite soon however, the white boy picks with Ben's family continues, as harassment and up the soccer ball and changes the game torugby,intimidation from the police escalates to the point a change wnich allows his physical strength and where his daughter betrays him to them. Her knowledge of the game to prevail. Although the brother outguesses her however, and although scene is played throughout with laughter and Ben is murdered by the security police, the good feelings, it can be an indication of how information he has collected is published. His son power relations are, how they might be manipu- has found a surrogate father in Stanley, a black lated, and how rules can be changed. political activist. Stanley has helped both Gordon Gordon's son Jonathan is arrested and whippedand Ben, and unlike both, is a man of direct action by the police for taking part in a demonstration. who in the last scene of the film shoots down the Gordon shows the boy's wounds to Ben, who is policeman who has murdered them.

92 . Media *Item in 51)46 Alrica Pallas & the Family uprooting her family, Ben du Toit is deserted by In Antil.Aputina Mass his wife, and betrayed by his daughter. As I pointed out earlier in this paper, the idea of In the case of the Woods family, the conflict is the family can be used tn give structure to a easily resolved; Wendy comes to the decision narrative, to point up themes perhaps histori- that exile is the best option despite its costs, and cally large ones vith universal resonance- to the triumphalist rhetoric of the closing scenes personalize, dramatize, and make material leaves us in no doubt that the family has chosen accessible to the viewer or reader through the usecorrectly. Molly Roth comes, through her contact of universal role models and experiences. And with Elsie, Solomon and their family, to align the summaries of the part played by the idea of herself in spirit with black liberation, and so to the family in the three films is intended to come to terms with her mother's commitment. suggest some ways in which this has been done. Although the du Toil family is destroyed, and Perhaps two further points need to be made. Ben has been killed, his son has actively involved Firstly we can try to generalize about how himself in the father's choices and work, and black and white families are portrayed in the looks to the future with a black father figure in films. We are left with the impression of white Stanley. Only the Abelsons remain locked in their families who cannot enjoy private satisfactions private world of repressed tensions because of the wider societal context, June By contrast, we have the impiession that the Abelson's cheerful hedonism turns to solitary black families portrayed in the three films are drinking, and her generous spirit towards Molly more open, more flexible, less prone to conflict. and her mother is thwarted under the pressure of Black families have to be more flexible when it Gerald's fears and insecurities about the chal- comes to definitions of kinship, because the lenge the Roths ixise to his privileged position. ravages of migrant labour, poverty, and political The Woods' enjoy the emotional satisfactions repression mean that responsibilities have to be which Molly knows she is being denied, but they widely diffused. It is not a large step from this to lose their comfortable and secure existence first tothe kind of acceptance and inclusiveness that intimidation and persecution, and then to exile. draws in Donald Woods, Molly Roth, and if not The du Tait family is destroyed by violence and the doomed Ben du Toit, his son, the film's hope internal dissension. In each case the family fails for the next generation. to ix a self-contained provider of satisfactions, As for the question of conflict in the black although all or some of its members want that. families portrayed, it is true that Jonathan, Because the private satisfactions which are the Gordon Ngubene's son, holds his father up as an reward for being privileged and white in South example of a generation which has acquiesced in Africa cannot be enjoyed when members become white power. But he does this not with the aware of the poverty and oppression round them,bitterness and contempt that has sometimes each white family experiences sharp conflict. characterized such generational conflict in black Molly Roth resents her mother's distance, secrecy South African politics. He does so more in and preaccupatin. Wendy Woods resents sorrow at the waste of his potential. Aside from

9 1 PART IIIWaking Out How hiefftD Works 93 this the black families are shown as free from definifion of communist is notoriously inclusive. conflict. It might be argued that this is only Diana's most explicit political statements are, because the emphasis in all three films is on the significantly enough, about families the report white families, and if the black families were she dictates about migrant labour, and a reference more central to the narrative the portraitswould to Elsie being unable to see her children. The be more complex. That may be true, but it is also emphasis on Diana and Molly's relationship, and probably true that the film-makers were con- the ideological obscurity helps to domesticate the cerned to promote a show of black solidarity in political content ot the film. the face of apartheid, and warring black families By concentrating on Steve Biko's relationship would not enhance that. with a white liberal, even though the development If the first point to be made is the different of the liberal's ideas is credited, Cry Freedom portrayals of black and white families, the second obscures and muddies the significance of Biko and concerns the political content of thefilms. As I the Black Consciousness Movement have argued the family provides a useful and In these instances, the three anti-apartheid films widely prevalent instrument for humanizing and of the late eighties conform to the western film making accessible large issues, including political industry's usual pattern of domesticating political ones. But it does so at the expense ofsimplifying matters in terms of personal relations, emotional and romanticizing them, in effect also of domesti- conversions, and moral choices, in settings like cating them. By focussing on the Ngubene that of the family. If we understand politics as the family's martyrdom, and not on the demands of terrain where material interests, rival ideologies, the ANC, and its policy of armed struggle, A Dry and organized groupings struggle, and power White Season domesticates black aspirations for must be matched with power, then these films can the benefit of white audiences. Even Stanley, the scarcely be said to be political at all. The anti- activist who balances Gordon the victim, is apartheid movement (in the broadest sense of the played as an avenging paladin without institu- term) was the kind of moral crusade which lent tional links of any overt kind. It is true that the itself to the treatment the film industry gives to ANC's fortunes were at o low ebb in South Africa political subjects. The constraints which had at the time A Dry White Seaion is set, but to allow prevented the making of features about, as no institutional expression for blackpolitics at all,distinct from set in South Africa were sufficiently hinders rather than helps a sound appraisal of theweakened by the mid-eighties, and the anti- situation. apartheid feature had its moment. Although the Diana Roth's relationship with her daughter is constraints are even weaker now, the emergence more important than her institutional links.Are of new issues and altered configurations of forces she and Gus communists, like the Slovo parents both between and within the black and white on whom they are modelled? The onlypeople political movements suggest that films like the who call them that are a spiteful schoolgirl who three discussed here, are unlikely to be made probably doesn't know the meaning of the word, again, except perhaps as period pieces. II and a security policeman, one of a breed whose NEWSPRONT An Intro* to Film Technology

John Hookham

We all know that it is not necessary to know different lenses at the front of the camera. Each anything about the printing process to read and lens has a different focal length which means a understand books. It is however impossible to different angle of view - a wide angle; a normal fully appreciate and understand a film unless one angle; and a narrow angle or long focal length knows something about the technology of lens. The camera operator can change the focal filmmaking, because the meaning of a film and length and the composition of each shot by its technique are integrally related. How is what. simply changing from one lens to the other. Many students have very little or no under- A camera operator operating today would standing of film technology and this attempts to probebly have a zoom lens which has a variable address some of these problems by offering an focal length, and she/he could simply alter the introduction to the filmmaking process. focal length of the lens itself. Here, however, you Let us begin by examining this shot of the would have to change from one to the other and camera operator Len and his assistant Chris. Hereit would give you a variety of only 3 different Len is operating a Mitchell camera. We can kinds of shots. identify it as such because it has a magazine The camera lens focuses an image onto a strip which in profile looks like Mickey Mouse's ears. of film. Rim is simply a light sensitive material

It also has an offset viewfinder which means consisting of silver halide crystals (the emulsion) Agora 1 and 2 there's a certain amount of parallax error or coated onto a flexible base (celluloid). When light disparity between what the lens of the camera is allowed to fall onto the emulsion, the silver sees and what the operator sees through the halide crystals change chemically to metallic viewfinder. silver thus producing a latent image. Since film is Newsfront is meticulous about period detail and light sensitive it must be stored in the dark and the Mitchell would have been the kind of only when it passes behind the lens is light newsreel camera used at that time. Later on in theallowed to fall on it thus 'exposing' the film. film Len operates a different camera, an Arriflex The film stock starts off in a magazine chamber which is significantly different in that it has a and runs down through the camera travelling reflex system which enables the cameraman to behind the lens where it is exposed to light and see exactly what the lens is seeing and to frame then continues through the camera and is taken the picture accordingly. The Arriflex is also much up on the other side of the magazine where it is lighter and easier to operate (see figure 1 and 2). coiled onto a spool on the other side of the If we now look at the Mitchell we will see 3 magazine. Film travels through the camera in a

PART 111Woriing NI How APectla Works 95 staggered motion like that of a sewing machine, the iris of our eyes which opens up to allow more advancing by one frame at a time. light in or closes down when the light is very It moves at a speed of 24 frames per second bright. Our eyes also adjust automatically to which means that each frame is exposed to light different intensities of light in the same way. But for 1/48th of a second before moving on. This again the iris in a camera has to be set manually. staggered motion is accompanied by a system The camera operator usually has to measure the consisting of a shutter, claw and registration pin. intensity of the light and having done that sets The shutter is hemispherical and rotates behind the iris or the exposure on the lens, which is the lens in front of the film. The registration pin measured in f stops. enters the sprockets i.e. the punched holes on the In addition each lens has a different focal side of the film and holds the film steady while length which allows a wider or narrower view of the frame is being exposed. The shutter completesthe scene. A wide angle view gives the effect of a full rotation allowing light to fall on the film. looking through the wrong side of a telescope so l'he pin then retracts as the claw hooks into a that the object appears further away. A long focal sprocket and pulls the film down. length lens on the other hand allows the camera Each roll of film runs for about 10 minutes and operator only a narrow view of the scene and has when depleted the magazine must be changed. an effect similar to looking through a telescope This is what we see the assistant camera t,perator the right way, i.e. bringing the object closer. doing. He is taking the film out of the can By varying the angle of view then, the camera supplied by the manufacturer and transferring it operator is able to alter the different sizes of the to the magazine. He has to do this in a light-tight shot. If she/he chooses to film the subject using a place to ensure that the film is not prematurely wide angle lens he/she might be able to see the exposed. In the absena of a dark room on entire subject, which is called a long shot. By location he carries this out in a black bag. This is changing to another lens without moving the quite a difficult procedure because you can't see camera you might only be able to see the subject what you are doing and you have to do it by feel. from the waist up and this is called a mid shot. By And if you are under a lot of pressure from the changing to an even narrower lens, a longer focal camera operator to be fast it is quite easy to make length lens you might only see the subject's head a mistake. and shoulders, called a close up. In that way she/ Let us examine the lens again. The lens is he is able to vary the different sizes oi the shots. similar to the human eye in that it can focus. Your He/she can, of course, also move the camera in eye focuses automatically but the lens of a cameraa number of ways. By placing the camera on a has to be focused manually and focused on a trolley-like vehicle, called a dolly, the camera can partirular object depending on how far it is from be made to move through space. Usually the the camera. The camera operator can select what dolly is placed on tracks like railway tracks to to focus on and then 'pull' focus from one object ensure straight and smooth movements. Moving to another. the camera towards the filmed subject is called In addition to focusing, the lens has an iris like tracking in. To move away from the subject is

96 Me& mom in South Ahica 94 called tracking out. to establish a relationship between it and the Another way of moving the camera is to move subject: for example, by placing thecamera above it alongside the subject as she/he walks. The the subject, he/she usuallyappears more tracks would then be laid parallel to the path that vulnerable, or if placed below the subject looking the subject would move along. This is tnIcking up, the subject often appears dominant and with the subject. If the tracks are laid along the powerful. subject's path and the subject then walks towards The size of the shot also establishesa relation- the camera which moves hack maintaining the ship between viewer and subject Generally same distance between camera and subject, this is speaking, close-ups are more emotional and long called tracking back. Tracking is always associated shots normally more informative. But again, this with a movement through space providing the is only a general principle and dependsupon the viewer with a sense of depth. Tracking shotscan context in which the shot appears in the film. be used in a number of ways,for example, Let us now examine the sequence with the lyrically or to produce anxiety in the viewer. camera operators filming the new immigrants. There is, however, no inherent meaning in the Since they are filming inside the light levelsare shot and it depends on the context in whichit low and they have to supplement their lighting appears. with artificial lights. In thissequence Charlie, the The camera can also remain static with only its opposition camera operator, is able to sabotage head moving horizontally from right to leftor left Len's shot because the camera hasan offset to right. This we call panning. The cameracan panviewfinder. He would not have been ableto see from one object to another, While panning is what was happening in front of the lens because usually used to establish a relationship between what he sees of the scene through the viewfinder objects, to conned disparate elements ina scene, is different from what the lens sees. The differ- panning can also be used to stress the distance ence between these two views is termed the (emotional or otherwise) betweenone subject and parallax error. another. Again it depends on the context in We can also see that the assistantcamera which the shot appears. operator is recording sound on tape, reel to reel. The camera can also tilt by remaining static andThe sound is always kept separate from the simply lifting the camera headup or down along picture. It is only in the final stages of the a vertical axis. Shots like this are called tilts. BY filmmaking process that the sound and the placing the camera on a crane the wholecamera picture are fused together onto thesame piece of can a I so physically move up or down in space. film. The main reason for keei rg the two These kinds of shots are called craning shots. separate is because while the tammoves in a It is also possible to combine these shots: for staggered motion, the sound has to berun in a instance you can track, pan and tilt at thesame smooth manner. time or employ various combinations of these The only sound which is recorded while shots. filming is the dialogue. All background sounds, The camera can also be placed in sucha way as whether music or sound effects,are added later,

() PAC 11 *AN Cait }Jaw Media Works 97 I I ft .) From there Because the sound and the picture arekept which steps dr developing process. which fixes separate there needs to be somekind of system in the film is placed in another chemical the editing process to keep the pictureand the it, ensuring that the imageis a permanent one. delivered sound running simultaneously witheach other. When the film has been processed it is viewed by the producer. This is done very simply with aclapper Want The to the studio and is then dailies. The clapper board is placed in front ofthe subject to This is called viewing rushes or shots be photographed. The numbers written onit producer views them and decides which should be identify the sequence and these arecalled out andshould be in the newsreel and which are reconied on tape.The dapper board excluded. and Len clapped. The camera films this so that ithas a Moving onto the scene with Chris the two visual record of the scene while the taperecorder leaving AG's offict, the viewer can see which has a sound record of the sameinformation. The characters walking towards the camera number of clap and the scene are thereforerecorded both tracks with them down the passage. A and a focus visually and aurally. things occur in this shot - a track, a pan down An editing machine is able to playboth sound pull. The camera tracks with the characters them, and picture together by aligning thevisual clap the passage then stops and pans with leave with the aural clap. The sound and picture are allowing them to leave frame. As they from Chris then run together with the soundmatching its frame the focus shifts, by being pulled This focus pull equivalent picture. We call this running 'insync'. to the editor in the background. Chris to the An examination of the sequencewith Len and draws the audience's attention from anis running into the labs to deliverthe exposed editor who is busy Lulling film. film is film is useful to an understanding offilm Once the rushes have been viewed the taken to the editor who edits the material, processing. shots by The film has been taken out of the magazine constructing a narrative out of the beginning, a and returned to the manufacturer's (eg.Kodak's) imposing an order on it - giving it a selection of cans. This is also done inthe dark so that no middle and an end. This is based on a Nrwsfront, further light can fall on it. The exposedfilm is shots that the producer has made. In and now taken to the labs tobe processed. Since this isthe editor runs the film through a viewer film but newsreel material it is desirable to process it as cuts it. Today editors use splicers to cut in its quickly as possible. Film is usually processed then, (and here again Nei.,sfront is accurate overnight and then collected the following period detail), editors used scissors. then, morning. We see that he looks at the frames and full Dining processing the film is placed in a holding a piece of film, he stretches out the decided developer which does exactly what the exposure length of his arm (Aie figure 3). He has that he will cut in and he is to light did - it changes thesilver halide crystals on a particular shot that have been exposed to light to metallicsilver. now measuring thefilm to decide how long that The film is allowed to develop for a certainperiodshot is going to be. He measures about 6foot, in. He of time and then placed in anotherchemical twice the length of his arm, and he cuts it is a newsreel editor pressured by time andcannotoperates in practice by examining in some detail be meticulous but he is sufficiently experienced a few scenes in the film. In this way we will get to know how long this shot lasts on screen. We some idea of how a director construcrs a filmic too can work this out easily - if 35 inm film runs sequence. at 90 feet a minute, then 6 feet of that would be I shall consider the dance scene in the film. about 4 seconds of screen time. This sequence is made up 3 different kinds of The camera tracks back slightly andwe can see shots: firstly shots of the singer, secondly shots of the sound editor at work. We hear dialogue beingthe crowd dancing, and thirdly shots of the played backwards. The sound editorruns the principal actors. All of these shotsare edited picture and sound through a synchroniser and he together by the editor to form a coherentnarra- is then able to build up a number of sound tracks tive sequence. perfectly in sync with the pitture. One trackmay It is important to let students know thata scene contain only dialogue, another music, anda third like this is not shot in script order butwas later sound effects. He edits in the appropriate sound edited into the order that appearson the screen. to match the picture the editor has already cut. Rather, the director would have broken it down Once this has been completed, the only sound and first filmed a number of shots of the band still to be added is the Voice Over Commentary. playing. Having done that he, in all likelihood, This is done during mixing. Also at this time all would then have shot a number of shots of the the sound tracks are mixed together ontoone crowd dancing and eating, in either long shotor master sound track. close up. Finally he would then have shot the In this sequence the viewer might notice that principal actors. the narrator is sitting in a sound-proof booth. The In tackling the last elements tracks would have film is projected onto thescreen (figure 4) and thebeen laid across the room and thecamera placed sound that the narrator delivers is recorded on a dolly. The first tracking shot starts on Chris directly onto the soundtrack insync with the (figure 6), tracks with him and then pansacross picture. The producer cues the narrator (figure 5) to look at the girls (figure 7) and then pans and and the light comes on for him to talk. The sound tracks further to take in the girl standing aloneon mixer has a number of knobs, each one control- the side (figure 8). Then Chrisenters frame ling the volume on a different sound track. While (figure 9). What is interesting about the shot is the picture runs the sound mixer sets the volume that it starts off as an objective shot and then on each track and then mixes them all on to one becomes slightly subjective as we see his point of master. This is delivered to the labs who produce view. Then when he walks back into the shot it a final print which has the picture and the sound once again becomes objective. Rpm 6, 7, 8 and 9 running alongside it. This then is the final print Once he has asked her to dance they leave that is sent to the theatres and viewed by frame on the left. Filming would have stoppedat audiences. this point and resumed as they enter frame again, Now that we have examined the technology let using the same tracks as they danceacross the us move on to explore how the technology room. Extras are allowed to walk into frame.

PART NI Wofking Dui How Maio Wolis 99 Then when they stop dancing, Chris and Ellie with travel, distance, the loneliness of the night, move back down the roomtalking while the etc. along mmera tracks with them(figure 10). It is essen- The wedding sequence is constructed tially simple, but edited together this scene similar lines to the Redex dance sequence. Let dancing. appears complex. Shots ofthe band, shots of the look at it from the point where they start crowd and shots of tae principal actors are all cut The camera is again on a dolly (here onrubber together in a coherent narrative sequence that wheels rather than on tracks). The sequence starts tracks with them across appears seamless. on an unknown couple, This is followed by the scene of Chris and Ellie the hall and allows Len to come into frame.The in bed together. It is a very simple scenemade up action is carefully choreographed to allow of only three shots. Firstly a mid-shot of the Charlie to enter frame. The camera panswith him characters in bed, then a closer shot from a and then starts tracking gently across to theleft to different angle and then a long shot of them. The pick up Chris and Ellie. They talk for a whileand mid-shot is fairly informative and neutral and the the camera tracks back with them into the centre editor cuts closer to them as the conversation of the room. Len then comes back into frameand becomes more intimate. The audience is cued to starts walking down the roomwhile the camera for pay attention becauseof the cutting to a closer tracks, moving along with him. He asks Amy shot, Finally the cut to the long shot distances us a dance (figure 11)and they leave frame. The from the scene and the characters and therefore camera holds on acharacter and then the focus is prepares us for the next sequence. pulled from him to Len's ex-wife (figure 12). The Although it is simple the soundtrack is rich. shot is complex sInd made up of tracking, Students should be reminded too that this scene panning and focus pulling. The audience is would have been sbot in a studio in a constructed immediately made aware of something happen- set. The walls are cardboard flatsand not real. A ing between Amy and Len by virtue oftheir large crew would be watching the action despite performances and more forcefully by the focus the appearance of intimacy. The reality is a pull. We are cued to see that something is constructed reality. The only sound recorded is happening that affects or interests the ex-wife the sound of their voiceti. But we hear twoother and that is 'about' Len and Amy. sounds on the soundtrack, added later by the The scene cuts to Len and Amv dancing(figure sound editor. These are cricket noises and the 13) and then cuts back to the ex-wife. Her gaze or sound of a train whistle. These soundtracks look directs our attention to what is happening contribute to the atmosphere and verisimilitude. between Len and Amy. also ensures that The sound of the train (which presumably the slower members of the audience grasp what figures 10, 11, 12 and 13 sound editor thought about very carefully) adds more sophisticated viewersalready know). The richness to the sequence. This scene and the entirecamera is static at this moment asthey dance film is in fact about loss of innocence, and it before us and move closer till they are right in seems to me that the trainsound is evocative of front of the camera. They look at each (aher and this loss of innocence because of its association move away, the camera trackingwith them to a

1 00 Maio MattersInSou+ Africa 9 5; secluded spot. angle shot of a flooded city. This of COMM is The music changes now, through a cross fade. authentic newsreel footage of the period. We can The source music fades out while theme music see that throughout the sequence real footage is fades in. (In other words we move from diegetic going to be cut in with acted or constructed to non-diegetic sound.) The naturalistic music is action. After the sequence where he leaves the replaced by the music of their making, music in church hall we are presented with period footage their heads, music that they compose or con- in which you see a number of men rowing down struct. In other words we move from 'reality' to a a main street battling against the current (figure 'poetic reality'. The real world of the other 15). We cut to Chris ostensibly rowing down a characters dancing behind them is still there for main street of a town in flood. If the viewer looks us to see slightly out of focus and clearly periph- carefully she/he will notice that the colour does eral, irrelevant to Len and Amy. not quite match, but the method attempts to In the flood sequence the film moves from authenticate Chris's place in history. He seems to colour back to black and white. The use of colour be really there. Then we witness his deathas he in Newsfrunt seems to me to be employed succumbs to the waters. opportunistically and pragmatically. Whena I have not dealt with the complex question of fra,4' 74'111"" sequence is in black and white it is usually the relationship between technology and figure 14 and 15 because real newsreel footage will be edited into meaning but have simply attempted to give an the sequence. This creates the illusion that the introduction to film technology and theprocesses characters are really there, present during events by which films are constructed. Thismay seem to that really happen. J. be a limited goal but is one which I consider to be Let us start with Chris being awakened by the important to students encountering film studies phone. He goes down the stairs and climbs into fcr the first time. gi the boat. It is important once again to remind students that this is a constructed reality. A flood has not really taken place and this is nota flooded city, it has been constructed. The shot where Chris rows his boat outside was filmedon a lake and the buildings have been specially constructed out of cardboard and then dropped into the water. The doors through which he moves are also constructed doors and function in a number of ways (figure 14). Firstly they give a sense of space and depth to the shot giving the illusion of a real city and secondly by blocking off the sides like this the size of the set and number of flats can be reduced. Chris rows dcwn the river and we cut to a high

PART HI Working Out tew Melo Works 101 IPart IV

Creating New Possibilities for Media Awareness

The chapters that form this part entitled Creating New Possibilities for Media Awareness are divided into two subsections in terms of the media forms they consider, firstly fihnic and televisual forms, and secondly print media. What this set of contributions have incommon is their intention to develop critical tools or approaches for teaching that can be applied to categories of media and can be adapted and inform teaching practice. These authors employ theoretal ideas developed in disciplines as diverseas linguistics, psychology or sociology as tools in order to develop critical and analytic skills. They avoid a prescriptive approach to any media text and incorporate popular culture as deserving our attention. In the section that considers filmic and televisual media, Basckinproposes certain concepts and points of view to facilitate a critical discoufse on television. He refers to selected psychoanalytic conceptsas potentially useful for this critical discourse. In a different vein, Higgins reacts againsta particular approach to film, which he sees as characterized by that offered by Chapman, as a refusal to deal with the specificity of film, of fihnas a specific signifying practice. Premised on Metz's dictum that 'It's because film iseasy to understand that it's difficult to explain', Higgins proceeds to advance an extremely thorough and concise overview of critical cinema. This valuable summation outlines the major debates surrounding the question of realism

r. I PART W Creating New Pasebilines for Mein) Awareness 103 and representation that have raged among film theoristssporadically since film theorist Bazin and Italian Neo-Realism (towardsthe end of World War ID. Higgins' concern with representation spreads tothat which has been described as Third Cinema, (see the chapterby Maingard) with a caution that images produced by oppressed need notbe liberating or empowering. Chapman's responseto Higgins' criticism offers readers the opportunity to consider their positions which clearlydeserve fuller articulation. In contrast to this filmic approach, Ashworth arguesthat the use of principles of mainlanguage teaLhing should inform the teaching of Media Education. Ashworth deals with representations, movingfrom single images through to filmic representations. Her work dealswith unpicking a discourse, and simultaneously exposing themanipulation of the viewer's sympathy. Media's use of realism, initiated in Higgins' chapter, forms apartial focus of Prinsloo's paper where considerations of narrative andrealism are considered as a possible entry into encouraging critical understandingoc film, televisual and diverse media. Prinsloo suggests using structuralism as an accessible and enjoyable entryinto narrative that will draw on the students' existing knowledge. Implications of narrative elements canthen be identified and developed to levels of sophistication appropriate tothe group. Jordan extends narrativeideas into genre when she delivers an account of her initiative in the area of the horror genre,considering both audience and challenges to the genre. Willoughby in turn offers a laudable and thorough study of the 'kiddie' in local advertising. He advances arguments on different levels of enquiry and considers those matters theoretical and contextual which also relate to powerand to

104 Mei* Molten in South Africo 1P1 pleasure. This section concludes with contributions by Marx and Sey, demonstrating sophisticated understandings of popular cultureand filmic theory relevint to rigorous study in highereducation. Moving to the next block of articles dealing with print mediaspecifically, Bertelsen offers an exciting approach to teaching about thenews whereby news as story telling and news as a prime site of cultural/discursive conflict are encountered. Gillwald considersa methodology for approaching the issues of realism and the representations ofgender wherein the intention is to provide students with the invisibleaspects of media production so theyare able to penetrate, intervene and challenge them. Emdon offers a detailed chapter whichpresents a method for readers to analyse information published bynewspapers. His specific focus and examples relate to thenewspaper coverage of the Natal conflict. His encompassing approach contextualizes thepress institutions by examining ownership, staffing andni.ws practices of the Natal press, develops a critique of 'news' andnews pictures, examines the different sorts of coverage offered, as well as evaluates journalisticnorms. Adendorff discusses newspaper cartoonsas complex forms of interactions that presuppose considerable backgroundknowledge on the part of the readers. Using concrete examples, he stresses theinteraction that must occur between the cartoonist and the reader for meaning to be conveyed.

PART IVCreat In9 New Possiijitres 6 *fin Awareness 105

IN Trust me. I'm a Sceptic.

David Basckin

In this paper, I propose some techniques for short, the purpose of this paper is to provide dealing with propaganda, especially in terms of some ways of thinking about the media so that state broadcasting and television. None of them isthe passivity which is inherent to the television new, but their combination offers the viewer or viewers' role is not only undermined, but listener a pragmatic battery of self-directed truth- undermined by the viewers themselves. determining methods. By way of introduction, let It is something of a truism that st3te media me list the topics with which I shall deal: firstly, I serve the interests of those in power. The will discuss Freud's concept of manifest and hegemonic control of television in South Africa latent content. While in its original ferm this by the central government, has been a continuous concept refers to the interpretation of dreams, in feature since the late introduction of television to this paper I will examine the usefulness of this country in the mid nineteen seventies. While transferring it to the interpretation of media. it has been argt.ed that every single aspect of the Expanding the point, I will also comment on the SABC's programming serves ideological and usefulness - or otherwise - of applying classical propagandistic ends, let it be sufficient for the psychoanalytic concepts to the study of media. purposes of this paper to focus on the news Secondly, I will talk about ideology and what this programmes of which Network is the main may mean in the current situation. Thirdly, I will example. The ruling group in South Africa has turn to systematic doubt or scepticism, arguing innever been comfortable with dissenting views. favour of its practice by those on the receiving Consequently, the systematic conflation of news end of the media. Fourthly, and perhaps finally, I and commentary has been the dominant mode of will review the Foucauldian distinction between informatior presentation on the SABC. The knowledge and power, during which I will importance with which this was held by the State labour the point that truth and power are seldom,is underlined by its insistence on 0 television if ever, the same thing. The paper concludes with news monopoly. Until very recently, the charter a summary in which the various ideas are under which M-Net was allowed to broadcast, synthesised into a coherent and pragmatic expressedly forbade the presentation of news, so package. It is hoped that the package of critical ensuring that the only television news that tools that results will allow people to marshal reached the mass audience, had been projected their critical abilities in the face of the media through the very special truth filters of Auckland onslaught, so ensuring that they remain in Park. Under PW Botha, the control of the SABC control of their own ideas, values and feelings. In was singularly and crudely one-sided. But since

P A R T W Creating New Pouhlities for Meao Awareness 107 1 3 February this year, a certain loosening up has from Freud's inteipretation of dreams is of use in been experienced. Suddenly the media demons ofthis context. Freud distinguished between the the past are not only quoted on Network, but are manifest dream - the series of events that made even welcome on chat shows to put theiranti- up the dream as the dreamer recallsit; and the Pretoria, anti-apartheid, anti-police, anti-army, latent dream - the series of unconscious associa- anti-emergency, anti-capitalism points of view. tions and symbols that provide the meaning of Some commentators in the print media have the dream. Freud's interest in dreams lay welcomed this as a sign of incipient democracy. exclusively in his belief that they provide a But is this necessarily the case? What happens in partial gateway to the unconscious. The uncon- the editing room? How complete - or contextuallyscious is that part of the mind which contains accurate - are the televised statements of repressed memories and the surging instinctual Pretoria's recently unbanned enemies? forces of sexuality and aggression. The struggle Moving along the speculative trail now, what ison the part of the repressedmaterial to become going to appear on our television screens when conscious is resisted by the unconscious. Never- the transfer of political power has taken place? theless, repressed material makes itself conscious Only a cynk will expect it to be worse. And only via devious channels. One of the channels is the Polyanna will expect it to be better. But will the dream. However, such is the power of the truth content necessarily be any higher than we unconscious that the meaning of the dream is experience at the moment? Apart from hope and obscured to the dreamer, requiring the interpola- faith, what intellectual tools do we - the televisiontion of the analyst as hermeneut to achieve watching masses - have to interpret the real realization. Part of the hermeneutic skill lies in meaning of the information provided by the the insight that the latent part of the dream is broadcasting authorities not only now, but in the considerably larger in content and denser in near future? It is a truism that ideologyand truth meaning than the narrative flow that makes up are not necessarily identical. ConstNuently,when the manifest dream. Consequently, it can be the change in power comes, with it will come a argued that the same structures - manifest and new dominant ideology - an ideologythat will be latent apply to the media. propagated by the State controlled media. The news story as broadcast can be seen in Before discussing Freud's concept of manifest terms of its manifest content, which is not only and latent content, let me emphasise as strongly the way many viewers see it, but is also just the as I can that attempts to imposepsychoanalytic way the broadcasters intend it to be seen.But for concepts onto the interpretation of the media are the critical viewer, questions about the latent misguided. A dream is an intrapsychic creation content need to be addressed. What has been left with a meaning unique to the dreamer. In polar out of the story? liow has the sequence of the contrast, the media are social constructions with narrative been juggled? Whose interests are purposes shared by those who control or contrib- served by the story being broadcast? And whose ute to them. Nevertheless, with this proviso interests are denied by the very same process? clearly understood, let me say that one concept What symbolic associations have the producer

108 Med* Slaters m Sourh Ainco 1C4 and interviewer inserted into the visual imagery? Consequently, it is clear that the media - and How is language selected to create a specific set State-run television in particular - provide the of feelings in the hearts and bellies of the view- mass audience with the appearance of truth, and ers? not with truth itself. Despite the apparent It is concepts like this that make up the latent concreteness of the television image, it remains at part of the radio broadcast, television episode or all times a social construction, informed by the newspaper story. And it is to the latent part that dogma of the ruling caste. So that we, the the minds of critical readers and viewers must audience, can retain rur democratic righis to direct themselves. criticism, this paper urges the practice of scep:i- Next, why scepticism? Scepticism is an cism to ensure our escape from the passivity ma important tool of rationality. It is reason's defencesocial isolation that television-watching so against dogma. While not quite the same concept, frequently imposes. ideology and dogma share some important characteristics. One could argue that dogma is References the closed set of opinions that pertain to the Freud, S. The interpretation of Dreams, Standard Edition, Vol. 3, holders of an ideology. When the locus of Hogarth Press, London 1953. political power shifts, ideologies change too. Not Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, that any ideologies necessarily mirror the truth, Vintage Books, New York 1979. but their opposition to each other imbues them with an emotional validity sustained by the iniuries endured by the powerless under the previous political dispensation. It follows that compensatory mechanisms come into play, designed to rectify the false dogma of the past regime by relentless exposure to the received truths of the new. Such truth-mongering becomes the dominant function of State-run media regardless of whom is in power. And it is against such received truth or truths that systematic scepticism offers its protection. As Foucault has noted, there is no linear relationship between truth and power. To simplify his position, one could say that truth and knowledge become abstracted by rulers to concretize their hold on power. While Foucault has used medicine, psychiatry and penology as bases for his ideas, it requires very little effort to extrapolate his point of view to the media.

I t 5 PART W Crewing New Possb4thes For Media Awofeness109 Critical anent. & the Reality of Reflection

John Higgins

It's because film is easy to understand that it's diffi- and the relations of patronage through advertis- cult to explain. (Metz 1983. pp. 74) ing between the newspapers and distribution companies. The status of the reviewer is usually reduced to that of the imaginary 'common Film is all too easy to understand. We usually sec viewer', thus inhibiting the potentially educative it and understand it immediately, all too immedi- and critical role that discussion of film can fulfill. ately. It cuts off, in its usual duration of an hour A second form - and one widely variable in its seriousness and interest - we can broadly Lail film and a half and in the usual conditions of public screening, any space for response. When we go to history: the history of the cinema as industry, of the cinema we can't stop the film, we can't say its teehnology, of its stars, of its major companies, 'Hang on, I want to see that bit again', we are from coffee-table book to academic monograph, taken in by the film, we watch it through. It's easyfrom part of the publicity machine to contribu- to understand from that position, from that tions to the factual basis for a historical and uninterrupted experience. However, when we critical appraisal of cinema. begin to analyse film, and take some critical Such studies can be both valuable and interest- distance from that usual experience, then film ing, but their concern with a history of facts about becomes difficult to explain, difficult to find a the cinema tends to exclude from the outset any way of explaining. And an important component questions concerning the analysis, understanding of that difficulty for the understanding of film is and interpretation of either film as a whole or the absolute necessity to slow it down, to see it particular filmic narratives. It is the concern with again and again, to analyse it and to analyse it issues of interpretation and analysis which forms before we begin our attempt at explaining it, our the object of the third, and newly emergent, form attempt to interpret a particular film. of discourse on film. This third form is then the Discussion and analysis of film exist in at least theoretical analysis of film as a specific signifying three major forms. The first, and the most practice, the practice of film interpretation; and it common, is simply the practice of casual film is with that third relatively new form that I shall reviewing: something we can read every day in be concerned today. And I believe that we should the newspapers, and in the weekly and glossy make this third form a focal point for our press. As a form of analysis, it is severely re- discussions at this conference. stricted by its almost total reliance on the pre- Film is easy to understand, but it's difficult to publicity provided by the cinema industry itself, explain. One of the ways of understanding film,

110 Matters in Sou+ Africo but refusing to explain it, refusing to interpret it, precisely not to read tLni. Thus for all Professor is to treat it as it was treated yesterday by Chapman's insistence on reading 'all the signs', I Professor Chapman: to treat it as analogous to a would submit that his analysis of the film lower form of literature, as mass entertainment, Running un Empty was disabled by a refusal to as something that can be discussed within the actually read the text of the film. His assertions confines of a theatrical genre melodrama or concerning the 'meaning' of the film finally farce. To begOn your discussion of film by putting remained unsupported by any real textual it into literary categories is to refuse to analyse evidence. It remained a 'reading' which belongs the specificity of film itself, is to remain on that in the category of an 'easy understanding'. level of an easy understanding and to refuse to In this paper, I have two broad aims in mind. move towards the difficulties of explaining film, The first is to give a demonstration of film of interpreting film. It was a refusal which was all interpretation in practice, an attempt to move the more shocking given Chapman's apparent from that easy understanding to the specific commitment to 'reading ail the signs'. To read thedifficulties of explaining the generation of signs of cinema, it is necessary to accept film as a meanings in film, deploying some of the bask specific rignifying practice, which means for a concepts of this new mode of analysis; and the start accepting that film is not the novel, is not second is to offer a bnef account of the emer- theatre, is rot painting, and cannot be assimilated gence of this new practice of film interpretation to them. in the move away from what I shall call the naive Chapman suggested that 'It doesn't matter if realist view of film which belongs to its prehis- you haven't seen the film'. I think it does matter tory towards a critical account of cinema as whether you have seen the film, and mattws evensignifying practice. more exactly how you have seen the film, whether you see it from the position of an easy From Prolisistory to Ilistogy understanding, a reductive analysis, or whether The analysis and interpretation of film has made you try and cope with that difficulty, the specific an extraordinary shift in the past twenty-five difficulties of explaining the film text, of slowing years or so - and this conference in Durban helps down its operations enough to read how that text to mark that shift. It can be described as a move is constructed. 10 read film in terms of a content from the prehistory to the history of film analy- analysis is ultimately to reduce it to the repetition sis. I borrow the terms the French tradition in the of an example of bourgeois ideology, a repetition history of science (so distinct from the Anglo- no less vitiating in its political consequences than American tradition) represented by the work of the liberal humanist reduction in which all texts Georges Canguilhem and Gaston Bachelard, and, beeline the expression of universal values. All perhaps most notoriously, by Louis Althusser. texts can equally be read as the expression of a Bachelard distinguishes between scientific universal and unchanging human nature and its knowledge and what he refers to as values, or an unchanging ideology of oppression; 'connaissance commune' - commonsense but to read them in that way, I would argue, is knowledge. For Baclwlard and Althusser,

a*, FART IV C N ew Possibilities foi Medic Awoleness 111 1t. scientific knowledge and commonsense knowl- Where might we locate the point of 'epistemo- edge are totally and necessarily distinct. A logical rupture'? What is crucial here is exactly 'science' is founded at the moment when an how film for the analyst becomes an object of 'epistemological break' occurs; this 'epistemologi-knowledge distinct from film as the object of cal break' creates a new object for thought, commonsense understanding. This distinction scientific because it corresponds to and is bears most heavily on the question of the realism produced by a coherent set of theoretical con- of P-.e film medium itself, on the acceptance or cepts. This essentially rationalist (as opposed to denial of the quasi-ontological realism of the the Anglo-American empiricist) notion of science filmic medium. locates scientificity in the concept of the object of thought. What is it that effectively divides off the Things are Therm Naive Realism commonsense understanding of film from its Two remarks by two equally eminent film- 'scientific' conceptualisation? makers can serve as the slogan for, and as One way of understanding this distinction is to introduction to, the paradigm or problematic refer to the different positions adopted by the which I shall qualify as the 'prehistory' of film ordinary spectator of film and the film analyst. analysis, a prehistory in which there is no Christian Metz (l983 pp. 56) has written of these distance between the ordinary spectator and the as parallel positions. The spectator's reading ot a film analyst. The first is a remark made by the film is concerned above all to 'make sense' of that Italian 'neo-realisf director, Roberto Rossellini in film - to achieve the position of understanding an interview given in 1959. 'Les choses sont là,' which the film narrative attempts to inscribe for remarked Rossellini, 'pourquoi les mampuler?' the spectator. The analyst's reading of a film is a (cit Metz, 1971, pp. 49), which I shall translate meta-reading; it is concerned primarily with the and amplify as Things are simply there; wh',' understanding and analysis of that inscription. should we need to manipulate them?' The r:-.;1ra The film analyst (or film semiologist, in Met/s - the whole apparatus of cinema - is seen as a terms) attempts to understand how the film is neutral medium of transmission, the camera understood; how the film seeks to position the simply records what is there. The best cint ma is spectator so that the film can be understood. that which refuses to do anything else. Again, in While the spectator reads the narrative of the another significant amplification of that position, film, the analyst reads its narration, its address, the Italian director, Pier Paulo Pasolioi asserts: its construction of that narrative which is 'The ciaema is a larguagt which expresses reality entertained by and which entertains the specta- with reality.' (Cit. Heath 1981a pp. 10h) But it is tor. The history of film analysis proper begins worth quoting in full the passage from which when its object becomes that process of narration. Pasolini's remark is drawn: Tills shift in the position of the reader tif the film from spectator to analyst clearly involves a By studying the cinema as a system of .igns. I came to the conclusion that it is a non-conventional and significant change in the object of analysis. What non-symbolic language unlike the written or spoken are the conceptual implications of this tihift?

n2Maim Moen mSouth Aim languageand expresses reality not through symbols put their faith in the image and those who put but via reality itself; if I want to express that tree I their faith in reality'. express it through itself. The cinema is a lansuage The former use the re- whidi expresses reality with reality. So the question sources of montage in onier to 'impose Itheir) is; what is the difference between rcinema and interpretation of an event on the spectator' while reality? Practically none. I realised that the cinema is for the latter for instance Stroheim- reality a system of signs whose semiology corresponds to simply 'lays itself bare'. For Balm, the most possible semiology of the system of signs of reality itself. So the cinema foned me to remain always at important event in the evolution of the language the level of reality, right inside reality-. when I make of cinema was the adven: of deep focus. For a film I am always in reality, among the trees and Bazin, deep focus vir+"y abolishes any among p..-firle...there is no symbolic or conventional distinction between film and reality; it en!Ps filter between meand reality, as there is in literature. So in practice the cinema was an explosion ofmy the language of cinema to achievea total trans- love for reality. parency, and therefore allows to the spectator a complet., freedom of interpretation and complete One reading of this passage places it squarely resistance to any imposition of an interpretation on the side of Rossellini's naive empiricism: 'if I by the giirector. w3nt to express that tree I express it thmugh In his praise of American director William itself' - it is as if there were no distan:e between Wyler's use of deep focus, Bazin insists: the filmic image of the tree dnci the tree itself; the With the help of deep focus...the spectatornas the cinematic 'sign' is so close to the real object itself possibility himself of the final operation of that there is practically no difference between the decoupage...WilliamWyler'sdeep focus endeavours cinema and reality. In practice, 'the cinemawas to be liber-.; and democratic like the consciousness an explosion of my love for reality'; 'when I make of the American spectator and the heroes of the film. a film I am always in reality, among the trees and (Bazin 1980, pp. 44) among people...there is no symbolic or conven- In Bazin's account, if the cinema is to beseen as tional filter between me and reality'. a language, it is a language which (as Pasolini It is indeed on the question of this 'symbolicor suggests) is much more transparent muchmore conventional filter' that the naive realists of the simply instrumental than ordinary languageor prehistory of film analysis agree. Whatconcerns literary language. It is a language purged, ideally them most of all is, in fact, the question of at least, of all rhetorical and persuasive effects; ideology. Film is prized because itseems to be and that purging is precisely its value. able to resist ideology and it is around the And yet, let us complete a quotation already question of the ideological implications of cited. Bazin described the work of 'those who put montage that the naive realists define themselves. their faith in reality' as giving us film in which Perhaps the foremost exponent of these views 'reality lays itself bare'- and now we finish the was the French film critic, Andre Bazin. quotation - 'lays itself bare like a subject confess- Bazin, in his famous essay, 'The Evolution of ing under the relentless examining of the the Language of Cinema' (Bazin 1967), begins commissioner of police'. Isn't there perhaps here with a distinction between 'those directors who a trace of violence, of coercion and intimidation-

I FARM Creating NeW Possibilities lot Matta Awareness 113 apprehenc even if legalised - in theemphasis of the phrase To allow that reality itself may be 'relentless'? And, above all, isn't there a presump-through a system of signs which asemiology apprehen- tion that the subject here is guilty, andthe might interpret and analyse - that our through the commissioner of police knows the huthof that sion of reality might only be possible subject, apprehends the subject through his net of signs - brings back intoplay the very apprehensions of the guilt of the subject? Isn'tthe 'conventional filter' which Pasolini was so commissioner of police the one whim discourse insistent on removing or denying. And inthis decides the truth? Isn't he the one who knows? context, we can see that Bazhi'shomage to Perhaps these doubts can be better expressedif American democracy is, of course, itself an of we pause to examine afurther statement of ideological gesture - the common equation Bazin's, also from the essay on WilliamWyler: liberal ideology with the absence of ideology. We might even say that there are twofunda- To produce the truth, to show the reality,all the reality, nothing but the reality is perhaps an mental questions of cinema: the question of honourable intention, but stated in that way, it is no realism, and the question of ideology, andthat more than a moral preceptIn the cinema there can these two questions are profoundlyrelated. The only be a representaticm of reality. The aesthetic significant shift from 'prehistory' to 'history' is problem begins with the means of this representa- from the idea and the defence of cinema as an tion. (Bazin 1980, pp. 41) almost ontologically realist medium, tothe This, of course, complicates the problem question of how cinema achieves such apowerful considerably - indeed, allows for there to be a effect of realism. That such an effect is anillusion, problem. For OUT purposes, we can revise thisandand therefore always a question of the'manipula- say that the political problembegins with just thistion' or positioning of the spectator is aknowl- question of representation. edge which the naive realist position sought to And to seize that problem more securely, we deny and to repress; but one which, as we have can now turn back to asecond reading of the seen, constantly returns tohaunt even the naive passage taken from Pasolini.Now we might realist theory of a Pasolini or a Bazin. Bazin's own notice a second, again complicating andcompli- remark, that in the cinema 'there can only be a cated, series of emphases in Pasolini's argument. representation of reality', helps then tolocate the For while Pasolini stressed that there was break with the commonsense definition offilm, practically no difference between reality andand and with the prehistory of film analysis. the cinema, we still have to assess the forceof that The naive realist position has then in a sense to 'practically none' and here we notice that a more deconstruct. Cinema doesn't express reality with nuanced argument is put, though it is rather reality, in cinema there can only be a representa- denied by most of what the passage is saying. tion of reality and until we begin tounderstand Pasolini continues: the means of that representation we cannotbegin to cope with the politics of the image.And here 1 realised that the cMema is a system of signswhose semiology corresponds to a possible semioloiyof I'd like to raise one or two questions concerning signs of reality itself. community video in response to the very

114 Mato Mews in kluitt Africa interesting paper given by Jacqueline Maingard redistribute access to the means of representa- yesterday. (Maingard, 1991) tion? I'm not sure. But in order to do Ithat we Community video attempts to empower those must raise that question of the politics of who do not have access to images. It speaks in representation, and not ignore it and to this end I the name of the repressed authenticity of their think we need to focus on another term besides experience. But I would like to pose a question that of 'third cinema'. That term is critical about this authenticity, havingseen some of the cinema. exceipts from videos yesterday. The question is: It was intemsting to see in the presentation But what if the oppressed also tend to think in yesterday that the name and the work of the the images of their own oppression, tend tosee Swiss film-maker Jean-Luc Godard was relegated themselves through the oppressor's eye? How to to the category of second cinema, the cinema can an authentic representation be created? of the author, the cinema of the artist, with all the Perhaps I can borrow an example from bourgeois self-indulgence such a classification discussion with FAWO's guest, Martha Rosier. implies. For me, this is not a classification Ican The problem of representation which Iam trying completely accept Godard is of course a great to articulate can I think be seen from this ex- artist, and his work has been self-indulgent at ample. How can one take a photograph- an times; but l believe that his work has also been authentic photograph- of life in a township? One concerned, perhaps more than that ofany other problem becomes immediately clear- to take a film-maker of his generation, with an attention to photograph, to represent reality, to put it ina the politics of the image without whicha critical frame, is usually to aestheticise reality, to and politically progressive cinema cannot beautify it. It's virtually impossible to takea develop. Godard's work has attempted to photograph which doesn't just look pretty. Even articulate and to embody a response to the naive the lake of stagnant water in a township,once realist positions which we have examinedso far, photographed, glistens with an aesthetic beauty. and I should like now to turn to a few critical What image could be taken which wouldexpress quotations drawn from that work. the authentic experience of township life? The point I am trying to make is that it isn't The Reality of Reflection easy to represent the reality of apartheid. It's not The first is taken from the film Vent cr&t: as simple as handing over the camera to the Ce oppressed and saying, Look, things pas une image f.Iste, c'est juste une image - are there, just This is not a just image, irs just an image, you take pictures of what you see. There is a whole work in relation to existing systems of or, more fully, representation which needs to be done, and This is not a correct image, irs only an image; perhaps even needs to be done first. Or that is the question I want to raise. Are we evennear to the second, beginning to understand how we could begin to Cinema is not the reflection of reality, but the reality contest the system of repref2ntation as well as to of that reflection.

lii PART IV Creating New Passaieies ior Necho Awareres 115 The first challenges that naive realist assumption someone is always addressingthe spectator, that that the image itself can stand alone as true, as a film analysis as such can take place. Central to correct image. To assert on the contrarythat an this has been the abandonment of thesearch of a image is only an image, just an image, is to singular syntax of film as if it were one language; promote a scepticism in relation to the image, to and the concentration on the multiplicityof film's what it shows, to what it tells - and ultimately to signifying effects. And this has involved a turn encourage a move into the analysisand precisely to what rasolini hinted at: the ways in intepretation of what it is that the image wishes which film in fact relies on the availability ofthe to show or to tell, with the ,nnphasis now onthe existing means of representing reality.If the telling, on the construction of meaning. The 'language of film' appeared to be transparent, reality of that reflection then refen in full to all this transparency was in part generated bythe the ideological implications of that telling, of that fact that film makes use of a range of existing construction of meaning and thus leads to a third means of expression which are sofamiliar to us point Godard is keen to make: that we are blind to their operation in film. The most dangerous images are those which In every image we must know whospeaks. appear to be the most transparent,the most (MacCab.., VW, pp. 111-112). realistic and I return nOw to my opening com- Thic, insistence on knowing v ho speaks can be ment (see Higgins 1990). It is thetremendous read as a rejection of the transparency of 'film power of the film image that we mustseek as film language', even the possibility of such a transpar- educators to combat, and we can do that firstof ency and neutrality; andforegrounds instead the all by slowing down our viewing in order to necessarily rhetorical aspects of film: its constant understand the tremendous realistic power of desire to position the spectator, to persuade the cinema as an effect. We ii,Jst understandhow spectator to accept the cohesion of the film's that effect is generated and I'd like to turn now to narrative, to inscribe the spectator into the a practical exampleof how in fact that powerful meanings which the film offers. Godard's own narrative realism is generated through the practice constantly seeks to dislocate that deployment of film's five means of expression. positioning, to reject that inscription, by revealing the processes of that positioning and inscription, Moons Of ExproiSion ly foregrounding the rhetorical force of film. It is,We now number five basic means of expression in that sense, a critical cinema, a cinema which available in recorded noise, recorded musical performs some of the same operations as the film sound, and writing. Although these have to be analyst. It is a cinema which attempts to place theseparated out for analysis in an initial moment, spectator in the position of the critic by refusing the aim of analysis should be to examine their the commonsense position and all its attendant integrated impact. pleasures. The first of these, and the most striking, is the Only when there is such an insistence on the moving photographic image. Projected at twenty- address of film, on its rhetoric, on the fact that four frames per second, the film image - larger

116 Nara Mailers irt South Airico 112 than life - can give an extraordinary seitse of attention to its meaning, reconfirming them, reality - as the audiences to the first Mk has films over-determining them. So that the powerful remarked, startled, 'even the leaves move'. On effect of realism which film achieves must never this level of analysis, such features as the type of be taken as simply a constituent element of the shot (close-up, medium shot, long-distance or medium itself - film's natural possession, its panoramic shot), its place in a sequence (as essential attribute, a part of its ontological being- beginning or end, as repetition), all havea but always as the construction of this effect, its signifying force (which I shall bring out in positioning of ourselves as spectators of the film. analysis of the sequence from The Shining). We can view the success of that spectatorship The second is recorded phonetic sound- the as dependent, in a certain sense, on our memory dialogue or narration. Literary studentsmay of the film. And as Stephen Heath has remarked, often focus on the content of what is said, rather 'Without narrative, the memory of a film fails us' than the total context in which something is said (1981d, pp. 171). The task of the film is to not let (to woni, how it is angled, etc...). us forget the direction of its movement, to secure The third - and often neglected- element is us in and through its movement in time, its recorded noise. This is usually relegated to flickering. Just as the 24 frames a second enables simply a support for the realist effect of film our vision to constitute continuity through (doors slamming, cars hooting, guns shooting persistence of vision, so does the narrative help etc); but I shall show that even recorded noise hasto constitute an ongoing memory of the film for or can have an important signifying effect. the spectator. A great many of the effects of what The fourth element- and one likely to be we shall be analysing in this opening section of noticed by most spectators, certainly at climactic Kubrick's film is precisely the explanation of that or tense moments in the film, is the musical score narrative, of the work of narrative to keep us in and sound-track - now often marketedas a place, of the securing of the spectator. distinct commodity of its own. And the fifth When does a film begin? When should analysis element is simply the use of written language in begin? Of course, at the very beginning of the the film - the close-up of letters fromone charac- film. ter in the film to another, or, decisively for The' Shining, a view of Jack's typescript. Title Sequent. Let us now turn to the analysis of asequence This initial sequence- the title-sequence of the the opening sequences in fact- from Stanley film - lasts some 2 minutes. Our first reaction- as Kubrick's film The Shining in order tosee how spectator - is simply that this title-sequence gives contemporary film analysis can work in practice. us the name of the film, its actors, and some idea Perhaps all in all the most important thing to of the location and setting of the film. But when recall about film is its speed. At twenty-four we analyse the sequence, we see already that the frames a second, things happen very quickly. work of the film- its work at the construction of And it is as if the film is constantly afraid of being meanings, at the weaving of a narrative, already forgotten, and therefore is constantly drawing begins.

ti3 PART IY Creating New Possibililies for Media Awarer ess 117 The sequence is made up of eight shots, each of now,.the music, though threatening, has been around ten to twenty seconds duration. The first recognisable as music, but now that regular shot - of the river and mountains lasts some pattern is disrupted by a series of whistliAgsand fifteen seconds and at first it seems to cany no shriekings which in their non-musicality also signification, no narration. It is simply a shot of signify a non-humanness. nature, an example of cinema language at its most This new element intrudes on the sound-track transparent - at the very most saying, 'Here is as the camera focuses in onthe car so that the nature, here is the setting of the film'. Inaddition effect is that the car or rather its occupants are to this physical location, the musical soundtrack under threat from something outside, something helps to establish the mood or genre of the film asalien, something other. The fourth shot now a whole: the music is heavy, awesome,monoto- focuses more closely on the car and from what is nous; the film is a horror film. for a few seconds a possible human viewpoint But perhaps the most important aspect of this (that of an overtaking car) as jack Nicholson's shot is the way it moves, the position it offers to name comes onto the screen and rests overthe the spectator. There are two points here: the first car. We would be right to guessthat the driver of is the speed of ...e movement, a hurtling through the vehicle is Jack Torrance/ Nicholson. But the space; and the second is the angle ofthe shot - car is not overtaken, the cameratakes us instead which begins with but moves away from a true orover the roadside, over thecliffside as the sound- flat horizon, and ends up tilted. What is the track pushes towards a crescendo of the inhuman signifying effect of this? A certain disjuncture: the - and thenfirst the title of the film itself appears point of view we are occupying is a non-lnunan The Shiming; and then the name of the young point-of-view, it is too fast to be human, it is tiltedactor Danny Lloyd, who plays the role of Danny out of the true of the human subject. So already Torrance in the film, rolls up. We would be right there is a certain disturbance here, a disturbance to associate then this unnatural music with in fact of how we might expect to see. Danny - he is after all the bearer of the 'shining', We are hurtled in fact into the second shot, the film's name for a broad spectrum of telepathic again a shot of some fifteen seconds and once powers. So that we see even in theseearly more, a shot which disorients the spectator.What seconds of the film a number of associations are we seeing? At first, we simply fade into a being made, a certain narrative network estab- pattern of shapes - and then, at some point in lished, as we grow to associate the driver of the those fifteen seconds we recognise the pattern as car with Jack and the existence of arelation that of a forest cut by a winding road, and on thatbetween the shining, Danny and the non-human, road, miniscule, a car. What is stressed is the non-the unnatural, the threatening. humanness of this view: its scale is too vast, the All roads, of course, lead to a destination, and tar too small, a car seen from what canonly be a the sixth, seventh and eight shots take us to the non-human view. end of the journey, and what must be the location This non-human aspect begins, in the third of the inhuman and the unnatural - the hotel on shot, to be taken up in the sound-track. Up until the snowy mountain slopes, the Overlook.

