Chapter 6

FORMS OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INTERACTION

Chapter overview

It might appear to a community that there is actually very little they can do to address the issue of small arms. In South Africa, until the firearm legislation is in place with appropriate implementation mechanisms and the process has gone through its teething phases and is functioning correctly, the situation will not improve at a community level. There are, however, a few options available to the community. These would include raising awareness about the problem and providing information to other members of the community. This chapter provides information on which method of communication would most directly access the community, by looking at where people obtain information, and which community structure they belong to.

Frequency and forms of communication

A series of questions were included in the questionnaire to determine how frequently the respondents obtained information from various sources, such as the radio, television, newspapers or pamphlets. This would assist in the design of the public awareness campaign by determining which respondents could be targeted through which forms of media. The data were cross-tabulated by settlement area, gender and age. These were considered the most significant demographic variables for designing the public awareness campaign.

What is clearly demonstrated, not surprisingly, is that electronic forms of communication are used more regularly than printed media. It was found that 72.1% of the respondents listened to the radio daily and 50.5% of the respondents watched television daily. Only 14.5% of the sample read newspapers daily, 15.8% read the newspapers a few times per week, and 12.1% read the newspapers weekly. Pamphlets were utilised the least as a form of media. However, this would be influenced by the areas of distribution used by the media companies.

Quite often certain suburbs are targeted for this purpose - and in South Africa, traditional rural areas and informal settlements are less frequency targeted for pamphlet distribution. The frequency of listening to the radio varied across the different settlement areas. Respondents from the Kwa Mashu urban informal area listened to radio most frequently (81.8% listened to the radio daily). Television watching was highest in the Lekoa-Vaal formal areas (77.2% watched television daily) and in Kwa Mashu formal areas (72.3% watched television daily).

On the whole, printed media were least frequently used. It was found that respondents from Lekoa-Vaal formal areas more frequently read newspapers on a daily basis (26.0%), followed by the respondents from Kwa Mashu formal area (18.9%) and Kwa Mashu hostels (17.8%). The type of media used by the sample was linked to the level of access to electricity, as well as the level of permanence attached to the residential location and to the economic standing of the household. Considering the demographic variables of age and gender, it was evident that the main difference was that more male respondents (18.1%) read the newspapers on a daily basis than did female respondents (11.1%). There was no difference in terms of the frequency of watching television between the male and female respondents, although the viewing patterns probably varied. Male respondents were slightly more exposed to different forms of communication than the female repondents.

Amongst male and female respondents, the radio still remained the most common form of communication - clearly more significant than the television. The highest radio usage was amongst those respondents between the ages of 20-39 years. Frequency of watching television declined with age. On the whole, it is evident that radio and television are the most popular forms of communication. Should a campaign be designed for older people, radio should be considered above other methods of communication to influence the appropriate target groupings.

Generally these forms of communication are expensive. Other forms of affordable communication could include notices in public transport and announcements at sports events, places of recreation and church meetings.

Membership of different structures

It was found that 20.0% of the sample did not belong to any structures or organisations, while 45.3% belonged to one structure and 23.2% belonged to two structures.

For the analysis, it would be interesting to see whether people who belong to organisations are more willing to take action to discourage firearm ownership, and whether this aspect is sensitive to the number of organisations the respondent belongs to. As shown below, it is evident that a greater proportion of respondents who belonged to more organisations were willing to discourage other people from firearm ownership.

The greatest level of membership was to a church or choir group (43.7% of the respondents). The second highest membership was to a savings or burial society (at 22.3% of the respondents), followed by the 15.7% that belonged to a sports club and the 15% that belonged to a political organisation.

On average the respondents from traditional rural homesteads, the KwaMashu urban formal and the Kwa Mashu informal areas belonged to more organisations than respondents from other areas.

The proportion of the respective samples by which organisations they belonged to shows which sectors of the community could be accessed through which structures. It demonstrates that 53.4% of the Tsolo-Qumbo sample belong to a church or choir group, as opposed to 43.8% of the Lekoa-Vaal formal area residents and 43.6% of the Kwa Mashu formal area residents. It shows that a greater proportion of women (56.9%) as opposed to men (29.7%) belong to church groups.

Interpretations of findings

Radio is an effective form of communication. However, radio has cost considerations, such as the cost of travelling to urban centres for radio interviews. But perhaps the most accessible method - especially within a rural context - would be through 'word of mouth', using existing organisations and structures. The church has a high level of membership, as do sports organisations.