Big Brother is Watching: Surveillance Regulation and its Effects on Journalistic Practices in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

In many African countries, including Zimbabwe, journalists have been subjected to various policy regulations that have widely been criticised for making the practice of journalism difficult. Part of the reason has been the advent of competitive politics that have left the ruling regimes scrambling to limit freedoms and stop opposition onslaught on their power. One way the Zimbabwean government has limited freedom of expression has been through the introduction of the Interception of Communications Act, a surveillance regulation law that has had a chilling effect on the practice of journalism. This paper utilises Pierre Bourdieu’s journalistic field as theoretical lenses, focusing on the concepts of journalistic field to explore how journalists have been affected by the threats posed by this law in their daily newsgathering and production activities. The study is based on qualitative interviews with Zimbabwean journalists and civil society activists with an interest in the media, sampled from the private print media. The article argues that state surveillance has disrupted the journalistic field in the country by damaging the relationship between journalists and their sources, thus compromising one of the basic tenets of journalism. Journalists can no longer follow the widely held newsgathering routines as a result of state surveillance policies. Furthermore, investigative journalism, which was already under pressure from political influence, has been further eroded. We argue that Zimbabwe journalists need to develop reporting practices that expose surveillance and find creative ways to negotiate and resist surveillance.

KEYWORDS:

• Surveillance
• Interception of Communications Act
• journalistic field
• Zimbabwe
• journalism practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In 2013 Edward Snowden revealed that the US government was involved in massive surveillance practices that targeted many individuals and were extra-legal.

2 Starting in the late 1990s and still ongoing, Zimbabwe has experienced a profound economic and political crisis that is complex and multifaceted.

3 OSLEG (Operation Sovereign Legitimacy) was a codename given to the military intervention by Zimbabwe in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2001. But even after the withdrawal from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the military top commanders are said to have remained in the DRC and were involved in illegal mining and timber exploitation.