118 moix, wowsin south Mimi We can already :we the emergence of one major in the title sequence - is amplified through the and structuring opposition in the film as a whole use of personification. In Ullmann's words: 'The in this title sequence That is the opposition, and awinters here can be fantastically cruel and the threatening opposition, between the world of basic idea lyour job as caretaker id-doh% human culture (the road which leads to the hotel repairs to see that the elements don't get a and the car which drives along it) and the world foothold.' Jack's real problem will be that the of nature. Nature dwarfs human culture, threat- cmellest elements - the embodiment of that ens it, threatens to overwhelm it just as the non- inhuman Other - will seek their foothold In !,;..n. musical sounds threaten to overwhelm the Secondly, the sheer distance of the Overlook musical track, itself already threatening. The film from civilization gives it a liminal position. When plays on this primordial opposition: the opposi- Ullmann asks 'Have any problem finding us?' tion between a primordial cannibalism and and Jack replies that it was no trouble- 'I made society, fought out here in the family as psychic the trip in three and a half hours', his reply only cannibalism which threatens to dissolve the confimis that distance and that liminality. The identities of the families members as Jack's is Overlook looks out on each side of the division dissolved. It is finally an opposition between between violence of nature and the social order nature and culture within the family, between a of human culture. violent and patiarchal authority whichgoes back More important, this geographical distance is to the mythic origins of human culture in the immediately connected with the more problem- violence of the primal horde. atic psychic space with which the film is concerned. 'The only thing that can become a little The Intersthrw tiying here over the winter is the tremendous The terms of this opposition are pickedup and sense of isolation...' observes Ullmann, 'For some given more txxly in the sequence which follows, people solitude and isolation of itself can become the first narrative sequence proper of the film, a problem.' Jack insists 'Not for me!' - and 'The Interview'. This sequence lasts approxi- Ullmann then makes what is to be the decisive mately seven minutes, and can be dii ided into connection between the isolation of the hotel two alternating sections - two in the hotel itself, from civilization and Jack's estrangement from and two in the family home. I have only time to his family: 'How about your wife and son? How discuss one or two points of interest. I shall do you think they'll take to it?' concentrate on the ways in which the central Jack's pause, before answering "They'll love it', opposition is picked up and amplified in the may already indicate violence towards them in recorded phonetic sound- the dialogue between the violence implicit in his speaking for them. the characters; in the interplay between the This violence, in which the father's word recorded phonetic sound and the moving constrains the reality A the whole family, is photographic image; and finally, in the recorded made more explicit by the nextsone into which sound or noise track. this section fades. Here Danny and his psychic First, the violence of nature- already suggested friend Tommy express their reluctance togo to

PART IV Creating New Passigities 6 Mein Awsreness 119 1 I 5 the Overlook for the winter. Through this direct ...fie killed his family with an Jack Torrance juxtaposition, Jack's violence - the violence of the axe. Stacked them neatly in one hotel itself, the psychic violence at the film's of the rooms of the Mst Wing. cenbe - is placed as a patriarchalviolence which He put both barrels of a draws on the mythical image of Saturn eating up shotgun in his mouth. his own sons. At this distance from civilization, the family unit itself threatens to become liminal, What the &timers called cabin Ullmann to return to a more primitive state, to getdown to fever. Kind of claustrophobic the boundary between the primordial cannibalis- reaction. It happens when people are tic 'family' and the civilized 'modern'family. shut up together over a long period I want to next examine one detail which of time. consistently troubled me in this sequence, and which is importantly connected to Jack's place in Pause. Jack Torrance this primitive patriarchal violence. In the third 6W11, that's quite a stm. section of this sequence, Ullmann, Jack Torrance the caretoker to be, and the current caretaker, Bill What interested me here initially was the shot of Waters, are all present on screen as Ullmann the caretaker, Bill Watson. Although his presence explains the nature of Jack's caretaking is acknowledged by both Ullmann and Jack in a duties,and the 'tragedy' that overtook a previous number of sidelong glances, he remains silent winter caretaker, Charles O'Grady. Here I want tothroughout the entire 23 shots which constitute concentrate on the importance of theplay this segment of the film. And of these 23, this is between the words and images on the screen, the only one in which he features. having concentrated so far on the words them- The other twenty-two shots are a classic shot/ selves alone (as I said, often the fault of an analystexchange shot sequence in which Ullmann and trained primarily in literature). Torrance talk to each other, with the words of each usually carrying over into the shot of the other to ensure continuity. The only shot of Jack Recorded Phonetic Sound: Recorded Visual Image: when he does not speak is when he hears of the O'Grady family murder. Clearly this .14 ,'cs to I don't suppose anyone told you Ullmann show Jack's emotional response to this news; but of the tragedy we had in the is there perhaps another level of signification? I winter of 1970? think so. The shot of Jack not talking matches or echoes don't believe they did Jack Torrance the shot of Bill Watson. The shot of Watsor is cut finelv on Ullman's words, 'my predecessor'. Well, my predecessor, Bill Ullmann Watson is of course Jack's predecessor; just as Watson, hired a man named O'Grady was Watson's predecessor... In these two Charles O'Grady.. shots, both Jack and Watson occupy the silent

120 Neck Malta, in South Afrisa 1 f; space of the Caretaker, the space outside normzi .ere is usually a narrative motivation for human culture, the point at which the violence hearing them. What might it be here? Tomy ear, and disorder of nature threatens social order- in the footsteps echo hollowly, suggesting the an exact parallel with the way in which the insert vastness of the hotel, its approaching end of shot of Watson threatens or disturbs theconver- season emptiness. Jack's footsteps are almost lost sational and visual exchange between Ullmann in the hollowness of the space, justas Jack's and Jack Torrance.. identity is threatened with Ickss by the destructive The material reality of that cultural exchange psychic space of the hotel. The footsteps have has been emphasised from the start of the film by both a realistic and a semioticpower. means of the numerous introductions which Two turther items attract attentionas Jack secure the identity of each to other. That the walks towards Ullmann's office. The fint is the identification with the figure of the Caretaker sound of a telephone and the second the sound of should take place through an undifferentiated typing. Again, these can be read simplyas and undifferentiating silence comes as no realistic details; but they can also be interpreted surprise: the threat of undifferentiation which is as beari g a semiotic charge. The telepholie nature's challenge to culture. 'Make yourself at connects to the idea of communication: the home, jack smiles Ullmann as Jack enters his telephone connects the hotel to the outside office for the interview. The problem is precisely world, to civilisation; it's cutting off isan that he may do so. important step in the film's action. The second, So far we have seen how we can puncture the the sound of typing, also anticipates a crucial narrative surface of the film and break its surface series of moments in the film focusedon Jack's tension in order to reveal the richness of connota- writing. The silence and isolation of the hotel will tions which lie beneath or help to constitute its give Jack the space he needs to write, he suggests narrative tension through an analysis of the during the interview (`That's just what I need1; language of the film and of the interplay between but the film will show how whatgoes wrong. language and image in the film. Letus turn now The typing c :entually becomes the threatening to the signifying effects of the sound or noise sound of Jack's madness: the endless repetition of track. the message ALL WORK AND NO PLAY Casually, the noise track's only function would MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND seem to be to reinforce the effect of the realism in NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL the film; but I shall argue there that the sound WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL track can also have a semiotic density to it. BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK choose three examples from the first fewmo- A DULL BOY. ments of the film. In a word, the details of image and sound As Jack enters the hotel lobby at the 'beginning' which we have examined are overdetermined in of the film, what do we hear? We hear his the classic sense of the term: they enjoya footsteps. Of course, we do not always hear the multiple causality. Such details cmtribute both to footsteps of a character in a film and whenwe do the surface effect of realism in the film, and also

1 7 PART IV Crewing New PassibAes for Meclia Awareness 121 References California Press, Bazin, A. What isCinema, University of Berkeley 1964. to the narration of the film, the flow of its Bazin, A. Realign andthe Cinema, Williams, C(ed). 'William meanings through time. The film analyst shoWyler, or the Jansenistof Mise en Scene', RKP/BFLLondon be constantly aware of this overdeterminatio 1980. the key element in the integrated impact whi.Bordwell, D. et al. TheClassical Hollywood Cinema: FilmSO Columbia University Press, gives film such a powerful effect - but only el andMode of Production to 1960, an effect - of realism. In its distinction from itNew York 1985. Film Studies in Chapman, Mike. 1991.'gunning on Empty: literary, unlike theatre, unlike the novel, it South Africa' in presentvolume. concentrates not so much on character but on sel:MFaabcemr,ilLolann,dLoonn1d9068n .1984. dEeLansutereitlit, s T Alifceiimniesensn meanings. Film engages the generation of meanings through a diversity of semiotic cod, London at Elliott, G. Althusser:The Detour of Theory, Verso, which work to produce an effect of the real. FNew York 1987. analysis resembles literary analysis only in so Witness: Ten Yearstowards an Gavshon, H. 'Bearing /Oster as it too must engage with the specific textual Oprosition Film Movementin South Africa'. Radical 331345 (1990). of film, woven as it is from the five available Review Nos 46-7: 1981a. codes of expression. In Godard's words again, Heath,S. 'Film/Cinetext/Text', Short. Introduction',1981b object of analysis for the film semiologist shou Heath, S.'Metz's Semiology: A Semiotics, 'The Work be the reality of reflection. Any reading of film Heath, S. ScreenReader 2: Cinema and Christian Metz', Eatonand !skate. SEFT, London198k. which starts off from film as reflection of realit Cinema, Macmillan,London 1981d. amounts to no less than a refusal to read film.Heath, S. Questions of The central point of all this: Film studies and la;POrZwl'Ir'eu rdet;ailli:S.alAUdvn8:511.1.1reitrhy:.dsUizIalleircsiilt!yisOfBC media studies may have begun in South Africa ge ;9 pp 509 1 but where have they begun? Are we to remainHiggins, J. 'Review ofDarrell, J. Poetry, Politicsand trapped in a prehistory which refuses to Language', Upstream, Vol7 No (1989), pp, 71-3. 'T1 recognise the specificity of film, or are we going Higgins, J. intellectuals,:Aesthetics, Politics, Academics, Warrior-Scholar versus theChildren of Mao: Cons)!Cruie to develop the concepts of a critical cinema whi. of Ow;inBrineesnoitna Sporessuth, Amfiriiicnae's,poRolbisbiln990.s. B. ted), University I believe would be more adequate to the patio. Macmi of film and media representation in South AfriciMacCabe C. et al. Godard:Images, Sounds, Politics, today? Only we can decide. III BFI, London 1980. McArthur, C. 'British FilmReviewing, A Complaint',Ser Vol 26 No 1 (Jan-Feb 1985), pp.79-84. Metz, C. Lungage etCinema, Albatros Paris2983. Metz, C. Essais go lasignification au cinema,Klincksieck, 1977. Londoi Neale, S. Cinema andTechnology, Macmillan IBS, Secker and Wi Sontag, S. Styles ofRadical Will, 'Godard', London 1969, pp. 147-189. Counter Cinema: Ventd'Est' in Wollen, P. 'Godard and of Nichols, B. led), Moviesand Methods 11, University California PreSS, Berkeley1985, pp. 500-50B. the American HorrorFilzr Wood, R. 'An Introduction to of Movies and Methods 11,Nichols, B. fed), University 1985, pp. 195-219. 1 22 *iv MOW -at South Afr ica 1 1 S California Press, Berkeley Response to Higgins

Mike Chapman

My paper on teaching the film Runningon Empty systems of value in the surrounding world. annoyed John Higgins. (It also annoyed John It follows that we may choose to look ata film Hookarn, who reminded me that we should in several ways. We can ask what is its basic distinguish between basically good guys like material, or what techniques have shaped this Danny Pope and fascist heroes like Dirty Harry.) material, or how do we recognise the significance Mr Higgins the next d .y began hisown paper by of filmic conventions, or what value doesour attacking me for reading film in terms of 'content experience of the film have in larger aspects of analysis' and, in consequence, reducing it- oh, our lives? I suspect that, in South African schools, dear! - to an example of bourgeois ideology. He the last of these questions will be 'universalised' concluded that my 'assertions' concerning the and thus removed from consideration in key local meaning of the film finally remain unsupported debates. Higgins is entitled to disagree withmy by any 'real textual evidence'. approach. He cannot, however,accuse me of Readers of my paper will be able to judge for refusing to interpret film. themselves whether I lack textual evidence. For Perhaps, though, our two papersare reminders reading the film through a deconstructive that, as the resolution of the conference has it, the (literary?) lens, I make no apology. Mypurpose challenge of film studies will reside neither solely was to oppose the idea of film studies as tech- in the deconstruction of stereotypesnor solely in nique, and as stories of sentimental individual- the potential for human enrichment. Instead,we ism: the emphases given in Transvaal schools to need to investigate dialectics between the Chariots of Fire. If I downplayed specific codes dematds of human responsibility and the (eg. the zoom shot) for non-specific codes (in this appeals of mass culture. If most films speak case, the metaphor of the American family), I wasperceptually rather than conceptually, this is not operating within standard theories of film. Witha in itself necessarily a value judgement, butsays quotation from the theorist Christian Metz something of their distinctive mode. Despite providing the epigraph to his paper, Higgins will Higgins' comments, I would not condemna film recognise both kinds of codes that I have just because its conventions of representation differed mentioned in Metz's response to the possibilities from those of a novel. At the same time, film of fihn. He will also recall that Metz, whowas narratives convey messages which tend to attracted initially to the ideal of a neutral science endorse rather than question the statusquo as of communication, became increasinglyaware depoliticised, fairly conservative and essentially that every analysis is ultimately responsible to stable. We are entitled to examine the implica-

PART IV Creating New Posasties for Precio Amos, 123 tions of this 'ideology for particular classes and societies. When film is taught to scholars, for example, I hope questions about the focus of images will prompt ethical questions. Teachers might begin by asking who is pointing the camera: the metropolitan culture orthe exotic savage in the jungle? prom thisdeconstructive starting-point - literary or filmic? - our enquiry need not be reductive. It could help us dislodge our habitual ways of seeing, and make usthink - as individuals and South Africans. I

V o APPROACHING MEDIA STUDIES IN ANENGLISH CLASSROOM A Look at the Construction ofSympathy

Joan Ashworth

We as an English teaching community have The book or the written word has always been looked with sonic suspicion at the 'new' inclusionthe centre of the English lesson, becausewe of media studies in ourprogramme for the understood that the word in its written formwas reasons that follow. the single major cultural experience which could Firstly, in including this package, nothingwas be transported into the classroom, andwe removed (a favourite ft-ick of decision makers understood it to be central to the life experience who operate outside teaching),so the syllabus of the pupils in our care. Weas English teachers once again did a great leap in size. have had to face up to a changed reality- the Secondly, we were suspicious that the film did book no longer forms a major part of teenage not warrant the intensive study the novel often culture; most of the domestic activities of the requires - many of us view the filmor the whole teenager preclude the act of reading and instead entertainment medium as a shalloweven are dominated by sleeping, eating and viewing. meaningless field. After all we don't choose to Thus we have come to believe that viewing too study Wilbur Smith, so now why shouldwe have must be transported into the English classroomas to study Witncss? it shapes attitudes and forms opinions and Thirdly, what tools should we asa word- adjusts our perceptions of reality. centred community bring to a study of the film? The study of media rests almost solely in South How would we go about it? A number of Africa in the hands of the language teacher. I suggestions have been offered anda number of would argue then that, for as longas it remains decisions made: many have chosen to set and in the main language curriculum, it must be study a film for a term as though itwere a novel, informed by the philosophy of language teach- subjecting it to the traditional methods of critical ing. analysis, using camera angles instead of simiks Thus one of my central concerns about the and soundtrack instead of alliteration; still others study of media is the prevalent insistenceon argue that we should be teaching the process of labelling it as though it were a separate entity media, that is we should engage students in with a mind and life force of itsown - this seems creating the artefacts of the media as this will to imply that it is not part of the English bring true knowledge to bear; still othersargue programme at all, but a subject in its own right. It that you examine the forces behind media- is this insistence on labelling that has led toso essentially capital and politics- to expose media much teacher anxiety as it seems tous that we as the agents of the capitalist oppressors. need skills and understandings thatare not

PART 1Y Crating New Possibilities for Me& Awareness 125 1 21 essentially language ill nature. which the novelist sets about constructing his it is my intention to show how the study of novel in order to manipulate and persuade the media is easily incorporated into the English reader. Thus the focus of the English lesson is not programme provided that it is subsumed or on the content of the workbut on its power. informed by the principles of main language I would argue then that this is the same teaching. principle that should be brought to bear on a I would like to begin then by arguing that we study of media in the English classroom. I have been teaching media since the 1970s when consider the central device of media is the the teaching of advertising and propaganda manufacture and manipulation of sympathy; this became essential fixtures in the English then seems to place the study of media well programme; we were also involvedfrom about within the English programme. 1972 in the teaching of newspapers; and the late The best way I can support this thesis is 1970s saw the introduction of the study of film. I through illustration from a media studies can remember 10 years ago exploring afilm programme 1 have incorporated into my own called Black Christmas with my pupils in an teaching programme. attempt to analyse with them their responses to The school I teach in is a large white govern- the horror and/or thriller genre. ment school in Durban, occupied in the mainby I see the teaching of language as having one rather placid middle-rlass boys. As I go through single methodology we are concerned with the the programme I will indicate some of the way in which meaning is made. It is my conten- difficulties I encountered. tion that meaning lies in the 'flow of sympathy' The programme began with a picture. The established within any particular language picture was taken from the cover of Itadership situation. All language lessons begin with a magazine and featured a dreamy looking Nelson stimulus, be it a piece or pieces or text: a novel, a Mandela. I opened the lesson by askiris now the poem, a play, an advert, a piece of propaganda; pupils responded to this picture of Mandela, and I see it as crucial that the lesson is focussed offering them only parts of the picture in on the act of engagement with the text,rather question. Knowing them particularly well, I was than an apparently objective and academic study prepared for a negative response; I realised their of the text itself. Pupils and teachers need to resistance to the ANC (this picture dates from explore the way in which meaning is made by theMarch 1990) would result in their refusal to forces within the textual material, the situation in respond to the picture in the way that the which the encounter with the text takes place and photographer had intended. I was not however the life experiences the pupils and teachers bring prepared for the extent of the violence of that to this engagement. response. My purpose in showing thephoto- In the teaching of the novel, for example, graph was to show how the media set out to meaning is made through the sympathy that is construct images which attempt to adjust or re- generated between the text and the reader. Pupils shape reality. Mandela, who only a few months in any study of the novel examine the way in before this picture was taken, was for many a

726 /*rho Molten Sokah Africa representative of the national enemy, is projected with this comment. in a very different light in this photograph. I The third exercise was similar to the first- it too knew they would be resistant to this new 'light' was built on a contrast between two pictures, and and hoped to show how the media can only have once again I offered them separately and then an effect if the audience is willing, for no matter engaged them in exploring the new meaning how passive the receivers are, they bring to the made when these pictures were juxtaposed. The act of viewing a life experience that must affect pictures are firstly a photograph of an ANC rally their willingness to receive images. I was car in Soweto, and secondly one of an AWB rally in fronted by a class divided within itself - between Pretoria. The contrast in politial image projected those who were intrigued by a study of the by these pictures is quite stunning, and the picture as a construct or stage set, and those comments being made about each political party whose hatred of the man refused to allow them through this contrast opens up some very even a comparatively objective study of his interesting discussion. Photograph. The pupils, in this example, were far more The second exercise involved two pictures willing to examine both the artefacts and their offered firstly as separate entities. The fust is a responses to them objectively, so this was a picture of a black classroom, filled with weeping particularly effective exercise. black children.I asked the pupils how they The fourtl mercise involved a series of responded to or interpreted this photograph. In advertisements. The pupils were surprised by the main they read this photograph in terms of them since the only lessons on advertising they their own school experience- these children were have been exposed to are adverts for products. unhappy to be at school The second photograph These were adverts for companies and when showed a group of Maritzburg College boys asked for their responses to these adverts they viewing a sports match - since these are my had some difficulties in coming to re:ognise their school's traditional enemies, it was laughed at responses in any way - finally I had to ask how and comments about their silly hats were passed. they felt about the companies involved and then However, in the original source of the pictures, they were able to identify a response. However they had been juxtaposed. When I offered them this had already led them to an understanding of together, the reactions changed I was attempting the purpose of the adverts which I had hoped to show how meaning is made through context - they would reach in other ways. We then by positioning an unhappy, disadvantaged groupengaged in a discussion as to how these adverts against a disciplined, rather satisfied highly set up or corstructed those responses and finally privileged group, comment is being made about concluded vith a debate as to the integrity of the the South African school system. It was at this images being projected by these companies. moment that I again ran into some trouble with My purpose in this exercise was to show how the pupils who attempted to collapse the lesson Avertising can be used, often quite ruthlessly, to with amments such as 'Well, they burn schools, affect not only our responses to the object being don't they?', but by now they were a little uneasy advertised but to our whole perception of the

12 3 PART IV Creating New Possibilities for Marta Awareness 127 social reality in which we find ourselves. Most of it when I heard the cheers and laughter as the these advertisements purported to show big hero trndered one of the villains impotent. I business involved in constructing a 'new' South asked them why they were so happy. I suggested Africa. Harmony, enterprise, mutual trust and that they might have been caught in a trap set for freedom were key motifs in the advertisements them by the producers/directors. Then we went and the students had some difficulty in separat- back over the previous scenes and looked at how ing the motif from the company - in objectifying our sympathies had been deliberately manipu- the advertisements in any way. lated. We examined the choke of hero - why it My concluding exercise was a cut from a film had to be a man, young and good-lookin& we called Nice. In selecting this film I was guided by considered his clothing - and in particular its my interests in the pupils' own viewing. I was colour (in the church he is dressed rather like a affected in my choice by two concerns: firstly, modern angel, in the bar like a modern ninja); we there is an explosion in the production of films considered the r 3e of setting - for example, when which justify stepping outside the law to wreak we lust meet him he is in a church, looking vengeance because the law is portrayed as weak, significantly sensitive and ge-tle, thus he is or corrupt, or impotent; secondly, it seems to me, established for us as a spiritual, good man the phenomenon of watching violence, albeit at (Perhaps even a savinua); we then e:..imined the one remove, as an act of pleasure is remarkably setting for the concluding scene - a seedy bar, perverse, particularly so when one considers the peopled by degenerates and corrupts; even here numbers of violent films adolescents watch. I do our hero is polite, sensitive, gentle and concerned understand that in the act of viewing we all - he is made forexample to be the only person bracket out reality; I am also aware that we know not using foul language; despite endless provoca- when we are watching second-hand violenm that tion he is controlled; only when these bad guys it is second-hand; but I am concerned that really step out of line does he critically injure regular and repeated viewing of violence might them and destroy the bar. result in that bracket growing increasingly weak. This was a particularly successful exercise as Many pupils I teach watch 10 videos a week, and the pupils enjoyed the film cut and were quite most, if not all, of them star the Rambo or Conan happy to re-examine its values and their own. type of hero. The lesson concluded % th their justification for The cut is comprised of three scenes whose their initial enjoyment - they knew it was not juxtaposition ultimately leads to the justification 'real' and therefore had suspended all moral of the explosion into violence that finally takes judgements. This in itself became a subject for place. That this act of violence is illegal, and that debate. From this point the pupils were encour- the 'cop' could be prosecuted for it is never aged to look back on their responses to the first confronted. The audience is led, through a lessons and were now able to objectify far more number of constructs and stage sets, to cheer and easily their reactions to the sets of pictures that enjoy the violence that finally takes place. The had so distressed them. pupils and I watched the clip and I only stopped In conclusion, I felt that the cross-media

128 MMcui5outhAfrica 124 approach had been effectiveas pupils in the main were enabled to view media more objectively and more critically. In addition, they were encouraged to use those skills that they had developedin other language exercises, thatrange from comprehension to the exploration ofa poem or a novel. II

1 52

PART Pi Creating Nee, Possibilities Iv MottoAwareness 129 'boiling tales -considerations elnarrative

Jeanne Prinsloo

because this attention paid to Historically the media has onlygradually been uneasy approach media was a response on accountof the evil considered a serious or worthyfield of study effects attributed to the media.This attitude to within education. I his acceptanceof the rel- because a wider been characterized atleast inpopular cultural forms (perhaps evance of media has ideas or pleasures that ib early development by a responseof fear or public is granted access to the domain of a smallprivileged that the media have were previously suspicion of the pleasures It is an media as part of thegroup) has been the standard response. offered. Formal acceptance of media as the educational agenda is a fairly recentstage of approach that understands the villain and the public as theinnocent and gullible education in S. Africa as the synopsesof the from overexposure different initiatives by thedifferent educational victim in need of protection and violence (without departments show. This weneed to understand to issues such as sex thought of prejudices such as racism orsexism). as clearly onlythe beginning of the difficulttask This is an appmach based on asimplistic cause of creating and establishingMedia Education as a and effect model of communication, onethat has distinctive mode of enquiry.This is a difficult been rejected by students ofcommunication and task because we need to developand direct this area of study.Educationists and teachers have to media. This approach to teaching aboutthe media arrive at the realization that noform of media rise in a response to film. educati...a (or for that matter, any areaof educa- appears to have seen its It manifested itself as a wayof teaching children tion) is ever neutral and theapproach to media pleasures education at this volatile junctureof S. Africa's about the harmful and corrupting also tinged with education is crucial. It is a crucialissue for it within film. (This concern was Hollywood films and their might provide us with someof the tools with an unease with inherent Americanism which mighttaint things which we can approach the enormousproblems has had two in post-apartheid education. British.) This attitude to the media we will be inheriting about the media. For these reasons it is imperativethat we effects when it came to teaeting students about consider the precedents of othercountries in It was deemed necessary to teach them against these order to avoid those pitfallsthat they have media in order to innoculate harmful effects of the media andthen simulta- indeed experienced. The Britishprecedents neously to teach them according to aHigh Art suggest that we movecautiously in certain areas. approach with its emphasis onaesthetic values Initially media education wascharacterized by and discrimination or good taste,according to a concern withthe effects of the media - arather

130 Maio Akeen in kuth AffiCO those values deemed worthy by the cultured elite.Rather than lamenting cr delighting in the impact This approach tends to concentrateon those of particular media formsor products, our media products, (generally art cinema) in ordertorealization of the impact of media needs to lead isolate and study them in terms of their aesthetic educators to deal with those particulefies that qualities, much in the Grand Tradition of Leavis. are characteristic of media. The issue of the The argument with this approach isnot that it power of the media stems largely from that teaches discrimination, but rather thenature of characteristic shared by most media which is the discrimination that it instils- one that reflects referred to as the 'realist' effect,or the 'window a value system of the culturally elite. One of the on the world' - that aspect of media that makes it problems with this approach has resultedin a realistic or convincing to the viewer. The chief very literary approach to film and media study. vehicle for realism is arguably the narrativeform This attitude has found its echoes within mediaand it is this form that providesan accessible education within this country withsome ^mpha- entry into developing critical understandings of sis on authorial or art films anda literary ap- diverse media. proach with poetic interpretations. 14nlike this approach which has been described Realism as a cultural one, the emphasis on vocationalism By insisting on dealing with realism, the educator that has also been fostered in certaineducational avoids an approach to media education which sectors in Britain has largely ignored the critical feeds from a 'common-sense approach':too edge that informs Media Study. This approach frequently the ease with which mediaare involves a technicist approach with emphasison understood is conflated witha notion that it is skills. This again finds echoes in thepractice that equally easily explained as Metz hasso ad- has taken root in South Africa. Ata post-school equately described. Furthermore the approachto level, teaching the 'media' becomes thetechnicist studying media thatproposes a humanist 'skills' domain of technikons, where the skillsof approach whereby the reader/viewer discusses handling equipment and productionare dealt identification overlooks fundamental elementsof with in isolation fromany conceptual under- media. I do not suggest that identificatory standing of media. Ata school level, time is processes are unimportant: to the contrary, they sometimes spent on teaching about techniques supply one of the crucial motivations forengag- and their supposed effects. While theseare ing with the media. What I wouldsuggest is that potentially valuable in someway, they remain there are more valuable theoretical insights fragmented areas that need to be containedin a which can initially be engaged with andwhich coherent framework that contextualizes and should enrich media teaching. allows flexibility. When media forms within popular cultureare In contrast to these approaches, media under- described as realist, this implies that ratherthan standing needs to be grounded in a more holistic the media reflecting reality, theyconstruct it. approach. All media forms and products need to Information is presented as though it offersthis be considered important areas of understandings. 'window on the world', suggesting that whatone

1 -.1) PART IV Creating New Posaulities 6 Media A*areness 131 with how unrealistic in fact the is offered is an undeniablereflection of reality. can be contrasted Certainly, realism is a omplex issueand the trajectory is. intellectual debates that surround itcontinue. In A narrative is a chain of events incause-effect rela- spite of the potenf al intricaciesof the realist tionship occuning in time...Anarratkie begins with of changes occurs according to debates, for us as media educationists,what is one situation; a series and effects; finally a situation is the need to a pattern of causes perhaps of inescapable importance, arises which brings aboutthe end of narrative lead to this understanding the amedia text is ...Usually the agents of cause andeffect are charac- 'realistic' not because of any therentfidelity to ters. (Bordwell andThompson 1985) an empiricalreality, but beg ause it conveys a What this definition allows isthe bfginning of sense of the realthat is convincing to an audi- an examinationof narrative. My exal ninafionof ence: narrative will concentrate firstly onthe structure. Such a placing of the spectator asLbserver is depen- This will lead to teasing out someof the implica- which are effaced dent on the means of signification from the structure. or denied in the text sothat the image may be tions that can be derived exhausfive read as a transparent rendering of'reality'. (Kuhn My intention is not to attempt an 1982) overview of structuralist approaches tonarrative omitting fascinating Realism, then, does not reflectreality but and I am conscious that I am the notion of myth (in both pmduces it, and can be consideredin terms of its areas that include Barthes and Levi Strauss's terms) aswell as content and the social world itprovides. Realism psychoanalytic approaches that haveinformed is typically narrative in form(in fact Barthes much of the development of thesedebates. My implies it is always narratival) andit is to this objective is simply to introduce a wayin to dominant vehicle of realism that Idevote my media education through narrativewhich it is attention. my contention is acrucial area, one informed by field of study, tiarrativity theory that is pertinent to this which can itself inform the fieldof language An ur-lprstanding of narrativewould obviously teaching and one that can thenbe developed to a be necessary before suggestingwhat narrative is not, and to understandits relation to realism. greater sophistication. Underlying any approach tostructuralism are What the study ot ihe narrative canachieve is a Firstly, while thousands of deeper understanding of the issueof realism in two basic premises. different stories exist and these aretold through the snedia. Before a formal analysisis attempted diverse media, such as novels,legends, folk tales, some generalobservations about one characteris- ballads or epic poetry, comics ortelevision, all tic of the narrative, namely its'economy': within these stories share certain commonqualities. a narrative, thediegesis excludes all materialthat Secondly, these qualities (which might notbe is not relevant to moving theplot forward. All immediately obvious) can take the formof those insignificant time consumingelements of underlying structures, which can beidentified by odinary living disappear. Withthis in mind, the different stories or groups of issue of events or scenariosappearing realistic means of analysing

132 AWioWsø,5outhAMa, 12S stories. (This aspect will be clarifiedas the tion. Wall and Kruger offered the following theories are examined.) diagram as useful: Two structuralist theorists who have been I would suggest that film sequels suchas Jaws drawn upon particularly in film studies include 1, 2 etc make for interesting exercises justto alert Todorov and the Russian Formalist Propp. These us to the notions of narrative structure that we approaches have been described particularlyin actually are continually employing without relation to film, but are applicable to and share consciously articulating anawareness of the the basic structure with literary texts, comics, structure. television drama as well as commercials,news Using the example of jaws,we begin with the reporting, and even those mediaareas tradition- state of plenitude. This is violently disrupted by ally considered as non-fictive, like documentariesthe shark attack on the girl. The trajectory leads and news programmes. The intense interestthat us eanzigh its trials and loops of suspense finally has surrounded narrative probably derivesfrom its universality.

A there/hminol The narrative process When one considers the overall narrative course Problem _Hero/ Return b or structure, the ideas of Todorov are useful for >(Disruption) Heroine's Nonrality our purposes. He describes the narrativeprocess Qmsd as beginning at a point of equilibrium, a state of B lagentalchangej order, of happiness, fulfilment. This state is then (usually fairly early in the process) disrupted by Paliamtan an event, a crisis, a power, thereby creatinga disequilibrium. The course of the narrative then Bank Policeman is caught up with the attempt to put right the Policeman Robbery Chases Catches disequilibrium or deal with the disruption andits Cthninal Criminal effects. By the conclusion of the narrative, this criminal disequilibrium has been rectified and thereis a return to a new state of equilibrium. This second state of equilibrium is never quite the same as the This cans o be appliecho a by e stay initial one. Rather this isan altered state, perhaps similar to the first. This simple structural understanding is Boy meets Pmblems in_ Boy gen extremely useful as this trajectory from equilib- Girl Romance Girl rium, to disruption and back to equilibriumis easy to map and enables the learner to begin to Girl anticipate the possible outcome of narratives with simply the openingscenes ond the disrup-

PART IV Oadint; New Poiatitdies Mato Alhareless 133 to the destruction of the shark. We return to a Conversely two different acts could actually state of equilibrium, albeit a different one from serve the identical function. With reference to the initial one. The narrative in this one reaches those tales that Propp examined, both giving an closure, one of its important characteristics. eagle to a hem or giving lvan a ring could serve Those other areas of narrative, namely the as a magical agent. chain of events with their cause and effect While it becomes obvious that Propp placed relationship, and the role of characters, are more emphasis on action than on character, he focussed on when employing the insights of does also categorize characters in terms of their Vladimir Propp, the Russian formalist. sphere of function within the narrative. Disre- Vladimir Propp's Morpholgy of the Folktale garding their pt ,sonal qualities, the hero be- was first published in 1928, yet was only trans- comes identifiable, not by his stunning good lated into English in 1958. His initial aim was a looks or white hat, for example, but by the sphere fairly modest one. He chose to e.nalyse the of action he inhabits, namely he goes on a quest. Russian folktale in an attempt to establish a Propp established seven character functions in reliable system for their classification. Prior to his all: work, many researchers had classified them 1. villain according to what might have been a more 2. donor or provider (who gives the magical obvious criterion, namely according to theme. agent or helper) This Propp felt was problematic in certain ways 3. helper (to the hero) for it was possible that frequently themes would 4. princess and father (who is sought for, assigns overlap, and this classification masked the tasks, etc) similarities between those tales with dissimilar 5. dispatcher (who sends the hero on the task) themes. Consequently, Propp ignored entirely the6. hero or victim content of the hundred folktales he analysed and 7. false hero (who potentially claims the hero's concentrated solely on the latent form. He broke sphere of action) down these folk tales to what he considered their It is interesting to compare this wjth Bordwell essential parts, which he called functions. A and Thompson's understanding of character function consisted of a single action, which was which reiterates this aspect of characterization not related to a literal event but served to (that has implications in terms of realism as there describe a particular function that it performed inis the inherent tendency towards stereotypes.) the overall development of the narrative. As a Characters in narratives are not real people...they result of this, it is possible to find the same action are constructed in narrative; they are collections of having a different function. An example of this chara&er traits,- ln general, a character will have the could be that of a prince entering a castle number and kind of traits needed to function ad- whereby he could be equately in narrative... (Bordwell and Thompson 1985) a) breaking an interdict b) solving a difficult task Pmpp arrived at four conclusions which are c) preparing for a wedding. quoted below.

134 mato mows in South Africa 130 PROWS THIRTY ONI NARRATIVI !UNCTIONS

PRIPARATION 15. The hero is transferred to the general location of the 1. A member of the family leaves home. object of his mission/quest. 2. A prohibition or rule is imposed on the hero. 3. This prohibition is broken. STRUGGLI 4. The villain makes an attempt at reconnaisance. 16. The hero and villain join in direct combat. 5. The villain learns something about his victim. 17. The hem is branded. 6. The villain tries to deceive the victim to getposses- 18. The villain is defeAted. sion of him or his belonOnp. 19. The initial lack is set right. 7. The victim unknowingly helps the villain by being deceived or influenced by the villain.

20. The hero returns. COMPLICATION 21. The hem is pursued. 8. The villain harms a member of the family. 72 The hero is rescued from pursuit. 8a. A member of the family lacks or desires something. 21 The hem arrives home or elsewhere and is not 9. This lack or misfortune is made known; the hero is recognized. given a request or command and he goes or is senton a 24. A false hem makes false claims mission/quest. 25. A difficult task is set for the hero. 10. The seeker (or the hero) plans action against the villain. 26. The task is accomplished.

TRANSFERENCE RECOGNITION 11. The hero leaves home. 27. The hero is recognized. 12. The hero is tested, attacked, interrogated, andas a 28. The false hero/villain is exposed. result receives either a magical helperor agent. 29. The false hem is transformed. 13. The hero reacts to the actions of the future donor. 30. The villain is punished. 14. The hero uses a magical agent. 31. The hero is married and crowned.

1 :1 I FART W. Creating New kohl*: for PA* Awo-oness 135 1. `Functions of chanwters serve as stable, constant reading of North by North-West. Of course,this elements in a tale, independent of how and by whom then begins to beg catain questions, whichwill explications: they are told.' partly be answered in the remaining 2. Propp found that he was able to reducethese Was this fit to the Proppian model due to narrative events to 31, hence the following selective choice or was the narrative distorted to conclusion: 'the number of fwictions known to the fit the mould? And does it only work on certain fairy tale is limited.' texts, say the classic Hollywood texts? 3. Propp noted that that certain kindsof functions always occurred at the same stage of the story,forUmlauts about nanativo example the interdiction always was near the Using Propp in leeching beginning (compare Todorov's disruption), The preceding synopsis of some of the ideasof whereas the villain would only be punished these two theorists leads to my proposal that towards the conclusion, and certain functions their insights are extremely useful in teachingthe always occurred in twos and threes. Thus he concepts of narrative and issuesrelating to concluded that, while allowing for interlinking reafism. The structural outlines remainuseful in incidents, some omission of functions, and assisting students in working andunderstanding repetitions of functions, that 'the sequence of events narrative. It must be stressed however that thisis is always identical'. just the initial work, and simply is a way into 4. Finally, he concluded that despite their dealing with narrative in a structural way that is multiformity, 'all fairy tales are of one type in removed from purely subjective responses. Ithas regard to structure'. been my experience that students enjoy the This information could simply appear esoteric discovery of the narrative structure, thehypoth- unless we can establish the relevance of these esis testing, the identification of thefunctions. It conclusions some obscure Russian drew early in is also such an accessible area to workwith even the twentieth century. After all, Propp took care at a fairly basic level. My proposalwould be that to confine his judgements to the Russianfolk tale the structural underpinning of a media text can while su :4; esting that it was possible that these be identified and referred to in terms of then narrative forms, ostensibly stylized and primitive, examining the discourses that they areunderpin- might have the same armature as the modern ning which will be dealt with after looking at realist texts. Modern Anglo/American film ways of using Propp'smodel. The use of narra- theorists took up his ideas. While Propp worked tive is so pervasive in our culture that it is an from the folk-tale material and proceeded to the extremely accessible arena of work. (Pre-school conclusions, these theorists worked from the teachers are working with narrative when they hypothesis that this armature or structure get children to sequence pictures inorder to suggested by Propp for the fairy tale is also construct stories.) Where there is access to aVCR, present in the fiction film, much as a hypothesis. advertisements from broadcast television are They tested the hypothesis and claimed an easy extremely useful for analysis with some judicious fit. Examples of this include Wollen's close Audio Function

From the left, a blond woman moves througha door being opened by a Music slow, low. Sa young man (only his back is visible. The woman is young, blond, dressed Woman: frettvwmoved in next in sophisticated black, with earrings, bracelets. She moves in while the door. Could I a Diet Pepsi? man backs towards the camera/viewer.

Reverse shot: Michael J. Fox, surprised, gasps, backing towards the kitchen. Fox: Whew, sure! 9 11 Fox rushes down the passage, leaps into the air and givesa victory gesture. Upbeat music

Fox at the fridge looks into empty Diet Pepsi bottles. Fox calling: Be right with you. Cut to woman examining pictures on his wall.

Fox shinning down fire escape in rain. 12

Sash window drops. Voice-over When you go all out 15 Fox jumps off ladder that ends high above ground level. for taste, go for the taste of Pepsi He lanas. Diet Cola

Stands up, looking around. 19 Shot of Pepsi vending machine across the road. Fox climbs over cars. Rests head on vending machine

Cut to woman in flat beginning to walk towards kitchen. Music: Down Ow streets Fox at window (which closed.)

Cut back to waiting woman Sound of smashing glass Woman: You OK in there?

Fox appears at the doorway. 20

Close up shot of Fox. Hope it wasn't too much trouble. Shot of both Fox and woman.

Close up of Fox, wet hair and smiling. Fox: No trouble at all. (Sound of Logo for diet Pepsi With caption 'Taste the difference with Diet Pepsi' falling glass from window.) Voice-over Taste the difference with Diet Pepsi.

1 3 3 PART IV creding tie* hat* for Media Awananess 137 choosing. misfortune is liquidated. Furthermore, within I am going to make reference to a particular commercial type narratives, the characters fit advertisement which is for Diet Pepsi, screened very neatly into the Proppian character types. on British television. The Diet Pepsiadvertise- (Once students of media have comprehendedthe ment has a duration of 30 seconds. There are20 Proppian notions, they can put this into practice edits and when analysed according to the by taking any commercial product and with the Proppian functions, this narrative complies with stipulafion that it must function as the magical the order that he has proposed. The structure is agent, create a commercial according to the that of a task, a quest to be accomplished. Indeed, functions above. THey will immediately become our hero (after all it is Michael J Fox)achieves it inmarketers!) Commercial products can also spite of the obstructions preseMed him. The function in other ways in advertising: they can proceeding analysis indicates this structure and be the object of the quest, or they can be part of the functions that I have identified with students. the reward that goes with the successful comple- Only eight functions are identified, but then tion of a task/quest. Consider those 'after action' Propp allowed for omissions; it follows the type scenarios where particular brands of beer prescribed sequence and the two characters can and cigarettes mark such celebration or revelry. be identified as the hero and the princm, One thing that must be mentioned although it although I would consider her as filling a dual is not possible to deal with it sufficiently, is this role of dispatcher/princess. question of if we know somuch and the stories It is astounding how many advertisements are all the same, why bother? Thisapproach employ a narrative format, from insurance and does not take into account the important issue of banking, to car adverts, to chocolate and ciga- endless possibilities, of suspense, of our suspen- rettes. What makes this structure very appropri- sion of our disbelief, of our subjectivity in ate is perhaps the magical agent (see Propp's process, our identificatory roles and psychic functions 12 and 14). If one considers that the involvement in scenario of our culture. magical agent that is given to the hero in order A realization of the narrative structure marks for him to complete his quest or perform his task, the first part of the enterprise. I suggested that can in fact be a credit card, aslab of chocolate or the acknowledgement of the structure opens the cigarettes, condoms, a gun or a magic ring, the gates (should we suggest flood gates) to media options for its application multiply. These awareness in many ways. Moving tothe commercials trequently centre around a woman implications of the structure is the next very (victim/princess) experiencing a lack (blocked necessary stage of the enterprise. drain, no ideas for dinner, cockroaches, no dates for Saturday night) which are resolved by her Tale billows Soma implications confronting a donor who suggests the magical Narrative is always a process of transformation of agent (a particular brand of drain cleaner, insect- the balance of elements that constitute itf.; pretext: the repellant (ozone -friendly?), pimple cream or interruption of an initial equilibrium and the trac- deodorant) and in this way the original lack or ing of the dispersal and refiguration of its components. (Author's emphasis) (Neale 1987) Omura We need at this stage to take cognizance of the Frequently, the study of genre has been under- nature of the elements that Neale mentions; these taken - interesting because genres are manifesta- elements are the encoding of the different tions of particular variations of the greater discourses that underlie any narrative. It is to the narrative structure that has already been pro- discourses then that the study of narrative must Posed. lead us, the strands of which are drawn through. One of the characteristics of the narratives that The system of narra tion characteristic of mainstream cinema is one that orders that dispersal and we confront in various media forms is the refiguration in a parlicular way, so that dispersal, implicit notion that what the audience is pre- disequilibrium is both maintained and contained in sented with are things as they are, not as a figures of symmetry, of balance, its elements finally representation. This is an aspect of their realist replaced in a new equilibrium whose achievement is the condition of narrative closure nature. However, a narrative can only exist once Genres are modes of this narrative system, regu- it is told. While events might occur on a a lated orders of its potentiality. (Neale 1987) particular day, these only exist as such until certain details are selected by a narrator and told Perhaps what genres as 'instances of reixti- to an audience. Crucial to our understanding of tions and difference' offer also is an opportunity media then is this need for us to acknowledge to identify certain common discourses that are that the narrator, even if s/he N elusive or characteristic of the genre. Westerns and gang- invisible, even if it appears to be the neutral and ster/thriller films come to mind immediately, factual account of aa event, some human agency perhaps because they have historically received prepared this narrative for a listener/reader/ so much attention. Particular genres inscribe viewer. In this way any media product or text is different discourses in certain ways. Within a 'spoken' by someone or some people. As such it gangster film for example, the discourses of is often described as a discourse, more specifi- heterosexual love and law are encodel in cally as the discourse of those producing the different ways: crime forms the disruption that narrative. As such, media students begin to threatens the initial situation, with the issue of acknowledge that within this relating of a heterosexual love as a bit on the side, whereas in sequence of events, there is the implicit assump- a musical, the disruption will relate more tion that this narrative is exactly that: a discourse frequently to a romantic lack. Certain viewers from a particular view. After all the closure choose certain genres for the satisfaction they are which marks the end of the narratives implya offered by engaging in those predictable sce- lack of contradiction. Consequently, the structure narios. It has been suggested that genre assuresa unmasked has implications; certam narratives comprehension and ink pretability of these texts. favour specific discourses and will favour a particular ideology. It is when the student The audience- without conscious awareness- thus continuallyrehea ises basic social contradictions that identifies this agenda that the tale becomes cannot be resolved within the existing socioeco- telling! nomic system outside of the text: law and ortier

1 3 5 PART IV Creding New PossiiiIities far Mei° Awweness 139 versus the idea of individual sucem (the gangster nant discourse normalizes the nuclear family genre); nature versusculture(theWestero);the work situation as natural and preferable. ethic versus the pleasure principle (the musical). Questions must arise in terms of the discourse. (Feuer 1987) Let us look at the Proppian armature alone. To understand examples of a genre simply as Clearly in these ti.rms we have a hero. Should we formulaic responses to a convention would be to examine the heroes of both the Russian folk tales, ignore that aspect of genre that Neale describes: our own., our prevalent popular media as well, the difference part of the 'similarities and certain dear conclusions suggest themselves in differences'. (Within this volume, Lesley Marx terms of the discourses. Within those popular (1991) engages in an analysis that incorporates forms of culture we encounter as mass media, the this emphasis on difference and the potential for heroes are white and male, and in certain media genres to respond to social shifts.) and genres they are middle to upper middle The discourse surrounding masculinity and its class. The position of the victim/princess complexities are worked through in various waysstructured passively as part of the reward system in those media texts that deal with the active maleis frequently the only positive feminine role confronting the wilderness (westerns), law allowed. Again this discourse might suggest a (thriller/gangsters), war and society. The particular age, race and class for the particular different male figures as in the A-team for character, depending on the genre. One step example enable the different scenarios of male further, the active roles traditionally go to the bonding, achievement and heroism to be acti- hero or the villain. Action pivots on these central vated, all this within the dominant patriarchal figures and it is these figures that are generally framework of the culture. The spate of Vietnam considered worth developing in significant war films have been understood as coping with psychological depth. Women can indeed be the US male psyche. Heath discusses Jaws as a active especially when they put on the hat of Watergate film: villainess (our stereotype of the harlot or seduc- Mayor Lany Vaughan of amity, Long Island, serves tress). If we take US TV soap operas (so well- his electors by hushing up a shark attack; the white loved by SABC and M-net programmers), in this not a single woman in the film male middle class area the role of the powerful women usually in the person of police chief Martin Brody will recognize the duplicity and pull the town through suggests manipulation of men in terms of using with an ordinary-guy brand of heroism born of fair- their formidable sexuality. The examples abound. and-decency. (Bennett et al (eds.) 1981) I believe it must be said that there are dominant The discourse of the family within television discourses, those that function through the programmes, series and serials certainly does not frequent use of stereotypes, that serve the reflect the average listener's situation. If it is functions of the particular social order. The point calculated that in England two thirds of televisionis that these customary formats, predictable 'viewers do not live in a nuclear family set-up , it outcomes and familiar characters leave little is not probable to be a significantly different room for speculation. They become naturalized proportion in this country. However the domi- by their constant repetition, and these representa-

140 ma& mews in South Africa Iat; tions become normalized as the status quo: the and how we acquire our knowledge. By teaching acceptable way of life both in the media and how we come by our knowledge we begin to outside of it. Neale's description of narrative in develop students who are not only critically film applies to media generally: aware, but more importantlywho are critically autonomous long after they have left the portals Narrative is not essential to cinema, but historically of the academy. the latter has been developed and exploited as a nanative fonn: against dispersion, for representation, where representation is less immediately a matter of 'what is represented' than of positioninj; narrative Bibliography in cinema is fust and foremost the organization of a Alvarado, M, Gutch, R dc Wollen, T. Learning the Media, point of view through the image flow, the laying out Macmillan, London 1987, of an intelligibilfty, the conveision of seen into scene as the direction of the viewing subject. (Neale 1987) Bardwell and Thompson, Film Art: an Introduction. Knopf, New York 1985. Clearly there are important conclusions that Elsaesser, T. 'Narrative Cinema and Audience Orientated Aesthetics', Popular Television and Film, Bennett, T., Boyd- relate to the structure of narrative in different Bowman, S., Mercer, C. & Woollacott, J., BFI/Open categories of media (for example TV serials in University, London 1981. contrast to TV series, news stories, feature films, Feuer, J. Channels of Discourse, Mien, R.C. (ed.), 'Genre game shows). For our immediate purposes it Study, Routledge, London 1987. must suffice to suggest that the Proppian model Gledhill, C. The Cinema Book, 'Genre', Cook, P., BFI, 1987. provides a generous gateway into approaching Heath, S. 'Jaws, ideology and Film Theory', Popular Television narrative that allows pupil discovery, as well as and Film, Bennett, T., Boyd-Bowman, S., Mercer, C. & Woollacott, J., BF1/Open University, London 1981. practically ensures success at a task. in an area Kuhn, A, Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema, Routiedge & which could well be new. What also will become Kegan Paul, London 1982. obvious, will be those narratives that do not fit Neale, S. Genre, BR, London 1987. the model. These will suggest variations of the Propp, V. Morphology of the Folktale, University of Texas, discourses that reflect the contradictions within Austin and London 1968. socieiy. (The ever popular Cagney and Lacey Turner, G. Film as Social Practice, Routledge, London 1988. series suggests an alternative to the hero format: Wall, & Kruger, S. Reading a Film, Film Education, London the pair of women cops replacing the frequently n.d. lone man.) As educationists we are positioned within a society that inscribes its discourses with (among others) race, sex, class and age overtones. An analysis of narrative in any aspect of media can assist in acquiring an understanding how these discourses are inscribed both in the media and nurtured in the society at large, how these representations organize the 'real' world for us

13' FARM creftwg New Possibliftles it./ Med* Awerenest 141 The Horror Genre & ItsPossibilities In the Classroom

Mandy Jordan

At a recent English conference, Alexander displacement and repetition'. Nevertheless, by Johnston said words to this effect Whenwe sit examining these contradictoty criticalperspec- down in a cinema and the filmcomes on, we tives, we as teachers, might pose the following subconsciously ask what the film is about; it is question to a bright class for examination: Do from this critical point then, thatwe judge. To genres work through present social concerns, elaborate, I think that we, as amateur film critics, producing new experience and knowledgeor do must be able to explain the principleson which they simply repeat the existing formulae and the film can be meaningfully associated with thereby reduce themselves to limitinglynarrow other of its kind. We need to know thatgenre and rigid stereotypes? functions according to sets of rules andconven- On a more simple level, perhapsas an intro- tions about which we have certain pre-conceived duction to film study, we might ask what expectations of character, theme andeven visual fictional worlds are represented tous through the imagery. It would, therefore,seem fitting that we major genres? What actually happens in such encourage our pupils, in an experiential way, to basic genres as the western, the thrilleror the examine what comprises the typical formulae horror film. This is where I begin to link the which have entrenched cinematic archetypal theory to my own pedagogic experience. I elected icons and have dominated ourway of perceiving. to study the horror genre with my classes to Genre study is psychologically satisfying in introduce them to the 'cinema paradiso'. that there is a sense of reliability whenpatterns Why this particular genre,you might ask? As a are recognised, repeated and reinforced. Ironi- teacher, I have the responsibility, I believe,to cally the cinema, I believe, also givesnew forms work within the parameters ofmy pupils' world of expression and transmission in thisway experience and many adolescents havea ensuring continuity and therefore survival of predeliction for horror. After a quick reconnais- these self-same conventions. Genre study then sance of my own local video shops, I found that gives us the opportunity to examineour present adolescent girls particularly watch thisgenre film experience in the light of the filmtraditions especially after their exams. Why is there this of the past. According to optimistic critics,Phillip compulsion for horror among adolescents,as Drummond says, this would have 'therapeutic most people ordinarily shun what disgusts them? value' for the viewer. The pessimistic critics Noel Carrol (1990) offerssome profound and might condemn the rituals ofgenre for 'mystify- philosophical possibilities about the paradox of ing the realities of social experience through the horror genre. Very simplified theysuggest, firstly, that honor evokes 'cosmic fear'. Humans, Hitchcock's Psycho to see how this works. (The he says are born with a kind of fear which ghost spreads out over an area too broad to be borders on awe. Thus, he asserts, the attraction of limited, he says by a single work of fiction.) supernatural horror is that it provokes this sense Nevertheless even the non-readers of classic of awe which =firms a deep-seated human horror and those who don't go to the movies conviction about the world and those fixed laws have some knowledge of the creatures who have of nature which are our only safeguard against contributed to Harlem's myth poolit was on this 'the assaults of chaos and the demons of assumption that I experimented with a group of unplumbed space'. Secondly, he asserts that the my students to see how much of the self-same narrative structure of the horror genre revolves myth pool they understood and whether the around 'proving, disclosing, discovering and codes and conventions of the genre had already confirming the existence of something impos- been internalised by them at the ages of fourteen sible'. In watching a honor film then, we are and fifteen. transported temporarily into Dante's Inferno. I split them into groups and set a task which Thirdly, he offers a psychological account which I was, I think, rather complex. They had to draw think Stephen King (1982) makes more accessible the first five frames presenting the visual in Danse Macabre - his hand book on horror. He narrative of the opening scenes of a horror film of says that much of the horror story's attraction for their own creation. In each frame they had to us is that it allows us vicariously to exercise those consider the tyym of shot they as 'directors' might anti-social emotions and feelings which society use to establish the scene. They had to think demands we keep sublimated. He believes that about how the angle of the camera might affect sex (albeit sometimes presented in disguised the audience's reactions, the type of music that Freudian terms) is a strong driving force in the might be selected - once again to control audience horror genre and I think that this perhaps is one response, any special effects, and finally how the of the attractions of the genre for adolescents whojuxtaposing of certain scenes might enhance the are struggling to come to terms with their own impact on the viewer. sexuality. Bram Stoker's Dracula contains some We did have a preliminary discussion on some very erotic writing considering that it was pennedof the elements that might contribute to the mood at the turn of the century. but by and large, the storyboards which emerged Stephen King identifies three literary works on were products of the boys' own work. The point which he believes most of the archetypal charac- of the exercise was, as I saw it, to pool their own ters and situations are founded. The 19-year old ideas and expand their experiences of our initial Mary Shelley's gothic novel, Frankenstein intro- discussion into concrete and active work with a duces the archetype of the 'The Thing without a media text using a range of skills which were Name; Bram Stoker's, Dracula and RI. easily transferable to other genres. Stevenson's compact novel Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde The exercise was extremely rewarding in that written in three days, give us the werewolf myth the work which was eventually produced was and we only have to think of Norman Bates in highly creative and innovative. The boys seemed

PARflV Creafing New Possi,hes for Mertz Awareness )43 13:3 to have a natural camera eye, and their narratives a horror, so it added to the atmosphere, no sweat. were all spine-chilling and original (drawn, Our camenx operator did extremely well, making only one mistake in cutting a line off too soon. however, from their own past experiences with Luckily the costumes and props were readily avail- the horror genre). Many of the groups made their able and simple. We thought we did pretty well for own audio tapes to accompany their story boards our first attempt and all agreed that it was a gruel- and one group had the creaking sound of an ling task, but we all enjoyed it and decided that it has been a worthwhile experience. empty swing blurring into the sound for the next OSCARS ALL ROUND DON'T YOU THINK?? frame of the windscreen wipers smearing the film titles written in blood across the windscreen of In conclusion then, because cinematic genres the school bus. become systems of understanding and appeal, One group were so excited by the project that they provide blueprints for producers who they decided to video their work, casting continue to feed the movie audiences' desire for themselves as the characters. Here is the report established patterns. I believe that some defini- they gave me about their efforts, tion of the various ingredients of genre will therefore be an important springboard from REPORT ON FILMING OF MOVIE which to launch our pupils into film study. Using Our group really came away with a greater knowl- experiential techniques of self-discoverv, they edge of what movie-makers go through to come out can build up reference catalogues of terminology, with the finished product. To plan the whole occa- conventions of the particular genre under sion took approximately five hours, the time to consideration, and be in a confident position actually film was an hour. In the end we had a film tour minutes long. We therefore worked out that : from which to identify and then analyse the for every one minute of the finished product it took components of the various cinematic texts they fifteen minutes of filming, and seventy-two minutes encounter. of preparation. Due to lack of time, we decided to film the movie as a 'one off thing with no editing or Bibliography re-takes. We formulated a plot and then a script andNoel, C. The Philosophy of Horror, Routledge, made arrangements for the actual filming. The day NY 1990. arrived, and after teaching the camera operator,King, S. Danse Macabre, Futura, 1982. who had never filmed before, how to work theDrummond, P. The Film Genre, Film Education, Lando. camera, we got down to business. After three practices we filmed the first scene, and all went well. The other scenes went off well, only that the poor actor tOR SHOULD IT BE ACTRESS?) playing Candi, had to lie on a fneezing cold stream while the rest of the cast practised the scene three times, it was mid-winter! We never checked that anything had come out right as we went along, we lust hoped for the best. We finished filming after an hour and sat down to view our artistry. We were surprised to see that, due to bad ligb the video had turned out blue! But the movie was supposed to be TRAILING CLOUDS OFGLORY The Kiddie in LocalAdvertising

