The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South [1 ed.] 1032287063, 9781032287065

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THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO JOURNALISM IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Responding to mounting calls to decenter and decolonize journalism, The Routledge ­Companion to Journalism in the Global South examines not only the deep-seated challenges associated with the historical imposition of Western journalism standards on constituencies of the Global South but also the opportunities presented to journalists and journalism ­educators if they choose to partake in international collaboration and education. This collection returns to fundamental questions around the meaning, value, and practices of journalism from alternative methodological, theoretical, and epistemological perspectives. These questions include: What really is journalism? Who gets to, and who is qualified to, define it? What role do ethics play? What are the current trends, challenges, and opportunities for journalism in the Global South? How is news covered, reported, written, and edited in non-Western settings? What can journalism players living and working in industrialized markets learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa? Contributors challenge accepted “universal” ethical standards while showing the relevance of customs, traditions, and cultures in defining and shaping local and regional journalism. Showcasing some of the most important research on journalism in the Global South and by journalists based in the Global South, this companion is key reading for anyone researching the principles and practices of journalism from a de-essentialized perspective. Bruce Mutsvairo is Professor and Chair of Media, Politics, and the Global South at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, where he doubles as UNESCO Chair in Data, Disinformation and Democracy. A former journalist with the Associated Press, he has published numerous scholarly books exploring the development of journalism in non-Western societies. Saba Bebawi is Professor and Head of Discipline for Journalism and Writing in the School of Communication at UTS. She has published on media power and the role of media in democracy-building, in addition to investigative journalism in conflict and post-conflict regions. Eddy Borges-Rey is Associate Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar. His area of academic expertise is digital journalism and emerging media, and his research looks at the interplay  between media, technology, and power, particularly around issues in data journalism, critical data, code and algorithm studies, artificial intelligence and automation, mobile journalism, photojournalism, and data and media literacy. Prior to obtaining an MA and PhD in media and communication, Borges-Rey worked as a broadcast journalist, media producer, and PR practitioner for almost 15 years.

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO JOURNALISM IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Edited by Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi and Eddy Borges-Rey

Designed cover image: akinbostanci/iStock via Getty Images First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi and Eddy Borges-Rey individual chapters, the contributors The right of Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi and Eddy Borges-Rey to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mutsvairo, Bruce, 1979–editor. | Bebawi, Saba, 1974–editor. | Borges-Rey, Eddy, 1976–editor. Title: The Routledge companion to journalism in the Global South / edited by Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi and Eddy Borges-Rey. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023011015 (print) | LCCN 2023011016 (ebook) | Subjects: LCSH: Journalism—Developing countries. Classification: LCC PN5648 .R68 2023 (print) | LCC PN5648 (ebook) | DDC 079/.1724—dc23/eng/20230622 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023011015 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023011016 ISBN: 978-1-032-28706-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-28707-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-29814-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144 Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors

x xi xii

  1 Regionalizing Journalism Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey PART I

1

Theorizing Journalism in the Global South

11

  2 What Defines Journalism in/from the Global South?: Insights from Latin America Silvio Waisbord and Adriana Amado

13

  3 Terrorist Journalism in the Middle East Ahmed Al-Rawi   4 Poverty News in Latin America: Too Much to See but Too Little and Too Polarized to Say Jairo Lugo-Ocando   5 Theorizing Indigenous-Language Journalism in Africa Abiodun Salawu   6 Rethinking African Journalism Cultures in the Context of Global Professional Interdependences Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara v

24

35 46

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Contents

  7 The Political Economy of the Xenophobic Lens: Reporting African Migrants on South African Television News Last Moyo and Allen Munoriyarwa   8 Retheorizing African Digital Journalism in the 21st Century Allen Munoriyarwa and Dumisani Moyo   9 The Challenge of Competing Loyalties for Journalists in Non-Western Cultures Terje Skjerdal PART II

68 89

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Pedagogical Paradigms

109

10 Deliberation as Pedagogy: Gender, Intersectionality, and Journalism Education in India Preeti Raghunath

111

11 Challenges and Opportunities at Decolonizing the Curriculum: Narratives from Selected Southern African Journalism and Media Schools Shepherd Mpofu and Trust Matsilele

121

12 Journalism Education in Pakistan: Key Gaps in Curriculum Development133 Sadia Jamil and Kriti Bhuju 13 The Promises and Limitations of Journalism Education in Ethiopia Téwodros Workneh

144

14 Piecemeal Pedagogies: Reflecting on the Nature, Context, and Impact of Journalism Training and Education in Malawi and Zambia Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris, Chanda Mfula, and Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu

154

15 Teaching Investigative Journalism in a Transnational University in China Diana Garrisi and Jiahui Huang

166

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Contents PART III

Diversity of Journalism Practices

177

16 Constraints on Journalistic Practices in the Arab World Post–Arab Spring and Post-Covid-19 Sahar Khamis

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17 News Journalism as a Civil Norm Builder in Post-Conflict Settings: The Example of the Daily Nation and The Standard News Reporting after the Kenyan Election Violence, 2007/2008 Stefanie Pukallus and Gemma Horton 18 Journalism 2.0, News Practices, and Culture in Nigeria: A Critical Examination of Nigerian Television Authority and Nigeria Info FM Ufuoma Akpojivi 19 Extractivism and Its Discontents: Al Jazeera English’s Coverage of Latin America Marcela Pizarro Coloma 20 Cracks in the Wall: Alternative Journalism in Turkey Bora Ataman and Barış Çoban 21 Contemporary Indian Journalism: Digital Response to Traditional Challenges Uma Shankar Pandey 22 The Day When Maids Went to Disney: Journalism and Neoliberalism in Brazil José Cláudio Siqueira Castanheira, Melina Aparecida dos Santos Silva, and Afonso de Albuquerque 23 Contemporary Critiques of Nigerian Journalism Adeyanju Apejoye 24 Reporting the MENA as Conflict: Political Influences, Routine Practices, and Journalists’ Struggles in the Field Claudia Kozman

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209 220

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25 Capitalizing the Social Media: Exploring Branding of Indonesian Journalists on Instagram Indra Prawira and Regita Anggraini Ekaputri PART IV

269

Platforms for Collaboration with the Global North

279

26 Journalism as a Springboard for Collaboration between Scholars in the Global North and South Summer Harlow and Ingrid Bachmann

281

27 Collaboration in Journalist Education: Finding Multiple Perspectives through Global Journalism and Local Practices Kristin Skare Orgeret

291

28 Ethnic Journalism in Russia: Theoretical Approaches for Potential Global Collaboration Anna Gladkova and Elena Vartanova

300

29 The Challenge of Disinformation in the Portuguese-Speaking African Countries’ Journalism Susana Salgado and Nuno Andrade Ferreira

310

30 Central and Eastern Europe in Journalism Studies: The Three-Faced Disadvantage of Underrepresentation, Isolation, and Westernization Gergő Háló and Márton Demeter

320

31 Ontologies of Journalism: Conceptualizing Objectivity and Emotions in India and the United Kingdom Antje Glück

333

32 Diaspora Journalism as a Platform for Collaboration between the  North and the South Ola Ogunyemi

344

PART V

Ethical and Other Emerging Journalism Critiques

355

33 Storytelling in the Age of Data: Data Journalism in Hong Kong Roselyn Du

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34 Media Capture: The Conceptual Challenges for Studying Journalism in Transitional Democracies Mireya Márquez-Ramírez 35 Women Journalists in Mexico: They Will Not Silence Our Voices Yennué Zárate Valderrama

368 378

36 Unveiling the Master Signifier in Media Ethics Transgressions in South Africa Glenda Daniels

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37 De-Westernizing Photojournalism: From Photojournalism of the Global South to Photojournalism in the Global South Saumava Mitra and Brenda Witherspoon

399

38 Evolving Journalism Practices in the Global South: Convergence, Continuities, and Disjuncture Cleophas Taurai Muneri

409

39 Climate Change Journalism in Pakistan: Ethical Deliberations Muhammad Ittefaq, Shafiq Ahmad Kamboh, and Ayesha Ashfaq 40 Journalism in Muslim Societies: Alternative Theories and Practices of Fairness and Justice Muhammed Musa and Sameera Ahmed

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41 Conceptual Critiques to African Journalism Levi Obonyo

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42 Journalism in Cameroon: A High-Risk and Dangerous Profession? Peter Tiako Ngangum

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Index477

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FIGURES

30.1 Co-authorship network of CEE scholars 33.1 Word cloud of assessment of data journalism education

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329 362

TABLES

4.1 El Nacional coverage of poverty, 2010, 2015, and 2021 41 7.1 Trends in Reporting Migrants in eNCA and SABC TV News 71 7.2 Frames and Semantic Cues in Both The Business Day and The Sunday Times75 7.3 Trends in Reporting Migrants in eNCA and SABC TV News 80 7.4 The Migrant Frame Analysis Matrix Table 82 9.1 Perceived Influences in News Work, Northern vs. Southern Countries 103 25.1 The Selected Ten Indonesian News Presenters 273 25.2 Indonesian Journalistic Branding 274 30.1 Publication Share of the Top 10 Countries in the Selected Journalism Journals 326 30.2 World Region’s Publication Share in the Selected Journalism Journals 327 30.3 CEE Countries’ Share in the Selected Journalism Journals 327 30.4 CEE Countries’ Share in the Editorial Boards in the Selected Journalism Journals328 30.5 The Three-Faced Disadvantage of Underrepresentation, Isolation, and Westernization329 33.1 Profiles of Interviewees 361 33.2 Role of Data in Professional Identity 363 40.1 Comparison of Journalistic Values 440

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CONTRIBUTORS

Sameera T Ahmed is an associate professor in the Media and Creative Industries Department at United Arab Emirates University, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in journalism and communication. She obtained her doctorate from CMCR, Leicester University, and has worked at universities in the UK and the Gulf (Oman and UAE). Her current research areas include news literacy and minority representations. Ufuoma Akpojivi, PhD (Leeds), is the Policy, Research and Learning Lead at Advocates for International Development, United Kingdom. Prior to this, he was an Associate Professor at the Media Studies Department, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and a Visiting Professor at the School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University, Nigeria. He has over 16 years of professional and exceptional teaching and research experience in media and communications. Afonso de Albuquerque is a full professor at the communication program, Fluminense Federal University. His research interests include political communication and journalism studies. Ahmed Al-Rawi started his career in 2002 by serving as a communication officer for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Iraq. He later served as a senior communication officer and spokesperson, which involved addressing local and international media. Before being a spokesperson for the ICRC, he worked in 2003–2004 as a freelance radio correspondent for Pacifica Radio Network and Free Speech Radio News, based in the USA, during which he produced many reports and features. He also served as a freelance journalist for CNN Arabic Bureau in Dubai, during which he produced a few news reports on Iraq. Al-Rawi has obtained two PhDs, the first one in English literature, from Baghdad University, Iraq, in 2004, and the second PhD in media and communication research from Leicester University, the UK, in 2012. He taught at various academic institutions for over a decade and a half in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Al-Rawi served, for example, as an assistant professor of communication studies at Erasmus University in the Netherlands (2011–2014) and at Concordia University in Canada (2015–2018). Ahmed Al-Rawi xii

Contributors

is currently an associate professor of news, social media, and public communication at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Al-Rawi is the director of the Disinformation Project that empirically examines fake news discourses in Canada on social media and news media. His research expertise is related to social media, global communication, news, with emphasis on Canada and the Middle East. He authored 5 books and over 115 peer-reviewed book chapters and articles published in a variety of academic journals. Adriana Amado is a professor in the School of Communications and Humanities at the University Camilo José Cela, Spain. She has researched and published extensively about media, journalism, and public communication. She has been part of Worlds of Journalism Study since 2012 as the principal researcher of the Argentina chapter. She is also a journalist and civic volunteer in Latin American NGOs. Her latest book is Las metáforas del periodismo  [The metaphors of journalism] (2021). She holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from FLACSO and is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Salamanca. Nuno Andrade Ferreira is a PhD candidate in global studies at Universidade Aberta (Portugal), with a master’s degree in European studies (UAb) and a degree in political science (ISCSP/UL). He is a research fellow at the Center for Global Studies, in the areas of human rights, multilateralism, media representations, and disinformation. Nuno lives in Cabo Verde, collaborating regularly with Universidade do Mindelo. He has been working as a journalist for over 20 years. Regita Anggraini Ekaputri has a bachelor of arts in advertising from the University of Canberra, Australia, 2019. Regita was also awarded a bachelor’s degree in communications from BINUS University in 2020, in her home country, Indonesia. Adeyanju Apejoye is a senior lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Plateau State University, Bokkos, Nigeria. His research focuses on journalism, digital media, media development and the nexus between political communication and democracy, especially in the Global South. He received a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Salford, United Kingdom. Ayesha Ashfaq is an associate professor in the Department of Development Communication, University of the Punjab, Pakistan. She has recently completed her post-doctorate from Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University, USA. She holds her bachelor’s degree in mass communication, MPhil in media and communication studies and PhD in communication studies. For her distinguished work, she has got more than 40 research articles published in national and international journals and book chapters. She has won several national research grants and has presented her researches in several national and international conferences held in USA, Norway, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Her research background is in development communication, gender and minorities, environment and climate change journalism, political communication and public policy, and digital media. Bora Ataman is a professor  of communication sciences at the Arts and Sciences Faculty, Doğuş University. His undergraduate and graduate degrees are from Marmara University. He also holds an MSc degree in communication, media, and development from London xiii

Contributors

School of Economics. He is currently studying topics such as activist citizen journalism, media activism and counter-surveillance, and journalism safety. He has published in prestigious academic journals and presented at international conferences. Ingrid Bachmann  is an associate professor and the director of the School of Journalism at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She was a former reporter, and her research interests include gender, political communication, and language. She primarily focuses on the role of the news media in the definition of identities and meanings within the public sphere. Her research has been published in Communication Research, Feminist Media Studies, International Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism Studies, and Women’s Studies in Communication, among other journals. Currently, she serves as chair of the Feminist Scholarship Division of the International Communication Association. Kriti Bhuju has completed her PhD from Communication University of China. She is currently working as a communication consultant. Her research interests include development communication, gender, media studies, and media literacy. José Cláudio Siqueira Castanheira is an associate professor at the Communication ­ epartment at Fluminense Federal University (UFF) and a collaborating professor at the D post-graduation program in communication at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). He is the leader of the research group GEIST (Group of Studies in Images, Sonorities and Technologies)-CNPq. His research interests include technologies, digital culture, music, sound studies, and cinema. Barış Çoban is a professor in the Communication Sciences Department, Doğuş University, Turkey. His research interests include alternative media, alternative journalism, surveillance and safety of journalists. He edited the book Social Media and Social Movements (2015) and co-edited the books Alternative Media in Turkey (2015), Panopticon 2.0: Alternative Media and Counter-Surveillance (2018), and co-authored research articles: ‘The Gezi Resistance and Activist Citizen Reporters’ (2017); ‘How safe is it? Being an Activist Citizen Journalist in Turkey’ published in an edited book titled The Assault on Journalism (2017); ‘Counter-surveillance and alternative new media in Turkey’ (2018); ‘Turkey: How to deal with threats to journalism’ published in an edited book titled Transnational Othering – Global Diversities: Media, extremism and free expression (2019) and ‘A Review on the Safety of Journalists in Turkey: A  Victims’ Rights Perspective’ in published in an edited book titled Handbook of Research on Combating Threats to Media Freedom and Journalist Safety (2020). Çoban was co-editor of New Journalism - Mediums, Experiences, Opportunities (2020) and Handbook of Research on Discrimination, Gender Disparity, and Safety Risks in Journalism (2021). Glenda Daniels is an associate professor in the Media Studies Department at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has a PhD in political science (Wits University) and is a media freedom and diversity activist. Daniels is a rated scholar with the National Research Foundation (NRF). She is the South African National Editors’ Forum’s (SANEF) Gauteng convenor, served on the executive of the South African Communication Association (SACOMM) till 2021, and is on the board of the Press Council of South xiv

Contributors

Africa. She is also an editorial advisory board member at journalism studies (London). She was a journalist in the print media industry for over two decades. Her research interests are media, politics and diversity, state of the newsroom, democracy theory, the role of the media in a democracy, freedom of expression, and cyber-misogyny. Daniels is the author of the books Power and Loss in South African Journalism: News in the Age of Social Media (2020) and Fight for Democracy: The ANC and Media in South Africa (2012), co-author of Glass Ceilings: Women in South African media Houses (2018), and co-editor of the book Women Journalists in South Africa: Democracy in the Age of Social Media (2022). She is also a Media Matters columnist at Daily Maverick. Márton Demeter is a scholar of communications studies based in Hungary. Following countless initial rejections from international journals due to his own peripheral position, in the last few years, he published dozens of articles in top journals of his field, and he became one of the most accomplished researchers in communication studies internationally according to SciVal, Elsevier’s worldwide database of scientific performance. Together with János Tóth, he is the founder of  KOME, an international communication studies journal that gradually reached Q1 rating in the past 10 years, thanks to their deliberate strategy to build up a journal through inviting well-known international scholars as authors and editorial board members at the beginning. Although several Western publishers have been interested in buying the journal, they are committed to keeping it in the region to provide international visibility to scholars outside of the centers. Demeter is also an editorial board member of several prestigious journals, and as the board member of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, he recently edited a special issue on Eastern European scholarship in communication studies and has edited another special issue, which came out in 2022. Melina Aparecida dos Santos Silva is a postdoctoral fellow at the Culture and Territorialities Graduate Program–Institute of Arts and Communication (UFF), and holds a PhD in communications from Fluminense Federal University. She has published in refereed journals, such Journal of Black Studies, Journal of European Cultural Studies, and has chapters in the books Live Looping in Musical Performance–Lusophone Experiences in Dialogue and ­Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South. Her research interests include issues such as music genre, media studies, decoloniality, intersectionality, African and diasporic ­cultural production, technology, and cultural studies. Roselyn Du is currently based at California State University–Fullerton. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was awarded a prestigious University Fellowship as well as the Future Faculty Fellowship. Her areas of interest include global media, data journalism, audience analysis, political communication and public opinion, and media credibility. Her research has resulted in multiple international and national top paper awards. She has published widely in refereed journals, such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, International Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, and Asia Pacific Media Educator, as well as in well-recognized edited volumes upon invitation. She was a visiting scholar at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in 2017. Dr. Du also spearheaded the Data and News Society, a multidisciplinary community of practice initiated in Hong Kong since 2015. In a previous life, she was an award-winning frontline journalist in China. xv

Contributors

Diana Garrisi is a lecturer in journalism at the School of Journalism, Media, and Culture, Cardiff University. Her research interests include 19th-century press history, journalism education in transnational contexts, feature writing theory and practice, body image and the media, and non-violent communication. Prior to her appointment at Cardiff University, she worked in China for over four years as an assistant professor in journalism in the Sino-British joint venture Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University. She has published in different peer-reviewed journals, including Journalism Studies, Media Practice and Education, Public Understanding of Science, the  Journal of Science Communication, and  Early Popular Visual Culture. Alongside Jacob Johanssen, she edited  Disability and the Media: Other Bodies  (2020), which won the  Choice  “Outstanding Academic Title” Award. With Xianwen Kuang, she is co-editor of Journalism Pedagogy in Transitional Countries (2022). Anna Gladkova is the leading researcher and deputy dean of the International Affairs Office at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is the co-chair of IAMCR’s Digital Divide Working Group, the IAMCR ambassador in Russia, and a member of the IAMCR International Council. Anna Gladkova has published and edited collections on ethnic media, multicultural affairs, digital inequalities, and digital divides. Her most recent books include Digital Inequalities in the Global South (2020), co-edited with Massimo Ragnedda, and Ethnic Journalism in the Global South (2021), co-edited with Sadia Jamil. Antje Glück is a lecturer in multimedia journalism at Bourneouth University. She teaches on the BA (hons) and MA courses for journalism and digital media. She holds a PhD from the University of Leeds and a double MA in journalism and Arabic studies from the University of Leipzig in Germany. Her studies led her to spend time abroad in Egypt, Spain, and France. She has also worked as a freelance journalist since 1998 for various print, radio, and television media in Germany, France, Egypt, and India. Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris is a fellow at LSE in the Department of Media and ­ ommunications where she teaches critical approaches to media, communications and developC ment, and humanitarian communications. She has spent more than 10 years working in media and human rights in Africa, Asia, and South America, and her research interests are centered on the intersectional and historical links between media, race, coloniality, and international development. Her latest research is focusing on interrogating NGOs involvement in systems of racial capitalism and the neoliberal logic of commodifying and monetizing Black bodies.  Gergő Háló is an assistant professor at the University of Public Service in Hungary. Summer Harlow is an associate professor of journalism at Texas A&M University. She a PhD in journalism and an MA in Latin American studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the intersections of journalism, activism, and emerging technologies, particularly in Latin America and the United States. A former journalist, she is the author of Digital Native News and the Remaking of Latin American Mainstream and Alternative Journalism (2023), as well as Liberation Technology in El Salvador: Re-appropriating Social Media among Alternative Media Projects  (2017), which won the 2018  AEJMC-Knudson Latin America Book Prize. Her research has appeared in top peer-reviewed journals including

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Contributors

the Journal of Communication; International Journal of Press/Politics; Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly;  Digital Journalism;  New Media  & Society;  and  Mass Communication & Society. She is the former head of the International Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Currently she is the Book Reviews Editor for the International Journal of Press/Politics. Gemma Horton is the Impact Fellow for the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) at the School of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Sheffield. She started the position in September 2022. She is also the Assistant Editor for the European Journal of Communication. From 2019-2022, she was a University Teacher in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool where she taught on a range of topics including media freedom and human rights. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She gained her PhD from the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield in January 2020. Prior to that, she graduated with an MA in Magazine Journalism at the University of Sheffield in 2017 and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of York in 2015. Jiahui Huang is a postgraduate fellow at Columbia Journalism School. She’s also a bilingual journalist who has reported in the U.S., the United Kingdom and China. She started her career in her native China covering foreign affairs, technology, business and social justice for The Guardian and Reuters. In 2022, she graduated with honors from the M.S. Stabile investigative-reporting program at Columbia Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Liverpool with a BA in communication studies in 2020. Her most recent stories have focused on migration, climate change and gender. Reporting in New York, she has investigated the invisible victims of Hurricane Ida and covered undocumented workers. She has also written for Eurasianet about issues in Central Asia and China. Muhammad Ittefaq is an sssistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University, USA. Ittefaq received his PhD in journalism and mass communications from the University of Kansas; his MA in media and communication science from Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany; and his MSc in communication studies from University of the Punjab, Pakistan. His research delves into the ways in which people consume and interact with information through new technologies, including how they interpret scientific messages, make decisions related to climate and health, and support policies related to science. He investigates how different segments of society are influenced by the information ecosystems and messages surrounding scientific issues, while also examining how organizations use various persuasive techniques on mainstream and social media to engage with global science-related topics. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. His work has been published in a variety of academic journals, including the International Journal of Communication, Journal of Health Communication, Journal of Science Communication, Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, Journalism Practice, Journal of Media Ethics, Media International Australia, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vaccine, Digital Health, Psychology & Health, Third World Quarterly, Local Environment, Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, among others.

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Contributors

Sadia Jamil is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China. She has earned a PhD in journalism (Australia) and two postgraduate degrees in media management (Scotland) and mass communication (Karachi). Shafiq Ahmad Kamboh is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He has completed his PhD in development communication from the Centre for Media, Communication, and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen, Germany. His research focuses on development communication, climate and environmental justice, health communication, science journalism, and the Global South. His recent work has been published in the Journal of Media Ethics, Development Policy Review, American Journal of Health Education, Third World Quarterly, International Journal of Communication, Local Environment, Death Studies, Psychology & Health, Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, among others. He has worked on several research projects funded by local chapters of international development organisations in Pakistan including UNESCO, WHO, and Micronutrient Initiative (MI). Sahar Khamis is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an expert on Arab and Muslim media and is the former head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department in Qatar University. Dr. Khamis holds a PhD in mass media and cultural studies from the University of Manchester in England. She is a former Mellon Islamic Studies Initiative visiting professor at the University of Chicago. She is the co-author of the books Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace (2009) and Egyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism (2013) and the co-editor of the book Arab Women’s Activism and Socio-Political Transformation: Unfinished Gendered Revolutions (2018). Claudia Kozman, PhD (Indiana University), is an assistant professor in residence in journalism at Northwestern University in Qatar. Her research primarily focuses on news content, with particular attention to news values, sourcing, and framing in Arab media. She is interested in media coverage of conflict in the Middle East as well as public opinion and perceptions during political turmoil. She has published numerous empirical research studies about media and conflict in the Middle East and contributed to books about comparative media systems in the region. Jairo Lugo-Ocando, PhD (Sussex), is a professor and the dean of the College of Communication at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Previously, he worked at Northwestern University in Qatar and the University of Leeds and the University of Sheffield, both in the United Kingdom. He has researched and published extensively about media representations and news reporting of poverty and inequality. Before becoming an academic, he worked as a reporter and news editor for several media outlets in Latin America and the United States. Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara, PhD, is a senior lecturer in Media, Communication and International Journalism at the University of Glasgow, UK, where he is affiliated to the Glasgow University Media Group. He is Associate Editor of the journals, Journalism Studies and African Journalism Studies and a Senior Research Associate at the University of

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Johannesburg, South Africa. Mabweazara is co-author of Participatory Journalism in Africa and editor of Newsmaking Cultures in Africa and Media Capture in Africa & Latin America. Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Higher Education and Professional Development Department, School of Education, at the University of Malawi. His research focuses on education and democracy, decoloniality and decolonization, education for global and local citizenship, political and African philosophy. His latest co-edited book, Education, Communication and Democracy in Africa: A Democratic Pedagogy for the Future – Perspectives on Education in Africa, takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding democratic citizenship education, policymaking, institutional culture, and pedagogical experiences in African educational domains. Mireya Márquez-Ramírez is an associate professor of journalism studies and media theory, Department of Communications, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. She holds a PhD in media and communications (Goldsmiths, University of London) and an MA in journalism studies (Cardiff University). Her interests include comparative media systems and journalism cultures, journalistic roles, anti-press violence, and sports journalism. She currently investigates mobile journalists and the newsroom-less, collaborative nature of journalistic work. Trust Matsilele is a senior lecturer in Journalism at Birmingham City University, UK, and a fellow of CPUT’s Centre for Communication Studies. He has published extensively in peerreviewed edited books and journals. His research cuts across disciplines, such as social media, protest cultures, journalism, and education. He is also a former senior journalist with Forbes Africa magazine and CNBC Africa and is regularly featured as a political analyst and social commentator in the media. Chanda Mfula is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research and academic work traverses the fields of (digital) media, journalism, political communication, political economy, politics, and African studies, among others. Combining both industry and academic experience, Chanda worked at the University of Sussex as lecturer in human geography after completing his PhD there, and is currently engaged at the University of Hertfordshire as lecturer in media, communications and culture. Saumava Mitra is based at Dublin City University, where he investigates how production processes and narratives in conflict and crises visuals influence each other. His most recent research focused on the working conditions of women photographers from conflict-affected contexts in the Global South. His previous research was on the working conditions and images of Afghan photographers who work for international organizations. Prior to joining DCU, Mitra lived and worked in academia, in journalism, and in communications in South Asia, East Africa, North and Central Americas, and Europe. Dumisani Moyo is currently executive dean of the Faculty of Humanities at North West University, SA. He holds a PhD in media and communication studies from the University of Oslo (2006).  His research interests include media policy and regulation, and new media, politics, culture and technology in Africa, and he has published widely in these areas. His major works include four co-edited books:  Radio in Africa: Publics, Cultures,

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Communities (2011); Media Policy in a Changing Southern Africa: Critical Reflections on Media Reforms in the Global Age (2010); Mediating Xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking Discourses of Migration, Belonging and Othering (2020); and Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean: Global South Issues in Media, Culture and Technology (2021). Last Moyo is an associate professor in media and communication studies at Xi’an JiaotongLiverpool University (XJTLU). He has lectured at several other universities in Africa and Asia, including a stint at the University of Wales (UK), where he attained his PhD in media studies. He is published extensively in top reputable international peer-reviewed journals, including Journalism Studies, Telematic and Informatics, International Communication Gazette, and Journal of International Communication, among several others. His most recent book is The Decolonial Turn in Media Studies in Africa and the Global South (2020). Shepherd Mpofu is an associate professor in media at the University of South Africa. He is an African Humanities Program fellow. He is the co-editor of Mediating Xenophobia in Africa (2020). He regularly publishes in academic journals on themes such as media and identity, media and protests, gender and race. Cleophas Taurai  Muneri  is a  senior  lecturer in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of New Mexico where he teaches media and communication courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. He has also held media and journalism teaching positions in Zimbabwe, at the National University of Science and Technology and Midlands State University. Muneri combines his background in media and journalism to broaden his research to explore how media constitute and reconstitute cultural identities in the struggle for democracy. His research interests and area of expertise center on media, communication, and democratization. Allen Munoriyarwa is a senior lecturer in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Botswana. His research interests are in digital surveillance. He is currently coordinating research exploring the growth of digital surveillance practices in Southern Africa under the auspices of the Media Policy and Democracy Project (MPDP). This is a University of Johannesburg research project. Munoriyarwa has also written widely on digital surveillance. Munoriyarwa has researched with organisations like Privacy International on digital surveillance practices in the region. His publications have appeared in major global journals including Journalism, Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice, and Security Dialogue. Munoriyarwa has led numerous funded research projects, including the impact of Covid-19 in newsrooms across southern Africa (funded by the Social Science Research Council), and the impact of artificial intelligence in newsrooms (funded by the University of Johannesburg Research Council). Munoriyarwa is also a Canon Collins scholar. He has published more than 40 times on journalism, media, and surveillance practices. His most recent book is Digital Surveillance in Southern Africa: Policies, Politics and Practices. Muhammed Musa is an associate professor in the Media and Creative Industries Department at United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) and has taught journalism at universities across the world, including Nigeria, New Zealand, and Zimbabwe.

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Contributors

Peter Tiako Ngangum is a member of the Centre de Recherche and Information et Communication (ReSIC) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He holds a PhD in information and communication sciences from the ULB; an MA in mass communication from the University of Leicester; an MSc in environmental sciences from the University of Greenwich, London; and a BA in English from the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon. His areas of expertise include media law and regulation, media ethics, professionalism, journalism, journalistic role perception and performance, media and counterterrorism laws, press freedom, and freedom of expression. Levi Obonyo is an associate professor of communication and media studies and the dean of the School of Communication at Daystar University. He started his career as a news correspondent and wrote for magazines before joining academia. A graduate of Messiah College, Wheaton Graduate School, and Temple University, he has taught media studies at several institutions. He has also been involved in media regulation and policy formulation in Kenya. Until recently, he served as the chairman of the Media Council of Kenya. Olatunji Ogunyemi, PhD, is a Professor of Journalism at the School of Film, Media and Journalism, University of Lincoln, UK, with research interest in diaspora journalism and journalism trauma. He is the convener of an international multidisciplinary Journalism Education and Trauma Research Group (JETREG) and Media of Diaspora Research Group (MDRG). He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Bowen University, Nigeria. Ogunyemi is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College (PRC), ensuring that the highest quality research proposals receive funding in accordance with robust and transparent decision-making processes. He is a Senior Academic Mentor in the College of Mentors at the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), working to strengthen capacity in teaching, research and mentoring in the social sciences and humanities in African universities. Ogunyemi regularly publishes articles in journals and chapters in edited books and is the founder/principal editor of an academic journal of Global Diaspora and Media. Kristin Skare Orgeret is a professor of journalism at Oslo Met University in Norway. She conducts research in the field of media and journalism, with a particular focus on media in conflict, freedom of speech, media’s societal role, and power relations. She worked with Dr. Art on her dissertation on public service broadcasting in post-apartheid South Africa. She also headed the research group MEKK – Media in War and Conflict, with Roy Krøvel. MEKK organizes annual Safety of Journalists conferences every first week in November. Marcela Pizarro Coloma is Lecturer in Journalism in the Department of Media, Communications & Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She worked for 20 years in international broadcast journalism, at the Associated Press then most significantly for Al Jazeera English where she reported and made films for the global media critique show The Listening Post. She holds a PhD in Latin American Cultural Studies (University of London). She is interested in the politics of journalism and culture in the global south, media history focusing on counter cultural and revolutionary movements in the 20th century.

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Indra Prawira is a lecturer specialist at Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia. He earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture major at Padjadjaran University in 2001. During his professional work as a journalist, Indra continued his study in 2011 at Mercubuana University, majoring in media and political communication. He earned a doctoral degree in media and social science from Northumbria University at Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. His research interests are journalism, political communication, education, and computational social science. Stefanie Pukallus, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Public Communication and Civil Development at the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Sheffield (UK) and founding Chair of Hub for the Study of Hybrid Communication in Peacebuilding (HCPB). Stef’s research focus is the role of public communication in the development, strengthening, rebuilding, diminishment or destruction of civil society. She examines civil societies across the globe of both mature and emergent nature. She has written extensively on the role of news journalism in civil society and the role of public communication in peace and conflict. Her most recent research monograph ‘Communication in Peacebuilding. Civil wars, civility and safe spaces’ was published in 2022. Stef has undertaken consultancy for the United Nations, the European Commission and the European Parliament. She is also a close collaborator of the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) and has been involved in a variety of peacebuilding initiatives in Kenya. Preeti Raghunath is a lecturer in digital media and society at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her research interests are focused on the making of the global data economy, histories and socialities of datafication, and work in the transnational data industries.  She is the author  of  Community Radio Policies in South Asia: A  Deliberative  Policy Ecology Approach (2020). Abiodun Salawu is a professor of journalism, communication and media studies and director of the research entity, Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA) at the North-West University, South Africa. He has taught and researched journalism, media, and communication for close to three decades in Nigeria and South Africa. Prior to his academic career, he practised journalism in a number of print media organisations in Nigeria. He has to his credit well over a gross of scholarly publications in academic journals and books. He has also edited/co-edited eleven books and authored one. He is a regular presenter of papers at local and international conferences. He is a co-vice chair of the journalism section of International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and a member of editorial/ advisory boards of a number of journals. He was involved in the founding of the International Association for Minority Language Media Research. He is rated by the NRF as an established researcher at the level of C1 (with international recognition) and he is a member of the Codesria’s College of Senior Academic Mentors. Susana Salgado (PhD, 2007) is a political communication scholar. Currently Principal Researcher at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa (ICS-ULisboa), she was previously FCT research fellow (ICS-ULisboa) and also held positions at the University of Oxford, UK, and at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. The topics of her research include populism, online hate, polarization, disinformation, political communication, comparative media studies, media and democratization, media and elections, and Internet and xxii

Contributors

politics. Over the last few years, her comparative research projects have been broad in geographical scope and include different projects on Europe, but also on Portugal and Brazil, and an extensive analysis of the role of the media in African democratization processes in comparative perspective. Salgado has been PI of several funded research projects, such as “Streams of hate and untruth?” (PTDC/CPO-CPO/28495/2017) and “Politics, Policy, Populism and Online and Social Media” (IF/01451/2014/CP1239/CT0004). Uma Shankar Pandey is an associate professor in journalism and mass communication at Surendranath College for Women, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India. He is the IAMCR Ambassador in India. Before joining the academia in 2002, he worked as an Asian Age journalist. His present research areas include data journalism, development journalism, media credibility studies, risk communication, and news framing. Terje Skjerdal is a professor of journalism at NLA University College, Kristiansand, Norway. He is a graduate of University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa and University of Oslo, Norway. He has been engaged in African media development since 2002 and has coordinated university development projects in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda. His research focuses on media and democracy in Sub-Saharan African and African journalism identities. He is an executive committee member and Africa coordinator of the Journalistic Role Performance Project. He is also on the executive committee of the Worlds of Journalism Study. Elena Vartanova is a full professor, dean, and chair in media theory and economics at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is also an academician of the Russian Academy of Education and the president of the National Association of Mass Media Researchers (NAMMI). Her research focuses on Russian media system, media economics, media theory, journalism education in Russia, digital inequalities, digital capital, and other topics. Her papers appeared in Journalism, European Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, and other journals. Professor Vartanova’s most recent books include Encyclopedia of the Global Media Industry (2019) and Media System of Russia (2020). Silvio Waisbord is a professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, United States. He is the author and editor of 19 books and articles on journalism, politics, media, and communication. His latest books are Public Scholarship in Communication Studies (co-edited with TJ Billard), and The Routledge Companion to Media, Disinformation and Populism (co-edited with Howard Tumber). He served as the editorin-chief of the  Journal of Communication  and  International Journal of Press/Politics. He is President-elect and Fellow of the International Communication Association. He holds a PhD in sociology from the University of California, San Diego, and a licenciatura in sociology from the University of Buenos Aires. Brenda Witherspoon is a professor at Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University, in the United States. She has a background in daily journalism, including both reporting and editing. Her master’s research looked at New Zealand newspapers’ coverage of ethnic relations in that country, and she has an ongoing interest in how journalists depict their own and others’ cultures. She is also learning more about strength-based journalism, which encompasses a variety of emerging schools of thought. xxiii

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Téwodros Workneh is an associate professor of global communication at the School of Communication Studies, Kent State University. Dr. Workneh’s research projects explore global media industries and policies through critical political economy and postcolonial approaches. His most recent research inquiries focus on state-media relations during political transition in Ethiopia and the imagination of Africa in American culinary adventure reality television programs. Yennué Zárate Valderrama is a research fellow at UAM (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana) Xochimilco (Metropolitan Autonomous University), Mexico City. She is researching on violence, gender, and journalists in Mexico. Yennué holds a doctoral degree in journalism and mass communication from Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster, and an MA in sociology, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. She is a former human rights journalist and directed the press department in Amnesty International (Mexico) and the Latin American team in Article 19 (London).

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1 REGIONALIZING JOURNALISM Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

Academia has entered a period of rational turmoil – an exciting and interesting kind of turmoil, we must add. As hegemonic concepts, unchallenged until now, are questioned by scholars in the margins (mostly around issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and others), mounting calls for a diversification of knowledge and a re-orientation of our way of thinking about journalism practice and scholarship have become more prevalent in recent years. The growing number of manifestos issued by scholars calling for more inclusive theorizations of journalism (Zelizer, 2017; Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2021; Glück, 2018; Mohammed, 2021) is a testimony not only to the deep-seated challenges associated with the historical imposition of Western journalism standards to the rest of the world but also to the opportunities that exist if journalists and journalism educators, regardless of their location, choose to collaborate and work together to recognize their conceptual and methodological specificities (Mutsvairo et al., 2020). The stigmas and stereotypes associated with reporting the Global South have been well recorded in academic literature (see Nothias, 2018; Lugo-Ocando & Malaolu, 2015; Willems, 2015; Wright, 2016; McCarthy, 1983; Ogunyemi, 2011; Hippler, 2000). Without a doubt, the development of journalism in the Global South is one area of research that has gained ground over the years, with several researchers, particularly those working in the West but originating from the region, taking front seats in spotlighting this fledgling field (Ndlela, 2020; Nguyen, 2020; Milton & Kperogi, 2020). Of course, a general acknowledgment that the Global South exhibits non-traditional forms of performing and understanding journalism has not existed until very recently. Since the establishment of our disciplines in the early 1900s, scholars from North America and Western Europe have kept tight control over the field, its research agenda, and the body of knowledge generated from its debates, largely ignoring dissident voices demanding a wider perspective which included other forms of journalism. It should not come as a surprise, then, the emergence of scholarly initiatives critiquing current global models of journalism research. This book, therefore, is an attempt to provide journalism studies with a more regional outlook. For as much as we can remember, journalism has been approached as a universal concept, applicable to any context regardless of its specificity, and any attempt to explore it from a regional perspective has mostly been defined through, or dominated by, Western

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-1

Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

paradigms. Within this volume we have gathered a range of well-established academic voices who aim at challenging – and, hopefully, contributing to efforts to change – this dominant narrative. Our purpose is to highlight important work that has often, sometimes deliberately, been ignored and ultimately excluded from Western journalism scholarship, because it has been either authored by scholars not known to its anchors, or because it used theoretical or methodological approaches different to those set by the status quo as priorities within the research agenda. As access to information becomes more ubiquitous, and as academia must compete with emerging platforms of knowledge, creating an outlet where conversations about journalism resonate with audiences different to those based in North America and Western Europe is of paramount importance. Whilst issues and phenomena that for years have been reported and researched in the Global South permeate the Global North, widening the research agenda to include other ways of doing, and thinking about, journalism provides an intergenerational opportunity we cannot miss. Sierra Leonean journalists were featured on CNN, explaining to Western audiences what it takes to cover a pandemic during the Covid-19 nightmares. Their exposure to covering Ebola could not be ignored by Western journalists, including an experienced caliber of reporters, who had little or no knowledge of covering pandemics as the world grappled with Covid-19 in 2020–2021. The importance of collaboration in journalism regardless of location has also been highlighted in the Panama Papers and, most recently, the Pandora Papers, considered one of the most expansive exposés of financial secrecy among the rich and powerful. These cross-border reporting examples underscore the need for inclusive approaches to journalism, which we seek to facilitate through more equitable empirical and theoretical reflections. Indeed, equality is a major issue in journalism practice. In a major international study, Andi et al. (2020) revealed that only 23% of the leading editors across 200 media organizations were women, even though, on average, 40% of journalists in the ten international markets that they studied were women. Ross’s (2014) research across 99 major media houses in the European Union concluded that only 30% of senior or executive positions were occupied by women. In the United States, calls for newsroom diversity emerged from intricate historical movements that sought to highlight the injustice brought by and eventual protests against neo-colonialism, “defenders of alternative lifestyles, and upwardly mobile middleclass professionals” (Benson, 2005, p. 6). Calling it “diversity journalism,” he suggests that it has achieved notable successes particularly in reshaping the language of race reporting. Acknowledging progress in the increase of non-White and female faculty and students in accredited journalism units across the United States, Jones Ross et al. (2007) notes that the advances fell short of what was needed to achieve diversity in journalism and mass communication education. However, an increasing multicultural environment, coupled with improvements in accreditation standards, has had a positive effect on diversity education in American journalism schools, conclude Biswas and Izard (2010). Attempts to decenter and decolonize journalism studies (and, to a lesser extent, practice) are not new. Unfortunately, over the years, these attempts have been largely ignored by the core of our disciplines, which has remained uninterested in nascent regional attempts to systematically theorize journalism in the Global South. Probably, the clearest indication of the existence of this Western-centric academic and professional bubble is the pervasive idea that journalism is in crisis. Should we all accept that we are facing a crisis in journalism simply because many in the West say so? How globally representative is this journalism crisis? Why 2

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should Western norms and business models of journalism be foisted upon other regions of the world? Is it safe to think that journalism is in crisis in the West because of its overreliance on a decadent business model which is no longer viable? Does such an observation apply equally in the rest of the world, where journalism is shaped by other cultural, financial, political, and philosophical forces? As we engage in the study of the ever-changing contemporary news ecosystem, dominated by vast digital inequalities, dis/misinformation, data overabundance, and technocracy, discussions raised by scholars like Waisbord and Mellado (2014); Wasserman and de Beer (2009); Curran and Park (2000); and Mutsvairo et al. (2020) re-engage with the questions, What really is journalism? Who gets to, and is qualified to, define it? What role do ethics play in a disparate global environment? What are the current trends, challenges, and opportunities for journalism in the Global South? How is news covered, reported, written, and edited in non-Western settings? What can journalism players, living and working in industrialized markets, learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa? Is journalism not defined by context and culture? If so, then setting a global research agenda on journalism ethics is potentially problematic, especially to those journalists or journalism educators who live in societies whose ethics are incompatible with Western beliefs and cultures. How relevant is journalistic objectivity to students living in a totalitarian country, where objectivity only means praising the president and ruling party? Anything more is not tolerated. As shown through the work of other journalism scholars (Hanitzsch et  al., 2019; Zelizer, 2005; Deuze, 2002), ethics cannot go unchallenged, particularly in countries that have experienced radical political, social, ideological, historic, economic, and cultural influences and shifts. Failure to follow universal journalism standards often comes at a price because of the global status and recognition that is associated with Western values. This is not without problems, because one could argue that all journalisms are important in their own way. The idea of a homogenized universal journalism is at most problematic, as the richness of local news epistemologies (most of which could be unknown to many Western journalism followers) highlights the flexibility which can be exhibited by the concept in other regions. In honor of the important work being done by our colleagues from, or working on, the Global South, we believe this collection will provide an alternative methodological, ­theoretical, and epistemological perspective on journalism, making a strong case for the deessentialization of the field and the recognition of non-Western journalism scholarship based in the Global South. In furthering knowledge within this increasingly complex discipline, we aim to show the relevance of customs, traditions, and cultures in defining and shaping local and regional journalism. Above all, we fully endorse calls for dialogue and collaboration, which several scholars, including many of those invited to participate in this book project, have long called for. As scholars from, and researching on, the Global South, we recognize the urgent need to challenge the dominant Western narrative on journalism scholarship and practice. For that reason, a call for regionalizing journalism must emphasize the importance of diversifying perspectives to overcome the historical imposition of Western journalism standards on the Global South. The stigmas and stereotypes associated with reporting from non-Western regions have perpetuated a biased representation in academic literature. In the following section, we aim to uncover the distinct histories, cultural traits, and philosophical concerns that shape journalism beyond Western European and North American societies. By highlighting the spaces where Western and non-Western journalism coincide and depart from each other, we aim to expose the limitations of applying universal Western norms to diverse contexts. 3

Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

This exploration ultimately contributes to the broader mission of de-essentializing the field and recognizing the importance of non-Western journalism scholarship in shaping the future of journalism.

