![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Unlike previous pandemics and epidemics, the ever-mutating coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) has attracted the attention of both the mainstream and peripheral journalistic actors across the globe. Similar to professional journalists, peripheral actors produced and circulated locally specific public health information on COVID-19 and challenged state media narratives. This article, which focuses on Zimbabwe, attempts to critically analyse the ways in which mainstream and peripheral journalistic actors complemented and competed against each other in their bid to produce and circulate credible and truthful information about the COVID-19. The article employs a mix of in-depth interviews with mainstream and peripheral journalistic actors as well as qualitative content analysis of news articles published by The Herald and Twitter posts published by peripheral actors (including public intellectuals, social media influencers, ordinary people) popularly known as Twimbos (Zimbabweans on Twitter). Although public health communication was centralised by the government bodies, this article provides new evidence of how peripheral journalistic actors played an instrumental role in educating and providing life-saving information about the pandemic as well as exposing multiple government failures in handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This denotes the COVID-19-related disinformation that is increasingly impeding access to trustworthy and reliable information and impacting lives and livelihoods around the world.
2 This is a blend of "information" and "epidemic" that typically refers to a rapid and far-reaching spread of both accurate and inaccurate information about something, such as a disease.
3 In essence, “Day One” covers the breaking news and everything the newsroom gathers right up to deadline. “Day Two” coverage might not actually start on the day after the shooting, as many of the details are still developing at that point.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Wishes Tendayi Mututwa
Wishes Tendayi Mututwa is a PhD graduate at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. He mainly researches on new media technologies, professional and non-professional journalism, popular culture and resistance and health communication. [email protected]
Admire Mare
Admire Mare is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa. Before this recent appointment, he was the Deputy Head and Acting Head in the Deaprtment of Communication at Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia. His research interests include analysisng the intersection between technology and society, digital journalism, social media and politics, media and democracy, media and conflict and the role of artificial intelligence in newsrooms. He currently leads the international research project “Social Media, Misinformation, and Elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe” (SoMeKeZi) funded by the Social Science Research Council (2019–2021). He is also the co-author of “Participatory Journalism in Africa Digital News Engagement and User Agency in the South” (London: Routledge, 2021 with Hayes Mahwindi Mabweazara). He is also co-editor of “Media, Conflct and Peacebuilding in Africa: Empirical and Conceptual Considerations” (London: Routledge, 2021 with Jacinta Maweu).