Guy Willoughby

In this paper. I examine a local application ofa my theme: favourite myth in Western culture, thatof Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: childhood's special knowledge, by the South The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, African advertising industry. I hope therebyto Hath had elsewhere its setting, demonstrate a polymorphous model of mdia And cometh from afar Not in entire forgetfulness, study, in which the strategies of oxialscienoz And not in utter nakedness, combine with those of literary r search. My But trailing cloud of glory do wecome enquiry depends on the simultleous application From God, who is our home: of several knowledges: that of th localpolitical Heaven lies about us in our infancy! economy, and the complex ideolol ;ical formations Shades of the prison-house begin to close that it begets; further, the mythic Upon the growing Boy structures, But he motifs and images whichrecur in our cultural Beholds the light, and whence it flows, practices and habits; then, the pprticular role of He sees it in his joy; the adverfising industry in thisnexus of ideologi- At length the Man perceives it die cal and mythic activity. Lastly, Itrace the away. And fade into the light of common day. (st.5) synchronic operation of all these significancesin particular texts themselves, the rhetoric and Wordsworth's famous Ode: Intimatirm of grammar of actual artefacts in this case, actual Immortality, frnm Reeolketions of Early Childhood advertisements. Here we have the category of (1807) both captures and restatesa durable myth aesthetics, the codes of pleasure active ina of Western culture: that of the special, privileged, society, which determine the extent ofa text's charmed knowledge of childhood. 03y 'myth',I successwhether, in short, it findsan audience. intend both the Barthesiansense of a belief or That success depends on both the recognizability practice, purveyed by the dominant class ina and the difference with which these codesare society at a given time (Barthes 19721, and deployed; if I speak here the language ofstructur-Northrop Frye's view ofbelief, concretized ina alism. I must add the rider that, today, this is set of images that recurs across generations of merged with aesthetics, the province of specific literary texts, often si tbmergedor greatly pleasures for the reader. modified (Frye 1973(.) It is worth noting thatthis myth has a genealogy, if nota history; it coalesces Odom & Hi. Myth of Childhood in the Romantic periodai vund a reaction to the I begin with Wordsworth's splendid recreation of ordered, symmetrical and premeditated,held

P A R T IV C M ew Possibltio for Meio Avitreness 145 is fostered in responsille by Wordsworth's generationfor the This novel attention to children the twentieth century', by the increasingspecial- ugly impact of mass-industrialization.As theOde of the Weses indicates, childhood becomes thelast refuge of ization and diversification spending-power allowed the that 'backward glance', as PeterMarinelli puts it economy. Increased development of children's products,(toys, food, (1971, pp. 8) the urge to return toOtium,the created a whole new area of Golden Age of innocence, freedom,spontaneity, games et al) which consumption, that caters to thechanned space of which is celebrated in Pastoral poetry.If the fosters also the modem industrial world is increasingly'a prison-childhood. This diversification separation of 'work' hem 'leisure'for many house', in Wordsworth's graphicphase, the the urge to special virtues of childhood becomesits vivid bdults in our society: consequently live vicariously through one'soffspring, to enjoy memory of the blissfulorigins of humanity: the circumscribed in child 'beholds the light, and whence itflows,/He through them the play that is so the actual world, is greatlyheightened. (The sees it in his joy.' in the toys they The new focus on infancy, as the'civilized' interest of mothers and fathers ripe for individual's equivalent experience of thesavage's buy for their offspring is a subject state of nature', is traceable toJean-Jacques psychological study). deep-seated (Protes- Rouseau's Emik (1762), and is developedin As Packard points out, a satisfied, by England by Blake and Wordsworth inparticular. tant) guilt is actively aroused, and the advertisers: guilt at workinglonger hours The older view of children as small-scaleadults of working at all (as represented for us, for instance,in the art of or, in the case of women, power. Do not the Renaissance) gradually gives wayto the belief translates into awesome buying ethic here (denial, of in childhood as a site of privilegedexperiences: deny the child is the unstated is never a virtue in consumer society). as the madman isinstitutionalized, so the child cout.r, The current drive of advertisers towin Black comes to the fore asthe silent visionary orseer. whichI discuss (See Foucault 1971). The idea isenergetically South Africans for consumerism, presently, includes this view:do not deny future advanced in the nineteenth century:Dickens the mythic single-handedly does a great deal for themyth in generations what you have lacked: this is South England. There are complex ideological reasons signified of 'multi-raciar advertising in for this, but undoubtedly anunderlying motive Africa today. Throughout the West, the drive tomarket was the embourgeoisementofEuropean society, childrens' products turns on a teasingirony, or the focus onthe nuclear as opposed to the sanctity extended family, with its consequent attentionto contradiction: the impulse to protect the into the child as the locus of prospectiveproprietorial of childhood, which draws anxious parents effort to milk it. feelings: if private property becomes the norm, the shops, also prompts a great condi- the sign of value, the child in the homebecomes (In our society, examples of this piquant principled the unit of that value. (Of course,the Angel of the tion abound: I read Barry Ronge's Turtles Home, Mother, is its tutelaryspirit: seeHoughton condemnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninia 'the worstimmorality ofthe film (is the) 1957). film shameless recycling of proven commercial fostered and protected by the unique grace of images, spun together with more exciting youth. In reality, that culture is fostered and violence to promote the sale of plastic toys' protected by the system of corporate capitalism, which is juxtaposed on the same page of the even in search of markets, and its powerful Sunday Times with 'the Great Sunday Times handmaiden, the advertising industry that Giveaway competition' for Ninja clothes, toys remarkable foire in western society which, in and movie tickets (1 July 199)); elsewhere in the Kenneth Galbraith's wonis, lby making goods same paper, I read a hand-wringing article important makes the irdustrial system important' headlined 'Shame of gymslip "sex for sale' clubs," (1972, pp.215). It is the extent of that industry's about teenage prostitution in Johannesburg, involvement in the childhood myth, and market, which is enticingly close to a colour photograph that I will now trace. of two lissome, barely pubescent entrants for the 'Miss Eastgate' title: and so on.) Advertising & Its kleological By the beginning of the post-war period in Function America, and shortly thereafter elsewhere, 'teen- Late twentieth-century living, in the so-called ager' as a sepamte (market) category has been First Wee Id, enshrines a paradox: while Iam fixed, with its own buying and spendingpower, more and more divorced by circumstances and and a 'youth culture' comes into being to cater forcustom from my neighbour, I am more and more it (and thus Rock 'n Roll, youth fashions, the connected to the business of the planet (and Swinging Sixties, et al: a complex, shiftingprocessbeyond) by electronics. In this 'global village' of ideological formation: see Harker 1980). McLuhan was right in this instance the mass- During the same period, children themselves media are a vital source of communality, and the increasingly have buying power too: the Nit advertising industry (which appears, historically, Turtle craze may stand as a figure for theenor- at the same time as these 'mass' media: Williams mous income that may accrue from kiddies' films,1972) has for long utilized this emotionalas well fads, fashions, toys, et cetera. (Iuse the term as technical resource. Indeed, the history of 'kiddies', henceforward, only partlyas an irony: itadvertising in its modem, organized form represents the banal, transatlantic version of represents a series of victorious encounters, in a Wordsworth's myth, and plays up, I hope, the sedulous colonizing of the Western mind; by the reduction of children to the status of fluffy- end of the First World War, advertisers had mopped animals. It is also the jargon of the ad already discovered that emotions were easier tr, industry.) sell than products (see F.R. Leavis's Culture and Yet the resilient, durable myth of childhood's Environment written in 1933, which contains the specialness, its 'glory and its 'joy', persists: first coherent educational riposte in Englandto although they now look increasingly like the littlethe process). By the 1950s the conscious investiga- adults of the pre-Romantic era, theyare adults tion and manipulation of depth-psychology with this difference: they are defined bya techniques had become widespread: Vance separate culture, with separate values, apparently Packard's classic study The Hidden Persuaders: An

PART lY Gearing New Possibgities kv Media Awarenes 147 1 '3 introduction to The Techniques of Mass-Persuasion Advertisingideolegicei Crisis in (1957) remains both a racy exposeof these Seeds *irks here practices in the industry, and an unconscious Now, the general scenario I have sketched perhaps the 'First World', by tribute to their effectiveness. for the West A study of this history reveals theadman's which I mean the global capitalist economy, recurrent problem, which is preciselythe would be a better appellation has a particular, problem of all more covert purveyors ofdomi- an urgent applicationin South Africa. For ethic of endless nant ideology: the advertiser must notoverstep corporate capital, and its guiding engaged in a the prevailing bounds of taste, propriety consumerism, is under seige, and is (consider the recent withdrawal of one in a mighty labour of persuasion directed at a highly successful series of ads, on a 'squirrel" disenfranchised and largely proletarian majority theme by the Trust Bank in South Africa: the to sustain itself. A plethoraof company offending copy urged readers to 'protect your reports, financial surveys, featurearticles, nuts'). Yet today the ubiquitous presenceof business seminars and media interviews an- advertising, especially on radio and television, nounce, since the unbanningof mass political proves that the industry hassuccessfully ingrati- organisations on 2 February 1990, the great ated itself with the (First-World) public; Ameri- ideological battle against collectivist economics: cans apparently receive about1500 commercial 'What business needs to do', says John Kane- messages a day (Saturday Szar, 21July 1990), Berman of the SA Institute of Race Relations, 'is capitalist which indicates just how low their tolerancelevel make out a convincing case that under a has become. The reason, ultimately, for this system growth will be higher than under some success is mythological, inprecisely the sense of other system. It needs to show that a capitalist and to both Barthes and Frye: advertisementsenshrine system can distribute fairly and equitably, the for us our myths, conventions, practices,dreams convince black people that they will share in Sunday and aspirations; their culling I do not think benefits of rapid economic growth' (The that too harsh a word of the wealth of the Times, 24 June 1990). West's image-repertoire is widespread,wholesale While business and its organs have energeti- and irresistible. Consider this fond estimate, cally responded to this clarion call (the editorials recently, in Tribute, a polished local magazine of the Financial Mail, February June, are repre- dedicated to the selling of First-World ideals to sentative), a subtler form of irregular warfare is Black South Africans: 'We have all become being waged by the advertising industryfor advertising sophisticates. We know we are being consumerism. The magazine, Tribute, for in- implications of the sold to and, on the whole providing it's done stance, recently considered the with style and occasionally even some wit we increasing multi-racial content of TV commer- of do not mind ... These ads touch a chord and cials: ads, we are told, convey 'images not just what become favourite telly companion.s' (Rothnie good cooking, but also of the good life, or 1990). Those 'chords', or codes, are clearly very admen call 'aspirational' images. And because so have to do with South real indeed. many people's aspirations

148 Msdia Mows in Sixth Africa Africa's political future, advertising often takes actual, political terms, children in South Africa on a greater significance than just selling prod- have become the locus, even the vanguard, of a ucts and services' (Delia Rothne, Apri11990). punishing struggle for a future dispensation; Multi-racial advertising, then, serves the goal of a since the Soweto uprising of 1976, the youth in 'non-racial society% it also serves a still more Black Communities have generated political profound function, namely the winning of (black)disaffection, revolt, mass action and have converts to a certain vision of 'the good life', the promoted, in return, a brutal and concerted eager, receptive consumerism 'necessary', in repression in the part of the state and its law- Galbraith's words, 'for the performance and enforcement agencies in the 1983s. Ideologically, prestige of the industrial system' (1972, pp. 215). a schizophrenia in the national consciousness of There has recently been much anxious debate children has developed (as with so many things): about the future of the advertising industry in while white children remained emblems of South Africa (see, for instance, the 'Media and innocent good to be protected, black children Marketing' pages of the Saturday Star: Moerdyk were beaten, chased, brutalized. The local outcry 1990 b-d), and an underlying panacea has been against child-abuse at the end of the Eighties, I offered: it is that of 'customer care'. Given the su:4: est, reveals a curious ideological fissure: volatile political climate, and the continuing while township youth were being harassed, ideological battle, the panacea is understandable, detained, even tortured, and savaged by the for it reminds advertisers of the mythicsuper- system and the endemic power-struggles it threw structure on which their operations finally up, the special sanctity of white children and the depend: and in this climate, the still-potent myth 'heaven of their infancy' was the subject of a vast, of childhood and its special knowledge gainsa well-publicized agvn. In so doing, the ideological new currency. For children are the ultimate indexapparatus of the state, with its hegemony of 'care' in our society, and consciously or contested, was able to demonstrate its moral unconsciouslySouth Africa's advertisers have concern, to reiterate to all contestants in an appropriated that index into their protean increasingly ugly political battle that virtue lies at operations: a company that portrays kiddies in itsthe heart of the polity; detentions, torture, media imagery gains, I will show, a two-fold violence and censorship of every kind might be advantage. It is 'caring', firstly, and gains the temporally necessary, but the state and its attention thus of mothers, fathers, family mem- agencies remained deeply aware of its ethical, bers; and more cunning still it acquires the Judeo-Christian responsibilities. numinosity of childhood's grace and insight, for You will have noticed that, in 1990, the the myth of that special knowledge is given,a outpouring of moral indignation has worn off; in benison, to the product. this year of the 'new' South Africa, the hegemonic Before I turn directly to the conventions of need for this virtuous excision from the body kiddie-advertising, it is worth observing the politic of its offending members has receded; contest of competing forces, or interests, in our society is more moral, open, wholesome, again; society for the sanctifying badge of childhood. In we no longer lock up children, certainly not in the

P A R T V C N ew Noslilities for MailoAMItenettS149 number that existed earlier. So child-abuse is last and most intriguingly ads which feature year's problem, last year's issue, those unfortu- kiddies, but which have nothing to do with the nates still being arrested relegated tothe media 'youth' market at death of the inner pages of our papers, and the structural determinants of child abuse in a societyAds for Kiang of repremed desire, obsessive personal secrecy Recent research in South African has proved and nuclear exclusiveness, is deflected again. what advertisers in the United States have Meantime, the durable myth of childhood's known for years (Packard pp. 159): children are TV than their parents sanctity which, indeed, is part of the problem more sedulous devotees of survives, more or less intact (Moerdyk 1990 a) and therefore the precise Into this nexus of competing interests, the targeting of ads is vital. 'It's well known that advertisers shrewdly move, revitalizing and marketers realize the value of the youth market - recasting the imagery of childhood: a compli- grab then young and develop brand loyalty cated interplay of profiteering and pious senti- which continues into adulthood' (Schreiberand ment, of exploitation and protection,confirms the Borthwick 1989). Now, during the children's slot central irony that infant state of bliss must be on TV 1,2 and 3, that is3-5 o'clock in the after- both nurtured and mined to which I have noon, we find a revealing setof ads that work via already referred. A closer scrutiny of the forms the moppets, on the purseholders, their parents: and images of the genre (for it is that) will beside the obvious kiddies' market sweets, demonstrate my claims. toys there are other foodstuffs featured which tap the youthful viewers' sensibilities.(Vance The Child In Loud Advertising Packard described this process admirably thirty I am going to focus in this discussion on TV years ago: 'the merchandizerssought to groom commercials, today clearly the most crucial site ofchildren not only as future consumers but as mythic intervention for advertisers: as Galbraith shills who would lead IN 'club' their parents into argues, 'The industrial systemis profoundly the salesroom' Ipp. 161-21.) Here, a curious dependent on commercial television and could inversion takes place; whereas when kiddies are not exist in its present form without it'(pp. 213). used in ads for grown-ups, the myth of child- As the media journals and marketing pages of hood bliss, atium, is activated, in those directed at our newspapers indicate, thisAmerican truth is children themselves the child's assumption of the now ours as well. adult world, her potential to infiltrate it, is An analysis of children's presence in TV deployed. commercials, over the course of some six months Thus, in the Oatso- Easy ad, two little girls, (January-june), indicates two market categories, bedecked in their mothers' make-up, jewellery and three kinds of appeal: first, there are those and clothes, ape their 'mommies' manner too: directed at children themselves; then, those that they discuss the problems they have in 'getting appeal via children to adults, but concern the kids to eat properly'. Naturally, Oatso-Easy is products in which children are interested; thirdly offered as the panacea for this particular prob.

1 30 Mein *Mrs in South Aka lem, and the denouement is especially cunning: themoot point, but these little girls (nine, ten, eleven) total signified is the authority conferred by the today constitute a market in their own right, and mere costume and manner of adulthood, which the pressure on the maternal purse-strings is lend validity to the chosen panacea, (The right- likely to be decisive. It is not for nothing that we ness, 'naturalness', of a certain sexual condition- sixIdenly have the 'Sunday Times/OK/K-TV ing, of course, is another mythic signified as Miss Ladybird' competition (see the Sunday Times well.) Magazine, 19 August 1990: 'Miss Ladybird Meets Other ads affect an (apparent) subversion of theMiss SAl: the 'pre-teen' market is a big one, and adult world, 'a sly sniping at parent symbols' Miss Cameo, et al, hopes to make it bigger. (Packard, pp. 163), as a further means of enticing the tots' interest: this approach is especially Wens for Grown-Ups useful when the product being peddled is not of Now, let us move closer to the only real market, in immediate infant interest So in the Sunshine D material terms: the adults. I begin by locating the margarine commercial, the dullness of a school topos of the kiddies' ads intended for mature day (droning headmaster, slumbering kiddies in consumers; it is contained in one word; the assembly) is juxtaposed with the glee of 'sarmies' family. The adorable, well-scrubbed, large-eyed liberally doused in gleaming yellow margarine, kiddie of the adman's creation is always ina once school is out again, the effect is twofold. family, which has the following (nuclear) mem- Watching adults have their attachment to the bers. There is the Loving Mother eternally caring otium myth confirmed all that is needed to for her kiddies and husband, generally portrayed foster childhood bliss is Sunshine Dwhile their around a dining or kitthen table, in the garden, at offspring enjoy the satire on the (boring) grown- the bedside (always soft-focus here), sometimes up world. on holiday (the family, judging by these well- A similar technique of imitation appears in the appointed surroundings, are pretty affluent, but Miss Canieo pantihose ad, which is aimed ata no longer pretty white). The loving-mother-plus- slightly older age-group; Here the effect ismore kiddies scenario sells soups, spreads, foodstuffs of disturbingly sexist, the appeal (to the chiid's every description: otium needs sustenence, as incipient vanity) more concerted. We viewan these ads remind the attentive maternal viewer. aerobics class, complete with figure-hugging Then, there is the Protective Father, a sturdier outfits, and synchronized routines; the only figure, kind but vigilant, often against the world difference between these girls and their older outside. Sometimes, the drama of the ad involves counterparts are their ages: these girls are the loving-mother-and-kiddies in an intrigue to prepubescent. (Do we wonder at the flourishing rescue him from that hostile world, as in the Flora phenomenon of 'child abuse'?) Yet their gyration,commercial, in which the family rallies to keep their pouting appeal, is pretty adult: the signified dad's cholesterol down; or as with the tireless here is that, dressed in Miss Cameo pantihose, agent in the Mobil ad, whose family wait to little girls can be as lithe, sexy, desirable as biggersuccour him at the triumphant conclusion to his ones; whether their mothers would agree is a day.

1 1 7 PART lY Cmcliog Neve Posifixlities Media Ammo 151 In general, this (bright, cheerful, clean) nuclear elixirs, choose a different approach to the same family signifies the attainment of the ideal privategenre. Sweets, ice-creamsand cooldrinks are life, in which the children are the site and source made direct sources of that unfettered bonomie, of happiness: the idyll depends on the rippling joy, bliss, not to say delirium which occurs out of otium from the charmed infants totheir amongst kiddies themselves, in their own (carefree. attentive parents, and thus the perennial purvey- Worthsworthian) environment thus the ads for ors of this topos are food manufacturers(sugar Tinkles, Beacon, Smarties that joyous rain of and maize boards), supermarket chains, domestic multi-coloured droplets, against which kiddies cleaning agents, insurers (think of Southern Life, cavort, is a semiotic triumphet al, appeal both think of Metropolitan): all those producing to children, and their parents: the formerwill supposed elixirs to sustain the children and by pressurize the latter into purchasing the desirable extension the blissful family unit those goodies, while the latter can see (again, as children create. In short, I offer a deeply-laid outsiders: no adult intruders here) what those cultural explanation for the success of these ads, goodies do for childhood's charmed bliss. (Of which so obviously play on the potential guilt of course, the paradox of a bliss that isboth innate watching Moms and Dads; these lovely kiddies and manufactured is not foregrounded: the trail clouds of glory, and if they are happy their punchy seamlessness of these brief narratives is elders will gain grace as well. inviolate almost.) Often, this nuclear unit features an extension: it is that of the Wise Grandparents, wrinkled and Expanding the Terrain of the Kiddie kindly, recalling in their fond saws anci faraway Recently, we have witnessed an interesting looks a Saturnian Golden Age: here the advertis- generic departure: the deployment of kiddies and ers affirm the special bondbetween the very old their numinosity in advertising campaigns for (wise through age) and the ei young (wise products entirely unrelated to children's needs or through 'heaven-born freedom': Wordsworth's experiences. Here the trailblazer has been the phrase (Ode, 1.1241). Typically, these ads portray mighty Saniam insurance company, with its the Wise Grandparents assuring the kiddie of the striking depiction of the business world inhab- virtue in some less obviously staple item ited by babes-in-arms: in each of a series of ads, Scott's Emulsion, Vick's Drops, Cadbury's we are presented with a typicalboardroom chocolate as if it were a privileged knowledge. enarioboss and secretary, company chair- Parents are never allowed into this warm circle: man and directors, apolicy-holders' meeting they are workaday interlopers, and must wait in which the key participants are infants in the outside (outside the scene, outside the TV set) to guise of grown-ups: the illusion, a true visual receive, by eavesdropping, as it were, the esoteric conceit, is sustained through a marvellous truth the truth that will set the children, and interplay of tight editing, and a voice-over (of thus themselves, free. adults), apparently congruent with the shots. The vast amount of frankly pleasurable The process of mythic construction and foodstuffs on the market, unconvincing as family adaptation here is a great deal more novel and

152 metho Moen in South Africo '47

lacious: the representation of kiddies in the Barthesian sense, taking shape; insurance, garb and paraphenalia of business (suits, stilettos,investment, the (hierarchical) relationships of office bric-a-brac) is a brilliant variation on Sergei these enterprises, are as easy, natural, even Eisenstein's montage effect, in which the conjoin- graceful, as child's play; and, what is more, as ing of unrelated images results in a new, second- inviolate. It is a stunning mythological essay, a order, signified. Eisenstein's theory, deployed in veritable cor.t,ound of connotations (innocence, his earlier, revolutionary films (Kerensky, spontaneity, free play, joy, with order, calcula- Potengin), itself represents an adaptation of the tion, competition, profit-seeking) together. Marxian dialectic (thesis/antithesis/synthesis) to The Salaam campaign is a much cleverer the startling new medium of cinema (Eisenstein adaptation of the adult-imitation idea than, say 1949). In the Sanlam ads, cunning editing and the the Oatso-Easy ads; but then, the insurers are after juxtaposition of a great deal of unrelated footage a much larger, more crucial market. It is worth with a soundtrack, prompts a second-order noting the success of the babies-as-businessmen meaning which insists, wittily, that we retain the campaign. In spite of complaints to the Life Office impress of the first order this particular decoding Association that one of the advertisements is -- impossible outside of capitalist culture 'misleading' the complaint was nothing but depends on two (usually) unrelated codes, those sour grapes', said the Sanlam MD, Pierre Steyn of the baby and those of the boardroom, in the (Sunday Times Business supplement, tr May 1990) minds of its audience. Familiar corporate images the company as of 22 June 1990 threatens to and iconography meet the potent myth of 'overtake Old Mutual on the net premium childhood, and what at first glance looks like a income comparison basis, this year' (Top 100 teasing contrast of childish spontaneity with Companies: Financial Mail Special Suivey 1990, pp. .dult premeditation takes on a daunting, plau- 250) which in plainer English means that sible new meaning; we are seeing a myth, in the Sanlam is poised to become the most powerful

PART 1 C M P ossibilities for Midm Aocreness 153 life insurance organisation, in terms of assets and transference of pleasurable emotions, not stock, Jr South Africa. information, not tiven an image. Pm-eminently, Recently, a second, related advertising venture it is the bliss, the heaven lying about these has take place: Toyota, the car manufacturers, kiddies in their infancy, which viewers decode; have launched a TV campaign which utilises the and indeed, the ad reminds us of the real magic circle of children's play, untainted by infantile pleasures supposed adults exult in adults, for new purposes. The first conunercial behind the wheel. (That the children involved in features a crowd of laalvoet kids' (as the Sunday the Toyota campaigm are actually poor, and that Times so memorably calls them: 29 July 1990), on many of their struggling parents inKrugersdorp spindly wooden go-karts, in a breathless rough West jumped at the chance to make a little and-tumble chase over ditches, koppies, bushes: money through their skaalvoet kids', is an aspect the kids are obviously poor (tatty clothes, bare of the ad's political economy which is, of course, feet), the karts self-made, which means the effaced: see the Sunday Times article, 29 July signified thus resolves itself into phrases like 1990, for a sentimental but revealing expose). triumph over adversity, the spirit of enteiprise, et To repeat, these commercials mark a new cetera; the screen pulsates with rapid edits, development for the local advertising incite try; oblique angles, driving music: the tempo is the immense, if unperceived, authority of a frantic. Then, the (adult) voice-over proclaims the pervasive cultural myth is being shifted from an debut of a new range of cam these signifiers, accepted, 'natural' area of contest (the family visual and aural, focus our attention adroitly on a market-place, products for the young) to quite product. The spirit of enterprise (no other unrelated ones: and the endlessly protean myth- possible reason for an image of poverty in making of the industry gains (or seems likely to advertising) is overlaid with the blissful otium of gain) a fresh psychic, thus financial, terrain. The youth (these kids are literally trailing clouds of imaging of children in current TV advertising, in glory behind their makeshift karre), in order to sum, points both to the durabilityof a society's lend to the distinctly grown-up product an aura mythic memory-bank, and to the deflection and of frontiership, resourcefulness, adventure; in displacement such archetypes or Grundgestus particular, to grant it the thrill of childhood's full- Brecht's word for a memorable compound of throated enjoyment. sound, 0%ion and gesture undergo, as the The cleverness of this ad is several-fold. It hidden lines of economic force ceaselessly move, depends on the viewer's identification of kiddies' a veritable stratum, beneath thefloorboards of bliss with the new car, climatically offered at the our ideological building. end, but unseen: the scene must become an I hope these analyses demonstrate quite how objective correlative, in fact, for the qualities of radical the contradictions, the fissures, in an the car, the experience of driving it. Like the ideological nexus can be; that they reveal bow suave cigarette and liquor ads of the UK,which powerfully a social myth can operate. to may not legally portray people actuallyenjoying forestall, correct, paper over the unpleasant their wares, the Toyota TV commercial relies on a cracks, in a hegemonic arrangement. Advertis-

154 MethoMdinSouthAIvico 1 5 ing, by energetically renewing and advancing the perhaps masked: in some ways interior to institu- myth of childhood's sanctity and special knowl- tions, to conformist discourse, to apparent edge, retards the stripping of false knowledges finalities' (1975, pp. 108). It is a nihilism worth I speak materially in the interests of a more developing in relation to the media. honest, equitable social organization. I do not Bibliography mean by this that false knowledges that 'false Baran, R. Mythologies, Jonathan Cape, London 1972. consciousness' of Marx will ever be success- Barthes, R. 'The Pleasure of the Text", 1982. Sontag, S. (ed.), Banks: Selected writings, Jonathan Cape, London 1975. fully eradicated; as Roland Barthes came to Barthes, R. Inaugural lecture, college de France, 1979, Sontag realise, the propensity of mythologizing is almost S. (ed.), Blather Selected Writings, 1982. intrinsic to social construction, arrangements and Bruce, N. (ed), Top 100 Companies: Financial Mail Special deployments of power, the structures and Surety, Times Media, Johannesburg 1990. utterance of language that ultimately sly, Eisenstein, S. Film form, Dennis Dobson, New York 1949. metaphoric system itself. (See Barthes 1979.) Foucault, M. Madness and Civilization, Tavistock, London n71. The critic the reader of popular culture must Frye, N. The Critical Path, Indiana University Press, never forget the categories of pleasure her texts Bloomington 1973. involve; the numen, the aura, of artefacts like TV Galbraith, JIG. The New Industrial State, Andre Deutsch, ad campaigns depend at last on a recognition, a London 1972. tacit willingness to be duped or entertained Harker, D. One For the Money, Hutchinson, London 1980. by its audience. Houghton, W. The Victorian Frame of Mind, Yale University Press, New Haven 1957. All kinds of pleasures can be had from these advertisements, including the critic's pleasure of Kane-Berman, J. 'Getting the 'haves' message across to the 'have-nots'. Sunday Times, 24 June 1990. analysing, deciphering, the myths, patterns, Leavis, F.R. and Thompson, D. Culture and Environment, tropes of play and power; in a word, the pleasure Chatto and Windus, London 1933. of divination, which is where the critic joins the Marinelli, P. Pastoral, Methuen, London 1971. artist as the descendant of the ancient shaman, Moerdyk, C. 'It's offical TV is kids' stuff'. Saturday Star 5 sybil, medicine man. (With this important May 1990a. difference: everybody attended to the medicine Moerdyk, C. 'Brand new future for the advertising', Saturday man then. Who listens to the critic now?) In other Star, 5 May 1990b, words, I am cautioning my readers against the Moerdyk, C. 'Political jolt predicated for (advertising) industry', Saturday Star, 9 June 1990c. heady notion that our deliberations can, or Moerdyk, C. 'Look after no 1 the customer', Saturday Star, should, seek to dismantle, limit, censure the 19 August 1990d. complex operations I have been describing: that Packard, V. The Hidden Persuaders, Longmans Green, London would be quixotic. We can merely hope that the 1957. dissemination of techniques an overlapping Ronge, R. 'Turtles' ninja mission: get the Little Mermaid!' strategy of technological, ideological, mythic and Sunday Times, 1 July 1990. rhetorical knowledge might enable our charges Rothnie, D. 'Mixed media: the changing world of advertising', to see, to read, to enjoy, while resisting, together. Tribute, April 1990. 'The most consistent nihilism' says Barthes, 'is Schreiber, A. and Borthwick, W. 'Cigarette firms lure the young*. Sunday Star, 30 April 1989. Williams, R. Communications, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1972. 15 J. PART !Y Creasing New Pougsgifee Medic Aweless 155 PLAYING THE DEMME Parodic Ihnnents In TheBig EasyandChinatown

Lesley Marx

Humphrey Bogart - `a man men wanted to shape of the classical detective story is, fmally, a emulate and women wanted to love' (Barbour comic one (108). 1973, 9), a man who came to typify the hard- The hard-boiled novel offers no such consola- boiled detective, the private eye, the private dick. tion, and the films generated by it manifest the His privacy marked his individualist code and differences in images of great evocatory power. his marginal status, that position on the border- What appears to be a simple request from a client line of crime and the law, a position enabling himturns into nightmarish proportions as layer upon to perforate the underworld and also criticize the layer of evil and corruption reveal themselves in ineptitude of its official opponents, the police. a 'rhythm of exposure' (147), embroiling the His hard-boiledness marked his toughness, detective himself, his life tImeatened, his moral cynicism and integrity, while the slang terminol- being challenged, those dose to him victimized. ogy, bringing his eye and his di.-k into collusion, The chiaroscuro labyrinths of the city in which he suggested both his penetrating vision and the works are an image for moral ambiguity, for the phallic power of his presence on the screen. The collapse of boundaries between seeming and tv% irgans were equally, of course, images of his being, a landscape of lies where both people and masculine appropriation of that other image objects deceive (McArthur 1972, 42). Further- central to the genre - the beautiful but treacher- more, we are drawn into this world through the ous woman. point of view of the detective (Cawelti 1976, 84). John Cawelti's (1976) admirable analysis of the No longer is there a mediating Doctor Watson detective novel points to the crucial differences and a coolly controlled supersleuth to shield us. between the classical and the hard-boiled It follows from this that when the crime is solved, varieties. The classical detective works by meansthere is little sense of order restored to a world of ratiocination towards a 'precise definition and where the shadows are pervasive. What victory externalization of guilt' located in the 'least-likely there is lies in the detective's desperate assertion person' (90). He remains dear-headed and of his own honour and perception of truth. Both detached, the isolated setting of the crime Stefano Tani (1984, 25) and Cawelti (1976, 151) contributing to the comforting sense that it is argue that the genre is centrally concerned with outside mundane experience (96-7). Pleasure is the hero as heir to those questors for moral gained from the logic of the detective's explana- centredness once typified by the knight in tion, assuring us that the dark underside of being shining armour. Now, a bit battered in his fedora is subservient to a higher, rational order (89). The and trenchcoat, walking the gleaming

156 malo Moen m South *ma 152 rainwashed streets or riding an endless series of thus to men's) and is a consummate performer, motor cars, cigarette smoke wreathing his head, flexible, devious, protean, able to parody the telephone cupped to his ear, this latter-day knightstereotypes by which patriarchy seeks to define tries to read the clues of a devious world in order her, thus casting Salome's veils of deception over to wrest meaning and pattern from the chaos of the private eye. As Place suggests (48), her signifies. presence on screen is frequently so compelling The hard-boiled detective film, like its cousin that it overflows tlw 'narrative explanation' or, in the gangster film, is deeply suspicious of what Brigid O'Shaughnessy's case, the framing/ Robert Warshow (1948;1975, 127) calls America's taming that marks her end. commitment to a 'cheerful view of life.' The The Maltese Falcon(1941) is one of the fmest detective has little confidence in the ostensible exemplars of the genre. John Huston's directorial upholders of the American way, the defenders of debut, it is meticulously designed and perfectly the system. He offers a persistent critique of the cast. From the opening scene, the camera locates system's fur ,nd its notion of justice, us in the world of Sam Spade (his first name calling into qu, ,i) any monolithic conception ofarchetypally American, from Uncle Sam to Sam law and order. In the words of Jim Collins (1989, Shepani), as it draws us through dissolves over 34): the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco back ...detective fiction is, moreoften than not, a discourse behind the window with the heres name, which forces contradictions rather than compro- pausing on his head as he deftly rolls the ubiqui- mises; that is disrupfive rather than integrative, be- tous cigarette. Bogart's wry, crackling voice and cause 'justice' is characterized as provisional, incom- sharp, amused, rabbit grin control Effie, the plete and virtually unenforceable by a State inca- pable of understanding its complexity. In the pro- secretary, girl Friday, loyal, motherly, indulgent cess, the 'law and order' pairing is itself destabilized. of his sexism ('You'll want to see her - she's a Once law is subiect to multiple definitions, order knockout,' she tells Sam, thus preparing us, too, becomes relative as well, without a master system to to 'see' Miss Wonderly). Effie is variously coordinate those differences. addressed by her boss as 'darling,"sweetheart,' In itself, then, the genre enacts a pan:Ay of the or 'precious,' until she is drawn into the action at status quo. which point her accolade is, 'You're a good man, From another perspective, the major destabiliz- sister. ing force in these films is thefemme fatale,whois, The entrance of the knockout (whose many 'as often as not,' says Christine Gledhill (1980, 15) names are an obvious indicator of her 'the central problem in the unravelling of truth' foregrounding as protean actress) is an admirable and her relationship with the hero often usurps endorsement of Laur,, Mulvey's argument (1975; the importance of the crime. She is a threat in that 1986, 198-209) that qiich in film are presented she is outside the domestic realm of female as images to be looked at by men, the bearers of identity (Harvey 1980, 22-34). She is narcissistic, the gaze, either voyeuristically (with sadistic ambitious, ruthless, has atney Place (1980, overtones) or as objects of fetishistic scopophilia. 36) describes as 'acces, 0 hetAin sexuality (and Tall, beautifully dressed, she pauses in the frame

5 3 PART Geeing New Peas:tans 6 Maio Awarenen 157 of the doorway, bound, too, by the frame of the her sexuality: What else can !buy you with?' He shot, the eyes of Spade and the eyes of his kisses her and, as in the second seduction scene, secretary, in a proleptic image of her final there is a displacement of verbal performance entrapment behind the bars of the lift that carries and deceit with sexuality, thus threatening Sam's her to prison. As she tells her story (later, she will self sufficient integrity. He asks her how much 'confess' that it was 'just a story), her deep truth there was in her version of the falcon's modulated tones and crisp enunciation conflict history and she laughs, 'Some, not very much.' with her rapid, nervous, declarative sentences This performance of candour is almost entirely and her shifting eyes, her presentation of herself disarming, for Spade and us, and even her on trial before the cool listeningprofile of Spade contrived angst (I'm so tired of not knowing that dominates one side of the screen. (Kaminsky what is lie and what truth') cannot diminish the points out that reaction is often more important allure of her invitation. It is important that this than what is being said 11978, 251). When Archer moment is a culmination of a scene whereSpade enters, she is the focal point of one of the many has demonstrated his own superlative ability to triangular formations in the film, highlighting theperform, to lie, to tell stories that dupe (in his contrary responses of the two men: Miles's case, the bumbling police). It iscentral to the lecherous gullibility is his death, while Spade's genre that the private eye'sunderstanding of the succinct recap of Brigid's story subsumes her self- criminal mind enables him to behave like one - construction and puts her in her place ('Is that always, of course, in the interests of a nobler right?' 'Yes,' she meekly replies). cause. So Brigid's challenge to hisintegrity Even on her own territory, Brigid must yield to ('Would you be doing this if the falcon had been the penetrating gaze of Sam. In a room teeming real?') wins the response, 'Don't be too sure I'm with striped patterns (the blinds, the upholstery, as crooked as I'm supposed tobe. That's good for her robe - decor prefiguring the bars of the lift business.' The one role he refuses to play is that once more), she finds that neitherher words nor of the 'sap,' and he denies her voice in the final her manner can deceive him, for his streetwise scene Malt till I'm through, then you cantalkl, cynicism reads the tale of her money. In a scene while he dominates centre screen to articulate his structured on the rhythms of sitting and stand- credo, a credo based largely on loyalty to his ing both contest control of screen space as she (male) partner. 'You're taking the fall,' he tells tries another role - that of the vulnerable damsel her - that is all a fallen woman can do, and all in distress, flattering Spade's sense of honour. women are fallen sisters of that first traitress. 'You're brave. You're strong,' she throbs up at Whether the artist is male or female, breaking him as his poker face breaks into an appreciative out of the formulaic presentation of gender while grin. 'You're good,' he mocks her. adhering to overall generic structuring necessi- Later, Spade accuses her of play-acting the tates an imagination alive to the possibilities of schoolgirl. 'I've been bad' she admits. 'You're parody, play and performance, already implicit good,' he tells her again, but her confidence has in the roles of the detective and the femme fatale. grown and she ignores him, leading him onwith (Similarly, whether the viewer is male or female,

158 MA Matters in&oil Aim the ability to read parodic texts against their nostalgic imitation of past models; it is a stylistic tarrt texts and to read for the playful insurrec- confrontation, a modem recoding which estab- tions that subvert many of the texts apparently lishes difference at the heart of similarity' (8). most at home in mainstream popular culture, The intertextuality at the heart of parody allies dtsnands openness, flexibility and a pleasure in it with ideas of performance and play. In the case plural meanings). On the one hand, parody is of the former, the artific.; is foregrounded. The allied to imitation. It is a form that speaks parody enacts the shapes that structure its target belatedness. Whether it suffers anxiety on this text. The spare opened for this ithlrodic perfor- account or not depends on whether it is seen man:e is4de possible by the liberating, open- simply as parasitic, as a sign of the cannibalizing end edmss of play, what Iluiringa (1949, 7) callod failure of artistic forms to renew themselves, or as 'a voluntary activity' dependent on hoznan a sign of cannibalization in more mythic terms - freedom, 'a flowering, an ornament, a garment' eating the father to ensure one's continuing spread over nature. Playing with texts is part of strength, absorbing past forms in order to ensure postmodernist performance heralded most regeneration. Margaret Rose (1979) points out spectacularly in literature, as Charles Caramello that 'panxlia' implies both 'nearness and opposi- points out (1977, 221), by Finnegan's Wake, with tion' (33) and suggests that parody 'makes the the heirs of Dada making their presence felt from object of attack part of its own structure, and thusJohn Cage and Me= Cunningham to Laurie also depends in part on the reader's conditioned Anderson, from Mélies to Godard and Monty reaction to this object of attack for the response toPython. Generic boundaries are broken, as are the itself (35). boundaries between art and life, writer and Using Foucault's analysis of Don Quixote as a reader, and, one might argue, masculine and focus, she goes on to argue that parody 'may feminine. fulfil a heuristic function in changing, or develop- The commitment to play as liberatory action ing, the leader's horizon of expectations, while has taken on special resonance for feminist also serving the author in the task of freeing theorists. In the realm of film studies, many himself from earlier models' (63). It shows 'the critics have used the idea both overtly and process of literary creation to be unfinished and covertly, to attack the rigidities of the psythoana- open for further development' (83) and, even lytic model promulgated by Mulvey, Bellour, more, it reveals the possibility of 'initiating a Kristeva, Kaplan et al, espt cially with regard to revolutionary break in the discourse of its age the female spectator. Jackie Stacey (1988, 119-120) through the mcta-fictional criticism of other texts' raises the problems succinctly: (129). Its revolutionary potential is enacted at the If we do argue that women differ from men in their levels of author, text and reader (or director, film, relation to visual constnictions of femininity, then viewer). Linda Hutcheon (1985) also emphasises further questions are generated for feminist film parody's Janus-faced nature, looking backward, theory: do all women have the same relationship to images of themselves? Is there only one feminine often with affection, but also forward in the spectator position? How do we account for diver- desire for new meanings: 'It is not a matter of sity, contradiction or resistance within this category

PARflV Creding Me« for Mack Awareneis 159 of feminine spectatorship? term 'parody'. Jameson (1983, 116) seesit as the This problem arises in relation to all cultural systems latter, but admixes the film and, like Cawelti, in which womim ha ve been delmed as 'other' within feels a terminological anxiety. The seamd patriarchal discourses: how can we express tiw ex- question revolves around the presentationof tent of women's oppression without denyingfemi- Evelyn Mulwray. To what extent doesPolanski, a ninity any mom to manoeuvre (Mulvey, 1975),defining women as complete victims of patriarchy male artist after all, make subversive inroadsinto (Bellour, 1979), or as totally other to it (Doane, 1982)? ma*nstream construcfion of female images,thus ...the female spectator is offered ...masculinisation, giving spectators, male and female, fresh entries masochism or mar&ality. into cinematic viewing? Shelagh Young (1988, 188) defends the possibil- Cawelti (1979, 559-568) has pointed out the ity of a female gaze and argues that we should central areas of generic parody in the film. explore the 'inroads' that have been made by Instead of black and white, we have colour women's looks and voices into mainstream (Shadoian 11977, 2101 argues that colourresults in popular culture, rather than bewail the lack of a flattening out of themoral spectrum evoked by 'icons' that would simply imprison us in a black and white evil becomes endemic);instead monolithic code of feminist strategy. She suggestsof claustrophobia we have expansive outdoors that the belief in the unstable, socially contructed scenes; instead of a herowith whom we laugh, 'subject in process' allows for a more playful, less we have a hero at whom welaugh (and a police lugubrious outlook on the very evident conflicts detective who isn't dumb); instead of a guilty between different 'feminist' positions' (185). The woman at the centre of thefilm, we have an postmodernist phase of feminism demands a innocent one and, finally, we have a catastrophic pleasure in play rather than the unpleasure of ending that leaves the private eye with knowl- Laurd Mulvey's propagation of anti-mainstream edge but no power, as the force of evil retreats puritanism (Gamman 1988, 24). Protean, in once more into protectivedarkness. process, the female spectator need notsubscribe Perhaps the most interesting scene is that to Mulvey's (1990, 35) assertions thatthe only where Jake Gittes has his nose cut. Having way she can engage in pleasurableviewing is to almost drowned in a flood of water, the belea- accept temporary 'masculinization' in memoryof guered private eye limps, one shoe lost, towards her 'active' phase' and then to find her 'phantasy the fence where he is halted by the rasping, of masculinization at cross-purposes with itself, foreign accents of the runtish 'man with a knife,' restless in its transvestite clothes.' Transvestism Roman Polanski himself. Having sliced Gittes' should be seen, rather, as an image of playful nose, the 'midget' threatens him:'Next time you liminality. lose the whole thing. I cut it off and feed it to my Turning to Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) goldfish' and half-smiles, looking up obliquely engages us in two questions. Isth. film a parody towards the camera. Polanski, the creator of this or merely an exercise in nostalgia?Cawelti (1979, parodic detective, performs the symbohc 567) argues for the former, although he admits emasculation of his creature. As the 'man with a that the tragic ambience involves stretching the knife,' his role harks back to his first feature film,

160 *dim Soktth Africa Knife in the Water (1961), and he intrudesinto a knowledge of the owneiship of the bifocals. Clear film that at once pays homage to another vision and the truth of the imageare thus called director's first feature fihn and features that into question, both as a function ofa duplicitous director as the father in whom allpower is world and, importantly, as a function of Jake's vested, John Huston. (Polanski's foregrounded ineptitude in that world. That he is continually 'midget' status is another ironic pointer to his denied a simple reading of Evelyn is inevitable. own belatedness, while he nevertheless thumbs He seeks to appropriate her to his limitedrange his revised detective's nose at the generic father). of 'meanings for women' (Ida Sessions isa This is the scene, then, of Polanski'scastrating 'broad,' his secretary a 'little girl% justas his signature, marking the ironic renovation of the phallic zoom lens seeks to appropriate reality detective for a postmodernist world. while maintaining a safe distance from it (Photo- Although this scene occurssome way into the graphing is essentially an act of non-interven- film, Jake's dubious statusas heir to Bogey is tion,' writes Susan Sontag 11977, Ili). Heenters demonstrated from the beginning. As Cawelti vicariously, voyeuristically into themystery of points out (1979, 565), the traditional privateeye others' lives and will discover, in the shockar 3 considered it a matter of honour not toengage in horror of the film's climax, that, although divorce cases, and the first thingwe see in photography 'implies that we know about the Polanski's film is photographic evidence ofJake's world if we accept it as thecamera records it...this successful trailing of an unfaithful wife(setting is the opposite of understanding, whichstarts up the image of woman as treacherous). More from not accepting the worldas it looks. All than that, he takes professional pride inwhat he possibility of understanding is rooted in the describes as the 'finesse' needed for his'matrimo- ability to say no' (Sontag 1977, 23). Jakelearns to nial work,' his 'metier.' This pretentiousindul- say no to his misogynist myopia when it is too gence in euphemism is complemented by his late. unctuous apologies for crude language in the Polanski structures his critique of Jake with presence of Evelyn. great care. Notably, the first time wesee Evelyn His occupational and linguistic taintedness Mulwray, we join her, thecamera and the seems to affect his perception, too- Jake is a very 'associates' to look at Jake, who is makingan bad reader. The film foregrounds the acts of idiot of himself in his clumsy telling ofa joke that seeing and reading in countless ways: Jake and is both racist and misogynist (and whosecontent, his binoculars dominateone side of the screen as sex and China, will take on a powerful aura of he watches Mulwray; he 'shoots' Mulwrayand fateful repetition as the film progresses).His Catherine in Echo Park and at the ElMacondo, clownishness is trapped between the resigned talcing photographs which he willmisinterpret, assighs of his associates, rendered dominant bythe he will fail to recognize the significance of those low angle of the camera, and theexpressionless, given him of Mulwray and Cross arguing. He controlled and aristocraticgaze of the waiting will also misread the evidence of the saltwater Mrs Mulwray. 'Do you know me?' she asks him that is 'bad for the glass,' arrogantly assuming in measured, ironic tones, and it isa question that

157 PART IV Creating New Pcisibikies for Maio Awareness 161 department,' he wants to know). is to reverberate throughoutthe film, long after or the water Her mask begins to give way asshe falters on the her departure from his office, in acompelling word 'father' (she will do soagain when she has movement that cuts acrosshis professional space and 'flaw,' the black spot in and the screen. to pronounce 'sister' the birthmark, the Her photographed image inriding gear next to her green his, the trauma, curse at the heartof the American dream of the a horse prepres usfor the scene in her garden, family that cannot be spoken). tousled and sweating hum anearly-morning which Dunaway bare-back ride. Her own sexual potencyand link The pain and fraelity with invests this scene is inmarked contrast to the to the western myth of spaceand energy are thus Astor, and alerts us to suggested. Jake, on the otherhand, resents stagey presence of Mary the character. Her finding himself with his 'pantsdown' and in the the greater complexity of vulnerability is manifested even moreclearly position of one whose word isdoubted. Trying to when, seated naked an the edgeof the bed, she read the face of Evelyn, he ignoresall the father's ownership of important verbal signs, notablyher angry tries to tell Jake of her Albacor. Jake tells her that he has seenher father insistence that the truth is 'verypersonal, more bewilderment as personal than you could know.'Instead, he and her face constricts in hurt her breasts in a insists on reading the mystery inpublic terms (in her hands come up to cross pathetic gesture of self-protection.She warns him the end private and publicintersect in the figure had warned of the demon god of waterand drought, incestu- that Cross is dangerous (as GuMian Spade about Brigid) and whenJake asks 'Is he ous fertility andmoral sterility, Noah Cross, behind all this?' she replies 'It'spossible.' 'Even mock saviour of the desert cityof angels). The death?' 'It's pmsible, she scene ends withthe camera lingering on Evelyn's your husband's of Jake, disbelieving, perturbed face, as it will close onher tortured repeats, in a proleptic image devasc hA. looking at her deadbody. It's still profile outside the restaurantwhen her call to Jake is shut out by the screechof his tyres. This possible,' he whispers. It is possible partly, at least,because of Jake's shot focuses our concernand our pain on Evelyn, misrea& the scene of while Gittes' cavalier tactics seem moreand more increasing ruthlessness. He this secrecy,' inexcusable. The questions he hasasked her mother and child, he mocks 'all when Evelyn 'confesses' that thegirl is her sister prove to be the wrong ones(except, significantly, proleptically, on the hooter), the one concerning her 'maiden'name) and (her head crashing, with an air of encourage her tale ofadultery, giving him an he denies her emotional support injured self-righteousness and, once more,the identity he can understand. She managesthe tale face, lacerated by shadows. with consummate ease andsophistication, the camera lingers on her confession, the white mask of her face rendered moreambiguousWhen she makes her climactic Jake's violent machismo is by the black net veil. Close-upsof Evelyn scene is unbearable. brutal way as dominate their next scene together, onewhere resented in the most shockingly 'daughter,"sister' with Jake begins to recognize theinterweaving of he punctuates her cries of explosive blows. Her contempt asshe explains, public and private crime (Wasthe fight over you

162 Mxtra Mita in South Akio 15S 'My father and I understand? Oris it too tough the fatefulness that stainsso many of the scenes, fox you?' works powerfully against his recently the way in which all fmallyconverges on evidenced toue.ness. Even so, he tries to appre- Chinatown as the locus (like the woman)of the hend the horror of it by calling it rape. Evelyn's marginal, the mysterious and the taboo,points to respcarse is ambigumes. Critics gemally go alongPolanski's vision of the horror ofrepetition, the with Jake, but she raises her head to look at him drive backwards to an originalstate of chaos. pleadingly and then shake it. Seductionthen? Maureen Turim calls this film noir's tendencyto Like Tess, another of Polanski's heroines,she is 'create a romance of the death drive, unmitigated suspended forever between exonerationand by any will to survive ' (1989, 175). condemnation. Jake's mpellant assertion ofmale As parody, the film is, in itself,a repetition and, authority is further undercut by herthrowaway with its sombre ending, itappears to have comment *Those didn't belong to Hollis- he nothing to do with the lighter aspects ofparody didn't wear bifocals.' For once, the camera lingersand play. Nevertheless, in its uncoveringto ironically on Jake's collapsing face,as Evelyn criticism of the mIsculine (ehectitude of the moves away. She brings her daughter down to private eye/dick, in revealing moralcomiption greet Jake, and, in one of the most startling point in the father, Chinatown observesdifference at the of view shots, we look down with them - be is a heart of similarity and in that differencepre- diminished thing. selves the space for a very serious kind of play The last terrible scene presents the inevitable regarding the woman. She remains thefocal point repetition of catastrophe. The aural echo of the of the mystery but, through the criticaltreatment hooter announces Evelyn's death before we see of Gittes, through the horrifyingrevelation of the her, her flawed eye a gaping hole. She becomes father's power and through the strengthand the scapegoat, as the source of all possibility complexity of her ownpresence on the screen, gathers the future in hisarms. After all, Cross hadboth verbally and visually, constantly told Jake it was the future he wanted. foregiounded in close-ups, Polanskienacts the Polanski's parody of the genre yields open- truth behind the treatment of allEvelyn's film noir endedness and the suggestion that the mystery of sisters, enacts the genre's misogyny,performs for being and the crimes of the heartare beyond any us, with a fierce clarity, the woman's victimiza- detective's penetration. lake's search for the tion by patriarchy. father, on the other hand, has resulted in knowl- There is no denying the playfulnessof The Big edge thal is a curse. if all detectivestories, like Easy (1986), or its straightforward Hollywood Oedipus, are in search of origins, of the primal sweetness-and-light. To what extent, then,is scene (Cawelti 1976, 134), then Jake, like Oedipus, there parody? To what extent does theplayful- uncovers a secret, a secret of the failure of ness become a play with form and perception Oedipal resolution that taintsan entire landscape.that opens up new spaces formen and women? Or, in another turn, like theson of the Biblical Generically, it bridges what Solomon(1976, Noah, he sees the father naked and is forever a 200-214) defines as the police investigationfilm marked man. The inevitability of hisknowledge, and the private investigator film.As a policeman,

PART IV Creating Noe Possiligities for AidaAvinreneu 163 framed by Remy's office Remy McSwain is a memberof an organization, put up, bespectacled, window (her occupation of hisoffice and, after conducting his work in orthodox ways,but, his redemption, his policeshirt, can be read as a becoming disenchanted withthe corruption of of her values and her the force, he turns into a privateinvestigator, more creative assertion is predictable: independent, working by his witsand fighting being, though). Remy's response The split between Ann's against the odds in the showdown.As a police- Nice neck; he says. personal and professional capacitiesis made man, he upholdsthe system, law and order; as a apparent. As a person, she isdisoriented by him, private detective, he discoversthe cracks in the clumsy, nervous, but with aready smile and a system and experiencespersonal moral anguish, her work as upholder of finally tracking down the criminalsand taking great seriousness about the ideals of the system, aseriousness Remy on the roles of judgeand executioner. The special spends the first half of thefilm trying to under- interest of the film, however,derives from the Cajun setting and soundtrack, andthe portrayal mine. At the level of language, hemocks her use of of Rerny and Ann Osborne,the district attorney. 'obsequious' and teaches her thatthe Mafia are The film opens to exotic accentsand energetic from here, are rhythms keeping pace with theexuberant known as `wiseguys': 'You're not abuse the person forward thrust of the zoom shot acrossthe you? he taunts. He is willing to professional by trying bayous to the delta around NewOrleans, the in order to undermine the Cajun meal (she landscape beginning in the wild,primifive to win information over a this time - she is, after reaches of the swamps and growing moreand corrects his use of Mafia all, a fast learner). He ridiculesher sense of right, more modem,built-up, until we look down on insisting on the chasm betweenthe law and life the sharp geometric patternsand garish lighting there are 'good guys' and of the Piazza &Italia, The sequencesuggests the on the street, where red light. As conflict between an idealized imageof America 'bad guys,' and childishly runs a acerbically, when when the world was young andAmerica grown Chapman (1988, 244-245) notes, Ann's courage brings down a mugger,she still old in corruption. It also suggeststhe ccaflict finds herself having to berescued by Remy; between the Cajun communityand family when they make love, he has torelax her; when values, and modern alienation, withmorality bodies, he tends to rooted in abstraction and anonymity.This she sees her first murdered when her newly polarization is problematized, however,in the her as she throws up. More, flourishing sexuality tries to expressitself in a development of the relationshipbetween Ann playful clutch, from behind, ofthe crotch of her and Remy. Remy's That Remy will be the centralfocus of the lover, she is the butt of comedy as brother turns round. During Remy'scourt-case, narrative is made abundantlydear from his first upstaged and made a twirl to face the cameras with hisimpish grin Ann is once more cheated, and Cajun accent. That we are tofind Ann fool of. marks the turning reduced to the object of his gaze appearstryingly The Cajun party that follows be there, cannot evident when we first see herprofile, hair neatly point, however. Ann, hijacked to

