Analysing Discourse-Stylistics on Peripheral Journalism Platforms: A Context of Indigenous Language News Outlets on Facebook

Abstract

The evolving nature of journalism through digital platforms has prompted scholarly enquiry on the narratives, practices and outputs by non-traditional actors in Africa’s communication ecology. Informed by interpretative community theory and discourse-stylistics, this article analyses stylistics in Indigenous language on non-mainstream or peripheral journalism platforms. A qualitative content analysis was applied on two popular Zimbabwean non-mainstream platforms on Facebook, namely iHarare.com and Hatirare263 that publish in Shona language. Follow up in-depth interviews with the administrators of the pages were employed to extract perspective as the study answered two questions: What are the stylistic devices used by content creators in Indigenous language on non-mainstream platforms, and why do they employ such devices? The findings of the study show that iHarare.com and Hatirare263 use street lingo in summative captions, code-mixing and switching, and satire to reinforce the voice of the community, somewhat circumventing the English algorithm. The article argues that Indigenous language news outlets reflect the ever-changing lingo in peripheral journalism and the cultural flexibility of citizen discursive communities.

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