Models for Western and Non-Western Journalism: Differences and Similarities Ancestral forms of historic documentation have existed since the establishment of primitive civilizations. Every single society, despite its level of progress, has developed the necessary infrastructure to sustain the systematic recording of knowledge in an attempt to protect their heritage. Over the years, however, historians have had to deal with historical bias (McCullagh, 2000) – that is, the unconscious or intentional inclination to provide a partial, and often unbalanced, account of a historical event. Colonization, from the 15th century all the way to the 19th century, paved the way for the indiscriminate amplification of biased historical accounts, which, on the one hand, silenced and invisibilized local and indigenous historical records and accounts and, on the other hand, consolidated Western European and North American historiographies as mainstream. One of those mainstream historiographies is the invention of journalism. The disputed claim that journalism was invented in either France or the United States (Chalaby, 1996) is well-known among professional journalists, journalism scholars, and students. Whether one or the other is accurate, both accounts reinforce the watchdog depiction of journalism by associating it with primal forms of pamphleteering that mobilized dissidents against the French monarchy and the British colonizers, respectively. As picturesque as these historical accounts are, and as inspiring as the subsequent professionalization of journalism in the United States, Britain, and France is, the fact cannot be ignored that other multiple forms of historical journaling that existed in the East and the Global South from remote times were invisibilized and excluded from this mainstream history of journalism. For this reason, as scholars from, and researching on, the Global South, we have made it our priority to unearth and bring to the fore the distinctive histories, cultural traits, philosophical concerns, and questions that shape journalism beyond Western European and North American societies. This section, therefore, will attempt to provide the reader with a brief and oversimplified overview of the spaces where Western and non-Wester journalism behave similarly and the spaces where they depart from each other. In the next section we discuss the ways in which Western norms and standards in journalism have been globally institutionalized as the golden standards via foreign aid and training (Lugo-Ocando, 2020) in the Global South. Notably, as these golden standards tend to be uncritically internalized and assumed generalizable enough to be applicable in any context regardless of its geopolitical specificity, journalists from, or working in, the Global South often have to deal with the tensions that arise when trying to implement a set of golden standards devised for a societal context different to that where they practice their profession. As part of our academic journey, in 2021 we were invited to edit a Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly forum reflecting on the ontologies of journalism in the Global South, and we had the privilege to invite a group of high-caliber scholars from Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Arab World, and Eastern Europe to discuss the shape of journalism in our regions. One of the points of confluence during our conversations, and definitely one of those instances where both Western and non-Western journalism behave similarly, was the belief that there was a universal journalism, whose norms and standards had to be applied 4

Regionalizing Journalism

equally. However, as Marquez-Ramirez and Mellado put it when they talked about Latin American journalism: Latin American journalists have been trained in traditional liberal norms like objectivity and factuality, but they primarily support active social change roles (Hanitzsch et al., 2019) that clash with those values. They seem restricted – rather than empowered – by liberal norms and missions that are only functional in established democracies ­(Lugo-Ocando, 2020). Concepts like press freedom, the watchdog role of the press, or the Fourth Estate fail to capture the needs of societies in constant turmoil and contexts of increased media and/or State power. (Mutsvairo et al., 2021) The main issue we have faced during our academic collaboration is the frequent impulse from mainstream knowledge institutions to disregard forms of journalism that occur in nondemocratic contexts as not proper journalism. By trying to understand journalism in the Global South through the paradigm of Western liberal journalism, mainstream discourses on journalism practice and scholarship have failed to appreciate the rich heritage and cultural values that shape journalism in these regions and the prowess of its journalists in trying to do Western journalism in the Global South. And here is where we see the manifest differences between Western and non-Western journalism. During our forum conversations, Mabweazara highlighted the idea that the concept of ubuntuism has had marked implications for journalism practice in the African continent. He remarks that ubuntuism constitutes the unquestioned background filter navigated by journalists in their newsmaking routines and can be invoked to explain some of the most distinct professional practices and cultures in Africa that relate, inter alia, to widespread practices of patronage, clientelism, political parallelism, and partisan reportorial routines. The pervasive cultures of press patronage, for example, can be interpreted as sustained by cultural orientations in which “respect for old age” and the “sanctity of authority” are inherent constituent elements seen as giving “form and stability to the way people communicate” (Faniran, 2014, p. 152) in Africa. (Mutsvairo et al., 2021) Mabweazara’s remarks unequivocally highlight the reductionist effort to homogenize all forms of journalism by using the same Western prism. As he indicates, “[t]he default approach to studying and evaluating distinct practices and professional cultures is to apply universal (Western) ethical approaches that out-rightly condemn them as proscribed” (Mutsvairo et al., 2021). When expressing the elements that shaped journalism in Central and Eastern Europe during our forum, Demeter and Głowacki voiced similar concerns of reductionism, homogenization, and the imposition of Western values when they argued: However, the uncritical export of the norms of Western journalism was not successful in [Central and Eastern Europe] CEE. Deeply rooted regional cultural values such as social harmony, unity, respect for central authority, and collectivism were confronted with the Western norms of individualism, rule of formal law, creativity, and the “watchdog” role of journalists (Lauk, 2008). (Mutsvairo et al., 2021) 5

Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

Badr brought to our forum similar ideas on Arab journalism when she explained that “[f]rom a Western normative perspective, Arab journalism can be dismissed as underdeveloped, politicized, and obedient” (Mutsvairo et  al., 2021). Shen then explained that Arab journalism is not concerned with the same inquietudes of Western journalism around democratic values or technological infrastructure. Instead, she expresses that: When analyzing Arab journalism, we need to let go of Western-centric linear processes of transitions toward democracy (Carothers, 2002) and address challenging conceptual questions, such as: How can one label loyalist journalists who are not coopted, but who willingly support the current order of power in fear of a state collapse without infantilizing their concerns in an Orientalist way? Should the role of journalists be to report freely and fairly or to support the regime’s stability, even if it comes at the cost of their independence? (Mutsvairo et al., 2021) Indeed, research has started to pay close attention to the local and cultural values that shape journalism in regions of the Global South in an attempt to conceptualize and understand these various forms of journalism in a more accurate way. A recent study by Wu (2022), for instance, found that data journalism in six Asian countries displayed a “set of ‘Asian values’ pertaining to collectivism, social harmony, norm conformity and deference to authority.” These values, which some argue are shaped by Eastern philosophies like Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in Asia (Dalton & Ong, 2005), would have otherwise been disregarded as not proper journalistic values and norms through a Western paradigm. This is, obviously, just the tip of the iceberg of a larger conversation that must continue and has to engage colleagues from the Global North. Transnational comparative work, such as the Journalistic Role Performance Project (JRP) (Mellado, 2020) or the Worlds of Journalism Study (Hanitzsch et al., 2019), has shown the need to study journalism in the Global South from a non-Western paradigm; now we need the Western mainstream academic and professional practice to listen. It does not take an exhaustive comparative examination of journalism in Western and nonWestern contexts to understand that the idea of journalism as a universal practice faces significant challenges. With this section, we hoped to shed some light on the historical biases and Western-centric narratives that have dominated mainstream accounts of journalism, which often neglect the rich and diverse traditions of non-Western societies. This realization prompts a critical reflection on the need to understand journalism beyond that Western prism. Within this context, the focus of the following section shifts toward a brief theorization of journalism in the Global South, acknowledging the unique socio-political, economic, ideological, and educational factors that shape journalism practices in non-Western regions. Therefore, we aim to unravel the complex interplay of individual influences, media routines, organizational structures, external factors, and ideological forces that contribute to the construction of news discourses in non-Western models of journalism practice. Through this transition, we hope to reinforce the imperative of contextualizing journalism within its regional and cultural specificities, challenging the notion of a homogeneous global journalism.

Theorizing Journalism in the Global Souths: Key Characteristics The real issues start with the perception that journalism is the same everywhere. The principles and ethics that are so dear to some cultures are not considered important in others. 6

Regionalizing Journalism

It has long been assumed that the practice and conceptualization of journalism is universal across the world. Journalism students in their first year of journalism studies at universities in the Global South are taught the Western histories, theories, and elements of journalism practice. At the same time, the upskilling of journalists in the Global South is conducted by trainers from the United States, UK, and Europe who teach “best practices” of journalism. This has always been based on the premise that the Western way of doing journalism is the golden standard. In turn, current and future journalists from the Global South have always aspired to do journalism through Western methods and practices. As the development of digital media shows no sign of slowing, it is important to analyze the dominating themes that have remained influential in ensuring the field gains universal recognition, particularly with a non-Western slant. Yet this has not crystalized on the ground, and not because of any shortage in skills from reporters from the Global South. The issue has been the failure to acknowledge that media ecologies across non-Western countries are very different from that of Western media ecologies. They are not worse, but different. The purpose of this book is therefore to delve deeper into what it means to regionalize journalism practice outside Western contexts, and to do so by unpacking how different models of journalism that are region-specific could develop and evolve. There are various factors to consider when framing various models of journalism practice, and these include social, political, economic, ideological, and educational. One framework that could be useful here is Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese’s (1996) “hierarchical model.” Starting from the bottom of the “hierarchical model” is what they position as the “individual level,” which could be understood as the “influences on content from individual media workers.” At this level, the “factors that are intrinsic to the communication worker” are considered, such as their education, personal background, and professional history (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 64). Additionally, other considerations include their value and belief systems and how they perceive their roles (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 64). This is followed by the “media routines level,” which refers to the “influence of media routines” that is associated with “an organizational perspective on the mass media” (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 107). Then the “organization level,” meaning, the “organizational influences on content” that focus on the nature of “roles performed, the way they are structured, the policies flowing through that structure, and the methods used to enforce those policies” (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, pp. 172– 173). The “extramedia level” follows, which ties with “influences on content from outside of media organizations” and that incorporate “sources of the information,” “revenue sources,” the “economic environment,” “technology,” and “other social institutions,” which include governments and businesses (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 175). At the top of the “hierarchical model” – and which includes all the aforementioned influences – is the “ideological level,” which refers to as the “influence of ideology.” This influence is connected with relations of power, since “media transmission of ideology works as it does by drawing on familiar cultural themes that resonate with audiences” (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 222). In essence, these factors play a significant role in the construction of news discourses, particularly when it comes to considering global journalistic forces within a global news space (Reese, 2001). These could be considered “forces of discursive media power” (Bebawi, 2016), which could be considered the characteristics that shape how regionalized journalism outside Western models of journalism practice and theorization. 7

Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

Structure of This Book The first part theorizes journalism in the Global South. Chapters in this part showcase the diversity of journalism in this expansive region, giving the reader opportunities to understand diverse developments in non-Western journalism. These chapters provide a window to reflect on what journalism really means epistemologically and ontologically when seen from non-Western, regional lens. Its purpose is not to simply show the distinctiveness of journalism in the Global South when compared to “Western journalism.” Instead, it is an opportunity to demonstrate various journalistic developments scattered across various regions, such as the Arab World, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Part 2 explores pedagogic paradigms and predicaments, attempting to show the challenges associated with teaching and training journalism in non-Western societies. This is very important because it offers an opportunity to show the challenges and opportunities, both missed and existing, that could help transform the field globally in terms of knowledge production and inclusivity. Part 3 is a compilation of chapters making a case for but also revealing the importance of diversifying journalism practices. In other words, chapters in this section show the complex nature of regional generalization because the Middle East or Africa, for example, are home to countries with diverse political, social, and economic backgrounds, which, in turn, lead to a multiplicity of journalism emerging from these continents. So the “Global South” itself is not without problems. Part 4 zooms in on collaborations between Western and non-Western journalism scholarship in practice and theory. Should they be promoted or not? Leading journalism academics from the West who have worked in the South, and vice versa (e.g., Susana Salgado, Kristin SkareOrgeret), will reflect on their experiences teaching, collaborating, and conducting research in two “different worlds.” Part 5 focuses on long-standing and new debates on journalism ethics, giving an opportunity to scholars to define and redefine journalism standards from a non-Western perspective.

Bibliography Andi, S., Seelva, M., & Kleis Nielsen, R. (2020). Women and leadership in the news media 2020: Evidence from ten markets. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/women-and-leadership-news-media-2020-evidence-ten-markets Bebawi, S. (2016). Media power and global television news: The role of Al Jazeera English. I. B. Tauris. Benson, R. (2005). American journalism and diversity. Media, Culture and Society, 27(1), 5–20. Biswas, M., & Izard, R. (2010). 2009 assessment of the status of diversity education in journalism and mass communication programs. Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, 64(4), 378–394. Carothers, T. (2002). The end of the transition paradigm. Journal of Democracy, 13(1), 5–21. https:// doi.org/10.1353/jod.2002.0003 Chalaby, J. K. (1996). Journalism as an Anglo-American invention: A comparison of the development of French and Anglo-American journalism, 1830s-1920s. European Journal of Communication, 11(3), 303–326. Curran, J., & Park, M. J. (Eds.). (2000). De-westernizing media studies. Routledge. Dalton, R. J., & Ong, N. N. T. (2005). Authority orientations and democratic attitudes: A test of the “Asian values’ hypothesis. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 6(2), 211–231. De Figuereiredo, E. H., & Martinez, J. (2021). The locus of enunciation as a way to confront epistemological racism and decolonize scholarly knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 42(2), 355–359. Faniran, J. O. (2014). Towards a theory of African communication. In C. Christians & K. Nordenstreng (Eds.), Communication theories in a multicultural world (pp. 146–159). Peter Lang. Glück, A. (2018). De-Westernization and decolonization in media studies. In Oxford encyclopedia of communication and critical studies. Oxford University Press.

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Regionalizing Journalism Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F., Ramaprasad, J., & De Beer, A. S. (Eds.). (2019). Worlds of journal- ism: Journalistic cultures around the globe. Columbia University Press. Hippler, J. (2000). Foreign policy, the media, and Western perception of the Middle East. In K. Hafez (Ed.), Islam and the West in the mass media. Fragmented images in a globalizing world. Hampton Press. Lauk, E. (2008). How will it all unfold? Media systems and journalism cultures in post-communist countries. In K. Jakobowicz & M. Sükösd (Eds.), Finding the right place on the map: Central and Eastern European media change in a global perspective (pp. 193–212). Intellect. Lugo-Ocando, J. (2020). Foreign aid and journalism in the Global South: A mouthpiece for truth. Lexington Books. Lugo-Ocando, J., & Malaolu, P. O. (2015). Africa, that scar on our face. In J. Lugo-Ocando (Ed.), Blaming the victim. How global journalism fails those in poverty (pp. 85–103). Pluto Press. McCarthy, M. (1983). Dark continent: Africa as seen by Americans. Greenwood Press, McCullagh, C. B. (2000). Bias in historical description, interpretation, and explanation. History and Theory, 39(1), 39–66. Mellado, C. (Ed.). (2020). Beyond journalistic norms: Role performance and news in comparative perspective. Routledge. Mitchelstein, E., & Boczkowski, P. J. (2021). What a special issue on Latin America teaches us about some key limitations in the field of digital journalism. Digital Journalism, 9(2), 130–135. Mohammed, W. F. (2021). Decolonizing African media studies. Howard Journal of Communications, 32(2), 123–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2021.1871868 Mutsvairo, B., Bebawi, S., & Borges-Rey, E. (2020). Data journalism in the Global South (O. Westlund, E. Appelgren, & C-G. Linden, Eds. Prefaced). Palgrave Macmillan. Mutsvairo, B., Borges-Rey, E., Bebawi, S., Márquez-Ramírez, M., Mellado, C., Mawindi Mabweazara, H., Demeter, M., Głowacki, M., Badr, H., & Thussu, D. (2021). Ontologies of journalism in the Global South. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 98(4), 996–1016. Nguyen, D. (2020). Mediatisation and datafication in the global COVID-19 pandemic: on the urgency of data literacy. Media International Australia, 178(1) 210–214. Nothias, T. (2018). How Western journalists actually write about Africa. Journalism Studies, 19(8), 1138–1159. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2016.1262748 Ogunyemi, O. (2011). Representation of Africa online: Sourcing practice and frames of reference. Journal of Black Studies, 42(3), 457–478. Ross, K. (2014). Women in decision-making structures in media. In A. V. Montiel (Ed.), Media and gender: A scholarly agenda for the global alliance on media and gender (pp. 44–48). UNESCO. Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1996). Mediating the message: Theories of influences on mass media content (2nd ed.). Longman. Waisbord, S., & Mellado, C. (2014). De-westernizing communication studies: A reassessment. Communication Theory, 24(4), 361–372. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12044 Wasserman, H., & de Beer, A. S. (2009). Towards de-Westernizing journalism studies. In K. WahlJorgensen & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), The handbook of journalism studies (pp. 428–438). Routledge. Willems, W. (2015). Race and reproduction of colonial mythologies on land: A post-colonial reading of British media discourse on Zimbabwe. In W. Mano (Ed.), Racism, ethnicity and the media in Africa. Mediating conflict in the twenty-first century (pp. 298–315). I. B. Tauris. Wright, K. (2016). It was a “simple’, “positive’ story of African self-help (manufacterd for a Kenyan NGO by advertising multinationals). In M. Bunce, S. Franks, & C. Paterson (Eds.), Africa’s media image in the 21st century: From the “heart of darkness” to “Africa rising” (pp. 147–158). Routledge. Wu, S. (2022). An Asian version of data journalism? Uncovering “Asian values” in data stories produced across Asia. Journalism, 14648849221133298. Zelizer, B. (2005). The culture of journalism. In J. Curran & M. Gurevitch (Eds.), Mass media and society (4th ed., pp. 198–214). Hodder Arnold. Zelizer, B. (2017). What journalism could be. Polity Press.

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PART I

Theorizing Journalism in the Global South

2 WHAT DEFINES JOURNALISM IN/FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH? Insights from Latin America Silvio Waisbord and Adriana Amado What Is the “Global South”? In the past decades, the concepts of “Global South” and “Global North” have entered the vernacular in the social sciences and the humanities. They reflect long-standing intellectual and political debates about ways to comprehend global societies, politics, cultures, and economics. These categories reflect a critical, historical approach to world development that foregrounds power relations and the mutually constitutive nature of global relationships. They are shorthand for calling out the persistence of power inequalities, changing forms of colonialism and domination, and structural differences shaped by historical legacies. From this perspective, the “Global South” remains a valuable analytical and normative construct – an “imagined community” of (most) countries around the world, arguably tied together by a history of colonialism and global position despite myriad differences. A geographical concept (“South”) refers to most countries that rank lower in Human Development Indices, such as income, life expectancy, and education, than countries in the Global North. For critical scholars, the Global South conveys multilayered histories and power relations and bridges astonishing differences into a common denominator of subalternity and liberation across the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The meaning of the Global South is only intelligible vis-à-vis the “Global North” – its counterpart in an essential dyad of global development. It operates as an analytical prism to situate the analysis within structures and dynamics in the context of global power. It also carries political assumptions about the inherent difference and conflict between the South and the North, the opposition between global regions with such dramatic past and present, conditions of wealth and dispossession. With similar assumptions and analytical purposes, the concept of the Global South has been used in journalism, media, and communication studies. It appears in two fundamental aspects of the ontology and the epistemology of academic studies: the approach to scholarly studies (“how to situate a given problem”) and the intellectual frameworks used to understand a problem (“what theoretical and conceptual tools should be used”). Ontologically, the argument is that themes and questions need to be situated within the Global South’s historical and contemporary global position. The particular socio-economic



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DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-3

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and political conditions in the Global South need to be emphasized. Any phenomenon is inevitably shaped by the unique circumstances of countries and regions. This assumption applies to the study of the global structures and flow of large-scale communication, the political economy of media industries (e.g., technology, content, policies), the development and the practices of professional cultures in media industries, media consumption, and sensemaking, or patterns of interactivity and public action. Epistemologically, the argument is that the study should take a double position: the valorization of indigenous theories, concepts, and debates grounded in academic, philosophical, and religious traditions that originated in the Global South, and the skepticism (or, in a more extreme version, the rejection) of scholarship embedded in ideas and traditions from the Global North. Consequently, a scholarly sensibility to these considerations is necessary to achieve two goals: to produce studies grounded in particular historical, social, and cultural specificities and to nurture scholarship imbued by local and regional sensibilities that contributes to de-Westernizing global scholarship. The Global South appears as both an ontological and epistemological imperative – a necessary corrective to well-known problems in the big tent of communication studies: the historical domination of the one-way flow of ideas (“from the West to the rest”), the pervasive universalist assumptions about how ideas work and travel, and the uncritical adoption of theories and models produced in essentially different contexts. The idea of the Global South conjures up a project to decolonize knowledge, point out significant blind spots in communication scholarship, and push for further participation and recognition of a plurality of voices in global academia. These debates and arguments have appeared in contemporary journalism studies too. Recent calls for understanding the particular “ontologies of journalism” (Mutsvairo et al., 2021) reflect a new chapter in decolonizing the field by acknowledging the particularities of journalism in the Global South and grounding the analysis on local and regional intellectual perspectives (Mabweazara, 2018). Underlying this argument are the ontological and epistemological premises previously mentioned. The local realities of journalism in the Global South are comparable insofar as they are essentially different from “Western” (a metonym for the Global North) models and practices. Expecting that “Western” principles would fit or describe “Southern” journalism is misguided, for it ignores profoundly different contexts. The belief is that “Western” ideals and practices hardly travel well. Likewise, it would be mistaken to cling to “Western” theories to make sense of journalistic ethics, practices, and work conditions in the Global South. Different analytical lenses are needed, instead, that are embedded in local realities and intellectual traditions, conditions.

Latin American Journalism and the Concept of the Global South In this chapter, our interest is to revisit this line of argument by examining core elements of Latin American journalism. Our goal is to assess whether we can legitimately speak about Latin American journalism as a coherent entity that reflects supposedly unique aspects of journalism in the Global South and that is different from its counterpart in the Global North. By doing so, we hope to contribute to discussions about journalisms in the Global South and about the existence of points of intersections and divergence with Western journalism. Our argument is that while it is necessary to foreground the uniqueness of journalism in the Global South, it is important, too, to specify those aspects and to recognize that journalism has always been open to a range of global influences. Any attempt to find a sweeping explanation or construct distinct, general categories, like about global or regional 14

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journalisms, runs the risk of gliding over important differences across a vast landscape characterized by unevenness, fissures, and difference. To dispatch convoluted histories and developments in a single category may overlook significant nuances. Because journalism has long been globalized, it would be wrong to assume that it can exist in perfect isolation from global flows of ideas, funding, and policies. Yet as journalism metabolizes myriad influences and is suspended in local and global networks of influence and power, it does not exist in conditions that could be viewed as unique to the Global South. Neither the jejune argument about a one-way, Western imposition of journalistic norms nor the heroic vision of pure indigenous evolution is empirically accurate. Instead, history shows that journalism in Latin America has been hybrid. It has absorbed, rejected, and combined various influences with particular socio-cultural, political, and economic realities. Journalism offers points of similarity and difference with journalism in other regions in the Global South as well as in the Global North. We find neither replicas of traditions of Western journalism nor split images of journalism in other regions in the Global South. Rather, journalism evolved from blending Western influences and indigenous developments, adapting and adjusting opportunities and flows to contexts characterized by several conditions: huge socio-economic disparities, democratic failings, political instability, media clientelism, maladroit state interventionism, runaway commercialism, vast areas of lawlessness, cultural hybridity, and chronic labor problems. Throughout its modern history, Latin American journalism has been a fertile ground for the mixing of (primarily) European traditions and indigenous trends and movements. Even before most countries gained independence from Spain and Portugal in the 1820s, the region has long been the crossroads for ideas and practices from various origins, rather than a purely provincial affair or a geopolitical territory exclusively subjected to Western flows of ideas. Lines of connections to the United States and some European countries as well as within the region have been evident since colonial times. Furthermore, the region has long been a cauldron of ideas, organized politics, social movements, and cultural battles that yielded quite diverse journalistic traditions and practices. This resulted in the mingling of journalistic traditions and practices shaped by vastly different economic and political conditions. Commercial and political interests have continued to shape news industries and journalistic practices. News organizations in resource-rich areas, primarily metropolitan regions with extensive private and public advertising, have been better endowed than hundreds of publications in resource-poor areas. While some journalists have been employed primarily to report news, colleagues typically juggle reporting with advertising-jobbing and public relations gigs, especially in resource-poor areas. Furthermore, political conditions have been different too. From the democratic rule of law to authoritarian regimes that have persecuted critical journalists, various political conditions have opened or closed opportunities for various types of journalism. Under these conditions, there has not been a dominant, unified paradigm promoted, institutionalized, and exalted by the news industry, political elites, journalistic organizations, and educational institutions. Journalism as an occupation and a pillar of democracy has been historically too contested ever to achieve canonical status. Despite the rhetoric of large news corporations in favor of “independent” journalism and the efforts of governments to subject journalism to their whims, neither independence nor propaganda uniformly defined a multilayered, heterogeneous press. Contemporary journalism is no different, even though globalization has accelerated contacts with models and trends around the world. There is no unified, hegemonic model of 15

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journalism in Latin America. Reasonably paid jobs in premier news organizations coexist with low-paying jobs across hundreds of newspapers, television and radio news, and digital sites. Partisan rags and tabloids are part of the same information ecosystems as carefully produced publications. Government mouthpieces live side by side with audacious investigative journalism. News organizations primarily directed to courting well-off, urban publics as well as others that cater to a broad swath of the publics are part of journalism in the region. If we take Latin America as indicative of the situation of journalism in the Global South, it is clear that diversity and hybridity are common characteristics.

The Essential Conditions of Latin American Journalism What defines Latin American journalism is not natural or intuitive. It may seem obvious only if one espouses essentialism grounded in geopolitical or historical structures that have presumably shaped comparable and unique conditions, yet those are contextual factors rather than structural determinants. There are no essential elements to infer the presence of a “Southern” model in the region – whatever that means – that is different from the Global North as a whole. Investigating what elements bind journalism(s) in Latin America may offer insights into whether we can make a compelling case for identifying journalistic conditions and practices unique to the region or the Global South. We examine core aspects of journalism ethics and practices: professional values, press systems, labor precarity, and innovations amid technological and industry changes.

Professional Values Are there common professional values in Latin American journalism? This question has long been the subject of intense scrutiny and discussion. Positions range from claiming that journalists upheld myriad values that resulted from US and European influences with indigenous developments to asserting that they adopted modern Western ethics of objectivity and fairness. Studies have consistently shown that professional values are defined by hybrid ethics. News organizations espouse different ethical commitments and professional norms, including partisanship, advocacy, fact-based reporting, and straightforward propaganda. The core values of Western journalism, independence, neutrality, evenhandedness, and objectivity have been contested rather than firmly institutionalized. Just as Latin America did not experience a process of modernization following a Western path, journalism did not copy values and trends that originated in the Global North. What has happened has been more dynamic and complex than straight importation or flat rejection of Western influences. Research shows that journalistic values are heterogeneous. Professional ethics vary according to the editorial orientation of news organizations, news beats, political conditions, political parallelism, and type of news medium (Mellado et  al., 2017). The political regime is fundamental regarding specific models and ethics, such as watchdog journalism, because not all regimes offer similarly hospitable conditions (Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2020). Likewise, the gap between aspirational values (what kind of journalism reporters aspire to practice) and actual practices needs to be explained by the particular configuration of news/media systems in Latin America. Even if journalists value certain ethical norms, their practices do not match such expectations (Mellado et al., 2018) Journalistic values cannot be understood outside the particular characteristics of press/ media systems in the region (Echeverría et al., 2021). Identifying particular labels for press 16

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systems remains a point of debate. While one can find common elements throughout the region, talking about a single Latin American model is incorrect. Cuba’s one-party press rule, Costa Rica’s long history of democracy, Mexico’s clientelistic system, and Chile’s commercial and concentrated system are different in important ways. Nevertheless, a few individual characteristics of press systems across the region can be identified. First, most systems exhibit “media captured” features, where fundamental aspects are shaped by the proximity between news organizations and political and economic powers. This doesn’t mean that absolutely every news organization is necessarily absorbed by these structural dynamics or that news coverage in general exclusively reflects such politicaleconomic arrangements. Such assumption misses interesting developments and experiences that are not firmly ensconced in broad captured media policies. Second, commercialism and partisanship remain dominant elements. Just as private ownership and benefit have long been at the core of the news industries, states have remained major economic actors, especially in areas with low levels of private advertising and media clientelism. The economics of news organizations are closely tied to national, state, and local governments, who generally wield discretionary power over key matters, such as advertising, taxation, and other levers that affect news companies, especially if they are branches of industrial conglomerates. From an economic perspective, the supposed conclusion is that there is less autonomy in private media than in public media. Still, empirical studies demonstrate that autonomy depends on diverse circumstances, and it shows various occurrences in different countries (Mancini, 2013). European public media are different from state-owned media in Latin America, which have no autonomy of administration and budget (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Third, editorial policies are often intertwined with political polarization. Because news organizations are editorially aligned with competing parties, electoral coalitions, and governments, news coverage and journalistic practices are sensitive to polarized politics. As news organizations openly take sides on public issues aligned with competing political parties and factions, balanced, evenhanded news is rare, and critical reporting is subjected to editorial calculations. These dynamics should not be seen simply as examples of political parallelism in which news organizations and political actors (parties, unions) maintain formal and stable connections. Situations are entirely dynamic, as they may vary with changes in government and particular agreements between companies and officials. Also, political parties and electoral coalitions are volatile in most countries. Thus, despite ideological communion between the editorial positions of news organizations and ideological and political forces, the situation does not neatly fit the traditional pattern of political parallelism. In a region with a spotty history of democratic governance, political conditions, namely, the conditions of press freedom, also shape journalistic values and practices. Journalistic norms are possible only within certain political conditions. Even if there has not been a massive regional shift to authoritarian regimes, as when military dictatorships ruled much of the region in the 1970s, journalism, determined to hold governments accountable, continues to face significant obstacles. Several countries are regularly ranked among the most challenging environments for practicing journalism globally. Conditions have been particularly dire in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. In countries with areas of statelessness, such as Mexico and Colombia, journalism that covers networks of corruption and violence is constantly under threat. The problematic relationship between the government and the press is reflected in press freedom indices, such as the annual ranking published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). 17

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Since 2019, only two South American countries have been ranked in the top third of global rankings: Uruguay (18) and Chile (54). In the middle are Argentina (69) and Ecuador (96), followed by Brazil (111) and Bolivia (110). At the bottom of the table are countries where journalists face severe violence, such as Colombia (134), Mexico (143), and Venezuela (148). Except for a few countries that have recorded a slight improvement in journalistic freedom since 2017 (Uruguay, Mexico, and Ecuador), Latin American journalism suffered a general deterioration in direct attacks and structural factors. Many of them are considered by RSF ranking, such as pluralism in the media system, the legal framework, infrastructure, transparency, and censorship. Although situations widely vary across and within countries, violence is too common. It is expressed in various forms of physical violence (from murders to harassment), verbal intimidation – offline and online – and draconian press laws intended to constrain reporting and push journalists to self-censorship. Given these conditions, it is remarkable that many news organizations scattered throughout the region have tried to hold power accountable by revealing corruption and wrongdoing and putting the spotlight on a range of social problems. Recently, 14 civil society organizations formed “Voces del Sur” to coordinate the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16.10.1 in Latin America. This goal sets targets “to ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.” Their monitoring data shows that during 2020, authoritarian tendencies increased in the region. The authoritarian upsurge is even worse than in 2019, when Shadow Report emphasized that Latin American journalism was increasingly threatened by the rapid deterioration of fundamental freedoms in a context of increasing populism and social upheaval. In 2020, Voces del Sur registered 3,350 total alerts. As was the case in 2018 (55%) and 2019 (75%), the majority of alerts (59%) in 2020 identify the state as the perpetrator of violations. Considering that the state has the mandate to guarantee and protect freedom of expression, press freedom, access to information, and the safety and security of journalists, this trend represents a major obstacle to improving the situation of these fundamental freedoms in the region. In 2020, six journalists were murdered in Mexico, while Guatemala and Colombia each saw two journalists killed. The overwhelming majority of violations committed in these countries are aggressions and attacks: 60% in Colombia, 88% in Guatemala, and 61% in Mexico. Many countries in the region are the most dangerous to be a journalist. Ten journalists were killed during the first trimester of 2022, including seven in Mexico. In summary, this mix of political-economic conditions not only characterizes journalism’s structure and dynamics across Latin America but also sets it apart from countries, especially in the Global North, with a long history of democratic stability, public broadcasting news, advertising-rich markets, favorable legal environments, and peaceful conditions. It would have been quite surprising that, given dramatic differences, professional ethics associated with Western journalism had taken deep roots in Latin America. Abstract models are incorporated and processed within conditions that yield situated journalistic ethics (Waisbord, 2016).

Labor Conditions Labor precarity is another defining condition of journalism in the region (Macías & Robledo 2021). Before this issue became a global matter of interest and concern, precarity has been 18

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a long-standing, historical characteristic of news work across Latin America, a region with high levels of informal employment. Precarity refers to unstable and insecure forms of work and employment and poor working conditions. It is reflected in newsrooms with insufficient staff, appallingly low salaries, lack of benefits, reporters who hold multiple jobs, and regular expectations about the volume of filed stories. Weak trade unions, outdated labor laws, and the absence of tax laws that could mitigate the worst effects of the crisis make journalists vulnerable to employers’ decisions and economic swings in the news industry. Data from the Worlds of Journalism (WoJ) study offers a comparative perspective of seven Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Mexico, between 2013 and 2016. There are significant variations across these countries for the variables associated with work instability, increasing workloads, and potential institutional support to deal with the consequences of precarity (Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2021). More than a fifth (21.7%) of journalists work part-time jobs in these countries, and even a third in Brazil and Argentina (35.4% and 31.13%, respectively). Although most journalists (70.7%) work on permanent contracts and long-term positions, figures vary significantly across countries. For example, more than half (53.2%) of Colombian and nearly a third (31.9%) of Ecuadorian journalists work on short-term contracts. More than a fourth (27.85%) of Latin American journalists worked for two or more newsrooms. As the problem is most pervasive in Mexico, where more than two-thirds of journalists (68.4%) work for more than one media organization, it is less relevant among journalists in Brazil (14.6%) and Colombia (16.3%). Nearly a third of Latin American ­journalists (31.4%) who participated in the WoJ study had resorted to holding other jobs outside journalism to make ends meet. In Argentina, four in ten (41.3%) journalists employed in news organizations had other outside paid activities, 34.8% in Mexico, 32.5% in El Salvador, and 32% in Ecuador. The WoJ survey shows that journalists are expected to file an average of 25 stories per week. Mexican journalists produce or supervise an average of 51.6 news articles per week, while Brazilian journalists are expected to produce 14.31 stories per week on average. In all likelihood, the quality of journalism suffers when reporters are expected to produce several such stories. In such conditions, they cannot dedicate sufficient time to cultivate multiple sources, gain in-depth knowledge about certain subjects, conduct extensive fact-gathering, utilize data, and produce stories. Without union intervention or clear job descriptions, functional flexibility is dominant. According to the data of WoJ, Brazil is the leading country where journalists are members of professional organizations (40.8%), with Argentina in second place (36.2%). Elsewhere, membership is appallingly low. In Ecuador, Chile, and Mexico, only 20 and 25% of respondents belong to journalistic organizations or unions. Low membership of professional associations and unions reflects low trust in traditional forms of collective actions and representation, especially for confronting harsh labor conditions. (Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2021) Entrepreneurship or gig employment is expected in job markets with high levels of informal employment, and where journalists are often expected to bring advertising in addition to their reporting. Digital platforms and radio and television companies frequently lease time slots to journalists. In turn, journalists need to secure their advertising and produce shows. Frequently, journalists capitalize on their professional reputation, typically built-in legacy newsrooms, among private advertisers and governments. Extensive media clientelism facilitates this arrangement as journalists with government contacts can secure funding for 19

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their programs. Shows are produced on shoestring budgets, with low production values and low salaries. While digital news opened job opportunities in the past two decades, digital labor conditions, including salaries and job expectations, are generally worse than in legacy newsrooms. The structural conditions hitherto described shape recent innovations and adaptations to demands and trends in digital journalism. Just like in the rest of the world, the consolidation of the digital society has also shaken up the foundations of industrial journalism in Latin America. The ways that journalism, including legacy and digital-based companies, has tried to adapt, survive, and incorporate recent trends confirm the earlier dynamics. According to particular technological, business, and political conditions, local processes have harnessed innovations and global models. Recent experiences of news start-ups, fact-checking reporting, data journalism, solutions journalism, and investigative and collaborative reporting suggest a pattern: the localization of global trends according to challenges for sustainable funding, access to digital technologies and data, and varying political contexts. We do not intend to offer a comprehensive summary of these experiences, which many studies have already done effectively. Instead, we want to call attention to the following: they confirm that journalism’s evolution occurs at the intersection of global and local developments in ways that produce comparable phenomena yet are uniquely grounded in particular situations. The most remarkable examples of journalistic innovations feature particularities and faced unique political and financial challenges in the past decades. The coronavirus pandemic impacts differently in Latin American journalism (Newman et  al., 2021). While in Chile, independent reporting of Covid-19 allowed restoring trust, undermined during the 2019 social crisis, in Brazil, journalism was sucked into political quarrels between the mainstream media and President Jair Bolsonaro. Presidential attacks on the press were also common in Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela, where pandemic and vaccine information was concentrated in governmental sources, with aggressive campaigns on social media from official accounts (Linvill et al., 2022). According to Voces del Sur (2020), at least 359 journalists lost their lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 13 countries in the region. The numbers are likely higher, as many countries in the region significantly underreport Covid-19 deaths.

Trends in Journalistic Practice Given these conditions, it should be no surprise that cross-national trends in journalistic practice have taken up unique aspects in Latin America. Here we have in mind practices including fact-checking, data journalism, and investigative/collaborative reporting, which newsrooms worldwide have adopted. Undoubtedly, important examples of these trends have emerged in the region in the past decade. However, they reflect unique opportunities and challenges for practicing certain reporting forms. Like investigative journalism in the past (Waisbord, 2000), native digital sites combine mainstream and alternative journalistic traditions (Saldaña & Waisbord, 2021). While their members espouse the mainstream notion of professional journalism, they also identify with normative approaches historically identified with the alternative media, such as community participation, denouncing social injustices, and struggling to remain autonomous under particularly challenging business and political climates. Because Latin American countries lack a well-developed philanthropic sector like in the United States – nor do they count on generous media public funding as in the European Union – digital start-ups have operated in 20

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vastly different business environments. They don’t have potential access to non-commercial, non-government-control funding for operations and projects. They have managed to survive with a mix of foreign sources, from funders as the Google News Initiative and Open Society Foundations, limited local funds, and business activities (e.g., consulting, events). Staying financially independent from governments and larger advertisers has been difficult (Tejedor et al., 2020). Likewise, collaborative projects have also adopted particular aspects as they have gained visibility in recent years. Latin American journalists have participated in the most remarkable global and regional collaboration experiments, such as the Panama and Paradise Papers. Yet collaborative journalism had to adjust to local conditions. Especially given the political sensitivity of the issues covered, collaboration has been important for increasing safety and monitoring potential attacks (Cueva Chacón & Saldana, 2021). It has been an opportunity for shared learning and approaching complex stories and for mutual protection. Also, just as transnational collaboration has allowed journalists to learn and hone specific skills, they have put reporters who lack such skills at a disadvantage in terms of opportunities for participation. Despite growing efforts to train journalists in data reporting, many still lack the fundamental skills to join such efforts. Another remarkable development has been the upsurge of fact-checking sites and data journalism. While these are positive trends, it is important to emphasize that the number of organizations actually practicing fact-checking and data reporting is relatively small. According to the 2021 census by Ryerson University (2020), 31 out of a global total of 231 fact-checking institutions are based in Latin America: Argentina (2), Bolivia (2), Brazil (9), Chile (2), Colombia (2), Costa Rica (2), Ecuador (1), Mexico (2), Nicaragua (1), Paraguay (1), Peru (4), Venezuela (3). Only 13 are affiliated with news organizations. Reasons for the relative paucity of fact-checking include the reluctance of news organizations to spend resources on fact-checking teams when purely profit-driven considerations prevail and cheaper news content delivers to audiences and advertisers more successfully (Moreno Gil et al., 2021). Similar gaps explain the limitations of data journalism in the region as well as its uneven development (Borges-Rey, 2019; Wright et  al., 2019). Even pioneer news organizations that embraced data journalism early on continue to face significant obstacles: technological limitations, insufficiently trained staff, and substantial costs (Araya & Gómez, 2019; de-Lima-Santos & Mesquita, 2021). Also, the fact that governments or corporations don’t produce or make available a wide range of data also limits opportunities for data journalism. Open government, which could facilitate data access, remains an elusive goal in the region.

