Building “Africanised” New Media Training into Journalism Education

There are some v good books out about Online Journalism

.. But they have un-examined Western assumptions

… about journalists

… but in parts of Africa…• Berger (2005) found “poor skills and worse ICT infrastructure in many newsrooms”… [where computers exist] “in many cases these devices do not work, and a great many more are not even connected to the Internet. This is not even to investigate the models and performance of those devices that are wired. Even as regards unwired computers, in many cases journalists queue to share these rather than have personal workstations. Where there is access, such as in one Malawian newsroom, it is only permitted for 30 minutes per journalists per day.”

… and about the audience

Portland Communications (2012)

Internet unknown for most Africans

Gillwald & Stork (2008)

Internet broadband penetration still < 10% at best

GSMA 2012

… though expected to grow

GSMA 2012

Will cellphones save digital journalism?

Impressive growth figures/projections

GSMA 2012

The future is already here…It’s just not very evenly distributed – William Gibson

Numbers can both under and over-estimate mobile availability•“A report by Buddecomm estimated that 20-25% of the active connections in both Egypt and South Africa can be attributed to second handsets or SIMs… may be much higher in the less developed African nations.”

•On the other hand, shared handsets enable some access for broader range of people. (Nyamnjoh 2005:54)

Progress is patchy by country

GSMA 2012

… and between urban and rural, rich and poor

•Rural African mobile penetration = 3% /13%

•Bottom quintile penetration = 1.6% / 10%

All Africa / Middle income countries

(World Bank 2009)

Cost a significant issue

GSMA 2012

… for journalists as well as the public

•“journalists do use cellphones extensively for their work — but a disincentive to this is that most of those interviewed are not subsidised by their workplaces for doing so.” Berger (2005)

Business models & demand for/awareness of mobile-based news unclear

… so much for the supply side – what of the demand?“It is regrettable that scholarly focus has been rather on what ICTs do to Africans, instead of what Africans do with ICTs” - Nyamnjoh (2005)

The case of citizen journalism

“A chance to replace professional exclusivity with a participatory inclusiveness that might lead to a greater variety among the people who can enter and even run the news media.” (Beckett 2008)

Making citizen journalists –Cultural barriers•In Grahamstown, S.A. "there is not an established culture of individuals en masse engaging in public communications, even at the level of phoning to comment within radio talk-shows” (Berger 2011)

•“the quality of production of youth citizen journalism has partly hinged on the consumption of journalism”

Making citizen journalists –Skill barriers•Contributors may need “a lot of training around writing, story-telling, accuracy, verification and fairness.” (Berger 2011)

(A familiar complaint in the developed world too!)

African ‘citizen journalism’

•Potentially valuable supplement to overstretched journalists but…

•May require significant social & technical capacity building

•Beware over-reliance on content & views from urban elites

Suggested foci for educators•Basic digital skills

•Internet research & tools

•Reaching Western or diaspora markets

•Reaching elite or specialist domestic markets

•Reaching and interacting with wider publics in innovative ways

Research

•Use of most suitable tools for online research (bookmark organization, search engines, etc)

where suitable = low bandwidth, offline-compatible

•Use of social networks like Facebook/LinkedIn to find Western experts/interviewees

•Use of open data initiatives to get Western government & NGO data

Reaching Western markets

Reaching Western markets

Reaching diaspora markets

Reaching and interacting with wider publics in innovative ways•Rhodes Uni & Knight Foundation funded citizen journalism effort in Grahamstown, S.A.

•Started using SMS

•Went on to use local radio, Mxit

(Berger, 2011)

… not always sustainable

References

• Beckett, C. (2008). SuperMedia: saving journalism so it can save the world. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

• Berger, G. (2005). Powering African Newsrooms: Theorising how Southern African Journalists make use of ICTs for Newsgathering in Doing Digital Journalism: How Southern African Newsgatherers are using ICTs (pp. 1-14). Grahamstown: High Way Africa. Retrieved from http://www.highwayafrica.com/media/guyberger/Doing_Digital_Web.pdf

• Berger, G. (2011). Empowering the youth as citizen journalists: A South African experience. Journalism, 12(6), 708-726. doi: 10.1177/1464884911405466

• GSMA. (2012). African Mobile Observatory. Retrieved from http://www.gsma.com/articles/african-mobile-observatory-2011/22136/

• Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2005). Africa's media, democracy and the politics of belonging: Zed Books.

• Portland Communications. (2012). How Africa Tweets. Retrieved from http://notebook.portland-communications.com/2012/02/new-research-reveals-how-africa-tweets/

• World Bank. (2009). Information and Communication Technologies : A Boost for African Growth. In World Bank (Ed.), Africa's Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation. Retrieved from https://www.infrastructureafrica.org/aicd/flagship-report

Thank you for your attentionDr David R Brake, Senior LecturerDepartment of Journalism & Communication

davidbrake@gmail.comhttp://davidbrake.org/