STIV 2043 A191

DIGITAL AUDIO TECHNOLOGY

GROUP A
ASSIGNMENT 3

PREPARED BY:
PHAN JIA LE (262755)

PREPARED FOR:
MADAM SALINA ISMAIL
1.0 Introduction to Public Service Announcement
A public service announcement, commonly known by the PSA acronym, is a message spread
in the interest of the public. The objectives of PSAs are to raise awareness and change public
attitudes, opinions, or even behaviour towards an issue. These messages can be instructional,
inspirational, or even shocking to elicit emotion and action.
A PSA can be a very powerful way to heighten awareness on a certain issue. Many PSA
campaigns have educated the public or contributed to social change. The number of people
who smoke cigarettes has decreased dramatically since the 1960s, not only because of legal
restrictions, but also because the general public as a whole has become more aware of the
severe health risks. Consider the effects of famous PSA characters on your own life such as
Smokey the Bear or McGruff the Crime Dog and slogans like, “Don’t drink and drive” or
“This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.”
A public service announcement does not need to be a nation-wide endeavor, and can be made
in several different types of media. The most commonly used media for PSAs are video on
television and the internet, and audio during radio shows or podcasts, but there are many
instances of PSAs in print media.

2.0 Literature Review

Bullying at Schools

Bullying is not new issues that students and schools face. In fact, over the years, it
has been viewed as being so commonplace in schools that it has been overlooked as a
threat to students and reduced to a belief that bullying is a developmental stage that most
youth will experience then get over (Ross, 2002, p. 107). But not everyone gets over the
personal trauma that can come with bullying both for the victim and the bully. This is why
it is seen happening by adults in work places, in homes, and in the community. Therefore,
this harassment is not isolated to schools alone. But schools are the best place to actively
intervene. Teachers, administrators, counsellors, and even students have the greatest access
to the most students through a school system. It is here that school staff can intervene,
support and educate students about ending bullying behaviours directly and indirectly;
breaking the bullying-cycle. This paper will address bullying in general at all grade levels,
but its intervention focus will be at the high school level. Harris & Hathorn, (2006, p. 50)
state:

Because adolescence is a difficult time in a child’s maturation, bullying exacerbates these

difficult times by forming barriers to positive connections with other students and school
faculty members. Consequently, the presence of bullying at school often creates a barrier
for young people to develop into well-adjusted adults.
 High school is the last opportunity educators have to work with students at building
citizenship, building character, and building self-responsibility. For some students this may
be the last opportunity for an intervention to change behaviours and attitudes associated
with bullying or victimization before they become adults in the workplace, with a family
and in the community at large.

Reacting to School Violence versus Bullying

In the 1970s Dan Olweus began extensive research on the causes and effects of
bullying in Scandinavian schools and has since been a leading voice on this topic. But it is
only in the last ten to fifteen years that researchers in North America have been actively
studying the causes that lead to bullying, the long and short term effects it has on students,
and how schools and communities can effectively reduce incidents from occurring as well
as intervening and supporting students when it does. This research is a result of the
increase of school violence and the media coverage it has received. On one hand, the
sensationalism of school violence has very much been needed to wake up generations of
educators, parents, and students to say ‘the behaviours leading to this violence are not okay
in my school, they are a problem and we need to find a way to fix it’. However, on the
other hand, reacting out of fear for the worst is not the best approach either, because it
gives a message of fear to staff and students that school violence will be the end result if
these behaviours are not taken care of. While this violence is a real threat that schools have
been facing and educators do need to be aware of it, prepared for it, and actively working
towards ending it; the fear of school violence should not be the sole reason that schools
need to watch more closely for bullying behaviours. For years students have been
experiencing power struggles, embarrassment, fear, isolation, guilt, loss of self-esteem,
loss of friends; issues that follow a person into their adult years if they are not intervened.
This alone should be enough of a concern to educators, parents and students to want to
work towards finding better solutions to bullying and harassment issues in school, not the
fear of it escalating to school violence.

