Abstract
Social media has become pervasive in the Zimbabwean society. In light of this state of affairs, this study interrogated the incorporation of social media into journalistic practices that make the news cycle at two media organisations in Zimbabwe. These are the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), a public broadcaster, and Alpha Media Holdings (AMH), a privately owned print media organisation. The study further analysed how this incorporation is changing journalistic practices that include news sourcing, ‘manufacturing’, packaging, distribution and consumption at these organisations. The study was necessitated by the fact that research on how social media has been incorporated in Zimbabwean newsrooms is still lacking. The study was underpinned by a sociological perspective of journalism that was supported by the Habermasian public sphere, the political economy and the agenda setting theories of the media. Using ethnographic research approaches that deployed observation, face to face interviews and WhatsApp digital ethnography, the researcher carried out empirical observations and interviews with forty five (45) journalists and editors at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and at Alpha Media Holdings (AMH), over a three-month period. A thematic analysis method was employed to interpret the research findings. The findings showed that social media has been incorporated at ZBC and AMH, and that this is changing these newsrooms in a number of ways at different levels. It found out that social media is changing the newsrooms by bringing speed, convenience, convergence and multiskilling in the way journalists do their work, and by transforming the roles of journalists as producers of news and audiences as receivers of news. The work of journalists has also become a twenty-four hour cycle with the advent of social media. The institutions themselves, journalistic routines of news production, news distribution and consumption have all been changed at the two institutions where journalists can now point to huge differences between the way they used to manufacture news in the past and what they are now doing. Another change that was established in the study was the issue of conversations that are taking place between journalists and their audiences, and although the study insinuated that these have the potential for healthy democratic dialogues, journalists who were interviewed pointed out that so far and at present, some of these conversations have been toxic. The study also revealed that the social media platforms themselves are becoming powerful in the dimensions of news distribution and monetisation in a new relationship that is gradually making news organisations dependent on them. The study also showed that these changes have implications for the ethics of news reporting since today’s news production is now a quick process that may circumvent the traditional gatekeeping methods that guarantee a quality news product. As part of ongoing work that seeks to understand how changing technological tools impact the field of journalism practice, the findings of this study fill the gap regarding scholarship exploring how social media has become part and parcel of the Zimbabwean newsrooms.
D.Litt. et Phil. (Journalism)