The South-African Socio-Economic and Political Context free essay sample

In this assignment the student will be analyzing the broader national context and the impact and challenges for social welfare services and social work in South Africa. This assignment will include an analysis of 5 media clips, State of Nation Address by the President, Mr Jacob G. Zuma and the Budget Speech by the Minister of Finance, Mr Pravin J. Gordhan. This is the individual’s analysis of the articles, which will further guide and add towards the group work assignment. 2. State of Nation Address (RSA, State of Nation Address, 2012) The State of Nation Address of South Africa 2012 was presented by President Jacob Zuma on the 8th of February 2012. President Jacob Zuma identified the progress made as well as ways to further improve various areas in South Africa that needs to be addressed. He identified areas such as health, energy, human settlement, education, and fight against crime, water provision and rural development. We will write a custom essay sample on The South-African Socio-Economic and Political Context or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In 2011 job creation was mainstreamed, cooperation between government was strengthened; only by working together the challenges in South Africa can be addressed. There has been progressed made, but poverty, unemployment and inequality is still a big challenge in South Africa. The national Cabinet identified that the economy of the country needs to grow in order to eliminate poverty, problems of unemployment and inequality. In 2012 there will be greatly focus on infrastructure development. This can help with the improvement of education, health, job creation, rural development and other areas of challenges in South Africa. 3. Budget Speech (RSA, Budget Speech, 2012) The National Budget Speech for South Africa 2012 was delivered by the Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan on the 22nd of February 2012. Pravin Gordhan (RSA, Budget Speech, 2012) stated that â€Å"We remain steadfast in addressing the challenges of creating jobs, reducing poverty, building infrastructure, and expanding our economy. † Social grants for people receive the most money, where over 16 million South Africans receive a grant. South Africa is a developmental state, but by increasing the amount of the grants and the people who receive the grants, it is not developmental at all. South Africa should look at other aspects and find ways to enhance people without being dependable on the social grants. Is giving over 16 million citizen’s social grant really alleviating poverty or is it worsening the problem of poverty in the country? Education and infrastructure receives a high amount of finances to address the current need in South Africa. There is money set out for different areas and to help address the challenges that South Africa faces. The finances are there to address the challenges, but the government should utilize these finances as effective as possible. Without these finances, services and problems can’t be addressed thus giving the government and other key participants in this country a responsibility towards South Africa and the challenges faced every day. 4. Article 1: â€Å"Study shows grants end up in right place† (2012) There has been a new study found that the social grant money is being given to the right people (Study shows grants end up in right place, 2012). The article further states that the money that is given to the women for the child support grant uses it for the house hold expenses, food and the children. The money given is very low, in the Budget Speech it states that the social grants will increase from R105 billion to R122 billion in the next 3 years (RSA, Budget Speech, 2012). The study concludes that the women who receive these grants are making key financial decisions in their households. Further on the article state that the women don’t just receive the grants, but participate in projects and the community to enhance their quality of life. Thus the women not only just receive money, but they do develop and grow in taking part and making use of their financial skills. In this way the grants are not only just given, but is forming part of social development. This study was conducted for three years in Soweto, thus only focussed on the area Doornkop. Meanings that this developing of people does not necessary go all over South-Africa. South Africa is a developmental country, even though grants are not developmental, there is an opportunity to enhance the people involved in the social system. This enhancement can be achieved by giving people responsibility and giving them the opportunity to develop new skills and knowledge. In order for them to improve their quality of life and growth happening for people to become independent and taking charge of their own lives. In this study Patel stated that giving poor women grants has given them the opportunity to have access to resources and enabling them to take control of their finances and to make decisions. The implication of the grants can be a starting point for women to have opportunity to rise above poverty, taking it one step at a time where resources and skills can enhance poverty alleviation. The challenges that lie within the social welfare and the services are to give and develop women in learning them skills that comes with the grants. 