The role of TV talk shows in facilitating youth engagement : a case study of Daily Thetha

Abstract

South Africa faces many challenges that affect the country’s youth and youth unemployment is one of the major ones. It is quite evident, through existing research, that the matter of engaging youth with their challenges, has been examined extensively and in considerable detail. This include exploring the question as to the ways in which youth can be provided with the means to allow them a voice when it comes to dealing with the key social, political and economic issues affecting them and determining their futures in South Africa today. The mass media have made inroads in trying to counter the spiral of silence and advocate for the establishment of a sphere in the public domain for youth to actively raise their voice on socio-economic issues affecting them but there is still a dearth of research devoted to exploring the nature of engagement in these television shows and how they provide “access” to the voiceless so that they too can ventilate on their issues, publicly. In the case of South Africa, research is still needed to explore the extent to which television talk shows, as television mass media products, can facilitate youth engagement, given that young people can be brought together in a discursive space to encourage them to engage in issues affecting them. Hence, this study sought to explore the role TV talk shows play in facilitating youth engagement. This study explores the role Daily Thetha plays in facilitating youth engagement by providing a discussion platform for youth to deliberate on issues and topics that affect them. The study determined the various platforms used by Daily Thetha on the show in the process of youth engagement. The study further probed perceptions of the youth on the role played by Daily Thetha. This study is informed by two theories, Agenda-Setting Theory and the Freirian Dialogical Approach. Both theories significantly explain how Daily Thetha influences youth to participate in the realisation of the challenges youth are facing provisions the youth a platform to engage on the challenges. A qualitative research approach was adopted for this study. Data was collected using unstructured interviews and open-ended questionnaires. Through thematic analysis, the study observed that the role Daily Thetha plays in facilitating youth engagement, is solely to provide youth with the platform to deliberate on matters that affect or concern them. In the same vein, the study also established that it is

not only a matter of Daily Thetha providing youth with a platform to deliberate, but also the fact that the platform allows youth to gain more knowledge and find solutions through the youth engagement. The study established that as a manner to encourage and attract more youth to participate in the processes of youth engagement, Daily Thetha makes use of social media, live phone call-ins, emails, and vox-pop inserts in the process of youth engagements on the show.. The study found that youth perceive the role played by Daily Thetha as important and needed for youth to be able to engage on matters that affect them.