Negotiating changes in the media industry in the wake of the explosion of social media and other online platforms was one of the hot topics discussed at the 17th annual Highway Africa conference, which ended in Grahamstown last weekend.
The conference has grown over the years to become the largest annual gathering of African journalists in the world. Journalists and other media industry players come together to debate issues within journalism and the media and how to negotiate changes. The conference is a flagship programme run by the Rhodes University School of Journalism. This year the theme of the conference was "Speaking truth to power? Media, Politics and Society".
However, a strong recurring issue was how social and digital media was changing the game. Here are some excerpts of what some speakers had to say: Mich Atagana, editor at memeburn.com, said that although the topic "Arab Spring" always came up as how Twitter caused a revolution, it was not actually that way. "Twitter was used as a tool by the people to get information out. Social media can be an amazing tool in journalism but it is not an entity on its own, instead social media changes our habits.
'An example of this would be how Twitter used to ask 'What are you doing?' became 'What's happening?' as more and more people used Twitter to report on what was happening around them at the time,,, explained Atangana. Dr Peter Verweij, former lecturer in journalism, politics and new media said that, although technology provided a way for "everyone to theoretically become a journalist", one could self-publish these days on the internet and reach a larger audience than many newspapers. "Newspapers are still important because they provide credibility. The media ranks equal to the government in its duty to the people," he said.
Verweii cautioned that if newspapers were losing their power then there was something very wrong. "The print media is not dying but changing and this also requires a change in mindset. South Africa is lucky in some respects because we are still fairly behind the rest of the world," he said. Verweij said he loved picking up newspapers in Africa because they were thick and his hands had a black residue on them when he finished reading, not something one experienced often anywhere else.
The world of journalism was changing but definitely not dying. Izak Minnaar, the digital news editor at SABC, said a new type of newsroom was emerging in the digital age. "News is often broken on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook before traditional media has had a chance to print or broadcast. However the credibility of news is questioned on these platforms and the journalists' job today is then to check it and provide background information."
Gitobu Imanyara, a human rights activist, lawyer and former MP from Kenya, spoke about media accountability and the role of African media within Africa. "If the media claims to be working in the public interest then we need to understand the public and the groups within them," he said.
An example of this, Imanyara said, would be the poor; the media often speaks of them but rarely talks to or listens to them. Accountability was not just about speaking truth to power but also about how we listen to the powerless, he said. Imanyara gave countless examples of arrests, interrogations and attacks on African journalists throughout Africa for daring to speak truth to power.
This, he said, raised the question of press freedom in Africa. "Why, after 50 years of independence do we rely on CNN, BBC and international news as a more accurate source of information, within our own countries," said Imanyara. What do you think about the excerpts above? Have your say on our Facebook page (TheMercurySA) or on Twitter @TheMercurySA.
Article Source: The MERCURY