5. Article 2: â€Å"Jongmense sonder werk bedreig SA, se Nzimande†(Prince, 2012:10) Prince (2012:10) states in his article that the 3 million unemployed youth between the ages of 18 and 24 years are threatening the stability of South Africa. Dr. Blade Nzimande stated that the government will expand on education and educational colleges and that the VOO-colleges will play a leading role. President Jacob Zuma further stated that the government will give R 2,5 billion in the next three years to expand and improve colleges. He further stated that it will form part of the infrastructure project, also stated in the State of Nations Address. There will be more schools, universities and hospitals build. Dr. Nzimande said that there is a negative impression of colleges and that is because of the lack of finances, infrastructure and relevant courses. The implications of the youth finishing their studies and gain more skills can benefit South Africa in different work sectors and there will be skilled people to be able to do certain work. If implemented as stated the challenge will be to create the opportunity for the youth to enter the work sector. Without the availability of jobs, it is difficult to address the high unemployment rate currently. The youth needs to be challenged and motivated by social workers and social welfare, to further their education and to complete their studies, for them to have the opportunity to enter different work sectors. â€Å"Politiek kaap gedeelde optog oor swak skool†(Jansen amp; Claasen, 2012:20) In the Budget Speech (2012) Pravin Gordhan stated that education receives a large share of the government spending. The money is allocated towards infrastructure of schools, to student bursaries and to expand further education, training colleges and skill development. Jansen amp; Claasen (2012:20) wrote about an incident that occurred in Grabouw: There was n protest against an overpopulated school, where the black and brown residents of this area turned on each other and got violent. The school had many damages. One of the residents also stated that the protest was for the bad conditions of the classrooms; where money was suppose to be given to the school in 2004 by the government. Political parties also had words for each other, where the DA states that the ANC uses a team to cause havoc in the area in order to gain more votes. There should be a clear focus on education and the importance there of. Instead of enhancing and trying to improve or make the government aware of the problem, the residents took charge and caused more damage to the school than good. The problem is the overpopulated school and the bad class rooms. Not only did government promise the school money, and indicated that they are giving money for infrastructure for schools in South Africa, but the challenge is to address this need. The challenge for social workers is to stand up and make their voice loud in the government on the injustice happening because of neglect. The implication of government not addressing this need can be of a disadvantage to the communities. Social workers should challenge the Government on how to improve and address all the schools that needs assistance. Education is important, and with education comes job opportunities and better quality of life. People of South Africa need to respect the right of education and the importance there of, by supporting and enhancing the school system and not to make it worse for the children that has to attend school. The challenges that lies within the social welfare and social work services is to promote social justice and to make people aware of their rights but also to take responsibility for their actions and respect that for which they stand for. 7. Article 4: â€Å"Greatest human rights violation is poverty† (2012) Pregs Govender, deputy chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission said that poverty in South Africa is the greatest human rights violation (Greatest human rights violation is poverty, 2012). She further stated that especially women don’t have access to sanitation in the rural area. The right to health is not accessible to all people as it should be. President Zuma stated in the State of Nation Address (2012) that the Constitution is the fundamental vision statement in which policies and actions are guided in South-Africa. He also stated that they will work on the improvement of sanitation, water, electricity and roads. The question to be asked is what are the actions being done to improve sanitation as well as are they fundamentals of the Constitution and whether human rights are a priority. The challenge is that poverty is evident in South Africa and people do not have the freedom to take for granted or access to their rights as humans. Social workers should make people aware of their rights and the responsibility of those