Journalism and social media in the African context

Abstract

Much has been written in recent years about the rise of social media (broadly speaking, those communications technologies supporting digital sharing and dialoguing), but there has still been quite limited examination of the African context, with the notable exception of the social media's role in permitting civil society actors to communicate outside of established commercial and state channels during the so-called Arab Spring (Shirky 2011); though as Loudon and Mazumdar point out in this issue, even that discourse may be, if not overstated, ill informed.While this special issue of Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies was conceived as an opportunity to examine the implications of social media for African journalism, it became clear that in defining 'social media' and 'African journalism' narrowly, we found their connections, and the extent of comprehensive research examining those, relatively nascent.Atton and Mabweazara (2011, 668), in their overview of research into new media and journalism in Africa, observe that 'research has largely lacked theoretical and empirical grounding in terms of examining how African mainstream journalists are forging "new" ways to practise their profession in the light of technological changes in their newsrooms'.But participatory journalism, in which narrowly defined 'social media' (blogging, tweeting and the like) play an integral role, is thriving around Africa and, with it, a significant body of research is emerging, including the examples which appear here.Importantly, though, as some authors point out in this issue, even where journalists in Africa are eager to embrace social media in their work, it is usually the case that the majority of adults in their country have no access to such media.Collectively, the research described in this issue suggests that new forms of citizenship are emerging around Africa, as a result of widespread and innovative popular interaction with new communications technologies, including social media and the adaptation of mainstream media to those trends.I am reminded as I write these words in the United Kingdom (UK), that at the 'twenty-year anniversary of text messaging' some of the technologies having the most pronounced effect on society around Africa

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