Online Journalism in Africa

Trends, Practices and Emerging Cultures

Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara,Okoth Fred Mudhai,Jason Whittaker

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134109135
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Langues et linguistique
• Thema: Journalisme

Very little is known about how African journalists are forging "new" ways to practise their profession on the web. Against this backdrop, this volume provides contextually rooted discussions of trends, practices, and emerging cultures of web-based journalism(s) across the continent, offering a comprehensive research tool that can both stand the test of time as well as offer researchers (particularly those in the economically developed Global North) models for cross-cultural comparative research. The essays here deploy either a wide range of evidence or adopt a case-study approach to engage with contemporary developments in African online journalism. This book thus makes up for the gap in cross-cultural studies that seek to understand online journalism in all its complexities.

Part I
Online vs. Traditional Journalism Practice

1
Back to the Future

Reinvigorating the ‘Newsroom Genre’ to Study Social Media Use in Developing Contexts

Marenet Jordaan

It’s like asking whether being able to use a dictaphone instead of a shorthand notebook will help journalism or not. I think social media is such a basic part of what journalism should do now. Whether it helps you or not, is irrelevant. It’s part of what you do. If I had to answer the question … social media is going to be the saving of journalism.

(Chris Roper, editor of the Mail & Guardian Online 2011)

Introduction

Social media are not the new kids on the block anymore. Most of these technologies and platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, have established themselves as high-profile players in the media and communications landscape over the past decade. Due to high broadband Internet costs and various levels of inequality, the penetration rate of these platforms in developing countries, such as South Africa, has not yet reached the proportions of that in the developed Global North. However, the rate at which citizens access these social media platforms and technologies in South Africa—when compared to the rest of Africa—is steadily rising. Social media enable people to become so-called ‘prosumers’ of news: they are not just passive consumers but also have a chance to produce, distribute and interact with their own versions of the truth in global public forums.

These digital social interactions have some profound implications for mainstream media organisations and professional journalism. In recent years, research has been done on whether journalists use social media and whether they find these technologies credible. There has been little focus, however, on what the impact of these technologies might be on the routines and cultures within professional newsrooms. This lack of research is especially evident within developing contexts and/or the Global South.

Web-based surveys and content analyses are worthwhile for investigating the rise of social media. However, it remains crucial to speak to journalists— within newsrooms as their natural environments—about their experiences and impressions regarding the permeation of new technological variables such as Facebook and Twitter into these newsrooms.

Following Cottle’s (2000) advice, this study proposes that journalism researchers take a renewed look at newsroom studies or newsroom ethnography as methods to investigate the impact of social media as a new variable on professional newsrooms. As discussed below, seminal news-room studies, such as those by Gaye Tuchman (1978) and Herbert J. Gans ([1979] (2004), might be of value as starting points here. But as Wasserman (2010, 10) argues in his study of tabloid journalism, theoretical debates on journalism and media studies too often ignore conditions in the ‘Global South’, or what will in this chapter be referred to as ‘developing countries’. According to Wasserman (2010, 10), the result is that “[…] theoretical frameworks and future predictions are often arrived at by extrapolating the experiences of a limited range of countries and regions to assume universal relevance”. It remains critical, therefore, for local researchers in the developing world to investigate the experiences unique to the professional journalists at work in their countries. This is arguably the best way to arrive at a point where theoretical frameworks include a wider variety of views and experiences.

The discussion that follows illustrates one example of how newsroom ethnography within a social constructionist paradigm was employed to investigate whether the professional use of social media, with specific reference to Facebook and Twitter, influences the processes and cultures of news selection and presentation in newspaper newsrooms. The results are based on empirical research done in June and July 2011 at Rapport, an Afrikaans-language Sunday newspaper owned by Media24 (subsidiary of international media conglomerate Naspers), and the Mail & Guardian, an independent English weekly newspaper owned by Mail & Guardian Media Limited.

The study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to triangulate results. The focus was on the newsroom study, with a two-week-long period of newsroom ethnography and semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted with a purposefully selected sample of journalists and editors. In order to draw this sample, the researcher conducted preliminary surveys of the Twitter and Facebook usage of the journalists at Rapport and the Mail & Guardian in Gauteng. This process enabled the researcher to identify journalists who are either very active on social media or who are not active at all and might not even have Twitter or Facebook accounts. Leedy and Ormrod (2005, 206) summarise this as choosing people who are either “typical” of a group or those who represent “diverse perspectives on an issue”. A preliminary survey of journalists from both Rapport and the Mail & Guardian showed that the majority of the journalists have a presence on Facebook and/or Twitter—albeit not necessarily an active one. It can therefore be inferred that this group typically has some kind of social media presence.

