With misinformation and disinformation spreading faster and reaching wider audiences, Deputy Minister in The Presidency, Kenny Morolong, has urged government communicators to provide credible, timely information that strengthens trust between citizens and the state.
“The credibility of government communication is one of our most important assets. We must protect it. The challenge is no longer simply that false information exists. The challenge is the speed, scale and reach with which information can now be produced and distributed,” the Deputy Minister said on Friday in Pretoria.
Speaking at a Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) strategic session, Morolong challenged communicators to consider how the government communication system can continue to inform citizens as how people access, consume and share information change fundamentally.
“Artificial intelligence has added another dimension to this challenge. We therefore need a more coordinated approach across government and the broader communication environment.
“We must recognise that the communication environment has changed. Government needs the capacity to provide credible, authoritative and timely information directly into the information ecosystem,” the Deputy Minister said.
He stressed that the opportunity is not simply to produce more content, but to build the capacity to become a trusted and reliable source of government information for citizens, the media and other stakeholders.
“Our existing journalistic and editorial capabilities provide an important foundation. The question is how we integrate and strengthen these capabilities so that information can move through the system more quickly and effectively,” Morolong said.
In response to the rise of citizen journalism, the Deputy Minister said government communicators must rethink internal processes across the communication system.
“We must ask whether our systems allow us to respond at the speed required by the environment. And where they do not, we must improve them. Because in today’s environment, the absence of credible information creates space for someone else to fill the vacuum.
“The age of citizen journalism has changed the rules of engagement. Government no longer has the luxury of waiting until every element of a formal communication product has been finalised before entering a conversation.
“Sometimes the first response must be digital; it must be immediate and sometimes it must simply establish the facts and indicate that more information will follow. The principle we discussed today of a timely and scalable response is therefore important,” he said.
The Deputy Minister said GCIS, through the Content Hub, should set the agenda rather than merely respond to it.
“The Content Hub must continue to evolve as a mechanism through which government can identify the issues that matter, develop authoritative content and ensure that government messages reach citizens.
“It must help us move from a reactive communication model to one that is more anticipatory, coordinated and strategic. We should know what issues are emerging. We should understand what citizens are talking about. We should identify information gaps.
“And we should ensure that government has the right content, in the right format, on the right platform and at the right time,” Morolong said.
One communication system
The Deputy Minister emphasised that GCIS cannot fulfil its mandate while government communicators continue to work in silos.
“A whole-of-government approach cannot simply be a phrase in a strategy document. It must be reflected in how government plans, coordinates and communicates. GCIS has a central role in enabling this. Departments and entities have different mandates, but they operate within one government.
“The clusters have a particularly important role in this regard. They are not only platforms for policy coordination. They should continue to help ensure that communication around government’s priorities is coherent and mutually reinforcing.
“Our goal should be one government communication system that allows different parts of government to speak from a common strategic understanding while retaining the ability to communicate according to their specific mandates,” he said.
Morolong said that, for GCIS to fulfil its mandate, government communication must reach people in the communities where they live.
“But coordination at the national level is not enough. This is why the role of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) and community media is so important. An informed citizenry cannot be built only through national media, government websites, or social media platforms.
“Community media has a unique role in reaching communities in their own languages and in the context of issues that directly affect them. The discussions with the MDDA highlighted opportunities to strengthen community media’s capacity, including digital capability, indigenous-language content, verification, editorial quality, and audience reach,” Morolong said.
He added that the GCIS brand must stand for trust, credibility, responsiveness, professionalism, coordination and strategic leadership.
“We need a GCIS that is faster without compromising accuracy; digital without abandoning other platforms; innovative without losing credibility; coordinated without becoming bureaucratic; and strategic without losing sight of the citizen,” the Deputy Minister said. – SAnews.gov.za
