Introduction

Introduction

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 are “far from being mired in ‘backwardness’ or passively awaiting external salvation in regard to attempts to use [digital technologies]. Nor are they lacking when it comes to critical perspectives [towards the technologies]”. Accone (2000, 69) similarly submits that despite challenges, “African journalists should hardly be viewed as second class Net-izens. They have moulded Internet tools to suit their specific needs, devised ingenious technical solutions to overcome the idiosyncrasies of their situations, and continue to apply the medium [effectively in various contexts]”. Nyamnjoh (2005, 4) concurs, arguing that African journalists are determined to be part of the technological revolutions of the modern world and “the way forward is in recognising the creative ways in which [they] merge their traditions with exogenous influences to create realities that are not reducible to either but enriched by both”.

While efforts at assessing the changes spawned by the influence of new digital technologies are emerging, as noted above, a number of the studies tend to extrapolate “the experiences of a limited range of countries and regions to assume universal relevance” (Wasserman 2010, 10). What is particularly lacking are detailed qualitative explorations of how newsrooms (and their journalists) are adjusting to the new digital context of practice, as well as an understanding of the structure of the ensuing transformations from an African perspective. As Obonyo (2011, 1), rightly advises us, “there are unique peculiarities that demand that Africa isolates what is relevant and place it in Africa’s unique situations, and weave out of that mosaic a framework that reflects Africa’s reality”. We, therefore, need to confront questions about whether “African circumstances and contexts provide new … insights that can extend the broad body of knowledge” (du Plessis 2012, 123) about journalism in “the digital era”. In addition to this, we need to examine how those African circumstances and situations provide sufficient ground for the development of uniquely African experiences and perspectives on the impact of digital technologies on traditional journalism.

Towards an African Digital Journalism Epistemology

The research gap noted above has resulted in sustained dependence on Western theoretical and empirical constructs, which, in many cases, have little or no correspondence to the concrete and material realities of African journalists (Atton and Mabweazara 2011; Mabweazara et al. 2014). Most African journalists, as Paterson (2014, 259–260, emphasis added) observes, operate in multifaceted conditions “where news production is sometimes strikingly similar to what might be seen in any global news hub … and, conversely, sometimes distant from Northern norms in terms of its goals and methods”. In the same way, as Kupe (2004) further notes, most African journalists work with significantly fewer resources. They have a lower status, are poorly paid and operate in multicultural countries that are at various stages of constituting themselves as nations in a globalising world. These contextual complexities and contradictions tend to be overlooked, consequently resulting in superficial and considerably anachronistic articulations of what developments in digital technologies actually mean for the practice of traditional journalism on the continent. This, as Ibelema (2008, 36) contends, has meant that professional norms and practices that emerge from Western social “processes are applied out of context, sometimes awkwardly” in the African context. Yet, even when “[t]heories and empirical studies developed in the West might appear to be applicable to the African context, … a closer look shows significant differences requiring nuanced theorising and research” (Atton and Mabweazara 2011, 668), especially given that much of the research is “conducted in splendid oblivion of conditions in [Africa]” (Berger 2000, 90). The studies have “evolved without incorporating the realities of Africa” (Obonyo 2011, 1) and hence covering only a small portion of the problems and situations that face African journalism. It is in this context that Nyamnjoh (1999, 15) avers that African journalism research must be located “in African realities and not in Western fantasies”.

What we, therefore, need in addressing the research lacuna noted above, is a contextually rooted conceptual approach that enables us to maintain sensitivity to the unique professional and social dynamics in which African journalists operate. Thus, in exploring how African newsgatherers are adapting to the “vagaries” of the digital revolution, “we must acknowledge the complexity of the social context of news production and [avoid] the reductionistic idea of fixing news-making at one point along a circuit of interactions” (Mabweazara 2010, 22). In this sense, this special issue seeks to inspire and demonstrate sensitivity to the contingent nature of the interface between new digital technologies and traditional journalism practice in Africa by countering “technicist” approaches, which tend to extricate technologies from the social context of their deployment. As Conboy (2013, 149) reminds us, “Technology, in isolation, has never made journalism better or worse … [It] does not drive change. It has to adapt to the patterns of cultural expectation within particular societies at specific moments in time”.

Accordingly, in examining how African newsrooms are adapting to the digital era, we should acknowledge the fact that technology by itself is not a relevant explanatory variable of emerging practices. Rather, we need to recognise both the rapidly changing technological aspects as well as the complex set of interactions between new technological possibilities and established journalistic forms. Thus, “[a]n assessment of journalism and technology needs insight from both the practice of journalism as well as well as a general awareness of broader cultural trends and how technology forms part of social history” (Conboy 2013, 149, emphasis added). In the same vein, the adoption and deployment of new digital technologies should be viewed as part of a complex social and institutional matrix, which stretches across a wide range of social institutions. The lines separating different technologies from one another and from society should thus be seen as relative and contingent upon a prevailing social consensus (Marx 1997).