Conclusions In summary, journalism in Latin America displays the following features: a blend of professional norms and ethics that originated in the region and elsewhere; professional practices shaped by the political and the commercial characteristics of press systems, as well as huge disparities across news organizations in terms of editorial positions and resources; widespread and deepening labor precarity; and continuous adaptation of global trends in journalistic practices. Understanding the core elements of journalism in the region demands a situational perspective that examines the intersection between ideal/aspirational models of journalism and actual conditions of practice. We find that it doesn’t match the big narratives about 21

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journalistic ethics and practices – absolute imposition of imported models or purely local norms. We don’t find sufficient evidence to support universalist visions of journalism imbued by similar principles that resulted from exposure to foreign experiences and traditions. Nor do we find support for an essentialist position according to which Latin American journalism represents a unique, genuinely original phenomenon. While we find some similar trends, there is no clear regional pattern or specific national clusters that define the region as a whole. Syncretism, rather than purity or replication, is a defining feature. How should we answer the question asked at the beginning of this chapter? Is there “journalism in/from the Global South”? The answer must be contextual and historical. Latin America suggests that what bring journalism together are similar situations yet not identical across countries and the region. Common features include journalists working under challenging circumstances shaped by economics, politics, and violence; different allegiances to professional norms and ethics influenced by editorial policies and labor conditions; and the constant adaptation of global trends, including ethics and practices, to local circumstances. If the Latin American cases indicate broader trends, arguably, these are conditions that characterize journalism in the Global South. However, because conditions are not identical across communities and countries, a nuanced approach is necessary, mindful of similarities and differences. The “Global South” concept is a necessary contextual factor to situate the analysis. Still, it does not fully capture the various historical and contemporary circumstances that continue to shape journalism – political regime, economic foundations, aspirational and practical ethics, safety conditions, and the blending of multiple influences. Because it is a container category packed with different and uneven conditions, it is necessary to sharpen the perspective to recognize where, how, and why journalisms in the Global South overlap and diverge in their similarities and differences with their counterparts in the Global North.

References Araya, R., & Gómez, C. E. (2019). Data journalism in Chile: Towards a critical appropriation. In Data journalism in the Global South (pp. 301–315). Palgrave Macmillan. Borges-Rey, E. (2019). Data journalism in Latin America: Community, development and contestation. In B. Mutsvairo, S. Bebawi, & E. Borges-Rey (Eds.), Data journalism in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. Cueva Chacón, L. M., & Magdalena, S. (2021). Stronger and safer together: Motivations for and chal�lenges of (trans)national collaboration in investigative reporting in Latin America, Digital Journalism, 9(2), 196–214. doi:10.1080/21670811.2020.1775103 de-Lima-Santos, M. F., & Mesquita, L. (2021). Data journalism beyond technological determinism. Journalism Studies, 22(11), 1416–1435. Echeverría, M., González, R. A., & Tagle Montt, F. J. (2021). Corruption framing in Latin American media systems. A comparison between Mexico and Chile. The Journal of International Communication, 27(2), 149–171. Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge university press. Linvill, D., Warren, P., & White, D. (2022). Russian social media promotion of Sputnik V in Latin America. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/ 2022/03/22/russian-social-media-promotion-of-sputnik-v-in-latin-america-pub-86644 Mabweazara, H. M. (2018). Reinvigorating “age-old questions’: African journalism cultures and the fallacy of global normative homogeneity. In H. Mabweazara (Eds.), Newsmaking cultures in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54109-3_1

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What Defines Journalism in/from the Global South? Mancini, P. (2013). What scholars can learn from the crisis of journalism. International Journal of Communication, 7, 127–136. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&btnG=Search&q=intitle: What+Scholars+Can+Learn+from+the+Crisis+of+Journalism#0 Márquez-Ramírez, M., Amado, A., & Waisbord, S. (2021). Labor precarity and gig journalism in Latin America. In Newswork and precarity. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003057376-13 Márquez-Ramírez, M., Mellado, C., Humanes, M. L., Amado, A., Beck, D., Davydov, S., . . . Wang, H. (2020). Detached or interventionist? Comparing the performance of watchdog journalism in transitional, advanced and non-democratic countries. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 25(1), 53–75. Mellado, C., Humanes, M. L., & Márquez-Ramírez, M. (2018). The influence of journalistic role performance on objective reporting: A comparative study of Chilean, Mexican, and Spanish news. International Communication Gazette, 80(3), 250–272. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048 517711673 Mellado, C., Márquez-Ramírez, M., Mick, J., Oller Alonso, M., & Olivera, D. (2017). Journalistic performance in Latin America: A comparative study of professional roles in news content. Journalism, 18(9), 1087–1106. Moreno Gil, V., Ramon Vegas, X., & Rodríguez Martínez, R. (2021). Fact-checking interventions as counteroffensives to disinformation growth: Standards, values, and practices in Latin America and Spain. Media and Communication, 9(1), 251–263. Mutsvairo, B., Borges-Rey, E., Bebawi, S., Márquez-Ramírez, M., Mellado, C., Mabweazara, H. M., . . . Thussu, D. (2021). Ontologies of journalism in the Global South. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 98(4), 996–1016. Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Schulz, A., Andi, S., Robertson, C., & Nielsen, R. K. (2021). Reuters Institute digital news report 2021. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Ryerson University Social Media Lab; The International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations. (2020). COVID-19 fact-checkers dataset. https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/IMISPE, Scholars Portal Dataverse, V11, UNF:6:fklQr+sqcTrkIKkFZ3MUpw== [fileUNF] Salaverría, R., Sádaba, C., Breiner, J. G., & Warner, J. C. (2019). A brave new digital journalism in Latin America. In Communication: Innovation & quality (pp. 229–247). Springer. Saldaña, M., & Waisbord, S. (2021). Investigative journalism in Latin America today. In Investigative journalism (pp. 230–242). Routledge. Tejedor, S., Ventín, A., Cervi, L., Pulido, C., & Tusa, F. (2020). Native media and business models: Comparative study of 14 successful experiences in Latin America. Media and Communication, 8(2), 146–158. Voces del Sur. (2020). Journalism in the times of Covid-19: Shadow report on the implementation of the United Nations SDG 16.10.1 in Latin America. www.vocesdelsurunidas.org/wp-content/ uploads/2021/07/Reporte-Sombra-2020-1-1.pdf Waisbord, S. (2000). Watchdog journalism in South America: News, accountability, and democracy. Columbia University Press. Waisbord, S. (2016). Professionalism, journalistic role performance, and situated ethics beyond the West. In C. Mellado et al. (Eds.), Journalistic role performance: Concepts, contexts, and methods (p. 171). Routledge. Wright, K., Zamith, R., & Bebawi, S. (2019). Data journalism beyond majority world countries: Challenges and opportunities. Digital Journalism, 7(9), 1295–1302.

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3 TERRORIST JOURNALISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST Ahmed Al-Rawi

Among its various positive roles, journalism is one of the pillars of democracy that is used to enhance the public sphere. However, it can also be used to disseminate violence and extremism through strategies of incitement, sensationalism, disinformation, and propaganda. This spread is not to be limited only to small scales but should be extended to include horrific genocides and wars. In this chapter, I intend to explore what is known as militant journalism, which I define as an extremist type of journalism whose goals are not pro-social for the benefits of the wider public but aims, instead, at promoting extremist ideologies and horrific genocide, conflict, and war. In this respect, Hickman (2018) poses important questions about prosecuting journalists who help trigger violence through their work as they persuade sides to commit acts of violence, pointing out several examples of propagandists supporting war crimes, like Ottoman Turkish nationalist newspaper journalists who helped in inciting the 1915 Armenian Genocide. In a similar manner, German propagandists were essential in promoting anti-Semitic views in Hitler’s Nazi Germany (Hickman, 2018, p. 660). The news media sometimes covers events in a way that dehumanizes victims and provides support to governments following the use of brutal force, such as the case of the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, which once covered the massacre of Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp using terms that suggest victims were terrorists, such as defeating “Jihad-land” (Schabas, 2006). More recently, ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) published a weekly newspaper called AlNaba’ and recruited media professionals, including well-trained journalists, to cover events happening inside the territories controlled by the terrorist group. While the traditional role of journalists is sometimes to cover war news, they can find themselves in a position of supporting violence and war-making (Tumber, 2013), especially when there is enormous pressure, coercion, blackmail, and security threats against them. It is important to note here that this case study is unique to Iraq, though it can probably be applied to Lebanon and, to a certain extent, today’s Yemen. I never intended my chapter to be representative of the Middle East, and I doubt any work can give justice to this issue. What I want to highlight instead is a new form of journalism, for example, ISIS and Shiite militias’ media that is spreading in some parts of the MENA region, specifically in failed states like Iraq. Further, this case study is unique due to the demographic diversity of Iraq (Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, Yazidi, Christian, etc.) and the fact that state-aligned Shiite militias are actively DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-4

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silencing political dissent, a similar phenomenon found in the use of armed militias in Latin America in the past, but not in the MENA region. Unlike the case of other counties in the MENA region that frequently witness violence, such as in Egypt after El-Sisi took power or the Palestinian territories often targeted by Israeli forces, Iraq remains a failed state, where armed militias roam the streets and kill dissidents with impunity while running their own media outlets. In the following section, I will discuss the concept of militant journalism and, to a lesser extent, nationalist war reporting, since they are connected to the discussion on terrorist journalism.

Militant Journalism As stated earlier, journalism can be used to promote violence, war, and conflict. According to Manuel Castells’s theory of network society, media is the site of power and the “social space where power is decided” (2007, p. 238). This closely corresponds with the conceptualization of terrorist journalism that is used by powerful players to exert power and gain control. In this respect, Castells elaborates by saying that power is “the structural capacity of a social actor to impose its will over other social actor(s). All institutional systems reflect power relations, as well as the limits to these power relations as negotiated by a historical process of domination and counter-domination” (2007, p. 239). In the discussion that follows, I will provide different examples of news outlets based in a variety of geographical and temporal contexts that were supported by nation-states, militias, militant, and extremist, and even terrorist, groups to illustrate the concept of militant journalism. Conceptually, it is not accurate to place all the outlets described in the following into one homogenous category or cluster, because militant journalism is an abstract concept that can be used to situate warmongering news channels within an ordinal spectrum with varying levels of militant ideology. Indeed, the most extreme end is where terrorist journalism is situated, while pro-war sensationalist news can be situated in the opposite end of militant journalism. To begin, two important examples of the role of broadcast media and state propaganda in inciting large-scale violence can be found in Rwanda’s and Ethiopia’s ethnic civil conflicts (Kalyango  & Vultee, 2012). Rwanda’s widespread Radio-Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) mobilized the Hutu majority against the Tutsi minority (Harber, 2014). The government used the news media, specifically radio, to spread disinformation and fear, which eventually dehumanized the minority by repeatedly describing them as “cockroaches” (Rusesabagina & Zoellner, 2006). With instructions given on radio and television on how to kill the Tutsi people, this vile media campaign assisted in the ethnic cleansing and killing of more than half a million Tutsi people (Mamdani, 1996). As a result, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced three Rwandan radio and newspaper executives to life in prison in 2003, accusing them of direct ethnic incitement (Zahar, 2005). In Ethiopia, the government also used broadcast media to disseminate hate propaganda toward Eritrea and Somalia in 1993 and 1994, leading to an estimated 300,000 dead people (Fessehatzion, 2003). In this respect, a well-known type of militant journalism is related to Islamic extremist media. Dębnicki (2016) examines what he describes as militant and jihadi electronic and print media in Pakistan, which disseminates the views of fundamentalist religious groups. Debnicki believes that militant media began after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to continue the anti-Soviet jihad, maintaining a flow of donations and new recruits. However, 25

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following the Soviet withdrawal, this media continued to support the Taliban in the civil war. Additionally, militant newspapers in Pakistan supported forces in Kashmir fighting the Indian government: “The militant media became tools in the internal politics supporting the process of Pakistan’s Islamisation” (Dębnicki, 2016, p. 364). More recently, ISIS used terrorist journalism to promote its extremist ideology, such as the case of its Mosul-based radio station, the monthly Al-Dabiq magazine, and the weekly newspaper Al- Naba’ (Al-Rawi, 2018, 2019). Further, there is no doubt that one of the primary angles that can help us better understand the relation between journalism and the spread of violence and extremism is nationalist war reporting. Again, news outlets that promote war and violence must be situated along a spectrum because it is not accurate to place such outlets within the same cluster with ISIS’s media. While they cover war news, pro-nationalist journalists and their news media outlets can find themselves in the position of supporting large scales of violence and war-making (Tumber, 2013), whether intentionally or not. In other words, some outlets can be tools for militant journalism exploited by nation-states, militant factions, or their lobbyists. In their book Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime, Allan and Zelizer (2004) discuss American and British coverage of several wars, like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the 1991 Gulf War, and the 1992–1993 military operation in Somalia. The authors detect various issues that challenge the romanticized image of war correspondents, but most importantly, their book examines the relationship between the military, state, and media. Focusing on the process of embedding journalists with military forces to cover wars, Tumber (2004) believes that the Vietnam War was the starting time when governments and militaries systematically began experimenting with new ways of controlling and managing the media to support wars. In later years, these efforts were intensified and improved. The Pentagon, for example, refrained from limiting information to the press and instead increased access to controlled frontline footage and information during its wars in Iraq (Lewis & Brookes, 2004). Robinson (2004) highlights what was called the CNN effect, or strong media influence that can “persuade policy-makers to engage in humanitarian intervention,” which became a tool “that Western leaders employed in order to justify armed intervention in the internal affairs of another state” (p. 108). Hammond (2004) also points out a similar view on influence regarding the 1999 Kosovo conflict, in which NATO intervened, in addition to Afghanistan and Liberia. Robinson specifically highlights two American wars, in Iraq in 1991 and in Somalia in 1992–1993, believed to be the result of such CNN effect. However, Robinson also demonstrates through following research that, though propaganda created by the media plays a role in pushing for wars, the CNN effect is merely an exaggeration of the power of mass media pressure (Strobel, 1997; Robinson, 2002). A related concept is the agenda-setting role of the news media. Kellner (2004) believes that, with the help of mainstream news media, the George Bush administration managed to mobilize public approval and support for the 1991 Gulf War as a response to the invasion of Kuwait. Before and during the war, the United States controlled media discourse through propaganda and embedding journalists with soldiers in a pool system to visit chosen sites, and even disinformation, such as the Hill and Knowlton case (Rampton & Stauber, 2003). Kellner (2004) notes how, in this case, the government launched propaganda campaigns to portray an exciting war narrative to American viewers, glorifying US troops as heroes and demonizing Iraqis. Propaganda turned many citizens watching the war on television into what Kellner calls “warrior nation” or “fanatic supporters of the Bush administration war policy” (p. 147). Propaganda games (Pilger, 2003) and PR exercises provided by the US 26

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administration and repeated by the news media also ignited war hysteria through disinformation. The circulation of rumors, like the alleged torture of US prisoners of war, the readiness of Iraq to invade Saudi Arabia, and the presence of Iraqi chemical weapons (Kellner, 2004), all contributed to mobilizing public opinion and influencing policymakers. These information efforts continued as the American government used similar strategies to influence the news media before and during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Moeller (2004) highlights reactions from journalists and pundits in which the author criticized the American media’s failure in questioning the Bush administration’s motives for the war, such as the case of CNN (Johnson, 2003). The British news coverage can be considered more sympathetic of their government’s position than supportive, or at least when compared to the way media outlets reacted in the United States (Lewis  & Brookes, 2004). Keeble (2004), however, addresses tactics of mythmaking in using war language to support the invasion of Iraq in the UK. Such strategies are noted in disinformation published to spread fear based on alleged expected attacks from Iraq on Britain in the form of nuclear attacks, anthrax threats, and suicide squads. “A  climate of fear is manufactured allowing the apparatus of the national security state (surveillance cameras, email snooping, arrest without trials, and demonization of asylum seekers) to expand” (Keeble, 2004, p. 48). Keeble points out how British media focused on intelligence predictions that exaggerated the power of Iraqi forces to justify the invasion in 2003. One example documented was the tabloid newspaper The Sunday Express, which published fearful messages like: “War brings evil, but we believe the country must not be frightened from doing what we pray will save the world from the greater evil of nuclear bombs. We see no alternative but to help demolish the Iraqi regime” (Keeble, 2004, p. 48). In Australia, some tabloids, like the Australian Financial Review, Daily Telegraph, and Brisbane Sunday, used a similar strategy after the invasion began. These newspapers used inciting pictures of missiles exploding and the presidential palace in Baghdad burning with headlines like “GET SADDAM” and “AWESTRUCK” (Bromley, 2004). While several examples of incitement led to large-scale horrific acts, like wars and genocide, some news media outlets can also use pro-war sensationalism to spread panic and fear on a smaller scale. Such outlets can be situated in the opposite end of terrorist journalism along the militant journalism spectrum that is cited earlier. In general, scholars define sensationalism as messages created to provoke emotional responses from audiences (Pantti, 2010; Uribe & Gunter, 2007). Using critical discourse analysis and audience perception framework to understand how Western Australians perceive news covering asylum seekers, Haw’s (2020) research finds a lack of audience trust and engagement toward such news. This dissatisfaction was mainly due to criticisms of an emphasis on sensationalism and incitement of fear when discussing asylum seekers. Sensationalism can also bring another factor to be considered that can drive media dissemination of violence and extremism, which is market-driven journalism (Kellner, 2009; Young, 2011). News media outlets are sometimes pressured by “demands associated with maintaining advertising revenue and growing competition for audiences” (Haw, 2020, p. 126). Hickman (2018) believes that the rising competition for news market shares, in which journalists need to sustain a consistent flow of major news stories (Robinson, 2004), encourages such extreme discourse and militant violence even in democratic countries (Mutz, 2015). Similarly, Majid (2007) notes how the political circumstances in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003 allowed for an environment of news media aggression from Iraqi journalists sometimes working along with local militants against free speech advocates. This chaotic and sometimes sensationalist media environment “prompted some newspapers to make random defamatory accusations that amounted to incitement to murder. They 27

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coincided with the breakdown in security in the country and an increase in the number of victims of blind violence” (p. 903). In other words, some news media outlets, whether driven by nation-states or pro-conflict sensationalist motives, might act as militant channels in the promotion of violence and aggression. In short, the language of hate, violence, war, and propaganda can be used in varying levels and ways and due to various motives by news media outlets to promote in the public perception of an urgent war or conflict. Without the propaganda created by governments, militias, and extremist groups and disseminated by journalists that can influence public opinion, “such criminality would be more difficult and probably less horrific in scale” (Hickman, 2018, p.  658). In other words, some news media channels can be complicit in conflictmongering efforts, making them perform militant journalism functions in a variety of levels. There is a spectrum of militant ideologies, ranging from pro-war sensationalist news media on the one side to terrorist journalism on the opposite side. As stated earlier, the core element and objective of terrorist journalism is to exert more power and possibly shape public opinion about issues of interests to the terrorist group which aligns with Castells’s conceptualization of power in his theory of network society. In the following section, a discussion is provided on state-sponsored terrorism, since it is related to the Iraqi Shiite militias, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, and Kataib Hezbollah, which are explored in this chapter.

State-Sponsored Terrorism Within the academic discourse which recognizes state terrorism, it is sometimes described as a binary or foil to insurgent/radical terrorism, such as by Norris et al. (2004), who distinguish between “terrorism from above” to refer to state terrorism and “terrorism from below” to refer to insurgent terrorism (p. 9–10). State-sponsored terrorism is the space between this binary of state terrorism and non-state terrorism, while state terrorism refers to violence which the state officially conducts against its own citizens, with some examples being genocide and secret police systems (Löckinger, 2005; Dekmejian, 2006). The purposes of statesponsored terrorism can be to suppress dissidents, to silence civic society, and as a means for political intimidation and control (Norris et al., 2004; Jackson et al., 2009). State-sponsored terrorism, on the other hand, refers to violence which is financially or logistically “sponsored” by a government, where some of the intentions can be to “project power beyond what the state is conventionally capable of” (Schmid, 2011, pp. 210–211). This could be done directly by the state or indirectly via its allied militias, like what happened in Darfur or in Colombia with the help of paramilitaries and death squads (Jackson et al., 2009). In general, state-sponsored terrorism challenges one of the central features of the traditional conception of terrorism, which refers to an action taken by a non-state actor, or “terrorism from below.” An example of this traditional conception is the definition of terrorism used by the United States Department of State, which defines it as “politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents” (22 U.S. Code § 2656f). One of the noteworthy effects of this definition is that, since it includes the state as a victim of terrorism, this makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the state itself to be accused of terrorism. Similarly, the traditional academic discourse on terrorism has largely ignored the possibility for state or state-sponsored violence (e.g., Laqueur, 1986), with a report by Lum et al. (2005) finding that of the academic literature around terrorism, only 2.6% of peer-reviewed sources and 1.3% of empirical sources were writing on state-sponsored terrorism (p. 24). However, this has changed in recent years, with a growing 28

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number of academics who allow for the possibility of the state to be accused of committing acts of terrorism. Ruth Blakeley (2009), for instance, defines state terrorism as “the deliberate targeting of individuals that the state has a duty to protect to invoke terror in a wider audience” (p. 15) and notes that though the acts of terror may not technically be illegal, they are of an illegal nature. Taking this argument further, Noam Chomsky has accused the United States of being the primary cause for the global rise in state terror through its support of insurgency groups in Latin America and the Middle East (Chomsky, 2011; Chomsky & Vltchek, 2017). State-sponsored terrorism can be categorized either according to the level of support by the sponsor or according to the level of support from the local government. An example of the former is Daniel Byman’s (2005) work, which divides state sponsors of international terror into strong, weak, lukewarm, antagonistic, passive, and unwilling sponsors, whereas an example of the latter is Michael Stohl’s work, which distinguishes between statesupported terrorism and state acquiescence to terrorism (Stohl & Slater, 1988, p. 169). One of the instances or conditions for state-sponsored terrorism to occur is what Robert Rotberg (2003, p. 9) describes as a “failed state,” characterized by the absence of social safety nets, lack of recognition of land borders, and perhaps most importantly, a loss of legitimacy among both its own citizens and the international community. In this case, state-sponsored terrorism is related to the nation-building exercise, where in order to secure legitimacy, a state will “mediate” some of its power to another, subnational institution (Menkhaus, 2008). Although not resulting in state-sponsored terrorism, Menkhaus (2008) provides an example of this mediation through the case of the Wajir region of Northern Kenya. Here, in order to secure peace in the region, the Kenyan government created a formal partnership with local non-state actors, providing “official government blessing to largely autonomous civic and traditional action on matters formally considered core functions of the state-policing, the judiciary, and cross-border diplomacy” (Menkhaus, 2008, p. 27). The recent decision for the United States Armed Forces to withdraw from Afghanistan in August 2021, and the subsequent resurgence of the Taliban, provides a useful case study for understanding the process and mechanism of state-sponsored terrorism. In the context of the Taliban, the origin for state-sponsored terrorism in the region is in the Soviet–Afghan war. Due to the United States’ Cold War conception of containment (Hilali, 2017), the Soviet–Afghan war became a proxy war, with the Mujahideen being backed by Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and the United States (Billaud, 2015). Of these, the CIA provided billions of dollars to the Mujahideen in what is referred to as “Operation Cyclone” (Coll, 2005, p. 151). Notably, the Mujahideen represent a heterogeneous group of individuals representing tribal, political, and religious differences. Within this diversity, the United States pursued a particularly ideological and militant-Islamist agenda, supporting individuals such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (Dheeraj, 2017, p. 151), in addition to publishing children’s textbooks with instructions with the intent to “instill fanaticism” (Sluzki, 2002, p.  3). The various Mujahideen factions eventually came to be unified under the Taliban, which would later commit acts of terrorism in Afghanistan. As previously mentioned, state-sponsored terrorism occurs in “failed states” (Rotberg, 2003, p. 9), where there is a lack of ideological and national coherence. This was precisely the case in Afghanistan both during the Soviet–Afghan war as well as in 2021, where the Taliban “capitalised on intratribal, ethnic, religious and ideological differences to win over people” and “exploited popular complaints against the government” (Zucchino, 2021). Afghanistan, in this regard, is not unique insofar as other countries in the Middle East and 29

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Africa, particularly those affected by colonialism, continue to struggle over visions for a national “imagined community” (Anderson, 1991; Chatterjee, 1991) and are thus at risk for the potential for ideologically motivated state-sponsored terrorism. In related to Iraq after the 2003 US invasion, numerous scholars have described the country as a “failed state” which is characterized by its dysfunctional sectarian institutions that lack basic and unified state power and authority (Ismael & Ismael, 2015; Lynch, 2016; Eriksson & Khaleel, 2018). In today’s Iraq, state corruption and absence of public services and security largely characterize the current situation. These conditions led to the emergence of powerful extremist groups like ISIS as well as some pro-Iranian Shiite militias that are closely aligned with the ruling political parties. These militias exert tremendous power on the central Iraqi government to the extent that crimes against human rights activists, journalists, and oppositional figures are rarely, if ever, punished, for they operate in complete impunity (Arif, 2021). These militias have the upper hand in what happens in Iraq, for their leaders and even junior members are rarely tried or even imprisoned for their crimes and the assassinations of human rights activists, journalists, and politicians, such as the case of Hashim Al Hashimi (BBC News, 2021), because they exert tremendous influence on the corrupt Iraqi army and security forces (Arraf & Hassan, 2021; Loveluck & Salim, 2021). In other words, they constitute the backbone of the contemporary failed state of Iraq, mainly to serve the Iranian regime (Risen et al., 2019), especially due the increasing reliance on these militias to fight ISIS after 2004 and establish security in some regions. Despite the numerous human rights violations committed, it was only recently that the US government classified some of these militias as terrorist groups, such as Asa’ib Ahl alHaq (US Department of State, 2020). Ironically, all these militias have numerous news media channels that are actively spreading sectarian sentiments, violence, disinformation, and propaganda without any moderation. I situate these news channels as part of terrorist journalism due to their negative role in creating social divisions and sectarian polarization as well as spreading hate. For example, the pro-Iranian terrorist group Kataib Hezbollah controls several news outlets, such as Al-Etejah TV and Sabereen News (Knights et al., 2021; The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, n.d.). In addition, the majority of militia leaders who are officially classified as terrorists have social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook with hundreds of thousands of followers (Abdulla, 2020). Sabereen News, for instance, is an online news outlet that is active on Twitter (@sabreenS11), having over 57,000 followers, and on Telegram (@sabreenS1), with more than 211,000 subscribers, as of mid-July 2022. It describes itself as “a voice for the victims anywhere in the world.” However, it only discusses the plight of Shiite groups in Bahrain and Yemen while promoting the Iranian and Russian agenda. This news outlet advertises itself as an alternative news channel, and it has numerous other accounts on YouTube, Instagram, VK, etc., with wide networks of sympathizers and supporters who routinely share its news content (Malik et al. 2021). To give a few examples of its news coverage, the channel routinely attacks Iraqi Kurdish and Arab Sunni politicians, accusing them of supporting terrorism, sedition, and treason for cooperating with their archenemies, like Israel, USA, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, to topple the Shiite-dominated government. Also, human rights activists who participated in the 2019 popular protests against corruption are frequently threatened, targeted, and vilified by this channel. In addition, calls to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine and attacking US sites in Iraq with drones and heavy weapons are frequently expressed. The Iraqi journalist Sarmad Al Tae has been targeted by Sabereen News showing him as a devil and a Batman Joker who intends to bring chaos to the country because he 30

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criticized the Iranian-backed militias and their crimes. Currently, the Iraqi Supreme Court has filed a legal case against Al Tae for his criticism (Salim, 2022), denoting the pervasive influence of these militias in the Iraqi state. Interestingly, the personal attacks against critics also include foreign figures, like the UN the special representative for Iraq, Jeanine HennisPlasschaert, for her role in ensuring the credibility of the general elections results, as well as other people, such as the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, since the militias side with Russia due to Putin’s military intervention in Syria. In conclusion, the case study examined here focuses on Iraq, a failed state that is currently plagued by state-aligned Shiite terrorist militias that exert their coercive and media power on the population under their control. Despite this limitation, the genre of terrorist journalism can be applicable to other national contexts that witness weak political structures and fragile democratic establishments. Theoretically, I introduce the idea of militant journalism as a spectrum that ranges between pro-war sensationalist news media to the opposite direction, representing terrorist journalism. Similar to Castells’s understanding of media power (2007), I argue that the main objective of terrorist journalism, which is the focus of this chapter, is to help maintain the status quo, exert more power, and possibly influence the population. As mentioned earlier, state-sponsored terrorism often occurs in the “failed state” context mentioned by Rotberg (2003) and Menkhaus (2008) and can be reflected in different ways, such as suppressing dissidents and silencing civic society as a means for political intimidation and control (Norris et  al., 2004; Jackson et  al., 2009). Today’s Iraq is an example, where a strong and unified national identity does not exist, replaced by tribal, sectarian, and religious factors that are more influential than the official state powers. As a result, extremist groups, like the militias described in this chapter, end up having widespread semi-official control of the state and its jurisdictions. This is also reflected in the media outlets these terrorist groups run, like Sabereen News, to promote hate, violence, and division with complete impunity. Militant and, specifically, terrorist journalism is emerging as a new phenomenon happening in some parts of the Middle East, like Iraq, wherein information is packaged and presented as news, but it is primarily weaponized by dangerous armed groups to serve their agenda in silencing dissent and exerting more coercive power. Unfortunately, traditional social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook actively host these terrorist journalism channels despite their negative and harmful content and impact not only to Iraq and Iraqis but also to other countries.

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Ahmed Al-Rawi Uribe, R., & Gunter, B. (2007). Are “sensational’ news stories more likely to trigger viewers’ emotions than non-sensational news stories? A content analysis of British TV news. European Journal of Criminology, 22(2), 207–228. US Department of State. (2020, January 3). State department terrorist designations of Asa’ib Ahl alHaq and its leaders, Qays and Laith al-Khazali. https://2017-2021.state.gov/state-departmentterrorist-designations-of-asaib-ahl-al-haq-and-its-leaders-qays-and-laith-al-khazali/index.html The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (n.d.). Militia spotlight: Profiles. www.washingtoninsti tute.org/policy-analysis/series/militia-spotlight-profiles Young, S. (2011). How Australia decides: Election reporting and the media. Cambridge University Press. Zahar, A. (2005). The ICTR’s “media” judgment and the reinvention of direct and public incitement to commit genocide. Criminal Law Forum, 16(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10609005-6734-x Zucchino, D. (2021, August 18). Collapse and conquest: The Taliban strategy that seized Afghanistan. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/taliban-victory-strategy-afghan istan.html

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4 POVERTY NEWS IN LATIN AMERICA Too Much to See but Too Little and Too Polarized to Say Jairo Lugo-Ocando Poverty and inequality are the central cause and the underlining reason for most of the problems that many societies in the Global South face today. From poor education attendance levels to current armed conflicts, passing by vulnerability to pandemics such as Covid19, all these problems can be traced to the levels of poverty and inequality that affect these communities (Abbott et al., 2015; Bauchet et al., 2018). Indeed, news stories on precarious basic services, poor health conditions of the different communities, and increasing levels of dropouts from school can all be linked to poverty. In light of this, one would expect that the news media in these countries would make poverty a central theme in the news agenda. After all, poverty in the Global South has been a central topic in international news media, which often reports famines, displacement, and destitution in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Abbie Erler, 2012; Lugo-Ocando, 2014). So one must ask, why is poverty not prevalent in the headlines of these countries’ news media? The answer, as it is discussed in this chapter, is multifactorial – to start with, the societal context, organizational dynamics, and news cultures that shape professional reporting practices and final news outputs from journalists (Franklin, 2002; Golding & Middleton, 1982; Suleiman  & Ojomo, 2019). These factors also include the professional ideologies in the newsroom that shape discursive regimes framing the issues discussed. Underpinning this, one can also mention the role of media ownership in shaping the narratives used in storytelling and, equally important, news audience reception of these types of news, as they are the market that demands that type of content and are affected by it (Bodó, 2019; Herman & McChesney, 1997; Lee, 2013). Additionally, there is the lack of democratic accountability in many countries in the Global South, where authoritarian regimes make it impossible to report truthfully social exclusion as well as other editorial and commercial prerogatives that do not see poverty as a topic that can enhance the media’s audiences and commercial viability (Bohórquez, 2019; Prieto, 2021). However, this chapter will focus upon two main vectors that can help explain why news on poverty receives relatively so little attention. One is that poverty is so prevalent across these societies that to some in the newsroom it has lost newsworthiness. The other has to do with the way in which poverty as a news item has become embedded in the process of political

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polarization and populist demagogic. This to the point that it has become so politicized and so divisive that it has made reporting about it be seen as an ideological exercise within the struggles for power rather than as daily routine that seeks to find common ground for policymaking. Beyond these explanations, the fact remains that news coverage of poverty in many parts of the world tends to be scarce in relation to other newsbeats and that it fails to capture the same amount of headlines that other areas such as politics, sports, or entertainment do. In fact, several studies across different countries have pointed out that poverty is a topic that receives little or very limited attention by the mainstream news media. To be sure, poverty rarely appears in the headlines although is widely present in indirect manners. Nonetheless, the words poverty and inequality are rarely mentioned in these stories in an explicit manner (Connor, 2021; Harkins & Lugo-Ocando, 2017). There is a body of scholarly research that has examined how the news media reports poverty and inequality and what type of practices and news culture one can identify within this coverage (Abbie Erler, 2012; Alinsky, 1965; Harkins & Lugo-Ocando, 2017; Obijiofor, 2009). Moreover, some authors have underlined the significance of this coverage in relation to public policy and allocation of resources (Biroli et al., 2013; Brisset-Foucault, 2016; Carvalho, 2012; de Melo Resende et al., 2017). For example, research carried out in Nigeria highlights this by acknowledging the important role of the media in mobilizing people, resources, and governments toward addressing poverty (Kariithi, 2005; Suleiman & Ojomo, 2019). Similar data can be found in Asia and Oceania, where news coverage of poverty continues to be scarce and consequently has a detrimental impact on policymaking and resources allocation. In cases such as the Philippines, scholars have pointed out that there is an avoidance of covering poverty and inequality in that country too. This last is mostly due, these authors highlight, to media owners, elites, and segments of the public – particularly consumers at the high end of the spectrum – who are not inclined to portray or see poverty in their screens (Ong, 2015). In many of these countries, the mainstream news media continues to be concentrated in few hands or under control of governments that use poverty as a platform to advance their own agendas, reflected in editorial policies compromised by power elites’ interests and the own market-driven political economy that underpins that media. In India, to give another example, most of the large mainstream media have now retreated and avoid altogether reporting these issues (Panos, 2001). The task instead has fallen upon the shoulders of the local and regional newspapers, which are the ones now reporting issues and struggles faced by rural communities, farmers, and women in light of increasing inequality and destitution (Al-Jazeera, 2015). Moreover, few reports in the mass media have highlighted the plight of India’s small farmers, who are at the mercy of the monsoon year after year but, above all, at the mercy of local moneylenders, who charge exorbitant rates of interest (Frammolino, 2009). No matter which media system one studies in the Global South, the findings are similar: scarcity of news that represent and provide voices for those living in destitution, and almost no discussion about the structural reasons that keep millions in the direst situation. This body of research also points out to the pervasive effect that this lack of coverage has upon policymaking, legislation, and resources allocation. To make a contribution in this field, this chapter explores how these global patterns play in the context of Latin America. It does so by examining overlaps and distinctiveness in 36

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relation to global trends. It examines media outlets in Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela as examples of the type of news coverage in the region, but without trying to make universal claims. Instead, the discussion here intends to be provocative by illustrating some examples rather than making general assumptions. From the data presented here, we can suggest two important trends. On the one hand, explicit coverage of poverty is almost invisible in some of the key mainstream news media outlets in the region, and when it happens, it tends to obviate the structural causes that create poverty. On the other, the data underlines the most recent trend in which political polarization in the region has politicized poverty as a news item in such a way that it makes it very difficult for political actors to find common ground. The chapter then goes to suggest that the characteristics and overall nature of the media systems – defined by its history and the political economy – explain commonalities and continuities in the way these news media outlets report poverty. However, it equally clarifies that although these contextual factors are central to the explanation of news coverage of poverty, certainly, as a structural condition for it, they are not completely a defining factor. Journalists and people living in poverty have agency and play in their own right a role in defining the type of news reporting that comes out.

Poverty News in Latin America Despite the complexities and diversity of its own media systems (Artz, 2017; Segura & Waisbord, 2016), Latin America as a whole does not escape global trends in relation to how the mainstream media reports poverty. Studies in that region suggest that poverty – as a structural issue affecting the entire society – receives limited coverage in mainstream legacy media (Azcorra, 2009; Kitzberger  & Pérez, 2008). The same studies suggest that the reporting of these issues exhibits patterns and characteristics also present in other parts of the world, although other scholars point out also at changes and improvements that can be observed in other media outlets (Awad, 2014; Etchegaray & Matus, 2015). Despite these changes, a great deal of the mainstream legacy media in that region continues to portray mostly the manifestations of poverty rather than its root causes (Harkins & Lugo-Ocando, 2017; Lugo-Ocando, 2021). In this sense, inequality as a structural cause of poverty is regularly missing from the big picture. It is often ignored as a key root cause for poverty. Instead, reporters working in some of the largest and most influential news media outlets subscribe to neoliberal rationales that see market failures or individual bad decisions as the key problem. In addition, one can add, news coverage of poverty in many outlets continue to ascribe to governments the sole responsibility to address the issues that are consequence of poverty – for example, child mortality, school desertions, crime, etc. – or place upon the individuals’ own choices the responsibility of improving their own condition. This rather than highlighting that poverty itself is a multifaceted phenomenon that is intertwined with taxation and property ownership, that bears collective responsibility around wealth redistribution and equity in society. More recently, notions relating to “wealth redistribution” in the media space have been problematized by the rise of the so-called “pink tide” in the context of electoral campaigns and power struggles in which the Left and the Right face each other in an increasingly polarized manner (Artz, 2017; Helbert, 2021; North & Clark, 2018). Taxation, strengthening the welfare state, and reviewing property rights in key areas of the economy, which jointly 37

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make the core of welfare redistribution in capitalist societies, have become so deeply ideological that in many countries in Latin America, it is now almost impossible to find common ground between the different parties involved, despite all acknowledging the serious problem it poses to society. Hence, traditional news coverage of poverty, which historically has been deficient in the mainstream media, has become even more distorted by political polarization and ideological labeling, which has made poverty a political token used by each side to attack the other. This increasing polarization has eroded the possibility of encountering common ground to develop constructive engagement within the public sphere around public policy and resource allocation. Take, for example, La Nación, which is Argentina’s leading title in terms of circulation and number of website visitors while being considered the newspaper of “record” in that country (Raimondo Anselmino, 2014). Its, news coverage of poverty in 2021 accounted for 9.4% of all the news stories published that year (a total of 470). This despite the fact that over 35% of its population live today in poverty, of which 5.3 million live in extreme poverty (BAT, 2022). Most main news sources used in these stories were government officials (62%), although there was a significant presence of other expert sources, such as members of the opposition political parties, university scholars, and individuals from non-governmental organization. Most of the stories were critical of the government, particularly in the way it managed the economy. Only a handful of stories included testimonials or voices from those in poverty, therefore leaving out the key participants in these stories, a characteristic also found in other parts of the world (Lugo-Ocando, 2014; Sainath, 1996). Reporters at La Nación did provide some context to poverty. However, their accounts made fundamental emphasis on inflation, unemployment, and Covid-19 rather than in inequality. To illustrate this last point, we can look at a story published by Jorge Rosales under the headline “The cancellation of the middle class” on December 5, 2021: It takes a little more than two years of salary to be able to buy a car, and owning a house seems like a pipe dream with no credit in sight. In 2016, 48 per cent of the population was considered middle class and 32 per cent was poor, according to the [the think tank] Indec. This as they could not reach the total basic basket. According to a report by the Institute for Argentine Social Development (Idesa), in that year 9 per cent of the population belonged to the upper class and 11 per cent to the lower middle class, the sector considered most vulnerable to falling into poverty. In the second quarter of 2021, social mobility was downwards. (Rosales, 2021) What this journalist is doing here is using inflation as the central explanatory framework for growing poverty among the middle classes and placing responsibility upon the government’s monetary and taxation policy (basically questioning redistributive policies). Indeed, the author places responsibility in high taxation and overall inflation as culprits of the deteriorating circumstances upon the government and multilateral organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund: Today official policies aim to support those who are in the so-called lower or fragile middle class, so that they do not fall, and not to encourage the middle class to be the 38

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engine of recovery. The horizon is not encouraging for that sector, which feels that they are cancelling it. The weight of the agreement with the IMF will end up falling, once again, on the shoulders of the battered middle class. (Rosales, 2021) This explanation not only goes against the idea of wealth redistribution but also actually blames taxation of middle classes and welfare policies directed toward those living in poverty as the reason for the general deterioration of the quality of life. It is important to notice that over 10% of the stories in our sample were related to how the middle class is being pushed into poverty. For example, in a piece written by Melisa Reinhold on November 22, 2021, she writes: Between crisis and crisis, in the last four years the Argentine middle class has been losing purchasing power. So much so that today the standard of living of this socioeconomic sector is not consistent with the income that enters the home. From this tension, it emerges that in reality one out of every three households that was middle class is poor. (Reinhold, 2021) In none of this sub-sample of 49 articles is there any mention of income gap. In fact, in the whole sample, there is rarely a mention that particular segments of the population have become richer in the last ten years. Instead, journalists tend to place responsibility on the welfare, taxation, redistributive, and Keynesian monetary policies of the government. One important reason that particular narratives obviate income gap and inequality as explanatory vectors for diminishing wealth among the larger segments of the population prevail in those stories is the selection of sources. In fact, studying the nature of the news source used by reporters to articulate their stories is essential in understanding the way news is framed (Berkowitz & Beach, 1993; Manning, 2001; Mayo-Cubero, 2020). In the case of La Nación, most of the news sources used are government officials and opposition leaders, although, to a lesser degree, they also include voices from multilateral organizations and university-based experts. Meanwhile, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and third sector actors are only mentioned in a few stories. Another case study is that of El Tiempo newspaper in Colombia, which has both a legacy print edition and an online version with over 100,000 active subscribers. It situates itself as a liberal newspaper and is considered to be the most influential media outlet in that nation in terms of setting the political agenda (Restrepo, 2001). Looking at the coverage it provides about poverty, one can see similar patterns to those in other countries in terms of the way poverty is reported. In the sample of El Tiempo, news coverage does not seem to keep pace with the reality on the ground. In a country where 38.30% of its population live in poverty and that exhibits some of the highest levels of inequality in the world (Macrotrends, 2022), the topic remains largely a sideshow to the other problems that the country faces. This sample included 157 news stories published between January and December of 2021 that referred explicitly to the topic of poverty in that country. Fallowing the same methodology used in the cases of Argentina and Venezuela, the sample only included hard news stories and feature articles while excluding opinion pieces, editorials, letters from the readers, and stories produced by international news agencies. 39

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This last despite the fact that during that period, this newspaper published in its print version some 53,000 news articles. That means that only 0.3% of all the news stories published refer in an explicit manner to poverty. Moreover, from this sample, only 34 articles mentioned the word inequality, but in none of the cases is this used to explain the nature and origin of poverty. The overall findings confirm the same scarcity of news on poverty found in other parts of the world. A closer reading of some of these articles suggests that a great deal of the coverage of poverty places the sole responsibility for addressing poverty upon government policy and action. In these cases, the center point of the article is not so much poverty in themselves but rather how these issues reflect government performance or showcasing government action. Indeed, 103 articles centered on government policy and action around poverty. The main news sources were a government officials and data provided by a government organization. Less than 1% of the stories had a news source from the third sector (e.g., NGOs, church, etc.), although expert voices from universities and think tanks were also present. The news on poverty in El Tiempo in 2021 related in many cases to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy. To be sure, over a third of the articles (58) in the sample included Covid as an effect or rationale for growing levels of poverty. The stories were mostly associated to government policy and action. For example, a piece published on December 3, 2021, underlines how increasing levels of poverty in Colombia responds to Covid. In that story, the newspaper interviewed Alejandro Pacheco, deputy representative for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Colombia, who went on to say: When the covid-19 shock came, Colombia adjusted its policies to contain the fall in poverty and what we have seen is that those policies were applied and had an effect because they helped contain the fall in poverty by several percentage points. (El Tiempo, 2021) The other particular feature is that many of the news stories talk about poverty, but in the context of the middle class losing purchasing power. In 27 of the news stories form the sample, the focus related to growing poverty among the middle classes, basically warning against the effects of high inflation, Covid-19, unemployment, and other issues that increase the risk of pushing many working families into poverty. As in the case of La Nación in Argentina, few stories around poverty in El Tiempo mention inequality or income gap as a cause of poverty. Moreover, in a country that technically still struggles with armed conflict on a daily basis, there is a clear polarization around these topics, which makes it deeply politicized. Future studies are needed to assess this last point in light of the newly elected president, Gustavo Petro, and his progressive left-wing agenda. It will be important to assess changes and continuities on poverty reporting before and after he came to power. The third case study is Venezuela, where political debates on poverty are extremely polarized since Hugo Chávez became president in 1998 on an anti-poverty platform that promised to reduce inequality. These actions included an aggressive program of wealth redistribution and nationalization of private property, which led to increasing tensions and ultimate polarization around the topic of poverty (Alvarado Chacín, 2003; Bohórquez, 2019; Torres, 2008). Since then, poverty has become a strategic narrative, which is central in the official political discourses. 40

Poverty News in the Latin America Table 4.1  El Nacional coverage of poverty, 2010, 2015, and 2021.