rights. The challenge for the social welfare and the social workers is to work from a developmental approach, by giving people in poverty the skills and create opportunity for people to gain knowledge, so that they can gain a sustainable income. The article goes on where it talks about the infrastructure plan to respond to the basic needs of people that has been underdeveloped over the past years. Infrastructure is not only there to improve situations in South Africa but to connect the rural communities to economic opportunities through the building of dams and systems. The implications of infrastructure development can create employment as stated in the State of Nation Address (2012). The challenge however is to not only create opportunity for economical growth and employment but for social welfare services and social workers to provide sustainable projects and programmes, to assure better quality of life, skills development, and employment of people. 8. Article 5: â€Å"As dit nou nog nie werk nie, stel dit reg† (Nolutshungu, 2012:III) President Jacob Zuma identified the challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality, despite the progress made in South Africa already. He further states that Africans, women and youth suffer the most under these challenges (RSA, State of Nation Address, 2012). Nolutshungu (2012:III) wrote that if South Africa wants to alleviate poverty and unemployment, they should get rid of the BEE system. The unemployment number is 37% at present, where he states that the government should take different action steps and look at the challenges ahead. He further says that the government should look at their economic policies and should be willing to bring about change to enhance the economical growth. The challenges are still to create equal opportunities for all citizens, regardless of their gender, race and culture. Equality is what we strive towards in South Africa and is part of the constitution, but is there really equality implemented among citizens? The reality is that Africans, women and the youth suffer most in the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality (RSA, State of Nation Address, 2012), but the implication is that there is not equal opportunity for them all. In addressing job creation, women are being neglected. South Africa promotes equality, but they do not execute it. The challenge for social welfare is to address equality and implement it in services they render and promote sustainable equality, for change to take place. 9. Conclusion In the analysis of the media clips, State of Nations Address and the Budget Speech, the student gained more insight in what is happening currently in South Africa and what is planned to address the needs and challenges the country faces. In preparation for the group assignment, the student will be able to bring her understanding, questions and insight she gained in doing the individual assignment to the group.

Definition and Examples of Anti-Rhetoric

Definition and Examples of Anti-Rhetoric In argumentative speech and  writing, anti-rhetoric is  the act of disparaging an opponents use of language by characterizing it as rhetoric or oratory, with the implication that eloquent language is inherently meaningless (mere words) or deceitful. Also called straight talk. As Sam Leith has observed, Being anti-rhetoric is, finally, just another rhetorical strategy. Rhetoric is what the other guy is doing- whereas you, youre just speaking the plain truth as you see it (Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric From Aristotle to Obama; Basic Books, 2012). Examples and Observations My opponent gives speeches. I offer solutions. (Hillary Rodham Clinton in a speech to General Motors employees in Warren, Ohio, Feb. 14, 2008) We think this journal may at least be justly commended for its comparative freedom from high-flown rhetoric. We recently rejected a somewhat elaborate paper on an important topic chiefly on account of its stilted and turgid style, and our pen often makes sad work with the fine passages which adorn (?) the contributions sent us by young writers. (E.E. White, editorial in The National Teacher, Volume 1, 1871) Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation,Figures pedantical; these summer-fliesHave blown me full of maggot ostentation:I do forswear them; and I here protest,By this white glove- how white the hand, God knows!- Henceforth my wooing mind shall be expressdIn russet yeas and honest kersey noes.(Lord Berowne in William Shakespeares Loves Labours Lost, Act 5, scene 2) Palin vs. Obama: Cravin That Straight TalkBarack Obama has been denounced again and again as a privileged wordsmith, a man of mere words who has authored two books (to use Sarah Palin’s verb), and done little else. The leathery extremist Phyllis Schlafly had this to say, at the Republican Convention, about Palin: I like her because she’s a woman who’s worked with her hands, which Barack Obama never did, he was just an à ©litist who worked with words. The fresher-faced extremist Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator, called Obama just a person of words, adding, Words are everything to him. . . .