3.0 Problem Statement

In 2012, a study conducted by Unisa established that out of a research sample of 3371
learners, 1158 learners (34.4%) had been victims of bullying. Furthermore, emotional
bullying is evidently more prevalent, with 55.3% of learners falling victim to emotional
bullying, 38.4% being victimised physically, 16.9% being tormented via social media (social
media) and 2.8% being the victims of verbal bullying. This study also shows that 29.3% of
bullying incidents transpire at school after class and 32.2% of bullying incidents occur during
class. In 2008, over a million South African learners were subjected to some form of violence
at school. It is unlikely that these statistics have declined over the last four years, as media
reports on bullying have been escalating. Studies have also shown that a survey of 207
learners, indicated that 60.9% had been bullied. The first South African national youth risk
behavioural survey was conducted by the Department of Health in 2002. According to the
results, 49.3% of secondary school pupils in the Free State had been bullied in the month
before the survey was undertaken.

A previous National Schools Violence Study undertaken by the Centre for Justice and Crime
Prevention, the largest national survey conducted with regards to school violence to date,
included 120 primary schools, 139 principals, 277 teachers and 6 787 learners. The findings
of this survey were:
i) 10.8% of participants had been threatened with violence at some point
ii) 7.5% of participants had been assaulted at some or other time
iii) 3.19% of participants had been robbed
iv) 1.4% of participants had been the victim of some sort of sexual violence
v) 12% of participants had been shouted at or made to feel inferior.

Bullying in schools is a real problem. By sending one’s children to school, one lays the
foundation for their life. Bullying is a harmful external factor that sets the stage for
permanent damage which will ultimately have a lasting, negative effect on the child’s life,
reaching beyond puberty, to adulthood. Bullying may be physical or psychological, which in
turn means that it is much more complex than mere playground pushing and shoving. In
South Africa, no successful measures have been taken yet to eradicate bullying, whether
legislative, or through policy, awareness or any other means by which to stop the terror that is
bullying.

Bullying has always been an omnipresent phenomenon. However, the general attitude of
people towards bullying in the past caused bullying to be glanced over as a “right of
passage”. Only in recent years have professionals such as lawyers and educators realised that
bullying is in fact a form of abuse. The fact that bullying has only been labelled a problem in
the last 30 to 40 years, makes it difficult to trace the roots.

However, if one examines literature in the form of novels, it is evident that bullying has
always been present. Olweus started a large-scale study on bullying in 1970, which is now
generally regarded as the world’s first study of its kind. The findings of this study were
published in Scandinavia in 1973 and in the United States of America in 1978. In the 1980s
Olweus conducted the first intervention study against bullying which is known today as the
Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP). Suffice to say, most, if not all of what is
currently understood about bullying can be attributed to the work done by Olweus and the
OBPP.
4.0 Objective
a) To encourage pupils to disclose and discuss incidents of bullying.
b) To increase the support to combat bullying through the use of ICT tools.
c) To promote the participation of the families in the strategy of prevention.
d) To promote a better and closer relationship between school and family and to improve
information of parents about consequences and symptoms of bullying behaviors.

5.0 Script
Imagine a world where bullying isn’t considered a normal part of childhood.
Do children is living in a world where they are not afraid to go to school.
Someone at school is hiding from the world because of gossip.
When you turn on your phone, you are reading a hurtful post on Facebook.
When you walk to your locker, bully is threatening you.
Did you know that a bully will stop his or her behavior in ten seconds when their peers speak
up? You have the power to stop the bullying.
Speak out. Speak up. Educate.
Each of us deserves the freedom to pursue our own version of happiness. No one deserves to
be bullied.

5.0 References
a) http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-vs-violence.html
b) https://study.com/academy/lesson/public-service-announcement-psa-definition-purpose-
guidelines.html

6.0 Audio
https://www.facebook.com/kahlok.phan/videos/2628620347205358/