This “calls for non-reductionist approaches that are sensitive to the complex interplay between multiple elements” (Mabweazara 2010, 22) at play in the everyday context in which new digital technologies are used in African newsrooms. Therefore, in seeking to understand how African journalists are adapting to the new digital era, we should not overlook the varied contextual influences—social, cultural, political and economic factors—“which lie outside journalism itself and indeed outside of any absolute consideration of the quality of journalism’s products” (Conboy 2013, 149). All of these factors will help to shape and constrain the appropriations of new digital technologies. This line of thought relates to consistent calls to “de-Westernise” African media and communications research by examining and recognising the creative ways in which African journalists seek to harness, within the limits of pervasive “structural constraints …, whatever possibilities are available to contest and seek inclusion” in the digital era (Nyamnjoh in Wasserman 2009, 291).

While a number of leading scholars have called for radical Afrocentric approaches to de-Westernising journalism studies (see Kasoma 1996), this themed issue is informed by a moderate heuristic approach that emphasises foregrounding the realities or contexts in which African journalists operate. To use Ngomba’s (2012, 166) words, the issue “circumnavigates” radical Afrocentric discourses of de-Westernisation by accommodating (and in some cases modifying) Western theoretical approaches in ways that offer “contextually relevant extensions of [the] theories” to help frame our understanding of the impact of new digital technologies on traditional journalism in contemporary Africa. This approach leads to alternative understandings that foreground “localised” factors rooted in the antithesis of technological determinism—the social constructivist approach to technology. At the heart of this alternative perspective is sensitivity to the complex multi-dimensionality of elements of determinism (Dahlberg 2004) by paying attention to the “cultural and relational milieu” (Hays 1994, 66) (the deeper social, cultural, political and economic factors) at play in the deployment and appropriation of new technologies by African journalists.

This conceptual posture acknowledges the fact that the uses of technology take place in socially structured contexts, and as Thompson (1988, 368, emphasis added) reminds us, the first phase of cultural analysis should strive to “reconstruct [the] context and examine the social relations and institutions, the distribution of power and resources, by virtue of which this context forms a social field”. Thus, in seeking answers to the impact of digital technologies on African newsroom, we need to look at African journalism in context—its culture, institutions, the broader communication environment—and examine how these collectively provide insights that can enable us to develop what we might loosely brand as an African digital journalism epistemology. This stance “allows us to view the use of new digital technologies by journalists as a multifaceted experience that can be evaluated against the backdrop of the local … factors” (Mabweazara 2010, 25). As Obieng-Quaidoo (1986) contends, socio-cultural, political and economic aspects are central to any attempt to understand African journalism. With this awareness in mind, we can critically examine how new digital technologies are transforming newsmaking practices, and the ways in which they are being incorporated into the everyday lives of journalists, which inadvertently mediate the processes of adoption and use of new technologies. This sensitivity to context further helps to define African journalism in the digital era as well as position it in “the universals that are deaf-and-dumb to the particularities of journalism in and on Africa” (Nyamnjoh in Wasserman 2009, 287).

It is, however, important to highlight that while the emphasis on context is key here, Africa as a continent is not a homogenous landscape with a collective singular identity. It is, in fact, “a culturally, politically and economically … fragmented society … There are many Africans, both fitting stereotyping but simultaneously defying uniform description” (Obonyo 2011, 4, emphasis added). As Obonyo further contends, North Africa is more closely aligned to the Middle East than to the wider Africa. “It engages less in scholarship terms with the rest of the continent” (2). Consequently, conversations about Africa invariably consider Africa south of the Sahara. But even here disparities informed by “language and colonial experiences make it somewhat of a challenge to make sweeping statements” (2). There are wide discrepancies between Francophone, Anglophone and Lusophone Africa and indeed within each of these regions. For example, South Africa stands apart from the rest of English-speaking Africa; its “media infrastructure is [predominantly well-funded, with excellent newsroom infrastructure hence] markedly different from the rest of the continent” (2).

In proposing the approach articulated above, as argued elsewhere, I am not “suggesting a localised research agenda of separatism” (Atton and Mabweazara 2011, 670), or falling into the “seductive perils of ‘essentialism and ahistoricism’” that have characterised a number of non-Western alternative theoretical discussions in journalism and media research, rather the premise is that “where ‘Western’ theories appear relevant and promising … African scholars should neither shy away from using them, nor be apologetic when using them critically” (Ngomba 2012, 177), even as we seek to de-westernise our scholarly accounts and map out an African digital journalism epistemology.

