Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara

Blogging down a dictatorship: Human rights, citizen journalists and the right to communicate in Zimbabwe

This article examines the use of blogs to mediate the experiences of citizens during a violent election in Zimbabwe. It focuses specifically on how people disseminated and shared information about their tribulations under a regime that used coercive measures in the face of its crumbling hegemonic edifice. The article frames these practices within theories of alternative media and citizen journalism and argues that digitization has occasioned new counter-hegemonic spaces and new forms of journalism that are deinstitutionalized and deprofessionalized, and whose radicalism is reflected in both form and content. I argue that this radicalism in part articulates a postmodern philosophy and style as seen in its rejection of the elaborate codes and conventions of mainstream journalism. The internet is seen as certainly enhancing the people’s right to communicate, but only to a limited extent because of access disparities on the one hand, and its appropriation by liberal social movements whose configuration is elitist, on the other. I conclude by arguing that the alternative media in Zimbabwe, as reflected by Kubatana’s bloggers, lack the capacity to envision alternative social and political orders outside the neoliberal framework. This, I contend, is partly because of the political economy of both blogging as a social practice and alternative media as subaltern spaces. Just as the bloggers are embedded to Kubatana’s virtual space to self-publish, Kubatana is likewise embedded to a neoliberal discourse that is traceable to its funding and financing systems.

Between the newsroom and the pub: The mobile phone in the dynamics of everyday mainstream journalism practice in Zimbabwe

This article uses an ethnographic case-study approach to investigate the deployment of the mobile phone by Zimbabwean mainstream print journalists in the dynamics of their daily professional routines and practices. The study’s theoretical and conceptual framework draws on social constructivist approaches to technology and the sociology of journalism to provide a direction for conceptualizing the interplay between journalists, their immediate context of practice and the wider socio-political and economic milieu that collectively structure and constrain the appropriation of the mobile phone. The findings suggest that the technology has assumed a taken-for-granted role in the routine operations of journalists and, in particular, that it is redefining traditional newsmaking practices. The article concludes that the cultural and social appropriations of the mobile phone by Zimbabwean mainstream journalists suggest that the technology has acquired new meanings in the social context of its appropriation. Its pervasiveness in everyday life has facilitated the blurring of the boundaries between the work and the private life of journalists.

NORMATIVE DILEMMAS AND ISSUES FOR ZIMBABWEAN PRINT JOURNALISM IN THE “INFORMATION SOCIETY” ERA

While new digital technologies offer mainstream journalism in Africa (and elsewhere) alternative opportunities to engage and deliver content to their audiences, few studies have explored their disruptive implications to the practice of the profession. This study thus confronts the normative dilemmas and challenges facing Zimbabwean print journalism in the era of the rapid proliferation and appropriation of new digital technologies. It specifically explores how the appropriation of the internet and the mobile phone by Zimbabwean print journalists has contributed to a transformation of the profession at a number of levels, including news sourcing routines, and the structuring of the working day. While broadly affirming findings from previous studies, the paper submits that the information society era has spawned a number of localised professional dilemmas that border around copyright infringements as well as concerns relating to the invasion of journalists’ personal space and privacy. It contends that despite the wide-ranging resources and technological possibilities emerging with new digital technologies in Zimbabwe, their appropriation in journalism (and in everyday life) presents several unsettling challenges and modifications to the profession.While new digital technologies offer mainstream journalism in Africa (and elsewhere) alternative opportunities to engage and deliver content to their audiences, few studies have explored their disruptive implications to the practice of the profession. This study thus confronts the normative dilemmas and challenges facing Zimbabwean print journalism in the era of the rapid proliferation and appropriation of new digital technologies. It specifically explores how the appropriation of the internet and the mobile phone by Zimbabwean print journalists has contributed to a transformation of the profession at a number of levels, including news sourcing routines, and the structuring of the working day. While broadly affirming findings from previous studies, the paper submits that the information society era has spawned a number of localised professional dilemmas that border around copyright infringements as well as concerns relating to the invasion of journalists’ personal space and privacy. It contends that despi...

