NSOC Ms Feda /Ms Boadi
Social Literacy Launch
Minister of Education launches 2010 International Literacy Day Celebration

Accra, Aug.17, GNA - Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, Minister of Education, on Tuesday stressed the need to create substantial human and financial resource to implement the National Functional Literacy Programme (NFLP) in the country.
He noted that it was necessary because of its positive impact on the country’s socio-economic and political development.
Mr Tettey-Enyo made the call when launching the 2010 International Literacy Day Celebration in Accra.
It is under the theme: “Functional Literacy- A Key to Job Creation and Poverty Reduction”.
He said targets of NFLP were located in difficult-to-reach rural areas where all kinds of challenges militated against enrolment of children in formal school over the years.
The Sector Minister noted that the unbearable long distances of formal schools in the rural communities and the need for children to contribute to family survival and other cultural attitudes often led to their denial of access and high drop-out rates, with girls being the most affected.
“All these factors make access to basic education a real challenge to majority of the Ghanaian Youth in these deprived areas and ultimately to the high number of adult illiteracy in the country,” he added.
Mr Tettey-Enyo explained that NFLP conducted by the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ministry was to increase the number of functionally literates in the country and increase the resourcefulness of these unfortunate non-literates through skills and knowledge.
He observed that positive feedback was received on the usefulness of the NFLP in improving the livelihood of learners and 97 per cent of the learners indicated that skills and knowledge gained by the NFLP helped improve their living standards.
Mr Charles Darlington Afare, Acting Director of NFED said several strategies implemented included formal schooling for majority of children who were unable to attend school and complementary education for children who lived in remote areas or for some economic reasons could not attend the formal school system.
“Non-Formal Education programmes especially functional literacy for adults aged between 15-45 years who neither had the chance to attend school nor who had relapsed into illiteracy since leaving school,” he added.
Mr Afare noted that the strategies put in place by NFED had empowered beneficiaries and most learners had increased their income level through the acquisition of occupational knowledge and skills.
He stressed that majority of the underprivileged segments identified were the youth, women and rural dwellers who either depended on second–hand information that might be contaminated or diluted depending on the source.
Mr Afare called on all literacy advocates, practitioners and stakeholders to join the NFED to celebrate this year’s International Literacy Week.
He appealed to both the public and private sectors to support the national literacy drive by creating an enabling environment for new-literates of the programme to function and play a more meaningful role in national development.
GNA
PAF
17 Aug. 10

DISCUSS THE CRITICISMS OR DRAWBACKS OF USES AND GRATIFICATION

Uses of gratification theory is defined as the act of pleasing the minds of oan inedividual or a small group of people. in 1994 Alan Rubin summarized the states of uses and gratification. Rubin wrote " Media perceptions and expectations guide people's behaviour, besides needs, motivation is derived from interests and externally constraints, there functional alternatives to media consumption and nedia content plays an important role in the media effect."The theory also explains that the media audiences make active audiences make active use of what the media offer.


Criticisms


The uses and gratification theory is too micro-level oriented that is the uses and gratification theory is not able to please a large number of people but just a few group of individuals which is not supposed to be soo because the media needs to capture a large number of audience to send their message accross.

Another criticisms is that the theory makes the audience to active. the uses and gratification theory makes the audience choose the kind of program the want to watch or listen to which is bad the media is supposed to m ake the audience listen to them no matter the kind of program even though the audience is supposed to play a part in it . i think it has to be fair and balance the media and the audience shhould play a fair and balanced role

DISCUSS THE CRITICISMS OR DRAWBACKS OF THE AGENDA SETTING

The agenda setting theiry is basically about the idea that the media do not tell people what to think, but what think about. With or without the label, the idea of agenda setting has been with us since the days of the penny press.in agenda setting the media uses its power to make a few issues powerful by dominating. The criticisms is that the theory is too suited for news and campaigns ignoring other media contents. It focuses too much on politics.

Benard cohen (1963)wrote "the press is significantly more than purveyor of information and opinion. It may be successful much of the time in telling people what think but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think." Another criticism is that there is this other question about the actual relationship between media reports and people's ranking of public issues. Who influences who? maybe the public sets the media agenda and then the media reinforce it.

what i think about the criticisms of the mass media effect

One of the criticisms of the mass media is that the media tackles social problems backwards. I think this is really true because a problem which is supposed to treat or tackle a social problem tends to treat it the wrong way. An example is when the media mobilizes people towards a particular they sometimes do it the wrong which causes a negative impact on the society

Another criticisms of the mass media is that it treats children as inadequate, not capable of understanding certain issues I strongly think children must be considered when certain issues are being addressed by the media because most children in Ghana and all over the world now have access to the radio, television and even the internet and they can be prone to all kinds of information whether good or bad.

FUNCTIONS OF THE MASS MEDIA

SOCIAL FUNCTIONS

1. entertain
2. awareness
3. influence opinion
4. socialization
5. they act as glue
6. they set social agenda
7. mobilize people towards a course

All these are under social functions because they create some kind of awareness to society

POLITICAL FUNCTIONS
1. They agitate for change
2. mediator
3. investigate
4. link
5. gatekeepers
6. interpret
7.watchdog

These points are under political functions because the media keeps the politicians onthe toes and informs the people about the political situation



ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS

1. disseminate information
2.educate
3. create employment

Education, employment and dissemination of information are under economic because they help in building the country