Participatory politics and citizen journalism in a networked Africa

摘要

The rapid rise of social media means that any citizen can post a message about a news event, which is instantly available to hundreds of thousands of people. This accessibility of social media, freely available to anyone with a mobile device or Internet connection, is changing the ways in which we think about and theorise citizen journalism. As Stuart Allen states in the Foreword, 'Tracing the twists and turns in the evolution of citizen journalism in our digital age is a formidable challenge, not least because of the dazzling speed technological imperatives seem to unfold across the globe' (p. viii.). Mutsvairo's edited volume provide a fascinating range of case studies that explore how individuals engage in news-making, and what this implies for the field of journalism. As he points out in the introduction to the volume, 'digital technologies have had a profound effect on the way news content is perceived, produced, shared and analysed' (p. 1). The book is situated against the backdrop of concerns around the potential reliability of news content produced by non-professionals. Citizen journalism, defined broadly as the practice of an ordinary, unpaid, non-professional and unpaid person voluntarily gathering and sharing news, overlaps conceptually with the concept of participatory journalism.