Readers Comments on Zimbabwean Newspaper Websites: How audience voices are challenging and (re)defining traditional journalism

Using qualitative data drawn from in-depth interviews with journalists, this study investigates how leading print newsrooms in Zimbabwe are adapting to the wave of changes spawned by readers’ comments on their websites. It specifically examines how newspaper journalists are handling the “new” context in which strangers contribute and respond directly to something they alone once controlled. The paper further explores the professional and ethical dilemmas emerging with the volumes of user-generated content posted on the websites and the approaches taken by newsrooms in managing and “gatekeeping” the content. The study generally observes that while newsrooms are still broadly adjusting to the influx of readers’ voices in their territory, the comments are increasingly shaping and contributing to the dynamics of newsmaking in ways that point to an emerging ecological reconfiguration and recasting of dimensions of news production. In the same way, the comment forums embody spaces for public deliberation. Howev...Using qualitative data drawn from in-depth interviews with journalists, this study investigates how leading print newsrooms in Zimbabwe are adapting to the wave of changes spawned by readers’ comments on their websites. It specifically examines how newspaper journalists are handling the “new” context in which strangers contribute and respond directly to something they alone once controlled. The paper further explores the professional and ethical dilemmas emerging with the volumes of user-generated content posted on the websites and the approaches taken by newsrooms in managing and “gatekeeping” the content. The study generally observes that while newsrooms are still broadly adjusting to the influx of readers’ voices in their territory, the comments are increasingly shaping and contributing to the dynamics of newsmaking in ways that point to an emerging ecological reconfiguration and recasting of dimensions of news production. In the same way, the comment forums embody spaces for public deliberation. However, the lack of clear gatekeeping strategies has opened floodgates of abuses and extremist views that pose serious threats to the core values of news as well as the normative ideals of traditional journalism.

African Journalism in the ‘Digital Era’: Charting a Research Agenda

This short article attempts to chart a research direction for exploring, among other issues, questions of structuring, appropriations and transformation through a combination of personal impressions, research and theoretical observations driving debates on the new media and journalism practice in Africa and beyond.

Introduction: ‘Digital technologies and the evolving African newsroom’: towards an African digital journalism epistemology

Research into the impact of new digital technologies on African journalism is scarce. In particular, very little is known about the influence of digitisation, the internet, mobile communications and social media on the daily routines and practices of journalists in their “natural habitat”—the newsroom (Paterson and Domingo 2008). This gap in empirical research has often resulted in scholarly conjectures that, among other things, seek explanatory frameworks in the uneven distribution and use of technological resources between the economically developed North and the poor South. The resulting discourses invoke the “digital divide” as the default explanatory framework—seen by many as a chasm that prevents journalists in Africa from “drinking at the fount” (Berger 2005) of the unfolding digital revolution. Thus, African journalism is seen as being “in deficit as regards the emerging global information order” (Berger 2005, 1). The dominant discourse, as Berger further contends, is that “some of us have arrived in the land of plenty; the rest lag behind, empty-handed and hopeless, and urgently need to play catch-up or even leapfrog” (2). In short, “when seen in comparison with the First World, there are indeed shortcomings and a dire need for catch-up in [Africa]” (1). While this sense of backwardness aptly relates to setbacks associated with the realities of “access” to digital technologies, it also connects to the complexities and contradictions connected to the “localised” diffusion and permeation of digital technologies in African newsrooms. Collectively, these challenges, as Berger argues, inform much thinking about Africa in the global “Information Society”, and often project an image of helpless journalists, who operate in conditions well below the purported level of their colleagues in the global North. Yet, despite these challenges and prevailing assumptions, there is no denying the fact that African newsrooms (as elsewhere) are experiencing the disruptive—somewhat cataclysmic—impact of new digital technologies on the way news is generated, disseminated and consumed by their audiences. There are clear indications that a number of countries on the continent have functioning new technology facilities and indeed dimensions of internal newsroom creativity and adaptations to the digital revolution (however small) are emerging (see Accone 2000; Chari 2009; Berger 2011; Mabweazara 2011; Mudhai 2011; Mabweazara, Mudhai, and Whittaker 2014). Digital technologies are changing the informational needs of citizens and newsrooms (alongside their journalists) are being forced to adapt in various ways. As Berger (2005, 1) puts it: African journalists

Charting Theoretical Directions for Examining African Journalism in the “Digital Era”

