Soul City: Media in South Africa

Popular TV series teaches human rights and development to South Africans

Text by Thomas Tufte

“Matlakala is home late and her family is already sitting at the dinner table having finished the meal. Thabang, her husband, yells at her and tells the children to go to their room. Then he loses his temper and starts beating her up. She breaks down, battered and unhappy. What is she to do?”

Matlakala lives in the fictive South African township Soul City. She is one of the main characters of the television series of the same name. A television series about life in Soul City. In the course of the series it raises serious issues as domestic violence, AIDS, child abuse and rape.

The Soul City TV series broadcast in 1999 was fourth in a row. The first came out in 1994. The TV series is broadcast in prime time on the country's largest TV-station, SABC, and it is the most seen programme on South African television. 75 per cent of the population with access to television turned on the TV for the last episode of Soul City. That is a record-breaker.

Apart from being shown on television, the stories about Matlakala and the other people from Soul City also appear as newspaper strips, as daily radio shows, as educational material for children and adults and much more.

Soul City is not just a television series. Soul City is the brand behind a large goal-oriented, media driven information and training initiative.

The key word of the Soul City concept is “Edutainment”. A combination of entertainment and education. The recipe contains long-term efforts, co-operation with the NGO world and with authorities, and increasingly campaigns directed at decision-makers and opinion-makers.

The strategy is based on the fact that 95 per cent of the population have access to radio, 65 per cent to television and 45 per cent have access to newspapers.

The effects of Soul City are visible and impressive. Some of the visible results are education and consciousness-raising, social mobilisation, public debate in the media and not least influence on law-making. Soul City has evolved to be a different, innovative and important part of the work centred around, among other things, AIDS, women's and children's rights or housing problems.

The beginning in Alexandra

The pioneers of the Soul City project are two young doctors. During the early 1990s, they worked together in clinics among poor groups in the cities as well as in the countryside. One of the two doctors, Garth Japhet, is presently head of the Soul City organisation, he recounts:

- In the early 1990s I worked both in the rural areas of Zulu land and in the townships of Soweto and Alexandra in Johannesburg. Here I realised that I despite my training as a doctor had no real influence on the basic problems.

Japhet and his female colleague Shareen Usdin realised the need for health training on completely basic issues such as child care, contraception and AIDS.

- Even though a lot of the problems we were met by were rooted in people's socio-political and financial situations, it was clear to us that people would be empowered to make better choices and change attitudes and behaviour if they received some training. The media could be used to inform people of the reasons for the grave health situation, Garth Japhet continues.

While writing a weekly column for one of the largest newspapers he quickly realised the need to use other media in order to reach the target groups: all the people that could not read nor write.

At this point TV entered the picture. Despite resistance from scriptwriters and directors the two doctors stood their ground and developed the idea behind Soul City I; the first 13 TV episodes with supplementing educational material. The creative people were not used to having doctors interfering in their work. In South Africa no prior experiences existed to learn from making it an insecure process for everyone involved.

The focus of the series was mothers' and children's health conditions, and it was televised in the middle of 1994. However, as Japhet says: - A lot of people, especially donors, thought we were crazy. They had never heard of anything like this before.

The series was a huge hit among the viewers. The concept behind was to supplement the television series with the mentioned newspaper columns, followed by radio series and, later on, by educational material treating the same issues. All of it was to be based on Matlakala and the other citizens of the fictive Soul City.

Soul City I has since been exported to a large number of African countries, among others, Zambia, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Today Soul City receive grants from the EU, the British DFID (Department for International Development) and UNICEF. In addition to this a number of privately owned companies also contribute financially to the Soul City project, among others, BP and Old Mutual. Series II was introduced in 1995, series III in 1997 and series IV in 1999.

Violence against women

Matlakala arrives at work the next day having put on heavy make up to cover her bruises. Her girlfriend encourages her to leave her husband, but at first she does not want to. She still loves him. A couple of episodes later she gets so badly beaten up that she has to go to the hospital and she decides that she has had enough of it.

In silence her children watch her moving out of home and over to her parents' house.

Matlakala's destiny is shared by many South African women. In 1995 the advisory service for abused women estimated that one woman in every six in the country has been assaulted by their partner on a regular basis. In May 1999 the Ministry of Justice estimated that one woman in every four is a victim of domestic violence.

The National Network on Violence Against Women was established to deal with this problem. The network covers more than 600 organisations and individuals.

During the preparatory work this particular issue and the script were thoroughly discussed within the framework of the network. In a joint effort some strategies were made on how to handle the reaction from the viewers. Among other things it was decided to open a hotline that women could phone in on.

When asked about the challenges of this kind of TV series, Soul City producer Indra de Lanerolle says: “Our goal is to deal with the issues of domestic violence, to make women realise that they have options. However, we also wish to involve the men in such a way that they do not simply reject the series and just feel abused. It must be made possible for them to identify themselves with the male main character, start looking inside themselves and maybe begin to question their personal attitudes.”

This makes working with these social issues very complicated and the work should reflect the moral dilemmas and the doubt which are typical of many situations in life.