Source: Author.

Consequently, one should expect a high presence of poverty in the news media and headlines. That is, however, not the case. The sample from El Nacional, one of the remaining opposition mainstream media outlets and considered also a newspaper of the “record” in the center-left (Bisbal, 2007; Mas, 2014; Piña, 2001), barely dedicated 0.5% of its news coverage to poverty in 2021. This is above the Latin American average of 0.4, but still risible, given the prevalence and increase of poverty in that nation over the years (Caraballo-Arias et al., 2018), with a tendency to drop in the past few years. It is worth mentioning that other newspapers in that country also show similar patterns, including El Universal, a main competitor, which is owned by a pro-government group (EFE, 2014). In the same period, that newspaper published a total of just 42 stories on poverty. We can attribute the drop of news coverage in El Nacional to many factors. However, one can highlight the death of Hugo Chávez in 2012 and the collapse of international oil prices as a turning point for the government insisting in poverty as a political agenda. This because it took the government’s ability to respond to demands emerging from the general impoverishment of the population, therefore leaving officials reluctant to speak about the topic. In more general terms, El Nacional’s coverage of poverty is deeply determined by the lack of independence of the political institutions that, in the past, used to guarantee freedom of the press. The authoritarian nature of the regime has effectively banned ministers and officials from speaking directly to the press and granting them access to any type of statistics or data. Poverty has become deeply politicized and therefore is almost impossible to find common ground. As a former journalist from that newspaper now living in exile in the United States of America, Hernán Lugo-Galicia, describes: Only reporters working for government-controlled media outlets are able to access information or interview officials dealing with social issues. At the start, they use to organize and invite all the press. Now it is a subject that remains closed and heavily guarded. Only media outlets from the government can access data and sources. There is literally no area where independent journalists have access to any type of data. Not 41

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in poverty, not in health not in crime rates. Nothing. We only know about poverty in Venezuela by looking at international statistics that refer to Venezuela and that make estimates or by accessing data and reports produced by third party entities. (H. Lugo-Galicia, personal communication, 2022) Instead, reporting poverty in that country tends to rely on experts from universities and NGOs. One of those sources is the survey on poverty carried out by the NGO ENCOVI and the Catholic University Andrés Bello in Caracas. Having said that, even the publication of its annual report was not covered in 2021 by any of the top four newspapers in that country. This despite the fact that the survey is perhaps the only consistent and reliable assessment of poverty in that country since 2016 (Doocy et al., 2019; Farias et al., 2022). Poverty in Venezuela is simply not newsworthy enough, it seems.

Conclusion, Trends, and Patters The sample used here is small and unrepresentative, but it is fair to say that the findings match other broader research projects from around the world (Guardino, 2019; Harkins & Lugo-Ocando, 2017; Suleiman & Ojomo, 2019). It is also indicative of the general trends of the news media in Latin America, at least those related to the mainstream legacy media (Azcorra, 2009; Kitzberger & Pérez, 2008). The three case studies suggest that poverty and inequality receive little explicit and direct coverage compared to other issues and newsbeats, and that inequality is almost invisible. Although we should not draw universal assumptions from these findings, they do suggest that news on poverty in segments of the mainstream legacy media still lacks context and that inequality as a central cause for it continues to be largely ignored. Moreover, the case studies indicate that in the current climate of polarization and populism, it is difficult to find common ground where reporters can play the role of intermediaries between those in power and the general public. However, this last claim requires further research. Having said that, scholars in Latin America have indicated in their own work that the picture described here for some of the key media outlets in that region does not apply to all and that is neither static. They go to point out that over the years, news coverage of poverty has changed and even improved in some places. For example, in their analysis of primetime television news coverage of poverty in Chile between 2005 and 2014, Etchegaray and Matus (2015) indicate that more diverse sources of information are consulted and that journalists hand over the microphone to include the voice of experts and people in poverty, although traditional stereotypes continue to be used. These authors argue that in their own sample, people are not always portrayed as mere passive recipients of aid but instead tend to play a more significant role as agents or co-agents of the solutions to their own problems (Etchegaray & Matus, 2015, p. 53). In her own work, Isabel Awad (2022) goes on to criticizes academic analyses that neglect the possibilities for variation and change in news about poverty (by simplifying the role of both journalists and people in poverty). This last, I need to say, is a very valid and pertinent criticism, but one that needs to be tested against cross-national surveys that take into account a large and representative sample of the mainstream legacy media in that continent. This last as well as large number of interviews with journalists can shed light on the interplay between journalists in people living in poverty. This should mark one of the paths for future research agenda in this field. 42

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However, the fact remains for now that if many media outlets in Latin America have become much better at reporting poverty, no less true is it that large segments of the traditional mainstream segments continue to be dominated by the same ownership structures and editorial prerogatives. In that segment of the media, inequality continues to be invisible and ideological polarization around news coverage of poverty is still very present, therefore displaying news agendas and narratives that perpetuate obvious distortions, stereotypes, and misrepresentations. Something particularly problematic, given that these legacy media outlets are still pivotal in setting the agenda and telling others what to think about. I, myself, am more inclined to place optimism for change upon the native digital news media. This considering that independent digital native outlets such as El Pitazo and Efecto Cocuyo in Venezuela have both won international awards for their coverage of poverty, something that never happened before. Other similar outlets, such as Última Hora Col and Cuestión Pública in Colombia and Red/acción and Cenital from Argentina, have also demonstrated not only being capable of providing better news coverage of poverty but also being able to do so under new and distinctive angles and perspectives. These news outlets were not included in this chapter because their reach and influence in Latin America continue to be limited (Requejo Alemán, 2013; Requejo-Alemán & LugoOcando, 2022). Also because the changes and differences in the news agenda between legacy media and digital natives deserve in itself a study of its own. This last is the other missing link in the future research agenda relating to news and poverty in Latin America.

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Poverty News in the Latin America Lugo-Ocando, J. (2021). A very poor watchdog: How the political economy continues to define news reporting of poverty in the digital era. In The Routledge companion to media and poverty (pp. 96–105). Routledge. Macrotrends. (2022). Colombia poverty rate 1992–2022. Institutional. www.macrotrends.net/countries/ COL/colombia/poverty-rate Manning, P. (2001). News and news sources: A critical introduction. Sage. Mas, Y. S. (2014). El Discurso Periodístico Del Diario El Nacional Ante La Reforma Constitucional Del 2007 En Venezuela| Journalistic discourse from the national journal before the constitutional reformation 2007 in Venezuela. Razón y Palabra, 18(3_88), 332–350. Mayo-Cubero, M. (2020). News sections, journalists and information sources in the journalistic coverage of crises and emergencies in Spain. Profesional de La Información, 29(2). North, L. L., & Clark, T. D. (2018). Dominant elites in Latin America: From neo-liberalism to the ‘pink tide’. Springer. Obijiofor, L. (2009). Is bad news from Africa good news for Western media? Journal of Global Mass Communication, 2(3/4), 38–54. Ong, J. C. (2015). The poverty of television: The mediation of suffering in class-divided Philippines. Anthem Press. Panos. (2001). Poor media coverage gives food for thought in India. http://panoslondon.panosnetwork. org/features/poor-media-coverage-gives-food-for-thought-in-india/ Piña, Z. E. S. (2001). La figura del defensor del lector en el diario colombiano El Tiempo y el diario venezolano El Nacional. Temas de Comunicación, 10, 81–96. Prieto, M. B. (2021). Censura de medios y supervivencia del régimen en Venezuela. Comillas Journal of International Relations, 20, 17–30. https://doi.org/10.14422/cir.i20.y2021.002 Raimondo Anselmino, N. (2014). Prensa online y tipos de lectores: Respuestas del público y lógicas de reconocimiento en los comentarios a las noticias del diario argentino La Nación. Cuadernos. Info, 34, 183–195. Reinhold, M. (2021). Uno de cada tres hogares que antes era de clase media, ahora es pobre. La Nación. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6452HWK1-DY1R-B2TM-00000-00&context=1516831. www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/uno-decada-tres-hogares-que-antes-era-de-clase-media-ahora-es-pobre-nid22112021/ Requejo Alemán, J. L. (2013). Buscando la sostenibilidad del periodismo de investigación sin ánimo de lucro. Comunicación y Sociedad, 20, 211–231. Requejo-Alemán, J. L., & Lugo-Ocando, J. (2022). The CIPER and IDL-reporteros’ content strategy: Consequences of changing platform from Facebook to Twitter. Brazilian Journalism Research, 17, 64–89. Restrepo, J. D. (2001). Colombia: “El Espectador” “de Colombia: Agonía de un periódico”. Chasqui. Revista Latinoamericana de Comunicación, 76, 26–35. Rosales, J. (2021). La cancelación de la clase media. La Nacion. La Nación. https://advance.lexis.com/api/ document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:647V-5581-JBJN-M294-00000-00&context= 1516831. www.lanacion.com.ar/opinion/la-cancelacion-de-la-clase-media-nid05122021/ Sainath, P. (1996). Everybody loves a good drought: Stories from India’s poorest districts. Penguin. Segura, M. S., & Waisbord, S. (2016). Media movements: Civil society and media policy reform in Latin America. Zed Books Ltd. Suleiman, J., & Ojomo, O. (2019). The political economy of news reporting and poverty in Nigeria. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 15(22), 213. Torres, M. D. (2008). La pobreza en el discurso del presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías. Discurso & Sociedad, 2(2), 297–329.

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5 THEORIZING INDIGENOUSLANGUAGE JOURNALISM IN AFRICA Abiodun Salawu

Introduction Cormack (2007a) recalls seven purposes for indigenous (language) media as given by Browne (1996, p. 59): (1) to rescue the language; (2) to increase self-esteem; (3) to combat negative images; (4) to work for greater cohesiveness and, through this, for political influence; (5) to provide a visible and audible symbol of indigenous society; (6) to provide an outlet for creative production; and (7) to provide a source of employment. While there has been so much euphoria about the importance of local language media for the sustenance of such languages, there is yet paucity of empirical evidence as to the plausibility of this (Cormack, 2007b). The focus here is to present indigenous language journalism as a category of its own, with its distinctive problems and issues, while keeping it within the mainstream of journalism practice and studies. It is possible for us to begin to lay a foundation for a theory of indigenous language media, or at least the development of a framework within which such media might be considered. This is notwithstanding the fact that the literature available on minority/indigenous language journalism is minimal (Richardson, 2008, p. 155). Cormack (2007a) notes that the field is delineated by the politics of language and the media’s relation to that. It is driven by the attempt to understand the role of minority languages in contemporary society, thereby intending to contribute to their survival. The field stands to benefit a lot and goes along with issues around sociolinguistics, critical political economy, cultural studies, and general media studies. Taking a cue from the preceding statement, this chapter discusses sociolinguistics, critical political economy, and cultural studies as a framework for understanding the phenomenon of African language media. This is followed by a discussion of globalization and its impact on African languages and cultures. Highlights of areas and issues covered by various studies on African language media and communication follow this. The chapter concludes with some details about indigenous-language media in African research entity and its contributions to African-language media and communication scholarship. Essentially, this chapter attempts to put forward a set of ideas about African-language media in order to explain it and what it involves.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-6

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Indigenous-Language Media, Sociolinguistics, Political Economy, and Cultural Studies Sociolinguistics has typically addressed two central issues: the utility of language in various spheres (e.g., education, media, judiciary, etc.) and the role of language in the formation of identities (Chibita, 2006, p. 241). Sociolinguistics is relevant to indigenous-language media studies because it deals specifically with the role that language plays in the media as a key public domain. The media is one of the domains of power in the society. Hence, Chibita (2006, p. 253) remarks that determining what languages may be used in the media and how can be a powerful tool of control and a way to enhance the participation of some members of society while limiting that of others. Spitulnik would lend credence to this when she argues that the distribution of power often influences the distribution of roles for various languages: As mass media build the communicative space of the nation-state, all of nation’s languages, dialects, language varieties, and speech communities associated with them, are automatically drawn into relations with one another. (Spitulnik, 1998, p. 165) It is, therefore, not unusual in linguistically and ethnically diverse settings for some languages to have token representation in the media or to be totally absent (Chibita, 2006). Critical political economy appreciates the interrelationships between the distribution of material and symbolic resources (Murdock & Golding, 1995). Critical political economy is that branch of political economy that specifically deals with issues of culture and, therefore, the media. Because of the global changes dictated by the rapid growth of capitalism in the last three decades, both the state and private sector have increased their capacity for controlling public discourse. Language is central in this matter as it is through language that meaning is mediated. In the logic of critical political economy, defining what meanings are in circulation is an important part of one group exercising power over others. The structure of the global media is now such that the priority with regard to language is not so much to enhance diversity as to increase efficiency, as the media are seen primarily not as channels for citizens to participate meaningfully in their own governance but as a means of manipulating public opinion, largely through advertising and generating income on a large scale. Efficiency and maximization of profit, therefore, are of paramount importance. Critical political economy gives us understanding about why the status of local-language media is what it is compared to that of their European-language (for example, English and French) counterparts in Africa. Literature is replete with accounts of local-language newspapers struggling to survive and dying in Africa (Salawu, 2006a, 2006b; Vinck, 2006; Tanjong & Muluh, 2006). With respect to the issue of language, cultural studies focus on how and why different languages are used in more specific cultural contexts, in spite of the influence of macro forces (Ricento, 2000, p.  18). While acknowledging the influence of macro forces, Pennycook (2000) alerts us to the element of human agency, which is said to play a major role in the choices people make with regard to the use of the languages of wider communication, like English, as well as in the use of their own languages. Thus, Pennycook and his fellow postmodernist scholars do not merely see local peoples as victims of the hegemony of English but rather see them as actors with the freedom to choose what to make of English and of their indigenous languages (Barker, 2002; Grossberg, 1995; Hall, 1993a, 1993b; Chibita, 2006, p. 252). In contrast to critical political economy, cultural studies explains to us why 47

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local-language media still keep resisting total extinction despite all odds. It explains to us why peoples all over Africa still keep their languages in the public domain through the media despite the onslaught of dominant European languages.

Globalization, Language, and Culture The disintegration of the Soviet Union brought about a unipolar world in which the United States, as the leading nation of the Western world, stands as the pathfinder and the agendasetter for the entire globe. In essence, globalization is seen to be the agenda of the United States–led Western world (Croucher, 2004; Osterhammel & Peterson, 2005; Hurst, 1997). It is an idea that tends to present the philosophy of the United States–led West as the ultimate wisdom of the entire world. This philosophy cuts across the whole spectrum of the social, economic, and political strata. All other alternative ideas (for instance, socialism as opposed to globalization-aligned capitalism) have been projected as retrogressive, unproductive, and clearly irrelevant to the present age because globalization has been so much propagandized as the ultimate wisdom to be craved for by the various nations of the world. This is evident in the kind of political system (democracy), economic policies (capitalism and its laissez-faire principle), and social lives actively supported and promoted by the United States. Inasmuch as we are not denying the United States–promoted political system and economic policies some considerable measure of wisdom, the contention in this chapter is that there should be room for alternative ideas to contest and for various peoples to decide on whatever suits their own purposes and climes. Culture encompasses the entire gamut of a people’s way of life (Greenberg, 1971, p. 156; Hoijer, 1982, p. 211). Culture is reflected in the socio-politico-economic system of a people. And by far, culture is more predominantly reflected in a people’s mode of communication. This, of course, refers to language, because language is the single most characteristic element of a people’s culture. Because of the significant role that language plays in the totality of culture, any impairment or erosion of a people’s language significantly signposts the death of that people’s culture and, essentially, the essence of their being. No matter what the intention of the proponents of globalization may be (the intention which we may not accurately decipher here), the owners of the cultures that have been pushed to the fringes as a result of globalization should not be seen to be unwittingly playing along the game of culture suppression or emasculation of the essence of being. Curiously enough, people without any care for cultural pride tend to equate localization to crudity. As far as such people are concerned, localization is antithetical and antagonistic to globalization. But then, what is the import of this globalization? Whose globalization is it? And what is the motive behind globalization? As already pointed out, the essence of this globalization is to make the world a unidirectional world, where all acts are mechanistic and zombie-like. The proponents of globalization would argue that this would be a catalyst for greater understanding and peace in the world. The actual essence of globalization is to re-colonize the world and make the values of the United States–led West the dominant values of the world (Croucher, 2004; Osterhammel  & Peterson, 2005; Hurst, 1997). In other words, the culture of the West is being grafted on other peoples of the world, thus making the Western culture the universal culture (in the linguistic, social, political, economic, and legal systems). The march of globalization is greatly being helped by the wonderful developments in information technology,

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which have made global interactions quite unimaginably easy. No doubt, the world has been made a “global village,” in fulfillment of Marshall McLuhan’s prediction (see Baran, 2002, pp. 65–66, 83–85). Even though the new information technologies – the Internet and the World Wide Web and the satellites – have brought about better communication across the globe and a better flow of information about happenings around the world (though the flow is still arguably imbalanced), the fact that they are a veritable channel of “cloning” cannot be ignored. Most people of the “fringe” cultures have, unwittingly, become cloned Americans or Westerners, all in the name of globalization or modernization. Crystal (1997) notes that globalization portends “a global common language” which offers unprecedented possibilities for mutual understanding and thus enables us to find fresh opportunities for international cooperation. Yet in the same breath, Crystal argues in favor of multilingualism, which he describes as an alternative, fundamental principle to the concept of a “shared global village.” Recalling what Crystal says, Okwudishu (2003, p. 3) notes that in terms of advantages, multilingualism presents us with different perspectives and insights and thus enables us to reach a more profound understanding of the nature of the human mind. Toolan (2000) remarks that Crystal’s arguments in favor of multilingualism are reminiscent of those famously advanced by John Stuart Mill in favor of freedom of expression. For various peoples of the world to be capable of full expression of their beings and their essence, there must be room for a network of tongues. For peoples to give full and meaningful expressions to the realities of their experiences, they must be able to communicate in their mother tongues. Indigenous-language journalism and the education thereof will contribute toward this realization.

Studies in African-Language Media and Communication The study of African-language newspapers/media started in African language and literature departments. Studies in those departments focused on language styles of the newspapers (Adebajo, 1997; Osunnuga, 2015; Osunnuga, 2000) as well as the treatment of some of their contents as literature (Ogunsina, 1980; Olunlade, 2005, 2006). When it moved to communication/media studies departments, the focus shifted to its history and content/text (Switzer & Switzer, 1979; Couzens, 1984; Salawu, 1993, 2001, 2003, 2013a, 2015a, 2015b; Amenaghawon & Salawu, 2020a, 2020b). Later, focus would move to management (Salawu, 2013a, 2015b, Osunnuga, 2021; Salawu, 2021); economics, survival, and decline (Salawu, 2021); political economy (Oso, 2006; Salawu, 2015b; Owolabi, 2021; Mpofu, 2021); and applied communication, for example, development communication, corporate communication (Salawu, 2001; Adeyeye, 2020; Oyero, 2003; Salawu, 2003; Nwammuo & Salawu, 2018a, 2018b; Oyesomi & Salawu, 2020; Fadipe & Salawu, 2021). Two edited volumes, Indigenous Language for Development Communication in the Global South and Indigenous Language for Social Change Communication in the Global South, will soon be additions to the bibliography. It should also be noted that the two volumes represent the first time scholars in the Global South (namely, Africa, Asia, and Latin America) would be coming together to work on indigenous-language media and communication in the respective regions. The corporate communication aspect of the applied African-language communication studies has, however, not grown much. The few in the area include Oyesomi and Salawu (2019a, 2019b).

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Other areas of focus have been audience research/reception studies (Mabweazara, 2009; Alabi, 2011); African-language digital media (Salawu, 2019; Tshabangu & Salawu, 2022); language policy and African-language broadcasting (Mabika, 2013; Mpofu, 2013; Mabika & Salawu, 2014; Mpofu et al., 2019); African-language media as popular press (Salawu, 2006c, 2011b; Mpofu & Salawu, 2020); African-language media education (Salawu, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2017; Chibuwe  & Salawu, 2020); and African-language media and democracy (Salawu, 2013b; Salawu & Chibita, 2016). The study of African-language media and communication has also gone beyond the news medium. Indigenous African popular music has been studied as part of the popular culture of African-language media. The two-volume book edited by Salawu and Fadipe focus on this (Salawu  & Fadipe, 2022a, 2022b). Another one was Amenaghawon and Salawu (2021), which was a study on indigenous-language hip-hop for political communication. This chapter lays no claim that the bibliography here is exhaustive. Certainly, there are some studies that are not captured here. There are also a few books that have been published on African-language media and communication; almost all of them are edited volumes. They are: Oyesomi, K. O., & Salawu, A. (Eds.). (2020). Emerging trends in indigenous language media, communication, gender and health. IGI Global. Salawu, A. (2011). Evaluation of development communication content of Yoruba newspapers: Communicating development in people’s language. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8454-0742-5. Salawu, A. (Ed.). (2019). African language digital media and communication. Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-8153-5954-8. Salawu, A. (Ed.). (2021). African language media: Development, economics and management. Routledge. ISBN: 9780367408404. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003004738 Salawu, A., & Chibita, M. B. (Eds.). (2016). Indigenous language media, language politics and democracy in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-1-137-54729-3. doi:10.1057/9781137547309 Salawu, A., & Fadipe, I. A. (Eds.). (2022a). Indigenous African popular music, volume 1: Prophets and philosophers. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-030-97883-9. Salawu, A., & Fadipe, I. A. (Eds.). (2022b). Indigenous African popular music, volume 2: Social crusades and the future. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-030-98704-6.

Conclusion Though the study of African-language media and communication is not the mainstream media and communication scholarship in Africa, it is growing steadily. A  major initiative to give fillip to this scholarship was the establishment of a research entity/center devoted to African-language media and communication research. The entity indigenous-language media in Africa is a research niche area of the North-West University, South Africa. It focuses on issues of African languages in the media, the contrast between public and private financing of the media, the media and identity, the media and politics, the Internet, media and democracy, media and development, as well as African traditional communication/media systems and their applications. The goal of the research entity is to research indigenous-language media and the traditional communication systems in Africa in terms of their nature, content, styles, organizational management, as well as their applications for democracy, development, and corporate communication.

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The specific research objectives of the entity are: 1. To research the nature and content of African-language print, broadcast and digital media, as well as the practice of African-language journalism. 2. To research the nature and practice of corporate and marketing communication as well as development communication, including democracy, in African languages. 3. To research the nature of African indigenous communication systems and study their application for human and social development. 4. To research the political economy and management of African-language media and study their nature as alternative media. The research entity has sub-programs, which follow.

African-Language Journalism The nature, content, and language use of African-language journalism form part of the focus of this sub-program. Journalism practice in African-language media is also studied to understand their peculiarities, challenges, and prospects for improvement. African-language media (newspapers, radio, television, and online) are also studied for their graphics and designs as well as their production techniques. African-language journalism is studied in terms of whether or not the media have started embracing the digital technologies and the extent to which their operations have been digitalized, if at all. The impact of technologies on the operations of the media and the practice of African journalism is also studied. African-language media are studied as alternative media and popular media. A robust theorization is done in this regard.

Democracy and Development Communication in African-Language Media This forms part of the application of indigenous-language media. The essence of this subprogram is partly predicated on the idea that indigenous-language media would foster the participation of the masses of people – for whom the indigenous language is the everyday language – in the democratic process. The specific objective of the particular sub-program is to experiment with culturally and linguistically innovative media forms, which lend themselves to a more democratically engaged journalistic practice. The indigenous-language media have played and continued to play a key role in Africa’s democratization. It is also no gainsaying that there is a symbiosis between communication and development. Therefore, the media through which the communication is done cannot but be important. Specifically, the media that use indigenous languages are important for the purpose of information, mobilization, and continuity, that is, the survival of the language and culture. The language in which a development message is disseminated is a very important aspect of the message treatment. It is posited that the indigenous language of any community is the best suited for the purpose of conveying any message, whatsoever, to the said community.

Corporate Communication in African Languages This is another leg of the application of African-language media. This sub-program is interested in studying public relations and advertising messages done in African languages. The

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styles of such messages and their reception by the audience, as well as the ways in which such audience(s) are constituted, are major foci of research in this area. The treatment, construction, and consumption of messages form the bedrock of research in this sub-program. Research into the audience of the messages as well as the effectiveness of the messages, in terms of the achievement of their objectives, are some of the major interests here.

Management and Political Economy of African-Language Media The story of indigenous-language newspapers rising and dying is the same across most parts of Africa. What is of curiosity to this sub-program is the reason that businesses in African-­ language press are unstable. It is critically important to note that the issue of political economy cannot be discountenanced in the success or otherwise of African-language media.

African Indigenous Communication Systems Before the advent of mass media in Africa, Africans had their own means of communication. The traditional African media of communication include the folklore and its artistic components, such as dance, drama, songs, poetry, folktales, proverbs, etc. Others are symbolic objects, drum, gong, and the town crier. This sub-program is interested in exploring these traditional media for social, economic, political, as well as development and social change communication. In carrying out these inquiries, the research entity adopts, among others, approaches such as sociolinguistics, journalism and media studies, critical political economy, as well as cultural studies. The entity has been able to train and graduate honors, master’s, and PhD students who have produced research in African-language media. It has also published journal articles, book chapters, and books, as well as made conference presentations on the subject matter. All these have been done by staff, extraordinary appointees, postdoctoral fellows, and students in the entity. The agenda of the entity stands as a fulcrum for what largely constitutes the nature and ideas of African-language journalism and media. It sets out the issues and areas that such journalism is interested in. Its agenda gives us a clear understanding of what this phenomenon is about and what to expect in our engagement with it.

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6 RETHINKING AFRICAN JOURNALISM CULTURES IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL PROFESSIONAL INTERDEPENDENCES Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara The Anglo-American canons of journalism are commonly applied with an underlying assumption of universality that neglects the specificities of the contexts in which they were conceived. While there are unquestionable global similarities in professional values, the bureaucratic organization of news organizations, and the general routinization of news-making, it is equally true that these professional identities are shaped and colored by local factors across the globe (Mabweazara, 2018; Mutsvairo et  al., 2021). These local conditions have resulted in practices that challenge and throw into question the hegemony of Western professional ideologies – the generic ideals of objectivity, professional routines, and editorial procedures – which generalize and render inaccurate our understanding of what are, in fact, differentiated and complex news-making cultures. As Waisbord (2013, p.  13) aptly puts it, “[j]ournalism, its practices and ideals cannot be understood in isolation from a particular social formation” – it is an inherently contextually rooted profession. This chapter reinforces this observation and calls for a transformation in our ways of thinking about the normative identity of a profession that is permanently marked by internal contradictions and instability across the globe. In particular, I argue that a more comprehensive theorization of the field of journalism should not only dispel Euro-American generalizations about the field that are often taken as all-encompassing but also that scholars, in all contexts (but especially Western scholars), should acknowledge the limits of their claims and “present their research in ways that [challenge] the universality of . . . Eurocentric knowledge” (Diniz De Figuereiredo & Martinez, 2021, p. 355). In doing so, however, we should acknowledge the persistent and forceful global professional interdependencies engendered by forces of globalization in their multiple dimensions, at the center of which is the Internet and its closely associated platforms. These contemporary developments are, in themselves, a continuation of deep-rooted historical developments embedded in colonialism and global structural and power imbalances.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-7

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This approach calls for the “unmasking of one’s locus of enunciation,” which, in the words of Menez de Souza, “means being conscious of and explicit about the geographical, historical, bodily, and ideological context from which one is speaking” (cited in Diniz De Figuereiredo & Martinez, 2021, p. 356, emphasis added) and, by extension, being sensitive to important cultural differences that shape our identities as ordinary, everyday people and as professional journalists. In taking this approach, I  should acknowledge that my discussion primarily focuses on mainstream legacy news media, although, it should be noted that simply focusing on traditional news organizations on their own can be seen as a gross oversight that overlooks the messiness intrinsic to contemporary African journalism (see Cheruiyot et al., 2021). However, my interest in this chapter is not to conduct an intellectual genealogy of contemporary journalistic practices but rather to strive toward what Robert Yin (2003, p. 10) calls “analytic generalisation,” in which the contemporary currency of African journalism cultures can be seen through the frame of traditional legacy media.

Journalism Conceived through the Prism of “Culture” As noted elsewhere (Mutsvairo et al., 2021), sensitivity to one’s locus of enunciation or the situatedness of one’s research and theory reinforces the fact that journalism as a social practice is both socially constructed and reconstituted in the shared realities (values, beliefs, and general way of life) of the context in which it is practiced. Therefore, our conception of journalism as a social practice cannot be narrowly reduced to Western interpretations. Journalists’ actions and decisions (individually or collectively) are inherently connected to the complex web of social connections – the whole cultural milieu that shapes and constrains actions from within and from outside. In the African context, this cultural milieu relates to the intricacies and influences of entrenched cultural practices and concepts that often filter into the practice of journalism. Indeed, despite Africa’s cultural diversity, “threads of underlying affinity run through the beliefs, customs, value systems, and socio-political institutions and practices of the various African societies” (Sesanti, 2010, p.  347). The notion of ubuntu, for example, has recurrently emerged as an overarching cultural compass for understanding what “Africanness” means. It is seen by many as a “cultural mindset” that encapsulates what it means to be human in Africa, particularly that “[a] person is a person through other people” (Shaw, 2009, p. 493) and one is human because he belongs, participates, and shares (Murithi in Obonyo, 2011). As a concept, ubuntuism directs our attention to “culturally mediating” foundations described by Nyamnjoh (2005) as the cultural orientation to communal values, which focus our critical lenses on the contingent social relationships and worldviews that permeate the context in which journalism is practiced in Africa (Mabweazara, 2018). It points to the “defining and patently germane features of African cultural experiences that have implications for the practice of journalism” (Mabweazara, 2015, p. 107) on the continent. As Hanitzsch avers, notions of “social harmony and unity,” which underpin ubuntu and are widely prioritized in many non-Western cultures, quite often “render ineffective” values and practices that may be deemed sacrosanct “in certain cultural contexts” (2007, p. 378). Granted a blind adoption of ubuntuism and its assumptions of “a unitary and binding [African] cultural authenticity” (Banda, 2009, p. 235) runs the risk of essentializing or “[freezing] the continent in time” (Obonyo, 2011, p. 8), it nonetheless remains one

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of the most widely referenced concepts for illuminating the intricacies of African cultural life, which have marked implications for journalism practice on the continent (see Faniran, 2014). It constitutes the unquestioned background filter navigated by journalists in their news-making routines. Indeed, this entrenched cultural notion can be invoked to explain some of the most distinct professional practices and cultures that relate, inter alia, to widespread practices of patronage, clientelism, political parallelism, and partisan reportorial routines. These news-making practices are manifest in the way news outlets and their reporters think and act, as well as imitate one another, quite often unconsciously, by sharing “a recognisable style and other identifiable characteristics, [including] how to define ‘news’ . . . how the news agenda should be set, and the modes through which it should be presented” (Nadler, 2016, p. 9). Nadler adds that accounting for cultural factors of news production “shows that news producers are not simply driven by ahistorical or ‘noncultural’ factors, such as economic imperatives . . . or profit maximization” (2016, p. 10). Rather, the entire news ecosystem should be seen as immersed in a whole range of cultural factors that shape newsmaking in nondeterministic or linear ways. These factors are nonetheless adaptive to various structural influences and conditions, especially the structures of ownership and control and the broader ideological climate which shapes the thinking of journalists, editors, and news sources alike. The cultures of press patronage in Africa, for example, can also be interpreted as sustained by local cultural orientation to communal values and belonging, in which respect for elders and authority is an inherent constituent element (Sesanti, 2010). Through foregrounding the “sanctity of authority” as well as “respect for old age” (Faniran, 2014, p. 152), ubuntu is seen as giving “form and stability to the way people communicate” (ibid.) in Africa. Although the default approach to evaluating these practices is to apply universal ethical approaches and norms that outrightly condemn them as proscribed, alternative views argue that the “peculiar norms of African society” need to be assessed from an African normative position (Skjerdal, 2010, p. 390), as Western journalism ethics are not in tune with the realities of African experiences. For example, the very idea of rejecting gifts and incentives is widely seen as incompatible with “the value of African hospitality or solidarity” (ibid.) or the communitarian sensibilities underpinning the spirit of ubuntu. It is also for this reason that scholars like Francis Kasoma (1996) have argued that the peculiarity of the contexts in which African journalists operate demands “a set of ethics that are essentially different from Western (‘universal’) ethics” (Skjerdal, 2010, p. 391). Kasoma, in particular, has been most vocal in arguing for the contentious concept of “Afriethics,” in which “[t]he individualism and divisionism that permeate the practise of journalism in Africa should be discarded [as] not only unAfrican but also professionally unhealthy” (1996, p. 93). He argues that African journalism should have an inbuilt self-regulatory “mechanism that facilitates journalists counselling one another” and strives toward a “journalism with a human face” (ibid.). This approach has, of course, been criticized for its underpinning idealism and doctrine of African exceptionalism, which overlook the complexities of a globalizing African media context (Banda, 2009). Despite these criticisms, Kasoma nonetheless constitutes an important pioneering voice in boldly questioning and critiquing African journalism’s continued dependence on the West for its professional normative identity. The connections between African journalism and Anglo-American journalistic forms have a long and windy historical trajectory that persists to date and is worth briefly reflecting on.

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Global Interdependences and the Fossilized Connections between African and Anglo-American Journalistic Norms Although some scholars are quick to brush aside the influences of “globalization” on contemporary African journalism (see Shaw, 2009), “a cursory look at the history of the continent reveals a pattern of domestic and external factors” that shape the development of journalism across Africa (Eribo & Jon-Ebot, 1997, p. xi). Indeed, despite global geopolitical power dynamics and the well-established structural imbalances, particularly between the Global North and the Global South, there is an indisputable sense that “the fate of all parts of the globe is somehow bound together more intensely than before through ties of interdependence and the interpenetration of economic, political, and cultural relationships across existing borders and boundaries” (Holton, 1998, p. 1), and journalism is at the core of the interconnections. Equally, “[t]he global economy, characterised by massive transnational companies, looms large in this process. So too do global patterns of communication, in which new electronic technology, including . . . the Internet [and its associated technologies], transmit messages” (Holton, 1998, p.  1). Deuze similarly submits that as countries have developed in the context of increased globalisation and corresponding migration and the emergence of diasporic communities, the notion of cultural or multicultural citizenship has become a central consideration in today’s . . . society. . . . One may therefore expect today’s journalism to develop equivalent cultural or multicultural sensibilities. (2005, p. 454) From these observations, we cannot overlook the centrality of global professional interdependencies and influences in shaping the development and practice of journalism across the globe. We will be remiss in our analysis if we shy away from the manifold ways in which Africa (African journalism, in particular) has, for a very long time, been part of the global interconnectedness which continues to intensify unabated. Across swathes of postcolonial Africa, the emergence and growth of journalism as an institutionalized profession is inextricably linked to the colonial era, with practices, norms, and structures from Anglo-American countries occasionally, blindly adopted and applied to varying degrees across journalistic formats (Faringer, 1991; Ibelema, 2008). As Eribo and Jon-Ebot (1997, p. xii) observe, the colonial era “left its indelible imprint or colonial ‘habits of mind’ which are visible today among the continent’s .  .  . people and actions.” In the context of journalism, there are several practices that are inherently linked to Africa’s colonial past. For example, the “beat” system, which disperses reporters to where specific forms of news are most likely to occur and has a central function in African newsrooms, typifies the “ ‘generic’ Anglo pattern of news-making practices . . . carried across the globe during the periods of British and American domination” (Louw, 2001, p. 159). Beyond the influences of colonialism, African journalism has also been profoundly influenced by global media institutions and processes of change. Global professional interdependencies have, for instance, been fast-tracked by the affordances and “connectivity” that emerged with the Internet. Mabweazara (2010b) writes about how journalists in Zimbabwean newsrooms highlight the centrality of the Internet in enabling them to break into

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global media organizations, such as Reuters, the BBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, which were traditionally difficult to contribute to. Alongside working for Western news organizations, Mabweazara further highlights how Zimbabwean journalists valorize Western journalistic styles, with some journalists noting that the Internet has provided them with a platform to learn from international journalists. As one journalist explained: English is not our first language, so when you read the UK Guardian or the Telegraph online . . ., you look at the way they report particular stories, . . . there is that tendency to try and copy their writing styles. So, . . . our writing skills and styles have improved, they have been changing to match those in the developed World. (Mabweazara, 2010b) Relating a similar scenario on the reliance on Western journalism, Ibelema writes about how Ibelema (2008, p. 37), in a study of Nigerian journalists working for the former Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in the 1970s, “found that none of the few newspapers and magazines lying around the newsroom were African; they were all European, especially British” (2008, p. 37). This deep-rooted reliance on Western journalistic forms as a standard measure of practices not only shows the extent to which journalism in Africa is influenced and shaped by Western forms of news-making but also highlights the entrenched problem of power asymmetry between the Global North and the Global South. This power asymmetry extends to journalism education, which continues to employ “theories and methods” that were, “to a greater extent, developed in the North in an attempt to explain Northern phenomena” (Sparks, 2015, p. 52). Sparks further submits that this is not surprising, “since many of the leading scholars in the South were trained in the North.” Ibelema concludes that the significance of all these global interdependences and connections between African and Anglo-American journalistic norms and standards, albeit asymmetrical, is that there is greater convergence in the direction of Western and non-Western societies than is generally assumed. It also means that the basic mission of the press in every society is the same, though the journalism has to be adapted to the circumstances, challenges, and specific objectives. (2008, p. 39) This further finds support in Nyamnjoh’s (2005, p. 39, emphasis added) argument that while African journalistic styles reflect exposure to Western press cultures, they equally show how these .  .  . influences have been married with African values to produce a melting pot of media culture. One finds on the continent people in tune with online newspapers and facilitated by multimedia connectivity, just as one finds straddlers of indigenous and modern media, creatively drawing on both to negotiate themselves through the communicative hurdles and hierarchies of the continent. The foregoing acknowledgment of global professional interdependences is, however, not an endorsement of theoretical prescripts that often put African journalism into a straitjacket that largely homogenizes the normative identity of journalism (Mabweazara, 2018). Far from it. 60

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The key submission here is that although African journalism is shaped and colored by local factors, there are unquestionable global professional similarities and influences which date back to the colonial era. These relate to “professional values, the bureaucratic organisation of news organisations and the general routinisation of newsmaking” (Mabweazara, 2018, p. 1). Thus, rather than merely emphasize the “integration of all parts of the globe to a common” (Holton, 1998, p. 6) journalistic pattern, what we should emphasize is a complex plurality of divergent professional practices that also influence each other, albeit asymmetrically.

