Suchergebnisse

Water scarcity is increasing in South Africa and communities need to be educated about water conservation practices. This article investigated the perceptions of Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality's residents concerning the use of social media for water conservation education in their community. Through a quantitative methodology, a sample of 383 respondents answered a questionnaire and the main findings were that 75 per cent of respondents did not know about the municipality's social media platforms. This article recommends that the municipality creates awareness about its social media platforms, increases social media usage and employs persuasive strategies for participation.

This article reports on a study using the concept of accessibility and applicability of knowledge to analyse readers' perspectives on the influence of political news in Zimbabwe. A qualitative content analysis was applied to analyse political articles from two main newspapers, The Sunday Mail and The NewsDay. Focus group discussions were conducted in Harare to collect readers' perspectives on the effect of political news and print media. The findings revealed that readers choose what to believe as true or false determined by affiliation, knowledge and experience. Readers as individuals can block political messages dissonant to pre-conceived ideas and accept that which is consonant to pre- existing beliefs depending on personal experience, knowledge and affiliation.

This paper evaluates readers' perceptions of Idikelethu newspaper as a tool for community development, particularly in Alice, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Data was collected from two focus group discussions that were held in the areas where Idikelethu newspaper has high readership rates. The findings revealed that development-related issues such as health awareness, education and community safety, among others, are regularly addressed by this community newspaper. Based on the findings and analysis of data, this study concludes that Idikelethu newspaper contributes in many ways to the development of its readers and Alice community in general. It is anticipated that the findings of this paper will play an important role in assisting Idikelethu and other community newspapers to function better as agents of community development.