This essay provides a metatheoretical framework for understanding the complexities surrounding African journalism in the era of interactive digital technologies. It argues for the continued relevance of traditional theoretical paradigms, and submits that radical calls to develop new theories as well as to de-Westernise contemporary journalism studies through exclusively deploying “home-grown” concepts such as ubuntuism are not necessarily always viable. Rather, there is more to gain from appropriating traditional theories and identifying possible synergies between the “old”, predominantly Western approaches, and the “new digital phenomena”, and weaving out of that dialogue, approaches that are not radically different but are in tune with the uniqueness of African experiences. This approach, as the study argues, is particularly important given that journalism (including its appropriation of new technologies) always takes on the form and colouring of the social structure in which it operates. The study thus...This essay provides a metatheoretical framework for understanding the complexities surrounding African journalism in the era of interactive digital technologies. It argues for the continued relevance of traditional theoretical paradigms, and submits that radical calls to develop new theories as well as to de-Westernise contemporary journalism studies through exclusively deploying “home-grown” concepts such as ubuntuism are not necessarily always viable. Rather, there is more to gain from appropriating traditional theories and identifying possible synergies between the “old”, predominantly Western approaches, and the “new digital phenomena”, and weaving out of that dialogue, approaches that are not radically different but are in tune with the uniqueness of African experiences. This approach, as the study argues, is particularly important given that journalism (including its appropriation of new technologies) always takes on the form and colouring of the social structure in which it operates. The study thus draws on social constructivist approaches to technology and the sociology of journalism, as well as an array of theoretical concerns from African journalism scholarship to offer a possible direction for a conceptual framework that can help us to capture the complex imbrications between new digital technologies and journalism practice in Africa.

Digital Technologies and the Evolving African Newsroom: Towards an African Digital Journalism Epistemology

African newsrooms are experiencing the disruptive impact of new digital technologies on the way they generate and disseminate news. Indeed, newsrooms are being forced to adapt in various ways and there are clear dimensions of localized creativity and adaptations by journalists to the digital revolution. In the same way, the influences of digitization, Internet, and social media are changing the informational needs of readers, including how they engage with news. These developments nonetheless remain on the margins of ‘mainstream’ journalism research – very few researchers have sought to qualitatively capture the implications of developments in digital technologies on the routine practices of African journalists, especially in their ‘natural habitat’, the newsroom. In this light, this edited volume interrogates the changing ecology of newsmaking in Africa in the context of rapid technological changes in newsrooms as well as in the wider social context of news production. It brings together six contributions drawn from five countries: Egypt, Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, to explore practices, challenges and professional normative dilemmas emerging with the adoption and appropriation of new technologies. While the studies point to dimensions of localised new technology appropriations as defined by the complex socio-political structures in which African journalists operate, they are not rigidly confined to Africa. They are expressly in dialogue with theoretical observations largely emerging from Western scholarship. In this sense, the book goes beyond simply mainstreaming African perspectives, it engages directly with dominant theoretical observations and offers a point of departure for developing what could loosely be branded as an African digital journalism epistemology. This book was originally published as a special issue of Digital Journalism.

When Your “Take-Home” Can Hardly Take You Home: Moonlighting and the Quest for Economic Survival in the Zimbabwean Press.

Using empirical data from in-depth interviews with journalists drawn from across the Zimbabwean mainstream press, this chapter examines how the Zimbabwean economic and political context has, over the years, nurtured an environment in which journalists ‘illicitly’ incorporate extra paid work (for other news organizations) into their daily work routines as a way of supplementing their poor salaries and surviving the economic challenges facing the country. The study argues that this practice, commonly referred as ‘moonlighting’, points to the challenges that the material realities of working for a poor salary imposes on African journalists. This situation not only differentiates African journalists from their counterparts in the economically developed countries of the North but also highlights how the conditions of material deprivation tend to subvert conventionalized notions of professionalism and ethical standards. The chapter further contends that moonlighting articulates the consequences of a restricted media environment in which stories by local journalists that criticize government policy and expose social ills mainly find space in ‘independent’ and foreign news organizations.

Reinvigorating ‘Age-Old Questions’: African Journalism Cultures and the Fallacy of Global Normative Homogeneity

This book contributes to a broadened theorisation of journalism by exploring the intricacies of African journalism and its connections with the material realities undergirding the profession on the continent. It carries theoretically driven studies that collectively deploy a wide range of evidence to shed light on newsmaking cultures in Africa—the everyday routines, defining epistemologies, as well as ethical dilemmas. The volume digs beneath the standardised and universalised veneer of professionalism to unpack routine practices and normative trends spawned by local factors, including the structural conditions of deprivation, entrenched political instability (and interference), pervasive neo-patrimonial governance systems and the influence of technological developments. It demonstrates that these varied and complex circumstances profoundly shape the foundations of journalism in Africa, resulting in routine practices that are both normatively distinct and equally in tune with (imported) Western journalistic cultures. The book thus broadly points to the dialectical nature of news production and the inconsistent and contradictory relationships that characterise news production cultures in Africa.