Stellenbosch University’s (SU) Mask Up campaign has raised concerns amongst users on social media, regarding the cost of the campaign and a possible mistranslation in the slogan.
After receiving information that SU students and staff were not adhering to pandemic protocols, the ICBC started a campaign to remind everyone to wear their masks. PHOTO: Supplied/Stellenbosch University
A number of users took to Twitter and Instagram platforms querying SU’s campaign, launched on 3 August, encouraging the SU community to wear masks. The campaign was spear-headed by the Campus Operations Workstream, a division of the SU’s Institutional Committee for Business Continuity (ICBC).
This initiative was established after the university received a tip-off that students and staff were not wearing their masks in public spaces on campus, according to Petro Mostert, communications specialist at SU’s operations and finance division.
“This is worrying, not only because it is compulsory to wear a mask in public, but also because not doing so puts other, vulnerable lives at risk,” professor Stan du Plessis, chairperson of the ICBC, said.
“Worth every cent”
Yoh ha.a this univeristy has money to waste.
— Mamtolo (@Ondza_) August 12, 2020
A twitter user criticised SU the cost of the campaign.
As part of the campaign, some trees in Victoria Street have masks wrapped around them. In response to this, one Twitter user criticised the university for wasting money.
While the university did not disclose the cost of the campaign to MatieMedia, Du Plessis said that the awareness created was worth every cent.
“The masks around the trees were made for us by a company who was negatively affected by lockdown. The cost was minimal compared to what it costs to make a small face mask,” Du Plessis said.
According to Du Plessis, the university has assessed the cost of the campaign versus the benefit of having a healthy and compliant campus community.
“The cost of noncompliance to wearing masks is very high. It leads to the spread of infections and, of course, is breaking the law,” Du Plessis said.
Lost in translation
Two Instagram users pointed out that the xhosa translation of the campaign slogan has a sexual connotation, translation to ‘put it in’ instead of ‘put it on’.
Two Instagram users also posted that the isiXhosa translation of the campaign was misspelt and subsequently has a sexual connotation.
Rather than saying “put it on to show you care”, Instagram users pointed out that the slogan read “put it in to show you care”, according to the comments on the university’s Instagram post.
However, according to professor Mawande Dlali, associate professor at the African Languages department at SU, this confusion about the isiXhosa translation is dialectal.
“It is [correct]. You’ll get different interpretations, depending on where they [come from],” said Dlali.
Nonetheless, the university is happy with the campaign’s end result, said Mostert.
“Our purpose with this campaign, is to convey the proven importance of mask-wearing in the fight against this pandemic, and encourage our staff and students to ‘Mask Up’,” Du Plessis said.
#maskup
… even our coffee.
Reply with your photos of you wearing your mask. pic.twitter.com/9ZL8W247Ar— Stellenbosch University (@StellenboschUni) August 13, 2020
In an effort to promote their campaign online, SU and popular campus coffee shop, MyBrew, hosted a competition that encouraged online users to wear their masks.
According to Mostert, the university has received mostly positive feedback, especially on social media.
“It has only been running for a couple of weeks now and so far the response has been positive from students and staff,” Du Plessis said.