The 11th Jozi Book Fair Festival that was held at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, Johannesburg, on the 29 – 30 August 2019 had a programme for schools which focused on different skills workshops. Among them was one on how to do ‘WhatsApp TV news, on your phone’. The workshop was attended in numbers by learners from different primary and secondary schools such as Asteri, Bree, Africa House, Denver and Centurion.
Learners expressed their feelings about the social media as a whole including WhatsApp on how positive and negative news travel fast when using social media through sharing information from one contact to other. They also raised the issue of sensitive information spreading quickly on social media without people warning others about what they are sending to them. The positive discussion was about how informative social media is to people who do not know what is happening around them. Another issue that came up was fake news and old videos being sent to contacts for past activities, people thinking it is happening at the present moment.
Learners participated in doing a video reporting live at the Jozi Book Fair (JBF) Festival and inviting anyone who wished to attend the Festival to come and experience what they are experiencing. JBF Festival has different activities for schools programme such as parallel skills workshops, teachers only programme, theatre, open mic poetry, slam poetry, conversation and meeting the authors.