Toward a Contextually Rooted African Journalism Epistemology The sustained dependence on Western journalistic constructs noted above, which, in many cases, have little or no correspondence to the concrete and material realities of African journalists, is sometimes attributed to knowledge imbalances which have led to extant research gaps in the field. However, most African journalists, as Paterson (2014, pp.  259–260) observes, operate in multifaceted conditions, “where news production is sometimes strikingly similar to what might be seen in any global news hub . . . and, conversely, sometimes distant from Northern norms in terms of its goals and methods.” In the same way, as Kupe (2004) further notes, most African journalists work with significantly fewer resources. They have a lower status, are poorly paid, and operate in multicultural countries that are at various stages of constituting themselves as nations in a globalizing world. These contextual complexities and contradictions tend to be overlooked, consequently resulting in superficial and considerably anachronistic articulations of what it actually means to practice journalism on the continent. This, as Ibelema (2008, p. 36) contends, has meant that professional norms and practices that emerge from Western social “processes are applied out of context, sometimes awkwardly,” in the African context. Yet even when “[t]heories and empirical studies developed in the West might appear to be applicable to the African context, . . . a closer look shows significant differences requiring nuanced theorising and research” (Atton & Mabweazara, 2011, p. 668), especially given that much of the research is “conducted in splendid oblivion of conditions in [Africa]” (Berger, 2000, p. 90). The studies have “evolved without incorporating the realities of Africa” (Obonyo, 2011, p. 1) and hence covering only a small portion of the problems and situations that face African journalism. It is in this context that Nyamnjoh (1999, p. 15) avers that African journalism research must be located “in African realities and not in Western fantasies.” What we, therefore, need is a contextually rooted conceptual approach that enables us to maintain sensitivity to the unique professional and social dynamics in which African journalists operate. Thus, in exploring African journalistic cultures, “we must acknowledge the complexity of the social context of news production and [avoid] the reductionistic idea of fixing news-making at one point along a circuit of interactions” (Mabweazara, 2010a, p. 22). In this sense, as this chapter attempts to do, we must demonstrate sensitivity to the contingent nature of journalism practice in Africa by countering approaches which tend to extricate journalism from the social context of its practice. Journalism adapts to “the patterns of cultural expectation within particular societies at specific moments in time” (Conboy, 2013, p. 149). Accordingly, in examining African journalism, we should acknowledge the complex set of interactions and the environment in which journalism is practiced and how all these challenge established Western journalistic forms and norms. Thus, an assessment of African journalism needs insight from both the practice of journalism as well as well as a general awareness 61

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of “broader cultural trends” and how they all form part of “social history” (Conboy, 2013, p. 149). In the same vein, journalism should be viewed as part of a complex social and institutional matrix which stretches across a wide range of social institutions. This “calls for non-reductionist approaches that are sensitive to the complex interplay between multiple elements” (Mabweazara, 2010a, p.  22) at play in the everyday context in which African journalists operate. Therefore, in seeking to understand African journalism, we should not overlook the varied contextual influences – social, cultural, political, and economic factors – “which lie outside journalism itself and indeed outside of any absolute consideration of the quality of journalism’s products” (Conboy, 2013, p. 149). All these factors will help shape and constrain journalism practice. This line of thought relates to contemporary calls to “decolonize” African media and communications research by examining and recognizing the unique ways in which African journalism manifests itself within the limits of pervasive structural constraints noted earlier. While a number of leading scholars have called for radical Afrocentric approaches to decolonizing journalism studies (see Kasoma, 1996), this chapter argues for what can be seen as a moderate heuristic approach that emphasizes foregrounding the realities or contexts in which African journalists operate. To use Ngomba’s (2012, p. 166) words, the chapter “circumnavigates” radical Afrocentric discourses of de-Westernization by accommodating (and, in some cases, modifying) Western theoretical approaches in ways that offer “contextually relevant extensions of [the] theories” to help frame our understanding of journalism in contemporary Africa. This approach leads to alternative understandings that foreground “localized” factors rooted in the antithesis of purely Western-centric journalistic forms. At the heart of this alternative perspective is sensitivity to the complex multidimensionality of journalism that pays attention to the “cultural and relational milieu” (Hays, 1994, p. 66) (the deeper social, cultural, political, and economic factors) at play in the practice of journalism. This conceptual posture acknowledges the fact that journalism takes place in socially structured contexts, and as Thompson (1988, p. 368, emphasis added) reminds us, the first phase of cultural analysis should strive to “reconstruct [the] context and examine the social relations and institutions, the distribution of power and resources, by virtue of which this context forms a social field.” Thus, in seeking answers to the complexity and nature of African journalism, we need to look at African journalism in context – its culture, institutions, the broader communication environment – and examine how these collectively provide insights that can enable us to develop what we might loosely brand as an African journalism epistemology. This stance allows us to view African journalism “as a multifaceted experience that can be evaluated against the backdrop of the local . . . factors” (Mabweazara, 2010a, p. 25). As Obeng-Quaidoo (1986) contends, socio-cultural, political, and economic aspects are central to any attempt to understand African journalism. This sensitivity to context further helps define African journalism as well as position it in “the universals that are deaf-and-dumb to the particularities of journalism in and on Africa” (Nyamnjoh in Wasserman, 2009, p. 287). It is, however, important to highlight that while the emphasis on context is key here, Africa as a continent is not a homogenous landscape with a collective singular identity. It is, in fact, “a culturally, politically and economically . . . fragmented society. . . . There are many Africans, both fitting stereotyping but simultaneously defying uniform description” (Obonyo, 2011, p. 4, emphasis added). As Obonyo further contends, North Africa is more closely aligned to the Middle East than to the wider Africa. “It engages less in scholarship terms with the rest of the continent” (p. 2). Consequently, conversations about Africa invariably consider Africa south of the Sahara. But even here, disparities informed by “language 62

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and colonial experiences make it somewhat of a challenge to make sweeping statements” (p.  2). There are wide discrepancies between Francophone, Anglophone, and Lusophone Africa and, indeed, within each of these regions. For example, South Africa stands apart from the rest of English-speaking Africa; its “media infrastructure is [predominantly well-funded, with excellent newsroom infrastructure hence] markedly different from the rest of the continent” (p. 2). In proposing the approach articulated earlier, as argued elsewhere, I am not “suggesting a localised research agenda of separatism” (Atton & Mabweazara, 2011, p. 670) or falling into the “seductive perils of ‘essentialism and ahistoricism’ ” that have characterized a number of non-Western alternative theoretical discussions in journalism and media research; rather, the premise is that “where ‘Western’ theories appear relevant and promising . . . African scholars should neither shy away from using them, nor be apologetic when using them critically” (Ngomba, 2012, p. 177), even as we seek to decolonize our scholarly accounts and map out an African digital journalism epistemology.

Against a “Silo-ized” Conception of African Journalism Scholarship: Advancing a Comparative Transnational Research Agenda Spinning off from several well-established disciplines through the 20th century in the United States and the UK, journalism studies is by no means a coherent field. Beyond the global interdependences discussed earlier, the field itself is an inherently fractal province, which in itself speaks to the very nature of journalism as a “broad church” that caters to a wide range of interests, opinions, and people. While research broadly continues along the lines that have gone on for many years, especially in cognate fields such as cultural and media studies, communication studies, politics, and sociology, all largely dominated by Western scholarship, as seen earlier, pockets of impactful research are emerging from the Global South. Thus, as journalism itself has increasingly become a global phenomenon, thanks to the Internet, its study has also inevitably become international and collaborative in scope (see, for example, the Worlds of Journalism Study). Africa has not fallen behind in these developments. The region has seen a bourgeoning of scholarship that offers valuable comparative insights into the complex imbrications between journalism and society in a vastly changing media, socio-economic, political, and technological environment. One of the oldest and leading journalism studies journal to emerge from the continent, African Journalism Studies, has become a key intellectual forum in the field. Its theoretical and empirical interventions have not only enriched journalism studies in Africa but also contributed significantly toward the internationalization of journalism research as a rapidly globalizing field. The journal’s comparative and interdisciplinary approach places African journalism studies firmly within a broader, comparative perspective that makes critical interventions in global scholarly debates. In equal measure, several journalism studies books focusing on Africa and the wider Global South have also emerged. The most recent, beyond the present volume, include Mutsvairo’s (2018) The Palgrave Handbook of Media and Communication Research in Africa, Mano and Milton’s (2021) Routledge Handbook of African Media and Communication Studies, and Mabweazara’s (2018) edited collection of essays, Newsmaking Cultures in Africa, among others. The latter volume, to use Silvio Waisbord’s (2013, p. 9) terms, empirically demonstrates the shortcomings of universalistic assumptions about “one single understanding of ‘good journalism’ .  .  . for a world of diverse journalistic cultures and occupational ethics 63

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pulled in different directions by political, economic, and social forces.” The emerging scholarly contributions demonstrate the importance of understanding African journalism in its transnational comparative context, an approach that helps us understand developments in journalism in their multiple complexities. As I see it, comparative research’s contribution has far deeper implications. It invites us to see our world from alternative viewpoints and thus tease out the transnational dimensions of journalism as a social practice. Blindly locking research in one country or region will not get us far. If anything, as Sonia Livingstone (2003, p. 478) alerts us, it has the potential to generate “claims whose specificity or generalizability are indeterminate without comparable [empirical evidence] from other countries.” More fundamentally, from a Global South perspective, comparative research challenges an over-reliance on Western knowledge through projecting insights that invite us to rethink conclusions largely drawn from studies conducted in splendid oblivion of conditions and experiences in non-Western contexts. The propagation of ideas around developments in journalism should thus not be left to the monopoly or intellectual hegemony of one region. We need to emancipate our thoughts from the “shackles of [Western] intellectual imperialism” (Alatas, 2000, p. 24) or “Westerndominated flows of research and theories” (Waisbord, 2015a, p. 31). This way, we contribute to the consolidation of “an academic community with a shared intellectual core” (Waisbord, 2015b, p. 586) but remain critically aware of the importance of context and difference. Thus, although our understanding of African journalism should be firmly rooted in its locale, we should avoid cementing “a research agenda of separatism,” which, as noted earlier, is akin to “scholarly inbreeding” or what Waisbord aptly sums up as “silo-ized scholarship” (Waisbord, 2015b, p. 585). Rather, as Alatas rightly argues, we should “assimilate as much as possible from all sources, from all parts of the world, all useful knowledge . . . with an independent critical spirit, without turning our backs on our own intellectual heritage” (Alatas, 2000, p. 27, emphasis added). Ultimately, it should be as much about showcasing the diversity of journalistic cultures as it is about connecting and “cultivating dialogue” across journalism scholarship. As Livingstone puts it, we should not underestimate how much we can learn from “different cultures or what can be achieved [through] the combined creative intelligence” of diverse but focused scholarship, sharing “insights and energies” (2003, p. 481). We should strive toward avoiding the pitfalls of “academic isolationism” – existing in one’s “research compartment, disconnected from the rest” (Waisbord, 2015b, p. 586). The research approach I am advancing here (and elsewhere in my research, see Mabweazara, 2018) challenges research that essentializes or frames experiences in Africa as the “normative other” without carefully considering the potential contributions of those experiences to the broadening of our knowledge and to “theory building.” In other words, research from wider and varied contexts should provide a backdrop for testing and supplementing the predominantly Western perspective on which African (journalism) researchers continue to rely.

Final Thoughts This chapter has attempted to contribute a reconstituted vision of journalism as a social practice from an African perspective – a vision that not only validates the value of experiences outside Western countries (particularly the Anglo-American contexts) but also positions African journalism in the unfolding global debates. It is worth noting, however, that a cogent realization of the theoretical posture advanced earlier is beyond the boundaries of 64

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what is covered in this chapter. The chapter is far from providing an exhaustive picture or sophisticated conceptualization of African journalism in the context of unrelenting global professional interdependences. Rather, it provides a point of departure for further scholarly explorations that project African perspectives of current debates in journalism studies. I should reiterate a point made earlier that by emphasizing the notion of “African journalism cultures,” as this chapter does, we should not fall into the well-entrenched trap of painting the entire continent with the same socio-cultural brush. Indeed, as argued earlier, the African continent is a complex mosaic of cultures with equally varied socio-political, economic, and historical experiences. There are marked differences and nuances between countries which have significant implications on the operations of the news media. Thus, while we can point to shared journalistic practices, values, attitudes, and beliefs that are qualitatively generalizable across African countries and can be contrasted with other cultures, especially in the Global North, the enormity and complexity of the continent make it difficult to paint the entire continent’s journalistic cultures with one brush (Mutsvairo et al., 2021; Mabweazara, 2018). Equally, by highlighting the centrality of shared African cultural values that shape African journalism, we should not take for granted the important differences between countries. Obonyo (2011, p. 5) reminds us that “Africa does not provide a clear picture that is easy to diagnose.” Thus, while the pressures connected to the local cultural orientations suggest a collective singular identity, this is far from it. The continent is culturally, politically, and economically fragmented, and even notions such as “ubuntuism [exist] in various forms” (Mano, 2010, p. 12). Although conversations about Africa are invariably restricted to Africa south of the Sahara because of North Africa’s strong alignment to the Middle East (Obonyo, 2011), even here disparities informed by “language and colonial experiences make it somewhat of a challenge to make sweeping statements” (Obonyo, 2011, p. 2). There are wide discrepancies between Francophone, Anglophone, and Lusophone Africa and, indeed, within each of these regions. The enormity and complexity of the continent make it practically impossible to capture the varied contextual influences “which [sometimes] lie outside journalism itself” (Conboy, 2013, p. 149) but significantly influence how journalists do their work. Thus, an assessment of journalism on the continent, as elsewhere, calls for a disclosure of the locus of enunciation or the situatedness of the research in ways that highlight that theory is not “neutral or global, but rather localized” (Diniz De Figuereiredo & Martinez, 2021, p. 357). This is crucial for engaging with theory in ways that reflect local realities, histories, and epistemologies.

References Alatas, S. A. (2000). Intellectual imperialism: Definition, traits, and problems. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 28(1), 23–45. Atton, C., & Mabweazara, H. M. (2011). New media and journalism practice in Africa: An agenda for research. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 12(6), 667–673. Banda, F. (2009). Kasoma’s Afriethics: A reappraisal. International Communication Gazette, 71(4), 227–242. Berger, G. (2000). Grave new world? Democratic journalism enters the global twenty-first century. Journalism Studies, 1(1), 81–99. Cheruiyot, D., Wahutu, J. S., Mare, A., Ogola, G., & Mabweazara, H. M. (2021). Making news outside legacy media. African Journalism Studies, 42(4), 1–14. Conboy, M. (2013). Journalism studies: The basics. Routledge. Deuze, M. (2005). What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 6(4), 442–464.

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Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara Diniz De Figuereiredo, E. H., & Martinez, J. (2021). The locus of enunciation as a way to confront epistemological racism and decolonise scholarly knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 42(2), 355–359. Eribo, F., & Jon-Ebot, W. (1997). Introduction. In F. Eribo & W. Jon-Ebot (Eds.), Press freedom and communication in Africa (pp. ix–xx). Africa World Press. Faniran, J. O. (2014). Towards a theory of African communication. In C. Christians & K. Nordenstreng (Eds.), Communication theories in a multicultural world (pp. 146–159). Peter Lang. Faringer, G. L. (1991). Press freedom in Africa. Praeger. Hanitzsch, T. (2007). Deconstructing journalism culture: Towards a universal theory. Communication Theory, 17(4), 367–385. Hays, S. (1994). Structure and agency and the sticky problem of culture. Sociological Theory, 12(1), 57–72. Holton, R. J. (1998). Globalisation and the nation-state. Palgrave Macmillan. Ibelema, M. (2008). The African press, civic cynicism, and democracy. Palgrave Macmillan. Kasoma, F. P. (1996). The foundations of African ethics (Afriethics) and the professional practice of journalism: The case of society-centered media morality. Africa Media Review, 10(3), 93–116. Kupe, T. (2004). An agenda for researching African media and communication contexts. Ecquid Novi: South African Journal for Journalism Research, 25(2), 353–356. Livingstone, S. (2003). On the challenges of cross-national comparative media research. European Journal of Communication, 18(4), 477–500. Louw, E. (2001). The media and cultural production. Sage. Mabweazara, H. M. (2010a). “New” technologies and journalism practice in Africa: Towards a critical sociological approach. In N. Hyde-Clarke (Ed.), The citizen in communication: Re-visiting traditional, new and community media practices in South Africa (pp. 11–30). Juta. Mabweazara, H. M. (2010b). New technologies and mainstream journalism practice in Zimbabwe: An ethnographic study [PhD thesis, Edinburgh Napier University]. Mabweazara, H. M. (2015). African journalism in the “digital era”: Charting a research agenda. African Journalism Studies, 36(1), 11–17. Mabweazara, H. M. (2018). Reinvigorating “age-old questions”: African journalism cultures and the fallacy of global normative homogeneity. In H. M. Mabweazara (Ed.), Newsmaking cultures in Africa: Normative trends in the dynamics of socio-political & economic struggles (pp. 1–27). Palgrave Macmillan. Mano, W. (2010). Communication: An African perspective. In A. Stuart (Ed.), Rethinking communication: Keywords in communication research (pp. 11–13). Hampton Press. Mano, W., & Milton, V. (2021). Routledge handbook of African media and communication studies. Routledge. Mutsvairo, B. (Ed.). (2018). The Palgrave handbook of media and communication research in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. Mutsvairo, B., Borges-Rey, E., Bebawi, S., Márquez-Ramírez, M., Mellado, C., Mabweazara, H. M., Demeter, M., Głowacki, M., Badr, H., & Thussu, D. (2021). Ontologies of journalism in the Global South. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 98(4), 996–1016. Nadler, A. M. (2016). Making the news popular: Mobilising U.S. news audiences. University of Illinois Press. Ngomba, T. (2012). Circumnavigating de-Westernisation: Theoretical reflexivities in researching political communication in Africa. Communicatio, 38(2), 164–180. Nyamnjoh, F. B. (1999). African cultural studies, cultural studies in Africa: How to make a useful difference. Critical Arts: A Journal of Cultural Studies in Africa, 13(I), 15–39. Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2005). Africa’s media: Democracy and the politics of belonging. Zed Books. Obeng-Quaidoo, I. (1986). A proposal for new communication research methodologies in Africa. Africa Media Review, 1(1), 89–98. Obonyo, L. (2011). Towards a theory of communication for Africa: The challenges for emerging democracies. Communicatio, 37(1), 1–20. Paterson, C. (2014). Epilogue. In H. M. Mabweazara, O. F. Mudhai, & J. Whittaker (Eds.), Online journalism in Africa: Trends, practices and emerging cultures (pp. 259–261). Routledge. Sesanti, S. (2010). The concept of “respect” in African culture in the context of journalism practice: An Afrocentric intervention. Communication: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, 36(3), 343–358.

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7 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE XENOPHOBIC LENS Reporting African Migrants on South African Television News Last Moyo and Allen Munoriyarwa Introduction This chapter explores the dominant news frames on reporting migrants from the eNCA and SABC television channels in South Africa. It argues that while the reporting on migrants has been diverse in terms of political perspectives and opinion, the dominant news frames on the discourse have been largely xenophobic against other Africans. This kind of xenophobia has specifically been identified as Afrophobia by other scholars (Ochonu, 2021). As a discourses of hatred, xenophobia and Afrophobia do not only stock unfounded fears of foreigners but also construct irrational associations between foreigners and rising crime and unemployment in South Africa. While such news frames are significant for what is said and unsaid about the migrants in South Africa, they are also indispensable pointers of the interpretive lens of what elites and the news media consider as the root cause of social and economic problems currently faced by South Africa. We argue that the powerful state elites and their bourgeoise news media systems have predominantly framed the immigration question in binary oppositions of “sanitize citizens” and “criminalize foreigners.” The function of these polarities is not just to conceal policy failures of the state in alleviating poverty and inequality in the last 28 years of democracy in post-apartheid South Africa but, more significantly, to use foreigners as a scapegoat. The national elites and the push for higher audience ratings represent the hidden face of the arduous political economy of xenophobic discourse in the news media. We also contend that the dominant news frames are undergirded by the use of apartheid racial stereotypes to produce myths that invent Africans as criminals in South Africa. This is evidenced not only by the rampant Black-on-Black violence often meted out on poor migrants but also by how the news media selectively generate the myths of convenience that sustain the violence while choosing to ignore alternative framing of the social crisis as stemming from the failed neoliberal policies of the post-apartheid state. Lastly, we conclude that the mitigation to xenophobic reporting lies in the development of Left-leaning, panAfricanist new media systems that recast Afropolitanism as an inherent part of globalization from below. Afropolitanism entails the right of Africans, poor and rich, to move freely and live freely in African spaces without undue vilification and demonization by their hosting nations. DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-8

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Background and Literature Review South Africa had, in the past decade, experienced increasing levels of (ir)regular immigration. In recent times, migrants have flocked into South Africa in search of better economic opportunities, which include business and employment opportunities (Moyo & Mpofu, 2020). As competition for scarce job opportunities escalate, and as service delivery collapses in local townships and locations, the country has witnessed massive anti-foreign sentiments that have culminated in outright xenophobic violence (Danso & McDonald, 2002). In this chapter, we explore the political economy of news coverage of these xenophobic incidences. We specifically explore how issues of political economy interact with media framing of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa. Literature on xenophobia in South Africa is relatively abundant. Scholarship on xenophobia and migrants in South Africa has also increased since 2008. However, this scholarship has come from various disciplines, such as media studies, sociology, political science, migration studies, and race studies. For a start, Moyo and Mpofu have argued that a perplexing development in South Africa around immigration and xenophobia is how verbal violence, expressions of dislike for foreigners, is increasingly becoming normalized in everyday talk, and some media is also increasingly becoming normalized in popular television. Danso and McDonald (2002) and Moyo and Mpofu (2020) note that the growing intolerance for migrants is generally a consequence of declining services and shrinking job opportunities. It is precisely in these moments that people are defined as belonging or not belonging. In the high-density areas, researchers note (see Munoriyarwa & Okoye, 2020), tensions have been particularly high and inflammatory because it is in these areas that competition for resources has grown. Bird et al. (2020) argue that over the past years, discrimination against foreigners has not only grown but also spread even within institutions, away from home locations. In 2008, for instance, the infamous burning body of a Mozambican man, Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, reminded the world of the dangers of South Africa’s growing intolerance with foreigners (see Munoriyarwa & Okoye, 2020), while more recently, in the 2022 violence, a Zimbabwean man, Elvis Nyathi, was also killed. Gordon (2020) asserts that what is happening in South Africa is a general practice of othering foreigners. In this literature, there are points of consensus among researchers. One of these points of consensus is that othering of foreigners is high, especially among those against Black foreigners. Secondly, scholars (Landau et al., 2005; Crush, 2000) agree that othering and discrimination of foreigners are spreading across the broad spectrum of South Africa’s society. For example, foreigners are often discriminated even by government agencies like the police in addition to other forms of discrimination which they suffer in the communities they live in. Bird et al. (2020) agree with Gordon on the othering of foreigners. But they go on to add that othering of foreigners is a consequence of resource dearth and faltering service delivery in South Africa. As service delivery and jobs become scarce, local South Africans see the problem in the foreigner, not in the state and its agencies. Moyo and Mpofu (2020) note that inflammatory language and, sometimes, hate language used against foreigners have been the hallmarks of the antiforeigner crusade. Choane et  al. (2011) argue that xenophobic sentiments have hardened within South Africa due to several factors. The first of these reasons that Choane et al. (2011) recognize is that as immigrants come into South Africa, South Africans are increasingly becoming exposed to more “strangers.” Secondly, Choane et al. (2011) further note issues of culture, identity, and nationalism coalesce to influence how locals perceive foreigners migrating into 69

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South Africa. Lastly, Choane et  al. (2011) agree with other scholars, like Landau (2007) and Moyo and Mpofu (2020), that material factors, especially employment opportunities, are beginning to dictate perceptions about foreigners. However, McConnell (2009), while agreeing with these factors that have changed perception on immigrants, goes beyond these and adds that there is a lack of government action against people who stalk xenophobia. They repeat-offend simply because the laws are not used on them (McConnell, 2009). McConnell further argues that the government lacks a clear immigration policy. But Landau disagrees, arguing that the issue is not about a clear government policy but in making existing ones work efficiently and ensuring that they are corruption-free. Landau observes that institutions of immigration, like South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, which issues visa and permits, are notoriously corrupt to be fair and efficient adjudicators of the immigration process. The whole processes have been captured by criminal syndicates. There are key takeaways in this extant literature. The first one is that xenophobic perceptions are increasing in South Africa. Secondly, there are no strong institutional or legal responses against those who stalk xenophobia. More so, institutions are driving xenophobia by denying immigrants the right to access documentation services. Lastly, there is a consensus in scholarship that the more the economic situation (jobs remain scarce and service delivery falters) worsens, the more foreigners are scapegoated and held accountable. One of the most contested issues in extant literature is the role of the media in the coverage of xenophobia incidences in South Africa. Neocosmos (2010) has argued that there have been several instances when the media stalked xenophobia. Moyo and Chiumbu have noted that the media has “significantly” played a role in stalking xenophobia. It should, however, be noted that there is a paradox. The paradox is that while the media may have stalked xenophobia, they also document these attacks, which are very important. The media, furthermore, can contribute to calming people, lessening tensions through their news coverage of xenophobic incidences. For example, South African photojournalists like Alon Skuy and James Oatway have produced acclaimed work that is an important record of South Africa’s checkered xenophobic violence. Tesfaye (2020) adds that social media should be held responsible for contributing largely to xenophobia more than any other media platforms. This chapter adds to these extant intellectual arguments by providing a political economy analysis of xenophobia coverage in four selected media outlets. Much of the existing literature has focused on radio and newspapers. In this chapter, we add to this by adding mainstream television stations and by providing a comparative analysis of television and newspapers, through a political economy approach.

Our Case Studies Our analysis relies on four case studies. As we have noted in the methodology, we sample news reports from two television stations – eNCA and the SABC news. We also sample news stories from two elite newspapers, The Sunday Times and The Business Day. The SABC is South Africa’s public broadcaster. While its financial outlook has been negative for most of the time, the SABC had often received numerous state-guaranteed loans and grants. This has enabled the SABC to broadcast in all of South Africa’s about 13 languages. eNCA is a privately owned television news channel that started broadcasting in June  2008. Both television stations remain popular among viewers despite the fact that television viewership numbers have been steadily declining in the country (The Broadcasting Research Council of South Africa, 2022). The two stations are, according to the Broadcasting Research 70

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Council of South Africa (2022), the most viewed television stations in the country. They have also maintained a steady number of viewers of time. More so, with relatively ample resources, these two stations have the ability to cover Africa. This means that they have far more nuanced understanding of events on the continent, including migration causes and patterns. Both channels, furthermore, offer a 24-hour news service with in-depth analysis of events on the continent. In recent times, as immigration issues came back to the mainstream agenda, especially after the formation of anti-immigration groups like Operation Dudula and Dudula Movement, the two stations have devoted a substantial airtime in covering immigration issues around South Africa. In addition to these two broadcasters, we also added two newspapers, The Business Day and The Sunday Times. On the other hand, The Business Day offers the latest news, opinion, and analysis from South Africa’s business sector, the political economy, companies, and financial/business analysis across South Africa. Both newspapers are among the popular papers with a high readership and circulation beyond three million copies.1 Both newspapers are also renowned for providing in-depth coverage of new stories and possession of enough resources, relative to others to cover events. We notice that they have been consistent in covering the recent xenophobic outbreaks in the country.

Analyzing News of the eNCA and SABC: Foregrounding the Xenophobic Frame A common framing practice in the sampled news stories by the two television stations was that their coverage tended to perpetuate the xenophobic frame. These two broadcasters’ news frames did not problematize the genesis of the immigration crisis grappling South Africa, and they did not question the taken-for-granted assumptions about immigrants. In Table 7.1, we identify news stories from both the SABC and eNCA news that are arguably anchored on semantic cues and blame words that blamed foreigners for crime.

Table 7.1 Trends in Reporting Migrants in eNCA and SABC TV News TV Station

News Headline

News Frame Cues/Semantic Cues

eNCA

Rosettenville shooting: the details

SABC News

Most criminal syndicates not operated by South Africans: Modise Foreign nationals contribute to crime rate in South Africa: Makhura Residents blame foreign nationals for crime

Criminals from Zimbabwe; Former soldiers form Zimbabwe Crime syndicates from outside South Africa; immigrants are causing crime; gangs Gangs; weapons suppliers; ally with some locals Undocumented immigrants; steal; rape; take advantage of being undocumented; should go back to their countries. Lesotho illegal miners; responsible for crime; environmental degradation on mine dumps Remove foreigners; locals complain about foreigners causing crime Rape; Women victims of illegal miners form other countries

SABC News SABC News eNCA eNCA eNCA

Volatile situation in Kagiso as residents vow to rid the area of illegal miners Second leg of anti-crime Imbizo Krugersdorp: heavy police presence as illegal miners rape eight women

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Stories about xenophobia in these two television stations often “meandered” by first discussing service delivery issues like social grants, water shortages, and accommodation issues. However, all these service delivery issues would immediately be kinked to immigrants. For instance, in the story “Rosettenville shooting: the details” (February 22, 2022), the eNCA linked the serious crime story to illegal immigration. However, contrary to the hyping made by eNCA that all the criminals were foreigners, it turned out that they were from KwaZuluNatal, a South African province. One aspect we have noted is that crime in South Africa is associated with foreigners. Specific keywords were used in this framing. For example, the phrases “former Zimbabwean soldiers committing crime,” “Mozambican criminals nationals,” “Illegal miners from Lesotho.” The broadcasters’ general frames foregrounded the criminalization of immigrants. This narrative was often supported by elite politicians, who were quick to point out that the high crime rate in South Africa should be attributed to foreigners. There are three examples that illustrate this. The first is a SABC story which was titled “Residents blame foreigners for crime” (SABC News, July 27, 2022c). The second one was a story by South Africa’s then Minster of Defense, which says that “most criminal syndicates in the country are not operated by South Africans” (SABC News, 2022a). Then, then Provincial Premier of Gauteng province, David Makhura, claimed that “[f]oreign nationals contribute to crime rate in SA.” Makhura went on to say: Some specific crimes, specific nationalities are involved- drugs, violence, murders and cash in transit heists. How often do you find Nigerians involved in drugs? How ow do we have so many drug dens that are operated by Nigerians in our country? We’ve got to solve that problem and we also have to make it a problem with Nigeria. (SABC News, 13 April, 2022b) This was also repeatedly echoed by South Africa’s Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, who said that “most” criminals were foreigners, and “many” of those arrested in cash-in-transit heists were foreigners as well. The criminalization of migrants in broadcast news frames is associated with certain semantic choices in news. These include words and phrases like “criminals from Zimbabwe and Lesotho have brought villages under siege.” There are other emotive phrases that have an effect of further pinning the blame on foreigners. For instance, “crimes committed by migrant illegal miners .  .  . afflicting the community.” While the word “afflicting” underlined the severity of the contribution of foreigners to crime, the frame of the story was still anchored on the “them” and “us” characterization. The word “invaded’ was also a common one used to describe how undocumented miners from across Southern Africa have ruined South Africa. What was left unsaid in these frames is that the illegal miners often joined forces and were led by local ones. Furthermore, the two broadcasters often framed these miners as armed, anti-social, and dangerous. Thus, the negative characterization of the immigrant was a constant feature of these broadcasters’ framing of Africa. This kind of framing makes a number of stereotypes about the immigrant. The immigrant is overtly “securitized.” This means the immigrant is a security topic, a security threat in news discourses, not a potential citizen with full rights and a chance to contribute to national economic building. Furthermore, the immigrant is, through these frames, “brutalized” and “lynched” as non-human. Ultimately, there is no immigrant to write about, except for poor non–South Africans maliciously lurking in “innocent” and “peaceful” South African 72

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communities with a view of causing harm among the local communities and law-abiding South African citizens. These news frames largely emanated from two major sources. The first source on which both broadcasters relied is the local community themselves, who grapple with immigration – both legal and illegal – on an everyday basis. The second source was senior political elites – premiers, national government ministers. Their language was polarizing and did nothing to assuage communal anger with immigration. In fact, we argue that their statements encouraged xenophobia. For instance, statements like “[M]ost criminal syndicates in the country are not operated by South Africans” (Thandi Modise), and “Foreign nationals contribute to crime rate in SA: Makhura.” It is plausible to argue, based on these media statements, that elite politicians were directly participants in xenophobia. There were, however, news media, especially the elite press, whose news frames largely stirred away from the xenophobic frame. We explore these in the next section of our findings.

Breaking Away from the Xenophobia News Frame In comparison to the two broadcasters we examined earlier, The Business Day and The Sunday Times frames on immigration broadly broke away from the xenophobia frame. Much of the two newspapers’ coverage of immigration was in opinionated journalism articles that included feature stories, editorial commentaries, and featured guests columns. The immigration stories in these two newspapers adopted what can be called a pan-African immigration frame, anchored on existing global realities. For example, a story in The Business Day acknowledged that immigration “is a reality of modern times . . . and South Africa cannot be left out as long as it is part of the global.” Phrases like “global realities” and “modern times” are linguistic cues that serve to foreground how, according to these newspapers, the country cannot extricate itself from a process through which it seeks to benefit form, and how immigration was not a negative process. George Lakoff says that “a frame is a conceptual structure used in thinking” that “allows human beings to understand reality – and sometimes to create what we take to be reality.” In this sense, the two newspapers shifted from narratives focusing on the perceived negative economic impact that an influx of immigrants would have across our country’s infrastructure and jobs and instead focused on the perceived economic benefits of immigration as a process. To this effect, words like “skilled labor,” “integrate immigrants,” and “exchange of skills,” among others, were common in both in The Business Day and The Sunday Times reporting of immigrants. For example, The Business Day (January 31, 2023) reported thus: Skilled people with decades of experience, who also employ hundreds of South Africans, are being rejected. Major corporates with multinational staff are now battling to renew their teams’ visas and bring experts into the country. Unlike in the broadcast frames, emphasis in these two newspapers was on how immigration and its processes stymied economic growth by keeping away labor. Thus, the first broader frame was the positive economic contribution frame, which, as we have noted, stirred away from the xenophobic frame prevalent in the South African media. In addition to this frame, these two newspapers foregrounded frames that revealed the inefficacy of South Africa’s immigration policies and regulations. Both newspapers framed the policies as negative, un-African, and a threat to South Africa’s own growth. For example, The Sunday Times framed visa application rejections as lacking merit, rationale, and not factoring in 73

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South Africa’s lack of critical skills and investment drive into consideration. At the same time, the paper framed the cumbersome and slow visa process as very un-African. The newspaper, in one of its news articles, reported thus: We are seeing rejections of extremely wealthy people who earn hundreds of thousands of rand a month and have millions of rand to invest in local businesses. Skilled people with decades of experience, who also employ hundreds of South Africans, are being rejected. Major corporates with multinational staff are now battling to renew their teams’ visas and bring experts into the country . . . with foreigners panicking and often in tears over the prospect of having to split up their families, take their children out of school and run their businesses while grappling with their visa challenges – potentially for years to come. Adding to their woes, SA banks freeze the accounts of those whose visas have expired. In the previous frames by the eNCA and the SABC we have explored earlier, and in most of South Africa’s media frames, media have largely backgrounded the chaotic and eclectic nature of South Africa’s immigration policies. In the news frames of these two newspapers, the inefficiencies of immigration policies are heavily foregrounded in news frames. Both newspapers’ news frames looked beyond the immigrant to understand how immigration policies should be blamed for the problems. This means the papers moved away from regular news discourses that are unidirectional – permanently fixated with the migrant as an “intruder” – to look at the institutions that govern immigration as participating in this intrusion. For example, The Sunday Times (August 26, 2022) reported that: The current migration problem is a result of . . . ANC . . . fail[ing] to deal with the problem of immigration . . . and it is making the problem even worse. . . . [O]ur migration policies are broke. . . . [E]ven the institutions that regulate migration are broken. . . . We have been in this state since 1994. Such news frames approached the immigration problem not as a fault of the immigrant but of the system. Thus, they tended to follow a historical approach that faults weak and dysfunctional institutions rather than blames individuals. The Business Day framed the immigration crisis in the same way, writing thus: [C]orrupt officials soliciting bribes from the roughly 260,000 refugees and asylum seekers from nearby countries, such as Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who have to renew their permits every few months. Media frames define a problem, diagnose a course (Johnson-Carte, 2004), pass a moral judgment, and suggest a remedy (Milioni, Spyridou and Vadratsikas, 2015). In the case of The Sunday Times and The Business Day, the problem lies elsewhere other than the immigrant. In theory framing, the problem lies with a broken immigration system, dysfunctional and often corrupt institutions, and a hopelessly indifferent political system. In addition to these, these two newspapers utilized what we can term an “ubuntu” (humanism) news frame. The two newspapers framed the immigrant crisis as one that should also be understood from an African humanism perspective (ubuntu). For example, The Sunday Times reported on January 23, 2023, that South Africans have lost “Ubuntu babo.” The story proceeded thus: “We 74

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need to respect other people . . . respect patients as people, and acknowledge their intrinsic worth, dignity, and sense of value.” This kind of framing situated immigration at the realm of a universal practice of African ubuntu. The two newspapers saw xenophobia as a direct negation of the practice which binds Africans together as a common philosophical belief. In Table 7.2 that follows, we summarize, for clarity, the frames in both newspapers and the semantic markers associated with these frames. In terms of news sourcing routines, the two newspapers relied on elite sourcing, like the two broadcasters, eNCA and SABC. The difference is that while television broadcasters relied on elite state-related sources like government minister and provincial premiers, the two newspapers sourced their news from immigration experts not aligned to the state. For instance, they quoted immigration lawyers and immigration agencies. This explains why the newspapers were able to break away from the dominant xenophobic frame, because their news sources offered different perspective of the crisis.

News Reporting: A Political Economy Perspective The political economy theory is one of the major theories in media and communication studies that is indispensable in understanding the behavior of the news media, especially their ideological representation of issues of public interest in the public sphere. In this chapter, we use it mainly to provide a framework for our discourse analysis of the news, since discourse analysis is also primarily concerned about how dominant power relations are reproduced through media texts. Before we expand on this, it is imperative that we briefly contextualize political economy as a theory. Vincent Mosco (1996) observes that there are different approaches within the critical political economy tradition in the field. Although they tend to vary in terms of nuances, all of them are largely informed by various traditions of Marxism from the Global North and the Global South. The Third World approach, for example, is said to emphasize questions of cultural and media imperialism in African and Asian post-colonies. The Third World approach

Table 7.2 Frames and Semantic Cues in Both The Business Day and The Sunday Times News Frame

Explanation of Frame

Keywords and Phrases Associated with the Frame

Migrants as a positive addition of skills

The frame foregrounded migrants as useful additions to much-needed critical skills and contributing to the economy. The frame foregrounded the importance to treat each other equally, as human beings. The frame foregrounded the problems caused by South Africa’s immigration policies. The frame foregrounded the suffering immigrants go through in a bid to acquire legal documents.

Critical skills, investments by migrants, job creation

Pan-African (ubuntu frame) Government immigration policies Plight of immigrants in South Africa

75

Ubuntu, respect, intrinsic worthy of migrants, dignity, African values of respect for each other Broken, corrupt, dysfunctional Visa nightmare, tired immigrants, fleeced of little income, long queues

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is undergirded by dependency and world systems theories from scholars like Walter Rodney, Frantz Fanon, and Immanuel Wallerstein. The North American tradition, largely associated with scholars such as Hebert Schiller, Dallas Smythe, and Robert McChesney, is said to be preoccupied with structural issues and problems of cross-ownership associated with media mergers, monopolies, and conglomerates. The European tradition, associated with exponents like Gillian Doyle, Nicholas Garnham, Graham Murdoch, and Peter Golding, is said to be preoccupied with neo-Marxist critiques of the study of the media as institutions, technologies, processes, and texts. At the heart of their analysis, they sought to critically reflect on the orthodox Marxism’s arguments about the base and the superstructure as it applies to media and communication studies. Classical Marxism popularly argued that the class which had the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that . . . generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. (Marx & Engels, 1965, p. 61) In vulgar Marxism, the base and the superstructure always had a predictable unidirectional relationship. The superstructure is, generally speaking, a reflection of the interests of the bourgeoise classes, who own the means of production in society. Our theoretical framework does not draw from any particular approach but is made of a constellation of relevant tenets emanating from all of them. For example, we subscribe to the widely held perspective that questions of media ownership are critical in understanding the behavior of the news media and the kinds of coverage they give to competing issues. Apart from the problems of ownership abuse and cross ownership that are prevalent even in countries like South Africa, ownership is also central to the predicament of the underrepresentation or over-representation of political perspectives. As Doyle (2002, p. 171) asserted, individuals, be they citizens or non-citizens, “expect and need a system of media provision that supplies a wide range of ideas and viewpoints.” Media owners “influence the content and form of media products by their decisions to hire and fire certain personnel and to give a media platform to certain speakers who may be toeing a conservative line on minority rights, racism, or even migration” (Croteau  & Hoynes, 2003, p. 34, emphasis added). Such issues are ultimately about representation in and through the news media, and questions of representation naturally resonate with the problem of how the news media frame issues of public interest. Closely interwoven with ownership are questions of allocative control, which are essentially about the funding of the news media. As Golding and Murdock (2010, p. 72) reminded us, “different ways of financing and organizing cultural production have traceable consequences for the range of discourses and representations in media organizations” (Golding & Murdock, 2010, p. 72). On the one hand, by the range of discourses, Golding and Murdock referred to not only what the media select and prime as newsworthy but also what is consistently excluded and denied salience. On the other hand, the concept of representation is fundamental to how the news media mediate reality. Raymond Williams (1965) contended that the study of representation in and by itself is useless unless it is used to tease out the workings of ideology and hegemony in society. While ideology speaks to the mythmaking functions of the news in either concealing every day people’s oppression by the elites or distorting people’s beliefs about certain issues of public affairs, hegemony is about 76

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how the news media normalize, naturalize, and render commonsensical ways of reading the word and the world. Political economy, therefore, locates news representation, news discourses, and news frames within a cultural materialist approach where a discourse analysis of news media texts is situated within structural and material conditions of production that invariably influence the discursive practices of news as narrativized ideologies. In other words, the news text as actual instances of discourse occurring in some concrete form always bears the imprints of structure socially, politically, and economically, since journalists can never word or lexicalize the world autonomously. We also want to highlight the political economy perspective that the news media industries now bear the characteristics of capitalist production, such as commodification, mass production, standardization, and profit maximization, in their news production routines. While sensationalism in news framing has been known to be profitable, our approach emphasizes how private enterprise is balanced with the moral philosophical questions of social justice and public good.