About this Special Issue

Against the foregoing backdrop, this themed issue offers space to scholarship that interrogates and examines closely how African journalists are forging new ways of practising journalism in the context of technological changes in their newsrooms as well as in the wider context of news production. The issue is motivated by Cottle’s instruction that with the rapid changes in the context in which journalism is practised, “we need to examine the fast changing ecology of news, its changing industrialised and technological basis and its response to the changing structurations of society” (Cottle 2000, 432). In this light, the six contributions to this issue detail trends, practices and emerging cultures of the adoption and appropriation of new digital technologies by newsrooms and journalists drawn from three African regions (North, West and Southern Africa), constituted by case studies selected from five countries: Egypt, Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. As highlighted above, the collection of essays is an attempt to offer “fresh” non-Western empirical insights into how traditional journalism is adapting to the unsettling impact of new digital technologies in their various forms. The issue broadly explores the diverse ways in which African newsrooms adopt and utilise new digital technologies in respect of their work, including the challenges and normative dilemmas emerging with the adoption of the technologies.

While the contributions to the issue are predominantly anchored in Western journalism theory they, however, point to a number of localised dimensions of appropriations of new technologies as defined by the socio-political structures in which journalists (and their newsrooms) operate. In particular, the essays demonstrate the possibilities for uniquely African views that enrich our understanding of adoption practices, localised appropriations as well as cultures emerging with interactivity and networking. The studies further demonstrate, as noted earlier, that even within particular regions on the African continent, including individual countries, newsrooms’ adoption of new digital technologies are enormously varied and far from being homogenous. This reinforces a point made earlier that Africa is not a singular entity; rather it has nuances and differences that often evade the purview of researchers steeped in Western journalism scholarship.

The essays published here largely deploy qualitative research approaches that offer rich observation and descriptions that challenge popular assumptions about the impact of new digital technologies on African journalism. With the research widely dominated by Anglophone cases, Admire Mare shifts our focus to a unique setting, Mozambique (a Lusophone country), where the media landscape is predominantly under-researched. He offers a thoughtful discussion of the creative appropriation and innovative integration of new digital technologies, including mobile channels by a community newspaper, @Verdade that circulates free of charge. The study makes reference to “local context” appropriations of Facebook, as well as its “symbolic” recreation in the physical space through writing and illustrating breaking news in formats that demonstrate the creative rearticulating of technology to fit into deprived African contexts in line with local needs and expectations. The notion of the “digital divide” is thus at the core of the study, in particular, how questions of “access” to technology (in its various forms) shape and constrain the news agenda of local newspapers. This further relates to language complexities, especially the dominance of English language as a medium of engagement on the internet (at the expense of local languages), and the consequent implications on wider “access”.

In contrast to the print-first or text-based approaches to journalism considered by most of the contributors to this special issue, Tanja Bosch concentrates on converging technologies and practices in South African community radio journalism. Focusing on radio stations in three major cities, she addresses how social media is deployed and the implications for the notion of “community radio” when stations migrate to digital spaces. While emphasising the fact that South African community radio journalism is not homogenous because of various factors, including location, funding and skills levels, Bosch observes that the community radio stations use digital technologies to connect with their audiences. The radio stations no longer see their audiences in the traditional sense, in which they are organised around identity politics or communal social relations, but rather as “atomised” individuals who connect with the stations increasingly via digital platforms which have become extensions of the airwaves, consequently stretching the boundaries of traditional “community radio”. However, the pervasive nature of the “digital divide” has not spared the radio stations as the bulk of their audience is constituted by low-income groups with limited access to the internet or mobile phones. The inequalities of access to digital technologies highlighted in this study point to South Africa’s social dilemma which is marked by a yawning chasm between the rich and the poor. Thus, while digital technologies have become central to the daily routines of community radio stations, they have in essence not radically transformed the radio stations’ approaches to their journalism.

While acknowledging that journalists have not always capitalised upon the creative ways in which the public they target adopt, adapt and appropriate new technologies, Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara extends Mare and Bosch’s discussion in his examination of how readers’ responses to the interactivity of online news content have become central to news cultures and practices in Zimbabwe’s state-controlled and private press. Mabweazara explores the intersections between audience voices and traditional journalism, and argues that readers’ comments are increasingly shaping and contributing to the dynamics of newsmaking in ways that point to a reconfiguration of the traditional news culture. Further, the comment forums also provide alternative spaces for public deliberation, a key function in a context where general information flows and censorship of the media by government are rife. However, for Mabweazara, the integration of user comments in this heavily polarised journalistic context is not without negative implications. In particular, the lack of clear and consistent gatekeeping strategies has opened floodgates of abuses and extremist views that pose serious social threats as well as taint the core values and normative ideals of news. Motilola Olufenwa Akinfemisoye’s study similarly focuses on the impact of “alternative user voices” (mediated by new technologies) on Nigerian mainstream newsroom culture in the context of the 2011 general election. She argues that in the context of the election, Nigerian newsrooms sought to maximise profits by actively engaging “alternative audience voices” in reporting the elections. However, while the adoption of user-generated content (UGC) in mainstream news reporting is challenging and recasting established institutional practices and cultures, it is not necessarily redefining the traditional journalistic structure. Akinfemisoye concludes that contrary to scholarship that sees digital technologies as “de-professionalising” journalists, mainstream journalism in Nigeria makes every effort to defend its territory by going beyond just breaking news to providing more in-depth and interpretive reports.