164 Maki Matters South Africa be won over by the communitys too-easy ance defines male attractiveness more playfully acceptance of deviant codes (Mrs Mc Swain fully than Stallone and company haveever thought of endorses Lamar's reputation for getting wrong- doing. His camp hand gestures, his alligator toys, doers acquitted), and Rerny has becomeone of his jewellery, his slenderness, his self-parodic the 'bad guys.' The shock of the term,as applied performance as seducer, as 'swain' (his cha-cha to him, initiates his moral regeneration and he routine, for example, or his deliberate filling of finally confronts the truth about the corruptionat Ann's glass, leaving hardly a drop in his- even the heart of the family, in the father/father she laughs), imply a breakdown of simplistically pretender, Jack. In this carefully constructed defined masculine imagery. Suzanne Moore scene, Jack is in uniform, Remy in jeans and a soft (19,56) suggests that 'what seems to be going blue sweatshirt, seated on a swing; the rain falls on...is the disavowal of phallicpresence - these gently in the children's playfield and Jack reveals men are not presented as all-powerful but as and tries to excuse his nefarious deeds, pleading objects of pleasure and desire.' (It is also wcrth for Remy's blessing on his union with Mrs noting that, where Siesta (1987) and Sea of Lave Mc Swain. The implicit Oedipal scenario immedi- (1989) make Ellen Barkin the overt centre of soft- ately erupts in violence as Remy downs Jack, porn imagery, in The Big Easy we see very little of shouting, 'If you ever touch my mother again, her flesh except her legs in running shorts). kill you!' This is the precursor to Jack's death and Ann is given her own private momentson the Remy's marriage. So we finda tale of growing screen. Her attraction and irritation are finely and up, moving out of the unquestioned comfort and comically rendered when she walks from the protection of one family into a new formation of shops, pulling faces to herself, replaying her one's own. It is also a tale of the purging of that scenes with Remy; her anger and hurt are family, both Cajun and Cop, to the sounds of registered as she sits alone, defacing thenewspa- throbbing black voices singing 'Saviour, Pass Me per featuring the trial, with classical music in the Not.' (Significantly, regeneration doesn't extend background. And, in the latter part of the film, to the Viseguys,' who carry on their merry way). her integrity reaps rewards. As she and Remy Ann, hearing Remy's confession in her Ma- pursue Daddy Mention's killers, she no longer donna-blue dressing gown, is more thanan agentstumbles, but shins up a wall and, with perfect for moral rehabilitation, however. Lookedat fromaim, hurls a brick at the windscreen of the a different perspective, her image in the first half unmarked cop car ('Good shot,' Remy congratu- of the film is one of WASP frigidity warmed by lates her. 'Thank you,' she calmly replies). gumbo, dancing and the very tender ministra- Remy's acceptance of her greater knowledge isa tions of the 'new man."Didn't you dance where further turnabout. She now motivates the action. you come from?"We barely spoke,' she answers. 'Must I go undercover in myown precinct?' he It is also worth noting that Dennis Quaid is asks. 'I have a better idea,' she replies and they presented to the audience as object of desire in make a clean sweep of the police files. She quite explicit terms. He is frequently shirtless. becomes the detective (or perhaps she has been once completely naked and his physical appear- so ail along). Her visual style is erect, forceful,

PART 11,1C N ew Possibdities for Meclso Aworeqess 165 161 dear-sighted. Listening to Remys confession, she the play of difference in a changing world, is warm., sensual and mothering, but also clear- contninning to its protean transformations. With headed and imaginative. Staring fixedly at the the detective, we read clues, we make meanings, river, she says, 'Let's look at this another way - we create worlds. 11 her fresh perception leads to the capture and Reference* demise of the villains, synchronized with a non- Barbour, A. G. Humphrey Bogart, Pyramid Communication Cajun thriller soundtrack. (Signifmantly. Jack's New York 1973. shot saves her life, a kind of blessing on her as Caramello, C. 'On Styles of Postmodern Writing', Pelona she fills a different space in the Cajun family). in Postmodern Culture, 221-234, Btnamou, M. and Caramel The symmetries of the penultimate scene (eds.), Centre for Twentieth Century Studies, Milwaukee 1977. suggest either a too easy closure, or the underlin- Cawelti, J. G. Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula Sic ing of the film's argument for finding middle as Art and Popular Culture. University of ChicagoPress, ground where differing principles might renew Chicago 1976. and give pleasure to each other. So her replay of Cawelti, J. G. 'Chinatown' and Generic Transformation in his derriere-tickling routine or of his 'dirty, no- Recent American Films', Film Theory and Criticism: intro& tory Readings, Mast G. and Cohen M. (eds.), Second Editio good, rotten cop' routine or of his definition of 559-579, OUP, Oxford 1979. his world (This the big easy dahlin". Folks have a Chapman, R. 'The Great Pretender: Variations on the Nei certain way of doin' things down here') both Man Theme', Malt Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, 225-246 parodies him and asserts her own playful Chapman R. and Rutherford J. (eds.), Lawrence and Wish rediscovery of self. The strength of her presence London 1988. is demonstrated, too, in the wedding waltz. A J. Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Post- Modernism, Routledge, New York 1989. Cajun soundtrack accompanies their dance, but Gammen, Lorraine. 'Watching the Detectives: The Enignu in her apartment, with its light airy sophistication. the Female Gaze', Thr Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of The bouquet and garter are thrown to the guests Popular Culture, 8-26, Gammen L. and Marshment M. (eds beyond the frame and the focus remains on a The Women's Press, London 1988. couple whose differences have involved a mutual Gledhill, Christine. ' "(luft* 1: A Contemporary Film No and Feminist Criticism', Women in Film Noir, 6-21, Kaplai revitalization. A. (ed.), British Film Institute, London 1980. Whether we read backward or forward Harvey, S. 'Woman's Place: The Absent Family of Film between Don Quixote and Borges, Ulysses and The Noir' Women in Film Noir, 22-34, Kaplan E. A. (ed.), !kith) Odyssey, Whitman, Ginsberg and Morrison, Lorca Film Institute, London 1980. and Leonard Cohen, Lord Randal, Rimbaud and Millings, J. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, trans. R.F.C. Hull, Routledge and Kegan Paul, Bob Dylan, John Clelaad, Daniel Defoe and Erica London 1949. Jong, or Mary Shelley and The Rocky Horror Hutcheon, L. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentie Picture Show, playing off difference against Century Art Forms, Methuen, New York 1985. sameness, parody encourages in the viewer an Jameson, F.'Postmodernism and Consumer Society' in Ha engagement with older texts, reading their Foster (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Cult; meanings in ever regenerative ways, while the 111-125, Bay Press, Port Townsend, Washington 1983. parodies themselves open up formulaic genres to Kaminsky, S. John Huston: Maker of Magic, Angus and Robertson, Brighton 1978. McArthur, C. Underworld U.S.A, Seeker and Warburg, Los

166 Media Mors in Soot) Africa 1972. Moore, S. 'Here's Looking at You, Kidr, The Female GAZE. Women as Viewers of Popular Culture, 44-59, Gammen L. a Marshment M. (eds.), The Women's Press, London 1988. Mulvey, 1.. (1975), 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Clam Appeal's', Mallow A Film Theory Reeder, 193-2 riap L (ed.).Columbia UP, New York 1986. Narrative L. ts on 'Visual Pleasure and red aDuelin the Sun" in E. A. Kaplan fed.). Mow andignensa,24-35, Routledge, New York 1990. floxj. Women InFilm Noir' Women in Film Noir, 35-67,E. A. asap WI British FilmInstitute, London 1980. Patudy/Metafiction: An Analysis of Parody as aCritical gam M. Crown Helm MOW ta theWriting and Reception 4 Fiction, London 1979. shadakm. J. Dreams and DeadEnds: The American Gangster/ CAW Fa" MIT Press,Cambridge, Mass. 1977. Monson, 1.1.Beyond Formula: American Film Genres.,Harcourt awe Jovanovich,New York 1976. Seats& S. OnPhotography, Penguin, London 1977. Sway, J. 'Desperately SeekingDifference', The Female Gam WOWS OS Viewersof Popular Culture, 112-129, GammenL. and lainhment M. (eds.), The Women'sPress, London 1988. Thai, S. The Doomed affective:The Contribution of the Detective Need fo Postmodern Americanand Italian Fiction, Southern Illinois UP, Carbondale andEdwardsville 1984. Tarim, M. Flashbacks in Film: Memoryand History, Routledge, New York 1989. Wankow, R. (1948) 'The Gangster as Tragic Hero',The Imstediste Experience: Movies, Comics,Theatre and Other Aspects 4 Popular Culture, 127-133, Atheneum,New York 1975. Young, S. 'Feminism and the Politics ofPower: Whose Gaze is it Anywayr, The Female Gaze: Women asViewers of Popular Culture, 173-188, Gammon L. and Marshmenthf. (eds.), The Women's Press, London 1988. Grateful acknowledgements must also go to myHonours Film class of 1989 for many stimulating discussions. 'I Shall BecomeA Ball'- The Identity Batman James A. Sey

(An earlier nersion of this paper was mrsented at the Smiths of the world. From beingan assured, Aqsociation of Uninersity English Teachers of South arrogantly marginalized Bat-o-phile,I was Africa Conference at Stellenbosch, July 1990.) reduced to heaping disdainon ignorant, band- wagon-jumping philistines. But thiswas not This paper is subtitled, intribute to the great enough. The question remained:Why was Stanley Kubrick, 'How I learnedto stop worrying Batman so popular? and love crap movies', and I hope by the end of What interested me at firstwas the relation it, it will be clear why. between Batman the movie andits ostensible (and In 1989, Hollywood releasedthe first ever big self-confessed) origins in Batmanthe comic. The budget screen treatment ofone of the comic movie's scriptwriter, the incrediblyaptly-named world's most enduring and recognizable charac- Sam Hamm, had acknowledgedthe influence of ters - the Batman. After one of the industry's a recent series of Batman stories, collectively more memorable publicity campaigns, the film f.mtitled The Dark Knight Returns.But simple opened to become the quickest grossing movie transference in form, mediumor content could ever. It went on to become alsoone of the biggest not adequately explain the suddenpopularity of grossing movies ever, amassingtakings of some a vely marginal art-form. $400-million (an amount surely enough to feed Here we have dangerousground. What do I the Third World fora generation, or at least float mean by 'popular culture'? How is Batmanthe another multi-national corporation). This is movie a production withinits field?.And what is significant in itself. What isperhaps more the status of the differencebetween Batman as a interesting is the extent to which Batman - the function of the discourse of thecomic and movie, already a production of 'popular culture', Batrnan as a function of thediscourse of Holly- became pervasively commodified,in suitably wood narrative film? spectacular fashion. Rare itwas, in the heady Colin MacCabe identifies fivestrategies for the days following the movie'srelease in the summer analysis of popular culture. In thispaper I shall of '89, to findsomeone without a Batman be guilty of two of them: whatMacCabe calls bumper-sticker, T-shirt, tracksuit, toy batmobile, 'The intellectual's case (1986,pp. vii) and 'The Batman fluffy slippers and Zap!Pow! boxer proletarian appeal' (1986, shorts. pp. viii). the first 're- finds the terms of high culturewhere you least At the time, I was puzzled. The comics, though expect them' (1986, pp. vii), presumably popular, do not have the theoreti- audience of the Wilbur cal terms of evaluative analysis,and the second 160 Media Mem ktu+ Africa 164 'lays emphasis on areas of social reality unavail- position as commentator on Batman the produc- able to high art', in thiscase the social realities of tion of popular culture is imbricated withmy reading comics and going to the cinema. position as fan of Batman the superhero. Mac Cabe quotes Tony Bennet's definition of In order to acknowledge these determinisms popular culture as 'a way of specifyingareas of and yet comment on an object that is alsoa resistance to dominant ideological forms."Thisis cultural production, I must becomean analysing a useful definition, since it specifies ideologyas subject, the subject analysing itsown subjectivity central to a nofion of popular culture, but it is alsoand object relations, in thiscase relations with too specifically political. The idea of 'resistance' cultural machines called films. This isa psycho- leads to a somewhat reductionistview of popularanalytic turn. It is the position also of Metz's culture and ideology, the 'us' of themasses ardent young cinephile, justifying in theterms of opposed to a sinister 'them' who attempt to keep intellectual analysis the object with which shehas 'us' in our place by givingus what we think we such a relation of unquestioning pleasure.As want. To a certain extent this is the view of the Metz puts it: Frankfurt School, with theircontemptuous ... the id does not bring its own super-ego with it, it references to a 'culture industry' and an 'advertis- is not enough to be happy, ...unlessone is sure one ing aesthetics' which were rigorously opposedto has a tight to be happy. (Metz 1977,pp. I I) 'real art'. The masses were being misledinto 'bad Pleasure therefore, has a social mediation. art' by the subversion of bourgeois capitalism. The popularity of Batman is inscribed in relations of For my purposes, thereare two reasons why production and consumption which have their such a view of culture is untenable. Firstly,it origins in pleasure. Metz links this to the proposes a binary opposition between 'high institution of pleasure, to the ideological function of culture and 'low', or 'popular' culture, where the pleasure. Though he talks here of the presence of one implies the absence of the other. cinema specifically, the point he makescan be extended In terms of the cultural machinery ofthe cinema to other 'aesthetic or textual practices' which is kind of opposition is dramatized, forex- delineate and delimit popular culture. a Tie, by erecting 'art mnvie' complexes in Jpper ;ncorne fir 'bohemian' locations. Secondly In a social system...the spectator is not forced it denies IN ion the point which Laura physically to go to the cinema but.. it is stillimpor- tant that he should go so that the money he Kipnis makes vcsy forcefully: pays .. ensures the auto-reproduction of the institution, it ...that there is no transcendent, privileged cultural is the specific characteristic ofevery true institution space on which to stand that is outside capitalist that it takes charge of the mechanisms of itsown reification. There isparticularly no suchspace that perpetuation. (Metz 1977, pp. 7) is guaranteed ... through particular cultural, aes- We go to see Batrnan because thetic or textual practices (Kitnis 1986,pp. 28). we wish to be entertained and the aim of Batman isto entertain These reasons are imbricoted with each other, us. Metz, following Melanie Klein, calls this but this is not a turn to the nihilism of cultural 'good object relations' between viewer andfilm. overdetermination. In this context, itmeans my We experience pleasure only becausea prior

PART W Creating New Pou4Slihe htettpo Awgreness 169 desire existed and is somehow gratified. A whole origin to the Penny Dreadfuls of Victorian institution (which is also an industry and thus England, a cheap, accessible form of readily develops with the rise of capitalism) is structured consumable entertainment for a burgeoning around the pleasurable gratification of this desire.urban proletariat They contained stories based This is the well-oiled running of the desiring- on the Gothic romancesof the time, or on machine (Deleuze and Guattarls term) that is working class heroes championing the cause of cinema. But is the subject gratified? What is the the proletariat, like Wat Tyler. The Bourgeoisie place of the viewing subject in this machine? attempted to suppress the comics either on the grounds that they were harmful to theiraudience To a certain depre, the traditional logic of desire is (subverting their morals) or escapist (lackof all wrong from the very outset, pp. from the very first step that the Platonic logic of desire forces us to moral content). For a full account see Barker, take, making us choose between production and af- 1989. quisition. From the moment that we place desire on These criticisms did not ostensibly change as the side of acquisition, we make desire an the comics grew more widespread. Batman idealistic..conception, which causes us to look on it as primarily a lack, pp. a lackof...the real object started life in the 1930s as a 'Detective Comic', a (Deleuze & Guattari 1984, pp. 25) sub-genre specializing in thrilling tales of prohibition era crime and punishment In the Desire, in this conception, is not contingent on 1950s EC comics in America started a rangeof lack. Instead, Desire produces the subject. The horror comics which provoked a McCarthyist subject, as Deleuze and Guattari put it, becomes a backlash against the industry. The bulk of the 'desiring-machine': comics' audience were children - horror comics Desire does not lack anything; it does not lack its depicting vampires, werewolves and murder object It is, rather, the subject that is missing in de- would be harmful to them to the extent that the sire, or desire that lacks a fixed subject;..(Deleuze audience identified with the comics' narrative &Guttari 1984, pp. 26) events. The right to control those eventshad to This capitalized Desire (pun intended) is be dictated by a responsibility to the audience, so analogous to Lacan's capitalized Other, a signifierthat their identification was not with potentially perhaps best expressed in the gaze which harmful or perverse values and events. From the inscribes the viewing sub*ct as a 'desiring- 1950s until the 1980s, this responsibility was machine'. If we are to understand the relation ensured by the stamp of approval of the 'Comics behveen ideology,the machine of popular Code Authority, and Batman was a shining cultural production and the experiencing subject, example of the sanitary superhero. Mark Cotta it is this desire which holds the key. Wes book Lies of the Dark Knight (1989) usefully We must also know where to look. Batman is a traces this fascinating history, and draws movie and a comic. Are desire and pleasure the interesting parallels between the comics of the same in both? so-called 'Golden Age' and the contemporaneous Comics as a literary fonn have an interesting heyday of classical Hollywood narrative film. ideological history. Martin Barker traces their Part of the problem for anyone wishing to

170 Maio Mors in South Aka 166 change the way comics were viewed, as diver- monologues placed in luridly coloured speech sions for children, was in the visual nature of the balloons with none of the conventional indices of medium itself. Comics are 'read' by looking at thespeaker or thinker, whetein the Batman muses in pictures. But there are certain formulaic obser- minute detail about the most painful way he can vances which make this looking different from disarm the thug he is creeping up on. looking at photographs, for example There are What is more interesting is that in the attempt lines indicating movement, frames or panels to render the Batman gaphic narrative more arranged in a certain manner to ensure a linear 'realistically' Milkr and his team approximate unfolding of narrative, and the visual techniques cinematic techniques of representation, thus of speech balloons of varying sizes and shapes to returning to an affinity the media have long indicate emotion. Comics, therefore, are highly shared. There is obviously no apparent motion, conventionalized narratives. For a long time they but the reader of the comic is invited to view the have anticipated some of the techniques of post story like a film. Techniques borrowed from the modernist fiction; the interreferentiality with cinema include flashback, point of view cuts, other comics, narrative mise-en-abv-ie, the zoom shots through a whole page of panels, inclusion (and eradication) of the author/artist in panning shots, and visual reference by characters the narrative, characters drawing or erasing in frame to characters out of frame, Le they look themselves, etc. This has never been seen as out of the frame. radical, even in the 1930s, just as harmless comic- Tht. ,chniques are used to break the code of strip fun. the formulaic comics narrative and to represent For the comics to grow up and compete with the Batman graphically in the same wayas he is other fictional forms, they had to become adult. reprelented at the level of narrative plot, that is, For Batman this meant a turn to graphic realism. realistically. The move presupposes that the In 1986 Frank Miller wrote and drew a special cinema is a mode of unmediated representation. limited edition *Batman story called The Dark As we approach Batman the movie, we must ask Knight Returns.It became a best-seller and the subject why this is. sparked off a sub-genre of 'adult comics' called The viewer sees as the camera sees, and it can 'graphic novels'. The book, published without theonly see what is there to be seen. It must, Comics Code Authority stamp of approval, therefore, be realistic. Metz disagrees: attempted to break the over-formulaic nature of ... alittle rolled up perforated strip which 'contains' the superhero story by putting Batman into the vast landscapes, and whole lifetimes, and yet can so-called real world. No longer is the Batmana be enclosed in the familiar round metal tin, clear perpetual 264sh, morally unambiguous, swift, proof that it does not 'really' contain all that. (Metz clean and deadly to wrongdoers. He is now in his 1977, pp. 44) 50s, heavier, drinking too much, menopausal, and In cinema the absence of the real object is the hasn't fought crime for ten years. What's more, filmic representation of it, which is stilla contract when he does start his vigilante pursuits again, hebetween viewer and viewed. There is a dualor is clearly pathological. We are treated to interior dialectical process here. The subject perceives

?ARM Creating New Possixtdies for Moira Ayearenes 171 plenitude but also absence: transcendental subject needs another identity which Metz spedfies as identification withthe ...the cinema involves us in the imaginary, it drums the position of the up all perception, but to switch itimmediately over camera. If the viewer assumes into its own absence, which is nonetheless theonly camera, control is assumed overthe fihn's gaze signifier present. (Metz 1977, pp. 45) but the monocular perspective of the film, its The Imaginary in Lacan is the realm of identity; depth of field illusion, is maintained as appar- of an illusory wholeness, since the subject is ently real (Metz 1977, pp. 49-51). always already in the symbolic realm. Metz says Frank Miller, in order to make his graphic this of the subject 'At the cinema, it is always the novel a desirable object, must approximate The potentially more other who is on the screen; as for me I am there to process for his adult reader. look at him'. The subject at the cinema is no profound subversions of narrative which comics mentioned longer constituted as the ob*ct of another's gaze, have long indulged in and which we after all since the screen cannot look back The viewing earlier are left safely with children, since subject is in this instance a transcendental subject.children are not properly constituted subjects. the This is the pleasure of the cinema. It elides the Batman the movie does more than nod in position of the sub*ct as also object, functionof direction of Miller's novel, however. In certain novel's the gaze, one tenn in the dialectic of subject/ respects it is able to take aspects of the object, desire und lack. The dialectic, however, cinematic approximations and turn them into a of must be understood as a function of thedesiring- profound narrative enactment of the processes I have been attempt- machine, the machine of capitalized Desire. gaze, identity and ideology As Lacan puts it, ing to sketch. &lie of the most immediate of these enactments ...of all the objects in which the subject may recog- is the character of the Batman himself. In nize his dependence in the register of desire,the gaze is specified asunapprehensible. (Wean 1979, common with most comicsuperheroes. Batman pp. 83) has an alter-ego. It is Bruce Wayne, charming, easygoing, mild-mannered playboy millionaire. The gaze is the unconscious assertion of the Also as in other cases, Batman's alter-ego is just subject's alterity, of its position in the symbolic realm as split. Pleasure in the cinema both as that - an ego which represents the other, everything the Batman is not. The split in Aatman as cultural institution (ideological apparatus) and as diverse cultural production depends on identity, subject thus defeats the establishment of the other in the gaze of the subject - the ohiet petit a in which Laplanche and Pontalis define as the Lacanian algebra. Batman contains his own the process whereby the subject assimilates an alterity, but effaces the split just as the subject aspect, attribute or property of the other and is transformed wholly or partially atter the model the elides the function of the gaze - his attempt (as other provides. (l.aplanche and Pontalis 1980, pp. Bruce Wayne) to tell his lover, journalist Vicki 205) Vale, that he is Batman fails because it is literally But identity and desire cannot exist in the same inarticulable for him. place, since the latter is constituted by lack. The This transcendental subjectivity gives the

172 meta mitten 'm South Africa 16 S character the almost mystical power of the lation. In possibly the best sequence of the film, superhero. Bruce Wayne inhabits Wayne Manor, the Joker and his gang of hip-hop hooligans an edifice of anposing but restrained wealth, yet stylishly deface every work of art in Gotham is never seen to work, nor is he seen to invest in City's municipal gallery, which must surely be shares, etc. The relations of production are seen as a victory for the Frankfurt Schools' mystified, appropriated to the imperiously self- deluded proletariat. The Joker wishes to external- contained alterity of the Batman. ize his subjectivity by destroying beauty - he Bruce Wayne and the Batman control power on wishes to be, as he confesses to Vicki Vale, the the narrative level of the film, and, through the 'world's first fully functioning homicidal artist'. use of a guiding scopic motif, control power on This is why he appears on TV himself to tell the the psychic level of the film also. The motif, of city he has poisoned their chemical products, course, is that of the viewer and the screen. hijacking the city's network to impose his image In Miller's graphic novel, the action of the on their screens at home, to impose his image on narrative is frequently intercut by panels on the the viewer as receiver. page representing television screens, where the The Batman never appears on TV. ln keeping use of cut-up montage represents a series of news with the psychic paradigm which establishes the reports on television, debates by psychologists on Batman as a transcendental subject, he is always whether or not Batman is a lunatic vigilante, etc. seeing, never seen. The subjects on the screens he The film retains the idea of televisual reference, views are always objects because they are never but not only for the purposes of plot. allowed to look back, never allowed to acknowl- The uses of the television screen in the film are edge that they are being watched, acknowledge generally split into two groups, which we might the gaze, become subjects. Batman is never a call external and internal. voyeur, always a viewer. The gaze, as Lacan The first, the external use of TV, is the domain SU ests, exceeds the look. The function of the of the Batman's arch enemy, the Joker. As a gaze is to inscribe the viewer in the desiring- character, the Joker's lunacy is overwhelming. As machine that is also the dialectic of lack and a subject, his lunacy is a function of his inability desire, of subject and object, But Batman is never to contain his own other in the way the Batman determined by the gaze. Apparently, he controls does. The Joker's other is Jack Napier, a psycho- it. In the primal, pre-linguistic space of the pathic thug who falls into a vat of chemicals to Batcave, he surveys his bank of TV screens. A few emerge with green hair, deathly white skin and a are tuned into the city's channels, others present fixed rictus grin. The Joker spends the rest of the video images shot inside Wayne Manor. It is here movie attempting to reduce everyone else (that is,that Bruce Wayne first encounters his lover to-be, all other subjects who are also objects) to his own Vicki Vale. state of hideous disfigurement. It is the supreme In the most significant sequence of the film narcissistic projection, a psychosis which com- psychoanalytically, Bruce Wayne meets Vicki bines megalomania with an admirable under- Vale, but Batman does not. They meet in a huge standing of the essentials of mass media manipu- hall filled with arms and armour, at the end of

1 9 PACs/ Creating New Possblities 6 Meio Awcreness 173 which is a vast ornate mirror. Bruce Wayne is necessary effacements, the necessary objectifica- called away to become Batman and Vicki looks at tions, the necessary production of desire. It is in herself in the mirror, the first act of anyone's split this way that Batman might be seen to embody into subject and object, or, as Deleuze and the suggestion that desire, both capitalized and Guattari would put it, the first entry into the sub*ctified, is an ideological operafion. tyranny of Oedipus. Behind the mirror, however, is a video camera, projecting her multiple image References onto Batman's TV screens. The camera lens Barker, M. Comics: ideology, power and the critics, Manch University Press, Manchester.1989. represents the Batman metonymically - he does Cotta Vu, M. Tales of the Dark Knight, Future, London not look at Vicki, but his camera ensures her Dileuze, G. and Guangxi, F. Anti-Oedipus, Athlone Pre status as objet a. The assumption is still Batman's London 1934. control, his ability to efface the effect of the gaze Lacan, J. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychnonalys on his own subjectivity. Kaja Silverman identifiesPenguin, Harmondsworth 1979. this as the 'male look': Laplanche, J. Pontalis, J.B. The Language of Psychoanalp Hogarth Press, London 1930. in Hollywood film the male subject generally MacCabe, C. (fid.), High Theory/Law Culture, Muchestc snives to disburden himself of lack, and the look is University Press, Manchester 1936. the most typical conduit of this disburdening (Silverman 1989, pp. 59). Metz, C. The Imaginary Signifier, Indiana University Pr Bloomington 1977. This look is also representative of the male Miller, F. The Dark Knipht Returns, Titon Books, Londo: subject's role in the symbolic order. Nichols, B. Ideology and the Image, Indiana University F Bloomington 1931. ...classic cinema equates the exemplary male subject Silverman, K. 'Fassbinder and Lacan: A Reconsideratic with the gaze, and locates the male eye on the side of Gaze, Look and Image', Camera Obscure, Vol. I No. 19 authority and the Law even when it is also a carrier 1989). of desire. ( Silverman 1989, pp. 62)

Batman is an 'exemplary male subject' precisely to the extent he can efface his status as object, can become a transcendental subject. As viewers of Batman the movie, we could not possibly see the dizzying mise-en-abyme of watching a screen watching a camera watching a TV screen watching a video watching a mirror reflecting an object of desire. To glean our filmic pleasure we identify with the camera first and Batman second. We share Batman's transcendental subjectivity even as we assert our own by indulging this plausible fiction. But this identification is contingent on the right choices - the

174 Astia maunin South Africa EVENT INTO STORY Ileaching Mows in South Africa

Eve Bertelsen

This paper consists of an introductoly docwnent soap opera in several acts, with a regular cast outlining an awroach to news analysis, followed by a (allowing for the occasional replacement). And all workshop section. glued together in good classic style with a well- known logo and theme tune, a familiar plot hdriedietion structure, easily accessible images and a depend- News as IV Genre able omniscient narrator who will place the News appears to occupy a special place within viewer in the most advantageous position to television, and is usually treated to a different understand the narrative. form of analysis from that applied to other TV If news is one storytelling system among genres. It is regarded as 'serious', and assessed forothers, then in order to analyse a news-story, we its truth or impartiality (the accuracy of its first need to grasp the basic rules of news as presentition of the real world 'out there% while narrative: news as a structure in a rule-governed sitcoms, soap operas or police shows are dis- set of relafions (i.e. a narrative system). Second, cussed as entertainment, with attention being and of equal importance, we will conside paid to their pnaduction values and varied way in which these narrative rules 'go live' as storytelling forms. Let us ignore for a moment they interact with national and local agendas. this traditional compartmentalisation, and ask And finally, we will apply some of these ideas to about news a few standard questions that apply various media narratives of a single recent event, across TV genres. Cape Town's 'Big March' of September 1989. Who are the principal characters of news and how are they portrayed? What kind of storylines Formai Streeter*. of Mows predominate? Can we identify a set of dramatic flintomutfonall) tensions/resolutions which are repeated night Not all events qualify as news. Nor can an event after night, acting styles that qualify as effective/ as such be communicated. It must be narrated ineffective, and narrative rules, agendas and (represented in a selection of words and images) interests that appear to regulate the organisation i.e. it must become a stoty in order to be communi- and presentation of the stories? It becomes clear cated. The practice of news involves a discourse- that rem as story or narrative possesses many of a system of meaning-maldng rules for the the basic qualities of other stories and other TV selection and presentation of material, which is genres. tust as conventionalised as the rules governing We could almost see it as an ongoing nightly the writing of a tragedy or a TV police series, and

PART I Creating New Pawl:1116es fof Moira Awarenasis 175 appears to have gainedinternational validity. Pissentation/Narrallon The rules of news narrative have been described We have noted that a raw event cannot in itself by a number of media aitics (Hall 1980, pp. 128- be communicated. Once it has qualified as 138; Hartley 1982, pp. 38-n1; Fiske 1987, pp. 281- newsworthy, it must be narrated, that is, trans- 3013). They can be briefly summarised under the formed into a story. In other words, it must two headings of sekction and presentation. become language (whether in words or visual images). Hartley (1982, pp. 108-9) identifiesfour Selection 'moments' in this process of narrating events as News discourse is constructed according to news: pregiren categories: political, foreign, domestic, a) Framing. The topic is established in an appar- economic, occasional, sport and weather, and ently neutral way: 'Today x happened at y'. 'raw events' qualify as news insofar as they may b) Focusing. We are filled in on what the event is be narrated as one of these types of story. Within 'about'. these categories distinction is made between c) Realising. The topic is made 'real' by, for 'hard' (conflict) and 'soft' (human interest) items. example, actuality film or dialogue from wit- The point to be made here is that regardlessof nesses or experts (accessed voices). what has happened in the world over the d) Closing. The 'wrap-up' by the narrator,which previous 24-hourr, (millions of events affecting a fixes or anchors the 'meaning' of the event. vast range of people), only those whichsatisfy This procedure employs the rules of classic these categories will cross the threshold and storytelling as set out by Propp, Todorov et. al. A appear as 'news'. set of socially approved norms/anequilibrium is Selection is helped by an informal paradigm of disrupted, followed by a contest between the forces of 'normality' and the forces of 'disrup- 'newsralues'.Events qualify more readily as newsworthy if they involve elite persons, are tion/deviation'. Order is finally restored by recent, negative and surprising. These criteria means of a series of strategiesof containment. In narrow down the range ofacceptable events the case of news, whether in the press cr on TV, rather dramatically. News favours the socially the 'neutral' narrator, while depicting various powerful, who are presented repetitively and deviations from the norm, ranks and contains the thus easily become tamiliar individual figures; possible meanings that might be attributed to it presents events as having a point of origin those events. Like the omniscient narrator of a and closure within the span of a day (there is classical story s/he offers a carefully chosen little sense of continuous history or context in range of possible definitions(embedded voices, news); its hunger for negativity (disruptions of dialogue, positions), all controlled and ranked in the 'normal') makes a strong unspoken status by the his/her overarching 'neutral' statement about ordinary life, which isassumed narrative voice. to be smooth-running, law-abiding andharmoni- The four narrative moments are easy to Otis. identify. In a newspaper piece the opening paragraph will set out the bare 'facts' (a); succeeding paragraphs will elaborate, supplying the journalist is to slot in a few local details. further details (b); selectedopinions will be Yes but. sought (c); and a final section will wrap up the While this 'structural' approach tonews makes story, again using the voice of the opening (d).Onsome telling points about the universal nature of TV news the pattern is the same. The newsreader storytelling rules (i.e. all stories/narrativesof a (anchorperson/framing narrator) begins the certain kind seem to employ similar codes),there story, speaking to camera in an all-knowing is clearly something more at stake here. It manner (with the help of the teleprompt) (a). scarcely explains why news is sucha jealously S/he passes the viewer on to the correspondent guarded and hotly contestedarea of TV. News (reporter or commentator) who places the event clearly sets out to do more than justentertain. It in context and supplies interpretation (b). This is makes a claim on the 'real' that is ofa different order usually followed by a film report of theactuality from that of other TV forms. The aim of thispaper/ 'out their' (c). And then the final wrap-up (d). workshop is to proposean approach to teaching Each item is narrated inmore or less the same news which will take account of both factors way, and critics have noted that the bulletinas a (arguably of equal importance): whoL, the 'macro-story' takes on the shape of a) news as entertainment (a storytellinggenre each of its component parts, with themore among others) and disruptive items of the opening minutes moving b) the underpinning dramaor 'deep enigma' of via 'softer' stories to the relative normality of the 'IV news that accoun% for its seriousstatus. sport and weather. The final mollifying I will put it this way: 'goodnight' smile returnsus to the ordinary News offers a prime exampk of discursive conflict: world, with the assurance that all thedisruption, every news item, every broadcast, is a small drama conflict and deviance 'out there' is bein; taken forming part of a larger culturalcontest over the way ....are of, made sense of on our behalf by those whoreality may be signified. matter. We need not concern ourselves further, and may now relax and enjoy primetime. Discursive Conflict (Contextutd) So: news is simply another TV genre, a linked We have established thatnews is a TV genre set of repetitive, entertaining stories involving amongst others, and that it involvesa pre-given intrigue, violence, romance and revenge, in whichsystem of narration. However its definingfeature a small cast of well-known charactersgo through seems to be that it sets out to narrate not fictionill, the motions night after night. Approved norms but 'real' events, drawn from the world'out are subverted to be later restored. Heroes and there'. It transforms events intostories, using the villains take up their appointed places, with mediation of words and compleximages. In TV action and dialogue predictably scripted. Let this also involves camerawork,in whirh shot battle commence: Dynasty or Who's the Baas? OT size, angle, camera movements and editingall SA Law. Looked at this way, it would seem that interpret the events they set outto represent. news as a narrative system is 'written in advance' What seems urgent at this point isto try to of any particular broadcast. All that remains for establish a way of talking about theseprocedures

173 PART 11,Crearnv New Passibtithes far Melia Awareness 177 totalised as 'the ruling class') arethus made to that will take into account notonly the pressures and general Vnaturall and coming from the directionof news pnuticeitsdf appear neutral command the consent of thenation as a whole. but also those from thecontingent toorld in which Ideally, this is done withoutcoercion by reaching the depicted events take placeand in which real daily experience of readers and viewers both participatein events into and structuring the people, containing their aspirationswithin and receive media messages. their interests so Contemporary theory asserts that eventsdo notacceptable bounds and aligning 'live' their experi- in themselves, mean. It seesculture as a site of that groups and individuals endorses the social authority struggle, where genders, races, age groupsand ence in a way that develop a sort of classes are engaged in an ongoingcontest about of the powers that be. People 'common sense' - an internalised ornaturalised the ways in which meaningwill be produced for making sense of reality. (See the human world in language.This is often called set of frames for Althusser 1977, pp. 153 ff.) Thisis sometimes 'discursive struggle' or thestruggle to control the called 'imagination'. Itinvolves a quite compli- rules of signification. Both eventsand language cated cultural shorthand. are regarded as'multivocan liable to different here that hegemonic interpretations by different social groups,who It is important to note exdusive to continuously attempt to fix, intheir own inter- work is by no means a strategy capitalism, a sinister plot of oneparticular ests, the way signs(words, images) will be historical class. Linguistic andnarrative theory allowed to make the world mean.By implication, demonstrate conclusively thatstrategies of this involves a contest overthe way in which 'naturalisation' are an intrinsicdynamic of human culture and society willbe organised. human language per se, andalso supply the basis This struggle in discoursethus forms a crucial part of most classic narrative forms:one's 'mother of the struggle for social power.These arguments tongue' seeks to disappear, torender itself about the production of socialmeaning have self-respecting classic considerable explanatory force inthe analysis of invisible, ar does any narrator. And since humanbeings are tireless media texts, and particularlyof news. users of languageand obsessional spinners of tales, what we have to dowith here is the nature Hegemony of human culture itself. On adaily basis we Following Gramsci and Althusser,Marxist continuously take in data and processit, accom- theorists see culture as an areaof exchange on the modating it to our kmns, n framesof reference, model of the economicmarketplace. Cultural In a more complex way, thisis what is going agencies such as the law, ,the family, education on in the productionof news. What is at issue in and the media have the crucialrole of translating any story is not asimple question of truth or social antagonisms into termswhich will 'make falsehood, objectivity or bias(perhaps objectivity sense' of such tensions (e.g.of gender, race and is the greatest myth of all).It is rather a matter of: class) so as to secure people'ssubmission to the WHOSE frames are supplying themeaning of these basic interests of the system.The interests of the events? WHOSE intarsts arebeing naturalised in powerful groups in society (oftencrudely

178 Mato *ten 71 Stu* Africa 1 " I this particular case? Whether the meanings/ quested, or forcibly extracted, the consent of the interests are those of the so-called ruling classor broad masses iSouth African examples abound!,or because large groups lhe cites especially peasants those of the workers, those of menor those of and petit bourgeds intellectualsi have passed sud- women, we have to do with hegemonic work. denly from political passivity tocertain activity, and Hegemony, then, is an extrapolation to the social put forward demands, which taken together, albeit There of the basic meaning-making activity that not organically formulated, add up to a revolution. (Gramsci 1971, pp. 210) enables each of us as individual members ofa language group to function, and allowsus, by More generally, economic crises are an acid test promssing the raw material of our experience of hegemony. Whether or not such crises result in through available frames, to cope with the world. a direct challenge to authority depends on the extent to which dominant groups can continue to Crisis oi Hegemony limit popular struggles and aspirations within In spite of the pervasiveness within culture of acceptable bounds (such as, say, wage disputesor hegemony's naturalising work, at certain critical free school books) or whether, to the contrary, times in their history societies may experience these move beyond such limits to challenge the what Gramsci terms 'a crisis of hegemony'. This distribution of economic and politicalpower occurs when social tensions mount to a point within the society as a whole. Ina situation of where the consensual terms of referencecan no crisis of hegemony while the dominant classes longer take the strain, and the possibilityopens may still rule, they no longer lead. up for constructing new varieties of social It seems redundant to say that at present the meaning. This presents an exciting prospect for South African state, in Gramscian terms, rules cultural workers. Arguably, this is something likerather than leads. While its authoritarian struc- the situation we find ourselves in in South Africa tures are all still in place (ideological: churches, today. Stuart Hall sums it up: schools, media and repressive: courts,army, A Clisis of hegemony marks a profound rupture in prisons) the country is experiencinga major crisis the polifical and economic life trf a society,an accu- of confidence in the moral authority of the ruling mulation of contradictions. If in moments of hege- bloc. What has been interesting in media terms,at mony everything works spontaneously so as to sus- least since the Defiance Campaign of 1989 and tain and enforce a particular form of class domination while rendering the basis of that social authority the subsequent lifting of certain restrictions in invisible through the mechanisms of the pmdu akin February of this year, is the way in whichmany of consent, the moments when the equilibrium of cultural frames and meanings which had thus far consent is disturbed... are moments when the whole (with whatever justification or lack of it) seemed basis of political leadership and cultural authority 'w- firmly fixed, appear to be slipping their ows eArseti and contested. Mall et.al. 1982, pp. 2171 moor- ings. So strong and widespread is the desire to The causes of such crises are diverse. For Grams° establish a new order (scenarios, ofcourse vary they occur widely), that events which just last December either because the ruling class has failed insome would have been unequivocally signified in the major political undertaking for which it hasre- various media (Illegal march% 'terrorist bomb-

175 PAP I V Creating New Passibikses hY Media Awareness 179 hie; 'black-on-black violence% etc.) have cometo transforming these raw materials into a be susceptible to re-defmition. If there appears to recognisable product that we accept asfamiliar. within each be a positive gesture for change fromwhatever Just as there is constant competition from directimi, the oddest of bedfellows rush in to language group as to permissible deviations established (e.g. stamp their meaning on the eventand claim it as the code, with a 'standard' being their own. At the other end of the spectrum, Standard English, the dialect of the most eco- of the instances of violence are now mulled over, nomically and politically powerful sectors speculated about, and all but condoned by a community) against which 'errors' arejudged press eager not to put afoot wrong in these and corrected, so in discourses we arepersuaded differences within equivocal timeg to consent to the entrenched the cultural/political system (masculine/ Sterytelihng In Context feminine; legitimate/illegitimate; nonnal/ What we are interested in, then, is the dynamic deviant). of a interaction that takes place between certain These ideas were followed by a scrutiny general storytelling rules that are appropriatedby series of media texts which set out todepict a 13 news practice, and specifichistorical conditions. single event (Cape Town's 'Big March' of For although the rules of both languageand September 1989) and to see whether these narrative appear to obtain a certain autonomy, concepts help us to understand someof the they are, of course, socially created by menand dynamics involved. women pursuing their interestsin concrete historical situations. They are basically contractual Workshop work- or arbitrary systems which depend onsocial consent, (What follows is a brief summary of the and exist only insofar as they are used. Inthis shop discussion.) We began by looking atthe sense 'discourse' is bestunderstood as the following narratives of the March: diffrrent kinds of use to which language is put. It is Argus. 13/9/89; within discourses that language systems and Satelite feeds (ITN; ABC; 13BC etc.), 13/9/89; social conditions meet. Signs (words, images) and ITN (Channel 4) News, 13/9/89; their referents (the phenomena they represent) BBC1 News, 13/9/89; SATV News,13/9/89. igo live' only within particular discourses. Argus, 13/9/89; rape Times, 14/9/89; Discourses are generated by the interaction Argus, 14/9/89; South, 14/9/89. between the signifying systems uf language and Weekly Mail, 15/9/89; Vrye Weekblad,15/9/89. real historical conditions. Thus discourses partake of the systemic rules of language itself and of storytelling/narration, and in so doing DISCUSSION they signify historical experience and simulta- The'RawEvent' in neously produce meaning for it. Discourses do At the outset we decided that any event is, not 'reflect' their linguistic, social orhistorical itself, "overdetermined': it is composed of a determinants: they work on them in language, number of diverse individuals and groups, each

180 Natio manes Inky* Air= with its own agenda and interests. Onan occa- 'closure', or the strategy of producinga single, sion such as this one, conflicting interestsare univocal 'meaning' for the event. We identified voluntarily submerged ina shared, general set of tlw basic interest in all the storiesas the element concerns. But the constituent elements are by no of equilibrium/disequilibrium,or potential threat means lost; their traces are present in the variety to public order. Having thus established the of banners, slogans and behaviours which make shared or general features of news-story,we up the visible 'event'. Another way of describing moved on to the more interesting task of identify- this is that the event is 'multi-vocal'- it speaks ing the differences between them: theways in with many voices, and is best understoodas a which the specific interests and agendas (clo- temporary and unstable synthesis of discourses. sures) of each newspaper intervene. With some grasp of the local political situation, we could anticipate which of these discourses (or Harmonic Work: (a) The PIUS storytelling/meaning-making systems) might be What and whose meaning is being 'anchored, selected and play a prominent role in thevarious fixed or naturalised' in each case? Thetask here is media narratives of the event. dual: technical and ideological. How dothese specific agendas intersect with the technical Formal Structures of News: Seiedion & procedures outlined above? Very briefly,our Narrcdion findings were as follows: The event qualifies as 'news' by virtue of its being The narratives in the Argus and the CapeTimes recent, negative and surprising, and the involve- are very similar. Both construct the event asa ment oi elite persons' in the form of themayor, 'civil rights' or 'peace' march. In the Argus MP's, and prominent religious and community (Thousands in Peace March% the key phraseis figures, especially Archbishop Tutu and the 'commonsense prevailed'. The main photo reverend Alan Bocsak, international media centres the banner stating' PEACE IN OUR CITY' Inowns'. and bouquets are handed out to all:to de Klerk We noted that all of thepress stories, whatever for allowing the first march inyears, to the police their bias, are similarly structured in the way theyfor staying out of sight, andto leaders, marshals frame, focus, realise and dose the meaningof the and participants for a peacefulevent. The DP event (the internationally accepted 'inverted members and mayor are invited to giveprivi- pyramid' style). The photos in eachpaper leged comments (a close-up of Colin Eglinon pp. comprise one high-angled long shot showing the 3) and anchor the meaning of theevent. The Cape size and progress of the march, anda medium Times ('March for Peace') report is almost close-u- of the leading figures. Their captions identical. Selected leadersare named, pictured direct the reader to notice certain features and and accessed, and again it is hailedas 'a victory ignore others. Headlines, choice of data,elements for common sense' (read: the hegemonyof the included in the newsphotos (plus their captions) existing civic and parliamentary leadership?).It is and the choice of witnesses (accreditedvoices) all important to note what is repressed, mutually support each other in the procedure of backgrounded or silenced in thesereports (as in

177 PART IY Creating New PossUities for Melia Awareness 181 'openness' policies (only a dayold!), its priority is to reassure its readers,mainly National Party *AMP' supporters, that things aren'tgetting out of hand. Mention is made of a strong UDFand ANC presence: 'Die ANCvlag is vertoon, maar op versoek van die organiseerdersverwydee. This fi interestingly misrepresents whatactually occurred at the city hall, whereall of the speeches rPoaho-eta were given abovethe enormous black, greenand assa7opstog gold banner draped across thefront of the ea,t balcony. G Moving on to South and VraeWeekhlad, we are DM BL presented with an altogetherdifferent event. vs.1, South's headline is 'PEOPLE'S CITY'in large capitals, and the whole front pageconsists of a the single picture with a range ofunion, community and UDF banners, with the ANC onecentred and prominent. The caption leaveslittle room for doubt as to the meaning of the event:'Historic Congress banner takes March: The African National C r was unfurled in the centreof Cape Town on e tv Peg", the photo of Capebin PO* Wednesday...' We also noticed that the crowd, although from ahigh angle, clearly 0166°4S°19. shows the facial features ofindividuals, who are DOSS61° 4. rendered as pinpricks in theother papers. The story stresses popularleadership and formulates the event as a major act ofdefiance, radicalism lote-:211_kci and solidarity: here 'the people' arenot simply citizens of Cape Town followingthe lead of civic terkonOpeople'spowiti! dignitaries, but the dispossessedre-occupying close to this Die Burger, below), namely, the numerous 'their' city. Vryr Wreiblad is quite banners of extra-parliamentary organisations, version with its New Afrikaneranarciup-liberal- and notably the ANC, plus the voicesof their ism: 'Hier kom 'people'spowerT: 'Die ANC vlag leaders (who organised and marshalledthe entire oor die balkon vandie stadsaal het op dramatiese betekenis van die dag eventDie Burger offers an interestinginflection wyse die historiese in its headline: Nolksraad salPraat oor tuisgehring'. Massaoptog: Duidende bring Kaapstad tot in each of the above cases, wenoted the ways stilstand'. Still equivocal about the newde Klerk in which all the elements ofsignification combine

182 meth maws inWIAfrica 175 to construct a single, univocal meaning for the viewers. In both the Channel 4 and ABC versions, event. the March was presented as ecivil rights' event on the lines of the American black experience or Hegemonic Work: (Is) Television similar peaceful public protests in Britin. In other We were interested in how similar theconstrue- words, whatever its local signifisame, either to its lion of an event into story is betweenpress and participants or the agendas of local South African TV news. On TV the supposed 'neutrality' of the political groupings, it can only be made 'meaning- anchorperson serves to authenficate the carefully ful' to overseas viewers if accomodated to their selected series of images and opinions which known frames of understanding, the political and comprise the report. The SATV newsopens with and social discourses available to them. Both fulsome praise for de Klerk'snew 'openness' describe it as a 'civil rights march', ignore local policy, and reads the Marchas the first vindica- labels (COSATU, UDF, DP) and concentrateon tion of this. The progress is followed ina series of the presence of Tutu and Boesak whosenames long-shots, interspersed with close-tps of the alone have the power to make any event interna- leaders (Tutu, the mayor, the DP). At the city hall tional news. The consonance of this liberal' the camera studiously avoids the balcony and its disarse with that of the South African English ominous covering, carefully focussing onlyon thepress was noted. faces above (this requiring rathertortuous shots The Big Question which was finally posedwas: References from sidg, angles). Inside the hallwe are permit- What, then is the final 'meaning' of the event? Althusser, L. 'Ideologyand ted, for the first time inyears, to see community Can it be said to have a single meaning at all,or is Ideological State Appara- leaders making speechrs. But we do not hear tuses', Lenin and Philosophy, its meaning only to be found in the variety of New Left Books, London their actual words, only a voice-ever paraphree. discourses that compose and/or narrate it? 1977. All 'alternative' banners are excised from the Clearly each of us, as a citizen, and hopefully, Hall, S. et.al. feds).Culture, footage throughout. The mayorwraps up the politically engaged and concerned individual, is Media, Language, Hutchinson, London el it with an innokuous statement about r12pared to defend the greater 'truth value' of 1978. Hall, S. et.al. Policing the bretherhexl and ?. This represents a triumph one of these versions over the others. I have my Crisis, Macmillan,London ot narrat...select:on, exclivion af well as a majorCW11 preference, based on carefully considered 1982. feat or the rrtthe camera operators ano ihri; priorities. One of the aims of this exercisewas to Hartley, J. Understanding editors. The report is very sirIA to that of Die :ourage a greater awareness of the complex News, Methuen, London 7982. BerArr in its anxiety to sunultsi ncously commend and conflictual strategies by which socialmean- Fiske, J. Television a shiiii government Mis and reassure the ing is censo-ucted. And also to providesome tools Culture, Methuen, London 1987. white for responsibly intervening in this important The presentation of tile event Gramsci, A. Selectionsfrom on overseas TV activity: the struggle in diseourse; the contestover the Prison Notebooks, channelr in no way offers an 0xception to these the way our reality may be signified. Lawrence and Wishart, rules. What we noticed there is theway in which London 1971. (just as in th2 South African narratives) material Propp, V. The Morphologyof must be brought into line with or 'framed' by the Folktalt, Universityof Texas Press, Austin1968. discourse!: available to that particularrange of Todorov, T. The Poeticsof Prose, Blackwell, Oxford 1977.

PART IVCreating Ne# Possibilities ior Melia Aymara 183 UNDERSTANDING MASS MEDIATHROUGH GENDER A Method forDeveloping Media Awareness

Alison Gillwald

Introduction don't relate to them, say men's shoes, you are If you ask students, particularly womenstudents, likely to be met with the shrug of shoulders or a what they think about the portrayal of womenin defence of the image on grounds of fun - 'it'sjust the media, you will find that very few are an ad'. It is preciselythis response that reveals offended, outxaged or irritated. Most students the power of the mass media unobtrusively to believe that the media simply reflect what assist in the social construction of gender by women are in society, or whatthey want to be. If making their representations appear'natural' or you were to provide?videnee for example, of 'real' or 'real alternatives'. women posing provocativelywith products that But this revelation will seldom beimmediately obvious to students and if you point it out atthis stage you win eiscover irritationand defensive- ness because evenwhere oppression is experienced or witnessed by women it is seldom conceptualised as such. Alvarado et al (1987) suggests that such antipathy towardsstudies of sexism is founded on the fact that women consciously or unconsciously believe they can subtly exeit power through their limitedand contradktory roles in society. For many femininity seems one valuable asset that societyhas not been able to wrest from them. By challenging their acceptance, indeed endorsement, ofthese images, you are countering years ofsocialisation during which the more they have conformed to these images as girls and women, the morethey have been rewarded. That is why initially exploring with students the ways in which the media construct gender involves confrontation and negotiation of meanings - one is challenging perceptions which are rooted in the way things are. Goadar 4 Rowe 2 If one understands genderas the ways in which feminity and masculinity, relationships and sexuality are conceptualised and prescribedin society, it is not only equally interesting but probably necessaiy to pose the question of media images in relation to men. Although initially male students (and indeed female students) revelin the machismo of male media images, theyoften also begin to discover how burdened theyare by trying to fulfill the impossible expectations of men created by the media. But for re3sons of time and because I largely teachwomen students. I shall focus on media representations ofwomen. An unthreatening, unpersonalisedway of starting off such a study is by getting studentsto create collages from magazines with the theme of women, or men or family or homosexuals or working women. This providesa tangible but unpersonalised basis for introducinga discussion of questions like what is meant by theterm gender. P-zi does it differ and how isit related V figure3 to sex? These are very often understood to be the same thing by students because they see theone as explaining the other. If sex is taken to refer to biological differencee and gender to differing social expectations of men andwomen then one can move on to discuss whether sexual differences 'naturalise' (Alvarado et al 1987, pp. 177) the so, ial and economic inequalities which characterise gender relations the 'worldover. Because students are apparentlyso centent with gender images in themass media, exposing to students the dozens of studies done which document the exploitativeways in which women are represented by the media, not only fails to bring them closer to gender issues but alsofails to engage .hem over media issues. One way of

ORParlitiora 11434:g Liu; Toni iscs Do Tms11111116% mellaretrelte thamaw K....1 me kimono IMN. sAleaa t entp allowing students to discover forthemselves the narrow ways in which women aretreated by the mass media, is through contentanalysis. (It need-4 to be reasonably rigorous if itis going to be worthwhile, and if it is going to beincluded should be a relatively in-depth courseproject.) Studies done by students recently havefound that Cosmopolitan contains moresexually exploitative advertising than Scopemagazine, (which involved grappling with defining whatsexually exploitative advertising is, and trying toexplain why this was so). Another study foundthat major women characters in soap operaonly fall into four categories, and those that aren'tfilling traditional roles, are presented as not very nice ladies. Other studies examined theportrayal of another found that LIGHT SPE! women and girls in cartoons, 11112101111,11fi Norm. eipawrivromataciftra040nowloAct Rim aloft women only appear onthe front pages of newspapers as victims oradjuncts to men and on A figure 4 the sports pages largely for theirattractiveness as A opposed to sports prowess. Figure 5- Students are big mass media consumers,but Carnpare and maws, A with they have seldom thought beyondthe appear- B and C with D. ance of the product.Media institutions are vague Haw dam and distant things which most studentsonly meaning /elate to farm and experience at the reception end - where assess- gaffe? ment of rontent is not encouragedand the form is made invisible. Projects, like the contentanalysis examples above, are useful becausethey operate in the realm of thefamiliar but present new ways of looking at it. Having to developclassification categories and methods of enumerationcompels them to consider the network of processesof origination, selection and gatekeeping, treatment, economies of time and space thatcharacterise the production of media products. While having allowed students to identify sexism in the mass media forthemselves may be PhOtographs from Fiskv, 1482.

186 Maio Matters in South Africa a more worthwhile exercise than having distantly 41 Figure 6 formulated data presented to them, to end here (as many course outlines do) would be counter- productive. Having gone through thatprocess they may be left all the more with an overwhelming sense of helplessness in the face of an impen- etrable value-reproducing machine. To perceive of oneself as a victim is paralysing. So, having stopped this awesome machine to examined the products, it is crucial to provide students with the undtrstanding to contest what is representedas the obvious. At least when the machine starts agaio, as it must, they can realise the contentsare not as inevitable or 'natural' as they might appear.

ConlIont It is again at the level of reception and the familiar that one can provide a broad context for image analysis. This can demonstrate how meaning is produced and how it is not static or 'the truth'. The construction of content initially, floor' Or more significantly does the image of but later also form, can be examined by unpack- white women cleaning floors at all, really ing images. One can present students with resonate in South Africa? Why can one barely representations of women and girls from the find images of women in the hardnews pages of mass media and ask them to compare this to their newspapers to discuss? Why do women require own experience, or their knowledge of their separate banking or insurance policies to men? mothers, or their sisters, or their girlfriends. (This Or does the use of household antiseptic allow is of course in itself problematic as experience is you to bond with your child? (Figure 1) very often filtered through media created if these few examples are not representative ot perceptions of reality. See Funkhouser and Shaw women perhaps others are disputable. Students on how synthetic experience shapes social have often absorbed entirely the notion ofan reality). Can all mothers put their babies to sleep alternative reality, so while content does not in seconds when friends call, as they do insoap reflect their experience it holds the promise ofa operas? Do you suddenly become sexually better Lwelife, marital relationship, motherhood. irresistible after using Clearasil face washor (Figure 2) (Another way to understand why the Impulse deodorant? Do you look attractive and obvious appears to be so is bv making it unfamil- feel so in control when you One-stepyour kitchen iar or unconventional: tor example,we can put

153 PART W Creating New Posvighties for Media Awareness 187 literally Figura 7 Ip perform a solely decorative function) by being treated as inanimate in a waythat allows their physical dismantling. (See also Figure 4.)

