1st Edition

Online Journalism in Africa Trends, Practices and Emerging Cultures

    284 Pages
    by Routledge

    284 Pages
    by Routledge

    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.

    Introduction: Online Journalism in Africa: Trends, Practices and Emerging Cultures Jason Whittaker, Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara, and Okoth Fred Mudhai Part I: Online vs. Traditional Journalism Practice 1. Back To the Future: Re-invigorating the ‘Newsroom Genre’ to Study Social Media Use in the South Marenet Jordann 2. Online Journalism in the South: Successes, Opportunities and Challenges Johanna Mavhungu and Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara 3. Converging Technologies, Converging Practices: Emerging Institutional Cultures and Practices in Radio Journalism Last Moyo 4. Zimbabwe’s Mainstream Press in the ‘Online Age’: Emerging Practices and Cultures Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara Part II: Ethics and Regulation 5. Online Journalism Under Pressure: An Ethiopian Account Terje S. Skjerdal 6. The Use of Social Media as News Sources by South African political Journalists Ylva Rodny-Gumede and Nathalie Hyde-Clarke Part III: Online Journalism and Politics 7. Immediacy and Openness in a Digital Africa: Networked-Convergent Journalisms in Kenya Okoth Fred Mudhai 8. Online Journalism, Citizen Participation and Engagement in Egypt Ahmed El Gody 9. Online Citizen Journalism and Public Mobilization in the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions Sahar Khamis and Katherine Vaughn 10. J-Blogging and the ‘Agenda Cutting’ Phenomena in Egypt Nagwa Abdel Salam Fahmy Part IV: Consumption and Networking 11. Online News Media Consumption Cultures among Zimbabwean Citizens: Home and Away Tendai Chari 12. The Internet, Diasporic Media and Online Journalism in West Africa Muhammad Jameel Yusha’u 13. ‘Our Listeners Would Rather Call than Post Messages on Facebook’: New Media and Community Radio in Kenya George Ogola 14. Online Forums: How the Voices of Readers are reshaping the Sphere of Public Debate in Burkina Faso Marie-Soleil Frere

    Biography

    Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara is currently a Lecturer in Journalism Studies at Falmouth University, UK. His research on the new media and journalism practice in Africa has been published in a number of leading journals and edited books. Mabweazara serves on the editorial board of Digital Journalism and is Book Reviews Editor of Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies.

    Okoth Fred Mudhai is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism in the Media Department, Coventry University, on a 17-month Post-doctoral Research Associate secondment (2012-14) to the University of Cambridge. He has written extensively, and won awards, on ICTs. His recent publications include two journal articles in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, a number of book chapters and co-editorship of African Media and the Digital Public Sphere.

    Jason Whittaker is Head of the Department of Writing at Falmouth University. He has written extensively on William Blake and digital technologies, his most recent works including William Blake and the Digital Humanities and Producing for Web 2.0. He has worked as an editor and journalist for nearly twenty years.

    "A timely contribution that fills a critical gap in the ethnography of African online media and press practices in evolving political cultures."

    Folu Ogundimu, Michigan State University