GCIS budget: Communication is key

Parliament’s passing of the budget of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) is a welcome step towards ensuring that communication is front and centre of the seventh administration.

The government of national unity (GNU) will rely on the GCIS to communicate its strategic objectives, spending priorities and implementation of the programme of action.

It is critical that this communication is aligned to avoid victories being claimed or setbacks being disavowed by individual political parties instead of as a united government.

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The parliamentary portfolio committee on communications and digital technologies welcomes efforts to bolster government communication to bridge the gap between it and the public, ensuring that citizens are well-informed about policies, initiatives and progress.

Ours is an ideological struggle that the ANC calls the battle of ideas.

Our once diverse and pluralistic media space has become an echo chamber for the voices and opinions of the elites.

In the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer country report, respondents expressed growing mistrust of media sources, especially social media.

Bias, sensationalism, opinion masquerading as fact and analysis in place of hard news is fuelling mistrust.

By way of example, this year marks 30 years since our democratic breakthrough. Three decades of material conditions uplifted, opportunities created, lives transformed, houses built, basic services and access to education and health care extended.

The ANC has been at the forefront of transformation, pursuit of freedom and equality and the achievement of social justice.

Yet in our newspapers, on our television screens, on our airwaves and online, you would be hard-pressed to find this reported on factually and impartially.

Perhaps we need to heed the warning of American intellectual Noam Chomsky that those with vested interests will stop at nothing to manufacture consent.

Media platforms are weaponised and used to cancel out those who believe in the transformative policies and evidence-based delivery of successive ANC-led administrations.

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But a free press is one of democracy’s greatest achievements. As a democratic state, we do not expect slavish reportage, praise-singing or propaganda.

We have a legitimate expectation that our work will be communicated accurately and impartially.

That is why the Government Communication and Information System is so vital.

The parliamentary portfolio committee is concerned that the budget allocation to the GCIS is inadequate and that government communication as a whole is under-resourced.

Communications are severely underfunded in all three spheres of government, with a knock-on effect on the media industry that is heavily reliant on advertising revenue.

When the GCIS was launched in 1998, it was the age of newspapers, radio and the eight o’clock news. Now it’s the age of TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat.

Of OpenAI, Gemini and Claude 3.5 – where video landscapes are created from scratch by the likes of Midjourney, Sora and other generative AI tools.

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The GCIS strives to remain an accurate and credible source of information in the era of deepfakes, face-tuning, fake news, manipulated content and disinformation.

Audiences have also rapidly evolved. Gen Z has been overtaken by Gen Alpha who “have known smartphones and tablets since infancy”.

All proprietors of communications products and services, including the mainstream media, have to keep up or risk fading into obscurity.

This necessitates reskilling of the GCIS workforce. The GCIS has to be innovative and adaptable while not swerving from its mandate to communicate the work of the government of the day.

• Diko is chair of the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications and digital technologies