&MN But perhaps the most revealing aspect ofgender construction by the mass media because of its invisibility, is form. To be able to challengemedia representations of women and to be able to construct alternative frameworks,students need to explore the relationship betweenthe content of media images of women and their form. Andthis is useful in revealing how all images are constructed in terms of a number of codes -aesthetic, cultural and technical. Again one candemon- strate these codes by using themunconvention- ally. It should also indicate that whilethe medium determines the ranges of possibilities, the actual use to which they are put areculturally restrained. This also opens up an examination of why men in the place of womenin advertisements certain images are considered more realthat which often demonstrate their absurdity.) others. Photographic and especially electronic If one then examines a specific image andasks visual images are considered more 'real' than students to describe it, one might find thereis print images or the ways genres influence initially consensus on its meaning. But if you content. (Figure 5) By way of introducingthe idea demand another reading of it, students may comethat images carry extra textual meanings, one can up with a range ofinterpretations. This exposes consider the various meanings of a single image that there are differential readings of images of women in a newspaper, on televisionand in a although student might initially findthemselves film at the cinema. resorting to the 'preferred reading' whichreflects One car Way for students advertisements or the dominant values and beliefs of society.The documentaries where men's voices are used and way contexts and audienceexpectations combine ask student:: t ) comment on the extract.Seldom in differmt ways to provide differentdecodings is the use of te 'establishment voice' queried, can also be explored(Figure 3). Block out the even when it is used to articulatethe thoughts of Cameo brand name and see how it influences the woman preseni in the extract. One canask meaning. This also provides an obvious students to consider what the effect of a young example of the way women are objectified (or African woman's vowould have on the saw,:

TMMedia Maften in Swth AiTka visual representation. What we mean by realist aesthetics are those sets of Besides such ideological considerations, what coding and conventions which deny the materiality of their medium and the perceptions which disre- such a study of form should involve is a gard it. (Alvarado et al. 1987 pp. 97) deconstruction of the image in terms of the technical codes used to construct it, so the process When students realise that reality is always of production can be made evident or mediated, they can see that the represenations of demystified. Textual analysis of production women are not as obvious as they had thought. allows us to stop the mass mediated gender flow, While it would be incorrect to suggest to students which knit together various entertainment and that this knowledge would provide them with information programmes and advertisements. the ability to directly change mass media Practical examinations of audience onstruction representations of women or that changing mass also exposes the production and planning aspect media images would liberate women in society, I of the mass media which goes unquestioned. think this process can be personally empowering One can examine the title sequences of the soap largely because information is power. Without operas or the jingles of advertisements or the this sort of exposure, students not only don't colour and typeface of programme names in have the information to challenge their oppres- order to understand audience construction. sion but generally don't even have the informa- Students can consider the choice r..4 conrinuity tion to know they are oppressed. announcers and voice-overs. How do they Bibliography function as role models or role reinforcers? Why Alvarado, Glitch and Walley. Learningthe Media; An do women's magazine covers use representations Introduction to Media Teaching,Macmillan, London 1987. of women which seem to obiectify them or Dimb leby and Burton.. More thanWords, Methuen, London present them in ways which are sexually alluring 1986. if they are trying to sell to women? (Figure 6 & 7) Fiske, J. Introduction to CommunicationStudic, Methuen, What is the thinking behind the construction of London 1982. audience for the women's section of the daily Funkhouser and Shaw. 'How SyntheticExperience Shapes Social Reality', Journal of Communication,(Spring 1990). newspapers? A useful exercise is to get students .- to redesign the day's television schedule, with different assumptions about women to those that Filmography inform conventional planning. Teleliteracy( prod. Metlerkamp, What one is working towards with students iS a realisation that reality is always 're-presented'; it cannot simply be presented or revealed. The power of the media lies in this practise of revealing information or events to the audience, while nr! ;lig invisible the mechanism whereby it is made possible - realism.

1S3 PART W Creating Nevi Possibaltin for Maim Awareness 189 THE NATAL VIOLENCE Developing a Model for Evaluating Newspaper Information

A workshop by Clive Emdon

Set lion 1 by their own managements. (Banning of The World, Weekend World and Voice in 1977; closure of Media control and apartheid Post, Weekend Post in 1979; and Rand Daily Mail Journalists in our apartheid society contend with and Sunday Express in 1985.) The structure of a a vast array of laws and regulations which inhibit giaat commercial press remained in the hands of the proper reporting of information in almost four companies that published some 25 dailies, bi- every sphere of life. weeklies and weekly newspapers in English, The most recent of these are the successive Afrikaans and African languages. Between them, States of Emergency regulations (1985-90), which they ran the national news agency, the South among other thing.ive restricted the reporting African Press Association (Sapa). (McGregor of actions by security forces, and the right of 1987) photographers or television crews to record the There was no independent ownership of black violence, and which give the riolice arbitrary newspapers until the Inkatha movement gained powers to decide what may or may not be knowncontrol of Ilanga (1987) and no independent about public violence. We may be experiencing broadcasting until Capital Radio (1979) and the the final years of an authoritarian system which advent of M-Net (1985). has pervaded the lives of two generations of Radio and television have not only been the South Africans. Clearly it has taken its toll both inmain media for National Party propaganda terms of individual and collective rights and di,' ing these four decades, but have also become freedoms. Apartheid has had devastating effects the palliative, the entertainer, the diversion for on the media. In the past 42 years of Afrikaner intelligent people from the hideous truths of this nationalism, black and radical political opponentssociety. of the state were banned, banished, jailed or The 'alternative pwss' were newspapers exiled most with controls and censorship of their produced by progressive groups and collectives political views. The liberal English-language for the community at large, black communities, press became a barometer of values and the main community organisations, tra,.ie unions, the critic of the Government. A tew black staffed church and students. One of the main reasons for newspapers developed a critical voice but by the the development and proliferation of such mid-80s they and the flag-ships of the liberal newspapers in the 1980s was the perceived failure press were so pinned down by legislation, they of the commercial press to adequately reflect were either banned by the Government or closed either the events or issues of the day. This was the

190 Media Matters in Sok Ai TitO 1Sf; view of liberal and progressive organisations and black journalists am trained or hired, while the journalists who took initiatives to establish 'alternative media' are dominated by and staffed newspapeni and news agencies, in most cases, mainly by a younger group of black males. And it using funds from international agencies and is almost exclusively these two groups that make foreign governments. Weekly Mail has been the the major decisions on what news should be used most successful of these. Financed initially by and in what way. There are historial structural former Rand D. ily Mail journalists, it is fast reasons for the way the media operates, and that becoming seen as a neW style of independent ownership and control and staffing of the Natal 'commercial' newspaper. More in the 'alternative' media are elements of these. Further, the writer mould: with alternative styles of organisation, of contends that newspaper practices in the Ns welting, of news assessment, and of alternative press were imported from Fleet Street as stan- politics, are or have been the newspapers: The dard British newspaper practice, and have Voice, New Nation, Grassroots, South, Saamstaan, seldom been modified or changed to suit local UmAfrika, New African, Indicator, Vrye Weekblad, conditions. Cosatu News). The writer suggests that the Natalpress has British and American researchers in their failed to live up to or to support the journalistic critique of the commercial press, identify how practices of the liberal British model. This is structures of ownership and control as well as particularly evident in its claim to he objective journalistic practices effect the way in which and the neutral purveyor of information in news is selected and used. Their criteria for reflecting a full range of political opinion and evaluating the media can be applied to the South information; and in its pretence at 'covering the African press and broadcasting. When doing this news', the main events of its time. what we can see is that the limited number of This tehaviour can in part be explained by the companies owning newspapers and the mo- effects that ownership and control haveon the nopoly of broadcasting ownership and control in practice of journalism. Editors and senior

South Africa allows for fewer voices and views,a executives of newspapers are carefully selected t&: greater propensity for control and internal best serve the value system inherent to the censorship as well as manipulation of informa- company and its interests. Such people ere tion. It also suggests that control and ownership responsible for all newsroom and production of media can be translated directly into tangible practices. political and economic power, furthering the lt may also be explained by professional inertia, interests of big business and government. caused by subjection to State legislative controls When the questions of staffing and professional for such long periods (4 time, by there being editorial decisions and pndices come under dominant companies without opposition in the scrutiny, two issues arise which are relevant to area for so long, as well as following tried the way the press and broadcastingare dealing journalistic methods without innovationor with the Natal violence: the commercialpress is challenges as regards these practices. dominated by white males and relatively tew Broadcasting has had little or no oppositionor

PARTly Creatrtl New Pos6Iiities M6o Awmeness 191 1S7 competitors in its fields of practice 1 ,the formation of the UDF and campaign the (newsgathering and production). As suggested against the tri-cameral Parliament (1983-84), above it has been used by the State as a main formation of Cosatu (1985); as well as thegeneral conduit for apartheid policy. Not untilFebruary resistance to the KwaZulu avthority and tothe 1990 has the SABC contemplated a morewide- increasing militancy of the lnkatha movement. in ranging style of broadcasting allowingfor views The alliance has found that some newspapers counter to those of the ruling party. the Natal press (Daily News, Natal Mercuryand Ilanga, before its sale to 1nkatha) havenurtured How the media is viewed and supported Chief Buthelezi as a man of peace - More than any other public agency, the pressand a moderate, Christian,homeland leader - with broadcasting have the task of defining social whom business interests could deal. Over the reality for us. When these agencies are inept or years this press hadsupported each phase of become contaminated this process becomes Chief Buthelezi's rise within tribal, Zulupolitics distorted. When such agencies and their pro- as well as his strategies to secure powerthrough and the cesses of gathering andconstructing information the KwaZulu Authority, the Natal lndaba for consumption are suhmerged in anauthoritar- lnkatha movement. the ian society such as this., the distortionsbecome The ANC/UDF/COSATU alliance has seen endemic. broadcasting media of the SABC as a mouthpiece In Natal both the leaders of the ANC/UDF/ of the ruling National Party Government. As such COSATU grouping and Chief Mangosuthu it was both a pervasive mechanism for maintain- Buthelezi's Inkatha movement have been critical ing the machinery and rationale of apartheid.The and at times condemnatory of both pressand SABC is seen as having maligned organisations broadcasting in this region. For this purposes a and their leaders of the majority populationand brief outline of their positions must suffice. of distorting information so as to sustain apart- ANC /UDF/COSATU leaders see the press in heid. For four decades it had failed to give Natal as representmg business interests inthis anything but a pro-Government slant to newsand region. Historically, tLis press had on one hand, views thus depriving the listening and viewing failed to adequately ret;ect the diliance's struggle population of reliable information. within the apartheid system and at the same Chief Buthelezi and the Inkatha leadership's time, had supported the homelandleader Chief view of the Natal press has varied between the Buthelezi. contentment, displeasure and anger. Over Except for theSunday Tribune,Post Natal, and at past two decades Chief Buthelezihad a good times Natal Witness, the Natal press hadfailed to working relationship with a number of journalists record and reflect the scale of struggle against employed on the Durban dailies, including the apartheid in this region. This was true of the rise editors of these newspapers. The displeasure has of independent trade unions in the 1970s, andthe been mainly with reports and features in the campaigns against the inclusion of Durban Sunday Tribune, written by particular journalists, townships in KwaZulu particularly in the early as well as intermittent reportsin the dailies reflecting badly on his roleas peace-maker or on Many writers identified Natalas a special case Inkatha as the cause of violenceor conflict in South African politics, while all the ingredients The cause of most displeasure has been The of covert state action in theuse of the police and New African for its claimed disrespect of Chief military as well as 'vigilant&was evident. Buthelezi as well as for its bias for the ANC Newspapers tended to *ore the context of the alliance and against Inkatha. war in news reports. They did not remind readers Gavin Woods, the executive director of the of the low intensity violence between theparties lnkatha Institute, has said that despitea history ofthat has gone on foryears. good relations particularly with the editors and Factors such as poverty, tribalism, gangsterism senirr writers on the Durban dailies, theentire and other criminal activities that fuelled the press has become anti-lnkatha. Such bias was conflict were often ignored. very difficult to counter with the supply of The press and SABC in Natal hada specially authentic information which often disprovedthe important role to give white readers and viewers findings of so-called monitoringgroups which he specific information on the Africanareas so they believed were 'all inside the ANC-UDF-COSATUcould make rational and informed economicand camp' (Interview, March 1990). John Aitchesonis political decisions affecting them. the deputy-director of the Centre for Adult The media needed to show the complexitiesof Education of the Universliy of Natal in the situation and give the backgroundto reports Pietermaritzburg, who is viewed bymany to help readers and viewers understand these. journalists as the best source ofcurrent informa- Newspapers and broadcasting, except ina few tion on the conflict. He found Natal Witness hadatinstances, failed to do any meaningful investiga- times been the most consistentnewspaper at tive journalism on the ongoing conflict covering 'the war', but that thepress and Staffers in both newspapers and broadcasting broadcasting in generalwere neither uniform nor were able to handle the politics of the Berea and consistent in covering the violence. white areas, but failed to apply thesame stan- To many journalists the violence is on-going dards when viewing black politics. and one of many assignments in thisregion and not necessarily the most important. Problems with covering the violence; Academic commentators and researchers journalists' perceptions agreed on a number of essential areas of interest In interviews with journalistscovering the which they suggested needed attention bythe violence and those handlingcopy or news media: editing, it becomes evident that the hurdlesof Press and radio referred uncriticallyto the state censorship, laws affecting thepress and Natal conflict as black-on-black violence'. This regulations under the Emergency,are just part of was seen as a simplistic definition as it removed what many perceived as obstacles to information the political dimension from the conflictand getting into print. journalists had wide-ranging reduced it to something similar to mere faction views on the Natal media'scoverage of the fighting, endemic to the Zulus and to Natal, violence, some were critical, while otherswere

1 b PART W Crecting New PossiVities for Meeto Awasems 193 On newspapers there was alack of discussion supportive. level of Internal mechanisms for checking reportsand and debate in newsrooms. There was a at the run through by a legal eye,always viewed as discussion among editorial executives successive news conferences and amongleader an essential partof dealing with contentious intellectu- copy, had become so partof the system of news %liters. But in the main, staff became 'tried and tested' production, that they too wereobstructive. The ally sterile by depending on the 'handling' news, year in more obvious problemscaused by this method system of generating and that the 'system' were the delays causedby over-caution and and year out. The problem was the staff were bound by its interference by relatively conservativeexecutives was assumed, and which ensured that 'news' then becameirrel- practices. In newsrooms there was an unstatedcentral evant. Less obvious werepervasive attitudes provided a social service as which became part of the newsroomculture. tenet that newspapers being the ears These were often political viewpointsgenerated society's watchdog which included The contradic- iy key editorialexecutives which effected and the eyes of the silent majority. evident, for it everything that went into print.Common tions of this position were only too middle-class white males who perceptions of Durban journalistsin the commer- was essentially made the decisions about what news wasgiven cial press included the notionsthat follow. The violence was seen as remote,and not priority and what was ruled out. news essential reading for newspaperscatering mainly On many South African daily newspapers might compete with for white readers (Nato/ Mercury).Reporters items generated by reporters other local, national and interna- suggested that the news executives were as many as 500 tended to be 'switched off' to the on-goingviolence and made tional stories. The violence in Natal The the point that nothing new reallyhappened, but eclipsed by newer stories and themes. the main social agency that it was 'just a question of degree'. newspaper was not seen as of the There were real reasons why newspapercould for providing society with the minutiae not go on covering theviolence: it was not ongoing conflict. few staff were newsy, and after awhile, everything sounded If it was taken seriously, then too the violence. The similar if not the same. This wasjudging events put onto the job of covering editorial system required that on adaily newspa- bv the conventional news criterionof necessitat- stories all the time. News ing the dramatic, the unusual,the different, the per reporters produced important in tams of scale (the mostviolent, the editors were reluctant to give additional unpro- full-time biggest). One newseditor of aDurban-based ductive time. They could not afford More newspaper declared tohis staff that he did not people although it really was a 'beat'. black want any more 'blacks inthe rain stories'. This people were needed on the job, including Zulu signified an attitude that the repetitionof 'hard- journalists - clearly not being able to speak being white might luck' reports as well as stories of oppression or was a handicap, although violent repression could not or should notdominate the protect the reporter's safety in some Sunday fare.) situations. Journalists were nearly always at risktying to Access: This was particularly difficult inrural maintain their professional integrity, theirsafety areas because of the lack of financial resources of and their jobs: trying not to put their sources at newspapers, in particular their lack of transport. risk; being under constant threat of being sued by It was also not in the interesi.. of journalists to be Chief Buttielezi; being charged underthe Emer- seen in the presence of police on the scene of gency legislation or the Police Act; or being violence. personally threatened with violenceor of being injured by the 'comrades' in UDFyouth leagues Critique of the Natal press or by lnkatha fighting men; or being caught in the In stating baldly the 'problem areas' ofreporting cross-fire. the violence, dearly it is difficultto make value News editors and sub-editors changed the copy judgements and generalisations about themerits (what was written) by laundering thelanguage soor demerits of practices in such complex institu- as not to offend or feed the conflict. tions as the press and broadcasting media. Reporters did not get enough support from complex because each has itsown traditions and their colleagues especially the executives value systems and that the behaviourof indi- (newseditors, editors, chief subs). Theysaw vidual journalistsor their newspapers often themselves as being 'out on a limb' all the time in contradict the 'main' observationsat times. the public eye, and their own credibility was However some clear and unambiguousques- often questkined. tions arise which need to be answeredin a focus The Natal violencewas a crisis of national on the way the media have covered the violence proportions which the media itself needed to in this region. There have been severalobvious realise as did the public. There was a need to failures, such as those elaboratedbelow. identify it as a 'civil war' and to recognise the Failure to identify the socio-economicbackdrop effects as similar to those in Beirutor Belfast. to the Natal violence asa struggle over resource., Journalists in the 'alternative press' identified and to identify the rural and urbanauthorities in the same sorts of problems with maintaining theirthis region as being under thecontrol of the integrity with sources, andsaw the following as KwaZulu Authority, and hence Inkatha; the main reporting issues. Failure to indentify where the large numberof Safety It was easy to getaccess to the 'comrades',arms and access to ammunition was coming being identified as alternativenewspaper from; journalists, but they found they could not then go Failure to reflect adequatelyon the effects of to Inkatha sources without being threatened. the conflict on a school-going'neration in terms The Police: Police officers in Natal in many of the disruption of schoolsand leaching, the instances ordered journalists, particularly black psychological effects of on-going violence,or to journalists, off the scene of violent episodes report adequately on lnkatha vigilante attackson despite a relaxation in some emergency regula- children at schools resulting in deathsand tions about reporters being allowedinto 'unrest' injuries; areas (since Feb 2, 1990). Failure to report the massive declinein 19 1 PART IV OratingNkiriPosstbilities 6 *dip Awanness 195 Work productivity in this region due toabsenteeism, Soctiois 21 The Prow ot low morale because of theon-going conflict, and News rising unemployment; of journalism is the Failure on the part of the media toshow the At the heart of the practice the world over are collapse of the criminal justicesystem in coping concept of 'news'. Journalists inclined to see themselves as thesole arbiters ot with the political violence, andthe widespread what signifies news, how it isderived, written loss of faith in the legal systemwith the obvious television. danger of this, or to show howthe South African and used in newspapers, radio or The 'audiences' and 'readers'of the mass media Police, and to a lesser extentthe South African but necessary market, that Defence Force, contributed to and werepartici- are the remotc listening or and seen by the victims of recognises 'news . Their viewing, pants in the violence &served by the violence to be a contributory causeand not an readership habits are scrupulously the measure of impartial force to prevent theviolence; market surveys which become success or failure c; a newspaperor broadcasting A failure to reflect the viewsof credible station. This is because thecommercial mainstay observers that the securityestablishment had the mo-e zuccessful engaged in the conflict by being seento collabo- of media is advertising and the medium in terms of audience,the greater its rate with one side againstthe other; as openly disregarding law-breaking activitiesby certain potential for advertising. Journalists see the main task ofproducing 'hard participants of the violence;and as having been news' in the way it is cast orwritten in terms of its tardy in the extreme in notbringing criminal immediacy (in time and localit) ) andits relevance activities b( the courts; Gultang and Ruge A failure to adequately reflectthe forced (social or political interest). factors that influenced the recruitment drives by lnkatha,and attempts to (1965) identified key that events of drive the UDF out of thePietermaritzburg selection of news. They identified frequency) suit most news suburbs; the attitudes of rebelliousyouths who short duration (similar the event or refused to abide by traditional norms;the wide- media for recording; the bigger and the less scale resistance to local governmentstructures; situation, the bigger the story; will be noticed; A failure by political commentatorsto show ambiguity, the more something 'meaningful', is that the interests of inkatha were synonymous and what is interpreted as culturally-b.)und, suggesting that somedegree of with those of Chief Buthelezi;the growing ethnocentrism will be operating. perception that lnkatha as aninstrument of Chibnall, devel- violence might damage ChiefButhelezi's public The British sociologist, Steve oped a critique of news suggesting a rangeof image with the white community,internationally deficiencies in the way the media attemptto and in the business community; information The failure to suggest if notshow that the wrestle with the task of making accessible to the public. (Referred to inSection 3 KwaZulu Assembly and Cabinetcould use its system of organisatiim tocontrol or curtail the Activity.) His analysis established a useful setot mea- violence.

196 media sichr$KtSouth *co 1 9 2 sines which when applied to the Natal violence tions and tends to simplify all situations. This suggest tends to make human action intelligible at the News is event-orientated:news is only gener- level of the mundane, or a world of cliches, and ated if it is eventful, that is if it isnew, interesting,taken-for-granted assumptions. Part of the and/or unique. In terms of Natal ieporting ofthe eaiphasis on newscasting or news production is violence any or all of these criteria shouid apply. on the economy of style and of language. This is The effect of this is that the violence is reportedin clearly also part of the what good communication terms of fragmentary episodes or events andas a is all about But in the process of cuttingor result is not perceived as a war. The device for clipping, either to fill a 15cmspace on the front offsetting this, and used to effect,more by weekly page or to produce a 40-second time slot on newspapers than dailies, is the news radio, always under pressure, the complexity of barkgrounder or feature article which provides the real world is lost. Sonews about the violence the context of the news. is about events, which are direct, simple and News puts emphasis on the dramatic. This has sufficient items of information, often without the effect of trivialising issues and focussing explanations or history. attenfion on the effects rather than thecauses of News writers use a frame of reference which social problems. In Natal the reporting of violencegenerally uses a range of experts, officials,or is mostly restricted to the recording of eventsin public figures from the statusquo, who become terms of death and destruction. The writer the routine definers of reality. In Natal these suggests that the 'newsroom culture' prevails in would include social scientists and academics, which either consciouslyor unconsciously the such as economists, criminologists, the 'monitors' more dramatic or sensational information is of the level and range of violence, medical produced. This is clearly evident in theuse of personnel, police and army officials, Government police reports and the way in which the conflict is figi....res and politicians. Chibnall's point istaken, 'criminalised'- interpreted according to 'law and though some of thesesources would not neces- order' norms, and not in a social, economicor sarily be seen as part of the statusquo. political context, oreven a historial one. News tends to focus on individuals whom it ObledivitY personalises and cultivates: journalists in Natal The Media Workers Association of SouthAfrica have tended not to identify leaders of thewarring(MWASA), a black consciousness organisation of factions (such as the 'warlords') in the violence journalists and press workers, found, in whatit but describe the politics of Natal in obvious referred to as the 'objectivity debate' in South personalised terms, that of Chief Buthelezion oneAfrican journalism that two sets of valueswere side and Mr Gumede and Mr Gwalaon the other. applied by professionals in the Englishpress: one More recently the media, rather simplistically, for themselves as whites, whosaw themselves as suggested the peaceprocess can or should be cast custodians of the truth and Western liberal by Buthelezi and Mandela values, and another for black journalists,whom News eliminates the shades ofgrey in situa- they feared might contaminate their sensibilities

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198 Maio Maftei South Africa XISIMMRINVISSAISSESAI lisrd Si ttePS

INURE WOW ACTIMSS: OMER Cant lAanan1L Gxnoo A Watnn Thee 1en /xi i1}0/ S uti in,o1rbon women Itit.1 eecrutect to sex set out Star rf, .1 tooks turned or an udtkeiy Gametal antucus Pt.ift at SA SZIT rek PM SO MEM mew Frantic bidto halt violence Frebh detentions, - Isiepped-upuse of 11 2.1 76 ;troops on cards DS PROPERTY MIMS ESIUMFV5i, MS WWII& awl WA I Af011'OrN 1 111 rokry Timex The t ift.1.111tUsSI atid %row. siftltiritrf Iradrrs arrow the SATYR rtStrZil tde ItiLeterath VICHID*Immlpkw+.41. 11,13;17 ;hetitSt 2'1144 PttTIMI SO balk, iceitb4 oct kedfa alibiSr multal 40" ! Al mows /A. inta)lb. 4.16,4 Thousands flee I,ructrat F II' 4 Stork *Amos 25..1 %lies d lb tnehmen!! sAIIRett ,1, aectit, has annintde '6ria1 Isam, Asst.* 22 ^0.1 It" Valley of Death 14101, lb rrterryn, tv, A.stit45 AllaClwyd ; impia.nsel ..44011 tn, unik as violence spreads D*W74 ILIIMIN142110 Igt1114 110, Ne3,1 1,1 WL 'be f3. . 4,3,., s m It111,1, fi,r4414 We, ^ hgVa. t,.,okt tt, roe. tti 2.trsZ 1. and UmAfrika see their strengthas media in their decide what to focus on. Reporters whenwriting independence and non-partisanship. reports select material for prioritising asnews. Copy tasters then decide whetheror not the Newsroom pradices report in question should be used and in what The role that professional journalistsin the way (at what length and on what page). News commercial media claim for themselvesis that of editors, chief sub-editors and editors atany stale mediators and interpreters of thenews, as well as may change the focus or the positioning of arb'ters of what the public should know. reports. :o mediators they tend to put the 'real action' 13y contrast, reportersor writers on 'alternative into the abstract, being relianton `experts' who newspapers' are not subject to thesame 'news- both describe and interpret information. As room culture' that rigidly specifies what consti- arbiters of what is made known,news editors tutes news, how it should be written and what

195 PARTivCreatini New Possibilities kr moiio Awareness 199 Ownership of the mass media is eitherdomi- norms govern where itshould be placed. There nated by governments or by cartels, orby wealthy are dearly positive andnegative effects of this families or individuals. In Natal as in manyparts different sort of behaviour. The positives arethat SABC, nms all the reporters have greater freedomof choice io of the country one agency, the Newspa- defining the reality of what they observe - broadcasting; and one company, Natal the publishing and printing allowing for much more subjectivity,for first- pers Ltd , dominates above, it was hand experienms and perspectives.The counter of newspapers. As suggested indepen- charge to these practices are dearlythose of because such interests restricted the of media that licence. Should reporters have suchfreedom? dence and limited the perspectives be essential What controls are there, particularlyin volatile 'alternative newspapers' were seen to organisations situations like the Natal violence? The counterby here in Natal. Their partisanship to 'alternative' style journalists, is that reporters are associated with the liberation struggleis evident and 'given their heads' without theentrenched and while there is a history of partisanship within the English massive bureaucracy of supervision. support for Chief Buthelezi involves a Partly because of the relatively smallscale of commercial daily press in Durban. It became such newspapers, reporters, subs,newseditors, number of journalists who subsequently Inkatha and editors are collectively maderesponsible for full-time officials of KwaZuhr or particularly the copy by working incloser contact with one organisations, thus reinforcing Chief Buthlezi another as well as perhaps having a moreprecise media and public relations arm of and clear idea ot their newspaper's purpose or and lnkatha. the final role, and thus identifying more with and product. Section 3s Media Research Information Gathering Problems isinerent to the moss media All mass media (newspapers, radioand televi- Research much of the sion) as we know them fail to bedirectly account- In the l 970s and 19130s the focus of from the 'effects' of the mass able for their actions: what they report,how they new research shifted and report and what commentariesthey make. The media on audiences to questions of control sleight-of-hand answer to this by successive content of the mass -,edia. generations of editors and broadcastershas been British and American writers dramatically the 'free market of ideas' approach:'they (the underlined new issues, such as: institutions audience) would stop buying our newspapersif the way in which the mass media as television and they didn't like them"; or by broadcasters:'they (newspapers, magazines, radio, controlled by can simply turn itoff'. The counter to this is that film studios) might be owned and the State, freedom of expression necessitates freedom to important interests in society - such as parties, publish and freedom to broadcast. Thisclearly the Church, trade unions, political means free from governmentinterference and business interests; the mass from major commercial interests. how the ownership and control of

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PARTJV- CN Possbd oAr,es 201 1)7

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202 , methomoilen5001Affica Vis ers individually and collectively came to the military news was to make inferences by reading production process with theirown baggage, their between the lines. Similar inferences have hadto own values, pre-conceptions, bias and prejudices. be drawn by Natal readers and listeners foryears My own investigation into theway in which where the interests of black people have been the Natal press has reported the conflict in this concerned. This has been particularly true of area has shown how useful this analysis is in newspapers since the labour strikes of 1973, and identifying both the interests behind the media what is termed the Natal conflict since 1985, and helps us answer some of the quesionsabout initially signified by the sacking of propertiesin why the media does what t does. Inanda and the development of the phenomenon of 'hit-squads'. Warniatian gathering Until journalists in the Natalpress learn to Finding new information and accurate information write on the lines again,we as readers, teachers is an importani commodity for research and for and educators have to employ strategies notonly education generally. Research of whatever kind to interpret what the media produces, but alsoto requires methods of obtaining information which get our hands on good information. I suggest is reliable and continuous. In this search the some of the following techniques might be following comprise the researchprocesses: useful: finding 'facts' and establishing whereto get We need to read nezos reports ina consistelt way them; as well as every r.ews backgrounder or feature showing how information about people, article that reflects the Natal conflict with the groups or society has a history, and how or why view to developing our own analyses; this is relevant; We also need to dig out information. Thiswould being able to make the connections between include in media terms, reading magazine sets of informarion that help us makesense of articles, obtaining conferencepapers, reports, what is going on; submissions and petitions by political, social being able to make connections between the organisations and groups. information resources of, for example, history We can secure the help of organisations and and geography syllabuses and socialreality as it groups focussed on the Natal violence with a is reported by the media. Theseprocesses are view to making direct information knownto essential for developinga sense of serious social me's audiences/classes. discourse. We can ask a range ofgroups involved with or directly affected by the violence to give directverbal How to assemble 'good' information information from different perspectives: ANC/ During what has been referred toas B.J. Vorster's UDF/COSATU on theone hand, and Inkatha on 'jackboot years' of the 1960s and 1970s,to some the other; the police, thearmy, trade unionists, of us, the years of the 'police state' in South Church &coups. health and educationgroups; Africa with its attendant levels of censorship,the community leaders and residents' associations; only way readers could make sense of political or local government leaders suchas KwaZulu MPs;

V? FART IIICreafing New Possauttes Wecho Anceness 203 women's groups (leagues and brigades)and Enquiry using techniques of the social sciences youth groups (leagues and brigades). suggest that there are link; betweenOw social, the We can obtain information and direct inputs politiod, and the economic which compact on one than from organisations euncerned with monitoring or another, thus suggesting complexity rather assessing the violence such as: IDASA, theBlack reductable answers to social reality. Sash, the Inkatha Institute, University ofNatal Similarly the value of putting what one is (Pmb) Adult Education Centre, theDemocratic examining into a historical context is crucial in any Party's monitoring group; Associationof Demo- social inquiry. It often helps us explain events cratic Journalists, SA Union of Journalists,Media and human behaviour in terms of on ongoing Workers Association of South Africa, as well as social process. individual journalists and academic researchers; Part of learning to analyse society and complex and more recently, the African NationalCon- questions such as social conflict or war requires The gress. consistency and a certain degree of rigor. In order to obtain information we need toask value of such an analysis to teachers and lecturers questions of every sort. Clearly there are what we as well as to community,service or political might feel are obvious questions, whichhave groups is that it is part of alarger approach to simply disappeared out of view becausethere is rPsearch. It is about developing a methodology. an assumption that thesituation is cloaked with Clearly we all have limited time and resources to of us so much intrigue, or is toocomplex. Also, part of 'find out whats really happening'. So many what we are doing in the process of gathering ourlearn by habit to read the same newspapers; and by radio own information is to compare'this information to rely on information provided for us with that used by the media. and televison, because it is so accessible. We need to learn to analyse situations once we New approaches to obtaining useful informa- have what we regard as useful or 'good'information could include: interviewing, developingoral tion, that is, reasonably reliableinformation that histories, conducting 'social surveys' within givesrange of different perspectives.Here communities and employing systematic survey sociological techniques become useful when techniques, clearly at a level that will allow looking at complex social and political life. pupils or students to recognise the value of the We can employ social science 'debunking' methodology. Part of such an 'adventure' into techniques that allow us to question every k welof ways of making information resourceswork for the complex social whole. This means notonly one is to ensure pupils andstudents become questioning the irrational elements ofinformationparticipants in the process, presented but the layers' of meanings, no matter what holy cows or social niceties we might encounter. Such an inquiry allows us to gobelow A. Critically analyst' the reports enclosedevaluat- the appearances or manifest meanings, tolook at ing them against the Chibna's 'news impera- the real social issues, the hidden or latent tives' which state: meanings, news is event-orientated; Referencn Akalwaya, A. 'A question of objectivity or balance in news', news puts an emphasis on the dramatic; Kwasa the Mama journal. MID, Johannesburg. news has the effect of trivialising issues, Barret, D. Media Sociology, Tavistoek, London 1977. focussing on effects rather than causes of social Bell, P. 'The Struggle for Natal', Leadership (May 1990). problems; Chibnall, S. Law and Order Nemo: Analysis of Crime Reporting in news tends to focus on individuals whom it the British Press, Tavistock, London 1977. personalises and cultivates; Fishman, M. Manufacturing the News, U ai Texas Press, Austin news eliminates the shades of grey in situations 1980. and tends to simplify all situations; Galtung, J. & Ruse, M. 'Structuring and 3electing News', The Manufacture of News, Cohen, S. and Young, JConstable, news writers tend to use a conventional frame London 1973. of reference of experts, officials, and public Irvine D. 'Violence in Natal: Political Implications' !clam figures who perpetuate the status quo. seminar titled Counting the Cost, MR c$i nig the iuture, Durban, I. The article headlined Inkatha - UDF dashes June 14, 1990. spread' in The Natal Mercury of March 29, 1990. Posel, D. & Maasdorp, G. 'The econoec implications of the "r.. The picture and caption of the same publica- violence in Natal' Idasa seminar titled Counting the Cost, Assessing the Future, Durban, June i 4, 1990. tion. Rutch, P. law and Justice', Ides% teminar titled Counting the 3. The article '15 die after bloody battle in Cost, Msessing the Future, Durban Jur14, 1990. township' of the Daily News of March 19, 1990. Stuart, K. in Newspaperman's Guidi the Law, Lane, Hoffe, 4. Compare 'Blood bathes tiny township' in City Dison & Tathan (eds.), 4th edition, Si tterworth, 1988. Press, of Jan 18. 1987. with 'Thousands flee Valley Zulu, P. & Stavrou, S. 'Violence in Natal: Soual Implications', of Death as violence spreads' in Saturday Star of Nan seminar titled Counting the Cosi, Assessing the Future, March 31, 1990. Durban, June 14, 1990.

B. Intemiew members of a social group other Publications than your own and find out whether or not their Association of Democratic Jourtalists, 'Newspaper Coverage reading of the reports links them to the violence of the Natal Violence', Press Release of April 25, 1990. in terms of their life experience or social situation. City Press, Nasionale Pees Opk.. Jan 1987; Apri, 1990. If not, in what way do they find the reports Clarion Call, Special Edition, Inktlha, December, 1988 'distant' or 'remote' or abstract'? II Daily News, Natal Newspapers Li., March and April, 1990. Natal Mercury, Natal Newspapeci Ltd., March and April, 1990. Natal Witness, Natal Witness Pu 'Fishers, March and April, 1990. New African, New African PuHisihing Group CC, March and April, 1990. SA Institute of Race Relations, Race Relations Survey 1985.pp 455-463; 1986 Survey Part 2, pp 838-842, and 1987-1988 Survey, pp 817-841, eds. Carole Cooper et al, Jhb. 1988. Sunday Star, Argus Group, Jhb., March and April, 1990. Sunday Tribune, Natal Newspapers Ltd., March and April, 1990.

PART IVCreating New Possibilities for Macho Awareness 205 201 POLITICAL CARTOONS Uncooperative Forms of Connnunkation?

Ralph Adendorff

Introdottion this, to be deliberately confusing the reader. Most daily newvapers in South Africa have a In what fyllows I will be interpreting four political cartoon which appears on the editorial political cartoons which I have drawn from the page. This cartoon deals, as a rule, with topical established press in this covntry. In each case my issues, usually, but not inevitably, political ones. main aim will be to show that the cartoons are The cartoon is an integral part of the newspaper, complex forms of interaction, and that they not an incidental one. It provides the reader, in presuppose a considerable range of background effect, with a kind of daily summary and knowledge on the part of their readers, which I interpretation of prominent current affairs, or shall attempt to detail. In doing so, of course, I else it predicts possible outcomes. As a message, will be distorting the processes which normally the cartoon is cryptic and indirect. As a result, underlie the interaction between cartoonist and there is a considerable mismatch or disparity reader. Reading a cartoon, in reality, takes place between the overt, 'literal', surface meaning and in a split second (perhaps slightly longer) and it, the deeper, covert, meaning that it is possible to as well as the cartoonist's constniction of it, is arrive at. In order to get at this deeper meaning nothing like as conscious or as deliberate as my one needs to be able to draw on background and account will imply. Finally, I shall argue that other knowledge. Such knowledge, in fact, is media education, on the evidence of my analyses, assumed by the cartoonist to be accessible to the must take the role of such background informatkm reader or else to be readily inferrable by him or very seriously, particularly if media messages are her. To the person who lacks the ability to fill in to be accessible to individuals from different the necessary information, however, i.e., to flesh backgrounds. out what has not been made explicit, the cartoonist must appear to be a strangely uncoop- Cartoon Is Tim Dog Saddam erative communicator. Furthermore, because A dog, a name (Saddam') and a selection of cartoonists rely on caricature and other forms ot geographical detail% depicted on a map are the distortion, and because their drawings often major overt clues which indicate that Saddam literalize information which, if spoken or written, Hussein is the topic of this, the first cartoon would be conveyed metaphorically, cartoonists which I shall consider. This deduction is further produce unexpected effects, and so can seem in confirmed by the jmilarity between the dog's addition to be providing playful treatments of face and Hussein's. We know this from seeing it their subject matter. They can seem, because of on television. This is the easy part of the interpre- I THE WEEKLY MAJL. NOS 3 ID August I 1690

ME MD/ IV WM' OAPER FOR A tratiCke03 SNIP- AMC* MUNDIAL ifJiditiPIVanaar 29 .44.41 3-5 1090

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wtwo 133'n Ramsarty. exiled execiifive chairman of Me Sowsti African NoRacial OlymOc Ccouzittite and voice of dm iniongional spats barna. flies imohn Smoo kopsooday, he is bcond to incomets mad woof old mid= Oa speedy Min so wed span blood' khicL These pronounce:ma &tract from tix mg oars bug coy sininionaars and itc &nods &lax span in MO cam. whae ccal.-ip.iirco on the world stage is *tints:4 te Ada to tcfcalowedata los 11many would haw in*,

tation. Less accessible is the information which is is rabid-Wking and crazed anti is caught in the Cartoon 1 metaphorical, and therefore exists on amore act of tearing up something in its teeth (here, covert level. Such information is arrived at 'Kuwair), as indeed rabid dogs do. These through processes of inferencing in which the unpleasant (and largely implicit) associations in reader appeals to what s/he considers to be turn remind one of the English idiom 'a mad dog' background information that the cartoonistsees and its connotations of bestiality and irrational- as important. Let's start with the fact that ity, and encourage one to suppress possibly Saddam Hussein is depictedas a dog. To call competing associations of loyalty and other someone a dog, significantly, is to depreciate related qualities whichare linked with the idea of them. This is doubly so in Muslim societies. a dog being man's best friend. These, I zhink, are links which Bauer intendsus to What I am doing at present (and this will be make. Hussein is a dog. interpretation doesnot mv strategy throughout) is to verbalize for the stop there, though, because the dog in the cartoon reader the early stages of my interaction with the is not an ordinary dog. If we look closely at the cartoon. I am looking for meaning in the overt depiction of it we see that it is an unstable dog. It and the covert signals which the cartoonist has

PART IV Creating fie* PossibMes for Media Alamos 207 i3 provided. I am trying to negotiate an interpreta- referred to not be something like military mania? tion of the cartoon message as a whole. Viewed And are we not intended to infer that, in Saddam slightly differently, what I have done up to this Hussein, that same bitch is about to produce new point is to record my attempts as a reader to offspring like her previous offspring? Wasn't her recreate the cartoonist's message by trying to previous offspring perhaps Adolf Hitler? If this reconstruct the process by which he imagined line of reasoning is acceptable, then my hunch that I would get the point of the cartoon. earlier .1.1out a link with Hitler is strengthened. Let me continue. Beyond the associations Ah, ha!, I say to myself: Last time 'the world' had which I have mentioned so far related to the to stand up in order to stop i 'bastard'(Hitler). depiction of Hussein as a dog, there is a further Isn't Bauer predicting that it will need to do so (literary) 'trigger' which the astoonist perhaps again, to Saddam Hussein? assumes that the reader can recognize inthe Stepping back now out of my role as someone graphic and other detail that he has provided, negotiating with the cartoonist through the namely, the phrase 'the dogs of war', which is cartoon, to become, for the moment, aless part of a fuller quotation: 'Cry havoclwhich is involved analyst, I need to say that my general where the original stress falls] and let slip the feeling about this cartoon, and it has been dogs of war' (Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2). The reinforced by others who have seen it, is that it is phrase was also frequently linked to Hitler very 'intellectual'. This is becauseit requires close 'unleashing the dogs of war' at the beginning of and complex as well, at time', as uncertain the Second World War. Knowledge of recent inferencing from dues like English figures of events in the Middle East, regardless of the speech and history. For this reason the cartoonist origins of the expression, certainly tells me that it will be viewed by mLny who see it, surely, as is appropriate to be thinking in terms of war and uncooperative. associated ideas when considering Saddam lussein. The dog in the cartoon, thereiore, is Cartoon 21 °Shwas Monne' also a dog of war. The implicit war associations This second cartoon is less of an intellectual in the cartoon are further reinforced, as also the puzzle than the previous one, largely because general ugliness of the dog images which I noted literary and historical allusion play a more earlier, in the quotation from Brecht which the restrictoi role in interpretation. Shared knowl- cartoonist has provided in the top left hand edge, instead of being drawn from figures of corner of the cartoon. I am not sure of the speech and other literary sou,ces, derives from original context of Brecht's words (Does Bauer local knowledge about current socio-political require that the reader does, I wonder?), and so forces, actors and events in this coontrv. Let's have difficulty with the specific referents of 'the turn to the details of the cartoon where, once bastard', 'the bitch' and 'him' in it. My thoughts again, I shall offer a record of my and the though are that Bauer intends us to infer cartoonist's interaction with one another, and my meaning from our knowledge of history. How attempts in particular to transcend the apparent does this seem to you: Could the bitch that is uncooperativeness of the cartoon.

208Mectra Mears inSouthAinco 2( 4 Catioan 2 Overtly there are two parties in the cartoon, a Having established these facts,what, then, is the heavily-anned white male anda number of point of the cartoon? unarmed, apparently younger, black males who It seems to me that whatBauer is doing is are searching through garbage bins. This overtly drawing attentionon the one hand to the idleness provided information is, however, not enough. of the Pan Africanistsi threat andthe unnecessary One needs to know somethingabout the groups prominence which their slogan hasbeen given in which are on the extremes of thc polifical spec- white ranks. On the other hand,I see him as tnun in South Africa ifone is really to understand emphasizing the sinisterpruportions which the who those depicted in the cartoon are and, right wing threat has takenon, and the danger beyond this, ofcourse, if one is to get to grips which it poses. Additionaldetails which we can with Bauer's general message. from the slogan oninfer include (a) the starkdisparities in power of their t-shirts ('One Settler One Buller), it would the two groups; (b) the ironyand the heartless- seem to me that the black youths are Pan ness suggested in the words spoken by the White, Africanists. The heavily armed white man (with namely, 'Is this what you'relooking for?'. It is a camouflage uniform and, notice, floppy hat) taunting, teasing 7rtterance, andis a small step probably symbolizes the right wing or right wing from the more idiomatic threatwith which one elements within the security forcesin the country. might threaten one's child, namely,'You'll get

2u5 PART lY Grating Now POSSaiel for MartoAweless 209 though, intends neither ofthese and, again, we what you're looking for (notfmm the garbage infer that he does not meanwhat How many of these are required to bins) if you're not careful'. African English dialect associations did the cartoonisthave in mind he says. Extreme South (which is what I takethe speaker's varietyof when produring the cartoon,I wonder? Are any English to be) and some of itsstereotypical of my interpretations atodds with what he associations are also exploitedhere, which means intended? Are some of themforced? Ultimately, sociolinguistic the meaiiing of the cartoon isthe outcome of (a) that the cartoonist presupposes knowledge of a kind. The ExtremeSouth African my interactionwith it, based on what I bring English dialect connotes power,arrogance and an with me to the encounter and(b) the cartoonist's uncompromising attitude ofmind. provision for that interaction -not forgetting that meaning, often, is indeterminate.Lastly, we infer Cartoon 33 MrMonth& & UM* that the White is arrogantin his conduct. In this regard we note that "skuus',ordinarily, is a Rod MMus Mood Sociocultural information of twodifferent kinds politeness form, and that 'manne'has associa- allows us to flesh out whatis left implicit in this tions of solidarity. The speakerin the cartoon, caftan 3 next cartoon, and so toIntel piet it. The firstkind comes from ourunderstanding of the story of Little Red Riding Hood, aEuropean nursery tale. The second kind relates to ourunderstanding of Nationalist and ConservativeParty slogans at different times in the past inSouth Africa. This, therefore, is historical information.Of the two sourres ofinformation, the first is probablythe more importantin working out the meaningof the cartoon, Without it thereader is confronted with nothing more than a statement('But, Mr Mandela, what small teeth youhaver) and a depiction of that fact (MrMandela is represented as literallyhaving small teeth). The message, on an overt level, issimply tautologous and, assuch, it seems as if this cartoonist,like the last one whose work we looked at, is alsobeing uncooperative. Is the size of MrMandela's teeth in fact significant, we might wonder?But Grogan won't say. In ourinterpretive efforts, we need to go beyond the apparentlyuncooperative surface detail provided. Those who can recall the detailsof the nursery

210 Melo *ft Sot46Africa 2,i; tale will fmd it significant that R.Riding Hood's and many were fearful. words in the cartoon minor the ones which she Let's return now to the cartoon,because this utters in the tale. Of course you will remember, if information is, I believe, relevantto its interpreta- you know the tale, that in it she speaks them tion. Notice that R. Riding Hood (whois the under startlingly different circumstances from epitome of white innocence)encounters in those in the cartoon. She also addresses the wordsMandela not a wolf disguisedto look friendly, to someone whom she assumes to be her grand- not an odd-looking grandmother with longteeth mother, but whom we as readers know to be a and evil intentions, buta friendly, genuine, wolf disguised in the grandmother's nightclothes.grandfather figure who is perfectlynormal, and You will know, moreover, that, earlier, the wolf has ordinary (small) teeth. Little RedRiding had eaten Red Riding Hood's grandmother. OtherHood is surprised, and this is because,like so information worth recalling is the factthat Red many white South Africans at the time, she Riding Hood's response to the disguised wolf is expects something different (big teeth), butshe one of mild surprise, and that she finds her doesn't find them. What is crucialto interpreting grandmother's features to be more pronounced, this cartoon is thatwe recognize that in expecting not less so, as does the Red Riding Hood in this something and not finding it (asopposed to not cartoon. The more one interacts with (i.e. pondersexpecting something and in fact findingit) the over, questions, relates to and extrapolates from) cartoonist has not been true to thenursery tale - the cartoon and the tale, the more one realizes and it is only familiarity with the talewhich that the heart of the cartoonist's message lies in allows one to understand this andto appreciate our recognition of disparities between the details the reversal. of the story as represented by Grogan, on the one The relevance of National andConservative hand, and provided in standard versions of the Party political slogans in interpretingthe cartoon story on the other hand. In addition, ofcourse, can be explained quite briefly. Many `swart- there is an overlay of political information (giv,:n gevaar' tactics- employed as recently in fact (by that Mr Mandela is pre-eminently a politi, al the Conservative Party)as the last white elections symbol) which I want to consider brieflynow. - have exploited the assumed vulnerability of It is important to remember that the cartoon white daughters and white children,in general, in originally appeared on 17 February 1990, i.e. verythe face of a generalized Black threatto their shortly after Mr Mandela was released from safety and prosperity. Can theancestry of the prison. Feelings at the time of his release are Little Red Riding Hood in thecartoon not worth recalling because there was, as you may therefore be at least partly tracedto the 'swart- recall, unprecedented speculation. This took the gevaar' tactics of the National Party andthe form on the one hand, of guessing what Mr Conservative Party? Is she not (again,at least Mandela actually looked like and, especially partly) a carry over from the assumedlyvulner- among Whites on the other, of debating what the able little white girl of thoseslogans? effects of his release would be interms of political stability, etc. Many Whites hadmany misgivings,

2u PART IV Creating Nov Possiilities for MediaAwaremss 211 Csurhows 4s W. WagsIlihnight...° point out that the utterance ofMr Botha and these who follow him is, in reality, aplayground The final cartoon which I havechosen for played mainly analysis predates the ones which wehave chant which forms part of a game behind one another and examined so far by about two years.(It was by hullies - you line up then bulldoze whoever gets in your way.I published in the Daily News on 1September, days. One 1988). If we follow the same procedure as we remember it from my primary school in mind, too, the English have up to this point and, asreaders, examine can profitably bear far' (suggesting lack first the superficial, overt detailsupplied by the figures of speech 'going too of self-restraint) and 'going overthe edge' (with cartoonist, we once again findoursdves putting considering this together a message which is inconclusive.At its sugvstions of lunacy), when bodies of information in best, the pictorial detail represents aliteralization cartoon. With these two mind, the reader has a much richerbasis than of the first part of the writteninformation in the otherwise from which to makeconnections cartoon, i.e. 'We (P.W.Botha,Pik Botha, General between what is self-evident (e.g.that the four Malan and Mr De Klerk) walkstraight'. In the precipice, that remaining part of the writteninformation the figures are marching towards a afd what is not four men issue two threats. The cartoon they are threatening no-one, etc) selkvident (e.g. why they are doingso). amounts, in other words, to apartial, a: examined uncooperative message and, again, itis neces- Elsewhere (Adendorff 1990)1 have this cartoon more fully than it ispossible to do sary to draw onadditional, implicit information, is most relevant if one is to get the real point ofthe cartoon. here. What for present purposes let me is the general interpretation thatI came to there, cast= 4 As a means of short-cincuiting matters, namely: The cartoonist highlights theimmaturity, irrational- ity and fanaticism of the South AfricanGovenunent Vie iitiacerdir501013int under the leadership of P.W. Botha. Hedepicts it as '%N. Go-oil* kit triP rItyrzategrair a bullying,self-destnictive and therefore stupid government. sew Wu kio kWOilflM fiy110 Since writing these words a readerhas suggested to me that the cartoon isalso an illustration of 'kragdadigheid', i,e.'forcefulness, reliance on political 'steamroller'tactics' (Branford 1987 pp. 127), ironfistedness,brutality. Such associations are clearly notinappropriate. Is Andy an uncooperativecommunicator? The answer is both yesand no. Yes, if you have not played "We walk straight so you betterget out the way' or else don't know aboutit. No, if you have played or do know about it.

212 t4stho Mori in Scuth Akar 2 S Coaduiden society. Political cartoom arean instance of In this paper I have offerea what might be called media communication and actas something of a a sociolinguistic interpretation of politital metaphor for such communication. Fora fuller cartoons, and how they communicate. I have account of the applied relevance of political concentzated largely on the kind of interaction cartoons to teaching English as a second language which takes place between the cartoonist anda readers might like to consult Adendorff (1989; reader. I have argued that the cartoonist relieson 1990). O the reader's ability to recognize thata considerable amount of necessary information has been References left implicit. Not only this, he judges that his Adendorff, RD. 'Political cartoons as a resource in the ESL reader knows what sources of informationto turnclassroom', ELTIC Reporter, 14/2, Braamfontein (1989), 30-44. to, in order to do that inferencing work What I Adendorff, RD. 'Interpretive tasks in the ESL. classroom', have also attempted to show is that background Searching for Relevance: Contextual Issues in Applied Linguistics information takes a number of for=metaphori- in Southern Africa', Chick, J.K. ied), 238-272, SAALA, Durban 1990. cal associations, idioms and other fixedexpres- sions, irony and sarcasm, knowledge of local Branford, J. A Dictionary of South African English, Oxford University Press, Cape Town 1978. events and knowledge of events and figures in history, literary allusion,nursery tales and playground chants andgames the last two of which, in all probability, are culture-specific.I have shown that cartoonistsare only uncooperative when the reader doe- *lot share the background information which the cartoonist leaves implicit. As to the relevance of what I havesaid to media education, cartoonsare an important reminder of the central role of background knowledge in communication, most of whica,it seems to me, is acquired in the process of one's socialization. In the past, individuals in this country have been socialized largely in isolation from members of othergroups, on account largely of the policy of apartheid, andmedia messages were directed to these separategroups. As more facilities are shared andas media messages in the future are directed to the greater South African population it will becomeincreas- ingly important that those mediamessages are interpretable to a cross-section of South African

2 RUT IY Creating New Possibaits for Maio Amman713 Port V

Training and Empowering

The chapters that makeup this part of the publication entitled Training and Empowering are concerned with adult and non-formal education.The point of departure for them all is the shared intention toempower those learning about media. In the first two contributions, the emphasis ison working with teachers who are developing Media Education. The joint article by Robinson and Mentor and that by Criticos are concerned with the involvement ofteachers in resource production that will impel them towards critical reflection. Robinson and Mentor base their article firmly in the closedbureaucracy that most teachers in South Africa find themselves (and whichtoo often has become naturalized as theway teaching is). Their project confronts the dilemmas imposed by apartheid education, thenature of education that, they suggest, will remain while we have the teachers spawned in the apartheid system.

Nevertheless we agree wholeheartedly with Ken Hartshorne whenhe says 'No post-apartheid education will be possible without post-apartheidteachers'.

A similar integration of theory and practice is outlined byCriticos' experiential approach. Teachersare themselves invited to turn raw materials into effective resources for studying the media. The remaining papers within this section developmethodologies for training

PART V %irking orti frp3vAaring 215 2 AA) about diverse forms of media, all ofwhich are based on a critical awareness of the waymedia works. These chapters relatedirectly to the ideas contained in the chapters in PartTwo where issues of teaching modes are considered.

Louw offers a Contemporary CulturalStudies approach when examining cultural production and consumption.He stresses issues of power andof context, encompassing the notionof social struggle. Cultural studies conceives of media training as extendingbeyond technical competence to the theoretical understandings thatwill create critical media people, both in terms of theory and practice.McKay's chapter reflects on and elaborates on the comprehensive workthe Durban Media Trainers' Group has achieved with their MediaAwareness Programme. She analyses problems that have been identified amongmedia workeis in anti-apartheid groups. The work that isdescribed in their Media Awareness programme is characterizedby a very valuable stress on understanding audiences and distribution.Berndt's auto-critique of the 'mass-line' approach outlines a media training programmeundertaken at Community Arts Project (CAP) in 1989,working from a socialist perspective and with a clear commitment tothe 'mass-line'. His suggestions lead to a discussion of the'red-specialist' in the caw as a way of combininglearning and production and simultaneously addressing the economic determinants oflearning. Insights offered by Berndt should be most appropriate forother projects undertaking related projects (such as DMTG and FAWOperhaps.) Moving to filmic media, but a project that shares a similarity ofapproach to that of CAP in certain ways, Maingard discussesissues relating to the FAWO experiencefor

216 . Maio tidos in Soulit Ahica 211 education for a 'Third Cinema'. She reflectson the Alexandra community video project, and considers how it could contributeto the development of a Third cinema within South Africa.

212 PART V Training mei Empowering 217 Empowering badgersthrough Materiels Development

Maureen Robinson and Sandra-AnnMentor

has In this paper we reflect on the experiencesof the operation and inquiry. In most cases there of Materials Development Project (MDP), apublish- been an attempt to ensure a collective process Mg project based in the Faculty of Education at conceptualisation of the publications with the the University of the Western Cape. teachers concerned. The broad aim of the MDP is to work with This paper highlights some of our experiences development teachers to develop Mnovative classroom and reflects on the role of materials material. As such, we participate in and host in in-service teacher education. workshops to do with cufficulum and resource development in a range of subject areas, as well The lboorotical and Political as publishing anddistributing material which Context of our Work be evolves from these workshops. It is our hope and intention that the MDP can Our approach to our work is based on a said to be contributing to what Aronowitzand commitment to building a non-racial and Giroux call 'a language of possibility', pointing democratic education system in South Africa, andthe way to a belief that teachersneed to be intqrally the conditions necessary for new forms ofculture, irvolved in this process of change. We see our alternative social practices, new modes of communication, and a practical vision for thefuture. role as being to encourage this involvementby (Aronowitz and Giroux, pp. 37) acknowledging the ideas and experiences of teachers who are giving shape to a changing Aronowitz and Giroux describe the schooling curriculum at classroom level. Through our system in the United States of America as a publications we attempt to facilitate a "voice" for 'management pedagogy', in which teachers are teachers to make their ideas available to a wider expected to be obedient civil servants carrying which they community. out the orders of the bureaucracy in The project has been running for 18 months function. In our work we are acutely aware of the and to date has worked in the subject fieldsof disempowerment of teachers within the South English, Afrikaans, History, Cultural Studies, African educational hierarchy, as the potential Guidance, Geography and Music. Five booklets for critical reflection on the part of teachers have been produced, all of which are struggles to emerge within a system of educa- characterised by content which highlights the iional control, with its inspections, standardized everyday experience of South African students, syllabi, overloaded timetables and prepackaged and by a classroom methodology based on co- textbooks.