Methodology A critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the news produced by eNCA and SABC is done not only to understand their framing of the immigration question in South Africa but also to demonstrate how discourse is implicated in the mythmaking power of the news. News reproduces dominant ideologies that may either serve to inflect public sentiment on the migration question or conceal credible explanations of public discontent. In CDA, the competing representations of reality are therefore generally seen as not neutral but as directly or indirectly linked to the “opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control” (Wodak, 2001, p.  2; also see Fairclough, 2001; Wodak & Meyer, 2004). Following these scholars, our CDA of the news on migration concerned itself with the analysis of language such as the “semantic macrostructures, local meanings . . . implicit or indirect meanings . . . implications, presuppositions, allusions, vagueness, omissions, and polarisations” (Van Dijk, 2001, p. 26). Most of our critique focused on the questions of selection and exclusion in eNCA and SABC News. Paying attention to what was said (inclusion) and how (semantics, modality, etc.) was therefore important. However, even more important was the question of what was not said and the possibilities of the observed political and ideological biases. In short, our analysis paid attention to the “wording (choice of diction or words), cohesion (rhetorical mode of text), modality (degrees of affinity with a proposition by the text producer), metaphors (figurative language that constructs a certain type of reality) and transivity (linguistic presentation of phenomena)” (Fairclough, 2003, p. 68). The deployment of CDA sought to show that language in news does not reflect reality in a neutral way, but it interprets, organizes, and classifies the subject of discourse in an ideological manner. Most significantly, CDA explores and provides an effective way of news frame analysis which is about “how news producers collect, select, and infuse personal experience and gained knowledge into their reportages” (Johnson-Carte, 2004, p.  25). In news analysis, frames can be analyzed at textual and social levels (Clausen, 2003). Whereas textual framing in this chapter focused on language’s denotative and connotative functions in the construction of meaning in migration news, social framing mainly focused on how journalists naturalize certain worldviews as conventional knowledge or common sense at the expense of others. 77

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We examined the interaction between professional conventions, news genre codes/conventions, and ideology, where news texts become subtle indicators of the journalist’s reliance on elite or dominant knowledge systems and values of their societies. In terms of approach, CDA focuses on news texts as the unit of analysis. News texts represents “actual instances of discourse occurring in some concrete audio or visual material form” (Johnstone, 2002, p.  19). According to Fairclough, texts are rich in detail and “simultaneously represent aspects of the physical world, the social world, the mental world” (2003, p. 27). CDA also critically analyzes the role played by genres as “conventionalised . . . schematically fixed use of language” (Wodak, 2001, p. 66). The news genre, for example, follows some clearly defined codes and conventions which are ideologically entrenched. For example, the news values of drama and conflict as parts of the news genre predispose the news media coverage of issues not only to foregrounding drama and spectacle but also the profitmaximization motive, since the media industries are a vibrant part of the capitalist edifice. Furthermore, we also focused on how the news media shape and are, in turn, shaped by discourse. CDA sees the relationship between discursive practices and social practice as a dialectical one. It is not as simple as it may appear to be. Wodak (2001, p. 6) explains this complexity when she argues that “the situational, institutional and social settings shape and affect discourses, and on the other [hand], discourses influence discursive as well as nondiscursive social and political processes and actions.” For example, while the news discourse in media organizations may be shaped and influenced by the politics, the economics, the institutions, and the cultures, these factors as non-discursive practices are also shaped by discourse. Hence, Hodge and Kress (1999, p. 2) advise, a full “critical account of discourse would thus require a theorisation and description of social processes and structures which give rise to the production of text.” This, in many ways, speaks to the political economy approach that sees the text as inherently bearing the imprints of social structure.

Why SABC and eNCA? The SABC is a public service broadcaster owned by the state of South Africa. It has been in existence since the days of apartheid and has undergone reforms since the dawn of freedom in 1994. eNCA is a privately owned television news channel that started broadcasting in June 2008. Our choice of the SABC and eNCA television news stations as the units of analysis for this research was informed by a number of factors. For a start, both the SABC News and eNCA news channels are the most viewed news channels in South Africa (The Broadcasting Research Council of South Africa, 2022). South African television viewership numbers have been on a steady decline in the past four years, but these two news channels have remained the more popular news channels to audiences than any other channels in the country, despite shedding off some viewers, especially for eNCA (Broadcasting Media Africa, 2022). While other news stations have been losing viewers amounting to more than two million in the past year, these two channels have maintained an average viewership number of 500,000 for the SABC News channel and above one million for eNCA news (The Broadcasting Research Council of South Africa, 2022). These channels have distinguished themselves as prime channels for the coverage of both South African and Africa-wide news and events. This ability to cover much of Africa has to do with their capacities. Both channels have journalists across many African countries. This means that they not only have a wide reach but also a nuanced understanding of major African events relative to other television news channels within the country. Both news channels offer a 24-hour news service that provides 78

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exclusive interviews and in-depth analysis of current events. Our choice was also motivated by the fact that both channels have, in recent years, devoted huge amounts of airtime to the coverage of immigration issues in South Africa.

Analyzing News Frames on Migrants in the eNCA and SABC At its most basic level, news frame analysis focuses on “how news producers collect, select, and infuse personal experience and gained knowledge into their reportages” (Johnson-Carte, 2004, p. 25). This implies a two-pronged analytical approach: the first level focuses on the role of language in the denotative meanings in news (textual framing), and the second level focuses on the connotative meanings in news as a site of struggle over meaning, particularly insofar as the reproduction of dominant ideologies and power is concerned (social framing). Therefore, in this section, we begin by exploring the textual framing of the news in both eNCA and SABC television news. Focusing on the dominant news frames on immigrants, our aim is to describe the basic denotative and connotative meanings on migrant news so as to generate empirical evidence of the negative coverage of immigrants. While the negative frames do not necessarily amount to xenophobia in all instances, we argue that the two television stations appeared to be xenophobic in their coverage of immigrants during the period under study. Xenophobia has been described by Boehnke (2001, p. iix) as “an attitudinal orientation of hostility against non-natives in a given population.” Most of the existing definitions of xenophobia emphasize hostility toward foreigners. But in the South African context, the most comprehensive definition of xenophobia has been proffered by Misago et al. (2015). They define xenophobia as “attitudes, prejudices and behaviour that reject, exclude and often vilify persons based on the perception that they are outsiders or foreigners to the community, society or national identity” (p. iv). Hence, xenophobia can be understood as a broad spectrum of behaviors and a constellation of practices that fall under the category we loosely describe as anti-immigrant prejudice or an irrational hatred of foreigners. In its institutionalized forms in the news media and government bodies, xenophobia manifests itself in discriminatory news discourses, media practices, policies, and prejudice in emotional and cognitive evaluation of immigrants more generally. In Table 7.3, we identify news stories from both the SABC and eNCA news that are arguably anchored on news frames that overtly or covertly express xenophobic sentiments. There are two trends of reportage that are discernible in the news stories selected. First, there are stories that focus exclusively on the immigration in South Africa. These tended to be framed specifically as being about migrants, although they could also be easily recast into their condemnation as lumpen parasites, drug dealers, and criminals. Such stories not only put issues of migrants and immigration on the social agenda but also subtly or overtly link migrants to crime and other societal problems. Second, there are stories that report other issues such as service delivery, community protests, or unemployment but then end up being about migrants and immigration in South Africa. For example, more recently, some stories were framed around artisanal gold panning activities, which have always been part of the social fabric in South Africa since the dawn of democracy in 1994, but ended up placing focus and emphasis on migrants and immigration. In the story “Rosettenville shooting: the details” (February 22, 2022), the eNCA station used a story that was ordinarily about crime to link migrants or foreigners to the prevalence of violent crime in South Africa. In its main bulletins throughout the day, it reported the story that was essentially about gun crime, but with greater emphasis on the migrant 79

Last Moyo and Allen Munoriyarwa Table 7.3 Trends in Reporting Migrants in eNCA and SABC TV News News Source Headline

Angling

Sources

Negative Positive eNCA “Rosettenville shooting: the details” SABC News “Most criminal syndicates not operated by South Africans: Modise” SABC News “Foreign nationals contribute to crime rate in SA: Makhura” SABC News “Residents blame foreigners for crime” eNCA “Volatile situation in Kagiso as residents vow to rid the area of illegal miners” eNCA “Second-leg of anti-crime Imbizo” eNCA “Krugersdorp: heavy police presence as illegal miners rape 8 women”

√ √

– –

No sources Minster of Defense

√

–

Provincial government

√

–

√

–

Political experts, local city/ town mayors Government, ministerial

√ √

– –

No sources No sources

question. It stated, “The case was postponed to March 3, for verification of addresses as well as legality of many of the suspects who have been identified as foreign nationals.” The keyword in this case is “many.” However, it turned out that out of the ten men that had been arrested, fewer than half were foreigners. In the same news report, the eNCA quoted Minister of Police Bheki Cele emphatically stating that “most” of the suspects were from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. This general trend of the criminalization of immigrants was also prevalent on the SABC News channel. There are three news stories that illustrate this, namely, “Most criminal syndicates not operated by South Africans: Modise” (March 12 2022), “Foreign nationals contribute to crime rate in SA: Makhura” (April 13, 2022), and “Residents blame foreigners for crime” (July 27, 2022). In the first story, South Africa’s then Defense Minister Thandi Modise claimed that “most criminal syndicates in the country are not operated by South Africans.” But in the whole story, neither the minister nor the SABC provided the evidence to back up the “most syndicates” claim. To blame migrants for crimes in South Africa, the SABC tacitly foregrounded foreigners as the face of criminality in the country, while the role of the South African citizens was downplayed. Echoing the minister’s claim, the SABC reported thus: “Last Monday, a 25-member gang including Zimbabwean and Botswana nationals engaged in a shoot-out with police in Rosettenville, South of Johannesburg.” However, the story was silent on the South African criminals who were involved in the Rosettenville saga. These comprised some former police officers and former members of the South Africa National Defense Forces. In the second story, “Foreign nationals contribute to crime rate in SA: Makhura,” the dominant frame was the headlined views of then Provincial Premier of Gauteng province, David Makhura. Makhura was cited as saying: Some specific crimes, specific nationalities are involved – drugs, violence, murders and cash in transit heists. How often do you find Nigerians involved in drugs? How ow do 80

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we have so many drug dens that are operated by Nigerians in our country? We’ve got to solve that problem and we also have to make it a problem with Nigeria. (April 13, 2022) Like in the previous story that foregrounded Minister Modise’s views, the SABC did not provide any evidence from sources like the police to corroborate the claim, that of the huge involvement of foreign nationals in the specific crimes identified by the minister. While the phrase “some specific crimes” points to selective exclusion and bias against migrants by the minister, it also highlights how the same prejudices and stereotypes on migrants or foreigners are reproduced in the news. The innuendo undergirding the criminal characterization using the binary of local versus foreign reinforces the myth that South Africans are involved in small crimes while migrants are involved in serious crimes that destabilize South African communities. In reality, as evidenced by the Rosettenville story we discussed earlier, this is not necessarily true. In the last story, “Residents blame foreigners for crime,” the SABC reported that the “Dieepsloot community” was “fed-up” with “criminality” and “illegal foreigners.” In the story, there is no specific member or members of the community that are quoted to back up the claims. While the phrase “fed-up” suggests an enduring culture of impunity in criminality by migrants in South Africa, it also reflects the criminalization of foreigners and sanitization of citizens in the SABC News. Foreigners commit crime, whereas citizens are defenseless victims of that criminality. There were also stories that were typically on non-immigrant issues but ended up being recast as being about immigrants. Although these could be found in the SABC, they were predominant in the eNCA during the period of study. There are three stories that illustrate our point. The first one was headlined “Krugersdorp: heavy police presence as illegal miners rape 8 women.” The second one was framed as “Second-leg of anti-crime Imbizo,” and the third one was framed as “Volatile situation in Kagiso as residents vow to rid the area of illegal miners.” The first story had phrases like “The illegal miners, from Lesotho and Zimbabwe, have brought the Western village under siege” (emphasis ours). Similarly, the second story echoed the same anti-foreigner element through phrases like “crimes committed by migrant illegal miners . . . afflicting the community.” While the word “afflicting” underlined the severity of the contribution of foreigners to crime, the frame of the story was still anchored on the “them” and “us” characterization. Last, similar anti-foreigner sentiments were perpetuated in the third story, which caried phrases like, “foreigners engaged in illegal mining activities . . . have invaded the Western town of Kagiso” (emphasis ours). In most of the stories in the eNCA, illegal miners were often portrayed as armed, dangerous, and anti-social. It signifies force and enmity. Generally, stories were anchored on a negative discourse prosody that carried a sense of civic trauma because South Africans were being swamped and attacked by foreigners. The framing was consistently negative about immigrants. Table 7.4 endeavors to summarize the dominant news frames on migrants. It is modified from the classical frame matrix table from Milioni and Spyridou’s article (Milioni et al., 2015). In this table we illustrate how the dominant news frames on foreigners are juxtaposed to specific subframes and immigrant roles, as well as problem definitions and policy solutions. The preceding table shows the prevalent framing of the migrant as a threat to social order. The migrant is either an unemployed alien or is involved in illegal activities, from illegal trading to illegal mining, gun crime such as robbery, and raping women. The immigrant 81

Last Moyo and Allen Munoriyarwa Table 7.4 The Migrant Frame Analysis Matrix Table Main Frame

Type of Immigrant Role of Immigrant (Subframe)

Criminals

CIT armed Arms locals; Immigrant disrupts Arrest and deport robber; supplies drugs; social order immigrants drug-dealer; robs banks; rapist steals cars Mineral smuggler; Supplies guns Immigrant is causing Arrest and illegal trader, to his fellow environmental deport; we thief; criminal criminal damage; should have a syndicate syndicate; fires immigrant is conversation at the police; stealing minerals with their rapes local governments women A robber; a social Breaks law; is a Has increased crime; Detention camps; burden; unemthreat to our laws exploits laws deportations ployed alien and order; is an because he is not intruder documented

Illegal miners/ traders

A security threat/border jumper/illegal employees

Problem Definition

Policy Solutions

becomes a political tool who can be scapegoated for the elite’s political failure and, at the same time, an object of media coverage. As we have shown through the stories we described, the immigrant is a security threat who victimizes local, law-abiding people. There are other news trends worth mentioning here. Most of the stories are sourced from powerful political elites who are used not only to anchor the xenophobic sentiment in the news but also as authoritative sources who are making informed opinions about the immigration problems afflicting the country. Furthermore, it is interesting that in the period under study, there were also no news reports in the SABC or eNCA focused, for example, on the problems that immigrants themselves face in South Africa. Their silence on the frequent episodes of brutal violence and lynching to which immigrants often fall victims to is ignored. This systematic invisibilization based on selection and exclusion of salience in the news ultimately constitutes a bigger news frame in both the SABC and eNCA, where the stories of locals are important to tell while stories of immigrants are not.

The Political Economy of Xenophobic News Frame: Power, Ideology, and Xenophobic News Discourses in the SABC and eNCA Briefly in the preceding section, we identified the major or predominant news frames of immigrants in both television channels as that of criminals such as robbers, drug dealers, illegal miners/traders, and rapists who are a social menace to local citizens. Immigrants are also predominantly portrayed as legal/illegal employees who are taking up jobs that ordinarily belong to South Africans, thereby creating skyrocketing unemployment levels for locals. The physical border is often invoked in the news to create a discourse of social boundaries for nationals and migrants, through a dichotomous or polarizing sense of belonging/ unbelonging between native and foreigner, and a sense of who is deserving or underserving of the access to national resources, including employment. Indeed, through bounded and 82

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spatialized identities of foreigner and native, employment in South Africa is often presented as a transcendent moral right for South Africans, meaning, all migrants (legal/illegal), who are often falsely portrayed as gainfully employed in the news, are employed at the expense of all unemployed South Africans. In this section, we intend to analyze what informs or lies behind the xenophobic news frames in the SABC and eNCA, as described earlier. Our analysis aims to go beyond the preceding description of the news frames to critically discuss with the ideological interests of power that undergird them. To understand the manifestations of power in the news, we briefly discuss ideology, which, by definition, is always at the heart of the problem of relations of domination and subordination in South Africa. Through the eNCA and SABC News, ideology prefigures itself as if it were anti-transnationalism, yet in reality, it works to normalize, naturalize, and reinvent relations of power by deifying and reifying bounded forms of South African citizenship while demonizing and criminalizing African migrants. Following the seminal works of Althusser (1971), Marx and Engels (1965), and Terry Eagleton (2007, pp.  1–2) argued that ideology was essentially a form of “systematically distorted communication” that produces “false ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power.” However, legitimizing relations of domination and exploitation, argues Zizek (1994), must “remain concealed if ideology is to be effective” (8). Put differently, ideology works better by being invisible and by assuming the status of truth, that is, “lying in the guise of truth” (Ibid, 8). The news media like the eNCA and the SABC, as professional journalism channels, offer the most ideal platform for lying in the guise of truth, because their veneer of ethics of truth and impartiality conceals journalists’ ideological biases in terms of nationality, class, ethnicity, and gender. In other words, ideology in the eNCA and the SABC News thrived through dissimulation, where its chameleon-like characteristics allow it to disguise itself as the truth other than something else. In the context of the post-Covid economic crisis in South Africa, we note three ideological functions of news on migrants. One, legitimizing South Africa’s existing relations of domination and subordination, especially by protecting White monopoly capital in the postapartheid epoch. The Covid pandemic unmasked South Africa’s deep-seated poverty and social inequalities and eroded public faith in the social construct between the governors and the governed. Here, ideology must work to resuscitate public faith to the leadership’s claim to authority by restoring the people’s belief in that authority to transform their livelihoods for the better. Two, distorting the causal relationship between South Africa’s everyday people’s true lived experiences and the influx of legal/illegal migrants. The repetitive focus on migrants on the television news agenda is meant to conceal the neoliberal policy failures of the post-apartheid state that explain the deep racialized economic disparities between Whites and the Blacks, and among the Blacks themselves. In other words, ideology here functions through the estrangement of everyday South Africans to the real causes of their impoverishment and economic disenfranchisement that are largely linked to neoliberalism and free market fundamentalism by the policy elites. Last but not the least is the function of reification, where ideology recasts social differences between citizens and migrants as if they were natural matters of fact when, in reality, they are actually part of the geo and bio-politics of “othering” in and through news media discourses. Here we see how a negative identity politics is reproduced in the news media discourses to portray Nigerian foreigners as drug dealers; Northern Ndebele Zimbabweans as violent, gun-carrying criminals; and Sotho foreigners as illegal, violent miners. It is important 83

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to note that while ideology is a product of the linguistic and discursive repertoires in the news, it also works to create justificatory identities that justify citizen vigilantism, surveillance, and lynching of foreigners. The eNCA and SABC have always been a strategic ideological resource in the legitimation of South Africa’s class and racial relations that are foundational not only to the post-apartheid state but also to the collective hegemonic interests of the state and business elites. As privately owned and publicly owned news media, they are inevitably locked in social, political, and economic power structures of society through ownership and advertising. While ideology can obviously be gleaned through news discourses in general and language more particularly, we contend that it is largely “enacted in political economy. In the Marxist sense, this is where the real process of ideology occurs” (Leonardo, 2003, p. 15). Consequently, the news discourses on migrants in the SABC and the eNCA are symbolic representations of the ideas and interests of the powerful elites in South Africa and how they shape the social relations in the country. The priming of news about migrants to explain the post-Covid social and economic crisis also limits the range of discourses in the public sphere to migration issues. In discourse analysis, what is said in the news is as important as what is unsaid, just as what is selected is as important as what is unselected in the setting of the news agenda. One “of the primary functions of the news in any medium is continuously to signify myths through everyday detail of newsworthy events” (Hartley, 1988, p. 20). Therefore, it follows that when the SABC and eNCA attribute post-Covid economic crisis to the influx of migrants while denying salience to post-apartheid state policy economic failures, they are essentially engaging in an ideological process that is highly embedded in the mythmaking function of the news media. Through mythmaking as a deeply ideological process, both the eNCA and the SABC framed the migrant question as the most natural and commonsensical explanation of the post-Covid economic meltdown in the mind of the public. As Barthes (1972, p.  155) argues, myth in all narratives has the effect of “giving an historical intention a natural justification” because it acts as “a form of metalanguage . . . or connotative discourse that is deeply imbued with ideological flavour” (Fulton et al., 2005, p. 6). Framing, described by McQuail (2005) as primarily about selection and salience transfer in news, can be said to underpin the whole process of manufacturing ideological innuendos that are xenophobic in both television channels. The dominant xenophobic frames demonstrate that as reconstructions of the events in which migrant populations in South Africa are caught in, news from the SABC and the eNCA television do not present the truth but a competing version of the truth about a given situation (Allan, 2004; McNair, 2002). Other truths are backgrounded or silenced in both channels. In discourse analysis, the foregrounded versions of truth are generally seen as not neutral but as directly or indirectly linked to the “opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control” (Wodak, 2001, p. 2). In the eNCA and the SABC, these opaque structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, and power are unmasked through the consistent use of the political elites, who are supporting the xenophobic frame as news sources to portray migrant populations as the problem in South Africa. Elites are used as sources to anchor ideas that are socially modelled to not only fit the dominant xenophobic narrative in the country but to also do so in a way that eschews important governance issues, like corruption and economic mismanagement. Hence, the foreigner becomes not just the scapegoat for policymakers but also a convenient myth. 84

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However, ideology as the function of power generally does not and cannot immediately make sense to television audiences. The eNCA and SABC, therefore, work as its translation sites by discursively mediating it, transforming it, and even manipulating it in ways that are consistent with, and consolidate the existing relations of, domination and subordination in South Africa. Consequently, the existing relationship between ideology and news discourse is that discourse functions to make ideology intelligible to the citizens, which it hails and interpolates as its loyal subjects. In other words, the eNCA and SABC News not only interpret and re-interpret ideology but also formulate and reformulate it in ways palatable to citizens as an ingroup audience that is under siege from an outgroup audience of immigrants. In journalism, news is a product of professional and social modelling. Journalists use implicit mental scripts, schemata, or frames that are socially conditioned to conform to or counteract a dominant discourse of the times that enjoys popular support. The link between news and ideology implies that media news frames serve to “confirm the myths and stories that [their audiences] already belief to be true and obvious” about foreigners (Fulton, 2005, p. 223). This view is also informed by Clausen’s concept of “domestication,” in which she argues that news is often “adapted and presented within frames of reference of their local audiences” (Clausen, 2003, p. 6). The eNCA and SABC News also distort the magnitude of the migrant crisis in South Africa, especially that of the influx of Zimbabweans, as the reason for the unemployment of South Africans. Barthes argued that “myth hides nothing and flaunts nothing: it distorts: myth is neither a lie nor a confession: It is an inflection” (1982, p. 116). The distortion as a function of ideology reflects not only the conjuncture of power and discourses in news but also the significance of the estrangement of everyday people to their lived experiences, by normalizing untruths as true and truths as untruths. In a population of about 60 million, it is unconvincing that the presence of a significant minority of foreigners can be a credible explanation for social and economic crises in the country. The distortion is neither meant to explain nor create understanding but to conceal the very reality while prefiguring an illusion as a natural reality. As such, in discourse analysis, myth and ideology as systems of representation are seen as synonymous since they both “mask [people’s] true relations to one another in society by constructing imaginary relations between people and between them and the social formation” (Phillips & Jorgensen, 2002, p. 15).

Conclusion In this chapter, we have examined the newsification of xenophobia in mainstream television stations of South Africa. Based on CDA, we identified different linguistic discourses that other and vilify immigrants within South Africa. We argued that, generally, discourses have been weaponized against the immigrant as the other, in ways that background elite failures in governance and foreground the presence of the immigrant as a danger to South Africa’s economic prosperity and social cohesion. Through discourses analysis, we note that television news relies predominantly on elite framing of immigration and the foreigner, as well as the growing anti-foreigner sentiments in the country. This explains why television news carry predominant frames of the immigrant as a robber, criminal, and undesirable element in society. Such discourses, we have argued, pose specific dangers. Firstly, as we have argued, they provide the ruling elite with “cannon fodder” in the mold of the immigrant, who can be scapegoated and blamed, largely without evidence, for their economic, political, social, and governance failures. Secondly, these discourses further feed and inflame the tired and 85

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unjustified narrative of the dangerous foreigner, in the process, stirring hatred that can easily spill into wanton violence on immigrants. We argue for the development of left-leaning news media outlets. What can left-­leaning media outlets do under these circumstances dominated by polarizing stereotypes about immigrants and immigration? For a start, they can promote alternative news discourses about immigrants in the country specifically and about immigration in general. There are also a number of facts that current media discourses hide which pan-African media outlets can bring into context and perspective. Let us start with the general question of migration itself. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2020), one million South African citizens immigrated between 2015 and 2020. This means, while South Africa is receiving immigrants, its own citizens are also being received elsewhere. Therefore, immigration is not a unilateral flow into South Africa. These discourses are silenced in mainstream television because they upend the preferred narrative of the dangerous immigrant. Moreso, current television discourses hide the fact that immigrant South Africans have not been subjected to wanton vilification, stereotyping, and othering, like immigrant Africans in South Africa. If these discourses are foregrounded in media, they would, arguably, go some way in presenting for public benefit alternative and constructive explanations of immigration other than the quotidian dose of the criminal immigrant media subject its readers to. Additionally, pan-African media can historicize migration, by newsfying its context, something contemporary media like television are not doing. For more than a century, South Africa, as is known, was constructed through migrant labor (Harington et al., 2004). Today, these migrants bring in critical skills as well. Pan-African news media can foreground these contributions of immigrants to the economy, their integral role through critical skills in research, economic and knowledge production, as well as technological innovation. More so, pan-African media can question the efficacy of post-apartheid institutions meant to combat immigration, without being accused of pandering to the West. For example, extant credible research has shown that notorious corruption at South Africa’s borders is a great contributor to illegal immigration (Campbell, 2006). Yet contemporary news discourses do not point fingers of scorn at these institutions that fuel illegal border crossings. What about the country’s own international obligation to refugees, an obligation that its neighbors had, as well as the international community, during South Africa’s dark days of apartheid? The media’s obsession with the dangerous and criminal immigrant clouds these historical facts that, we argue, a leftist media, anchored on Afropolitanism, would explore and expose. These facts have been omitted deliberately, or otherwise, in contemporary discourses of immigration in South Africa. The overall consequences of such omissions is that the prevailing perception of victimology – where local South Africans see themselves as victims of immigration rather than beneficiaries – will prevail. The fact that migration and migrants are an inevitable “new normal” under capitalism should be prominent if there had been pan-African media platforms. Even the silence that anti-migrant vigilante groups are treated to is abhorrent in a country that claims to be a “rainbow nation.” Leftist media discourses would create a nationwide debate on how to exclude vigilante anti-immigrant groups from national discourses on immigration. Vigilantism is outright inhuman and criminal. Yet media discourses do not point out that illegal immigration can be dealt with in terms of the laws. Our analysis shows the absence of these types of discourses yet, paradoxically, emphasizes globalization that ignores how the “global village” can be predicated around Afropolitanism before anything else.

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Our analysis relied on two mainstream television stations. Its strength lies in that we dealt with a reasonably big corpus that is clinically focused on immigration and xenophobia. Future research might include an analysis of news corpus from several television stations in the country. Future research may also adopt a spread of media comparative approach to ascertain whether the trends we noted in this analysis are replicated across many different media platforms.

Note 1 Follow ABC figures here: https://www.abc.org.za/.

References Allan, S. (2004). News culture. Open University Press. Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state aparatuses. La Pensee, 7(151), 25–41. Barthes, R. (1972). The pleasure of the text. London: Wadsworth. Barthes, R. (1982). The pleasure of the text. Wadsworth. Bird, W., Smith, T., & Findlay, S. (2020). Media, migrants and movement: A comparative study of the coverage of migration between two pairs of Sub-Saharan countries. In D. Moyo & S. Mpofu (Eds.), Mediating xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan. Boehnke, K. (2001). International migration, racism, discrimination and xenophobia. Geneva. IOM Publisher. Accessible at: https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/international_migration_ racism.pdf. Accessed on 12 August 2022. Broadcasting Media Africa. (2022). Broadcasting media ratings in South Africa. Retrieved September 11,2022,fromhttps://broadcastmediaafrica.com/south-africas-april-2022-tv-ratings-etv-loses-onemillion-prime-time-viewers The Broadcasting Research Council of South Africa. (2022). TV audience trends. 2009(1), 34–40. Retrieved September 11, 2022, from https://brcsa.org.za/category/tvaudiencetrends/ Campbell, E. K. (2006). Reflections on illegal immigration in Botswana and South Africa. African Population Studies, 21(2), 233–245. Choane, M., Shulika, L. S., & Mthombeni, M. (2011). An analysis of the causes, effects and ramifications of xenophobia in South Africa. Insight on Africa, 3(2), 129–142. Clausen, L. (2003). Localizing the global: “Domestication’ processes in international news production. Media, Culture & Society, 26(1). Croteau, D., & Hoynes, W. (2003). Media/society: Industries, images, and audiences. Pine Forge Press. Crush, J. (2000). The dark side of democracy: Migration, xenophobia and human. Illegal miners. In Proceedings of the world conference on migration and xenophobia. Retrieved July 19, 2022, from https://youtu.be/ebsyMbPY-Vg Danso, R., & McDonald, D. (2002). Writing xenophobia: Immigration and the print Media in Postapartheid South Africa. SAMPS Migration Series No 17. SAMPS. Doyle, G. (2002). Media ownership. Sage. Eagleton, T. (2007). Ideology: An introduction. Routledge. Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse. Routledge. Fulton, H. (2005). Print news as narrative. In H. Fulton et al. (Eds.), Narrative and media (pp. 218– 245). Cambridge University Press. Fulton, H., Huisman, R., Murphet, J., & Dunn, A. (Eds.). (2005). Narrative and media. Cambridge University Press. Golding, P., & Murdock, G. (2010). Culture, communications and political economy. In J. Curran & M. Gurevitch (Eds.), Mass media and society (3rd ed., pp. 70–92). Edward Arnold/Oxford University Press.

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Last Moyo and Allen Munoriyarwa Gordon, S. L. (2020). Knowledge, the media and anti-immigrant hate crime in South Africa: Where are the connections? In D. Moyo & S. Mpofu (Eds.), Mediating xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan. Harington, J. S., McGlashan, N., & Chelkowska, E. (2004). A century of migrant labour in the gold mines of South Africa. Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 104(2), 65–71. Hartley, J. (1988). Understanding news. Routledge Hodge, R., & Kress, G. (1999). Social semiotics. Polity Press. Johnson-Carte, K. S. (2004). News narratives and news framing: Constructing political reality. US: Rowman & Littlefield. Johnstone, B. (2002). Discourse analysis. Blackwell. Landau, L. B. (2007). Discrimination and development? Immigration, urbanisation and Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa: Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa. CODESRIA. Landau, L. B., Ramjathan-Keogh, K., & Singh, G. (2005). Xenophobia in South Africa and problems related to it. Forced Migration Studies Programme, University of the Witwatersrand. Leonardo, Z. (2003). Ideology, discourse, and school reform. Praega. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1965). The German ideology. Lawrence and Wishart Publishers. McConnell, C. (2009). Migration and xenophobia in South Africa. Conflict media in post- apartheid South Africa. Africa Today, 48, 115–137. McNair, B. (2002). Journalism and democracy: An evaluation of the political public sphere. Routledge. McQuail, D. (2005). Mass communication theory (5th ed.). Sage. Milioni, D. L., Spyridou, L. P., & Vadratsikas, K. (2015). Framing immigration in online media and television news in crisis-stricken Cyprus. Cyprus Review, 27(1), 155–185. Misago, J. P., Freemantle, I., & Landau, L. (2015). Protection from xenophobia. An evaluation of UNHCR’s regional office for Southern Africa’s xenophobia related programmes. African Centre for Migration & Society. Mosco, V. (1996). The political economy of communication. Sage. Moyo, D., & Chiumbu, S. H. (2020). Talk radio and the mediation of xenophobic violence in South Africa. In D. Moyo & S. Mpofu (Eds.), Mediating xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan. Munoriyarwa, A., & Okoye, C. J. (2020). ‘They are vampires, unlike us’: Framing of South African xenophobia by the Nigerian Press. In D. Moyo & S. Mpofu (Eds.), Mediating Xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan. Neocosmos, M. (2010). From foreign natives to native foreigners. Explaining sustainable livelihoods in Johannesburg. Development Southern Africa, 24(1), 61–76. Ochonu, M. E. (2021). South African Afrophobia in local and continental contexts. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 58(4), 90–112. Phillips, L., & Jorgensen, W. (2002). Discourse analysis as theory and method. Sage. Rights in South Africa Organisation. International Migration, 38(1), 103–131. SABC News. (2022b). Foreign nationals contribute to crime rate in SA: Makhura. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/foreign-nationals-contribute-to-crime-rate-in-sa-makhura SABC News. (2022c). Residents blame foreigners for crime. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from www.you tube.com/watch?v=OpV4lAyXQao Tesfaye, A. B. (2020). Social media, migration and xenophobia in the horn of Africa. In D. Moyo & S. Mpofu (Eds.), Mediating xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking discourses of migration, belonging and othering. Palgrave Macmillan. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2020). 1 million South Africans emigrated in five years. Cited by City Press. Retrieved September 12, 2022, from www.news24.com/ citypress/news/1-million-south-africans-emigrated-in-five-years-20220417 Van Dijk, T. A. (2001). Multidisciplinary CDA: A plea for diversity. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 95–120). Sage. Williams, R. (1965). Culture and materialism. Verso. Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts and its developments. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis. Sage. Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2004). Methods of critical discourse analysis. Sage. Zizek, S. (Ed.). (1994). Mapping ideology. Verso Books.

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8 RETHEORIZING AFRICAN DIGITAL JOURNALISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY Allen Munoriyarwa and Dumisani Moyo Introduction: The Changing Pattern of Journalism in the Digital Age There is no doubt that technology has always been central to newsgathering, news reporting, and a host of other related journalistic practices (Jamil & Appiah-Adjei, 2019). What has changed exponentially in the past decades is the speed at which these changes have happened in a “holistic” way. Journalism, like many other fields of society, has been radically affected by imploding technologies (Mutsvairo, 2016; Bebawi, 2016). Both the structure and practices of what has often been referred to as mainstream journalism institutions have been radically altered by digital technologies (Carlson, 2016a; Mutsvairo, 2016). Technology, especially the emergence of digital platforms, has had a huge impact on how we conceive of journalism, its current practices, and our normative expectations of the practice. A plethora of platform-mediated journalism outlets has become central in the newsification of events. These platform-mediated outlets embody different journalism practices and a variety of journalistic cultures. These platform-mediated journalism outlets include Facebook news pages, online newspapers that offer rapid breaking news, news blogs, investigative platforms, and news podcasts (Esau et al., 2017). The Economist aptly commented on how platform technologies are impacting on journalism, stating thus: The emergency of platforms has liberalised news production and distribution at a global level. But it is not without controversies . . . such as whether platforms assure us a balanced news feed, and whether they are journalism entities themselves. This is presenting a “definitional quagmire.” But that is not to give the digital platforms a free pass. How their practices and protocols impinge on what journalism does in the present – and might wish to do in the future – is worthy of prolonged scrutiny. (The Economist, 2018, p. 51) In this chapter, we argue that digital journalism in Africa needs to be reconceptualized to take cognizance of emerging digital journalism practices on the continent. To sustain our argument, we utilize critical journalism incidences approach in selected African countries and cross-cultural journalism collaborations that have made a huge contribution to journalism’s

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monitorial role in the African contexts. We generate the data through digital ethnography, which allows us to “lurk” on digital spaces and observe how journalists appropriate these platforms (Boughton, 2019). We also utilize digital archival research to navigate through journalism platforms and examine how they are being appropriated on the African continent in the 21st century. The chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, we conceptualize critical journalism incidences and the concept of monitory journalism. This is followed by a section where we explore the emerging digital journalism practices, using examples from across countries on the continent. That section is followed by a reflection of what these emerging practices mean for digital journalism on the continent, especially their association with “darker practices,” like disinformation and fake news. We conclude with a discussion.

Conceptualizing Journalism Critical Incidences and Monitory Journalism By journalism critical incidences, we utlize Jenkins et al.’s (2020) definition of the concept to mean event(s) that has led journalists to reconsider their routines, roles, and rules. ­Journalism-critical incidences are pivotal moments for both the professionals and the practice that spotlight journalistic rules, roles, and routines (Jenkins et al., 2020). Because journalists are an interpretive community (Zelizer, 2005), it means they are bound by a commonality and united through [a] shared discourse and collective interpretations of key public events” (Jenkins et al., 2020, p. iv). An incident is considered critical either by the journalists themselves (Jenkins et al., 2020) or by actors outside the interpretive community of journalism. Critical incidences allow journalists to shape, set an agenda, and construct a public discourses around a specific incident within their community. In the process, journalists, as an interpretive community, can assert their preferred meaning on the specific incident or on specific incidences within their community. The process allows them to legitimize their authoritative roles in society (Jenkins et al., 2020). Journalism is, furthermore, a sensemaking process (Andresen, 2021). In the process of sensemaking, it holds certain norms, values, and functions that it cherishes and defends (Andresen, 2021). Critical incidences engage journalism on how they undertake this sensemaking process during crisis moments, considering that every critical incident triggers a struggle for interpretation within communities. Zelizer (1992a) argues that there are two key elements that define (journalism) critical incidences. These are the technology “(i.e., the tools, systems, and platforms through which events are constructed as news), and archetypical figures (i.e., those figures behind the technologies)” (in Jenkins et al., 2020, p. 3). Scholars who have used (journalism) critical incidences have identified defining moments in journalism that have made journalists (re)think and publicly negotiate their roles, for example, in the United States, most famous examples cited include the Boston Marathon bombings and the September  11 terrorist attacks (Parameswaran, 2006). Building on this concept, we are going to draw on different critical incidences in journalism, from different countries across Africa, which have been useful in defining journalism and digital journalism practices on the continent. Hence, we conceptualize critical incidences as having revolutionized the monitorial role of journalism in Africa in the 21st century. By journalism’s monitorial role, we utlize Keane’s (2011) definition of “monitorial democracy,” which he defines as the practice of denaturing and unmasking power through scrutinizing it in the spirit of democracy. Journalism is now part of the public instruments available to scrutinize state power. In a world where the 90

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power of corporations is growing, we also add corporations as part of the institutions whose power can be monitored by emerging forms of journalism. Equally important is the monitorial role of journalism on a number of other non-state actors that are emerging in the postWestminster democratic arrangements. Therefore, journalism represents a mechanism in the contours of democracy as a power-scrutinizing mechanism (Keane, 2010). Keane asserts that monitorial democracy is a practice of denaturing and unmasking power through scrutinizing it in the spirit of democracy. Journalism is central in this process. In this chapter, we bring the two concepts of journalism critical incidences and monitory democracy into conversation in order for us to unpack how emerging digital journalism practices on the African continent are influencing storytelling, the newsification of the continent, and the role, routines, and practices of journalism on the continent.

Emerging Digital Journalism Practices The ubiquitous digital journalism platforms emerging across many countries on the continent now promote many forms of monitory journalism exhibiting a myriad of characteristics and practices. There are three very crucial practices notable on these digital journalism practices growing in Africa. First, these platforms are intensively data-driven. Secondly, they are “transitory” in nature, tending to have a shorter life span. Thirdly, some of them are “issue-based.” Data-driven practices. In Africa, access to data held by states, quasi-state, and non-state organizations is notoriously difficult. This is further complicated by the absence of freedom of information (FOI) request laws in most countries on the continent. This makes it difficult for journalists to access the vast quantities of data held by institutions which, potentially, can be turned into news. Data has become important as the raw material of evidence-based reporting (Munoriyarwa & Chibuwe, 2022). Such a challenge makes it difficult for African digital journalists to break news using data voluntarily provided by institutions. To navigate this dilemma, digital journalists have devised approaches like “leaky journalism practices” (Munoriyarwa & Chibuwe, 2022) and open data sourcing practices. Leaky journalism has been a successful news sourcing routine where journalists have developed connections within institutions that have proved useful as “fieldworkers” providing these journalists with much-needed data. The Daily Maverick in South Africa is a case of a successful data-based journalism platform that has thrived on the use of embedded sources and whistleblowers to expose state and corporate malfeasance. For example, their 2011 exposition of the Guptaleaks1 is one of those critical incidences that, for some time, will definitely rank as one of the best forms of investigative journalism exposures in post-apartheid South Africa. In Zimbabwe, there is the successful case of the digital-based journalism platform The News Hawks. The digital platform was founded in around 2021. But by mid-2022, it has become one of the most popular digital news platforms in the country. On many occasions, its stories have relied on leaked data, by sources embedded within state and non-state institutions. One issue we note is that while the paper has been evidently able to develop a network of embedded sources, it has also thrived, arguably on the disgruntlement within most of the civilian bureaucracy in the country. In one interview in 2021, a Zimbabwean investigative journalists noted thus: Zimbabwean workers can see every day how a few politically connected elites in the country are looting the state. I am sure this has prompted the massive leaks we have 91

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been benefitting from. They are disillusioned by the system, and how they are increasingly being impoverished while the few get rich. This is what has triggered these leaks.2 Leaks have, on many occasions, defined this paper’s journalism by giving it an opportunity to make massive exposures of wrongdoing. This has given the paper an edge as a monitory institution in a fledgling democracy where authoritarianism is hardening in the post-coup period. This has also made the publication a very popular news outlet among Zimbabweans. For example, within a year of its founding, the paper notched more than 40,000 subscribers and Twitter followers. There are a number of critical incidences that The News Hawks has reported on that have cemented its role as a popular and credible alternative news platform, holding the state and its powerful elites to account. For instance, in July 2022, the paper famously exposed the looting of state parastatals by political elites. It also exposed the rampant smuggling of gold by people allegedly connected to the president’s family. In the same year, it exposed how political bigwigs in the ruling party ZANU PF have illegally parceled for themselves the Midlands Rhino Conservancy.3 The coverage of these issues and incidences reflects a deepening role of digital journalism in promoting monitory democracy on the continent. These exposés have pitied the paper in an adversarial role with the Zimbabwean authorities. Open data sources have also been an important raw material for the most consequential reporting on these platforms. Some exposure has been made on the basis of stories built on open data. Some famous blogs on the African continent have thrived largely by making use of openly sourced data. For example, the blog 7sur7.cd. in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been central in exposing the country’s electoral rot by making use of open data. In mid-2022, the blog, with the online paper www.digitalcongo.net/, was active in exposing the DRC’s lack of election preparedness and the susceptibility to rigging the electoral system, using open data initiatives. The DRC, like countries like Zimbabwe, is notorious for its contentious elections that often spill into violence. Making use of open data to expose electoral weaknesses shows how digital news platforms are increasingly setting a public agenda on contentious issues on the continent, moving away from the preferred gatekeeping practices of the elites. However, open data sources raise a number of concerns of their own which cannot be ignored. For example, open data news initiatives raise the questions: How reliable is open data itself? How can this reliability be assessed? Can we trust open data in data-intensive investigative exposés? Despite all these concerns and questions, in the DRC specifically, there is a growing practice of collaboration in sourcing and scrounging for data from various sources in order to generate news.