†Sarah Palin . . . may claim, as she did in last Thursday’s Vice-Presidential debate, that Americans are cravin’ that straight talk, but they are sure not going to get it from the Governor- not with her peculiar habit of speaking only half a sentence and then moving on to another for spoliation, that strange, ghostly drifting through the haziest ph rases. (James Wood, Verbage. The New Yorker, October 13, 2008) The Anti-Rhetoric of Presidents and Prime Ministers   It is in their trenchant opposition to rhetoric, oratory, and their corresponding celebration of rhetorical simplicity that presidents have been most explicitly anti-intellectual. Here, the link between rhetorical simplicity and anti-intellectualism . . . is manifest. President Eisenhowers definition of an intellectual displays this link: the intellectual . . . [is] a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows, he once proposed. A Nixon speechwriter echoes this statement when he observes: the people who are most eloquent are often the least wise. As a Regan speechwriter observes, One of the great myths of the modern age in particular is that great speeches and effective leadership [are] about speaking cleverly. (Elvin T. Lim, The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush. Oxford University Press, 2008)In October 1966, knowing that the Labour Minister (and one-time Fellow of New College, Oxford) Richard Crossman would be winding up a debate on prices and incomes, [Margaret Thatcher] took the opportunity to discredit her opponents eloquence in advance. We are all used to the right hon. Gentlemans ebullient, effervescent style, she said. It is always extremely attractive. It is often something of an Oxford Union style. Responding to some laughter in the Chamber, she went on: I assure hon. Members that I am making no blandishments. The right hon. Gentleman has the kind of style which sounds tremendously impressive and which is most agreeable to listen to, but I find that one never believes a word of what he says because one knows that he is quite capable of making just as attractive an ebullient and effervescent speech tomorrow entirely contradicting all he has said today. . . .Of course, her own plain speaking is as much a rhetorical construction as the grandest of styles, and it is a relatively simple task to show that, knowingly or not, many of her assertions of plain political sincerity are figuratively produced. We say what we mean and mean what we say, is one of many examples of her use of antimetabole, where, ironically, the circular and self-validating structure of the figure is asked to create an impression of straight talking. (Christopher Reid, Margaret Thatcher and the Gendering of Political Oratory. Oratory in Action, ed. by Michael Edwards and Christopher Reid. Manchester University Press, 2004) Anti-Rhetoric As a Strategic Act: Mark Antony,Silvio Berlusconi, and Donald Trump [T]he I just want to tell it like it is maneuver is a familiar one in the annals of rhetoric. It’s what Mark Antony is up to when he says to the Roman crowd in Julius Caesar, I am no orator, as Brutus is; / But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man,† in the midst of his â€Å"Friends, Romans and countrymen† speech, one of the most cunning displays of technical rhetoric, not only in Shakespeare, but in the English language. Rhetoric  is the language Rome’s elite used to debate; by denying that he knows the first thing about it, Mark Antony is in effect tearing up his gold membership card and reassuring his plebeian audience that, though he may look rich and powerful, he is really one of them. Nearly four centuries after Shakespeare wrote those words, Silvio Berlusconi successfully struck the same pose in modern Italy. If there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s  rhetoric, he told the Italian public. All I’m interested in is what needs to get done.But for all its protests,  anti-rhetoric  is just another form of rhetoric and, whether Mr. [Donald]  Trump is conscious of it or not, it has its own  rhetorical  markers. Short sentences (We have to build a wall, folks!) that pummel the listener in a series of sharp jabs. . . .Anti-rhetoric  also uses I and you  constantly, because its central goal is not to lay out an argument but to assert a relationship, and a story about us and our struggle against them. It says the things society has deemed unsayable, at least in part to demonstrate contempt for the  rhetorical  conventions imposed by the elite- and if that elite then cries out in horror, so much the better.