218 Maio Mew in South Africa 2 :3 The teachers with whom we work often motivating our action. People's Education, with respond to ideas for creative teaching withsome its emphasis on linking educational change to cynicism, remarking that such ideas are 'allvery political change and democratising classrooms well and good, but...' Teaching methods which and schools, embodies a most dynamic form of emphasise active participation and critical critical pedagogy, rooted as it is in the realities of reflection on the part of both students and a whole society undergoing transformation. teachers are seen as 'impractical' and for good Our work concerns itself with the contribution reason - they are relatively impractical in a school that teachers can and need to make to the system which structures itself around hierarchy, building of People's Education. And herewe set passivity and obedience. ourselves modest aims; for while we acknowl- However, at the same time as bureaucratic and edge that People's classrooms cannot be defined political control is exerted on our teaching outside of broader political stn:ggles, our profession, so the educational arena remainsone particular contribution is in the field of curricu- of the most volatile sites of struggle against the lum practice. How this practice relates to apartheid state. We refer again to Aronowitz and struggles around democratic control of education Giroux who critique radical theories of schooling and long-term policy formation is a source of which emphasise power asa concept of domina- constant reflection, as we deliberate on the tion. They argue for a dialectical understanding priorities and strategy of our work. of social control, arguing that Nevertheless we agree wholeheartedly with ...power is both a negative and positive force lit) is Ken Hartshorne when he says 'No post-apartheid at the root of all forms of behaviour in which people education will be possible without post-apartheid say no, struggle, resist, use oppositional modes of teachers' (Hartshorne, 1986, pp.131). Andwe discourse, and fight for a different vision of the future...The notion of power that underscores this continually assert, in the midst of an ongoing positive view of social cor..rol takes as its Martins educational crisis where the need for basic point the empowerment of teachers and students facilities seems more urgent than teacher work- and the confirmation of their histories and possibili- shops, that we cannot ignore the humanre- ties. (Aronowitz and Gimux, pp. 155) sources of our country or turn a blind eye to the This discusshri provides us in the MDP witha authoritarian politics of most classrooms. theoretical location for our work, aswe attempt to draw on the energy of those teachers whoare Why blue*. Tepochors hs Rosourco seeking to transform authoritarian curriculum Production? practices. What we hope to do is to giveexpres- With all the best political and educational sion to the 'language of possibility', by publishingintentions in the world, the daily routine of trying and distributing resources which illustrate forms to work with teachers on materials development of resistance at classroom level. is a difficult one. In fact, some wouldargue that, This theoretical context helps us to reflecton considering the overloaded working conditions our work, but it is the political context of educa- of most teachers, it would bemore useful to tion in South Africa that is most important in provide teachers with packages ofnew material

214 PART V Trainirg and fropcmeriN 219 rather than try involve them in a time-consuming knowledge that has been produced somewhere process of collective work. else, rather than being encouraged to contribute However the key issue for us is to break the to the design of their own learning process.As dependency of teachers on material which is such, they (and one could use the same argument handed out by higher authorities (however about teachers) lose some of the indispensable 'progressive' the material or the authorities) and qualities which are demanded in the production which is then usea aithout critical reflection on of knowledge the part of the teacher. We believe that it is ...action, critical reflection, curiosity, demanding important not to try and create material which is inquiry, uneasiness, uncertainty - ... indispensable 'teacher-proof, because ultimately it is the to the cognitive subject, to the person wholearns! (Freire and Shot, 1987, pp. 8) teacher's understanding and use of that material -vhich makes it educational or not. For us, For us, then, the involvement of teachers in therefore, the mediation of teachers in the materials development, needs to be seen in the production of new material is crucial, even context of an overall strategy towards teacher though in reality the small-scale nature of our empowerment. We feel that it is crucial that project does not allow for intensive participation teachers are respected and developed as educa- by large numbers of teachers. tors, that they not be seen (and indeed that they Aronowitz and Giroux are scathing in their not see themselves) as functionaries carrying out critique of the 'deskilling' which the use of what has been deemed by others to be best for textbooks engenders in teachers: them to do in their classes. We need to build a tradition of action and reflection, of integrating By dictating every aspect of the taxhing process theory and practice, with a view to grassroots these curriculum packages reproduce standardiza. tion and control that reduce) the teacher to the status engagement in the curriculum process. Giventhe of a mere technician implementing ideologies and chance and the encouragement, there is a great interests constructed by people ex ternal to t heactua I wealth of skill and experience to be shared and experiences of his or her classroom and student debated, in the interests of deepening the quality interests. (Aronowitz and Giroux, pp. 149) of OUT education system. They refer to Apple who argues that, in using textbooks designed by others, teachers lose the skills associated with curriculum design. The The Challenge of Teacher conceptualisation of the teaching and learning Inspewennent process becomes separated fromthe execution In this section we reflect on the process of thereof, and teachers become tnmsmitters rather involving teachers in materials development, and than producers of knowledge. Paulo Freire uses consider in particular the issue of strategies the term "gnosiological cycle' to refer to the towards teacher empowerment. interconnection between the production and the Our experiences over the last eighteen months knowing of new knowledge. He argues that have provided us with a sober assessment of the students are usually asked only to memorize challenge of our work. Specifically, we have experienced the difficulty of trying tointervene inassume nesponsibility for coordinating and an educational system characterised bya rela- controlling a project Indeed sometimeswe lively dosed bureaucracy, and influencedon a question whether teachers are really developing daily basis by the social and politicalturmoil in skills through our work- cw is it ourselves as our countxy. outside facilitators whoare learning most from At the most basic level,we have found the the interaction? scheduling of meetings and workshopswith The difficulty of finding meeting times with teachers to be a most frustrating task.Reflection teachers also affects the quality ofour work in on one's own teaching, it would seem, is the last that we do not always have the opportunityto priority in an educational programme, coming workshop and evaluate material sufficientlyonce somewhere after sport, politics, examinations, it has been produced. Even what teachersagree to staff meetings or domestic duties.For this reason test and evaluate materials during normal we have decided to play a proactive mle in teaching hours, we find that they struggleto find scheduling rogr mimes, and to holdthem time to do this in between all the syllabus de- during the school day. In thisway we assert the mands in an often disrupted school day. right (and responsibility) of teachers to be This experience begs three questions.Firstly - involved in a process of reflectionas part of their one might ask - is the difficulty with finding time mrk and not as an optional extra. We have found not due to insufficient motivationon the part of that this strategy leads to increased numbers in teachers for engaging withnew materials? And, workshops - however we are not sure to what partly related to this, if materialswere more extent this is due to the chance to escape school specifically syllabus-based, would theynot be early! used more readily? And, to take it further,is there Inviting teachers to meetings during school any point in developing new materials while the hours is not, however, alwayspractical, and one content of the teaching day remains structured in has to then fit in with all thecompeting interests the way it is? in a teacher's day. This immediately indicates one We see the significance of these questionsas of the major tensions in our work: on the one going beyond the immediateconcerns of the hand one seeks to establish an in-depth process ofMDP. If People's Education is to takeroot in our involvement with the teachers, on the other hand classrooms, it needs to seriously addressthe issue one does not want to be continually held up in of curriculum innovation with teacherswho are the production of the materials. Wehave noted not used to taking risks in their work. Prepack- this same tension in many teachers themselves: aged curriculum materialsare safe, in that they on the one hand they call for close consultation in provide clear parameters of content andmethod- developing materials, on the other hand they are ology for both students and teachers. Inasking often reluctant to commit themselves to the time teachers to become 'reflective prictitioners'(D. that is needed for this. The intention of MDP to Schon, 1983), we ale takingon the difficult task of empower teachers becomes problematic, as many transforming not only an educationalstructure, teachers are practically not ina position to but also a teacher'ssecure way of working. We

216 PART V Traitirg and fspowerifg 221 those with have found in our work a worryinglack of purchase new material (particularly the title!). This confidence and skill (as well as resistaiice) the words People's Education' in grassroots enthusiasm for amongst many teachers tobreak away from seems to indicate a transmission teaching and dependency onthe expwure to currentdebates in the educational which we feel could be textbook, and are acutely aware of theimpor- arena, something organisations. tance of engaging slowly andunthreateningly harnessed more directly by teacher that with the r.ocess of teacher 're-education'. But, to labour a point, we are not sure school or at In the short term we see ourselves asworking forums are being cleated, either at what it is that the within syllabus constraints and encouraging meetings, to debate and discuss Although we teachers to take the many gaps that wefeel do teachers have so eagerly purchased. of, the many exist. However, this remains a piecemeal ap- are fully aware, and in support teacher proach, and does not address thestructural political demands of the progressive writing in changes that are needed to develop achanged organisations, we feel that materials could be perception of the role of the teacher.In-service itself forms a site of struggle which training, we believe, should be placedhigh on themore effectivelyharnessed in building agenda of those seeking to transform thecurricu- organisation. their ideas, lum, and must take into considerationthe real In coming together to discuss their issue of motivating teachers to becomeactively teachers can begin to break through isolation to establish a practice of collective engaged in conceptualising, writing,and using, reseanch. And in exploring and developing new materials. be able It is here that we see the political taskof teachermethodology and materials, teachers I iill People's Education organisations merging with theireducational to make their contribution to The experience of these forums task. The struggle for People's Education a concrete reality. teachers' own confidence includes a struggle for new methods and can, we believe, build materials as well as a struggle for betterworking and skill, thus creating a base for their own need to be taken conditions for teachers. Better workingcondi- empowerment as educators who tions, we would argue, needs toinclude time and seriously. of the recognition for efforts to retied on one'steaching, It is important, however, to be aware potential contradications embedded in the to design material, toevaluate and research and development in the to share one's experiences. Ifbetter working attempt to place materials that conditions are defined as more facilities orhigher hands of teachers. We cannot assume salaries only, then we run the risk of aneducationteachers will spontaneously be in a position to reconceptualise the categories with which they system which remains qualitativelythe same, but Although more comfortably so.What we are seeking, in our have been working over many years. facilitating a work, is a fundamental redefinition ofthe the MD?, for example, sees itself as it does not see teacher's role in the education process. process of teacher involvement, We have found that there is a usuallyquite a itself as being a conduit for 'recycling'accepted rush at teacher workshops and conferences to assumptions and practices. In this regard, we do assume for ourselves some kind of directive unless the initiative for curriculum development responsibility in introducing and commenting oncan be grasped by those engaged in transforming ideas hvoi teachers. Our educational system is in the racist and authoritarian base of our present transition, with competing political demands, andeducation system. we are unashamed in seeking to promote materials which we feel advance the cause of References People's Education. But we are only too aware Aronowitx, S. & Giroux, H.A. Education under Siege, Routledge that the further away our material is from the and Kagan Paul, London 1987. existing school syllabus, the less likely it is to be Bell, M. P.R. Lewis, Routledge Regan & Paul, 1888. used by teachers. Bertelsen, E. 'Event Into Story: Teaching TV News', Media Matters in South Africa Prinsloo, I. & Criticos, C. (eds), In Omission (present volume) 1991. Our experiences have indicated some of the Ferguson, B. 'What is Media Education For?' Media Matters in South Africa Prinsioe, J. & Critkos, C. (eds), (present volume) issues to consider in attempting to develop a 1991. process of teacher empowerment through Ferguson, B. 'The necessity of theory in Media Education' materials writing. In short, we see curriculum Media Matters in South Africa Prinsloo, J. & Criticos, C. (eds), innovation for People's Education as needing (present volume) 1991. both short- and long-term strategies. in the short- Foucault, M. Discipline & Punish: The birth of the Prison , term, we need to bring teachers together to build (trans. Alan Sheridan) Pantheon Books, New York 1977. their confidence and skill in developing and Foucault, M. 'On Goveriunentality', I and C, No 6c, 1979. evaluating classroom material. In the long-term Gordon, C. (ed. & trans), Michel Foucault Power/knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, Pantheon we need to impact on the education system by Books: New York 1980. challenging the ideological and material conditions within which teachers work, and by developing a tradition of the teacher as a 'trans- formative intellectualIwhol makes knowledge meaningful, critical and ultimately emancipatory.' (Aronowitz and Giroux, 1987, pp. 36-37) It seems to us that in-service groupings like the NIDI' which seek to give form to this view of the teacher need to contribute at three levels, namely action, reflection and organisahon. By action we mean the production of new materials, by reflection debating and evaluating the aims and use of these materials, and by organisation facilitating teacher networking. All of these will, however, be little more than icing on the cake

2 IS PART 1/Troinrig and Empowng 223 Developing Resources fora Media Education Programme

Costas Criticos

hdrodueden this myopic vision or impedes the efficient This chapter is based on the workshop Developing programme of transmitting the syllabus is Educational Resources for a Media Education viewed with alarm. However, we need to be Prognimme and was presented at the Developing sympathetic to teachers as they grapple with the Mehl Education in the 1999s conference. The strong demands by authccities, students and workshop followed immediately after an parents to complete the syllabus and achieve associated workshop Empowering Teachers thmugh good examination results. The crucial question is Materials Development which was presented by whether we can fulfil these syllabus demands Maureen Robinson and Sandra-Ann Mentor of without compromising the more basic and the Materials Development Project at the Univer- foundational demand for a democratic and sity of the Western Cape. The Robinson and empowering education. Mentor workshop and the preceding chapter In an industrialized 'management model' of present a coherent argument for an active and education the workeis (teachers) are rewarded creative teaching profession. They show that the when they function efficiently on the assembly optimism of critical pedagogy and people's line with the minimum number of stoppages and education are realizable goals, notwithstanding product rejections. If this is indeed the model for the differential provision of education and the our schools, it is no wonder that teachers resist debilitating effects of inflexible education creative and productive roles, but embrace authorities. efficient technical methods of delivery and the I will attempt to continue the Robinson and use of textbooks which are mere expansions of Mentor debate with the focus on the classroom the syllabus topics. and, more specifically, on the methodologies and resources 4 ppropriate to Media Education In our work we are acutely aware of the disempowerment of teachers within the South Afri- programmvs. I hope to give theoretical and can educational hierarchy, as the potential for aiti- practical insight that will encourage teachers to cal reflection on the part of teachers struggles to take the gaps that exist in their educational emerge within a system of educational control, with institutions and exercise their capacity to be its inspections, standardized syllabi, overloaded timetables and prepackaged textbooks. (Robinson resourceful and creative teachers. This exhorta- & Mentor 1991) tion is counter to the depressing mood of many teachers who see education as the process of Robinson and Mentor's Materials Development delivering the syllabus. Anything that distracts Project (MDP) suggest that clearing the logjam of transmission teaching is possible ifour teaching isresults of surveys which show that cooperative and rooted in grassroots interests. 30% of University of Miami students couldnot They describe materials produced byMOP as locate the Pacific ocean ona world map. ...characterised by content which highlights theev- In a survey of 5 000 USA high schoolseniors in eryday experience of South African students, andby Texas a classmont methodology based on cooperation and 25% could not name the USA's southern inquiry. (Robinson & Mentor 1991) neighbour 50% were unable to name 3 countriesin Africa. 45% could not correctly shade thearea represent- Toacinkris and tits Productionof ing the USA on a world map. Itancrarcos The congressional commissioners of the The perspective of teachers-as-producersis more National Commission on Excellence in Education than a reaction to the underprovision in Black capture the essence of their findings in thereport education, but rather a firm belief that teachers title, A Nation at Risk. They report thatin spite of will only realise their educational potential when the sophistication of educationalresources and they are involved in the provision ofeducational electronic media: resources. This means that teachers are not Our nation is at risk. Our simply disseminators of once unchallenged pre- resources but are eminence in commerce, industry, science and tech- engaged in making, modifying, selectingand nological innovation is being takenover by com- mediating educationalresources. This view is not petitors throughout the world educational unique to developing counties but is also foundations of oursociety are presently beingeroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens supported by educationists in the USAwith an our very future as a nation and a people. ( Apple 198b educational market saturated withelectronic pp. '106) media and resources in sharpcontrast to South Africa. The Public Education InformationNetwork (USA) is a gmup which is striving fora demo- In spite of the glut of educationalresources and cratic future. They have publisheda report the sophistication of educationaltelevision and Education for a Democratic Future which computer based education, United States educa- responds to the congressional findings A Nation tional and political institutionsare united in their at Risk and others. Their report advocates, common concern about the state of education. as a principal element of their strategy, that to formulate Not since the Sputnikscare 11:s America been so a truly democratic curriculum is to develop critical concerned about the quality of Aseducation. How literacy. This literacy extends beyond does it come about that the grades ofresource- the mechanical competence of reading and rich American studentsare falling? In 1987, a writing and includes: Congressional Bill, National GeographicAwareness Week was enacted inresponse to statistics which the mohvation and capacity to be criticalof wlut one reads, sees, and hears; to probe and signal the problem of acceleratinginsularity and go beyond the surface appearances and question thecommon wis- social illiteracy of students. Theseincluded dom (Apple 1986 pp. 189)

2 PART Y Training and Empcnvering 225 skills that need Similar demands are made by Masterman the special interest in production Education progammes in (1988) and other media educators whobelieve to characterize Media He saw these that it is this critical character of MediaEducationcontexts of social development. that is its principal motivation. Thisdemand has production skills as essential communication pivotal compo- emerged as the key element in international tools in education as well as the that demands a Media Education developments,displacing the nent of any media education The Toulouse earlier aesthetic and inoculatory intereststhat stillholistic understanding of media. develop- characterize many South African programmes. Commission on Media Education and in their Both sides of the South African classdivide seem ing countries alerts us to these interests key role that locked into a narrow interes1 of prophylaxisfrom first resolution which points to the the evil media. Some programmeswithin the media plays in any development programme:- dominant and elite groups of SouthAfrican Educational activitio of grassroots and non-gov- education subscribe to the Postman critiqueof ernmental organisations are also especiallyimpor- stress those media and consequently concentrate ondiscrimi- tant and the Commission wishes to aspects of media education whichenable indiOdu- privilege high natory skills that identify and als and groups to contributeactively toendogenous cultural media. cultural development. Likewise mass-based and progressive In Ferguson's key-note address hecalled on organisations representative of workingclass and educators to establish a viable MediaEducation black community interests have, with verylittle initiative in this period of rapid changetowards exception, pursued media education programmes democracy. This Media Education initiative can that are essentially defensive training not be exclusively theoretical ortechnical; it must programmes in media usageand skill develop- have a balance between the two dimensions.In class interests differ ment. Although the working development contexts however the interest in markedly from the dominant classes theyemploy media production is very high. We need to with media. In a similar restricted engagement acknowledge this without an abdication of their case the discrimination seeks toidentify the theoretical or critical interests. processes and productsof dominant media. This in the engagement is not an analytic andinvestigative For Media Education Ls about participation development of one's society. lt is about being in- interest, but rather an oppositional engagement. formed through the media and about themedia. It is The rationale is that these training programmes also about giving a voice to the maximumnumber of will arrest the monopoly of ruling classeswho people in that development. For these reasonsthere own and construct themedia texts. Their vision is mu.st be a considerable and consistentemphasis in and workers able to Media Education on the production of media mes- one of learners, teachers sages just as much as onthe analysis and under- produce their own (oppositional) print and standing of media messages. (Ferguson 199U electronic media and engage with state and For Ferguson Media Education is anextensive capital media. training or Ferguson and more recently the Toulouse enterprise that goes way beyond skills colloquy (see Appendix II in this book)identify a brief diversion toexamine media but is rather. _an migagement, over a long period, with all forms Some warning is howevernecessary when we of media rewesentations. It is concernedwith how messages are put together, by whmn and in whose read Apple, Aronowitz and Giroux, andin this interests. .-it is a subject which should beon the book Robinson and Mentor, in relationto the agenda for all teachers and students andone which relative value of teacher-produced materials.A does not lend itself to brief encounters. __For, above superficial reading of their argumentsmay seem all, Media Education isan endless enquiry into the to imply a rejection of all external way we make sense of the world and theway others resources and make sense of the world forus, Above all it must be methods. I believe we need to be pragmaticand genuinely and openly critical. (1991) flexible before we reject external(commercial) The European evolution of mediaeducation resources. I largely support the Robinson and towards learner empowerment inthe late 1980s Mentor argument that has realised a form that has given it maturity and ....the key issue for us is to break thedependency of stature which demands the attention of all teachers on material which is handedout by higher educators. It shouldno longer be a peripheral authorities (however 'progressive' the materialor the authorities) and which is then used interest or a subject specific topictir diversion. without critical reflection on the part of theteacher. We Masterman (1988) goes even further when he sees believe that it is important not totry to create mate- media education as playinga pivotal role in the rial which is leacher-proof, becauseultimately ii is development of democratic citizens. the teacher's understanding anduse of that material which makes it educational It is now clear th?' successfulmedia education or not. For us, therefore, the mediation of teachers in the productionof new involves an empowerment of learners essential to material is crucial (Robinson and Mentor 1991) the creation and sustaining ofan active democracy and of a public which is not easily manipu- My reservation with the aboveposition is that lable but whose opinion countson media issues the analysis is too defensive andtends to simplify the debate of teachers and because it is critically informed andcapable of texts into a dichotomy making its own independent judgements. of teachers-as-producers andteachers-as-consumers. It is based on the assumption thatthe educational Umbers as Consumers and texts produced by educationalmanagers for Pro- consumption in the educational market ducers of EducationalResources are essentially faulted. This isa fair assumption as no It is dear from these earlier arguments that both centralised producer of educationaltexts can in general education andmore specifically in possibly understand and accommodateregional Media Education, educationists are realising that or local interests. This would be thecase regard- there are dangers in educational solutions in less of the educational and politicalviews of the which the teacher is disinterestedand distant producer. from the production of educational resources. Instead of taking a defensive linewhich Moreover there is a growing realisation of the advances the teacher as a creative producerof value of teacher-produced resources and the neededucational resources and rejectsexternal to develop critical literacy within and across materials, I believe it ismore appropriate that school subjects. media teachers should be ableto intelligently

2 2 2 PART V TrainingondEmpowering227 Role of select the appropriate 'commercial'materials and limn Mows on Ow Toochors In MmHgIllskseotion use them critically.Robinson and Mentor do not An examination of theUNESCO Declaration on exclude external resourcescompletely, but rather Toulouse those external resources that areused without Media Education (1982), the recent Colloquy (1990), aad the Resolutionsand Conclu- critical reflection. This meansthat the text may Eduoition Confer- need to be reformulated, edited orcontextualised sions of the First National Media which appear in the appendi- with other material to make itworthwhile for the ence (Durban, 1990) reveal a common view of the learners needs. I would suggesttherefore, that ces of this book, pro-acfive role of the teacher ofMedia Ed....:ation the teacher needs to beresourceful as well as in Media creative. They must be able to createresources and of the methods to be employed Education. I have extracted those partsof the and to be discerning of those resourcesproduced resolutions and declarations as theyrelate to this by others. They need to take carethat they ensure that their own and ',eternal resources arerelevant chapter. to the lived experienceof their students. This means that perhaps it is moreappropriate UMSCO rather than Chariots Develop train:4 courses for teachersand interme- to study the film Mapantsula knowledge and Mapantsula or any diaries both to increase their own of Fire, but whether we select understanding of the media and trainhim/her in other film the methods andassociated educa- appropriate teaching methods, whichwould take tional activities must locate theinvestigation in into account thealreadyconsiderable but fragmented the experiences and realities ofthe learner. What acquaintance with media alreadypossessed by many I am trying to argue is thatthe most 'progressive' students. material can be used in a disempowering way Toulouse and equally the most 'conservative'material can Initiate projecb which enablelearning of the skill be used in an empowering way - soI conclude which will give access to the communication pro- expression by creating centres that, what teachers make of a resourceis just as cess and to means of of production and training centres inMedia Educa- important as what it is. tion, The power of grassroots endorsementand support of texts by teachersand education bodies Developing Media Education in the1990s is the most effective device forselectively Conference promoting well produced resourcesand retard- The conference made it dear that anyMedia Educa- materials. Hopefully fion curriculum should involve teachersin its con- ing the sale of inappropriate should officials produce struction. In addition, teacher organisations the situation where education immediately begin working on developingrelevant textbooks based on advance curriculuminforma- programmes to be used byteachers in Media Educa- tion will cease as teachers becomediscerning tion. consumers able to exercisethe full power of consumer-politics.

2 :2 3 228 Mira *Nen in &Mb Airico illotheds & Rsemses for folmel. I have attempted to includecertain aspects of based Media Ideseden the Robinson and Mentor Programmes debate within a Media Education focus and to show thatMedia Educa- The mood of South Africanteachers now faced tiou is a crifiral, active andco-operative enter- with the challenge of teaching media education:s prise. The argument for personaland indigenous generally one of concern. For most teachers this is resources rind methods have also been endorsed a nix field. There are very few local resources as essential to any effcct;ve Media Education and twchers protrably havenot had any Media progrartme. While I do not supportany formu- Education in their teachertraining or subsequent laic approach to teaching,it is essential that in-service training. teachers exercise rigor anddiscipline in prepar- According to Masterman (1988)it was the ing to teach media. The disciplinewill necessarily teachers limitafions and the traditional ap- be based qn local situationsand guided by a few proaches to Media Educationwhich concentrated broad principles. These includea commitment to: on 'discrimination' and 'appreciation' that led the empowerment of learnerswho are capable directly to a more investigative interest in media. of making independentanalytical and creative Our location on the tip of Africa and our isolation judgements about the media; in the anti-apartheid boycottshas isolated us the engagement of the studentsin cooperative from these internationaldebates. Generally we activity of 'making meaning' ofmedia texts; are still operating in the early 'discrimination' an interest in popular and indigenouscultural and 'appreciation' framework interests in media without privilegeto 'high European teachers realised for the first time in culture' or certain media,except to focus on the the early 1980s that they couldno longer subordi- most influential media in the livesof the stu- nate students to the dominance ofthe text or theirdents; and views. The cbanges which encompassed both countering sub*ct specific limitations contents and methais of media gave the stv.dent a central studies to include interestsacross the curriculum. role in the Media Educationprogramme. The British Film Institute(BPI) is a major influence in our Media Education The movement from appreciationto understandwg, Programme then, involved a transformationin the role of the (based in the MRC) and specificallyour approach pupil from being a passiverecipient of already for- to classroom methods andresource development. mulated textual meaningsto an active maker of Recently the Department of meanings. It heralded, too, Education and a new agenda for media Science in Britain, introduced educafion away fromnarrow questions towards a new English more 'technical' and 'scientific'ones. (Masterman curriculum for primary andsecondary education l988) with a componenton Media Education. This new curriculumpromotes a broad interest The development of criticallyinformed in media in six principalareas of knowledge and intelligence in relationto the media became the understanding. The BR curriculumcommittee key focus of Media Educationrather than the published their views in theBR Curriculum earlier aesthetic or prophylacticinterests. Statement. Their view is thatprimary school

224 PART Y Training arid Empowing 229 children can explore the full rangeof media in knowledge and under- MEDIA IANGUAGES each of the six areas of HOW do we*avow what it means? standing. According to them we canarrive at an (MEANINGS, CODES,CONVENTIONS) understanding of each of these areas(and indeed ideas about developing resources toteach these key questions:- areas) by asking certain MEDIA AUDIENCES WHO receivesit, and what sensedo they MEDIA AGmats makeof it? WHOiscommunicating,and why? WHOproduces the text? MEDIA RPRESSITATIONS HOWdoesit presentits sallied? MILDIA CATEGORIES (relation between the text andreality) WHATTYPE of text is it? (MEDIUM, GENRE) These principles and questions canbe addressed to all media and areuseful in the development of a Media Education programme MIA TECHNOLOGIES or materials forsuch a programme. I-CWis itproduced? I conclude this chapter with anaccount of two (iECHNOLOGY,PRODUCTION PROCESSES) exercises that I have developedfor primary school pupils. During theplanning stage of any Media Education event I askmyself whether the event, resources andmethods have the potential to satisfy the six areas ofknowledge and understanding. I have been encouraged to seeother teachers radically modify theexercises to suit the ages, interests andexperience of their students which have ranged from primaryschool students to adult workers. A television advertising exercise wasdevel- oped for iunior primary pupilsand a newspaper exercise was developed for seniorprimary pupils. In both cases the exercises areexperien- tial, as they build on the pastexperience and resident skills of pupils andlead to critical reflection and new experiences.

230 tosia Ma Oen, in South Mica Newsmen, Ilmords and then processed in a processing unit devel- This is an exercise in which the whole classis oped by the Media Resource Centre (MRC). (This engaged in constructiAs anewspaper. The method has enormous potential ina variety of 'newspaper' is a giant version of the frontpage ofMedia Education exerdses as it enablesa teacher a newspaper in which each column is approxi- and pupils to produce giant posters ofany mately 500mm wide and the frontpage spans the original photograph at a very low cost. The entire wall of a large classroom. The large scaleis printing unit is constructed out of a plasticwaste- important as it introduces an element of dramainpipe, a bicycle pump and a small bottle. Media the exercise as well as makingevery stage of educators who wish to construct theirown production subject to public scrutiny. The printing unit can contact the MRC foran informa- exercise should be preceded witha period of tion sheet.) preparation that will contextualize print media At the end of the day thenewspaper, consisting with other media and givesome insight into the of a numl-er of articles together with pictures and press industry. The aim of the exercise is to advertisements, are pasted up to producea giant engage students in the process of production so front page of the newspaper. Although most of that some of the 'magic' that surroundsthis the stories covered have a limited investigative medium can be made obvious. Furthermore, character, I have seen students use thepaper in a students discover a practical value for themany very sophisficated manner. In one school where I language textbook exercises they have done in thewas conducting the exercise with 40 standard Past. four pupils (age 11 years), the pupils used the A large room is divided into differentareas where groups can work at tables withone area slightly darkened for use as the 'darkroom'. The pupils form an editorial team,ear advertising team, a photographic team anda number of journalist teams. The journalistscover stories which they write-up to fulfil editorialdemands and 'publication' deadlinesas the newspaper is 'published' by the end of the day. The photographers use 'file photographs' prepared in advance. Theseare photographs that i 4111. have been made into OHP transparencies.The atm, transparencies are then projected ontoa wall to VOW, 1.was produce the large 'photographs' to the editors Mal ;Kt specification. (Usually print sizesvary from 500mm - 1500mm in width, i.e. 1- 3 columns). The enlargement is produced by using diazo paper which is exposed using the OHP projector

PAID/ Training aid Empoing. 231 226 lion and you receive a lot ofresponsibility. public forum to expose exploitative practicesthat I learnt that newspaper printing is ahard job. You the usual school disciplinary mechanismshad not can't always get your own way. addressed. The case Mates to the practice ofhigh with a school seniors demanding sandwiches, sweets Teachers can then follow this exercise related assign- and money from the primary schoolpupils as variety of media and language precis they wait in the tuck-shop queue. Oneof the ments such as letter writing, grammar, audience, journalist teams used the public forum of the work, and media interests such as newspaper to expose the practicein a lead story technology and agency. entitled Tuckshop Beggars. Most teachers are concerned whethertheir Tohnrishm Adwortislag lizertko selected pupils will be able to survive a full dayworkshop The theme of television advertising was of the mystery out or become restless andbored without the usual to enable pupils to take some timetable changes. Every time I use this exerciseI of the medium. By experiencing theadvertising understanding of insist that it involves the whole classwithout process, children gain a greater excluding the 'problem children' and I have not what adverts are and the purpose they serve. and are been disappointed by the very high motivationof Pupils are divided into small groups the all the pupils. Although the pupils arebusy required to make a collective decision on sandwich spread. Each pupil writing articles, checking spelling, doingprecis name of a new of the work, interviews and reports in an intensiveday- designs a label for the jar and once one long exercise, they see this work as a'real' product labels is chosen, the group prepares a language task rather than a textbook exercise. television advertisement of their sandwich The They are engaged in making big media;they are spread behind the makeshift television set. children as making news. task has proved to be suitable for After the exercise the pupils are asked toreflect young as six years oldand it is thoroughly sophisti- on their experiences of theday and from these enjoyed. I have been surprised by the have of writings it is clear that this type of work is cated understanding that young children of the regarded not as 'schoolwork' but as anenjoyable the media. This constantly reminds me methods and and meaningful learning experience. To quotethe need to ensure that we build our skills and experience pupils themselves: resources on the existing that children have. One of the groups at aschool The whole day was so different from normal school in Hillcrest demonstrated thesophistication of a and although we worked hard it was great fun. professional marketing department when they I really enjoyed myself. I never realized howmuch gave their product the namesof Magic Spread work and planning was needed to make a newspa- and Moz Spread. Neither name had anyexplicit per until we made our own. meaning or gave a clue about thecomposition It was interesting to see how much time, effortand of the product. When questionedabout their rare go into the making of a newspaper.A newspa- Spread" group said: 'Moz just slap together and name choice the 'Mtn per is not something you can and it expect someone to enjoy it, it takes a lotof prepara- doesn't mean anything, but it is easy to say sounds nice' language, audience and representation; The advertisements they construct tend to have develop creative as well as critical media skills; a simple narrative structure and are acted out and behind a television screen made from a large extend beyond the confines of a subject specific cardboard box. Most groups manage to fulfil the interest. demands of producing an advertisement that If Masterman, Ferguson and others are right incorporates all the group members in a 30 about the pivotal role Media Education might second advert. From this level of media under- play in the development and defense of democ- standing it is possible to explore other under- racy then these guidelines on developing standings and other media identified by the key resources for Media Education have a moral and questions I identified earlier. urgent imperative. The exercises recorded here are extremely easy to present. Teachers should not undertake such Bibliography exercises as isolated forays into the media but Prinsloo, J. and Criticos, C. (eds.). Media Mailers in South rather as part of the overall integrated school Africa, Appendix 1- 3, Media Resource Centre, Durban 1991. curriculum. The BFI key questions that guided the Apple M. W. Teachers and Texts, Routledge & Kegan Paul,New formulation of these exercises should now York 1986. become evaluative reference points by whichwe Bazalgette C (ed.). Primary Media Education: A Curriculum examine the limitations of the exercise and Statement, 13F1, London 1989. develop refinements and follow-up work. Ferguson R. 'What Is Media Education For?' MediaMatters in South Africa, Prinsloo, J. and Criticos, C. (eds.),Media Resource Centre, Durban 1991. Conclusion Masterman, L. The Development of Media Education inEurope in In this chapter I have attempted to show that the .19110s, Council of Europe, Strasbourg 1988. South African media educators need to take Postman, N. Amusing Ourselves to Death, Methuen, London notice of the international developments of the 1987. discipline and encourage the implementation of Robinson, M. & Mentor, S. 'Empowering TeachersThrough Media Education in formal and non-formal Materials Development' Media Matters in South Africa, Prinsloo, J. and Criticos, C. (eds.), Media Resource Centre, education. The Media Education programmes Durban 1991. that we initiate must lead to the development of resources and methods that result in the empowerment of the learner and methods that: take into account the interests, experience and skills ot students: cover the full range of media with emphasis on the media most influential in the lives of students; pursue a deep understanding of media to encompass agency, category, technology,

22S PART Timing and Erpowenng 233 Media Education-A Contemporary Cultural Studies Perspective

Eric Louw

The study of media has become crucial in our instruction. This paper is thus not intended to modern world. To a very considerable extent we provide answers, but rather to provoke and/or live in a sort of second-hand world where much stimulate debate amongst those wishing to 'teach of our contemporary culture is 'mediated' media'. To do our job properly requires that we through the media, for example, even the most be constantly engaged in debate and critical 'marginal' of South Africans i.e. people living assessment of ourselves in the role of media in the remotest of rural tribal areas receive a educators/trainers. great deal of their information about the world In examining all aspects of cultural production from Radio Bantu. Hence media workers have and consumption (including media and the become centrally implicated in the production of teaching of media) CCS begins by asking two today's culture through their work as agents in fundamental (and interrelated) questions: who the process of moving ideas around. Given this benefits, and who loses? These are essentially importance of media within contemporary questions of power and context, and questions of society (Mastennan, 1985) it becomes vital that how power affects cultural meanings ana considerable attention be paid to the quality of practices. (Boyd-Barrett et al, 1987 and Punter both media education (i.e. the diffusion of media 1986). literacy amongst the wider public) and training CCS would argue that a starting point is for (i.e. the production of media workers). media producers and users to be taught to be This need is given added importance in the continually aware of the power relationships context of a changing South Africa wherein underpinning media messages, and thereby of media production and useage will form central the social implications of hc w they, and others, elements in the re-structuring of our society. If are relating to the media. Producing good we are to re-make our society there would be journalists, for example, means teaching them to value in paying considerable attention to the go beyond merely knowing how to produce a ways in which we can use the possibilities news story. A good journalist would also be inherent in the existing media technology as a aware of who benefits/who loses through using tool of cultural reconstruction. a particular style of news-gathering. This In looking at media education and media awareness would include an understanding of training Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCS) why they have been taught to do their job in a (see Hall et al, 1981) would begin by particular way, why newsrooms and the wider problematizing various issues related to media media-institutions are configured the way they are, and why certain media technology has been ownership of, or behind-thescenes influence developed (and by whom), while other areas of over, media institution& A public with such research-and-development are left fallow. In a knowledge (of media, context and struggle) similar vein, media education can seek to make would be equipped to be critical 'readers' of people more aware and more questioning about media texts and hence be less susceptible to existing (and possible) patterns of media owner- manipulation by the media, and consequently by ship, news selection, television programming, the interests behind the media. In fact, asuccess- etc. Both media producers and users could benefitful media education programme would make the by being made more aware of how existing very notion of 'user' and/or 'consume of media media-relations (including the influence of both somewhat redundant, because a fully media- state intervention and market forces) may be literate public would be less dependent andmore manipulating them, and may be curtailing the akin to active co-producers of media-messages. possibilities inherent in communication-technol- Teaching future (and present) media produc- ogy. They would be made more aware of the ers and users i.e. all of us about the relation- immense potential the media holds both for ship between power and ideas would make fora improving their lives through facilitatingmore more 'rational' use of media. CCS would argue social interaction, and also for making informa- that both media workers and consumers would tion and entertainment more readily available for benefit from media-instruction that all. This awareness holds the potential for helpingcontextualized media in these terms. The people to empower themselves as citizens. The manipulative power of media (or perhapsmore possibilities such a media 'liberation' holds for specifically the power of the controllers/owners accelerating cultural innovation and growth is of the media) would thereby be reduced. The enormous. Should both media workers and effect should be to help human beings regain consumers, for example, not demand a greater control of the media (and the social communica- say in democratically deciding media content? tion process), and overcome what the Frankfurt But surely.wide-spread literacy in 'media' is School have termed the 'culture industry' required before such demands can be rationally (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979). Stich a 're- articulated. humanized' media has the potential for creatinga So CCS would argue strongly that an under- social dialogue, or what Habermas calls a 'public standing of context be incorporated into all mediasphere' (Habermas, 1974) whereina truly training and media education. Linked to this interactive democratic cultural production would would be the notion of social struggle (Tomaselli, be facilitated. But the key is for people to learn 1988). Media literacy requires that people be about the media in its contextual setting this made aware of the struggles taking place in knowledge will enable people to become active society, the way those involved in the struggles co-manipulators of media variables and in this manipulate and/or are manipulated by the way to become co-creators of culture. media, and how certain players in the struggle The ideal then of the above approach includes have advantages afforded them by their direct the desire to empower everybody involved

2 0 PART Y Trairmg ami Empowering 233 within social communication both media workers their media workers. and media 'consumers' (or at least all those who Given South Africa's rapid social change at wish to be active). CCS would consequently present, never has there been a time when an advocate training two separate sectors, or, to put effective information flow in society has been it another way, to train all parties to the process more needed. If people are to makeinformed namely, producers and receivers (although decisions about their future they need informa- these two categories would ideally be inter- tion concerning the whole spectrum of events changeable within the communication process). and opinions in society in cyder to be able to Hence two types of instruction are required: make rational behaviourial chokes. Currently the firstly, media worker production, which requires Sotth African media are failing in this regard, as what will be termed Media Training, and illustrated by the media's handling of the Natal secondly, the creation of widespread media violence issue. (Emdon, 1990). There is conse- literacy in the broader public. This will be termed quently a desperate need to upgrade our media Media Education. workers as soon as possible in order that we can Both are equally important if full democratic use upgrade the communication process in this is to be made of available media technology. society. This requires training new media workers to a much higher standard than has been Mediu Treinings the case up to now. And perhaps we can also The production of media workers consider ways of upgrading existing media South African media workers are presently workers. generally of a low quality. This is due to two This leads to the question what sort of primary causes: firstly, apartheid has chased media training would CCS propose? many of the best media workers out of the First of all, CCS would problematize the idea profession. Secondly, over the past two decades of a purely technicist media training. The CCS media managements (especially in the Press) aim would be for media training to go beyond have created a situation through staffing and merely producing technically competent people. salary policies whereby it has been difficult to However, clearly, technical competence in one's attract and retain good media workers. The effect craft is the foundation of being a practicing on the circulation of information in oursociety media worker. Hence it would be recognized that has been negativeSouth Africa's mainstream basic technique and practical skills are a core media have simply failed to deliver a comprehen- component of media training. But training in sive picture of our society. And because South 'technique' can seek to go further and stretch the Africa's media 'consumers' have not been understanding of 'technique' so as to incorporate provided with any media education they are an understanding of the technological possibili- seemingly unaware that they are being 'short- ties inherent within any medium for its use for changed% hence they have not demanded any improving democratic discourse, or empowering better. This being the case, media managements people. in turn see no need to upgrade their product or So there is the insistence on non-technicist media

2 3 1 236 *do mailers m South Ai= training (but without abandoning a technical Tomaselli, 1988). In other words, indesigning component to the training). However, a emphasis media syllabi, it could be argued thatthe trahiing needs to be placedon the need for critical media institutions (and thereby the trainees) seekways people. This means media workerswho under- to form an 'organic relationship' with the stand: eneVes of the social struggles taking place the full range of media theories; around them in society. That requireslearning to their social context (and itsmutability); consult with communitygroups in a form which the meshing of existing media institutions into does not grant the media 'experts'a socially the power relationships in society; superior position by virtue of their knowledge.It possible alternative configuarationsof media means learning practical grassroots democracy. organization/media technology; and This process mightgo a long way towards the relationship behween existing media overcoming the arrogance which mediaworkers technology and research-development-funding. often display towards those theycome into This requires an education in criticaltheory, contact with. where the connectedness of theory and practice is Such direct interaction is alsoan excellent way emphasised. for teaching media workersto distinguish which In this regard, Len Masterman (1985) has interest group wants what and why.it becomes a proposed a number of theoreticalareas with way of teaching media workers to understand which media trainers should be conversant, their relationship to different interestgroups in including ideology, rhetoric and audience. CCS society. This approach helps traineesto learn to would regard the incorporation of Masterman's recognize the link between ideas and thereal ideas into a syllabus for the productionof media world: for example,a media worker reporting trainers as valuable. this conference should be trainedto recognize Out, in contrast to this and as a second concern, how the ideas expressed in sucha forum could although CCS would propose that media trainingget picked up by certain vested interestgroups aim to pnxiuce critical, thinking media people, and used by them toserve their own narrow not technicists, it is equally important to interests, often for reasons unrelatedto the recognise that it is also not enough to produce original intention of the formulatorof the ideas. pure media (or communication) theorists. Media/ (In fact, the media workers and educatorshere communication theorizing can too easily become might well ask themselves whoseinterests would an ivory tower theoreticism and/or an intellectu- be served if, for example, ideasexpressed at this alism outside of a real organicconcern with the conference were implemented). social context that media workers have to work Fourthly, CCS wouldargue that people within. teaching media skills should buildan under- Thirdly, CCS would propose that media standi, tg of 'power' and 'struggle'into their trainees be placed into a direct working relation- syllabi from thevery outset. In this way it would ship with communitygroups as a practical be less likely that their productsbecome co-opted extension of the above training (Tomaselli & in unintended ways, i.e.theteachers would

232 PART V T and Empowerthg 237 literacy is first thereby produte media workers that areless such a discourse a basic media likely to be unintentionally co-opted. required. All citizens need to As a fifth point, media trainers need to understand the media; recognise the value of taking carewhen using understand its possibilities and limitations; media training methods imported from overseas. have access to the media; and There is currently a tendency to rely onmethod- be able to critically 'read' media messages; the ologies and texts from Europe andNorth be in a position to make an input into media America especially. People teachingmedia might media system, Within such a syskyin of a social first consider the extent to which training workers would become the facilitators sole methods from the first world perhaps carrywith dialogue, rather than the 'experts' with them the ideological baggage of ahighly devel- access to the productionof media messages. oped technicist society. If they deemthat this is If a starting point is required in such a mass the case, would using such a method notfail to media-literacy programme the logical place 'how to equip future media workers withknowledge would seem to be to educate people in i.e. to 'see through' appropriate for the South African context,which read' a media text critically Media has social problems very different tothose of the appearance of `self-explanatoriness'. Europe or America? In fact, does the useof first literacy requires a recognition that there is no self- world media-training methodologies not such thing as a media message that is a represent just another form ofcultural colonial- explanatory reflection of reality. AU media and carry with them ism? messages are 'constructs' the hidden ideological baggage ofboth their Media Um:ethos": creator and of the creator's context. The pritdortion of auseedloliterate Creating critical receivers of media messages first pepiglathm would be a useful, but presumably only a recognition that Existing media technolegy already holdsthe step. What is important is the potential for the creation of a mass socialdia- producing critical message-receivers is not (even logue i.e. a mass democracy in whichall necessarily sufficient because reception second-class citizens actively participate. (Enzensberger,1974). critical reception) still implies a of the If this full potential is to be realized CCSwould status, and/or a de facto acceptance If a argue that a programmeof mass Media Educa- superior position of the message-producers. tion is called for. democratic (interactive) communication system everybody For mass democracy to operate all citizens is to be constructed, then ultimately the would ideally be active participants in amulti- (who wants to be active) has to be given directional social discourse. At very least, all opportunity to be a producer (or atleast a citizens who want to be active should be in a potential producer) of media messages. Care this as a necessarily position to be active participants inthe social must be taken not to dismiss for discourse. The electronic media offer theframe- utopian idea. The technologies do exist work for such a mass discourse. But to create society to solve the impediments inthe way of

238 Mato MetersSouth Afrial creating a fully democratic (dialogical) communi- How the meclia %mice cation system. It is now a question of getting This section would entail sketching out the main policy makers to allocate the necessary resources structures of the main media and how they work; to solve the problems and to create the necessary who owns/controls them; and a short history of communication infrastructures so as to realize thetheir development. Further, a sociology of the latent possibilities. And one way to nudge societymedia would be valuable. into creating suet.network and/or solving any Incorporated in this section could be explana- impedements is to create a media literate popula- tions of the dominant techniques of encoding tion who know what exciting social possibilities (what is included and omitted through await them in such a re-ordered media-world. 'newsworthiness' and programming), an exami- But because creating a fully-interactive media nation of who the media consider important network will presumably take a long time anda enough to include (and why), and an examina- lot of resources, a start has to be madesome- tion of the main 'yay' and 'boo' words used on where. In the intervening period and in the media. (Hartley, 1982). preparation for making all people interactive This section would thus attempt to describe media users the public could be taught to be the media and explain how and why this media critical receivers of media messages. In fact, excludes ideas not acceptable to the dominant because of the growing impact of media on the discourse i.e. the dominant discourse is 'second hand' world people now live' in, it may that which is 'acceptable' to those who own/ well be that in our contemporary world it is far control the media (which in South Africa is more important to teach high school pupils and monopoly mining-finance capital and the undergraduates how to critically read an every- National Party). The question would also day media text rather than how to critically read need to be examined of whether this is acon- Shakespeare. Critical users of the media would spiracy of sorts. greatly enhance the possibility for a democratic If it is not a conspiracy then other alternative society. It could even be suggested that an explanations of how control works would need to electronic media literacy is becoming more be examined, for example, the influence of important than printed-text literacy. The point market forces on media content, the concentra- is, once one has learnt to be a critical media tion of ownership, the power of advertisers, receiver, one by definition 'understands media' media investment decisions, barriers to entry to (and how it is produced, and its possibilities). the media market, and the way media distribu- Thereafter, the transition to becoming an active tion operates. CCS would argue that all of these co-producer of media messages is not such a 'hidden forces' influence what is encoded and masssive jump. distributed and that critical media I:sers need to So how does one produce a media literate be aware of these forces. A useful means of population? CCS would propose courses, at both creating an awareness of these hidden forces is to secondary and tertiary education level, in the teach a political economy of the media. areas discussed hereafter. Similarly, the interconnectedness between the

PART V Taring arld Empowing 239 23,1 media and power relationships in society should The Auchence be studied. In this regard Gramscrs (1971) notion Because of the preponderance of 'administrative of 'hegemony' as the way dominant groups rule research' (Smythe & Van Dinh, 1983) within firstly by generation of legitimacy, secondly by communicology, the importance of the audience the use of coercion, and thirdly by politicking and 'receiver' has generally been undervalued, and alliance-formation, is especially useful. Instead of a concern with enhancing the powerof The above would form the basic introductory the audience/receiver (i.e. a democratic concern), 'background information' required for media administrative research has taken the perspective literacy. of the communicator (as an initiator), and has been primarily concerned with finding ways of Media Technology enhancing the power of the communicator. The The existing technology arose out of specific latter is an inherently undemocratic approach to contexts, and specific decisions about what to communication/media. research, what to develop and how to apply Because CCS regards the audience as the active discoveries. These sorts of decisions impact upon co-creators of meaning, a concern with the our media environment andultimately upon the 'receivers' is greatly enhanced. A good starting second-hand (media) world we live in. It is point for teaching a 'respect' for the audience is s'Rnificant to note how many of these decisions to problematize administrative research,and have had their origins within military infrastruc- thereafter to move onto a study of reception tures. And because the military are characterised theory. But at the same time it is also important by a top-down 'commandcstructure understand- to consider the extent to which audiences canbe ing of human organisation, it stands to reason manipulated, as well as how a knowledge of that media-technology (and applications) reception theory and the audience may enhance originating in these environments are more likely the power of cynical media manipulators. In this to have a top-down (or one-directional/com- regard it is useful to ask the question why mand) bias. are some media programmespopular and what Questions can be asked about the suitability of role does the pleasure-principle play in this? such media-applications for a democratic When teaching 'audience', the notion of communication network, and furthermore, the 'ideology' (Larrain, 1982) can be very useful, possibilities for creating a liberatory useage of theespecially where this concept deals with how media already developed in terms of one- and why the media can be used by certain directional/command logic. vested interests to manipulate the audience by Critical media users require an understanding disguising social relationships so as to serve of media technology, its ontology, its limitations, their own purposes. The concept of ideology and its possibilities. This should create a dyna- can be especially helpful whendrawing out mic for speeding up technological innovation, the relationship between ideas and context both at the level of development and applica- (i.e. social struggle and power relationships). tion. This is valuable for the production of critical

240 Media Mailers in South Africa IThalegraPby Adorno, T. & Horkbeimer, M. Dialectic of Enlighten- ment, Verso, 1079. Boyd-Barrett, 0. & Brahutam, P. Media, knowledge and Power, Croom-Hebn, 1987. Enzensberger, H.M. The media users. narrativity is part of the process of becoming Consciousness Industry, critical media users. Seabury Press, 1974, The study af sign systems Emdon, C. 'Newspaper coverage of the Natal The structuralist study of signs, codes and culture violence: Developing a or semiology (Hawkes, 1977) offers a route A way formed? critique of newspaper to expose media users to the notion of meaning If South Africa is to realize its full potential in the critique' Paper delivered at production at its heart: i.e. meaning is traced the Association for Sociology modern context, we will need a massive improve- in Southern Africa down to the smallest unit possible the sign ment of our education system. But care should be Conference, Stellenbosch and the way in which signs are made and strung taken that we do not necessarily fixate ouselves University, July, 1990. together. Semiotics/structuralism is an excellent upon merely creating a print-literate population. Gramsci, A. Selections from adjunct to critical theory, and hence is is not Book-literacy is important - but so too is Prison Notebooks, Lawrence & Wishart, 1971. surprising to find that this method forms a centralliteracy in the other forms of media, especially the component to CCS programmes. Habermas, J. 'The Public electronic media, for example, television, film, Sphere', New German Semiotics has the advantage of inherently video, and computers. To be players in the Critique, Fall, 1974. problematizing the notion of 'reality'. The modern world South Africans will need to be Hall, S. et al. Culture. Media structuralist method relativizes meaning and fully integrated into the global electronic grid of and Language, Hutchinson, thereby helps to generate critical media users. information, but not integrated merely as passive 1981. However, this can all too easily lead to a post- uncritical 'takers' from a neo-colonial system. Hartley, J. Understanding News Methuen, 1982. structural de-constructionism. Hence when Rather we need a fully media-literate population exposing students to structuralism/semiotics it is Hawkes, T. Structuralism in order to be both critical users of such a global and Semiotics, Methuen, useful to also explain the epistemological roots of system and to be active contributors to such a 1977. post-structuralism in structuralism. Post-structur- system. Larrain, J. The Concept of alism is itself constructed upon a sign system. What is more, the exciting challenge of ileology, Hutchinson, 1982. Hence students can be shown that although the creating a population that is literate in the full Masterman, L. Teaching the noton of 'reality' is problematic, so too the post- range of media, is to thereby open up the Media, Comedia, 1985. structuralist notion that reality does not exist can possibilities for South Africans, not only of Punter, D. Introduction to also be problematized. This only serves to Cultural Studies, Longman, benefiting from the latest socio-technological 1986. reinforce the production of critical media users. developments that would be derivative from Smythe, D. W. & Van Dinh, A sub-field of structuralism is the teaching of such 'literacy', but also of potentially enhancing T. 'On Critical ank: 'narrative structure'. The teaching of narrative _democracy in our society by creatively using the Administrative Research: A is becoming especially important as television electronic media. New Critical Analysis', Journal of Communication, assumes such a central place within our Those restructuring our secondary and tertiary Vol. 33, No. 3, (1983). contemporary social milieu. Television narratives education programmes during the post-apartheidTomaselli, K.G. (ed.), (stories and 'plots') including the overall reconstruction period would be foolhardy indeed Rethinking Culture narrative (i.e. the sequencing of items and if they failed to give serious consideration to the Anthropos, 1988. programmes) are increasingly playing a role in role of media education and training in the Tomaselli, K. G. & the construction of our second-hand 'reality' as overall rebuilding of our now shattered educa- Tomaselli, R. E. 'Commu- nity and Class Struggle: derived from the media. To be able to read this tion system. Problems in Methodology', Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1988. PART Y Trainirg aid ErnFowenng 241 2:3 leaching Media Awarenessto Anti-Apartheid Groups

Ann McKay

skills The Durban Media Trainers' Group is acollective who are committed to improving media constituted of people representing local mediaorganisations training in Durban. The DWG was in 1989 with the aim of improvingthe skills of anti-apartheid media workers. The DM1G's main client groups have been progressive community and service organisations, trade unions,church groups and youth congresses. The Durban Media Trainers' Group has defined media awareness as referring toboth awareness of the mediaavailable, and awareness of the target audience. This awareness is essential if media is to be effective. As media trainers serving the progressive community the DMTG faced the problemof being asked to teach people specific mediaskills which the trainers could see were often notgoing to be used effectively. This happenedbecause many progressive organisations wereproducing media without giving strategic thought as towho it was aimed at and how best to target an audience. Thus posters and pamphlets were being prepared which were filled withslogans and rhetoric which would appeal tomembers of the organisation, but would not necessarily convince people outside of it. Another factor was ihe limited choice of medium; while posters, pamphlets, banners, badges and t-shirts were popular, little attempt was made to accesseither hv commercial and state media, and other forms of media particularly suitable for a low-literacy

) 242 MEW MantnSoeh Africa constituency such as audio cassettes and videos From 1989 onwards, however, it became clear were not being used. that media had to be used more effectivelyto This had a lot to do with the State of Emer- promote the views of the Mass Democratic gency. With the government's attempts to crush Movement This meant that at grassroots level left-wing organisation, a leftist organisational more pracfical skills in media production were style developed where therewas no visible required and, at a leadership level, publicity and structure, and people operated in a clandestine public relations became increasingly important way. Because the production of media was a key Where the Durban Media Trainers' Group - component in progressive organisations' ability came in was in highlighting the necessity for to mobilise the community to action, media centres were special targets of state attack, with several of these being fire-bombedor broken up particularly in Johannesburg. It is stilla matter of UTERACY FORALL debate as to whether it was actuallynecessary for activists to act as secretively as they did, but the MO SOME ALUM, objective conditions of the repression theywere working under did affect the style of organisation. Under these conditions media that could be produced quickly, that did not relyon expensive eqttripment, and that could becon- trolled by the organisation producing it became necessary. There was also only limited possibilities for using the state and commercial media. In the 1980s the SABC was openly anti-progressive organizations, and UDF and Cosatu affiliates consequently refused to talk terthe SABC because of the way that informationwas distorted. The commercial press were also negative towards progressive organizations. In Natal particularly, the Natal Newspapers' pro-Buthelezi agenda blocked any meaningful participation in theNatal commercial press. This is not to say that organisations couldnot have made more use of commercial media and could have chosen to producemore effective media. However, progressives felt threatenedby excessive repression which tended to persuade them to stick to what was safe and controllable.