To initiate the research and assist with establishing a framework for further investigation during the semi-structured interviews, self-administered questionnaires were distributed to all the journalists and editors in these two newsrooms during June 2011. At the time the research was conducted, limited academic research on professional social media use by journalists existed. Industry studies on the topic as well as guidelines on the design of questionnaires by established media researchers therefore served as starting points for the structuring of this questionnaire. The final questionnaire consisted of four sections on social media use and its relationship to newsroom routines. Questions were mostly based on ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers or a variety of Likert scales (to assess the degree to which a respondent agrees/disagrees with a statement). With 21 questionnaires returned, the response rate was around 67 percent.¹

Ethnographic principles were applied when visiting each newsroom for one production week at the end of June and the beginning of July 2011. During this period, the researcher took field notes of her own personal impressions and observations, made descriptive notes of journalists’ actions and events in the newsrooms and engaged in informal conversations with various journalists and editors.

Fetterman (1998, 1) compares the work of an ethnographer to that of an investigative reporter, with one key difference: journalists look for the unusual, whereas the ethnographer writes about the “routine, daily lives of people”. In the weeks spent at each of the newspapers, I attempted to establish what the cultures and the general news routines of the journalists in the newsrooms were as well as what roles social media played in this regard.

Due to time constraints, observation was possible for only a period of one production week at each newspaper. Although this was ample time to gather information about regular routines, such as editorial conferences, this might not have been sufficient time for the journalists to get comfortable enough to see the researcher as part of their natural environment. Relationships were easier to establish at Rapport than at the Mail & Guardian because I worked there (at Rapport) as a journalist between 2005 and 2009 and knew a fair number of the journalists and editors. It must be noted, however, that I worked in a satellite office (in Pretoria, not the head office in Johannesburg) and was therefore not part of the day-to-day editorial conferences. However, I was still known to some as a journalist, not an academic. This perception might have contributed to my particular awareness that I should not be, for lack of a better word, “friendly” with the journalists when it came to data capturing and analysis.

This prior relationship with the Rapport news office also initially made it easier for me to schedule semi-structured interviews with journalists and editors in this newsroom. I did these 15 interviews in the two different news-rooms during the same period that I made the ethnographic observations in each newsroom.

Although the study is limited in scope, it important to emphasise that the aim of this chapter is to highlight the importance of the newsroom genre as a research paradigm for the exploration and description of how new technologies are accepted within traditional professional newsrooms. The term ‘newsroom genre’ as used here refers to the exploration and investigation of phenomena within a newsroom using methods that are based on ethnographic principles. As explained by Schultz (2007, 191), newsroom studies involve the study of “journalistic practices in news organisations and on newsbeats”. According to Schultz (2007, 191), such studies have provided media and communication researchers with “important insights on the inner workings of media research”. Newsroom studies therefore include direct contact with journalists within their natural environments. This contact consists not only of formal interviews but also of participant observation and informal conversations.

In presenting the results of my study, I also hope to contribute knowledge to the debate on whether social media is seen as an opportunity or a threat by newspaper journalists in South Africa. The latter issue, however, is not the main focus of this chapter.

The South African Newspaper Landscape

The newspaper industry enters 2012 neither dying nor assured of a stable future.

These opening words in the essay on newspapers (Edmonds et al. 2012) in the State of the News Media 2012 report ring true not only for American journalism. If we look at the World Association of Newspapers and News-publishers’ World Press Trends for 2012, it might still look as if global newspaper circulation is rising, but these increases are fuelled mainly by growth in China and India (In Publishing 2012).

The South African newspaper industry has not been immune to the forces that have been putting its global counterparts under immense pressure. A tough economic climate, lack of advertising revenue, declining readership and a steady rise in the Internet penetration rate make it increasingly difficult for newspapers to remain competitive.

The South African Audit Bureau of Circulations reports on its website on 14 August 2012 that circulation of local daily newspapers declined by 5.5 percent (equivalent to 414,000 copies) from 2008 to the second quarter of 2012. The circulation of weekend newspapers also declined by 2.6 percent annually since 2008. In contrast, weekly newspapers recovered to their 2008 levels after a dip in 2010.

Rapport, the widest reaching Afrikaans (weekend) newspaper, and the Mail & Guardian, an independent investigative weekly, differ in terms of target market and ownership. However, they have similar deadlines and production routines, which is what this study focused on. Therefore, these newspapers served as good case studies for an exploratory study into how newspaper newsrooms might react to the introduction of a new variable: social media.