The Emergency of “Issue-Based” Digital News Platforms A number of digital news platforms emerging in 21st-century Africa are specialist or issuebased. By issue-based we mean that they specialize on specific issues. For instance, a number of digital news platforms on the continent focus on human rights, election governance, and religious issues. Recently, in the past three or so years, more digital news platforms have emerged that have increased the range of available news and the variety. We can, at the moment, discern five types of digital news platforms prevalent in Africa. The most common one is the informative digital news platforms. These offer current and real-life updates of government and state activities and programs. They offer the latest developments on the political, social, and economic front. In Mozambique, for instance, the digital platform Verdade is 92

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popular for its robust political, economic, and social commentary, with more than a hundred thousand subscribers.4 There are also entertainment news platforms that focus explicitly on celebrity news, scandals, fashion, sports, and related subjects. The most popular ones on the continent includes Bounce News and Sportsie, both in Nigeria, and Jokko Text in Senegal.5 The first two have more than a million subscribers by July 2022. There has been an incremental rise in political news platforms. This is another popular type of digital news platform in Africa. They focus on political issues – including, among others, political transitions and political corruption news. A popular example of a political news platform is Carta de Mozambique. The digital platform, with more than half a million subscribers, had widely covered corruption in Mozambique. The alleged corruption, allegedly masterminded by the Credit Suisse bank and the then Minister of Finance in Mozambique Manuel Chang, had been widely covered on this digital platform.6 An emerging trend on the continent includes the growth of satirical news platforms. Popular ones include ZANEWS in South Africa, which runs a popular news platform show called The Puppet Nation. In Zimbabwe, there is Zambezi News, which runs a tongue-in-cheek news segment. Lastly, there is also a new trend of news platform that specifically reports on natural resource management and governance on the continent. In the DRC, for example, a country known for its rich resources, a plethora of news platforms that specifically report on the exploitation and plunder of the country’s natural resources, have emerged. This includes, among others, the popular online news platforms actualite.cd and Politico.cd. The discovery of gas in southern Mozambique has also spurred the growth of digital news blogs dedicated to reporting its exploitation. There are visible advantages that issue-based digital news platforms have brought to the African continent. They have become specialists through the development of expertise around a specific issue. For instance, Kubatana news in Zimbabwe was the go-to news platform for issues around human rights in Zimbabwe. Harper (2010) notes that specialist digital news platforms, furthermore, offer a voice to experts in the field of their specialization who might not get a space in the mainstream. In Africa, where censorship is rampant, these experts may be backgrounded simply because their views differ from those of the elite narrative, or because they belong to the opposition, and hence are denied access to the mainstream news spaces. These specialist digital news platforms are also well-known, as we pointed out earlier, for their intensive use of data, which has enhanced the trustworthiness of their news and, judging by their rising subscriptions, might have ignited citizens’ interest in news. Another advantage is that these news platforms have been central to agitating for reform around specific issues. For instance, in the DRC, mediacongo.net and, in Liberia, the popular news blog Africa Is a Country have been instrumental in agitating for reforms in both countries in order to create equitable and non-corrupt resource distribution.7 Others have sought transparency in the distribution of the wealth and comforts generated in their specific countries. In some context, their agitation has attracted the attention of the political elite. This shows how much an impact they are making. For example, on May 16, 2021, Zimbabwe’s then Justice, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi publicly castigated Kubatana for its stance on judicial reform and political interference in the judiciary.8 Some of these news platforms have developed detailed expertise in their fields of news reporting, such that they can easily be mistaken, not as issue-based news outlets, but close to social movements. This raises issues of their objectivity. If they morph toward social movements, how far can they be trusted as neutral adjudicators of the news public sphere? But they generally report in a critical way that the elite-controlled mainstream would shy away from. In Eswatini, the ruling monarchy shut down digital platforms in June  2021 93

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following mass revolts against the monarchy and its administration. Digital news platforms mediating the June 20 protests were shut down. The task of reporting the protests was left to news organizations inside South Africa. These South Africa–based platforms covered the voices of the revolting masses, the organizers of the protests, and civil society activists, who could not get a platform in Eswatini media. As news sources, digital journalism platforms, we argue, have disrupted African journalism in a number of ways. First, they have disrupted the preferred elite narrative on certain issues. For instance, in Mozambique, the news blog https://zitamar.com is now famous for its alternative coverage of the Cabo Delgado violence. It has disrupted the official elite narrative that the violence is led by bloodthirsty Islamic fundamentalists hell-bent on wiping everyone who disagrees with their religious views. The news platform has provided an alternative interpretation, stating that at the center of the rebellion are poverty, elite corruption, and the distribution of the comforts the country’s newly found natural gas wealth generates. Furthermore, they disrupt the taken-for-granted news sourcing routines of the mainstream. The mainstream prefer elite sources (Mason, 2007). In the Mozambican case, mainstream news prefer sources like the Mozambican Defense Forces commanders, Rwandan military commanders, SADC intervention force commanders, Mozambique government officials, and cabinet officials in sourcing news on the conflict in Cabo Delgado. But if we take Zitamar in Mozambique as an example, the popular news site disrupts these taken-for-granted news sourcing routines by using sources from those affected by the conflict, in order to tell the story of the humanitarian implications of the conflict. In the process, it reports a lesserknown version often backgrounded in mainstream news platforms – that the conflict is about resources. In other words, these digital platforms tell the “subalterns” story. In the DRC, we can also note how digital news platforms report on the plunder, the looting, and the humanitarian costs of unregulated mining by networks of conglomerates and powerful individuals. In Mozambique, furthermore, digital news platforms source news from survivors of the conflict to understand grassroots causes of the conflict, while in the DRC, digital news platforms report on a quotidian basis both the local and global players exploiting the country’s natural resources. An interesting example we can note is the collaboration between the popular DRC digital news site Politico.cd and the globally known investigative news platform the Sentinel in exposing plunder of the DRC. Thus, these digital news sites speak back to power; they inform the grassroots and influence newsgathering and reporting by re-centering previously foregrounded and marginalized news voices. Having said this, we should, therefore, understand digital journalism practices in 21stcentury Africa from three main perspectives. These are the functionalist, the symbolic, and the critical perspectives. From a functionalist perspective, we can assert that in African context, digital journalism practices should/can be understood as emerging when there is a dysfunction in the relationship among the political elite (who seek to manipulate news to promote a preferred narrative), the mainstream news platforms (that are malleable in the manipulation), and the people who have started to incrementally distrust the news by the established mainstream as elite propaganda. From a critical perspective, we can see digital journalism practices as challenging the information inequalities created in the contemporary news ecosystem dominated by the mainstream platforms. They are also, from a critical perspective, purveyors of an alternative view of the world that political elites seek to censor and, through reliance on ordinary sources, make them bridge these inequalities. Lastly, their speedy dissemination of news eclipses what the mainstream news spaces are capable of doing. From a symbolic perspective, we can argue that they promote the meaning of citizenship by 94

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giving previously marginalized voices an opportunity to be heard in these news spaces. We can read these perspective further. First, the rise in popularity of these digital news platforms is, by default, where the world is heading to, considering the rapid digitization of every facet of our society. But beyond this default position, we should understand that this popularity of digital news platforms is a response by citizens to “news deprivation” – where access to mainstream news products is either expensive, restricted, or not enriching and informative an exercise. It might also be a response to the discontent by citizens to the propaganda of the elite. In Zimbabwe, one reader once quipped, “In the Zimbabwean Herald and Sunday Mail, we are tired of reading about one man and his wife” (referring to then President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his wife, Auxilia Mnangagwa).9

Reflections: Political Economy, Fake News, and Disinformation We have painted a largely optimistic picture of the contribution of digital news platforms to Africa’s prospects of democracy in the 21st century. We have demonstrated the importance of these platforms to the newsification of human rights, monitoring elections, natural resource governance, among other issues. The importance of digital news platforms in this regard lies in how they provide avenues to new forms of expression, how they allow disenfranchised groups to speak out, how they challenge elite narratives and power itself, and how they appropriate various forms of data journalism techniques to provide breaking in-depth investigative news that put them at the center of monitory journalism and democracy. We have also shown how critical incidences on the continent have defined digital journalism practices, and the contribution of digital journalism as conduits of alternative news in the face of statesponsored censorship. But this nirvana is not without a darker side of its own. These platforms have frequently been charged of being purveyors of fake news and disinformation. These concerns have been the Achilles’ heel of these platforms, whatever contribution to democracy they have made. But these accusations are a universal concern and not only peculiar to African digital news platforms. Much recent discourse around fake news and disinformation involves, in addition to social media, digital news platforms like blogs. An enduring example of fake news and disinformation involves the now-defunct New Zimbabwe digital news platform (not to be confused with the currently existing NewZimbabwe.com). In 2008, the news blog spread fake news about casualties and manner of death of election violence victims in Zimbabwe. In that year, Zimbabwe was gripped by election violence unprecedented in the country’s post-independence history. The blog overtly exaggerated the casualties, drove the numbers up without verification, named non-existent victims, and fabricated perpetrators. While the country’s cycle of violence deserved coverage, it deserved fair and honest coverage all the same. Another example is of the news website the Zimbabwean. In the same year, 2008, it published a list of the so-called perpetrators of election violence and ended up including the names of innocent people, some said to have died before the elections. But the vengeful authorities of Zimbabwe banned the website from being accessible in the country. Zimbabwe’s Internet service providers were told to make the website inaccessible. Its local journalists were banned. A hard copy version of its digital paper was banned from the country. These are not isolated incidences. This has been noted across many countries in Africa, especially those in the midst of violent crises. The dangers of fake news are closely linked to emerging problems of disinformation and misinformation. These have become worse during the Covid-19 pandemic. Anti-science 95

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news platforms emerged that put vaccination drives at risk on the African continent (Dotto & Cubbon, 2021). Funke (2021) notes that hundreds of news blogs and websites emerged, not only in Africa, but also across the world, specializing in spreading disinformation and misinformation about the virus and the vaccines. Funke (2021) attributes the low uptake of vaccines in some countries to these platforms. What this means is that while the contribution of digital platforms to democracy cannot be underestimated on the African continent, their dangers to the very same democracy and monitory role should not be glossed over. Fake news, disinformation, and misinformation polarize society. They also contribute directly to the decline in citizens’ trust for news and may turn away peoples’ attention from news altogether. On the African continent, issues of political economy of these digital news platforms are also very important. Who owns them? Who funds them? These are crucial questions that would, in the future, need probing as they help us understand the tone and angle of their news. Political economy questions also help us understand why some of these digital news platforms have a shorter life span. Issues of human rights and elections have always been controversial in Africa. The ruling regimes in Africa often accuse anyone or any organization that reports on these issues as “Western funded.” In Zimbabwe, ZANU PF accuses such organizations of being agencies of regime change. Human rights and elections are pro-liberal discourses associated with the West. They, naturally, arouse suspicion, especially among African elites, whose own commitment to the values of democracy is doubted. It is important to understand, hence, issues of how these platforms sustain themselves, their funding networks, and how they attract advertisement. This information is notoriously difficult to secure. But future research might benefit from interrogating these issues.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have explored how digital journalism platforms emerging across Africa are making a contribution to monitorial democracy and journalism. The argument we have made is that digital journalism practices and spaces, establishing a strong quotidian presence in parts of Africa, have strengthened and redefined in unprecedented ways the monitorial role of journalism. We have sustained this argument through an exploration of selected critical incidences in some countries of the continent. The critical indents that we have cited throughout this chapter have allowed digital journalists to (re)negotiate significantly their relationship with their news sources – open sources – and those embedded within the various systems from which they source news. Furthermore, these incidences, as we have argued, entail a significant shift in the monitory role of journalism in a number of ways. These incidences have re-emphasized, rather forcefully, the role of digital journalism platforms as the fourth estate in increasingly authoritarian contexts and polarized political environments where they (the digital news platforms) are often scorned as mouthpieces of the (imperial) West. Furthermore, their use of data journalism to support their exposés has distinguished them from other platforms that do not necessarily focus on news. Judging by the number of followers and subscribers they are incrementally accruing, we can argue that they have now become very much rooted within everyday African journalism practices. Digital technologies are altering the architecture of government and states as we know them. Regimes are now forced to respond to many damaging exposés more frequently than they are accustomed to. Their grip on information and what citizens can be exposed to is 96

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weakening. Even once-foolproof methods of controlling populations, like information censorship, are being exposed and debunked. John Keane aptly notes: Within and outside states, independent monitors of power begin to have tangible effects. By putting politicians, parties and elected governments permanently on their toes, they complicate their lives, question their authority and force them to change their agendas – and sometimes as can smother them in disgrace. (2009, n.p) Digital news platforms have increased citizens’ voices in topical issues at a time when most citizens, especially the youth, are shying away from voting. This is bound to be a new phase of African journalism in this century. This chapter opens a crucial and long-overdue debate about African journalism in the 21st century. Future research should explore this by, for example, interviewing key players in digital journalism on the continent and, also, exploring issues of sustainability and political economy.

Notes 1 A comprehensive history of the Guptaleaks and how The Daily Maverick exposed their alleged malfeasances can be followed here: www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-01-the-guptaleaksfive-years-later/. 2 Interview with an investigative journalist in Harare, May 7, 2021. 3 These exposés can be followed in the paper’s digital edition here: https://t.co/XWa1FgBMds. 4 Verdade’s digital platform can be accessed here: https://verdade.co.mz. 5 Sportsie is accessible here: www.sportsie.com/. Bounce News is accessible here: https://guardian.ng/ tag/bounce-news/. Jook Text is accessible here: www.jokkotext.com/. 6 The corruption case can be followed here: https://ewn.co.za/topic/manuel-chang. The digital platform Carta de Moçambique can be followed here: https://cartamz.com. 7 Liberia, Africa Is a Country can be followed here: https://africasacountry.com/location/liberia. Media Congo is followable here: mediacongo.net. 8 The story can be followed here: https://kubatana.net/2021/05/16/statement-in-response-tocomments-by-justice-legal-and-parliamentary-affairs-minister-hon-ziyambi/. 9 Interview in Harare, conducted by Mass Media Public Opinion of Zimbabwe.

References Andresen, K. (2021). Critical Incidents in journalism: Pivotal moments reshaping journalism around the world. Nordicom Review, 43(1), 131. doi:10.2478/nor-2022–0008 Bebawi, S. (2016). Investigative journalism in the Arab world: Issues and challenges. Palgrave Macmillan. Boughton, J. (2019). New animism: Relational epistemologies and expanding Western ontologies. Student Anthropologist, 7(1), 56–59. Carlson, M. (2016a). Embedded links, embedded meanings: Social media commentary and news sharing as mundane media criticism. Journalism Studies, 17(7), 915–924. doi:10.1080/14616 70X.2016.1169210 Dotto, C., & Cubbon, S. (2021). Disinformation exports: How foreign anti-vaccine narratives reached West African communities online. First Draft. Retrieved June 23, 2022, from https://firstdraft news.org/long-form-article/foreign-anti-vaccine-disinformation-reaches-west-africa/ The Economist. (2018). How social-media platforms dispense justice. Retrieved September 20, 2021, from www.economist.com/business/2018/09/06/how-social-media-platforms-dispense-justice Esau, K., Friess, D., & Eilders, C. (2017). Design matters! An empirical analysis of online deliberation on different news platforms. Policy & Internet, 9(3), 321–342.

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Allen Munoriyarwa and Dumisani Moyo Funke, D. (2021). COVID, vaccine misinformation spread by hundreds of websites, analysis finds. USA Today. Retrieved June 25, 2022, from www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2021/09/08/ covid-vaccine-misinformation-spread-websites-analysis-finds/5732789001/ Harper, R. A. (2010). The social media revolution: Exploring the impact on journalism and news media organizations. Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse [Online], 2. www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=202 Jamil, S., & Appiah-Adjei, G. (2019). Journalism in the era of mobile technology: The changing pattern of news production and the thriving culture of fake news in Pakistan and Ghana. World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies (3), 42–64. Jenkins, J., Tandoc, C. E., Thomas, R. J., Westlund, O. (2020). Introduction: Theorizing critical incidents in journalism across the globe. In Critical incidents in journalism (pp. 1–12). Routledge. Keane, J. (2009). Monitory democracy and media-saturated societies. Griffith Review (24), 47–69. Keane, J. (2011). Monitory democracy: A new idea of democratic practice in the age of new media. Open Times, 2, 121–130. Mason, A. (2007). Elite sources, journalistic practice and the status quo. Pacific Journalism Review, 13(1), 107–123. Munoriyarwa, A., & Chibuwe, A. (2022). Journalism beyond the coup: Emerging forms of digital journalism practices in post-coup Zimbabwe. Digital Journalism, 10(7), 1198–1218. Mutsvairo, B. (2016). Digital activism in the social media era. Springer Nature. Parameswaran, R. (2006). Military metaphors, masculine modes, and critical commentary: Deconstructing journalists’ inner tales of September 11. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 30(1), 42–64. doi:10.1177/0196859905280954 Zelizer, B. (1992). Covering the body: The Kennedy assassination, the media, and the shaping of collective memory. University of Chicago Press. Zelizer, B. (2005). Taking journalism seriously: News and the academy. Sage.

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9 THE CHALLENGE OF COMPETING LOYALTIES FOR JOURNALISTS IN NONWESTERN CULTURES Terje Skjerdal Influences in Non-Western Journalism Much has been written about the challenges facing journalism in transitional and nondemocratic societies. Obviously, many, if not most, of the reports concern political pressure, such as direct intervention by authorities, persecution by police and court systems, and coercion by pressure groups. However, a share of the research has also dealt with other types of unsolicited influence characteristic of vulnerable media societies, such as poor working conditions, ownership pressure, clientelism, and weak professional protection. The following section will give an overview of major focus areas in the research on influences in nonWestern journalism. Government pressure on the media is a matter of fact in most societies in the Global South. Although a number of countries in transition to multiparty systems in the 1990s promised freer conditions for journalists and the media (Belin, 2002; Lawson, 2002), the situation in many media cultures today is continued pressure and, in some cases, even stronger repression on journalistic activity than earlier. Press freedom in both Asia (Oxford Analytica, 2022), Africa (Conroy-Krutz, 2020), and Latin America (Kellam, 2018) is arguably in decline, amidst a recent weakening of democratic leaderships throughout the world (Herre, 2022). The most extreme negative development is seen in Hong Kong, where the media enjoyed liberal conditions until the Chinese takeover in 1997 but today has reached a situation where journalists of all kinds – mainstream, state, and citizen journalists, as well as foreign correspondents – are under constant surveillance by the city administration loyal to mainland China (Luqui, 2021). The containment of the media by the government, often described as media capture, has a chilling effect on the newsroom and results in pervasive self-censorship practices (Frisch et al., 2018). The media capture “toolbox” which the state uses involves a range of strategies, including intimidation and criminalization of journalistic activity, capture through financial sanctions, and as in the case of Turkey (Coşkun, 2020), establishment of government-loyal private outlets. Latin America, on its part, has a long tradition of symbiotic relationships between the state and private, commercial outlets built on clientelism between interest groups and the political leadership (Márquez-Ramírez & Guerrero, 2017; Waisbord, 2012). The Latin American case illustrates that government pressure on the media does not

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always transpire in heavy regulation but can be achieved through the opposite. Characteristic of most societies in transition, nevertheless, is concentration of power and patrimonialism coupled with a weak media economy (Hadland, 2015; Mabweazara et al., 2023; Voltmer, 2013), leaving media businesses additionally vulnerable to external influence. Professionalism in authoritarian and transitional media cultures is customarily under pressure from media owners. The state remains dominant in media ownership in many countries in Africa and Asia, resulting in newsroom structures encouraging patronage to official policy (Skjerdal, 2013; Stockmann  & Gallagher, 2011). However, private ownership is also reported as a significant source of influence. Commercial media concentration in postSuharto Indonesia, for example, resulted in market-driven journalism neglecting the public interest, according to local researchers (Haryanto, 2011). A part of the problem is that owners take little action to resist pressure from advertisers, who expect favorable media coverage (George et al., 2021). Studies among media practitioners reveal that journalists are caught “between a rock and a hard place” as they balance pressure from advertisers, shareholders, and news management with professional aspirations (Mare, 2018). Research among Russian journalists suggests that their professional practice is conceptualized by the structure of their media organization and that ownership type becomes the determining factor in deciding the journalists’ professional identity (Lowrey & Erzikova, 2013). Journalists in private outlets are found to believe in news-making as a profit-making enterprise, while journalists in the official media are more prone to support normative ideals which hold that the media should primarily inform the public and contribute to social cohesion. With conflicting ideals and interests, the journalistic community in many transitional countries turns fragmented and polarized. The professional arrangement which could have served as a bulwark against ownership interference and commercial pressure is largely deficient. Another mechanism which could have contributed to ease the stress on the profession, pluralism in media ownership, has similar weaknesses. On the surface, it could seem that the pluralistic ownership structure which has been introduced in most media systems since the 1990s has led to a less partisan and more democratic media sector, but diversification in ownership might, in reality, be a disguise for “hidden media capture” (Cagé  & Mougin, 2023), where political interests still stand for considerable pressure on the industry together with reliance on commercial revenue. Pressure also comes from within the professional practice. Lack of media accountability mechanisms and strong ethical guidelines leaves much of professional decision-making to the individual journalist. The relationship with sources represents a persisting challenge for journalists. As pointed out by Berkowitz (2009), much of the literature on the journalist–source relationship is written with a Western context in mind, and especially through an American lens, while experiences from the non-Western world are often different. For example, research from South Korea suggests that the journalist–source relationship is more personal than in the West (Berkowitz  & Lee, 2004). The relationship often achieves a patron–client character with ethical dilemmas involved. The source may offer the journalist a small monetary contribution and expects positive reporting in return, known as brown envelope journalism. This is a type of pressure not often found in Western journalism practice but commonplace in financially weaker media systems, where salaries are low. Different studies indicate that a substantial proportion of journalists in different transitional societies takes brown envelopes, in spite of their own conviction which holds that it is ethically wrong (Skjerdal, 2018). This is an example of divergence between journalistic ideals and practice or between professional norms and performance. The gap is detectable in any journalistic culture but is perpetually higher in countries with less-resourceful media industries (Mellado, 2021). 100

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This could possibly indicate that journalists outside of the Western Hemisphere, to a higher degree, must negotiate influences which they find to be contradictory with their professional standards. A less-researched area is personal influences. This subject is related to Shoemaker and Reese’s (2013) individual level in the hierarchy of influences model, but whereas the hierarchy of influences model includes a comprehensive range of influences on the individual level, such as political view, educational background, and ethical preferences, by personal influences I specifically refer to influences which belong to the domestic sphere usually not associated with professional work. Family relations and religion would be examples. A reason for the scarcity of studies on personal influences could indeed be the idea that such influences are less relevant for professional work. The studies that do exist indicate that this area, like the constraints previously discussed, is characterized by perceived higher levels of influence among non-Western journalists, for example, when it comes to the impact of religion in professional judgment. An analysis based on the results of the first wave of the global Worlds of Journalism Study 2007–2011 found that while the impact of religion is generally low across 18 researched countries, in three countries outside of the Western Hemisphere – Indonesia, Egypt, and Uganda – the influence of religion is reported as considerably higher (Vasilendiuc, 2011). Similarly, the research interest in influence of family background and ethnic belonging in journalistic activity tends to come from nonWestern countries as well. Studies from Ethiopia, for example, have focused on the impact of family socialization and ethnicity in reporting practices (Dirbaba & O’Donnell, 2016; Dessie et al., 2022). The research literature on influences in transitional and non-Western journalism includes various other relevant topics that ought to be mentioned as well. Highly r­elevant are threats to personal safety, financial constraints, and weak professional organizing. Threats of violence represent an obvious limitation in professional work in societies such as Mexico, where more than 150 journalists have been killed since 1992 (www.cpj.org). The incessant threat of violence in northern Mexico has a negative effect on journalistic quality and jeopardizes collective professional autonomy (de Bustamante & Relly, 2016). It does not help the situation that the professional communities in many non-Western journalism cultures are poorly organized and that press councils and self-accountability systems are generally weak or non-existing (Frère, 2014). On top of that, many journalists are poorly paid, which makes them more exposed to various external influences (Mabweazara, 2010; Shah et al., 2021). To capture the many constraints that influence journalistic practice in the Global South, Matthews and Onyemaobi (2020) suggest analyzing the conditions through the prism of “precarious professionalism.” That contemporary journalism has a precarious nature is emphasized by scholars across the world, but the precariousness has a different face in nonWestern societies, where the pressure is multilayered. Based on empirical work in Nigeria, Matthews and Onyemaobi (2020) maintain that when entering work practice, local journalists must relate both to professional and personal selves. Of necessity, the media practitioners are forced to negotiate risks which potentially challenge their personal selves on a daily basis. Professionalism in African news work is marked by “ingrained precarity,” according to Dugmore (2022). Like the tendency elsewhere, the journalistic work field is marked by insecurity. However, the situation in a continent like Africa is different because the precarity is not a temporary interruption in an otherwise-stable media industry but an inherent condition affecting the employment environment. 101

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Methodology The empirical part of this contribution is based on a comparison between a sample of countries in the North versus a sample of countries in the South. The aim is to identify the difference in perceived influences in news work among a corresponding set of journalists in two different parts of the world, one “developed” and one “developing” or “transitional.” The data were drawn from the second wave of the Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS), with data collected from 2012 to 2016. WJS is the largest global comparative journalist study to this date and had 67 countries and more than 27,000 journalists from all continents participating in its second wave. The study is based on a standard quantitative questionnaire, where all respondents reply to the same questions (around 110), although some questions are optional. Details about the questionnaire and the full datasets can be found on www.world sofjournalism.org. The part of the study referred to in this chapter is that which concerns potential sources of influence, where 27 questions were asked, of which 18 will be visited in this study. The respondents were given a list of potential influences where they could respond from 5 (“extremely influential”) to 1 (“not influential”). The sample of the countries was done as follows: The ten highest- and lowest-scoring countries for each of the potential sources of influence were identified. The mode (frequency of occurrences) was counted across all influences. This gave a rough list of countries scoring generally high and countries scoring generally low on the range of influences. The ten countries occurring most frequently as high-scoring and low-scoring countries, respectively, were picked for further analysis. Incidentally, the ten countries which most often reported high influences all hailed from the Global South, while the ten countries with lowest influences all represented the Global North. High-influence countries were identified as five countries in Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, India, Bhutan, and Oman) and five countries in Africa (Sierra Leone, Botswana, Malawi, Kenya, and Sudan), while the low-scoring countries all belong to Western Europe and North America (Portugal, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Canada). This is, in itself, a presentiment of the upcoming argument, that journalists in the Global South generally feel more pressure in their work than journalists in the North do. All in all, the ten non-Western countries in the study (“S10”) were represented with 2,827 respondents, while the ten Western countries (“N10”) had 5,909 respondents.

Findings For simplicity, the intensity of the different influences is given as mean scores for the two groups of Northern countries (N10) and Southern countries (S10), respectively. This makes comparison between the two groups straightforward and tangible, although nuances between single countries within each group are not seen in the combined scores (Table 9.1). Furthermore, the different influences are grouped into more general categories in order to pinpoint types of pressure and influences which appear in similar domains that may have related causes. The overall finding is that journalists in the South perceive higher levels of influence in their work than journalists in the North on all given parameters. The influence is particularly high when it comes to felt political pressure. This category comprises five different types of influence: from politicians; government officials; pressure groups; military, police, and state security; as well as censorship. The gap in perceived pressure is especially explicit in terms of 102

The Challenge of Competing Loyalties for Journalists Table 9.1 Perceived Influences in News Work, Northern vs. Southern Countries

Political pressure Commercial pressure Newsroom pressure Personal influences

N10 (Portugal, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Canada)

S10 (Sierra Leone, Botswana, Malawi, Kenya, Sudan, Oman, India, Bhutan, Thailand, and Malaysia)

Gap

1.65 2.22 2.76 2.37

3.16 3.44 3.85 3.24

+ 1.51 + 1.22 + 1.08 + 0.86

Note: 5 = extremely influential; 1 = not influential. Source: Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS). For detailed data, see www.worldsofjournalism.org.

censorship, where the average score for the S10 countries is a high 3.66, while journalists in the N10 countries score 1.60 on average, which means low perceived censorship. The gap is almost as high when it comes to felt pressure from government officials, but somewhat less for pressure from politicians in general, though still significant (3.00 vs. 1.72). The gap is also significant when it comes to perceived commercial pressure. Much has been written about the influence of commercialization in Western journalism (e.g., Goyanes & Rodríguez-Castro, 2019; Hanush et al., 2017), but the global data from WJS indicate that the pressure is more severely felt by non-Western journalists. Commercial pressure is here defined as a combination of five different influences: profit expectations, advertising considerations, data from audience research, audience feedback, and public relations. Both Western and non-Western journalists rate the influence of audience feedback as the highest among these. Pressure from advertisers, on the other hand, is regarded as low for Western journalists (1.79), but relatively high for non-Western journalists (3.33). The third type of influence, newsroom pressure, is a combination of influence from managers, higher editors, owners, editorial policy, and media laws. This category scores the highest of all influences for journalists in both the North and the South (2.76 and 3.85). Journalists across the world see the influence coming from the newsroom environment as having the highest impact on their work, which makes sense, given that this is where the production is taking place and where input is given from colleagues and superiors on a daily basis. The breakdown of the data nevertheless shows that formal guidelines – the editorial policy and media laws – are rated as having higher impact for both groups than staff and managers in the newsroom. The gap between journalists in the North and South is particularly large when it comes to influence caused by owners. Journalists in the North report that this pressure is not substantial (1.96), while journalists in the South are of the opposite perception (3.65). This confirms the impression from the literature cited earlier, that owners in organizationally weak media cultures have both direct and indirect influence over the journalistic production. Influence of managers and higher editors is also perceived as high in non-Western countries, which Hanitzsch et al. (2019) attribute to hierarchical structures and higher acceptance for power inequality in organizations. The last group of influences to be discussed here, personal influences, combines three items: friends and family, personal values and beliefs, and religion. The three sources of influence require separate treatment since they yield diverging scores, especially for non-Western 103

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journalists. The highest influence in this category is personal values and beliefs – for both groups. In fact, Western journalists see this item as having the highest influence among all the 18 potential influences discussed in this contribution (3.44). The item would normally be regarded as a positive influence rather than negative since it is not a result of external pressure. Non-Western journalists regard personal values and beliefs as slightly more important – 3.71. The impact of religion, on the other hand, shows high divergence between Western and non-Western journalists. Western journalists rate this influence as the lowest among all influences queried by the WJS questionnaire (1.51). This is contrasted by non-Western journalists, who see the influence of religion as relatively high (3.22). It should be added that religious influence was an optional item on the questionnaire, and five Western countries (Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland) and three non-Western countries (Sudan, Oman, and Thailand) chose not to include the question. Lastly, the influence of friends and family is regarded as more similar between the two constituencies – 2.18 (Western journalists) vs. 2.78 (non-Western journalists).

Discussion The study corroborates the claim that journalists in the Global South experience higher pressure in their work than journalists in the Global North on a range of potential influences. That the perceived political pressure is higher is as expected. However, the journalists also report higher influence in all three other areas studied – commercial pressure, newsroom pressure, and personal influences. Methodologically speaking, there is a certain chance of acquiescence bias – that responses are socially aligned and that respondents from collectivist cultures are more prone to respond affirmatively than respondents in individualist cultures (Franzen & Vogl, 2011). The issue of personal values and beliefs mentioned earlier could indicate that. One would have expected that the freer the media society, the less external pressure and the greater room for individual latitude. To the contrary, the study found that journalism fraternities in the Global South, many of which are under excessive external pressure, report higher influence of personal values and beliefs than journalists in the North (although the difference is small). However, with regard to certain other influences, not least perceived pressure by politicians, government officials, military, police, and state security, one must assume that the influence is objectively higher in transitional countries than in established democracies, as is indicated by the research data. On this basis, and corroborated by the finding that the gap between journalism cultures in the South and in the North is consistent and significant across a range of influences, it should be presumed that the perceived influences are indeed generally higher and more multifaceted in a non-Western than in a Western journalism culture. The implication of this evidence is far-reaching. It means that the professional frame alone is not sufficient when analyzing journalism cultures in the Global South. Much theorizing about global journalism culture, including assessment of influences in news work, is done from a professional perspective and toward the assumption that journalism culture should be understood within the boundaries of a professional framework. The approach seems to work well in established Western media cultures, where the professional culture is compartmentalized, implying that it is detached from other areas of life, by and large. Religion, for example, does not seem to carry any direct relevance for journalistic work – hence, many of the research teams in the Western Hemisphere, when given the option, omitted questions concerning religious influence and importance in the WJS survey. Research data from the non-Western world, by contrast, indicate that not only religion but also family and friends, 104

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and perhaps also influences not asked about, such as ethnic belonging, actively shape the journalist’s professional decisions. Instead of defining these influences as unsolicited pressures only, an alternative interpretation would be to recognize them as part of the media practitioner’s lifeworld. A comprehensive analysis of journalism culture in non-Western societies demands an open approach to the multitude of factors shaping news work. This comes not least from the realization that in a society where professional structures are weak and volatile, the journalistic practice is more exposed to outside influences. But influences shaping the journalism culture also come from within, and these influences could possibly play a stronger role when the professional community is weak. Journalists in any society are bound to different loyalties in their work – the most obvious ones in an established media culture would be to the profession and the professional community, to the media outlet, and to society/citizens. The same loyalties would apply for journalists in a vulnerable media society, but in competition with other loyalty bounds, such as to the family, to the ethnic group, to patrons, to personal security – or simply to one’s wallet, to secure the required income for daily living. Thus, journalists in weak media economies face the challenge of competing loyalties on a daily basis (cf. Skjerdal, 2013). Loyalty conflicts have been identified in Western media practice as well (e.g., Zandberg & Neiger, 2005), but then typically within a professional reference frame, where loyalty to alternative interests, such as the nation, is associated with extraordinary situations, like a terrorist incident, and where the journalism profession gets involved in a paradigm repair process to restore its “normal” loyalty, which is first and foremost to the profession (Vos & Moore, 2020).

Conclusion The chapter has demonstrated that journalists in non-Western cultures sense a wider array of influences in their professional work than do journalists in Western societies. The influence is multilayered and involves pressure not just from political actors but from civil society, ethnic groups, financial actors, sources, colleagues, as well as from the private sphere. Journalism cultures in the Global South generally lack professional resilience to resist unsolicited external and internal influence. The journalists are generally committed to professional performance, but they face competing loyalties incessantly and forcefully. On this basis, I recommend that analyses of journalism cultures in the Global South should apply interpretive frameworks which go beyond a compartmentalized understanding of the journalistic profession.

References Belin, L. (2002). The Russian media in the 1990s. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 18(1), 139–160. Berkowitz, D. (2009). Reporters and their sources. In K. Wahl-Jørgensen & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), The handbook of journalism studies (pp. 102–115). Routledge. Berkowitz, D., & Lee, J. (2004). Media relations in Korea: Cheong between journalist and public relations practitioner. Public Relations Review, 30(4), 431–437. Cagé, J., & Mougin, E. (2023). The African “hidden media capture’. In W. Mano & L. E. Mkaouar (Eds.), Media ownership in Africa in the digital age: Challenges, continuity and change (pp. 31–49). Routledge. Conroy-Krutz, J. (2020). The squeeze on African media freedom. Journal of Democracy, 31(2), 96–109. Coşkun, G. B. (2020). Media capture strategies in new authoritarian states: The case of Turkey. Publizistik, 65(4), 637–654.

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PART II

Pedagogical Paradigms

10 DELIBERATION AS PEDAGOGY Gender, Intersectionality, and Journalism Education in India Preeti Raghunath

Introduction Asha is a young journalist working for a big national newspaper in India. Her workday typically starts at 8:00 a.m., of poring over newspapers and articles from the previous day that made it to the day’s coverage, looking for leads that could be followed up, contacting her set of trusted informants from the beat reporting field, and going to work. She spends a day chasing stories and possible leads, travels to the other end of the city to cover them, files the stories, and attends the editorial meeting in the evening to prepare for the next day. Her day ends by 10:00 p.m., when the stories have been handed over to the edit desk to be worked upon for the next day’s newspaper issue. This might seem like a normal work-fueled day in the life of an up-and-coming reporter, but what doesn’t get reported is the gap in wages in comparison to her male counterparts doing the same work, the fact that she is a mother with childcare responsibilities, and that she has to build a career in an industry rife with closeddoor “old boys club” behavior and rights violations. After decades of continuing feminist movements across countries, questions of gender inequity, inadequate and discriminatory work conditions, and wage gap along fluid identitarian and intersectional lines continue to be areas that need to be addressed in the media and creative industries. Even as the media and creative industries have not been able to escape neoliberal and ideological imperatives that drive their work today across national contexts, gendered labor is perhaps one of the least-addressed aspects in popular media and in communication and media research. Conor et al. (2015) talk about the “contacts culture” that propels much of the hiring and work environments. This is in addition to rampant sexism and delineation of what tasks someone of a non-male gender can perform. The #MeToo movement brought to the fore work cultures that thrive on harassment and exploitation, also in the media and creative industries. Conor (2021) addresses issues of precarity and gender pay gap in the creative industries at large. With gig work becoming more pronounced in the media and creative industries, what was an earlier freelance culture acutely promotes precarity and inequities, even among skilled labor, besides the obvious impacts it has on mofussil and rural reporters and stringers. Ageism acts as a big threat to women who dare to take on challenging work alongside family responsibilities. As (lifelong) students of ethical and

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reflexive journalism and media education and practice, we find that delving into the semantics and pedagogical implications of such inequities becomes urgent. This chapter draws on my experiences, first, as a journalist, and then as a media researcher and educator. As such, I use participant observation drawing on both these roles and also present a reflexive account of my experiences in these roles. Toward this, the chapter comprises four sections: The first section briefly engages with the historical and contemporary trajectories taken by communication and media education in India. The second section draws out gendered labor and the media industries and brings focus to issues of inequities through the lens of intersectionality. The third section presents a reflexive take on journalism education in India, from having undertaken such an education, having practiced journalism alongside such an education, and having taught in university journalism programs. The fourth section looks at the pedagogy and praxis of deliberation as a slow movement in approaching journalism education. By taking into account association-deliberative democratic engagement across contexts, this section underscores criticality and publicness as cornerstones. The chapter concludes by underscoring deliberative pedagogy as a project of hope in encountering despair.

Indian Journalism and Communication Education: A Brief Engagement Since a Century Ago Theosophical Society’s Annie Besant started the first journalism course in British India, at National University in Adyar, Madras, in 1920. The next hundred and more years were to see numerous shifts and considerations in the trajectories taken by journalism education in the country. Aligarh Muslim University started a journalism diploma course in 1938, followed by the first professional journalism department in undivided India established at Punjab University, in 1941. Post-independence from British rule, in 1947, the University of Madras, University of Calcutta, and Osmania University started programs and departments dedicated to journalism (Odisha Plus, 2020; The Siasat, 2020). Over the later decades in India, numerous departments and programs would be established across universities, paving the way for the recognition of journalism and communication as viable education, often leading to job opportunities in the press. This was unlike most of the other social sciences and humanities disciplines in that it was directly connected to job opportunities in a related industry. Most journalism and communication departments emerged as training spaces for future journalists.

Post-Liberalization India officially opened up its economy to foreign capital in the 1990s, and the earliest memory of international television broadcasting in India is that of the Gulf War, in 1991 (Thussu, 2018). The following three decades registered numerous fluxes and paths taken by Indian media and, concomitantly, Indian media education. That the media industries, including the field of journalism, embraced a neoliberal mode of production is not news. Early neoliberal transformations of the media and communications industries in India since the late 1990s evoked positive reactions – the field would enable more women to enter what was otherwise a difficult space for them to operate in. The flourishing of newspapers and magazines, 24-7 news channels, FM radio, and websites meant that women with college degrees and 112

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an inclination to bring positive change in society could dream of becoming journalists, joining the list of trailblazers who had paved the way earlier. The popularity of television news anchors and radio jockeys added to the allure of the journalism profession. Communication and media education geared up in a distinctly new way to pre-empt and also cater to this demand. The 2000s saw the setting up of a number of private media institutes, many tied to media houses, offering postgraduate diplomas and specializations in journalism, thereby providing avenues and springboards for upper- and middle-class aspiring young women. These institutes, with their high course fees, were, more often than not, out of the reach of lower-class and caste women, unless they accessed it through education loans or scholarships where available. The courses also provided “placement” opportunities, tying their courses to enabling students to land their first journalism and media jobs.

Media Education and the Media Industries Media education is never neutral. During the colonial era in India, journalism served the cause of those engaged in the freedom struggle. The emergency of the late 1970s in India saw some newspapers setting gold standards for fearless coverage of news. Media education is often driven by the “doing good” principle and is aimed at cultivating critical thinking and ability to fight for the underdog in society through one’s journalistic and creative work. Shifts in the media industries have driven changes in journalism curricula and media education. While the media has always had a love–hate relationship with the state, recent years have seen large sections of corporate media in India engaging as mouthpieces of the ruling government, especially accentuating their religious and populist-protectionist ideological stances. Much of the media education is provided through private media institutions and public universities affiliated to corporate media houses and the state, respectively. While the private media institutions cater to the demands of the market–state nexus, public institutions, though funded by public tax funds, find themselves catering to the priorities of the ruling party. In addition, the agendas of international organizations and donor agencies funding research seep into programmatic agendas for media education. All these factors influence how media education is conceptualized, delivered, and engaged with in India.

Gendered Labor and the Media Industries: Inequities and Intersectionality With dominant forms of market and religious fundamentalist ideologies making their mark on India’s socio-economic fabric, the media industries become sites where already-­ predominant disparities, as well as newer schisms, find space and articulation. Besides being shaped by larger policies of deregulation, privatization, and reregulation (Knoche, 2021), the field of journalism is no stranger to the deeply entrenched structures of patriarchy and power along class, caste, linguistic, and religious lines in India. A  report by UN Women (2019) suggests that the Indian media industries are vastly unequal, in their employment, their employability across the gender spectrum, and their coverage of gender. There are hardly any women in leadership roles in newspapers, with women leadership in other media being minuscule as well. In general, married women with families find it an uphill take to pursue their chosen careers. This is only compounded that many times for a career in the media industries, in India. A career in journalism is short-lived for many women, with only a few that start out 113

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in journalism continuing in the field. Besides having needs to be met on the family front, women are often seen as aspiring for “second careers,” which are, more often than not, outside the sphere of journalism. Many women journalists whose career paths I  have followed with great interest move into either public relations and corporate communications or related fields. The opening up of newer opportunities in communication and digital media beyond traditional fields in journalism has resulted in many opting for such work. The traditional terrain of journalism is also not a stranger to another insidious reality – the gender pay gap. Ara (2021), in investigating the gender wage gap in urban India, suggests that: [W]omen’s work is undervalued even in regular salaried jobs in India’s urban labour market and female workers are getting substantially lower wages than their male counterpart in almost all sectors and occupations sub-categories despite controlling for differences in experience, education, geographical differences and other individual characteristics. (ibid., p. 415) Business Standard (2021) suggests that the Covid-19 pandemic widened the gender wage gap further. Gender pay gap in the media industry is the norm rather than the exception. While this is the case for women, those who do not conform to gender binaries are faced with discriminatory attitudes and find it an uphill task as well, despite digital media opening up better avenues for them (Mint, 2016). It was only recently that India decriminalized homosexuality (News18, 2018). Gender-fluid identities have been misrepresented in the media, and there are a few queer journalists who have been able to work in what are very traditional and male-dominated newsrooms. Reflecting the attitudes of society at large, journalism newsrooms are not considered safe for women and queer folk, who cite harassment (The Citizen, 2021). Rege (1998), in writing about the Dalit feminist standpoint, and Chakravarti (2003), in writing about gendering caste, make no bones about gender and intersectionality. Not only do those who do not conform to gender binaries face discrimination, but it also gets compounded along caste, religion, and regional lines. These factors play a huge role in access to opportunities, and even if one makes it to the echelons of journalism practice, discrimination is rife along these lines, leading to multiple marginalities at play at once. While debates for and against intersectional feminism rage on, the lived experiences of those whose lives are implicated by these multiple marginalities playing out are worth noting and writing about. The digital is again emerging as a site where those who are rendered disservice by these issues create and make their own spaces. Meena Kotwal’s Mooknayak is but one example.

