Pretoria – Community media serve to empower marginalised communities to define and manage their own development, says Communications Minister Faith Muthambi.
“As such, community media are driven by democratic principles which are socially oriented and not profit driven. These factors make community media different from commercial, public, or private media,” said the Minister on Thursday.
She said community media has become a necessary alternative because it is made and controlled by the people.
Minister Muthambi said vigorous citizen participation is needed from the bottom up so that it operates according to the needs and wants of the public.
She was speaking at a Community Newspaper Breakfast, hosted jointly by the State Owned Entities Communicators Association (SOECA), State Owned Entities Procurement Forum (SOEPF) as well as the Community Newspapers Initiative (CNI) in Pretoria.
The even was held under the theme: “The impact of community newspapers in deepening democracy as well as strengthening the living legacy of Dr Nelson Mandela”.
Minister Muthambi said during the apartheid era “community media emerged as the voice of the oppressed and played a significant role in informing and mobilising communities at grassroots level, against apartheid”.
However, in the current democratic era the role of community media has changed to that of being a catalyst for development.
“It is expected that today’s discussion is a continuation of the debates surrounding the role and impact of community media in the overall developmental project in South Africa as community media strive to provide an alternative to mainstream media.”
She praised the State Owned Enterprises Communicators Association and the State Owned Enterprises Procurement Forum for pledging their support for community and small commercial media.
The support of the two organisations were twofold, firstly access to information on SOEs and an increase ad spent targeting community and small commercial media to ensure long-term financial stability of the sector and secondly procurement of services that would include ad spent within the sector; skills development and further growth of the sector.
Transformation in the media
During her 2016/17 budget vote speech, Minister Muthambi made a commitment that the transformation of the mainstream print media remains at the apex of her department’s priorities.
“The time for speeches is over and we can no longer continue to pontificate on this matter without implementing the action plans.
“The work is currently underway to finalise the media transformation policy. As part of finalising this policy, we will also investigate the possibility of pulling government media assets with a view to support the creation of a black-owned media house in the country,” she said.
Representing the SOEPF, Kamogelo Mampane announced that Community Newspapers Initiative (CNI) as their official media partner. - SAnews.gov.za