Africa and Social Media Use

As mentioned in the introduction, there might be millions of Facebook and Twitter users in some African countries (such as Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa), yet the penetration of these media is generally very low.² This low penetration rate can for the most part certainly be ascribed to the low Internet-penetration rates on the continent. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) reports on its website (in its statistical highlights for 2012) that fixed-broadband penetration in Africa was only 0.2 percent at the end of 2011, compared to 12 percent in China and 35 percent in the Global North (such as France and the Netherlands). Mobile broadband penetration rates in Africa are slightly higher at five subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, compared to 10 percent in other regions. According to the ITU, “major differences in Internet bandwidth per Internet user persist between regions: on average, a user in Europe enjoys 25 times as much international Internet capacity as a user in Africa.”

South Africa is at the forefront of social media use on the continent. A leading technology research company, World Wide Worx, reported on its website on 4 September 2012 that both Facebook and Twitter had grown in South Africa in the previous year at a rate of 100,000 new users every month. This South African Social Media Landscape Study by World Wide Worx also found that both Facebook and Twitter have “crossed the urban/rural divide”; in other words, rural adults using these social media are catching up to the urban adults. Another industry study by Strategy Worx Consulting reported on its website on 22 August 2012 that around 75 percent of Internet users in the country had Facebook accounts, and 18 percent were using Twitter.

The role of cell phones in social media use on the continent should not be ignored and arguably needs further study. The ITU reports that by the end of 2011, there were 105 countries worldwide with more mobile-cellular subscriptions than inhabitants. These include African countries such as Botswana, Gabon, Namibia, the Seychelles and South Africa. Strategy Worx Consulting wrote on their website on 22 August 2012 that of the around 5.3 million South Africans with Facebook accounts at the time of reporting, around 4.5 million accessed these accounts on their cell phones. In this industry study on social media and mobile use in South Africa, Strategy Worx found that adoption of social media in South Africa is driven by an increase in the use of smartphones.

It is noteworthy that whereas Facebook and Twitter dominate worldwide (and are the focus of this study), Africa is also seeing growth in local and regional social networks, which are often better geared for mobile use. The technology website Memeburn reported in September 2012 on two such networks: MixIt and 2go. According to Memeburn, 2go has seen impressive growth across Africa since its 2008 launch: nine million monthly users in Nigeria, 1.5 million in South Africa and 300,000 in Kenya.

It would follow that the use of social networks for mobile use—and its influence on professional journalism—should also become the focus of local media and journalism research.

Newsroom Ethnography—Renewed

Newsroom studies remain valid for investigating and describing the influence of external factors, such as the introduction of new technologies, on the newsroom. Hermans et al. (2009, 139) have found that the Internet, for instance, has brought changes to news flows, daily journalistic routines and professional accountability. Cottle and Ashton (1999, 22) used a newsroom study to make a case against technological determinism when they studied the influence of new technologies on news production at the British Broadcasting Corporation. Another recent example is the work of Sue Robinson (2011), who did a year-long ethnographic study at a Wisconsin-based newspaper in the United States as it shifted its focus from a daily print product to online. I agree with th...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables
• Foreword
• Introduction Online Journalism in Africa: Trends, Practices and Emerging Cultures
• Part I Online vs. Traditional Journalism Practice
• 1 Back to the Future Reinvigorating the ‘Newsroom Genre’ to Study Social Media Use in Developing Contexts
• 2 The South African Mainstream Press in the Online Environment Successes, Opportunities and Challenges
• 3 Converging Technologies, Converging Spaces, Converging Practices The Shaping of Digital Cultures and Practices on Radio
• 4 Zimbabwe’s Mainstream Press in the ‘Social Media Age’ Emerging Practices, Cultures and Normative Dilemmas
• Part II Ethics and Regulations
• Part 5 Online Journalism Under Pressure An Ethiopian Account
• 6 The Use of Social Media as News Sources by South African Political Journalists
• Part III Online Journalism and Politics
• 7 Immediacy and Openness in a Digital Africa Networked-Convergent Journalisms in Kenya*
• 8 Online Journalism, Citizen Participation and Engagement in Egypt
• 9 Online Citizen Journalism and Political Transformation in the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions A Critical Analysis
• 10 J-Blogging and the ‘Agenda Cutting’ Phenomenon in Egypt
• Part IV Consumption and Networking
• 11 Online News Media Consumption Cultures among Zimbabwean ‘Home and Away’
• 12 The Internet, Diasporic Media and Online Journalism in West Africa
• 13 “Our Listeners Would Rather Call than Post Messages on Facebook”1 New Media and Community Radio in Kenya
• 14 Online Forums How the Voices of Readers Are Reshaping the Sphere of Public Debate in Burkina Faso
• Epilogue
• Notes on Contributors
• Index