The Reconfiguration of News Work in Southern Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article examines the reconfiguration of news work during the COVID-19 pandemic in selected newsrooms in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It looks at how newsrooms operating in different media systems responded to the structural impediments that accompanied the imposition of lockdown measures. Using technology-mediated interviews, the article investigated how COVID-19 reconfigured news work in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe and how this was shaped by contextual factors in each of these countries. Our study found that COVID-19 severely affected news work in terms of newsgathering, processing, distribution and the funding of media organizations. It created a situation where most news sources were unreachable, marginalized groups and communities excluded, government unaccountable, and advertising revenue reduced. To remedy the situation, media organizations in Southern Africa responded by accelerating the adoption of digital media technologies, by-passing advertising agencies, launching new content distribution channels, implementing paywalls and subscriptions and monetizing virtual events.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• journalism practice
• disruption
• Namibia
• Zimbabwe
• innovation
• South Africa
• Newswork

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 It is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment.

2 They define a critical incident as an event that has led journalists to reconsider their routines, roles, and rules.

3 It refers to the radical changes provoked by the affordances of digital technologies, that occur at a pace and scale that disrupts settled understandings and traditional ways of creating value, interacting and communicating both socially and professionally and, in the case of digital journalism, triggers changes in the business models, professional practice, roles, ethics, products and even the accepted definitions and understandings of journalism.