PART Tmining ond Empowering 243 238 bound media to be strategised rather thanproduced at business interests of Natal Newspapers are the last minute in a haphazard way.As people up with the successof the KwaZulu-Natal Indaba, has Ind to a who were training and producingmedia for and therefore with Inkatha (this last political and service groups, we could seethat reporting bias so serious that at one point its own team of reporters, many organisationshad the following bad habits year the Star sent down of copy from which made their media ineffective, being unable to rely on the accuracy resulted in Media was being produced at the last minute, the Daily News or Natal Mercury). This almost as an afterthought in planningcampaigns. an antagonisticattitude between progressive lead to these The UDF anti-elections media (seeexample organisations and journalists which than th.y opposite) was an exception to thistrend, and the organisations getting far less coverage effectiveness of their campaign was ahighlight of could have. At no time has any progressive organisation in Natal. organisation in Durban had an effective man- handle public Media was being delegated to one Or two dated fulltime publicity person to members in an organisation; thus the relations. available organisation as a whole was not takingresponsi- Most organisations have limited funds the use of bility for strategising the media andanalysing thefor media production - which makes production target audience in order topitch the media most commercial press and radio, and the effectively. The media groups were generally cut of cheap effective media very important. off from the decision-making process,and four ways. therefore could also not influence campaignsin DMTG tried to address these problems in terms of making them mediaeffective. 1.Introduction of MEM ANALYSIS into In some organisations media was given to Technical Skill Workshop overworked activists, and they were not coping This often takes the form of asking trainees to with pnaduction on top of their other campaign analyse their own responses to media in our work (and usually also full-time jobs). workshops. An example taken from a poster The commercial media was almostcompletely making workshop is to put up a range of posters wide ignored. Journalists would battle to find of different sizes and colours produced on a organisafional representatives for comment,and range of technology andthen asking all the would then be told that they could not bequoted trainees to choose which poster seemsthe best to give before they had committee approval; thisusually them and which seems the worst - and to meant that the news missed its deadlines. reasons why theyrespond to those posters in that Organisations' leaders were often in hiding, and way. The subsequentdiscussion brings out which could not be contacted. Press releases were principles of poster design and production frequently written in inappropriately militant or comes from the trainees' own responsesto media. rhetorical language. Most seriously there is a It also provides them with a stimulus totheir own wide (and understandable) attitude that the creativity. ask commercial press and state media are part of'the In a pamphlet making workshop we might enemy'. In Natal it has been observed thatthe trainees to look at two pamphlets on the same 2 3 ; 244 maiaMolten in Soulh Africa issue produced for different audiences. (See Would they be effective if distributedin a examples below). The discussionquestions different community? would be as follows: This exercise has workedvery well with Who do you think these pamphlets are aimed tertiary level groups; but isMOM difficult to carry at? off with secondary school leveltrainees. Never- How does the language tell you this? theless it does yield useful discussionof media in How does the choice of pictures and the layout relation to specific audiences, especiallyas we tell you this? take pains to stress that media isnever good or In what way are their arguments different? bad - it is just effectiveor not effective for Do you think these pamphletsare effective? different audiences.

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PART Y Traimn. g and Empowering245 24u 2. Stress on MIDENCE Organisations need to be dear what they aretrying to achieve ANALYSS as the What do rim want is used. It is always to use media tor? with media so that the coned strategy Cornerstone of all essential to know what you want toachieve so that you can see whether your media was successful or net.Always ask: Media Work es What is yaw organisationhoping !perkiest with this risedia? Own or What do you taint thepurple who Write Far media to do asylum nard/tiseerrat tal seen it? Internal and External EC. join your organisation, sign a petition,come to the meeting, discuss the issue with friends,change their opinions, not fire Media. give money to your causeetc. Media is only as their workers for staying away, organisation will be using mediafor. effective as it relates EXERCISES as. 1. Decide which issue your 2. Discuss what you want toachieve in using the media. to the audience it is 3. Discuss what you want youraudience to ski when they have aimed at. received your media. trying to achieve by Whit Mune is best? Once you are dear about what you are making media you have to choosewhat media is best to do this. There ant two stops in decidingthis: like, 1. Knowing who your targetaudience is, what media they and what their interest in yourissue is Z. Knowing what media it ispossible for you to use (both commercial media and self-mademedia, like I-shirts) who you are trying to reachwith Internal Media It is important to understand preduce your message. Manyorganisations write pamphlets or posters with slogans that onlythe people that already support them will understand (InternalMedia). Members of your issues need to get media organisation who undemtand your and from you to keep theminvolved; newsletters, badges t-shirts will help them to feelpan of the organisation. different But the people that you aretrying to win over need a External Media Media). They may not knowabout your kind of media (F.3iternal organisation is not the right one organisation, or think that you them musr for them at the moment. Themedia you make to reach media tor people who arealready be different from the that members. It must talk aboutissue's, interests, and feelings fit in with the way that they seethe world. To do this yam mast: to say to them. 1. Decide what you want thaw' 2. Learn about your targetaudience so you can address media interests and feelings in your with 3. Decide what media yourtarget Audiente is tonthirtatile (e.g. radio for people who cannotread) and use this media to spread your message to them.

3 FOR OrleiatariaTIONS

2 1 246 mak sidtinSou* Africa EXERCISE ow Your organisation has decided to issue a pamphletto explain your organisations position ea why workeis should joina trade union. You are the media gmup and you have to decidewhat kind of pamphlet to write.

Points to consider es,Who arr you trying to mute How old? What sex? WhatMonne levels? What literacy kris? Where/10 they live? Work out how you are going to passyour message on to street people, vigilantes, hostel dwellers, people from informal settlements. ca. What fearsi or ignore nce, or misunderstanding or prejudice will stop then PIM being symmthetk to your message?

Questions to ask Are they afraid of losing their tabsifthey join your caganisation? Are they scared because they have heard that yit.ur organisation is very militant? Are they prejudiced against women's organisations, or youth organisations,or black people: and will this make them dislike you. organisation? Have they beenhealing badstoriesaboutyour members being undisciplined?

Understending It is important to understand what feelings might make people audience be against your organisation's message. You have to understand your audience so you can explain your message in a way that will make them less afraid or prejudiced and more sympathetic to what you are saying. 2. Finding out who your Audience is and howto reach them

What ars you saying?For this exercise think about what might make people disagri: or be afraid of what you are saying about trade unions Think about how you will explain what you are trying to say about unions so that they will agree with you. cs What hopes and drams atm! this issue can you draw on w mike people feel positive towards your pamehlet. Wluit can unions ffrr them? What kind of future are they dmnning about and lime will what you are saying about unions help them fal that your organisation can lead them to the future tluy :mut? The main thing is to find that aspect of the issue which is nlatnt to what they want in life so that you can gel them on your side by immtiom ng in your Wet. Note: advertisers do this ail the time in a manipulative way, they subtly promise that it you buy this perfume yoli wilt become very beautiful, or if you drink this beer you will be a sucressfut man with lovely women around you etc etc What they promise is obviously rubbish, but you can use the idea ot appealing to people's hopes and dreams in your media).

1400.PtAti55 ING For this exercise find out what hopes anddreams your target EXERCISE air audience has which are relatedto your pamphlet on negotiations.

go What do your torr inutieneealseady bww about the issue? This is imprehmt h Ind out because you don't tomt to scanwhat they atrindy understand. bit it fa very forarhant not to assume that they know as mach as you des very often pospleoutside of par orgatrisation do not have the agueinterest in issue; that you and they will not understand ancepts such asprivahaation, negotiations woribEr's chaster and soon It is imposbnitto explain exactly what you are !oaths about so that theydon't feel kit out, ft is Aso iMpOrtartt to cytain what osganisahons wenot own", in the community Anows tottat the ktters CWIU,COMTU, MASA. OASSSA mint Understand the issueFor this pamphlet on unions find out what yourtarget audience needs to know lr order to understand theissue - and then make sure that you include this informationin the pamphlet. EVEN IF it takes you three days to find out thisinformation, it will be worth it A pamphlet full of organisationalslogans will not impress or educate people who are not yetsympathetic to you.

NEXT sr Man a pamphlet on unions which will: 2. Be interesting to your target audience. 2. Overcome any fears they might have 3. Be related to their hopes and dreams, 4. Give them all the information they need toknow to understand the issue.

Many types of media Of course pamphlets are not the only kind 01media. T-shirts, radio, TV, newsleness and other kinds of mediamiOtt he better for carrying your message. When youchoose what kind ol media to use, yc.0 need to find nutwhat kind of media your audience is comfortable with. Below are somequestions which. can help you do this,

FORGREWII9A110143

4 fII Analysis of Media Of course pamphlets are not the only kind of media. T-shirts, EXERCISE se Deface answertng the questions, be dear whichaudience you are going to discuss, radio, TV, newsletters What media do and other kinds of your Draw up a chat listing the differentgroups you want to reach IOW*audience use? and answer these queshons: media might be better zIDo they read? ihiliat do they rad? how much time do they harefirmuting? do for carrying your they prefer newopwent or magorints encode whichones do they rood? can ynt suppty thme arasuzines/basks,newspapers with message. When you progressive stories? choose what kind of U Do they watch TV? co. Do nom of tbon own Ws? which programmes do they notch? do they own video machines? ant you get progressivevideos to media to use, you them? LIDo they listen to the need to find out what o. Which station? how can you get prograsive infonnottonto that radio? retlt0 station? Do they like music? kind of media your Li CO Mich kind of music? toill thry enjoy coming toa progressim audience is comfort- moccrt? 1.3 Do they like posters?c. How aln get posters to Om? able with. OpposiW p Do they like t-shirts a. What kind of messages? cyour organisation make t-shirts with messolges? are some questions h the right kind ofarganisational message? which can help you Look at other media it simportant to know where people are gettingnews and do this. opinicms whkh contradict the messages ofyour organisation. This will help you to see how you have tocounteract this, The question is then how can we make OUr mediamore accessible to our target audience so that they will trust Our messages. whal matt are you competing opine/ ? (SASC, Radio Zulu, M-NET, *NE Love =game, pkotaroffrics. Citarn. Natal Mertify ek). 3. How to choose the type ofmedia that is best tor your

What ars they eaykiii"Discuss what kind of media your targetaudientv is readmg or listening to which is going to contradict whatyouAMsaying. How Can your organisationanswer their CritiCisfris soth4 you sosincl more trustworthy than theother med in? cip Whet/ who do they trust, what version piffle news they believe? which political leaders do they trust ? ftis vital to know whether year target audience *heves whatpia eresaying Whet are you uyIng? How can you make sure that your organisatkincomes across as truthful and honest and responsive to the people?What kind of information or media do yOu have to get fo themto Convince them that youare to bebelieved? Remember that logia argument with tarts to hark youup isusually moveet feclive in the lona run than rhetonc and slogans. Rhetorictells people what you believe - itdoesn't explain it sothat the) know rite you believe. It isa good idea to miplain slogans so that you convince thosewho do notnercessarily supportyou.

UEDu1Puvdiss

41 PART Y Training andEmpowering249 Remember It is imporwt that your media (WM niterOeirs.pamphkis or other nwdia) is written in language that your targetaudWnce understands. of hinguagr is best for yrur oudirnre isimpie or very intellitt wit? au Zulu or Enghsh? es. What tone (friendly, militantinform:1nm formal, arrogant, tedrniarl, POOnist simple) will work best with Mein? How err ycai going to trvin younarif to writelspeat inthe aPPtvpitate stYk7 pamphlets (froma wido range of EXERCISE or Lookatdifferent organisations).

DISCUSSION: Which pamphlet would work best for your targetaudience? why is this pamphlet better than otherexamples? Whkh pamphlet would be the worstfor your target audience? which group would it be goodfor? Rewrite of the esample pamphlets to appealto: cis student cznatituency ca. middle class black constitwncy co white middle ground This ekerdse is good for hying out thedifferent ways of writing for different target audiences.

What media are you going touse?

Some decisions need to be made In everyinedi,i campaign: ca What media will be mostuseful rewiring our oudience? Radio Zulu, Bona magazine, SundayTribune, t-shirts, lusters, newsletters etc... (look at the section on aoMMerdal nwdia) vs How mach will it cost nm forafford that? are tliere hnper OiterflaiLles? COM geniis molder of peoplenucticii... ca Wit/ tor produce ifourscfres ? can rev Nlet MVOs ftl the nit-miry equipment7 is there an rosier zeop of doing it7 ran iwgct someone tIst to do it? ou What skilled people do firneef do we need trannIN' Oren. on um grt it? ts. When. do we go to get themourns? WhO is going to distribute it 7 Encampment to Consider Commercial II. MEDIA OPTIONS FOR YOUR ORGANISATION and State Press Our approach in these A. Commercial media workshops is to ask Why use Ow It is important for organisaticets to recognise the importance of wows to analyse the commercial print using the commercial print media.These media have an media? enormous dishibution. They form the quickest and most media. e.g. cost-effective way of reaching large numbeis of people (see dishibution figures: a press release in the Sunday Times reaches half a million people, Radio Zulu reactre.i 14 million). The alternative media have nowhere near the same impact in terms of people reached. If your organbation can get itsmessage out on the commercial media, you can reach thousands of people at no cost to you. 1. How commercial media operate ft Is Important to know who owns the commercial media. Newspapers and magazines are owned by big business, and the radio and TV are mostly owned by the government. Theyare powerful means of communicating to a wide audience, and the people who own them have their own agenda- which is often different from yours. And often they will distort information about iwganisations they don't agree with, or most often, they will ignore it. Rut if you understand how they operate, and work to pmduce news that they think will interest their audience you can still get your message acreim. To do thia properiy it t, necessary to understand how the commercial media work and what they think is news.

2.Analysia of commercial media EXERCISE air The purpose of this exerrise is to analyse commercial media to find out what they think is news, and to tind out tvh,tt their view of the world is. Break people up into groups, each group with a particular medium Fair lady, Cosmopolitan. Taut( oo Mist Vaderfand go Star, Argus, Daily News, Mercury co Sunday Tin^ Dints Herald co Ws news WA Work in AVM, Ltholar Bulletin 0. New African, thitafrika. New Nation go Weekly Mail (old and new) co Financial Mail

(videos of TV news broadcmts Or radio programnies c.m Aso he analysed if the equipment is availahle)

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PART V Trontng old Erecoaleirq 251 246 Discussion questions: q who isit aimed at? How do you know this? as What kind of people are the journalists (middle dosageworbng class, tanker Nock men or ramti? Wiwi are their politics? asWho do they quote? This shows uitich ptiopk and orynsisolions they believe err important.IN theyquote swims or employers or both? Whose views are staled first? Do they quote Ow police or the community or both? Whose first? Why do youthinkthey choose to doll this nay?

CIDWlw mr the picture; of? Are they mounted in a positive or negaltoeway? Why? re. Who do they go tofor infonmition about minsWhy do they choose these sounes? Can you think o f any that arr left ma? cor What don the editorial say? What does it tell youalvut the editor's views. cor What kind of products are adterti s a in thispublication? What does this tell us about who the publication is alma, at? cis Isthis pubikationa medium that your organisation timid wed to use toroult itstarget auction? Why i* is suitable or unsuitable? soWhat kind of news about your organisation would you take to this publkation? go How uwuld you write thenews so thatit fined in with the pubiication? 2. Who owns the media

Newspapers NW There are four main press groups.It is important to remember which these are because if you get a storyin a newspart r belonging to one gnpup, that newspaperwill usually also send II to aft the other newspapers in the same group.For national distribution, the Argus Company is themostimportant group because they have newspapersin most South African dftes

The ress groupsanr: Argus Company (A) owned by gold mining company (Oppenheimer). Times Media (i) owned by gold mininghouse (Oppenheimer). Igasionale Pers (11I) contmlledbyNatronalParty olthe Cape. Perskor (P) la controlled by National Party olthe Transvaal. (Perskor also owns RepublicanPress(Durban) which prod tiCes most of South Africa's magazines). A further part of the analysis of commer- COMMERCIAL MEDIA: WHO OWNSWHAT cial media is helping

groups to understand NEWSPAPERS There art tour main press groups. It Is hnportantW remember who owns the which these are because if you get a story ina newspaper belonging tot one group, chat newspaper will usually also send -commeozial media. it to all the other, r sp4 pers in the same group. For national On this page is a distribution, the Argus Company is I re most importantgroup because they have newspapers In rmr i South African cities. chart outlining the The 4 press groups : lines of ownership 2. Argus Company (A) = owned b gold miningcompany (Oppenheimer). and an extract from a 2. Timms Media T = awned by gad miningbcuse resource document (Oppenheimer). 2. Nasionak Pets (N )controlled by National Party of the which gives circula- Cape. 4. Penlaw (P )controlled by National Party of the Transvaal. tion figures. This Ferskor also owns Republican Press (Durban) which produces information can help most of South Mrica's magazines. groups to decide Newspapers not owned by any of the four main pressgroups which publication is are indicated byU# = "Independent-. actually reaching their teleSsAPie target audience. This READERINP PRIME OISTRIBUTEN is important in a C3 THE STAR (A) A 1 sty impanel Jdwinestseg afternoon newspo,m. 218000 context where Reaches may/ peeps in the Transmit progressive Especially killuentiel nth WO wins mibile-class and Johannesburg busbies* A Metal mammy *ISO organisations den 'ma massive nms generally only feel comfortable with the L) THE CITIZEN (P) A right-wing Johaviesborg morning mance. 1111000 alternative press, Sold nalimaN. Mem sales EPWV. Raman lam mitkloctsse end WO workers which has a combined Roane May hove lew Mambo they genently readership that is less use miss Weems (Iwn *cm penman, poop) than that of any

SOWETAN (A) Mena Jettsmosbutg Marring pap. 157 ON regional daily paper. Whitby mad inTrantweal townships meanly And with a regional by bladt midas-dass. radio station in Natal with a listenership of C3 NEW NATION (I) .1h1V Weakly Confab met sold nationally SO 00:1 Read by many Usk waders over 3.4 million daily, the SABC should be an area of interest for organisations wanting APPENDIX I to reach that constituency.

24S PARTY Training onsi Enrovvring 253 Stress an Effective Distribution of Media WORKING WITH YOUR CONSTITUENCY The following questions are mu- 1. DIstribudon finely raised in Draw a map of the area whore your target audience lives workshops to E.W011111113' include the following information in your map. emphasise that media is only as effective as co Maw mplegetting to wont es Fill in the bus rank s. the train,stations, the taxi-ranks it is widely distrib- Dim any shops, cinemas, entertainment arms, bars sin:beans in the ana uted. us Draw the *tones, offices end other placer ofwont and indicate haw* they from parpfc's homes ap Draw any water-haps or other places wherepeople gather to Draw schools and plaors where students andchildren spend their time Using this map as a basis for discussion, talk aboutthe following poims:

io where dxs }gar target audience gather?Ousstops, schools, hostels, taxis, etnorhes, trouts nt how can you get your medio to nen mplaces that they nal itn3lly gather. Some examples arr Information on blackboards at schools. Postm for hosteldwellers' rooms. Tapes in taxis. Pamphlets on the busses (make sure you knowwhat time different Groups use the busses; what time do domestic workers Go on busses? students? workers?). Magazines and t4hirts to be sold by vegetable sellers atthe taxi ranks. Pamphlets at the cinemas or plays, churches am'hoots. Pamphlets to be distributed on car windows atshopping centres. Any other ideas which come from your map?

is MEDIA PLANNING

254 mem in South Africa 2rj (Note: The above extracts are taken from the handbook Faconotso tar Slake a hal ot methods you use for distribution in your area. "Introduction to Work out in your group how much time, people and resources you need to do this dismbution. Be specific what time would media awareness" you distribute, which day of the week is best, how will you fix published by DMTG, posters to the walls/ poles who will buy glue if you need it etc etc. Come up with a distribution plan which looks like this: and under discussion in the National Media Trainers' Forum.)

References McKay, A. and Louw, Moves to improve the training of anti-apartheid media workers. Media Develop- ment, 1/1990. Louw, P.E. Commercial V you regularly disbibute media through members it is a good Media, (Unpublished paper idea to ask people to take responsibility for distnbuting in the for DMTG). same area each time. This way, your members will become good at distributing in a particular place and will he able to be McKay, A. & Louw, P.E. effective. So if Anne and Vusi are good at distributing in Media Awareness, (Unpub- Malandela Rd, then they must do it there every time if this is lished paper for DMTG). practical, Grateful acknowledgements 2. How can people respond to your media ? must also go to Warren Parker, Craig Allan, As progressives, we want to he able to produce media that is Thomas McKay and progressive. The state media is one-way communication, and Catherine Whitfield for the commercial press only offers limited space in the letters their editing and research. page for the audience to respond_ We need to tind ways that our audience can 'talk back to our nwd

eg Grassroots newsletter model., .. many media committees eai.h producing copy tor a i:entral newsletter

eg. community video production and community screening and discussions.

eg. (in more affluent areas eg 'e'er:nine) community run 4:ahle tv network and live community studio.

FoRDIVArallATIONS )5

25 a PART V Trumng md &waving 255 AN AUTO-CRITIQUE OF THE MASS LINE IN MEDIA TRAINING A °Meal Analysis from a Socialist Perspective of Adult Learning in a Media Training Coarse Jonathan Berndt

Introduction 'we'. At those times when I use 'I' it is because The lull time media course which we stat.eii in these points that I make have been issues that I 1989 set out to establish new training practices forpersonally have thought tt, be important. The self activists from mass based organizations. During criticism in this raper is in many ways my own the process of nmniag the course I made many and not that of the project as a whole. There are mistakes but also learned from the experience. times when some of the views of this paper have This paper is an attempt to uncover those been spoken about within the project but there learnings and to critique the assumptions that we are also different weightings to these points made from a specifically Marxist perspective. A given by other people within the project. In perspective which argues that particular, the Marxist analysis expressed in the The main lesson is always that educational innova- paper is not shared by the project as a whole. tion will fail unless it takes into account the economic In this paper I give a brief description of the (my emphasisi and political structures immediately course and then go on to attempt a self criticism. around it. (Davies 1984, pp. 75) However, it should be noted that this contribu- In many ways this was the lesson that I had to tion is only part of a longer paper in which I go learn and which the media project as a whole haden to look at a possible alternative to training to confront. By focusing the training on political progressive media workers, an alternative which activists from mass based organisations, the situates the training within production and project has tended to deal mainly with media argues for the training of what I have called 'red needs of the day as defined by these organiza- specialist' media workers. tions. In this way, we in the project saw media as an important part of the political process and I. Th. Media Training Cours *Community Arts Protect believed that it would influence the course of (CAM In 1S119 the CAP* Media Project ran a full time history in the struggle against apartheid. We media training course for activists from mass knew that people could make history but we based organizations. I was employed to coordi- forgot the extent to which history makes people- nate and teach sections of the course. This was in particular the specific historical economic the first time that such a course had been run in conditions. the media project and, in fact to the knowledge of Many of the views expressed in this paper havethe project, anywhere else in South Africa. Most at various times been current within the project of the tiaining done for activists from mass based as a whole and so there are times when I speak of organisations has been done using a workshop

256 Ms& Mews in South Africa 1" 1 model. These workshops would take place over a selection aiteria, namely that thetrainees should few days or at best over series of weekends as hashave some basic reading andwriting skills and been the case with the DMTG (Durban Media that they should havesome drawing experience Trainers Group). The only other version of full or inclination towards drawing. However, when time training which we knew about was the six the trainees arrivedwe found that none of them month course that TOPS (TheOther Press had any real media experienceor conformed to Service) had just started at the end of 1988. (ropsthese basic criteria. The traineeswere more or less was primarily a computer course focusing on illiterate; the poor reading andwriting skills that layout and design using DTP computer they had been given by the inferior'Bantu programmes, including some training on devel- education system' had beenforgotten in the time oping an awareness of mediarelated issues.) since they had left school. They had just startedto take on people who While I argue thatwe were responsible for the would learn on the job fora period of six months. 'mass line' in our trainingprogrammes, we also As far as I could establish, this six month period responded to requests andpressures from the was treated like an extended workshop and there mass based organizations. We had to lower the was little attention given to developing an in- level of training in the fulltime course, because, depth curriculum. even though we might have had ideas ofraising Before we started thecourse, we tried to find the level of our trainingwith this course,we were out what other trainingwas taking place else- not able to do this given the educationallevel of where in the country and could find very little people that the organizationsput forward. One of which resembled whatwe planned to do. The the reasons why the course'sstarting time was TOPS example that I have already mentioned haddelayed for so longwas that the organizations just started so it was too early for us to get any found it difficult to findpeople from their ranks idea of how it was going to work. So we started who would fit these Lriteria.So in the end they off in an exploratorymanner without any dear merely put forward people whoexpressed an understanding of what we were letting ourselves interest in the course, but had in for. very little media experience. When planning thecourse it was decided to Some of them had workedon the production of take two trainees from each of the sectors of the banners or posters in the last fewyears but they Mass Democratic Movement: hadn't retained much of what theyhad learned. the youth came from CAYCO(Cape Youth Only one of the trainees had Congress) drawing experience, as he had been attending the part timedrawing the women from UWCO (United Women's classes at Community ArtsProject and another Congress) had taken some photographswith a small the workers from COSATU(Congress of South instamatic camera. African Trade Unions). The Media Projectwas not part of the actual The Course Syllabus selection process, but we did suggest some basic The project planned thecourse as a series of

252 PART N1Training and EmpNering 257 structured a poster and aT-shirt for June 16th. extended workshops, which were workshop I took the for particular events in As part of this first around producing media which has a display on 16th or National Women's trainees to the museum the year, such as June of prhtting machin- broken up into 6 week the historical development Day. So the course was printing trainees would be ery. We then wentto a large commercial workshop blocks in which the the changes that skills with me. It works. After this we discussed workshopping particular media labour process within the that the trainees wouldwork in have taken place in the was planned how the machines have week periods between printing industry and their organizations for 3 culminating in the applying the skills that reflected these changes these 6 week workshops that were so unfortunately this did not capitalist relations of production they had learned, but commercial printing works difficulties. obvious in the large happen due to organizational tried to situate silk-screen the 3 week blocks (an that we visited. I then Eventually we had to scrap and looked at some did not have the printing within this analysis indication that the organizations disadvantages of using the organizational infrastructure to usethe trained of the advantages and silk-screen printing method.I was concerned atilt media workers/facilitators.) they should have somegeneral knowledge of the In addition to these sixweek workshops I history of printing so thatthey could situate what included four other componentsto the course: they were learning within acontext. a generalmedia studies component runby myself, 2nd Workshop Block a photographiccomponent which was runby The second workshop wasdevoted to producing Afrapix, a banner forNational Women's Day and it a drawing componentrun by variouspart-time involved a strong drawingelement. Much of this teachers, workshop was devoted tobreaking down the a reading andwriting of English component inhibitions and lack of selfconfidence which run by a literacytraaining organization called prevented the trainees frombelieving that they USWE (Using Spoken andWritten English). could produce drawn images. These were run throughoutthe year spanning the At first they refused todraw images for the 6 week blocks andeventually the three week banner because they saidit would look like a periods as well. child's drawing and theywould not be proud of After a week of orientationand general media what they had done. I showedthem examples of studies we started with thefirst 6 week block. images produced by peasantsand workers The 6 week workshops wereplanned as follows. elsewhere in the world andexplained how and why these were importantand valid. We spent 1st Workshop Block quite a long time looking atthe Chinese peasant The objecfive of this firstworkshop was to paintings and discussing therevolution in China introduce the trainees to varioustechniques of captured an important silk-screening and to equip them in as manyof and how the paintings part of this revolution. these as possible. They wereexpected to produce

258 Nola Maters in kWh Africa 3rd Workshop Block Post Course Block This was the last workshop in the calendaryear At this stage, one of the CAYCO txainees had and I extended it beyond the 6 weeks takingup dropped out of the course and it seemedas the 3 week periods whichwe had decided to dropthough the two COSATU trainees would be at this stage of the course. In this workshop the working for the Food and Allied Workers Union trainees were to draw on the skills that they had on a trial basis until the end of March after which acquired from the photography and reading/ time there was a possibility that they might be writing components of the course. Their taskwas given full time employment by the union. to break up into two groups with onegroup As things worked out, FAINT] only employed producing a wall-newspaper and the othera one of the trainees and UWCO came forward newsletter. They were to take the photographs with a request that thecourse be extended for and produce the written material for these their two trainees. We agreed to this and they publications. In addition theywere to design, lay worked on a photo-documentary of their out and prepare the newsletter and wall-newspa- organization. We encountered problems with per for printing. CAYCO, which with the unbarming of the ANC I asked other organisations whowere produc- and other organizations, went througha process ing news letters or small publications tocome of reconstruction as part of SAYCO (South and talk to the trainees about their production African Youth Congress). During thisprocess it methods, how they defined their readership,and was impossible to set up any programme for the how they distributed their publications. Those remaining CAYCO trainee andwe agreed to hold that came were COSATU News, Crises News, over his further training until such time as the ILRIG and Grassroots. youth organizations had worked through their restructuring process. Throughout the year I had evaluation report- 4th Workshop Block back meetings with the organizations. Theywere This last block of the coursewas run in 1990 with informed about theprogress of the trainees and the course finishing at the end of March. During consulted about future plans. Itwas at one of this period the trainees worked in theirorganiza- these evaluation meetings thatwe decided to tions and came to the Media project for 2 daysin drop the 3 week blocks when traineeswere the week (an attempt to return toour strategy of meant to be working in their respective organiza- getting the trainees to to work in their organizations. tions, but with closer work in their follow-up work in the two days with me.) In these 2 days IL My Self Criticisms they were to continue with their training in The Workshop Method drawing, reading/writing, and design. TherewasThe workshop method that I employedwas also a session on workshop methods,on how to similar to the method thatwe had used in the run media training workshops in their organiza- past and was prevalent in alternative educational tions. zircles. Most education and training in the 254 PART Y Trairung and Empowering 259 structural alternative educational movement inSouth developing an understanding of the faced with Africa has been done in the formof workshops. roots of the problems that people are system In delming 'people's education'in their publica- and how the establishment education and political tion entitled 'What is People'sEducation? An perpetuates the prevailing economk that they give us Approach to Running Workshops,' theCentre for system, but there is no avrld view this. There is a strong sense Adult and Continuing Education(CACE) outline as an alternative to just the bask principles of workshops asfollows; that they would like a more egalitarian, society but it is not clearly statedand there is no It is a colleciive process, involvingpeople in teach- economic doing. (CACE 1990 real reference to the political and ing each other and in learning by This lack of a pp. 1) struggle between classes in society. class analysis is fairly typical ofpopular educa- The origins of 'peoples education' isbased on tors and has been a strongcriticism of Freire's developed the concept of 'popular education' as work which has been seminal inthe develop- Barndt, and Burke in Latin America. Arnold, ment of popular education theory.(See (1984) suggest that there are basicadult educa- Youngnan 1986, ch 5). tion principles such as, One of the main reasons why thismethod is so Start with the experience of the learner,learning by popular in the alternative educationalfraternity doing_ is because of the high levelof learner participa- These then are some of the baskprinciples of tion. But, as I will argue, one'spedagogy cannot 'popular education' which they say uses a be based only on participation. There areother factors dialectical method and which is based onthe factors that one has to take into account - did not following premises: that the workshop method that I used The theoretical basis of OUT educational ap- acknowledge. workshop proach is its ideological conception,its view of Using what I knew about the what the world, its political objective. method I started off by trying to find out the subject and The educational methodology is ourpractice, how the trainees already knew about in we organize learningexperiences, based on our placed this often common sense knowledge After this I set ideological view, our theoretical understanding. the wider context of the subject. Technique refers to the use of tools oractivities up a practical taskfor them to complete in the six stopped to that can be used for any purpose, i.e.,applied to week period and during this time we the any methodology,used to further any ideology. evaluate what people were doing. Using (Arnold et. al. 1984, pp. 35) 'action - reflection - new action'model, these Firstly they do not say what their viewof the evaluation sessions tried to be as participatory as speak world is and we are left to assume thattheir work possible. Everybody was given a chance to they thought as popular educators isaimed at combating and they were all asked to say what injustice in the world. While this isobviously they had learned in the workshop.These something that we would support, thisdoes not evaluation sessions were seen as anopportunity had been tell us what their world view is. Theytalk about for the learners to reflect on what they doing in the workshop. ing importance is in the endto lead people into My role dining the workshopwas to act as an idealist cul-de-sac. facilitator, helping peopleover the obstacles they The second problem that I thenencountered encountered as they tried tocarry out the was that when we dealt with practical skills practical tasks. We assumed that people had basictraining, the methodwas unable to see learning skills in measuring, design andeven drawing as both theoretical and practical work: thewwas (even though their drawings might be naive in an empiricist bent to the wholeprocess empha- style). The idea was that people an the course sizing learning by doing withoutany real already had a body of knowledge which they theoretical contextualization ofthese skills within could use and that thecourse would give them an social reality (see Boydell 1976 andYoungman opportunity to realize this and so become 1986). The workshop methodwe used dealt with empowered in theprocess of self realization. skills within the framework ofthe concept of What we failed to sufficiently acknowledge was experiential learning- the 'doing' being the that if you are trying to teach skills which havea experience from whichone learns. We gave complexity to them which extends into the social people silk-screens and showedthem how to pull relations of society at large then one encounters a the squeegee and printa poster or a T-shirt. After series of problems. this they merely repeated theprocess and in the The first problem that I foundwith this 'doing' we felt that they wouldlearn. What I workshop method, is that the focus tends to found so problematicwas that this 'learning by become the process of self-realization rather than doing' was usuallyvery simplistic in how it dealt learning new skills. This is fine if all one is with fairly complex skills, skillsthat were deeply concerned with is the raising of people's critical immersed in the fabric of socialrelations and consciousness. The Education Projects Unit (EPLI) relations of production insociety at large. acknowledge, that, The third problemwas that it saw knowledge It should be noted while thecritical perspective does as something to be encountered rather than not deny the need for structural change, this ap- produced. The learning by doingwas somehow proach tends to emphasize thecognitive or limited to experiencing theactivity involved in 'conscientization' aspects at thr perhapsunwitting a expense of the structural aspects. (EPU, 1988) particular skill. Therewas no sense in which the learner was actually producing If we, as the proponents the knowledge of experiential learningfor him/her self in thesame way in which value seem to do, are concerned with structurally is produced by labour. Whatever labour was changing society, thenwe would need more than involved was encapsulated withinthe workshop just the critical tools for criticizing the present and was notseen as being related to the general political and economicsystem. We would need relations of production withinsociety. It was also people with the skills to actually take control of not seen as productive labour but the sites of economic and as labour in the political power in abstract - merely 'doing'. society and in fact to rule. Toignore the 'struc- The fourth problemwas that because the tural aspects' or to underestimate their determin- course was constructed as a series of disparate

256 PAM Trommg and Empering 261 will show a possible what they had hopefully, as my argument workshop the trainees forgot economic. I will end of the couzse synthesis of the political and learned fairly quickly. By the political economy of what they had done atfocus on one aspect of the they had already forgotten particular significance for This is one of the most South Africa which has the beginning of the year. the workshop method: it an understandingof the context from which serious problems with the the issue of unemploy- compartmentalizes learning intoisolated trainees came - namely fragments (workshops) ratherthan seeing ment. One of the major reasonswhy there is such a learning as a continuum, alife-long activity high degree of unemploymentin a country like which is integrated into thelearners socio- South Africa is becausethe South African political context. economy is acapitalist economy. Withinthis mode of production theworker works for a The Socio-PordioA Contextof the Come certain time of the day in°flier to reprodum her/ As I have indicated, 'peopleseducation' (or him self, the rest of theday is spent producing popular education) which usesthe workshop surplus value. There is, asMarx says, a continual method, address issues oftransformation purely battle around what constitutesthe length of the on a ideologicallevel. (Most of Freire'swork working day, so much sothat... focuses on literacy andconsciousness-raising, the major model of progressiveadult education as The creation of the normalworking-day is, there- civil war, ... be- we know it.)Very little attenfion is given tothe fore, the product of a protracted tween the capitalist classand the working class. material socio-economic conditionsand determi- (Marx) nants of the learningexperience and the application of the skills that havebeen acquired. Instead The victory of the eighthour working day has there is a focus on what has cometo be known as forced the capitalist to findother ways of consciousness raising orconscientization, which extending the working day toextract the tends to simplify consciousness asindividual maximum surplus value fromthe workers. The consciousness rather than 'classconsciousness'. If capitalist introduces machineryto speed up the there had been a dearer and moredeveloped production process, and so Ahortensthe time understanding of consciousness wewould have necessary for theworker to produce enough to given the class position ofthe learners far more theoretically make it possiblefor him/her to importance. Our failure to do soblinded us to the survive and so lengthenthe time when the determining economic factorsof their class capitalist can extract surplusvalue from the position. labour of the worker. This is notenough because When I speak about thesocio-economic context the capitalist has another wayof extending the of the course I am referring tothese issues and working day - namely by usingovertime (see the broader political andeconomic context in Marx's Capital ch. 10). InSouth Africa, employ- which the course took place. I am notattempting to contrast the highlypolitical approach that we ...only have to pay an extra thirdfor overtime work had to training with a crudeeconornism, but,

262 Mak Mauen in South Africa 25 7 in most cases, which is low by international stan- that they could use the skills they were learning dm*....and the... limits on overtime are high to improve their chances of economic survival. ...which makes overtime very cheap for the employers. (Labour Research Services 1988) This is not too surprising if one considers the fact that doMg a full time course over a period of 1 to Consequently there is a high level of unem- 2 years is different to doing a short workshop. It ployment in South Africa where it is more is to be expected that because the trainees profitable for the capitalist to use the practice of themselves were investing a lot of their time by overtime instead of employing more workers or doing the course that they would expect to get even introducing more efficient machines. The something more than just a critical understanding unemployment figures that I have been able to of the polities of media out of the course. obtain indicate that in certain areas in the Western Cape the figure could be as high as 60% Depenuleasy with the total unemployed in the country as a The fact that we gave the trainees bursaries was whale being as high as 7 million in 1990. (Labour in itself to prove a problem. We never thought Research Services 6/90) that we were creating a false kind of develop- The chances of the trainees, all of whom had ment by offering bursaries. Dispensing bursaries, been unemploy ed when they came on the course, as we were doing, felt like we were participating finding any ldnd of job, let alone one in which in a process of underdevelopment similar to that they could use the media skills they had acquired forced onto third world countries who received on the course, were slim. Firstly they came onto aid from international capital. We understood the course as unemployed workers and had no that to prevent people from drifting away from job to return to, and secondly they all came from the course, that they would have to have some a discriminatory education system which form of income. In the past we had found that the explicitly never educated them to get jobs as economic pressure of survival outwnighed any media producers. The apartheid education altruistic ideals of education. The problem was system was explicit in its intention to educate that we never saw the wider implications of people from different racial groupings for giving the trainees bursaries and that in fact the particular jobs in the economy. way in which we constructed the course had a Neither we nor the organisations which sent direct connection to this kind of financial base: for them onto the course ever considered that example we never addressed the issue of self- employment might be an issue. It was the traineessufficiency in our training methodology. themselves who raised the issue when they We had raised enough money to pay the expressed apprehension and confusion about trainees a bursary for the time they were on the whether they were going to get paid jobs in their course. The amount we decided on was based on organisations after doing the course. Although the minimum living wage figures we could get we never offered the course with the idea that we from COSATU and ranged from R680 for the would be training them for media jobs, the older trainees to R580 for the youth f TOM trainees themselves developed the expectation CAYCO. Economically the course was a wonder-

215 S FART Y Training oxi Encoorring 263 ful opportunity to learn and at the same time devices, the chances of their continuing to use receive an income. While it definitely meant that and develop the media skills that they had the trainees did not drop out of the course, it acquired on the course would be remote. nevertheless created a situation of economic dependency. Waildng on One Leg As well as the problem of dependency itself, Our Approach to Meek Training there was a further problem in that the trainees (The idea of 'walking on one leg' comes from were not learning skills that they could necessar- Mao who used it to criticize the one-sided ily use in the job market. The media skills they approach to economic development, an approach were taught were not seen as formal melaskills which focused only on centralized capital which the trainees could use to get employmem intensive industry and ignored small scale rural in the formal job market The Media Project was development. I feel it is a useful idea in terms of adamant in its position that we were not training what I am trying to uncover in this paper. I feel people to earn a living or get a job. The Media that in the past we had a one-sided approach to Project had since its inception seen itself as a media training which focused exclusively on the training or resource service for mass based small scale training of activists in basic media organisations and that it trained activists who skills. We have never trained more specialized were going to work in their organisations in what media workers.) would probably be a voluntary capacity. One The CAP Media Pri*ct had been in existence needs to understand that there was a perception since the Culture and Resistance Festival in in these organisations themselves, which saw Botswana. With its inception in 1982 it saw itself media work as voluntary, which influenced the as a production service project for organizations pmition taken by the media project. and started producing posters for various events While we had understood that the trainees and issues. However, given the political climate would need some form of economic support of popular front politics it soon decided to build while they were doing the course, we assumed training into its serviee work by getting the that their media work could take place free of organizations to produce the posters themselves, economic determinants once they had finished the assumption being that everybody was the course. Like the organisations from which potentially a media producer. they came, the political commitment we had This was the most fundamental assumption asked for, which was something that we had that we made and it was to determine all of the already discovered in our running of training future work of the project including the full time workshops, could never be a sufficient guarantee media course in 1989. In my report on the full for making people attend a course or workshop time course in 1990 I outlined the aims of the in a consistent manner. It was to be a rude shock course as follows, to find that once the trainees completed the The long terms aims of the full time course have course, there would no longer be any economic been to train media facilitators who would work in basis for their media work. If left to their own mass based organizations developing factory floor

264 a*cto Moen in Scuti Africa 25 and grass roots media (popular media). This is inline we and the organizations did not see the neces- with the overall objectives of the media project. sity for doing this at the time. They were not seen (Berndt 1990) as media workers but asorganizational members lit our 1989 project report the aims of the with some media skills. project were given &s follows, A further consequence of this approach has Our field of concern in the CAP media workshop is been that we have had to continually train and L The concept of the 'mats in assisting to extend and improve the media capaci- retrain the shifting membership of the organiza- line' comes from the Mao Dse Dung who at the time ties of progressive organizations. we consider that tions. There has been no time to extend the our particular role lies in the decentralized processes of reconstruction in China training of some of those whom we had trained was faced with the dilentn of media production. In that it i s the ordinary mem- of how to proceed with bership wiki must give shape and meaning to the in the past. Also, the fact that the financial basis of their continued work as media workers was economic development ideasand direction of the mass based organization ... without any specialized Our practice therefore aims to provide; never seriously addressed in their respecfive technicians. The Russians basic education, skills training and experience in organizations, has meant that those whom we withdrew their specialists simple methods of media production appropriate to have trained have had no financial resources to because of political local use and distTibution. differences about economi skills training and general assistance to enable continue with media production. development. Mao felt tiu organizations to address this process autonomously In the end we never got to train more highly the focus should be in the within their ranks. (Berndt 19139) skilled and organized media workers because we countryside with the were caught up in the populist myth of what I peasants while the Russiar These aims were further articulated in a paper argued that China had to by a fellow worker in the media project when she would call the 'mass line.' The mass mobilization develop their heavy said that; taking place in the period in which we were industry. Left with little working obviously influenced us. The task of the resources except for a lam In the CAP Media workshop we regard our area of potential labour force Mao work as the 'barefoot' element in the complex weave day as far as we could see it was to train activists chose a path which used of this development of media as the voice of people's in basic technical media skills which they could people rather than power.' (Devilliers 1990) use in their political work. This approach which I technology. Mass have called 'following the mass line', tends to mobilization rather than Flowing from the ideolog of popular front technical expertise was the politics in the progressive movement, we treat any form of specialization with suspicion. order of the day. I saw believed that everyone could be a media pro- However, I am not trying to advocate a non- similarities between this and the programmes of ducer. We focused almost exclusively on training politicized form of specialization, but a special- mass action that were the 6eneml membership of mass based organiza- ization that is political - that is, 'red'. To focus on taking place in South tions to a very basic level of skills. What we failedeither too strongly would mean that we would Africa. The slogan was to see was the necessity of training more special- end up figuratively speaking, walking on one leg. 'Mass Action for Peoples In the final analysis this is what we did, we Power' and there Pigs a ized media workers. The result has been that strong focus on activism those whom we trained have not continued to continually trained activists in mdimentary rather than critical work as media producers within the organiza- media skills and ignored the tsaining of more engagement. My role as an highly specialized and politicized media workers educator was seen by tions. The reasons for this are complex and myself and to a large extent varied. But one common reason was that there in the mass democratic movement - we walked by the project as a whole, at was nothing for them to do, they were not trainedon one leg in our approach to training. facilitating this activism by to a level where they could extend their skills and Walking on one leg as you might imagine is a providing technical skills training for the cadres on the street. 2 PART V Trenng cod bnposberng 265 slow and difficult process, but there was some forward movement. I feel we have contributed to the growth of organizational media on a very low-tech rudimentary level and while this has been useful for the organizations during the periods of repression, it has left them ill- equipped to deal with the problems of the present period of transition and struggle for hegemony in areas like mass communication. Unfortunately, organisations and the various training infiatives around the country, have not been able to develop an understanding of the political imperatives of gaining control of the dominant means of communication.

Bibliography Arnold, Berndt and Burke A NewWeave: Popular Education in Canada and Central America, 1984. Boyden, C. Experiential Learning,Manchester, Manchester University, 1976. Berndt, J. Report on the MediaProject, Community Arts Project (CAP), 1989. Berndt, J. Report to Media Project onFull time course (CAP), 1990. CACE, What is People's Education?An Approach to Running Workshops, 1990. Devi lliers T, 'History of theMedia Workshop' (working paper), CAP Media Project,1990. 'Novi es, L 'Alternatives in Educationfrom the Third World', ilternativt Educational Futures, HarberC., Meighan R. and Roberts B. (eds.), Hold, Rhinehartand Winston, London 1984. Education Projects Unit, 'Learningthrough Action Research: Fact or Fantasy, ExperientialLearning in Formal & Non-Formal Education, Criticos, C. (ed.), MediaResource Centre, Durban 1988, Labour Research Services, Overtime,Report for the Unem- ployed Workers Movement,1988. Labour Research Service, 6/90. Marx, K. Capital, Vol.l. Youngman, F. Adult Educationand Socialist Pedagogy, 1986.

266 Melo Manors in 504h EDUCATION FOR A THIRD CINEMA IN EOM AFRICA Reflections on a Cosninunity Video Education Proloct In Alexandra, Johannesburg

Jacqueline Maingard

This paper identifies some features of ammunity 'with the camera in one hand and a rock in the video in this country and relates them to the other' (Chanan, 1983, pp. 24)- an apt description development of Third Cinema in South Africa. Myperhaps for these times in South Africa. It is a concern to relate community video to Third militant, active, revolutionary, politica research Cinema is based on what I perceive to be a need incinema. It is cinema that is made, distributed and film education and production to have the benefitfor which people are educated in these terms. of ghtal experience with which to reflect on Around the time that Solanas and Getino wrote developments here and also to access theoretical and published their article 'Towards a Third approathes that are not only Eurocentric. Cinema', other cinema movements were concerned with describing and defining their work The Concept °Third Cinema' in similar terms. This is exemplified by the I will begin by broadly defining 'Third Cinema'- manifestos for a new cinema and an alternative 'broadly' because the term itself is one that needs cinema in Morocco and Egypt and in to be defined in context. Thus, for example, the organisatiortal terms by the establishment of the South African experience in education for the Federation Panafricaine des Cmeastes (FEPACI), making of Third Cinema is in a position to assist to mention just a few of the significant develop- the on-going definition of the term itself. ments in Third Cinema. In 1969 two film-makers Fernando Solanas and In visual terms Xala made by Ousmane Octavio Getino declared Third Cinema to be 'the Sembene in Senegal in 1974 may be described as most important revolutionary artistic event of ourThird Cinema. In brief, the film is a critique of the times' (Chanan, 1983, pp. 27). For them Third neo-colonial attitude of the new governing body Cinema is the cinema of liberation concerned within an African state and an indictment of its the decolonisation of culture- a cinema of the corruptive ways, while portraying the peasant masses. If 'first cinema' represents the viewer as aand working class as being the class that will 'consumer of ideology' for example Hollywood liberate society from corruption. Not only is the cinema, and 'second cinema' reflects the concerns film's theme exemplary of the concerns of Third of film authors - for example European 'art' Cinema, but its style also highlights the way in cinema and some of ibis cinema of Godard, Third which Third Cinema can use aesthetic means for Cinema is by contrast the only cinema capable of challenging dominant aesthetic approaches. This transforming society (Chanan, 1983, pp. 20-21). is revealed from the very first image in the film Third Cinema foi Solanas and Gefino is made where in medium close-up a drummer, dressed 262 PART V Troinmg &Towering 267 in bright clothing beats out a very fast, very loud cinema practices in South Africa to be examined rhythm that demands the active attention of the against a backdrop that is not only geographical viewer. This is a rather different approach to the or national. For, I would argue thatthe concept more conventional film style ofHollywood films. can extend analysis of the practicesof cinema, In 1982 Teshorne Gabriel published a book thereby preventing a myopic examination of exploring the relationship between Third Cinemacinema at the expense of global developments, and the Third World. His book essentially while simultaneously maintaining a conscious- maintains a geographically located perspective as ness of this particular socio-political context. the title suggests - Third cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetic of Liberation. Conumnity Video Education and Increasingly and in various contexts however, Prodaction In South Africa the term 'Third Cinema' is valuable precisely I will now place some of the developments in because it liberates cinema from categorization community video education and production in on geographical bases. After all the term'African this countly within this rather loosely defmed cinema' tells us ry that a particular cinema is in conceptual arena. I will not cover every single or about Africa. It may also signifyother con- development and will concentrate mostly on the eerns such as colonialism and racism buthardly community video educafion project run by the in any definitive way. Film and Allied Workers Organisation (FAWO) I am not arguing for being definitive i. o'er, in Alexandra, Johannesburg during 1989. since the very nature and diversity of cinema Essentially I am looking at educational makes it difficult to define in any context. Rather practices within community video that propose I am proposing the term Third Cinema' as a way to enhance the development of Third Cinema in of identifying cinema practices that are in South Africa. So my focus is on community video Solanas' words 'the expression of a new culture education that would promote the making of and of social changes' (Willemen, 1989, pp. 9). It Third Cinema. Furthermore, since Third Cinema is therefore also a term that can unify cinema is cinema that promotes enquiry and critique at practices, not only on geographical lines but moreall levels - be they aesthetic or thematic, or in the importantly, in terms of their place in advancing making of fiction or documentary films, short democracy. films or feature-length films, or more macro In 1986 a Third Cinem3 conference was held at concerns - I am looking at educational practices the Edinburgh Festival and a major part of its that are democratic and innovative, concern was to locate the work of black film- It is important to define the terms 'community' makers in Britain in the 1980s in relation to the and 'community video' at this juncture. I am not concept Third Cinema' (Willemen, 1989, pp. 1). going to problematize the term 'community' - Similarly, without wanting to oversimplify the rather I am working from a position that includes complexities of locating cinema practices in this geographical and organisational bodies as well as way, nor the term 'Third Cinema'itself, I am the various sectors of society such as youth, proposing the concept as one which might enable women and workers. From this perspective the

268 maim Mom in South AfriCO 26.3 term 'community' can refer to a whole township, WU of the staff of the organisation to make the or a street in a township, a large federation such videos that the community requested. A quote as COSATU or a single trade union, and a civic from Liz Fish who directed the Foject in this association or organisafion. period reflects the organisation's position: 'Community video' refers to video, usually My understanding then was the community deter- documentary, that represents the perspective of a mines exactly what they want and you operate the particular community. The community perspec- camera and they make all the decisions. (Interview, tive is defmed not only, or necessarily, by the ) extent of the community's participation in its In time she moved from being 'the people's representation on video but also by the extent to video camera with very little intervention' which it is represented in its own ideological (Interview, 1988) to a position where the video terms. It is also video that emerges from and is product was a collaborative effort arrived at in attached to community struggles that oppose discussion between the video-maker and apartheid and seek to redress the imbalance of representatives of the community group request- socio-economic and political power in South ing the video. Africa. It is concerned with issues that affect A second type of community video emerging groups of people that may be identified as a in the mid-to-late 80s may be defmed on an 'community' rather than with issues that are not ideological basis. By this I mean that the videos commonly experienced and that are individual in made reflect an ideological consistency with the nature. Video that is not community-based - groups and organisations about which (and in engaged in fulfilling the articulated needs of a some cases for which) videos are made, Video spedfic community - is not community video. News Services based in Johannesburg takes this The first organisational development in position - making videos primarily about worker community video in this country was the issues and worker organisation, and document- Community Video Resource Association estab- ing union congresses and worker strikes. The lished at the University of Cape Town in the earlyvideo-makers use their skills to represent the 80s. It later became independent of the university perspective of workers in a way that advances the and changed its name to the Community Video working class struggle (Meintjies, 1989), An Education Trust, as it is still known. Its work example here is the video Compelling Freedom during the early-to-late Ns was focused on which documents worker culture, using numer- making videos about localised community ous examples of cultural events and presentations concerns - either geographically located er issue- integrated with illustrafions from the work based. An example of this is the video Belloille situations on wliich the cultural works are based. Community Health Project which describes a Another approach to community video is one community project and explains its significance where representatives of a community engage in and value in the community and in relation to thea collective process. A team of co-workers is socio-political context of health care in Cape established which includes a facilitator, commu- Town. The approach was to use the video-makingnity representatives and learners of production

264 PART V Training and Empowering 269 skills 'to co-operatively solve community media production skills classes. The training group problems' (Critices,1988, pp. W. This is the worked collectively and devised the progamme approach of the Media Resource Centre at the in a way that utilised skills availablewithin the University of Natal, Durban. group in various areas of fdmwork, covering a range from scriptwriting totechnical and pre- The Community Video Project at production skills. Being a FAWO project we were Alexandra also able to link in with other FAWO education The community video project at Alexandra began projects such as the screenings of SouthAfrican early in 1989. In essence it is an educational docmnentaries in a 12-week series. This kind of project and I will describe something of how the link supplemented the education that the Sunday project started and the organisation of education training sessions could achieve. in the project. My focus is on a particular period The programme we devised worked initially at in the project's development which formed the the level of basic skills training developing to basis of the work which has since continued. increasingly complex layers of skills training. We Concerned with the development of a progres- began with each participant having a hands-on sive film culture in South Africa, the Film and experience of making one shot and then moved Allied Worker., Organisation (FAWO) responded on to each participantachieving three shots in enthusiastically to the request from a group in sequence. Every exercise wasaccompanied by Alexandra for video training. A group of FAWO detailed and extensive critical discussion, thereby members interested in community video educa- permitting the introduction of such issues as (in tion and production came together to steer the the three-shot exercise) how shots work project. A small grant enabled FAWO to employ alongside ench other and the development of a me on a part-time basis as piojectco-ordinator/ story. The next exercise was theaccomplishment researcher in 1989 and to purchase a video of a nine-shot sequence - again accompanied by cassette recorder and monitor for screenings. discussion and critique including the viewing of Equipment requirements were kept to a mini- nine-shot sequences taken from films already mum and when required weborrowed from made. FAWO members. With the general lack of The final stage in this production skills resources in mind and to keep expectations at a component was an exercise that was meant to be realistic level we began with a number of film brief but that had so much potential for learning screenings and discussions at the Alexandra Arts that it stretched to about 8 weeks in all. We Centre on Sunday afternoons. Initially a large sensed that it would be valuable for the group to number arrived for the screenings and after some generate some new footage for an editing weeks the group of committed participants workshop and decided to choose a short story for regularised to around 12-15 participants. At the group to script. We suggested The Suitcase by about the same time we started production skills Es'kia Mphahlele which the group divided into training and from then onwards we combined three sections. The participants then divided and integrated screenings and discussions with themselves into three subgroups, each subgroup

270 Akio *am SauthAfrica 2 1; scripting and shooting its own section of the development of the course at Alexandra the story. Simeting was on location in Alexandra steering group recognised the potential value of which gave the group new and bigger learning establishing a full-time programme for the opportunities than the training workshops. development of community-based video produc- By this stage we had held a number of tion units. The work I have described formed the saiptwriting workshops and worked very closelybasis of attempts to obtain funding for this with each group in scripting its section. This was programme to enable it to begin in 1991. done on a call-in basis- in other words the The community video approach that I have trainers gave input and did some exercises on described here in some detail is based on the scripting and storyboarding but once the groups premise that people need to be able to represent were at work on the scripting they were free to themselves and their communities in the media. call in a trainer for assistance, but undertook the The mass media in this country have by and large work mainly on their own. misrepresented the concerns of the oppressed or The result of this process is the short video not repzesented them at all. The different called The Suitcase. It was edited finally in one of approaches to community video that I have the progressive video organisations in identified have a common intent- to describe a Johannesburg with the assistance of a skilled community's experiences from its own perspec- editor. Although this part of the project was not a tive, whether that be an ideological perspective hands-on experience for the participants, they adopted by skilled video-makers or a perspective were fully involved in the decision-making that is represented by the control of a community process. over the processes of production. The community Since these beginnings, this group has made video project at Alexandra aimed to empower two documentaries which were entered in the people to image themselves and their community 1990 FAWO short film competition at the Weekly - in short to develop their own image-culture. The Mail Film Festival. One of the documentaries developments I have described are the first steps Sundays in Alex won first place in the documen- taken in this direction. tary section. There are however many issues to be consid- A second group was established in August 1989ered and worked on. One of the n..,it crucial with the production skills training following a issues relates to the question of accountability- similar format to that of the first group. This how to ensure maximum ongoing contact with group completed a short video based on a script and accountability to the community represented. written by two group members. Called The This in turn refers to questions of definition- for Candidate, it deals with the demise of a self- example the viability of referring to the geo- appointed 'mayor' and was also entered in the graphical entity of Alexandra as a community has short film competition. to be considered. To a degree the question of One of the major outcomes of this work is the accountability can be assisted by working within move to establish a full-time community video democratic structures and organisations that education programme in 1991. Early in the already exist with constant efforts to remain in

PART V Training mIENaming 271 2 6 6 contact with people at the street level. This raises project that I have described is one example of questions about video distribution - another area this new practice. that FAWO and other progressive bodies such as the Film Resource Unit in Johannesbu% are References working on to develop distribution networks thatChanan, M. (ed.), TwentyFive Years of the Nem LatinAmerica Cinema, British Film Instituteand Channel Four Television, will reach people on the street. London 2983. Criticos, C. 'Narrowcastingand Emancipation: The develop Community Moo and Third ment of a participative practiceof media training and Cinema production', paper deliveredat Talking About Moving PON, Conference, University Having raised some issues and questions that of Cape Town, (mimeo),1988. need to be considered in the development of Fish, L. Interview withthe writer, September, 1988. Gabriel, T. Third Cinema in community video I will return to the link Me Third World: The Aesthetksof between the developments in this particular Liberation, UMI ResearchPress, Michigann 1982. community video education project and the Meintjies, F. 'Video NewsServices and the Mass Media', Staffrider, Special Issue concerns of Third Cinema. Clearly what I have on Worker Culture, 8 (3ld) 1989. Willemen, P. The Third described is of enormous significance in forging Cinema Question: Notes and Reflections', Questionsof Thkd Cinema, Pines,J. and Willem new film culture in this country, albeit atthe P. (eds.), British Film Institute,London 1989. !Wall level at this stage. This project is engaged in assisting the establishment of a cinema in South Africa that is in the hands of the people who have been denied access to the cinema, and particularly to cinema education and the means of production. At a most fundamental level this project is beginning to close the gaps that apartheid created and maintained. It is not only seeking to develop pedagogical methods that are open, learner-centred and experiential, but in addition, the videos produced are located within the lives and experiences of the communities they seek to represent. In conclusion I propose that we are developing further bases for the definition of Third Cinema in the South African context. A new cinematic practice that educates for community production using democratic educational principles and empowering communities or community representatives to represent themselves on video is being forged. The community video education

272 Maio Nom in South grim 267 Part VI

Media to developMedia Awarenesn

Media to develop Media Awarenessoffers two descriptive chaptersthat outline projects that have attemptednot to talk about mediaawareness, but have built a critical dimension into their texts. As alternativeforms of media, they stand in a different relationshipto power to mainstream products. Bothare directed at audiences who are infrequently reflectedin the media in an empowering way, The Storyteller Group use the popular culturalform of comics asa basic literacy tool. They provoke debateand with their particular SouthAfrican contexts strive to be accessible and authenticfor their audiences.