With an emphasis on new technology adoption and innovation in Egyptian print newsrooms, Ahmed El Gody offers a detailed account of how new technologies are influencing newsroom practices. Focusing on three case studies drawn from the state-controlled and private press, El Gody highlights how organisational approaches, attitudes, as well as internal “power dynamics” shape and constrain the adoption, access and use of new technologies by journalists. Adopting a detailed descriptive approach, the study demonstrates how local context factors, including proprietorial influences and management attitudes, shape adoption practices in African newsrooms. El Gody concludes that ownership patterns and variations between types of news organisations influence the adoption and appropriation of new technologies. Thus, while the pro-government press seem far from understanding the centrality of new technologies as journalistic tools, the “independent” private press has invested heavily in the technologies and innovatively deploys them to escape government control as well as to connect and interact with sources and audiences.

Peter Verweij and Elvira van Noort remind us how the South African journalism context has more in common with the Western media context than with the broader sub-Saharan Africa in their examination of how social media (Twitter, specifically) is deployed by a network of journalists to connect with various stakeholders in the newsmaking culture. They observe that the South African journalists’ “Twitter network” is characterised by pluralism; with a number of journalists from leading mainstream newsrooms, as well as freelance journalists, taking the lead as influential voices on Twitter. Verweij and van Noort argue that journalists’ role in the network is not just limited to searching for story ideas and disseminating news, but also extends to commenting on stories as well as inviting the public to actively take part in topical discussions. In this sense, Twitter as a “journalistic network” strengthens the independence of public debate in a context where the government is bent on controlling information flows. In the same way, the openness and pluralism expressed by various subgroups in the network is key to shaping public debate and engendering democratic decision-making.

Although the picture painted in these studies is not an unequivocally rosy one, with some of the case studies clearly demonstrating that much work still needs to be done in embracing “convergence practices” in African newsrooms, the papers, nonetheless, illustrate the agency and creativity displayed by journalists (and their newsrooms) in adopting and adapting digital technologies to their specific contexts. Collectively, the studies make a “compelling case for delving into the lived materialities of reportorial forms, practices and epistemologies, showing us wherein lie the challenges, as well as the remarkable potentials” (Allan 2014, x), for African journalism as it evolves across multiple digital platforms.

Further, while the studies highlight the significance of locale, they are not confined to Africa, they are in dialogue with mainstream theoretical concerns that originate elsewhere, hence pointing to the significance of cross-cultural comparative studies that “reconnect accounts of journalism in Africa with Western research” (Atton and Mabweazara 2011, 670). Taken together, the papers not only showcase alternative ways of understanding and explaining issues at the heart of the changing nature of traditional journalism, but also highlight the centrality of the fact that “No theorisation takes place in a void. Meaningful theorisation has to be contextualised” (Nyamnjoh in Wasserman 2009, 283). Thus, even as we seek to de-westernise our accounts by deploying an African digital journalism epistemology, we do not necessarily need to substitute or replace existing theory as “The African condition is not a birthmark; it is not exclusive to Africa” (287).

It is hoped that these accounts will contribute towards a reconstituted vision of global journalism practice in the digital era—one that not only validates the value of experiences outside Western countries (particularly the United Kingdom and the United States), but also demonstrates how new digital technologies have the potential to boost “African stories, information, and representations for African audiences” (Berger 2005, 1), thereby positioning African journalism in the unfolding global Information Society.

It is worth noting, however, that a cogent realisation of the theoretical posture advanced above is beyond the boundaries of the research covered here. The special issue is far from providing an exhaustive picture of the intersections between digital technologies and journalism practice in Africa. Rather, it provides an empirical point of departure for further scholarly explorations that mainstream African perspectives into current debates about the impact of new technologies on journalism. In particular, there is scope for further research that shifts focus from the country-specific case studies presented here to broader comparative investigations that examine developments between African countries as well as other regions of the global South. This, however, does not imply simply expanding on the regions covered by this issue, but also entails deploying the emerging evidence to critically engage with the dominant Western theoretical constructs, which are so heavily relied upon by researchers, not least the contributors to this themed issue.