Towards reimagining the ‘digital divide’: impediments and circumnavigation practices in the appropriation of the mobile phone by African journalists

ABSTRACT

The rapid proliferation of the mobile phone in Africa has often been celebrated in deterministic ways that blindly eschew the stark and intricate realities associated with the challenges of the ‘digital divide’. Equally, very little attention has been paid to the sophisticated ways in which citizens (in association with mobile phone operators and manufacturers) negotiate their way around these challenges. Against this backdrop, this essay draws on interviews conducted between 2008 and 2016 to explore the experiences of African journalists in their deployment of the mobile phone as a journalistic and everyday communication platform. It specifically examines the localised challenges faced and the strategies employed to circumnavigate them. The findings show that, to remain connected, journalists as both professionals and citizens, generally deploy tactics hinged on their individual and collective agency as well as the creative innovations of mobile phone operators and manufacturers. Collectively, these strategies, as the paper argues, present an opportunity to reimagine the notion of the ‘digital divide’ as a multifaceted, inherently contextual experience embedded in the interplay between social actors, their immediate context of ‘practice’ and the wider social milieu.

KEYWORDS:

• African journalists
• Appropriation
• circumnavigation strategies
• digital divide
• domestication
• mobile phone

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributor

Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara teaches media and international journalism at the University of Glasgow, UK, where he is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group. He is Associate Editor of two leading journals published by Routledge, Journalism Studies and African Journalism Studies, and a Research Associate in the Department of Journalism, Film & Television at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His most recent publications include the co-authored book, Participatory Journalism in Africa (Routledge, 2021) and the edited volume, Newsmaking Cultures in Africa (Palgrave, 2018).

Notes

1 ‘Appropriation’ as used here points to the complex intermeshing of old practices, traditions and the affordances of new technologies, resulting in a rich blend of locally contingent uses, highlighting how technologies acquire different meanings in different social contexts.

2 The Post newspaper was shut down just after my fieldwork in 2016 allegedly for failure to settle its tax obligations. The data presented in this study, however, still has relevance and contemporary resonance with similar experiences at other independent newspapers included in the study.

3 The primary aim was not a comparative one although differences that emerged during the interviews were flagged for further in-depth analysis.

4 Feature phones incorporate features such as the ability to access the Internet, store and play music but lack the advanced functionality of a smart phone.

5 It needs to be stated, however, that the popular conceptions of the ‘digital divide’ still resonate with experiences in most sub-Saharan African countries albeit to varying degrees and complexities.

6 ‘Econet […] acquired 98 diesel generators from China to provide stand-by power to its base stations, bringing to almost 210 the number of base stations with generators out of the more than 320 that the company has country wide’, reported in The Herald, July 17, 2008.

7 A reliable freelancer from New Vision files about 15 stories per month at the rate of about 20,000 Uganda Shillings which translates to 300,000 (around $USD 81) per a month.

8 A Virtual Private Network allows the user to create a secure connection to another network over the Internet. It can be used to access restricted websites as well as shield one’s browsing activity from prying eyes on public Wi-Fi, and more.

9 The caller-identity facility enables mobile phone users to identify the caller and thus establish the importance of the call before responding. In the same way, one can choose to hide his/her identity when making calls..