COVID-19 in South Africa and its Impact on Youth: The Media’s Representation of the 2020 Super-spreader Matric Rage Festival

The article explores how the emergence of the coronavirus in 2020 affected the youth. Health communication and behaviour change communication theories are used to explain how the youth need to cognitively alter their mindsets about the seriousness of this virus. Health messages were communicated from the government (senders) to the youth (receivers) in relation to precautionary measures that could be taken to protect oneself from infection. Social distancing, sanitising and wearing of a mask were precautions communicated to the youth to inform them via health promotional campaigns. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) explains how youth (in the context of this article) need to understand and implement persuasive health communication for protection against COVID-19. The context of this article explains how the youth, as per the Precaution Adaption Process Model (PAMP), still engaged in risky behaviour and attended the Matric Rage Festival in Ballito, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) during the second wave of the virus infection in South Africa (SA). The youth paid little heed to the health messages and partook in this “super-spreader” event. A qualitative research paradigm was used to purposively select news reports that were available in the public domain. A thematic analysis was used to interpret the news reports. Findings indicated that “super-spreader” events increase the risk of infection, which implies that protocols need to be adhered to as per government regulations.