(Mark Thompson, Trump a nd the Dark History of Straight Talk. The New York Times, August 27, 2016) The term rhetoric of anti-rhetoric refers to the fact that many public speakers, in politics and law courts, self-consciously distance themselves from perverse uses of deceitful rhetoric, while presenting themselves as courageous truth-tellers. They use this topos in their self-presentation to align themselves squarely with public interest, and that would obviously give them an edge in a competitive environment. Speakers demonstrate in this way that they are aware of the importance of speeches as a vehicle for deliberation and of the dangers posed by deceptive communication [Jon Hesk, 2000:pp. 4-5]. The topos not only functions as a strategic act of self-authorisation, it is also inherently antagonistic in that one distances oneself from ones adversaries, who are, it is implied, likely to engage in illicit rhetorical maneuvering (ibid. pp. 169, 208). (Ineke Sluiter, Deliberation, Free Speech and the Marketplace of Ideas. Bending Opinion: Essays on Persuasion in the Public Domain, ed. by Ton Van Haaften, Henrike Jansen, Jaap De Jong, and Willem De Koetsenruijter. Leiden University Press, 2011) Anti-Rhetoric in the Human Sciences Where is rhetoric to be found in the development of the human sciences? Boeckhs Enzklopadie includes rhetoric in the chapter on the empirical human sciences and understands it as a theory of stylistic speech form . . .. According to Boeckh, . . . [rhetoric] finally relapsed into insubstantial and affected verbosity. In the modern period, however, the theory of rhetoric made no progress, indeed it had been neglected and almost forgotten because attention is directed more towards intellectual substance than to form. Boeckhs statement indicates the three-fold aspects of anti-rhetoric apparent in the human sciences. First, form is considered as external, as something imposed upon the intellectual content; second, rhetoric is devalued as an unphilosophical artistic skill; and third, as a persuasive art it is subordinated to the dialectical theory of knowledge.(Walter Rà ¼egg, Rhetoric and Anti-Rhetoric in the 19th and 20th Century Human Sciences in Germany. The Recovery of Rhetoric: Persuasive Discourse and Disciplinarity in the Human Sciences, ed. by R.H. Roberts and J.M.M. Good. University  Press of Virginia, 1993) Anti-Anti-Rhetoric The invitation to rhetoric is not, I emphasize, an invitation to replace careful analysis with rhetoric, or to abandon mathematics in favor of name-calling or flowery language. The good rhetorician loves care, precision, explicitness, and economy in argument as much as the next person. . . . The suspicion of rhetoric is as old as philosophy itself: we cannot use mere plausibility because an eloquent speaker could fool us: Socrates: And he who possesses the art [of rhetoric] can make the same thing appear to the same people just, now unjust, at will?Phaedrus: To be sure.( Phaedrus 261d) We need something, it has been said, besides the mere social fact that an argument proved persuasive.To such an objection the answers, then, are two. Science and other epistemologically pure methods can also be used to lie. Our defense must be to discourage lying, not to discourage a certain class of talk. Secondly, talk against talk is self-refuting. The person making it appeals to Anti-Anti-Rhetoric a social, nonepistemological standard of persuasiveness by the very act of trying to persuade someone that mere persuasion is not enough. (Deirdre N. McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics, 2nd ed. University  of Wisconsin Press, 1998)

Social Media for Small to Medium Enterprises Essay - 2

Social Media for Small to Medium Enterprises - Essay Example Small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs play a crucial role in any national economy. They are a major source of employment and foster socio-economic expansion (Taprial & Kanwar 2012). To foster the achievement of their objectives, a majority of these SMEs leverage on IT-based tools to increase information content and creativity (Belo, Castela & Fernandes 2013; Laudon & Traver 2010). With this regard, many SMEs have incorporated social media strategy in their operations so as to realise the benefits that IT offers in their businesses. Joosten (2012) generally describes social media as technological systems that enhance collaboration and connection by creating personal and corporate profiles, sharing of opinions, activities and information and content creation. Among the many social media networks, Schwartz (2010) documents Twitter and Facebook as the most popular. SMEs have established their presence in a majority of these platforms. Anoto Group AB is an example of an SME that has embraced the use of social media in its operations. This Swedish high-tech company provides solutions for transmitting handwritten text from hard copies to digital media, intelligent camera surveillance and scanning printed text (Anoto Group AB 2013). To reach out to its customers and all other stakeholders, the company has presence on Twitter, Flickr and YouTube social media sites. With only 103 employees spread across Sweden, UK, US and Japan, the company is an example of modern SMEs that have adopted new IT features as change drivers to enable them gain sustainable competitive advantage over their rivals. Indeed, just like Anoto AB, many other SMEs have embraced the strategy of using social media to achieve their objectives. Meske and Stieglitz (2013) observe that 24% of small enterprises structurally use social media with another 20% using it informally. For medium-sized organisations, the