- Communicating messages is not about words as some people claim. It is about integrating the questions in the drama and in the chain of events, and it is about how people, the viewers, identify themselves with what happens in the story, Indra continues.

On one hand Soul City wants to describe the doubt, the negative parts and the moral dilemmas of reality. On the other hand they also wish to present positive role models. This is the reason why Soul City maintains the classical, melodramatic narrative style of the story where it all usually has a happy ending.

Matlakala's husband is therefore not just an evil person – that is why she actually has no idea what to do. Gradually makes up her mind and finally turns him in, taking him to court where he is sentenced to five years' imprisonment.

Timing and political influence

Soul City IV was timed and well planned. In December 1998, South Africa's government passed the Domestic Violence Act for the protection of abused women. According to the constitution the law was to be implemented as from six months later, which would coincide with the launching of the TV series. Then the series could help put focus on the new rights of abused women and, at the same time, Matlakala's story could show some scope for action.

However, due to the South African change of government in May 1999, the implementation of the Act was postponed. All of a sudden it was unknown when the law would in fact be implemented. Despite this, Soul City's programme planners insisted on showing the series against the police's and the government's wishes.

Shereen Usdin, responsible of Soul City IV, explains that at no time did she want to desist from letting Soul City be broadcast at the planned time.

“ The government had heard of the network, which was preparing its campaign. They had read our newspaper articles, and thus, within a month after the introduction of the series they had set a date for the implementation of the law.”

This kind of political lobbyism combined with far-reaching social mobilisation was made possible by a fruitful and close co-operation between a number of relevant partners. Soul City and the Network on Violence Against Women were the central players, but alliances were also made with the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, the NGO Women's Media Watch and the Equal Status Council.

According to Sue Goldstein, Soul City evaluation co-ordinator, strategic alliances and the necessary political lobbyism are important aspects of their strategy. Aspects which will be further strengthened. About Soul City's relationship with the NGO world, Ms Goldstein says: “ Our objectives have a lot in common. We have the same long-term goals and I think we all understand that we do things in different ways. A lot can be gained by co-operation. Therefore our relationships to the NGOs have always been good.”

Soul City appears as a new way of combining media consciousness with information, consciousness-raising, training and education. To judge from the piles of letters at Soul City's office in Johannesburg it works. Many, especially women, have asked for more material. Especially the education and training files.

More information

Soul City:

Website

e-mail: soulcity@icon.org.za

Phone: +27 11-7287440

Fax: +27 11-7287442

From social marketing to EDUTAINMENT

The use of mass media and particularly television series and radio dramas to spread social messages is far from being a new idea. One of the first modern examples is “The Archers”, a series produced by the BBC radio drama and broadcasted in England in the early 1950s (it still runs!). It has communicated important information to the peasants in England, and in the mid 1950s it was listened to by two out of three adult Englishmen.

Between 1975 and 1985 Mexican Miguel Sabido produced a total of seven soap operas with built-in social messages. They were broadcasted at Mexico's largest television network Televisa. In countries such as India, Kenya, Tanzania, Brazil and Afghanistan “social marketing” is also a known concept. Also UNICEF works strategically and in many places with a combination of social messages, social mobilisation and consciousness-raising.

The John Hopkins University in Washington made itself known for having travelling consultants advising the use of “social marketing” in television and radio drama.

Despite a lot of experience with “social marketing” Soul City is, nevertheless, innovative in many respects. They make a great preparatory work in order to identify, in exact terms, needs and linguistic and cultural characteristics, and not least to support scopes of action. Apart from this they work increasingly on developing partnerships with national organisations in civil society, and they develop relations to the formal educational system. The growing awareness about using advocacy is also new.

Finally Soul City is different by being recurrent. This ensures a long-term and continuous effort based on the same idea and on the same main characters. So far the Soul City intervention has run over five years and the next three years have already been scheduled.

The Soul City people also try to share their experiences with others. A 240 pages long "Edutainment" manual has recently been completed for distribution to all UNICEF offices around the world as well as to anybody else interested.

The Soul City vehicle

Soul City is an overall title of a large media driven information and training intervention. So far it has been launched four times in 1994, 1996, 1997 and in 1999. Soul City V is scheduled to start January 2001 and Soul City VI in autumn 2002. The script for the V series is completed and the writing of the script for the VI series is progressing. The issues treated have, among others, been women's and children's rights, AIDS, the right to land, housing questions and energy matters.

Above document provided as background for The Drum Beat #57

DANIDA, the Danish International Development Agency, supports communication for development. There is currently a policy revision taking place. These articles and activities indicate pathways for future activities relatingto communication for development. Not all activities are supported by DANIDA.

Inge Estvad (journalist, est@image.dk), Finn Rasmussen (Communication Adviser, IBIS Ecuador, frasmussen@andinanet.net) and Thomas Tufte, Ph.D. (Professor, Roskilde University ttufte@ruc.dk) gathered the material that provides comprehensive insight into the policies and programmes selected.