Mediaworks Community Media and Arts Centre

Mediaworks uses technology in interpersonal training programmes that are designed to provide trainees with the opportunity for self-employment or formal employment, to help communities set up and run their own community media projects, and to empower civil society organisations to acquire better communications skills and media production techniques. Mediaworks offers communications services and short courses in the areas of desk top publishing (DTP), graphic design, copywriting and editing, web page development, print management and communications consultancy services. Printed materials are also used: the quarterly newsletter "Feedback", which Mediaworks participants contribute to, covers policy issues in the media and communications environment.

Specifically, the project offers the following different programmes:

• Vocational media education programme: The goal is to transform the media industry by facilitating the entry of previously disadvantaged individuals into the industry, as well as to promote media diversity through support for independent print media enterprises. A 15-week, full-time training course is offered, as are part-time short courses in various media disciplines.
• Schools media programme: The goal is to provide youth with access to media and communication as a means to promote their participation in school and community life. Many participants, through their exposure to the programme, pursue a career in the media. The programme consists in a holiday training period, followed by the quarterly production of “Just Youth”, a youth newspaper produced by the participants. Training is followed by Saturday workshops, during which issues and themes for the publication - such as gender, HIV/AIDS, child abuse, and education - are discussed.
• Community media programme: The goal is to support the establishment of community and independent media serving the information and communications needs of marginalised rural communities as a tool for community cultural expression and public participation in local governance and development planning. Participatory strategies (including needs assessment and media planning) are bolstered by customised training courses designed to build local capacity to achieve identified goals. Additional support services include technical capacity-building, organisational development, resource-mapping, partnership-building and advocacy.
• Civil society organisations (CSO) media programme: The goal is to build the capacity of CSOs to use media and communications as effective tools to promote their development and empowerment objectives. Mediaworks offers one- to six-week-long training courses and customised training on request. Mediaworks provides follow-up support where needed, including access to facilities for media production and distribution. This programme addresses non-government organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), and activist groups nationally with a special focus on the issues of HIV/AIDS, gender, and the environment.
• Prisons rehabilitation programme: The goal is to provide media and communication skills in prisons and access to media as a tool for effective communication. The approach involves producing issue-based prison newsletters, t-shirts, posters and banners. The programme aims to build confidence and self-esteem amongst inmates and to open channels of communication between inmates and prison authorities.
• Communications services: Mediaworks' business wing is aimed at maximising the organisation's income-generating potential, thus reducing its dependence on foreign and government funding. The long-term goal is to position Mediaworks to benefit from available communications tenders by virtue of its professionalism, on the one hand, and black empowerment objectives, on the other.

Economic Development, Technology, HIV/AIDS, Women, Youth.

According to organisers, technological innovations such as digitisation and the convergence of telecommunications, computers, and broadcasting are making it possible for community media to leapfrog traditional forms of media and to explore the potential of digital or new media, which is low-cost, accessible, and can be linked directly into numerous efforts to promote South Africa as an "information society". Mediaworks' position, then, is that the strategic use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by community media formations has a number of benefits.

To elaborate on Mediaworks' philosophy, community media is in a position to access information and to repackage it in ways that are more accessible to the community through popular forms of dissemination such as community radio and print media. Electronic networking can facilitate cheap and effective networking, information dissemination, exchange, and cooperation around joint income-generating projects. Digitisation allows community media to provide citizen access, including training and equipment for media production, to multi-medium (audio-visual, sound and print) services. This approach places community at the forefront of the digital revolution, thus positioning community media as a vital platform for the production of local content in a converged environment, as opposed to people simply being passive consumers of information.