Abstract
Background: The R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant was introduced to mitigate the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. Due to the large youth population and high unemployment statistics, young people make up a significant portion of SRD grant beneficiaries. However, there were technological challenges, access barriers, and inconsistent application criteria, so that only six million people were successfully approved to receive the grant out of nine million applications in the initial application process. Consequently, parliamentary standing committees and civil society organisations called for the development of a clear communications strategy. Few, if any, studies have been carried out to examine the SRD grant communications and the experiences of youth beneficiaries in this regard, including rural and urban youth who are key beneficiaries and have differential access to communication media.
Aim: The study thus sought to compare the differences and similarities in how young rural and urban South Africans experienced SRD grant communications.
Method: A qualitative research approach was adopted with a comparative case study design and was guided by Rogers’s diffusion of innovation theory. The population for the study was young people who currently or previously qualified to receive the SRD grant, lived in an urban or rural area and fell within the youth category as per South Africa’s official definition of the term. Data were collected via face-to-face and telephonic interviews with eight urban and eight rural youth recruited through snowball and criterion sampling. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings: There were more similarities than differences in the experiences of rural and urban youth regarding SRD grant communications. There were similarities regarding the ways in which urban and rural youths experienced communication, and with the ways in which they preferred to receive communication about social development services and opportunities. The difference was that rural participants only shared challenges and did not mention any positive experiences regarding communications about the SRD grant, while urban participants cited having positive experiences in relation to communication about the SRD grant.
Conclusion: Findings suggest that urban youth have an advantage over rural youth regarding access to opportunities, information, and social services. Better tailored communication is required when communicating with rural and urban youth, as they face different challenges. A blanket approach to development communication places rural youth at a further disadvantage.
Key words: SRD grant, development communication, diffusion of innovation, unemployment.