Solomons' A Songololo Experienceoutlines the Mo lo Songololoproject, a children's publication, with itsparticular approach, content and form.This media form could be consideredappropriate on two particular levels: it isnot exploitative of children, and itimportantly nurtures creativecommunicators by encouraging children'spersonal expressions andcontributions. Esterhuysen and Solomons writefrom their experiential position,one that attempts to use much of theawareness of media that we have been exploring. Their attemptsare different to any describedas yet, for they attempt to build the mechanisms of thisawareness into their products, products which donot ask for unreflectiveconsumption, but that ask for criticalyet pleasurable readings,

26S PART Vi Mocha to devek9 media Awareness 273 %wt. PlirwonyarAlltarpl Sharp/ Popular VisualIliergiuro and aNew Pedagogy

Peter Esterhuysen

Nigerian Onitsha Marketplace, popular litera- The International Year ofLiteracy has highlighted associated with lucid in South Africa. ture has always been the plight of illiterate people hand-in-hand with However, as we move towards a newSouth reading and has often gone recognition that the the development of massliteracy. This insight Africa, there is increasing philosophy of primary need in this country maybe for 'post forms the basis of the publishing the Storyteller Group, a newpublishing venture literacy work. which is attempting to meetthe needs of millions Because of widespread low qualityeducation and a who up until now people and adults of second language readers, high drop out rate, many young the mainstream do have the very basics of literacy.They do not need have been largely ignored by more primers Whatthey need is relevant reading publishing industry. We believethat dynamic and educational programmes tofollow on from the popular visual literature (particularlythe comic basics, taking them deeperintoliivracy, and inevita- scale can play a widercommuniation (French genre) produced on a mass bly, into a language of of reading and 1990, pp. 4). powerful role in the promotion the consolidation of literacyskills in South there are three different At a post literacy level, Africa. needs, to consider: target audienceF, vrith varying Statistics suggest that the comicbook is one of who need adult workers in urban areas the most popular forms ofliterature in the so- educational upgrading, called Third World. In Mexico,for instance, half a had little, if any, adults in rural areas who have billion comic bock.: are printed every year. formal education, and According to Gemini News Service,each comic is children who have been young adults and read by approximately sevenpeople, which of the formal handicapped by the virtual collapse means that one thirdof the population reads a last ten years. black schooling system in the comic each week. In contrast,only 2-4% of is a wide What is most needed in all these areas Mexicans read more conventionalmedia (Ross and appropriate texts to range of stimulating 1988). Similar reading patternsprevail in other thus consolidate motivate learners to read and countries in Latin American, Asia(China alone their language skills. accounts for 130 million comicbooks) and in parts of FrancophoneAfrica (Esterhuysen & Napper 1990). Popular Visual Literature and From the chapbooks and pennydreadfuls of 19th By all accounts, the visual presentation format of the comic medium has proven tobe century Britain to thepamphlet stor'es of the

274 mak moan a4 Afrko crucial, both in attracting the newly literate and inthat comics can indeed speakto popular audi- enhancing understanding.Research in other ences in South Africa, while offeringsecond countries suggests that themarriage of images language teachers atmany levels within the and words can make theessence of a story educational systema powerful teachingresource. understandable witha relative ease not shared by the more conventional formsof literary expres- '99 Show StraW sion (Napper and Esterhuysen1989) One of the largestconstraints facing Foblishers of All this wouldseem to imply that the comic popular literature is distribution.Distribution medium could playa powerful role in promoting networks are controlled bymonopolies and reading in South Africa.However, the communi- mainly cater for whiteaudiences. Thus when cative power of the mediumis limited by the fact clothing chain, Sales House,announced that it that, unlike the countriesquoted, we do not have was launching a glossy magazinefor free an indigenous comic industry andcomics in distribution to its 750 000account holders, we South Africa havenever achieved popular status. approached them with theconcept of a youth Before comics can become truly effectivecommu- comic which would be broadly nicators, the medium itself educational as will have to be well as entertaining, and popularised. which would be serialised in the magazine.Sales Howe approved Josh Brown has writtenthat the desperate need the idea and so '99 SharpStreet' was born. for popular communicationin South Africa Through the adventures oftwin brothers, Lebo requins a reconsideration ofthe power of comic and Veli Moeketsi andtheir close friend, Tandi book conventions topresent information. But, then, Cele, the comic exploi it is necessary to experiment es the experiences of young with1 and excercise people growing those techniques to their fullestto evaluate how well up in urban South Africa today- they work or don't work(Brown 1 , plO). in a dynamic and accessibleway. Blendng colourful and detailed artwork,'hip' languagr Such experimentationand evaluation will and humorous situations,'99 Sharp Street' sets prove crucial, and exciting, butcan only truly out to attract the ever-growingaudience of young take place, we believe,once we have achieveda adults whose limited readingproficiency prevent 'critical mass'. The occasionalappearance of a them from enjoyingso much of the literature comic book, whatever its merits, is insufficient to published in thiscountry. establish a reading habit. A wide range of The comic is set in Hillbrow appropriate titles, published and focuses with regular mainly on the schooling frequency, is needed to experiences of our cater for varieties of different protagonists. The interest and different levels of twins have left the proficiency. township andcome to stay in their mother's flat Moreover, titles must be publishedon a scale in Hillbrow in orderto complete their studies. commensurate with a popularreadership They attend a 'backstreet'college in numbering millions rather thanthousands. Johannesburg called StrideUniversal College, Initial responses to '99Sharp Street,'one of our run by Sydney Mabaso, an eccentricheadmaster first comic projects, providessome confirmation who believes that travelis the only educator. The

2 7( PART VI /Oak b develop MediaAwarenen 275 foster a strong sense ofplace in order to counter lingering streaks ofcultural chauvinism which dictate especially whenit comes to children's reading - that good storiesalways take place elsewhere, in Britain orAmerica and that South Africa is somehow'unstoried' or inferior story material. For the same reason weset out to create of a top quality,full-colour comic which, in terms artwork and story, wouldmatch any comic in Europe. After commissioning anumber of artists to produce roughs weeventually selected Carlos Carvalho, an artist who hasbeen deeply influenced by the 'dear line'style of Herge, the Belgium creator of Tmtin.The stylised 'natural- ism' of Carlos's artworkallows us to explore a landcape in some detail absent-mindedness of the human and geographical eccentricity and frames. Because our the chaos and confusionwithout cluttering the comic headmaster contribute to readers with different of flw day to day comics are aimed at which is an invariable part not have encoun- (and an essential sourceof cultural backgrounds who may running of the school, try to make the However, despite the tered many comics before, we humour in the comic). attractive as possible. lack of facilities and artwork as accessible and strange teachers, the the two boys catch a train textbooks, the students do get tolearn, unlike In the first episode from Soweto to Johannesburgand walk through their friends attendingDM' schools in Soweto. Joubert Park to reach their newhome in Thandi, by way of contrast,wins a scholarship Hillbrow. In order to enhancerecognition of the to attend a conventin the northern suburbs.By backdrop and ensureauthenticity we undertook juxtaposing our characters'experiences in the same journey ourselves,taking many different kinds of schools wehope to encourage photographs for reference. ask critical questionsabout the our readers to workshopped with that would be most The story itself was kind of education system Group and a young Africa. members of the Storyteller appropriate to a future South Nhlanhla Sicelo, who was the go-ahead from Sales black playright called Once we had received useful source of the colloquial House, we set about creating apilot episode a particularly language spoken by the youngboys, especially which would serve to introduce ourmain Veli. In subsequent episodesof '99 Sharp Street' characters and some of theirdynamics, as well as we havefollowed the precedent set inthe pilot embody many of ourideas about popular episode of using StandardEnglish in the text literature. In conceiving thecomic great emphasis blocks, while the characters'speech reflects the was placed onthe local setting. Wewanted to

276 Modao *nen in South Aka cadences of English as it is spoken everyday in the townships. The use of expressions suchas 'Heyta Ngwenya!' and its automatic rejoinder 'Sharp! Sharp!' validates- as only written language can - people's everyday experiences of English as a familiar language of communication, rather than a foreign language belonging to the classroom and far removed from their immediate lives. Besides making tire comic more authentic and accessible, such expressions are doubtlessa powerful way of attracting reluctant readers alienated by more formal written discourses.

Readers responses Serialising '99 Sharp Street' in a publication like CLUB has afforded us a unique opportunity to establish an ongoing (hopefully interactive) consolidating English skills and as an accessible relationship with a popular audience unprec- medium for exploring contemporary issues. edented in South African publishing history. To The pictures they are interesting, even matric level I date we have received hundreds of letters in gain a lot of English and it gives me a picture of response to the introductory episode. The letters something that is happening nowadays. written by teenagers (especially Std 9 and 10 students), parents and teachers confirm that: '99 The characters are perceived as being authentic. Sharp Street' has undeniably strucka popular Many readers evince strong identification with chord. the characters in the story. The response to the use of coloquial language, I am 19 years old. To me it seems as if I was Manch the minute detail in the pictures, and the humour Cele. The pictures make me feel like her. in the story, has been overwhelmingly positive. Most importantly, the comic has established itselfas a ! am a school boy and I like to read the story just like that. Even the way you put your pictures and the powerful medium to encourage reading. tsotsi taal that will be used, I am so very glad if this Time and time again, readers have written in story will continue. saying this is the first short story they have ever read and that they have re-read the storymany There is no antagonism to the medium.In fact, times. Every letter ends with a request for more. without exception our readers refer to the comic as a 'short story'. Further research Moreover, its educational potential has been As the story unfolds (we have recently completed widely perceived, both as a dynamicresource for episode 4) the Storyteller Group hopes to

272 PAM Mack b ciseiop Maio Awcieness 277 coordinate ongoing research into the use of approach, we have recently completed the comics in more formal teaching situztkins and artwork of our very first 32 page popular reading contribute to studies in the field of visual literacy. magazine which contains a 22 page stand-alone Thousands of copies of the pilot episode have '99 Sharp Street adventure. The story which was been distributed to educational groups, schools, workshopped with students at Barnato Park libraries and resource centres, in rural and urban reflects many issues pertinent to the lives of areas. Initial feedback (from adultliteracy young people growing up in anurban teachers, high school teachers and remedial environment today. In addition, we explore three English teachers) has been overwhelmingly broadly educational themes which have been posifive. very carefully written intothe plot to facilitate At one high school the comic was used in a free further research: composition excercise by Standard Seven students - many of whom have English as a The ?vie that books can play in our lives once a wiling second language - with exciting results. In some habit is entrenched. instances, students who usually battle to string Characters in the '99 Sharp Street' story talk together a few lines of coherent written English about books and use books to gain ideas and produced highly creative and complex comics information; books are shown to be a source of and dialogues using the '99 Sharp Street' charac- pleasure; and a way of forOng friendships. ters. The comic has also worked well at different The importance of taking care of our environment. levels in adult literacy classes once the learners In the comic, the protagonists and their have become familiar with the left to right classmates go on a field trip to the UmNandi sequentiality, the speech bubbles and other comic Valley River - a fictional re-creation of the conventions. Many learners, after reading the Umgeni River area - only to discover that the introductory text blocks with the guidance of river is severely polluted. The story ends withthe their teacher, discover that they are able to read schoolchildren joining forces with children in a the short colloquial sentences in the speech nearby village to clean up the river. The episodes bubbles without assistance - a real confidence in Natal have been based on the actual booster. Moreover the narrative and the colourful experiences of teachers working in farm schools details offer a rich context for discussion about a in the area and reflect current thinking in whole host of important issues, including environmental education. In addition, the story education, growing up, urban experiences, the contains useful practical information on river Group Areas Act and many more. pollution and has been designed to form a dynamic supplement to Primary i...;chool biology One million copies and geography lessons. In Europe many comics are serialised in popular magazines before taking on a life of their own in The urgent need for the regeneration of grassroot stand-alone comic books. In keeping with this structures,

rr**, 4 ) 270 me& mewsin501.01 M11CO After the children have form4 :in Action Group and cleaned up the river, they discover that there is also chemical pollution, emanating from a local factory. The adults decide to form their own Action Group to lobby the factory owner. In the end we learn that they have been successful and that this has inspired them to undertake further projects for the benefit of the community such as building a community library. At the moment we are attempting to raise funds to publish a mon copies for free distribution in support of the International Year of Literacy. Alternative distribution channels will be used to distribute 800,000 copies of the comic. The remaining 200,000 will be made freely available to educational groups throughout the country and will form part of a massive research project into the role which popular literature can play in meeting the diverse needs of second language readers and learners in South Africa. It is hoped that the results of the research may catalyse an indigenous popular publishing industry as well as contribute to the development of dynamic and appropriate curricula in a future formal schooling system. I

References French, E. Creating easy reading far adults, thechallenge at the heart of literacy. Unpublishedpaper, 1990. Ross, J. Hot-selling 'minis' vanquish thehome-gromn super- heroes, Gemini News Service, 1988. Esterhuysen, F. & Napper, N. 1,000,000 ComicBooks : A proposal for effective intervention, The StorytellerGroup, Johannesburg 1990. Napper, N. & Esterhuysen, F. Popular VisualLiterature, The Storyteller Group, Johannesburg 1989. Brown, J. Every picture tellsa story, don't it? Unpublished paper, 1938.

274 MEDIA EDUCATION POR CHILDREN A Senile hole Experience

Patric So lomans

The gross imbalance and lack of effective high rates of unemployment. Everyday we see communication resources for children is a fact and hear how badly children are treated and that should give us sleepless nights. What abused. Children have very little protection children see, hear and read during the most against the deteriorating community and family formative years of their lives has great conse- life. It becomes inaeasingly difficult for children quences for their future and the future of the to escape the destabilising effects of apartheid society in which they live. The responsibility of policies that determines to what extent they grow those who provide and control media for up and participate in society. Children are not children is therefore enormous and of cicern to given the opportunity to express themselves and us all. The misuse and exploitation of children by no importance or value is attributed to their the media can easily be demonstrated through ideas, feelings and experiences about those the child-tailored consumer industry creating things that affect them directly or indirectly in 'needs' for food, clothes ard toys through their daily lives. put lications, radio and television. The develop- It is in this context, where the stultifying effects ment of an alternative, non-exploitative media forof apartheid education robs children of the children in South African is not wily a necessity, opportunity to develop to their fullest, where the but a pnority. majority of children in South Africa suffer from a Moio Songololo, a community r ...,ject based in lack of suitable reading material, that Molo Cape Town, is attempting to address the situationSongololo operates. As a children's magazine- ated l.y nahstream media, esr6ally televi- based project Molo contributes in a small way, to sion. It rejects the idyllic rept .sentations of the development of an alternative media for childhoo/. ti.e cute child-en of cop nercials) and children in contrast to the exploitative main- attempts to produce a con.ext which children can stream media. In addition to the development of rec.% %rile and identify with. this alternative media form, the magazine Tn motrast to these repres..-nwtions, the develops a critical awareness and understanding ma;ority of children in South Africa actually of the media. Beyond this cridcal understanding, grow up under-fed, in poor health, ill-clothed, Molo encourages the active aspect of media poorly housed, under-educated and many are education that Bob Ferguson advanced to in his homeless on the streets. Children grow up in opening address of this conference in which he communities of endemic violence, crime and advocated the need for action beyond the gangsterism, poverty, bad living conditions and knowledge aspect of media education. Molo encourages the development of active communi- attracted =mous responses, which included cators who respond to the context about them, the following: which is essential for any democraticsociety. A description of Mob Song° lo will elaborateon The biggest problem is the shacksare leaking when it is raining and very hot when it is not these initiatiies to develop activecommunicators. Mob Songoblo, Xhosa for 'Hello Centipede'is a The biggest problem is mice and cracks and merds project for children between theages 6-13 years. and guns and disease and snakes and sinking sand. The fret of the songololo symbolisethe thousands The group areas, where people putyour where they of children from all backgrounds whowork want to, a letter comes and say you mustmove. These hurt the people. My idea is that peoplemust together to cross racial and class barriersthat exist. fight back. The project first started in 1979 with thechildren of Crossroads, a squatterarea near Cape Town. Please Molo, give me address of children who livein Children were asked to write and drawabout leaking shacks. I will ask my daddy to make thema house like ours that do not leak their personal histories and experiencesin the township. The wealth of material collectedclearly Mob's understattding of their audiencehas expressed children's ideas, feelings andexperi- proved appropriate, as children respond ences in the squatter community. Soon the idea to favourably to the magazine, regularlysending in start a magazine for children took root. stories, drawings and poems. Many letters and In 1980, when Mob Songololo first 'zrawled' phone calls are received from childrensomefimes into schools, libraries, children'sgroups and just to say 'Hello Mob'. The material that Sunday schools in and around Cape Town,.ve children contribute constitutesan important part said to the children, 'Everyone has ideas,feelings of the magazine. By valuing whatchildren are and thoughts. You get ideas from books, people saying and by communicating their ideasfeelings and everywhere. Your ideas are just as important and experiences, children recognisethemselves as those in books. We would like you to writeto dS valuable contr.ibutors to the magazine that Mob and tell us aboutyour feelings thoughts andaims to: experiences. If you send your stories to Mob, then give children the opportunity toexpress other children would be able to shareyour ideas themselves, and listen to you.' Through the magazinechildren give children the opportunity to learn and are given the opportunity to share their ideas, understand issues that affect their daily lives feelings and experiences and gain insightinto eachdirectly or indirectly, others lives. This also serves to dispel the idea make relevant reading material availaNeto about media being the domain of professionals children, only. It also contradicts the usualnotions of about promote community involvement amongst what is newsworthy, in theseways beginning the children, task of demystifying the media. advocate good alternative values, suchas non- At one point childrenwere asked to write aboutracism, non-sexism and non-competitiveness 'the biggest problem in South Africa.' This amongst children, and

2 76 PART 11 Maio to devdop Mock Awn= 281 denied hundreds of children access tothe create awareness aroundchildren and their rights. magazine. amongst To date, 33 000 copies of the magazineget The popularity of the magazine efforts by the staff of printed onee every six weeks. It getsdistributed children and the continuous magazine mainly in the Western Cape throughschools and Molo Songololo to promote the principals overcame these children's groups. The magazine,whieh is seen asamongst teachers and difficulties. At the moment the projecthas a forum for discussion, responseand communica. Many teacims tion between children, provideschildren with a contracts with over 80 schools. the magazine and use varied content. Besides the letters, storiesand encourage children to get Children do the drawings that children contribute, themagazine it as a resource in the classroom. their school- also features educational material,vocabulary projects in the magazine as part of these to Molo building, language development,things to do, work and often classes submit children and community news, book reviews, games,puzzles, Songololo for publication. Both the educa- and stories on health, safety,history, plants, teachers look forward to receiving This gets pasted animals, people and events. Thedevelopment of tional pull-out in the magazine. staffrooms and children's a children'seditorial group helps to monitor the up in classrooms, appropriateness of the magazine instyle and bedrooms. Besides the production of the magazine,Molo content. The editorial group isdrawn from children's schools in different areas, reflectingthe diversity Songololo also runs and facilitates The of the readership, in order to maintainthe workshops and teachers' workshops. the project relevance of the magazine. children's workshor programme give involve children In the early days Molo Songololofaced several the opportunity to consult and magazine. teething problems. These included nothaving directly in the production of the with funds for office space and printing cost, aswell asChildren are able to interact and share others. Various issues get raised withchildren to a lack of support onthe part of teachers and This is done through principals who were afraid to touchthe maga- get their ideas and reelings. creative writing, pup- zine. 'It is too political for CAdren' waioften the art, drama, storytelling, Over the school response. Many fearedgetting into trouble with petry, dance and movement. received for their Education Departments. TheDepartment of holidays numerous requests are Education and Culture went so far as to instruct Molo Songololo to run and facilitatechildren's schools principals not to allow the magazine onschool workshops. The project also enan. ages mural premises. The State of Emergency andthe and community groups to run extra extensive media restricfions that wereintroduced activities for children. faciliate severely hampered the work of theproject. In The teachers' workshop programmes teaching aids 1985 the Publications Board banned anissue for the sharing of ideas on alternative materials. The distribution. Fortunately, the magazine was and on the creation of resource materials by already out when we received the notice.These creation of personal resource of Media factors influenced the print-orderdrastically and teachers is in itself one of the outcomes

282 , Maio *sem in Scoth Africa ol Education philosophy. Tlw teachers' workshops also attempt to develop methodology and to stimulate both teachers and principals to take greater responsibility in the development of children. The project has already hosted two successful Primary School Teachers Conferences in the region and is seen as a facilitator around the development of Primary Education. Molo Songo We is directly linked to the needs of children in various communities. As a production, its direction is largely determined by the happenings in communities and the responses of children. The project is also an advocate for children's rights and tries to involve as many people as possible in its work, especially children. Molo Songololo is a magazine based project for children, by children, and about children. We presently face the major task of undoing apartheid education in South Africa and building a new progressive education. One of Molds primary functions is to promote literacy,a task that should be everyone's responsibility. It does this literacy work in a way that also develops an awareness of media and develops creative and active communicators. Molo Songololo recogniar its limitations and hopes to strengthen its efforts for promoting children's voices to be heard. III

27S This part of the publication deals with and develops reflections and assessments of the field of Media Education. These relate to the ideas presented in the conference specifically as ina theoretical paper by Urbasch, not presented at the conference, but written as a response to it. He confronts the problematic position of educators in their attempts to develop liberating and empowering pedagogic practices that demystify ideology. Urbasch is concerned with that very ideology which must also inhabit the notions and practices of the educators. Perhaps such issues can be confronted in future Media Education forums. Finally, the appendices present three sets of ideas and declarationson Media Education. First, we have reproduced the historical UNESCO Declaration on Media Education of 1982 (in Appendix One). This is followed by the recent Recvmmendations ft= the Toulouse colloquyon 'New Directions in Media Education' which took place in Toulouse, France from 2 to 6 July 1990 (in Appendix Two). The latter addresses particular problems in the field of media education, problems and considerations thatvery largely mirror those we encountered during the conference- Finally, the delegates of the conference expressed various ideas and concerns at the final plenary session of the conference. These are consolidated into Appendix Three, entitled Resolutiow and Conclusions of

279 PART VP Aftehavits 285 the First National Media Education Conference. &Me Reflectionson Hegemony end the Hegemony of Teaching

Michael Urbasch

In the introductory remario to theDeveloping modes by which human beingsare made into Media Education Conference (containedin the subjects. In this light, the connection between programme) the organizers state the following: knowledge and power becomes mootto any As a relatively recent field of study, Media F Jima- exploration of academic discourse and practice. tion is in the position to make a positive contaution For Foucault the production of Knowledge to progressive education within South Africa. implies more than the disinterested pursuit of This paper does not attempt to refutethis hope,truth. rather its intention is to facilitate progressive In Discipline and Punish Foucault (1977)bears media based teaching by way of a critique, which testimony to the historical development of what aims to draw attention toa number of conceptual he calls a 'new economy'ofpower. This power issues, which I believe to be in need ofurgent grew out of the demise of Feudalism and the clarification. The issues to which I referrepresent development of the new national states in thelate a number of tendencies which seemed to be Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. The change symptomatic of not only the Media Education from Feudalism to more modern forms of conference, but also of much contemporary government necessitated a change in theway progressive (counter hegemonic) intellectual that power relations are organized. Under theory and practice. This might be vaguely Feudalism there existeda complex series of articulated as the =willingness of academicsto obligations between subject and sovereign.This openly engage in the contradictionsimplicit in normally meant that the sovereignwas in intellectual practice. (When Iuse the term possession of powers sanctioned by right while Intellectual I am self conscious of the multifarious the subjects had the legal obligationto obey. uses to which the term can be put. Intellectual as Power was exercised ina naked and brutal wish to use it refers to those who fall under the manner, the emphasis being on public displays of broad term of humanist intellectual; not humanistforce which acted to make palpable the in the sense of liberal or philosophic humanist, sovereign's power and will. However, the but humanist in the sense that they actively problem was that while such displays of force produce and teach methodologies of creative were salutary they were also wasteful. The understandings within specific sites normally contradiction being, that while they did often thought of as educational.) act to cower the population, they also provided The polemical e of v ...at I have to offer is arenas for public display of discontent and rooted in Foucault's exploration of the different resistance.

281 PART VD Aftesillough% 287 token, the renun- its feudal to makes mad and that, by the same The .levelopment id the state from ciation of power is one of theconditions of knowl- modern form, necessitated thedevelopment of edge. We should admit rather that powerproduces less violent, forms of knowledge...... that power and knowledgedirectly new, and ostensibly relation what Foucault imply one another that there is no power government. There thus developed without the correlative constitution of afield of calls 'an art of government (Foucault,1979) knowledge, nor any knowledge thatdoes not pre- based on a new conception of power; onethat suppose and constitute atthe same time power relations. (Foucault 1977, pp. 27-213) was not predicated onfeudal notions of riFht. Under this form power operatesthrough the However, before we can sayanything more pacification of the subject, through consent.This about the above, it will be necessary to saya few power Foucault designatesbio-power or disd- things about the state of contemporaryintellec- plinary power. tual and theoretical practice,and to investigate The emergence of the new humansciences, how this might relate to MediaEducation. and the new turns such as Sociology, Psychology, The 1960s and 1970s saw thedevelopment of a enabling condi- evident in Philosophy, were the number of (radical) theoreticalapproaches which tions that laid the basis for these newmodalities challenged the hegemony of thetraditional of power. For the first fir we seethe emergence methodologies. These contemporaryapproaches of 'Man' (read here the individual) as aquantifi- collapsed traditional notions of theaesthetic, the knowledge, Foucault able subject. As an object of literary, the artistic, the cultural.The traditional argues that thesedisciplines were t. ,ridence not so boundaries which up till then hadseparated much of a disinterested field of intellectual economics, politics and aesthetics wererent of innova- endeavour, but were rather evidence asunder. Traditional empiricistmethodologies, tive modes of social control.These disciplines along with their attendant practices andideolo- the aim of develop methodologies and practices, gies, were rightly criticized as beingintimately which is the creation of docile subjeztivities involved in the reproduction of socialand to through a process, which simultaneously acts economic structures, which werethe basis for totalizing individuate and bind the subject in a social repression. Academicsembarked upon a of vision. The significance fo :. us derives out rewriting of cultural history whichwould expose of Foucault's insistence that these modalities (amongst others) the gender andclass based institutionalized sites using power take place at nature of traditional socialhierarchies. experts as their method of propagation. The great and revisionary outpouringswhich Hospital, Foucault's models are the Asylum, the flowed from the pens of Marxist,feminist, the Factory, the School and the University. psychoanalytic and deconstructionist scholars transfer, Foucault comes bearing bad news: the were no longer informedby a naive search for (read production and reproduction of knowledge knowledge, but had intentions which were is here the mediation and production of meaning) revolutionary or emancipatory as theirbasis. always intimately involved in theproduction of However, this is not to suggest thattheir task was power relations: in any way unified. Marxist,feininist and Perhaps we should abandon the beliefthat power deconstnictionist scholars had projectswhich tion within feminist and culturaltheorizing. For were often unrelated, if not in direct opposition. the first time feminists devdoped theoriimg For instance Marxists allied their practice to the which seemed adequate to the task ofexplaining emancipation and smiggles of the working class the connection between representation and To do this the Marxist adopted a materialist gender formation. Feminists addressed such position, a position Opt took the real conditions subjects through a diverse understandingof the of men and womenas the basis for their critical relationship (amongst others) betweenideology, engagement The 'real' in this case was relatively subject formation (interpolation), desire,power, unproblematic, at least until the structuralist re- patriarchy and oppression. Inherentin this was a reading of Marx, initiated by Althusser. The concern with the differing modalities ofrepresen- Althasserian revolution led the way to a Marxist tation. Cultural scholars developedmethodolo- concern with ideology as the 'imaginary. This gies to explain the modes by whichcultural preoccupation opened the way to the emergence meanings and representationswere mediated of all kinds of conceptual horrors, Meaning was and struggled over, studying theways in which placed firmly back on the Marxistagenda, and values and groups are either affirmedor Marxists had once again to takepart in philoso- marginalized. phy rather than geton with the historical task of Media educators, like other progressive social transformation. educators and academics, becomeaware of the The problems posed by a structuralist Marxism distinction that Kenneth Burke and laterFrank were greatly vexed by the rise of postmodern and Lenhicchia (1983) were to drawour attention to. poststructuralist theorizing. The 'precocious Namely the distinction betweeneducation as a dilettantism' of these scholars enjoined debates function of society, and societyas a function of which existed around textuality andlanguage. education. To be in the firstcamp is to be a Criticism consisted in reading thetext for its conservative. You believe that the task of silences and conflicts. The epistemic break education is to 'make normal', of ensuringthat wrought by poststructuralists placed questions the pedagogical subject will betrained (taken about meaning, representation and reference through the human equivalent of theprocess of onto the centre stage of critical inquiry. Forthe dressage) so that they will be happy, useful, most part deconstnictionist scholars deniedthe productive, and safe subjects, in the socialand possibility of reference. The intellectual was left political sense of the term (Lentricchia1983). To only the outward manifestation of signs rather be in the second camp is to bea radical. You than their material reality. However, if reference believe that things are fundamentallywrong and was contradictoiy, then the world was unknow- the educator's task is to put them right.The able and knowledge was impossible. Unless of desire, then, of progressive educatorsis the course knowledge was to be found in a sublime development of a counter 'hegemonicculture' recapitulation of the same self-evident(truth). through the provision of what Robinson The debates enjoined by postructuralist and Mentor (1991) (following AronowitzGiroux) call materialist intellectuals fomici positive applica- a language of possibility'. In other wealsa

283 PART YU Aft0601$ 289 social control takes as its startingpoint the empow- the way `to the language capable of pointing erment of teachers and thecvntion of their conditions necessary for newforms of culture, histories and possibilities. (Aiunowitzand Giroux alternative social practices, newmodes of 1987) communication, and a practicalvision for the Now it is not my intention todeny the above, future' (Robinson et al. 1991), aknowledge which but rather (following Foucault) toamend it As Eve would imply a practical empowerment power is at the motof all forms of behaviour in of such an Bertelsen (1991) puts it, the aim which people say yes! Power is tobe found in the development of critical education would be the comitruction of subjectivitiesappropriate to a students to ask approaches which would allow particular vision of the world. Inother words such questions as: power always makesnormal. And education is Whose frames are supplying themeaning of these intimately hwolved with this process!Looked at evenb?Whose interests are beingnatuislized in this problematic Of course themeanings/interests are this way, power becomes particular case? Whether (if they were those of the so called ruling-class orthose of the Robinson and Mentor might argue workers. inclined to take issue with such apetit bourgeois notion) that they avoidthe implications of such a Progressive educators dream thedream of an charge, because the visionwhich informs their educational process rooted in theneeds of the practice is non hierarchicaland democratic oppressed majority an educational processthat Theirs is a practice designed to servethe needs of would avoid the practices of theolder authoritar- a future SouthAfrica. However, the questionof ian (imperialist) methodologies,with a commit- who decides such needs is moot.Presumably the ment to empowerment,through the confirmation progressive educator arguesthat such questions of popular struggle and perceptions; onethat as be decided through consensus,rather than by Sutherland t1991) suggests, willallow students to imposition. This is where education canplay a become not simply consumers,but producers. role. In democratic practice, theteacher is seen as Indeed, a time peoplc5 education a facilitator,rather than demigod-expert As Peoples Education, with itsemphasis on linking Sutherland (1991) argues: educational change to poliecal changeand democ- ratizing classrooms and schxds,embodies a most Media teachers need to accept that inteaching media dynamic form of critical pedagogy,rooted as it is in they do not need to control thelearning environ- the realities of a whole society undergoingtransfor- ment as an expert, but rather enterinto it as learner, mation. (Robinson et at,1991) alongside the pupils. They become afacilitator of the learning process... What is at stake is quite simplypower! Again, Robinson and Mentor (1991) quoteAronowitz Now this, might to the aware, seemlike the and Giroux: return of an old wolf in a newlamb's skin; in suspiciously power is both a negativeand positive force...litl is at other words such a project seems the root of all forms of behaviourinwhich people say Leavisite. The Leavisite impulse wasalso initially no, struggle, resist, useoppositional discourse, and hegemonic) one. Leavis future...The notion a democratic (counter fight for a different vWon of the imagined a pedagogy in which thestudent is led of power that underscores thispositive view of by a pmcess of discussion and debateto realize a text as product. Media educationalists thus work consensus; a consensus not based on a set of pre- on the borders of textual and material practice existing set of values, but rather through the they deal both in representation and structural creation of them (Belt I ). The goal was the formation, they deal both in ideology and desire, creation of an organic national culture! Now they examine both the 'popular' and the canoni- discussions of where Leavis erredare not cal, they study both the affirmed and the appropriate here. I make the point simply to marginalized. draw a number of comiections. For it is alsothe At its best, theory disturbs thepower of the dream of the progressive intellectual tocreate a 'referent to speak all on its own' (Shaffer, 1981). culture iff consensus, which is appropriateto the We become aware of the ideological lurkingin needs of the maOrity and to the needs of the the normal. It is theory that tellsus amongst time. However, (taking into account whatwe other things, that 'culture does do work' have already discussed) the progressive educator (Lentricchia, 1991). Thus we discover, that refutes charges of elitism by arguing thata 'femininity' and 'masculinity'are not secure progres.sive project is saved by its commitment to ontological categories, but rather evasive a theoretical and material practice allied to the signifiers, which do enormous amounts of task of liberation. Our taskwe are told is not to cultural, social, economic and political work. make 'evaluative judgments about (its) cultural However, certain theoretical traditionscan also and moral quality' (Sutherland, 1991)nor adopt do damage to the emancipatory impulse of what Bob Ferguson (1991b) callsa 'transmission progressive practice. For it is also theory that tells model' of teaching, which implies 'that ifyou tell us that theory itself does not simply reflect the a student what is right they will believe it: real, the truth: that theoriesare representation Rather our task is a facilitatoryone, but not in the machines, that theories organize and modelour sense that it misunderstands itself, propagating world in ways complementary to theirown some crude empiricism, but rather as Bob structure, that theories imply representations and Ferguson (1991a) argues, througha commitment that representations disguise intentions, that the to critical theorizing. repressed in representation is nearly always (Theory)... is a practical necessity if Media Educa- power. tion is to fulfill its potentialas a subject which Now it is here that the cracks in progressive engages in open and free critical enquiry, and which practice start to appear. Eve Bertelsen, if seeks practical applications for all its findings. we remember, asks... 'whose frames of referencesdo it is thus around theorizing that much of the meanings serve?' (Bertlesen, 1991) The (unhappy) arguments for progressive practice rally. Media contention of my argument is, that theories and educators are called upon to place themselvesat their commensurate representational modalities, the interface of a number of theoreticaltraditions: often serve the needs of the intellectual class reading representations as texts, interrogatingthewhich creates them in the first place; that text for its silences, its absences, working out the theories, in effect, issue from particular sites, and relationship between the text asmessage and the are more often reflections of the perceptions and 2S5 PART YU Ahelhouitis 291 struggles of the intellectual class than the The essence of the attempt by intellectuals to relativism is popular. As Foucault (1980) argues; handle problems of contingency and implicit in what has already been said.Intellectu- 'general Each society has its regime of truth, its 'strong' notion politics' of truth: that is the types cidiscourseswhich als substitute what we might call a iteccepts and makes function as true;the mecha- of reason for a 'wake version. Bythis I mean nisms and instemees which enable one todistinguM that intellectuals attempt, eitherimplicitly or by which each true and false statement% the means explicitly, to shift the burden of knowledgefrom is sanctioned; the techniques andprocedures ac- corded value in the acquisition of tnah; the statusof the a-priori back to the theoreticalHowever, the those who are chargEd with saying what counts as theoretical is now seen as colonized bythe needs true. of practical and popular engagement.The If Foucault is right, then intellectoals are partoftheoretical is seen as a site of strugglereflecting, the vast social machinery which transmitsand and in the service of the organic needsof the regulates the production and transferenceof majority. This allows the intellectual to carry on cultural and economic capital. We (whether we as if nothing haschanged, or at least it provides a like it or not) are legitimation machines.We place continuing and ongoing justificationfor our ourselves in a particular relation toknowledge. teaching and practice. Ours is a naturally evaluative process. This model of theoretical knowledge borrows Kant, the 'Father' of the Enlightenment, wrote from the physical sciences, in that it assumesthat that: the knowledge claims of a theory aretestable and verifiable. Intellectuals can thus disclaim thatthis Enlightenment is man's release from his self-in- curred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability tomake knowledge belongs to them, that they are its use of his understandingwithout direction from authors, or that it issues from their practice. another. (1987) Theory allows intellectuals to p:acethemselves at Kant's exhortation 'sapere aude (dare toknow)a remove from anyknowledge claim. More knowl- became the motto of Enlightenment thinking. importantly, it allows the claim that the Universal reason was that which would expose edge produced is liberatory, emancipatory,good the myths and prejudices that hinder the progress(ie, applicable to all). Lyotard (1987)calls such of the human race. Progressive intellectualsfind theorizing metadiscursive. themselves in the uncomfortable position of Metadiscourses attempt to legitimize their own sta- endorsing Enlightenment thinking, while tus by providing some 'grand narrative'of under- simultaneously, exposing the mythological and standing, such as the dialectics of spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the ideological coordinates of pure universal reason. rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth. If knowledge is a kind of discourse, if theory denies the academic access to a realm ofobjectiv- These projects are all ultimately related to the ity and truth, if there is no Kantiansphere of pureuniversal good, the betterment of the human reason, how does one justifyone's knowledge race. claims? How does one protect against thecharge The seamless virtue of the metadiseursive, is do of contingency? disturbed by the realisation that intellectuals not simply learn or transmit facts. Rather, does not resolve itself in the claimthat our intellectuals learn and transmit the complicated knowing is now purged of the prejudiceof sexist, methodology and history which has shaped and racist, Westo-centric, bourgeois culture;or that determined the paradigmaticcourse of their our reason is purged of its empiricist and discipline. This introduces Foucaulfs idea of individualist roots, nor thatour knowledge is discursive formations: wherewe understand now in the senrice of the working class and that disciplines as not so much attending to stable, its roots are therefore organic anduniversal. essential objects (suchas Literature, or Madness) The act of deconstruction is always and but as a space, in which objects emerge and necessarily an act of reconstruction.When we undergo transformation. Thus, itis the discursive teach students to questionOTreject one set of rules of a discourse which establish the condi- representations, we, either implicitly,or explic- tions for the existence of an object. It is then the itly, invite them to accept another.For after all paradigmatic orientation of the disciplinewhich the progressive intellectualmust teach some- allows the intellectual to speak, which provides thing! Our teaching must imply values,must the very problematic in which objects and imply cognitive maps of how the worldworks. problems articulate themselves. The point is that thosemaps more often than not Taken seriously this view complicates the role grow out of our own practice. They donot of the intellectwl, pointing to the multifarious originate in the object itselfnor in the student. problem of positionality, both in terms of class Successful teaching is when the studentis led to and in terms of being the possessor of recondite 'see' that3particular judgment is corrector form; of knowledge knowledge and categories appropriate: when the student hasintuited of understandings which do not necessarily enough of the theoretical rulesto make the evolve out of a contemplationof the object, nor correct judgments for him/her self. Thisafter all out of the struggles of popular practice,but is the art of teaching. O rather, evolve out of the enabling conditions of References the discourse itself. Aronowitz, S. & Giroux, H-A. Education underSiege, Routledge Contemporary intellectuals exhortone another and Regan Paul, London 1987. to refrain from imposing values andtaste, from Bell, M. F.R. Learis, Routledge Regan Az Pau),1988. bludgeoning the student into submission Bertelsen, E. 'Event Into Story: Teaching TVNews', Media before Matters in South Africa Prinsloo, J & Criticos,C. (eds), the holy cows of bourgeoisculture. This project ipresent volume) 1991. seems a positive one considering the realities of Fergusim, B 'What is Media Education F,Ir?'Media Matters in South Afrka Prinsloo. ). & Criticos, C.teds) (present volume) our South African situation. However, it is alsoa 1991. vexed one. Because while theintellectual rejects Ferguson, B. 'The necessity ol theory in Nit.,1;4Education' Media MattrN in South Attica rfillsitaD, J.& Criticos, C. (yds), one kind of discourse he/she also selects others (present volume) 1991. Foucault, M. Discipline & Punish: Thr birth which just as insidiously 'determine, of the Prison, dominate, (trans. Alan Sheridan) Pantheon Books, New York and even overwhelm the subject' 1977. (Lentricchia, Foucault, M. 'On Governmentality', I and C.No fit, 1979. 1980). Further (and this is :.ecrux of the matter) Gordon, C. (ed. & trans), Michel FoucaultPower/knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977,Pantheon it is the argument of thispaper, that the problem Books! New York 198{).

287 PkRT VIIAtterthmhb 293 Of The Metaphysics OfMorals (trans. Kant, 1. The Foundation Indianapolis, Lewis Beck) BobbiMerrill Education Publishing 1987. Lentrkchia, F. Criticism andSocial Change, University of Chicago Press, 1913. Lyotard, J-F. The PostawdernCondition: A Report On Knowledge, ManchesterUniversity Press, 1987. Robinson, M. & Mentor,S.A. 'Empowering teachersthrough Africa . materials development'Media Matters in South Prinsloo, ). & Criticos, C.(eds), (present volume)1991. Shaffer, LS. (ed), ComparitiveCriticism, Cambridge University Press, 1981. Sheridan, A. Michel Foucault:the Will to Truth, Tavistock, London 1980. Realm', Sutherland, J.L. 'MediaEducation, a Progressive Media Matters in SouthAfricaPrinsloo, J. & Criticos, C. (eds), (present volume) 1991.

294 Ash Matters in South Ai CO APPENDIX I UNESCO Declarationon Media Education

This deckoutWn wiz issued unanimously by the Regrettably most infcamal and non-formal representatives of 19 mitions at UNESCO's 1982 educational systems do little to promote media International Symposium on Media Education at educafion or education for communication. Too Grunwald, Federal Republic of Germany. It is often the gap between the educational experience reproduced here since media teachers may mil find it they offer and the real world in which people live useful to quote or cite in preparing rationaks, is disturbingly wide. But if the arguments for justifications or explanatory documents relating to media education as a preparation for responsible media education. citizenship are formidable, now, in the very near future with the development of communication We live in a world where media are technology such as satellite broadcasting. two- omnipresent an increasing number of people way °able systems, television dab systems, video spend a great deal of time watching television, cassette and disc materials, they ought to be reading newspapers and magazines, playing irresistible, Oven the increasing degree of choice records and listening to the radio. In some in media consumption resulting from these countries, for example, children already spend developments. more time watching television that they do Resr onsible educators will not ignore these attending school. developments, but will work alongside their Rather than condemn or endorse the students in understanding them and making undoubted power of the media, we need to sense of such consequences as the rapid accept their significant impact and penetration development of two-way communication and the throughout the world as an establishedfact,and ensuing individualisation andaccess to also appreciate their importance as an element of information. culture in todays world. The role of This is not to underestimate the impact on communication and media in the process of cultural identity of the flow of information and development should not be underestimated,nor ideas between cultures by the mass media. the function of mediaasinstruments for the The school and the family share the citizen's active participation in society. Political responsibility of preparing the young person for and educational systems need to recognise their living in a world of powerful images, words and obligations to promote in their citizens a critical sounds. Children and adults need to be literate in understanding of the phenomena of all three of these symbolic systems, and this will communication. require some reassessment of educational

aS PART VIIAfterthoughts . 295 priorities. or envisaged by U.N.E.S.CO. andwhich aim at Such a reassessment might well result in an encouraging international cooperation in media integrated approach to the teaching of language education. and communication. Media education will be most effmtive when Grunwald, Federal Republk 01 Germany, 22 January 1982. parents, teachers, media personnel and decision- makers all acknowledge they have a role to play in developing greater critical awareness among listeners, viewers and readers. The greater integration of educational and communications systems would undoubtedly be an important step towards more effective education. We therefore call upon the competent authorities I= 1. initiate and support comprehensive media education programmes - from pre-school to university level, and in adult education - the purpose of which is to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will encourage the growth of critical awareness and, consequently, of greater competence among the users of electronic and print media. Ideally, such programs should include tht analysis of media products, the use of media as means of creative expression, and effective use of and participation in available media channels; 2. develop training courses for teachers and intermediaries both to increase their knowledge and understanding of the media and train them in appropriate teaching methods, which would take into account the already considerable but fragmented acquaintance with media already possessed by many students; 3. stimulate research and development activities for the benefit of media education, from such domains as psychology, sociology, and communication science; 4. support and strengthen the actions undertaken

296 MID marten in South Ainto 2!iti J. AMIN= II IltocommondatIonsfrom tho Soulows* Colloquy

The colloquy on 'NewDirections in Media Edum- media education tion', organised by the BritishFilm Institute (IDndon) 5. Encourage and developresearch on media and and the Centre le Laiison del'Enseignement et des on media education through thecollaboration of Moyens d'Information (Paris),fix* place in Toulouse, the partners. France, 2-6 Pay 1990, Participantswere offered the dance to join one of threecommissions, each of which Canansisslon Strategies ler avs to address particular problems in thefield of media iodination I.different media education. The recommendationsof each ceindries commission follow. In making recommendations,members emphasised the followingprinciples: that all proposals should Cesessisslen is Hewcan the pre. be set in the context of Sessional media unanimous support for theprinciples of media participate in education enunciated by the1982 Grunwald media edam:ellen? Conference; Media professionals andprofessional educators that all pmposals stemmedfrom a recognition agree on the following shared aims:we of the cultural and educationalentitlement of recommend in the context offreedom of students in everycountry to a basicmeasure of expression and the rightto communicate thatwe media education should: as defined by Grunwald. Clearly, the channels throughwhich 1. Promote the developmentof crifical awareness. recommendations should bemade will vary from 2. Initiate.projects which enable learning of the country to country. The following skill which will give general access to the communication guidelines were agreed: process and to mean of expression by creating that, whether nationallyor internationally, centres of production and training centres in recommendations should be made media education. at the highest possible level; 3. Promote the dotncratisation ofthe media that the process of through acreased recommendation should access to the means of nevertheless embody production and distribution. a dual strategy, linking the lofty height of administrationto the grassroots of 4. Ensure that otherinstitutions besides schools - teacher activity. Thus, forexample, a e.g. parents' associations, viewers' associations, recommendation appropriateto an international adult and communityeducation- collaborate in organisation like Unescoshould also be brought

291 PART vb. Afigthol# 297 and a Networking. to the attentionof teacher support groups An internationalnetwork of mediaeducators dialogue between themshould be encouraged. should be set up andwidely publidsed. Recommendations were groupedunder the Within each country,media teacher groups broad headings ofTraining, Resources,Networks should be est Ablished,along the lines of ATOM of and Evaluation. (Australia) and AMES(Scotland), for exchange ideas, mutual support,lobbying, etc. Training. Networks of mediaprofessionals, prepared to there should be At both pre-serviceand in-service levels, act in the serviceof media education, (as in France), should be training of twokinds: set up; or,where they already exist for all teachers: a basiccompetency, related at should be given everyencouragement. the secondary andtertiary levels to their specialist disciplines and atthe primary level to Evahratke. their general pedagogicskills; The aims and objectivesof media education for interested teachers:training in greater programmesshould be dearlyformulated, to depth, enabling theteathQrs to handle more enable the evaluationof the programmesby specialised courses. providers, teachers andstudents. Training should includeboth the concept and In the spirit of theConvention on the Rightsof understandings involved inmedia study and the of students shouldbe taken pedagogical skills required toteach effectively. the Child, the views fully into account atthe planning, Academic courses a*university level shouldbe implementation and de-briefingstages of media provided in those countrieswhere they do not already exist; o lernatively,funds should be education. made available to enablestudents from developing countries toattend such courses in Commission illsMoan education overseas centresof excellence. and developingsoonirlos A firm structure oforganisational responsibility 1. In developingcountries, mediaeducation for training should beestablished in each outside the formal educational system deserves country, particular attention.Educational activities of grassroots andnon-governmental organisations are alsoespecially important andthe Resources. Commission wishes to stressthose aspects of Funds should be released toenable applied media education whichenable individuals and research (i.e. projectsconducted at classroom groups tocontribute actively toendogenous level) in media studies. be developed which cultural development. Study materials should of the numerous culture(s) of the countryof 2. An international survey relate to the specific media educationundertaken should be made available creative activities in development; but these formal in developing counbiesand outside of the for exchaage with othercountries.

298 we& moss in SouthAka 2112 education system should be conducted by Unesco in association with regional communication research centres. 3. To assist formal and non-formal media education, tlw Commission recommends thata flexible training kit in media education usable also as distance learning material should be developed by leading media education centres in collaboration with Unesco. The training package should be tested in all regions with substantial elements reflecting the specific needs in each region or sub-region subsequently included. 4. In collaboration with international organisations such as Unesco, participating schools and institutions should seek to developa twinning programme allowing the exchange of media educators within and between developing and developed countries. 5. Resource centres in media educafion to service schools and universities should be created in Ore developing world, first at the regional and subsequently at the national level. The centres should include a video and audio collection and basic production equipment for both print and electronic media. 6. The exchange of training materials and research in media education should be reinforced in the context of the Internafional Association of Mass Communication Researchers (IAMCR) and COMNET (Internatimal Network of Documentation Centres on Communication Research and Policies). WPM=Ill Developing Media Education In fise1990a

National Conference on Media Education 11 - 13 September 1990

The following document was prepared hi a committee rary culture and media at a popular level aswell - appointed at the final plenary session of the first is a recent development in S African education national conference on Media Education in S Africa and the conference aimed to bring together those entitled "Developing Media Education in the 1990s." initiatives from throughout the countly which, The committee drew up this document from the while valuable, are fragnumted and isolated. The resolutions and views expressed in the final plenary organizers believe that Media Education, free session of the conference and were requested to from those traditions of other disciplines which disseminate it to ditrrse formal and non-formal may have become stagnant or inappropriate, has educational bodies. the potential to make a positive and crucial contribution to progressive education in a new S Raseleillosos & Cendushous Africa. nritt National Mediu Ildweation Delegates believed that the bulk of media, and Conformer.* in particular S African media, presently reflects race, gender and class prejudices which reinforce The Conference the authoritarian and discriminatory nature of S Two hundred and seventy educational planners, African society and education. Media education, lecturers, teachers and media workers from both on the other hand, has the potential to contribute the non-formal and formal education sectors to a democratic and equitable future for all attended this conference which took place from citizens by nurturing a critical understanding of 11 to 13 September 1990. The conference, entitled the media which would allow readers to be "Developing Media Education in the 1990s" was conscious of these preiudices and stereotypes. held at the University of Natal, Durban and was However, the role of Media Education goes organized by the Media Resource Centre of that beyond a deconstructive role to include, among university in consultation with a planning other things, the potential to enrich other subjects committee made up of members from education, and languages in particular as well as to provide labour and service organizations. an important integrative vehicle between subjects across the curriculum. The Reld of Study Media Education which aims to broaden the implementation of Motto Education study of culture from a narrow examination of The conference called for the establishment of traditional literature to considering contempo- working committees comprising educationists

300 MeM'sinSodAf,icc frmn both the formal and non-formal education confined to those media forms gtmerallyassoci- sectors to work towards the introduction of ated with high technology and sophisticated Media Education into primary, secondaryand electronic media such as film and television,but tertiary education curricula. In order thatMedia that educators shoulduse those very media Education be firmly established in SAfrica, the resources readily available to them to engender conference felt that political and educational critical discussion. This discussion shouldbe leaders needed to be alerted to theimplications linked to the reality of South Africa. and potential of Media Education and therefore The conference made it clear thatany Media provide funding for bath training and develop- Education curriculum should involve teachersin ment of programmes within non-formal and its construction. In addition, teacherorganiza- formal education and communityinitiatives. tions should immediately begin workingon Media Education should be implementedin developing relevantprogrammes to be used by three ways: firstly within languagestudies teachers in Media Education. syllabi, secondly as a subject in itsown right anti finally across the curriculum. Delegateswarned Copyright Issues against approaches to media education - already Fmally, delegates repeatedly spoke of thepresent evident in aspects of Media Education as prac- copyright laws being a stumbling blockin their tised in some departments of education in S efforts to teach media Thoserecent advances Africa- that relegate it to the position of poor made in other countries regarding thechanges of cousin of studies of language and literature. Such copyright laws where it pertainsto education, approaches result in a misplaced emphasis on need to be examined. The conferenceresolved to those areas ordinarily dealt with in literary call for an urgent review of thepresent laws as studies rather than those other elementsthat are they relate to education. O peculiar to popular media forms. At thesame time, it should also not be reducedto the acquisition of mere technical production skills. Media Education, instead, needsto make learnen3 aware of the wider contextin which media is produced: learners needto understand the meaning of themessages, ownership patterns, production processes and how theserelate to and reinforce political and social relationships in societies. In other words, the studyof media should be designed toempower learners by making them criticallyaware of media both as it relates to school subjects and mediain its broadest context. As such, Media Education shouldnot be 295 PART vu.Afh ts. 301 \of' \or \or '\;oof \,/ Nve 11.3711W---;&M"\ML:lis Ns/ \of 'N/. NI/ Ni.el \o" Ne; Nve* \re N./ \./ 'NT Neof N./ Ne/N. " " " 1:M" " " I I I P I II IP I 'IR I pp! r 7 .#4\ 4.#.\ 4/4\J.\ 40*4\ " /4\ " " " " /4\ ,e\

The essays assembled here were presented ata national conference on Media Education entitled "Developing Media Education in the 1990e, organized by the Media Resource Centre at the University of Natal in Durban. As a relatively recent field of study, Media Education is ina position to make a positive contribution to progressive education within South Africa. It has the advantages of the absence of stagnant traditions, but at the same time hasa crucial need to both assess and consolidate the diverse and valuable initiatives of teachers and educational authorities. The keynote chapter by Bob Ferguson presentsa comprehensive rationale for Media Education. Central toan understanding of the objectives is the issue that Media Education and styles of teaching/ learning are importantly linked. Media Education is outlinedas a .complex area with interlinking aspects and concepts. Of these, Ferguson stresses the issues of theory, ofpower and of pleasure. These considerations of pedagogy, theory,power and pleasure are picked up by the contributions that follow, which addressthe diverse approaches and developments. This book will hopefully promote both critical andco-operative exchange among educators in the field of Media Education.The development of this field of Media Education will inturn contribute to the development of students whoare both critical and Lactive and accordingly essential fora democratic future.

ISBN 0 86980 802 8

Amor altio ites :x. es 9 6