News in the Digital Age: A Case Study of CITE as a Digital Public Sphere in Zimbabwe

IF 1.1 3区文学 Q3 COMMUNICATION

African Journalism Studies Pub Date : 2021-10-02 DOI:10.1080/23743670.2022.2028647

N. Ndzinisa, Carolyne M. Lunga, Mphathisi Ndlovu

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引用次数: 3

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is growing scholarship on how social media are shaping the practice and performance of mainstream media organisations. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide journalists with information and sources on issues happening across the globe. Journalists and news organisations are appropriating social media tools to generate story ideas and interact with audiences. Concerns about the quality of information circulated on these platforms and the growing misinformation and disinformation remain, affecting the reputation of mainstream media and digital start-ups. This study investigates the Centre for Innovation and Technology (CITE), a digital start-up in Zimbabwe, focusing on its role as a digital public sphere in the country’s news ecosystem thus contributing to understandings of the role and importance of the digital public sphere in the Zimbabwean context. Drawing upon the digital public sphere and social constructionism as frameworks for conceptualising digital tools and journalism practice, this research interrogates the role of this digital start-up. We argue that CITE has appropriated and adopted digital tools to transform its news making practice in ways that provide a platform for excluded and marginalised communities.

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数字时代的新闻:津巴布韦数字公共领域的案例研究

关于社交媒体如何塑造主流媒体组织的实践和表现的学术研究越来越多。Facebook和Twitter等平台为记者提供全球范围内发生的事件的信息和来源。记者和新闻机构正在利用社交媒体工具来产生故事创意，并与受众互动。人们仍然担心这些平台上传播的信息的质量，以及越来越多的错误信息和虚假信息，这影响了主流媒体和数字初创企业的声誉。本研究调查了津巴布韦的数字初创企业创新与技术中心(CITE)，重点关注其在该国新闻生态系统中作为数字公共领域的作用，从而有助于理解津巴布韦背景下数字公共领域的作用和重要性。利用数字公共领域和社会建构主义作为概念化数字工具和新闻实践的框架，本研究质疑了这一数字初创企业的作用。我们认为，CITE利用并采用了数字工具来改变其新闻制作实践，为被排斥和边缘化的社区提供了一个平台。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

African Journalism Studies COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

1.90

自引率

10.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Accredited by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training for university research purposes African Journalism Studies subscribes to the Code of Best Practice for Peer Reviewed Scholarly Journals of the Academy of Science of South Africa. African Journalism Studies ( AJS) aims to contribute to the ongoing extension of the theories, methodologies and empirical data to under-researched areas of knowledge production, through its emphasis on African journalism studies within a broader, comparative perspective of the Global South. AJS strives for theoretical diversity and methodological inclusivity, by developing theoretical approaches and making critical interventions in global scholarly debates. The journal''s comparative and interdisciplinary approach is informed by the related fields of cultural and media studies, communication studies, African studies, politics, and sociology. The field of journalism studies is understood broadly, as including the practices, norms, value systems, frameworks of representation, audiences, platforms, industries, theories and power relations that relate to the production, consumption and study of journalism. A wide definition of journalism is used, which extends beyond news and current affairs to include digital and social media, documentary film and narrative non-fiction.