Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - July 23, 2006
Zingi Mkefa

Over R25-million is being spent to encourage South Africans to walk the talk when it comes to social values, in a new television series, Heartlines.

The series is backed by First National Bank, SABC2, the John Templeton Foundation and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

It comprises eight self-contained one-hour films that will be screened on the three SABC television channels over the next two months. The films deal with social values such as forgiveness, responsibility, honesty and self-control.

Actors in the series include Winston Ntshona, Ian Roberts, Rosie Mothene, Nthathi Moshesh and Mncedisi Shabangu.

Heartlines was initiated by an NGO, the Mass Media Project, in 2002.

Project manager Buhle Dlamini said that the films focus on "issues that threaten the fabric of our society ...

"On our list were Aids, corruption, poverty, unemployment, violence, and many more ... We then tried to figure out the bigger, underlying [factors] that gave rise to these particular issues."

Dlamini said there had been "a breakdown of those value systems that would have otherwise inspired us to behave differently in light of all the information we have. For example, with all that we know about Aids, why are we as a nation struggling with the spread of HIV?"

People ultimately make decisions based not only on the information they have, but also on their value systems.

Dlamini said that apartheid, and its residual effects, such as socio-economic disparities, had contributed to the breakdown of the value systems.

"But it's not only apartheid to be blamed," she said.

"The media have had a role to play as well. The media tell us what is normal. They are a powerful tool for shaping the norms of the day. Over the years, through some of the programming imported from other countries, as well as local programming, the media were not portraying the kind of value systems we wanted to live by."

If the media have had a powerful "negative" influence on society, could the same media machine be used to positive effect?

Dlamini and the Heartlines team seem to think so, hence the use of television. And it's somewhat symbolic that it should be the SABC screening these films, because for over 20 years the national broadcaster was one of the loudest apartheid mouthpieces in South Africa.

On a point of caution, Heartlines, with its strong affiliation to religious figures and faith-based organisations, does conjure up a complex US model where the media acts as a vehicle through which specific values are preached. The value of such a model is debatable.

But South Africa is not the US.

How we'll assess the effectiveness of Heartlines is not entirely clear.

SABC2 will be screening the second film in the series, The Good Provider, tonight at 8pm. It stars Patrick Mofokeng and Nthati Moshesh.

060723
ST060712