A Reflexive Take: Journalism and Journalism Education Niblock (2007) talks about what reflexivity means for the journalist-educator and suggests that we see journalism as research-in-practice. The author draws on Zelizer (2004, p. 4) to suggest that “no one voice in journalism’s study is better or more authoritative than the others . . . rather, different voices offer more – and more complete – ways to understand what journalism is.” First, as a journalist, and now as a media researcher and educator, I have more than a ringside view of the shifts that Indian media has taken over the last one and a half decades. Along with it comes the understanding of the diverse career trajectories that women 114

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in journalism have taken in the wake of opportunities (or the lack thereof) in the media and allied industries.

Political Economy of the Journalism Industry As discussed at the outset, questions of media ownership, the political economy of the media industries, and questions of labor define one’s experience in the media. At 17, I was pursuing a college degree that was a triple major in mass communication and journalism, literature, and political science. My aspirations were to be a journalist covering politics and foreign affairs. I  also held the idea that pursuing journalism education itself doesn’t make one a journalist, and that one needed to be out there in the industry to complement learning in class. As a lower-middle-class young woman with some financial responsibilities to be catered to on the home front, this served as the perfect reason to get my hands dirty by joining a newspaper of national repute and operation. I was a city reporter, reporting on and covering numerous events, and also wrote weekly articles for their Wednesday supplement on careers and workplaces. This gave me great leeway to learn the tricks of the trade, the nuances of reporting and filing copies, making contacts in the field, building stories, and I  garnered some dedicated readership. Gradually, I  moved to another media house, also of national repute and operation, to write for their main paper. This newspaper was known to be very market-driven, and I was to encounter it within days of my joining. For instance, it was the holy month of Ramzan, and the newspaper decided to tap into the “market” of the Old City area of Hyderabad, since it is dominated by a Muslim population. The instructions were made clear to me: “Bring two positive stories from the Old City area on a daily basis, talk to big enterprises and business owners, and see what they’d like to be covered. We need to tap into the advertisements that this could bring us.” As someone who was contributing to the women’s page of the Sunday edition, writing on gender fluidities, intersectional identities, and multiple marginalities, I found this seemed to take me away from my main interests and posed an ethical problem. I quit the newspaper in two months.

Encountering Dogma in Class: Against Objectivity As a media educator, I have classes that explore the politics and policies that shape the global media industries. Teaching in an Indian classroom always brings with it heterogeneity and diversity in terms of languages, cultures, regions, and religions that students come from. India has witnessed increased polarization, especially over the few years since the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist political party, took to power (Sahoo, 2020). Their worldview is rooted in nativism and a unilinear teleology of history and progress. The shifts were palpable in the classroom, with students holding strong hyper-religious and hyper-nationalist views during discussions on various political developments in the country and how one can report them. We are often taught about objective reporting and having a neutral stance in the field. Yet when one encounters deep biases that are positioned as objective in aspiring young journalists, one is made aware of the importance of embracing empathetic subjectivity in the reporting field against objectivity. What does good reporting look like, then? Good reporting is one that negates biases and instead embraces the need for a standpoint that enables the reporter to reflexively engage with their subjectivity. How else does one report on cases of rape, caste atrocities, and cases of honor killing in India in an objective manner? It calls for empathy and ethics associated with such a standpoint. Indian 115

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journalism education must be geared to deal with growing radicalization among the young, by showcasing past work and future possibilities for empathetic engagement and ethical stances that are a matter of everyday choices for young journalists to be made. When seen in the context of gender and intersectionality, one encounters deeply misogynistic tendencies and dominant normative stances as part of the growing radicalization. Gender-sensitive journalism education does not reify dominant norms but allows students to engage with decolonial normativity (Raghunath, 2022) as a means of addressing colonization of worldviews and the lifeworld.

Online Hate and Trolling against Women Journalists Journalism is often called literature written in a hurry. The temporal aspect gains a lot of importance in the fast-paced environment in which the journalism industry functions. With social media becoming a big part of journalism, providing leads for stories but also being a space where journalists share and promote their stories, the speed and virality of journalism often obscure nuanced engagement by readers. Clickbait headlines further render such an engagement difficult. Students are increasingly part of living in media cultures that thrive on hate and trolling. How do we encourage students, as aspiring journalists, to speak truth to power, against authoritarian tendencies and demagoguery? The fear of online trolling and backlash is real. Rife with hate and viral vindictive measures, the Internet has become a space for journalists to encounter extreme vilification, and even rape and death threats (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022) in India. Take the example of Sulli Deals, an app that contained the names, photographs, and personal information of 100 outspoken Muslim women, putting them “on sale” (BBC, 2021). The women, many of them journalists, faced harassment, humiliation, and a harrowing time, simply for being prominent voices against atrocities. This is just one example of numerous such encounters that women and gender non-binary journalists and media workers face. Cancel culture, targeted trolling, and hate campaigns force women to go off their social media profiles and traverse lonely journeys. The #MeToo movement in India is an example. Defamation cases, boycotting, and shaming women journalists have been part of the numerous efforts to degrade and make the movement lose steam. However, the verdict in the case of journalist Priya Ramani, where she accused journalist and former Minister of State for External Affairs of sexual harassment, offered respite, hope, and inspiration to numerous women who face such instances in their careers on a daily basis (The News Minute, 2021). Tying this back to the realm of journalism education, equipping students of all genders with knowledge of laws and legalities (like the Vishakha guidelines in India) around harassment and go-to measures to handle hate mills could be ways to build curricula sensitive to the realities of industry and the larger society. Given these aforementioned contextual narratives, can journalism teaching and education reflect the ethos of democratic traditions and experiences in order to counter their sliding and downgrading (The Wire, 2021) in countries like India? What are the challenges to such efforts in journalism education, and how can we, as journalism educators, prepare our students for the “real world,” even as they are made aware of their capabilities for informed judgment? The following section looks at the pedagogy and praxis of deliberation as an intellectual and pragmatic corpus of efforts and experiences that can inform gender-sensitive journalism education.

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The Pedagogy and Praxis of Deliberation: Exploring Possibilities for a Slow Movement Deliberation as pedagogy is one that draws on the inherent communicative capabilities of individuals, unmutes those who have been muted due to structural violence, and encourages equitable and critical engagement in education. Deliberative pedagogy is situated at the intersections of deliberative democracy and engaged pedagogies (Shaffer et al., 2017). By recognizing the influence of fundamentalist ideologies of all kinds on education, one can draw on deliberative pedagogy to locate, retrieve, and engage with critical reflexivity (Ramaker et al., 2015) and publicness toward embedding better civic and democratic living. Journalism is often seen as the fourth estate, a pillar of a democratic setup. However, much of the understanding of democracy comes from the liberal democratic tradition. In practice, societies in the Global South see associational-deliberative forms of democracy being an important characteristic of societies, in South Asia, for instance, and beyond (Raghunath, 2020, 2022). This is an important lens to understand communitarian dynamics in Indian society and how they play out in the media industries, as well as in the journalism classroom. Deliberative pedagogy in the classroom is a way to reaffirm civility in the face of fundamentalist onslaught. It can address intergenerational struggles and allow students to make space for their stories and ideas in a crowded marketplace.

Deliberative Pedagogy in the Classroom Brammer (2017) writes evocatively about making deliberation the connective tissue to classroom engagement, across a variety of scenarios. From the framing of course syllabi to identifying the issues that play out as important ones in the lives of students, deliberative pedagogy can be quite illuminating for the educator in preparing the course outline and material. By bringing on board what matters to students and their experiences as well as drawing insight from one’s own observations and learning, the process of preparing a course outline reflects and allows students to understand the democratic framing of documents that matter to them. For instance, I have experimented with collectively drawn-up course content in order to make it relatable and also authentic. In this exercise, each of the students was asked what their academic and practical interests were, and readings and course material that reflected their interests were brought into the syllabus. This ensured a personalized as well as democratic framing of reading material and class activities, also bringing ensuring a good sampling of opportunities on offer. In a classroom characterized by students from diverse backgrounds, deliberation can be challenging. Discussions on issues are oftentimes heated, with dominant ideas and norms holding sway and negating plural experiences. For instance, when there was a controversy in India involving a celebrity who supported Far Right politics and students engaged with the episode, it revealed biases that often get perpetuated. Heated and uncomfortable discussions followed, becoming a learning and difficult experience for everyone involved. It becomes urgently important to create spaces for dialogue and plural articulations. In India, introducing students to traditions of deliberation in public memory, like the Constituent Assembly debates, for instance, can be a useful method. When practiced in my class, it allowed students to sample the democratic traditions and the manner in which constructive debates and critiques can enrich public life and their journalism practice. Drury and Carcasson (2017) outline their engagement with infusing deliberative pedagogy in communication and rhetoric

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studies classes. Their insight on how creating spaces for public speaking and engagement can lead to quality deliberation is useful. It allows students to think out loud, and it becomes the mainstay of the facilitating educator to ensure that students adhere to set standards of civility in pursuing dialogic modes of engagement.

Gendering Deliberative Pedagogy Drawing on the preceding outline of deliberative pedagogy, it becomes crucial to bring the gender lens in understanding how such a pedagogy can be furthered. It was not until about a couple of centuries ago that women started gaining access to education. Savitribai Phule and Fatima Sheikh are considered to be pioneering women educators in modern India, breaking the shackles of patriarchy, caste, and religious dogma and initiating the education of women against all odds. Given the history of being kept out of education and continuing conditions of patriarchal domination in all realms of life, women find it difficult to find spaces that are conducive to their voicing their opinions fearlessly. As already explained earlier, women journalists are among those that are most targeted by mobs and online hate factories. In particular, young women find it difficult to be taken seriously in a culture that invalidates their thoughts and experiences. The classroom and the larger university space emerge as sites that can be conducive to women’s articulations. I have been witness to the transformative power of enabling young women to share their thoughts without fear. The clarity and purposefulness of articulations can be enlightening for the class, many a time. Take for example the spate of attacks on students in India over the last few years. Women students have stood at the forefront, taking on battalions of police, braving the demolishing of their homes, and emerging as thought leaders. For instance, the iconic images of women students from the Jamia Milia Islamia university in Delhi spurred a lot of conversation and reaction, providing confidence and impetus to their peers across university campuses. Strachan (2017) talks about what it takes for women to make a dent in the public sphere in order to upturn centuries of oppression and indignity. Deliberative pedagogy in universities can help engage with and imbibe critical and civil publicness – an increasingly rare attribute in Indian education spaces today.

En/countering Despair: Deliberative Pedagogy as a Project of Hope Deliberation as pedagogy helps invoke hope in times of fundamentalist domination and despair. When the rationale behind critical thinking and public expression, which are characteristic of a healthy society, is challenged and impunity prevails, deliberative pedagogy has the potential to help think of a hopeful future. It calls for being committed to a slow movement, through heartfelt engagement with issues that plague society, by transforming classes into spaces of free and responsible articulation in a bid to rein in fundamentalist attitudes of all kinds, and by soaking in on the wisdom of sharing lived experiences from across the spectrum of genders. These efforts can act as a springboard and pave the way for slow shifts toward ethical and empathetic journalism practice, the need of the hour in India.

Conclusion This chapter began with a brief engagement with the history of journalism education in India, placing in context the present-day neoliberal news media industry in the country.

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The chapter has noted the many influences on the functioning of Indian media, ranging from fundamentalist ideologies capturing the state to market imperatives dictating the commodification of news according to certain priorities. The interplay of these two factors plays out in the journalism classroom as well, with journalism education oftentimes following the trajectories and paths of the media industries. The chapter then went on to engage with gender inequities and intersectionality as they play out in the Indian news media, obstructing access to newsrooms and media coverage. The digital has emerged as a space where the marginalized find articulation. The next section presented a reflexive take, drawing from my experiences in journalism and journalism education. The final section sought to talk about possibilities for a slow movement, drawing on deliberation as pedagogy. The section outlined the contours of what deliberation as pedagogy means, and how it is being practiced in classrooms. By gendering deliberation, one is able to build gender-sensitive journalism across modules instead of solely having a representative course on gender and media. Deliberation as pedagogy can be a transformative teaching-learning practice for the journalism educator and their students. Uncomfortable discussions that challenge extremist narratives and perspectives, difficult dialogues that center reflections and praxis on inequities in society, and collaborative projects that allow acquaintance with socially embedded organizations and communities – these can pave the way for deliberative praxis in journalism education. The potential and possibilities of this project of hope provide the ethical and conscientious anchoring for journalism educators and students as they co-learn, through time, the journey of creative-ethical practice.

References Ara, S. (2021). Gender pay gap in India: Evidence from urban labour market. Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 64, 415–445. BBC. (2021). Sulli Deals: The Indian Muslim women “up for sale’ on an app, website. Retrieved June 4, 2022, from www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57764271 Brammer, L. R. (2017). Deliberative pedagogy as a central tenet: First-year students develop a course and a community. In T. J. Shaffer, N. V. Longo, I. Manosevitch, & M. S. Thomas (Eds.), Deliberative pedagogy: Teaching and learning for democratic engagement. Michigan State University Press. Business Standard. (2021). Gender pay gap deepens during covid, women left behind on pay hike: Study, website. Retrieved June 3, 2022, from www.business-standard.com/article/economypolicy/gender-pay-gap-deepens-during-covid-women-left-behind-on-pay-hike-study-1211209 00832_1.html Chakravarti, U. (2003). Gendering caste: Through a feminist lens. Sage. The Citizen. (2021). “When the men get excited”: Sexism in the media industry, website. Retrieved June 7, 2022, from www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/7/20898/When-the-MenGet-Excited:-Sexism-in-the-Media-Industry Committee to Protect Journalists. (2022). Indian journalist Rana Ayyub on facing death threats and a money laundering probe, website. Retrieved June 3, 2022, from https://cpj.org/2022/04/ indian-journalist-rana-ayyub-on-facing-death-threats-and-a-money-laundering-probe/ Conor, B. (2021). Gender & Creativity: Progress on the precipice. UNESCO. Conor, B., Gill, R., & Taylor, S. (2015). Gender and creative labour. The Sociological Review, 63(1_ suppl), 1–22. Drury, S. A. M., & Carcasson, M. (2017). Deliberative pedagogy in the communication studies curriculum. In T. J. Shaffer, N. V. Longo, I. Manosevitch, & M. S. Thomas (Eds.), Deliberative pedagogy: Teaching and learning for democratic engagement. Michigan State University Press. Knoche, M. (2021). Capitalisation of the media industry: From a political economy perspective. TripleC, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v19i2.1283

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Preeti Raghunath Mint. (2016). Being LGBT in India: Some home truths, website. Retrieved June 5, 2022, from www. livemint.com/Sundayapp/sAYrieZdZKEybKzhP8FDbP/Being-LGBT-in-India-Some-hometruths.html News18. (2018). I am a queer journalist. This is how I felt inside a newsroom on section 377 verdict day, website. Retrieved June 5, 2022, from www.news18.com/news/buzz/i-am-a-queer-journalistthis-is-how-i-felt-inside-a-newsroom-on-section-377-verdict-day-1869451.html The News Minute. (2021). “Woman can speak up any time”: Priya Ramani case verdict validates Me Too movement, Website. Retrieved June 7, 2022, from www.thenewsminute.com/article/ woman-can-speak-any-time-priya-ramani-case-verdict-validates-me-too-movement-143649 Niblock, S. (2007). From “knowing how” to “being able”. Journalism Practice, 1(1), 20–32. Odisha Plus. (2020). 100 years of media education in India, website. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from www.odisha.plus/2020/06/100-years-of-media-education-in-india/ Raghunath, P. (2020). Community radio policies in South Asia: A deliberative policy ecology approach. Palgrave Macmillan. Raghunath, P. (2022). The deliberative policy ecology approach: Media policy studies from South Asia. In S. Anne Ganter and H. Badr (Eds.), Media governance: A cosmopolitan critique. Palgrave Macmillan. Ramaker, T., van der Stoep, J., & Deuze, M. (2015). Reflective practices for future journalism: The need, the resistance and the way forward. Javnost – The Public, 22(4), 345–361. Rege, S. (1998). A Dalit feminist standpoint. Seminar, 471, 47–52. Sahoo, N. (2020). Mounting majoritarianism and political polarization in India, website. Retrieved June 6, 2022, from https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/08/18/mounting-majoritarianismand-political-polarization-in-india-pub-82434 Shaffer, T. J., Longo, N. V., Manosevitch, I., & Thomas, M. S. (Eds.). (2017). Deliberative pedagogy: Teaching and learning for democratic engagement. Michigan State University Press. The Siasat. (2020). Story of Osmania University Journalism School, website. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from www.siasat.com/story-osmania-university-journalism-school-1911965/ Strachan, J. C. (2017). Deliberative pedagogy’s feminist potential: Teaching our students to cultivate a more inclusive public sphere. In T. J. Shaffer, N. V. Longo, I. Manosevitch, & M. S. Thomas (Eds.), Deliberative pedagogy: Teaching and learning for democratic engagement. Michigan State University Press. Thussu, D. (2018). International communication: Continuity and change (3rd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. UN Women. (2019). Gender inequality in Indian media: A preliminary analysis. UN Women. The Wire. (2021). “India among top 10 autocratising nations; Democratic slide to continue”: V-Dem institute, website. Retrieved June 2, 2022, from https://thewire.in/rights/india-among-top-10autocratising-nations-democratic-slide-to-continue-v-dem-institute Zelizer, B. (2004). Taking journalism seriously: News and the academy. Sage.

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11 CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES AT DECOLONIZING THE CURRICULUM Narratives from Selected Southern African Journalism and Media Schools Shepherd Mpofu and Trust Matsilele Introduction At the time of writing this chapter, Africa’s highest-ranked educational institution, the University of Cape Town, had just announced that it was introducing Swahili as a major subject beginning of 2023. The minister of Basic Education in South, Angie Motshekga, responding to questions in South Africa’s parliament, said that all the country’s indigenous languages are being used as “languages of learning and teaching” from grade 3 and beyond (BusinessTech, 2022). For long, the language of learning was confined to English and Afrikaans, both languages of privilege. In Zimbabwe, the government is moving toward compelling every government department to make use of indigenous languages. Speaking at a National Languages Conference in June of 2022, Professor Wiseman Mugwa of the National Language Institute noted that “Zimbabwe cannot experience real growth and development while tied to the use of foreign languages” (Ncube, 2022). These examples demonstrate a deliberate move toward centering African languages in institutions of higher learning and places of businesses. But the question that lingers is how feasible these changes will be in a context where coloniality has set deeper roots. Of late, there has been an animated resurgence of old debates on decolonization in the Global South. These debates happened and took place immediately after some colonized countries gained flag independence and decided to decolonize their economies, spaces, and education. But they remained arrested by coloniality. Previously scholars such as Spivak (1998) delved into the subjugation of those in the periphery who are treated as inconsequential and should therefore be spoken and thought for. Similarly, Mundimbe critiqued and challenged the various ways of knowing in his insightful book The Invention of Africa (1988). In their edited collection, Kapoor and Sizha engaged with the relevance of indigenous knowledges in some parts of the Global South. This suggests that debates around the decolonization in the knowledge production sector, such as universities, have, for a

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long time, elicited academic interest (Wa Thiong’o, 1981). The rupture and revisitation of this topic through protests and academic works recently demonstrate the urgency to deal with decolonizing knowledge to finality in the Global South. As Moosavi (2020, p. 332) submits, “these calls for ‘intellectual decolonisation’ wish to undo the legacy of colonialism within academia due to a belief that coloniality continues to impact how academia is experienced, as well as what is researched, published, cited, and taught.” Supporting this view, Macamo (2016, p. 326) adds that “knowledge of Africa has been produced within what we might define as a Western episteme.” This view is further developed by Melber (2018), who argues that the theoretical, conceptual and methodological resources through which Africa is to this day rendered visible and intelligible speak from a place, about that place and in accordance with criteria of plausibility that use that particular place (of Western episteme) as the normative standard for truth. Closely related to Macamo (2016) and Melber (2018) is Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2021, p. 883), who intervenes by saying that “at the centre of decolonisation are inextricably intertwined ethical, methodological, epistemological and political dimensions.” This is so because of knowledge and power imbrications as well as knowledge and ontology dialectics. Hence, any attempt at decolonization of knowledge should respond to the question of how knowledge itself is attained, that is, the methodological questions. The academy and African universities have come under fire for the over-representation of White males and Eurocentric authors, theorists, and ways of imagining the world and knowledge (see Begum & Saini, 2019). Responding to the issue of White male privilege in African academy, Rizvi (2019, p. 9) argued that “universities should no longer be sites of privilege for particular cultural groups, but should cater to all sections of the community and, in particular, those groups that have been historically excluded and, in many ways, continue to be marginalized.” Several African countries, over the past two decades, have been calling for decolonization of the education curricula that, for long, have centered European knowledge systems and White male theorists, academics, and cultures. Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues that the colonizations of imagination and the mind are the “most terrible forms of colonisation hidden in institutions and discourses that govern the modern globe” (2013a, p. 63). There is a lot that is lost when the mind and imagination are colonized. This leads to people seeing their ways of living, thinking, knowledges, and life as inferior to the desired Western ones. It is these changes being mulled, promulgated, or are in the process of being reconfigured that inform this study. Critically, understanding what is being done or has already been done as Southern African countries fight to free themselves from coloniality seen partly through colonized education and centering African education and knowledge systems. In this chapter, we add to the ongoing debates casting light on decolonizing the journalism curriculum in selected Southern African journalism and media studies departments. This research is important in a context where the Global South thinks lowly of itself and “has not been treated as a site of intellectual production” but as a site “of data production and collection by Western scholars and . . . analyses are done in Western universities and research centers” (Mpofu, 2021, p. 10). Where Global South researchers are involved in the knowledge production, there is a deliberate effort to make sure that the presentation and analyses of such knowledge dovetails into the expectations and stencils set in the Global North if they are not research assistants. This partly explains why some Western scholars become experts on Africa after a few years 122

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of fieldwork in Africa. These experts are called to international news media organizations or non-governmental and other global institutes of influence as analysts and experts that write “authoritatively” on Africa. The peer review mechanisms in journals and book publishing are also the main culprits which push Global South scholars who seek to decolonize data gathering and production of knowledge toward the Western methodologies and epistemologies. The focus in this chapter is to get an understanding from the narratives of a few selected academics in some Southern African countries of eSwatini, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Their views are by no means universal of all journalism schools in the sub-­continent, but they are important as experiential data and cast light into the debates from their vantage points. Journalism is an important field of study whose curriculum, methodologies, and theories remain influenced by the Global North, and this, among other things, leads to the undermining of the domestic epistemologies and misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the complexities of the Global South, its people, relevance, cultures, and economies.

Why Journalism Should Be Decolonized: Ideology, Power, and Imagination Most African countries, post-independence, have sought redress of the colonial past to different successes. The redress called for a radical and transformational agenda. Supporting this view and writing specifically on South Africa, Padayachee et al. (2018, p. 289) argued that “embedded in this transformation agenda is the desire for social justice and emancipation, two key imperatives which became the generative force for change in HE post-1994.” Decolonization, we argue in this chapter, seeks to achieve what Padayachee et  al. (2018) characterize as the transformation agenda that re-centers Africans and their knowledge systems and decenters Eurocentric knowledge. The concept of decolonization has different meanings to different people in differing contexts, with dimensions that encapsulate political, economic, cultural, material, and epistemic dimensions (Adefila et al., 2022, p. 131). For this chapter, we borrow from Oelofsen (2015, p. 130–146), who defined decolonization as the change that colonized countries go through when they become politically independent from their former colonizers. As Oelofsen (ibid.) adds: [S]tructures of government and other institutions, the way in which a country is economically organised, as well as the way in which former colonial subjects were encouraged to think, are often still determined by the former colonial powers in post-colonial countries, as a result of the economic and cultural power the former colonisers wield. It is these structures that inform much of literature speaking to decolonization and the current status quo in most African universities, most especially the countries that are the focus of this study. Indigenous peoples worldwide share a commonality of the experience of imperialism and colonization, and this experience has strong threads running through their experiences; these are the theft of sovereignty, land, health, and well-being (Durie, 2004). This theft has sought to delegitimize the indigenes’ knowledge system. As Koopman (2019, p. 48) argues, “the higher education sector has become interwoven with complex neoliberal ideals and core principles that favour the subjectivity of a global entrepreneurial class.” Supporting this argument, Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2017, p. 51) intimates that “every human being is born into a valid 123

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and legitimate knowledge system. This means that African people had their own valid and legitimate indigenous systems of education prior to colonization,” and colonization undermined and sidelined these. In some cases, these were destroyed and eradicated as they were deemed unscientific, illogical, primitive, and not modern. As Ndlovu-Gatsheni adds, the colonizers’ “questioning and sometimes outright denial of African people’s humanity inevitably enabled not only genocides but epistemicides, linguicides and cultural imperialism” (51). The linguicides, epistemicides, and cultural imperialism continue to color the texture of knowledge acquisition, analyses, and implementation in Africa and the rest of the Global South. There has been considerable literature that has looked at decolonization of education in Africa over the past decade (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2021; Heleta, 2016; Adebisi, 2016; Fataar, 2018; Musitha  & Mafukata, 2018). South Africa has occupied much of the attention, in part because the country’s economy remains in the hands of the colonizers and those who benefitted from apartheid and segregationist policies before independence, and this has been reflected in the make-up of the universities where the curricula is largely Westernized and uncolonized and most senior academic staff are White males and females. University spaces and campuses have also been mirroring images of what they were during colonial times, and as a result, there have been violent student protests that grabbed global attention and recognition, where concerns around decolonizing the campuses and curricula were ventilated. It is these events of 2015/2016, anchored on the politics of knowledge in South African universities, which have recently witnessed a radical discursive rupture. Much of the protests centered on what Fataar (2018) described as “the need for change in university knowledge and curricula in the light of what they described as their exposure to Eurocentric, racist, and sexist knowledge at untransformed institutions.” It is in this vein that Heleta (2016, p. 1) argued that ‘ “colonialism, apartheid and other vehicles for entrenching white supremacy did not only affect political rights or economic freedoms’ . . . they have affected every aspect of life and their effects and legacies are still entrenched in South Africa,” including education.

Theorizing Decoloniality Decoloniality as a theoretical framework is largely anchored on the everyday resistance strategies that the indigenous people of the Global South employ in their lived experiences to rail against the undermining and dehumanizing impact of the colonial past and present. The argument is that inasmuch as colonialism as occupation by the West has ended in some countries in the Global South, there remains lingering effects and hangovers of colonization to these communities where the Western forms of education, entertainment, worship, and living in general remain the models to be aspired for. To engage the theory of decoloniality, we need to make a distinction between coloniality and colonialism. We quote MaldonadoTorres at length to make this clear. He writes: Coloniality is different from colonialism. Colonialism denotes a political and economic relation in which the sovereignty of a nation or a people rests on the power of another nation, which makes such a nation an empire. Coloniality, instead, refers to long-­ standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism, but that define culture, labour, intersubjectivity relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations. Thus, coloniality survives colonialism. It is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, 124

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in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our modern experience. In a way, as modern subjects we breathe coloniality all the time and every day. (2007, p. 243) For the purposes of our study, African universities and their curricula have not adapted to the current times, reflective of the political situations and configurations of independence. Thus, universities remain colonial in that indigenous knowledge systems, power relations, knowledge production, among other things, remain a mirror image of the empire. Coloniality prevails to an extent that in South Africa, students agitated for changes in the universities. The changes they clamored for were decolonized curriculum, where dead White men’s theories reign supreme and the names of buildings and lecture halls honored those men and women who worked for the advancement of the agenda of the empire and undermined the humanity of Blacks (see Mpofu, 2017; Begum & Saini, 2019). As early as the 1980s, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (1981) diagnosed the Global South institutions’ refusal to let go of colonial ways of doing and being as they allowed themselves to be mentally colonized and believe that there is no success in this world besides doing things as taught by the colonial masters, even after independence. Decoloniality, therefore, becomes an important tool to dismantle coloniality. While for Maldonaldo-Torres decoloniality seeks to shatter “the relations of power and conceptions of knowledge that ferment reproduction of racial, and geo-political hierarchies that came into being or found new and more powerful forms of expression in the modern/colonial world” (2006, p. 117), for Mignolo, decoloniality also seeks “to unmask, unveil, and reveal coloniality as an underside of modernity that coexisted with the rhetoric of progress, equality, fraternity and liberty” (2011, p. 54). Mignolo continues to add that decoloniality as a theory is a “critical intellectual theory critical intellectual theory as well as political project which seeks to disentangle ex-colonized parts of the world from coloniality” (2011, p. 54). Decoloniality does not, in any way, suggest throwing away Western-formulated theories; it advocates, instead, for including these theories in conversation or through adopting and domesticating them to the current contexts in the Global South. This theory is relevant to this study, as it will help us understand if academics from selected universities understand the meaning, need, and implementation of decolonized journalism and media studies curricula in their respective institutions.

Method This study employed the qualitative methodology because of its (qualitative methodology) ability to explore and provide deeper insights into real-world problems (Tenny et al., 2022). As Tenny et al. (2022, n.p) rightly note, qualitative studies “ask open-ended questions whose answers are not easily put into numbers such as ‘how’ and ‘why’ categories, hence requiring nuance in understanding particular phenomenon.” This study sought to understand journalism and media scholars’ understanding of decolonization, the possibility of a decolonized curriculum in their institutions, opportunities that could be reaped should decolonization happen, and institutional willingness to decolonize the university and curriculum. In order to draw insights from selected journalism and media scholars, researchers employed the purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews designs. Pathak and Intratat (2012), weighing in, intimate that semi-structured interviews are used when more useful information can 125

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be obtained from focused yet conversational two-way communication with the participants. The purposive sampling was selected because of its ability to solicit views and opinions from sources regarded to have relevant information. Agreeing with this view, Campbell et  al. (2020) argue that “the reason for purposive sampling is the better matching of the sample to the aims and objectives of the research, thus improving the rigor of the study and trustworthiness of the data and results.” This study wanted to understand how journalism and media scholars understand decolonization and their perceptions of challenges and opportunities; hence, scholars in this field were viewed to be the most relevant for interviews. We also used the semi-structured interview, as this design is considered “reasonably objective while still permitting a more thorough understanding of the respondent’s opinions and the reason behind them than would be possible using the mailed questionnaire” (Carruthers, 1990, p. 65). Our case study had a sample of nine interviewees who are journalism and media academics from three countries: South Africa, eSwatini, and Zimbabwe. Three interviews were conducted from each country to ensure consistency. For eSwatini, interviewees were from one university (University of eSwatini), while South Africa and Zimbabwe had interviews with scholars from three universities each. In South Africa, interviews were conducted with scholars from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Tshwane University of Technology, and University of Johannesburg. In Zimbabwe, interviewees were from the National University of Science and Technology, Great Zimbabwe University, and the Midlands State University. The interviews were conducted through a combination of Zoom meetings and face-to-face.

Findings Definitional Conundrum The findings of this study demonstrate that there is no homogenous view on what decolonization entails. The absence of shared definition informs, in part, confusion that has informed much of the debates often associated with nascent disciplines and concepts. Responding to this question, an interviewee from a journalism school in eSwatini, giving an applied response, had this to say: To decolonise the education system entails teaching and learning meant to foster the development of knowledge systems that have, for centuries, been labelled inferior and therefore useless. Decolonization needs to occupy itself with understanding how science (at an ontological level), has valorised and devalorised knowledge systems with western knowledge being formal and acceptable while the “undocumented” knowledge of the “other” was regarded as tacit and suspicious. The aforementioned view was closely related to the one shared by a journalism lecturer from Zimbabwe, with minor alterations. The response was more philosophical in comparison to the one from eSwatini. On defining decolonization, the interviewee opined: Decolonization (or decoloniality) is a critique of colonial matrices and Eurocentric knowledge systems. It emerges as a critique of coloniality of power, knowledge and being. Decolonization of education is born out of a realisation that universities in the Global South are Westernised. The canon of thought is grounded on Western 126

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philosophies. Western knowledges are represented as objective, non-situated and universal. Decoloniality calls for the provincialisation of the hegemonic Western epistemologies, and the liberation of the subjugated non-Western knowledges. This definition dovetails with Oelofsen’s intervention on the need to decolonize education. He writes that for a postcolonial country “to overcome the legacy of colonialism, it is necessary to also decolonise the intellectual landscape of the country in question, and ultimately, decolonise the mind of the formerly colonised” (Oelofsen, 2015, p. 130). Some of the interviewees focused more on the centering of African knowledge systems in defining decolonization. For example, a respondent from a South African university argued that decolonization had [m]ainly to do with changing systems from the one of the pasts largely colonial and Eurocentric to the one that is more pan African. The conversation should be beyond changing the curriculum, like in the SA context it should be about telling African stories and assist our people to understand those stories because it is about them. The response from South Africa confirms what Dastile (2013, p. 93) argued, saying that “an African-centered decolonial paradigm argues for centering, Africanization and decolonisation of existing paradigms in order to analyse and explain Africa from within.” As Dastile argued, this paradigm posits that the primary site of studying African realities cannot be located outside the context of Africa. Besides, it remains instructive, as Bismarck (2012) says, that decolonization as a field is important and yet remains controversial because “there is yet no consensus about what is really entailed.” What is critical, though, from the foregoing is the realization of the importance of a decolonized education system that departs from seeing the world in Anglo-Saxon lens and privileges the possibility of seeing the world from the Global South perspective. This definitional conundrum pervades institutions of higher learning in some universities, as demonstrated in the following section.

Decolonization in Spaces Still Under Coloniality The past two decades have been characterized by polarization and accelerated pursuit for decolonization in the African academy. At the center of conversation around the issue of decolonization has been the issue of location of language at institutions of higher learning. This view is supported by Gopal (2021, p. 876), citing Ngugi, who posited that: For Ngũgĩ, the “struggle to seize back . . . a real control of all the means of communal self-definition” was profoundly tied up with recovering the use of African languages which had been, often coercively, marginalised under colonial rule in favour of metropolitan tongues like French, English and Portuguese. However, as one interviewee intimated, language goes beyond the issue of codes to issues of power. As the responded from eSwatini conceded: To resist coloniality, therefore, means understanding its language and disarticulating the language from our mainstream discourse. 127

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Part of the transmission of power through language has been ensuring that colonial languages become mainstream while languages of the colonies are relegated to the margins. To ensure that people in the colonies, as argued earlier, recover what was lost of them, some participants advanced that the curriculum should be reviewed and center African people. A respondent from Zimbabwe, agreeing with this position, posited that decolonization of curricula would entail theorisation from the margins, or from the non-Western perspectives. Non-Western knowledges that have been pushed to the margins should be liberated. In fields such as journalism and media studies, lecturers can engage with Global South perspectives such as Ubuntu and Afrikology in their courses, instead of relying on Western philosophers. The call for decolonization of the curriculum is meant to ensure that the education students are exposed to speaks to their realities and is not a transplant from European epistemic knowledges. As Fomunyam (2017, p. 196) argued, “[d]ecolonising the curriculum in South African higher education is the foregrounding of local or indigenous knowledge and experiences in curricula content, thereby downplaying or eradicating Eurocentric or global north experiences which has dominated curriculum content for centuries.” A respondent from a South African university argued that to ensure success of the decolonization project, political will was imperative. He also added that: We must be deliberate about what we want to achieve and intentional. There must be a political will. At the level of leadership, we need to have a vision that centres African narratives. Where it matters the most, the heads of department, especially those dealing with the curriculum must be deliberate and intentional. It will also be difficult to achieve this without the willingness and total buy-in of the academics themselves. This view is in concert with Rizvi (2019, p. 9), who argued that “major changes are needed to the curriculum – of what is taught, and how – so that it is more inclusive of the various epistemic traditions that continue to be overlooked or even disparaged.”

Opportunities for Decolonizing the Journalism and Media Studies Curricula As already intimated earlier, the Western axiologies and epistemologies have been privileged at the expense of hybrid, homegrown, and localized ones. Since the 1990s, African media scholars have been challenging frames that have come to dominate leading international news networks when it comes to projecting African people. Some of the frames have centered on diseases, poverty, corruption, ignorance, and perceived sexual athleticism of Africans (Mpofu, 2019). While the international media occupies the form and center position in these projections, African journalists have also participated in furthering these discourses. The perpetuation of stereotypes on African people in mainstream media is what has prompted some media scholars to call for decolonization of media and journalism studies so it responds to African norms, values, and ethics. Besides news media coverage of Africa and the Global South, the research methods, concepts, and analytical methods used in the current literature in journalism and media studies privilege and center Western views. This prompted 128

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James Curran and Myung-Jin Park to make a critical intervention in 2000 calling for the de-Westernization of media studies. Commenting on decolonization of African journalism, the interviewee from eSwatini argued the following: We are struggling as an industry and lecturers; Journalism was never invented in Africa. We were telling stories but not in the fashion of the western. This means we either dismantle the current structure and revisit our models or we twist our curricula. The challenge is that even the shifts we are seeing in the 21st century is coming from the West. It is this cul-de-sac we face; at one hand we need the innovations happening that come from the global north but at the same time we want to decolonise which means moving away from western ways of telling stories. Our secondary challenge is that our consumers consume through western ways which makes it difficult even if we were to decolonise. We need to introduce journalism that uses local languages, e.g. siSwati. However, using a local language doesn’t necessarily mean we have decolonised. Maybe we should go back to Ngugi who talks of decolonise the mind. However, the interviewee from Zimbabwe had a different view, which was more positive, regarding the potential of decolonization journalism. The respondent added: Yes, it’s possible but it won’t happen overnight. The gains – an appreciation of the dynamic and multifaceted nature of journalism/media studies. Whilst it’s important to acknowledge the value of normative theories (traditional Western theories), it is also imperative to theorise journalism/media from the vantage point of the non-Western world. An interviewee from a South African university was more measured in his response, arguing for a more cautious approach that keeps “best” practices of both words. In his response, he argues: There is no need to throw away the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. There are some useful concepts from the Western perspective but what is most important is to acknowledge where one speaks from, that is, to acknowledge one’s African sense of being, ways of knowing and living and foreground these in the way we practice journalism and develop curricula. A close reading of this response shows subtle signs of inclusion and diversity as the African university charts the way forward with decolonization. The view from the South African interviewee is in sharp contrast to the views by Bhanot and Shukla (2015), who argued that the concept of diversity only exists if there is an assumed neutral point from which “others” are “diverse.” They further intimated that: [P]utting aside for now the straight, male, middle-classness of that ‘neutral’ space, its dominant aspect is whiteness. Constructed by a white establishment, the idea of ‘diversity’ is neoliberal speak. It is the new corporatized version of multiculturalism. It is about management, efficiency, box-ticking. (Bhanot & Shukla, 2015, p. 3) 129

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This conundrum of diversity is what Doharty et al. (2021, p. 233) conclude in their study by arguing that “despite the paradox of working under (what purports to be) a ‘decolonial’ agenda, widespread calls to decolonize our universities have further embedded rather than dismantled whiteness, thus continuing to characterise the careers, well-being, and daily lives of faculty of colour,” demonstrating the challenges that come with a decolonial agenda. These challenges toward decolonization emanate from the fact that most universities in Africa are configured along Global South colonial lines and most academics in these institutions are a product of coloniality-of-higher-education, either through studying colonized curricular in their home or other African universities or they were educated in the West. Decolonizing universities becomes an important project to accompany the projects that focus on decolonizing the curriculum (Bhambra et al., 2018; Gopal, 2021).

Concluding Discussion From the outset, this chapter sought to answer three questions: (1) establishing consensus among African scholars on what decolonization entails; (2) understanding possibilities, if any, exist to decolonize education in spaces that are still under coloniality; and finally, (3) taking note of challenges and opportunities presented by a decolonized curriculum and, by extension, African university. As this study has shown, African university and African journalism schools face challenges when it comes to decolonization. Beyond issues of curriculum, university and media schools face untransformed faculty members who have fought to ensure the move toward decolonization is slow, if not faltering completely. This is not a new challenge; writing almost a decade ago, Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013b) argued that: Africans must open their eyes and see that the European diaspora living in Africa is justifiably right to be frantically opposed to decoloniality because they never experienced the dark side of modernity and colonialism which empowered them both economically and epistemologically. In part, the resistance that most journalism schools in Africa face today has to do with remnants of colonial beneficiaries who are threatened by a decolonized university and education which would render their privileges, a result of colonial infrastructure, impotent.

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Challenges and Opportunities at Decolonizing the Curriculum Carruthers, J. (1990). A rationale for the use of semi-structured interviews. Journal of Educational Administration, 28(1). Dastile, N. P. (2013). Beyond Euro-Western dominance: An African-centred decolonial paradigm. Africanus, 43(2), 93–104. Doharty, N., Madriaga, M., & Joseph-Salisbury, R. (2021). The university went to “decolonise’ and all they brought back was lousy diversity double-speak! Critical race counter-stories from faculty of colour in “decolonial’ times. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(3), 233–244. Durie, M. (2004). Understanding health and illness: Research at the interface between science and indigenous knowledge. International Journal of Epidemiology, 33, 1138–1143. Fataar, A. (2018). Decolonising education in South Africa: Perspectives and debates. Educational Research for Social Change, 7(SPE), vi–ix. Fomunyam, K. G. (2017). Decolonising the engineering curriculum in a South African University of Technology. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 12(17), 6797–6805. Gopal, P. (2021). On decolonisation and the university. Textual Practice, 35(6), 873–899. Heleta, S. (2016). Decolonisation of higher education: Dismantling epistemic violence and Eurocentrism in South Africa. Transformation in Higher Education, 1(1), 1–8. Kapoor, D., & Shizha, E. (Eds.). (2010). Indigenous knowledge and learning in Asia/Pacific and Africa: Perspectives on development, education, and culture. Springer. Koopman, O. (2019). Is the decolonisation of the South African university curriculum possible in a neoliberal culture? Alternation, 24, 48–69. Macamo, E. (2016). Before we start: Science and power in the constitution of Africa. The Politics of Nature and Science in Southern Africa, 323–334. http://edoc.unibas.ch/53970/ Maldonado-Torres, N. (2006). Cesaire’s gift and the decolonial turn. Radical Philosophy Review, 9(2), 111–138. Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being: Contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270. Melber, H. (2018). Knowledge production and decolonisation – Not only African challenges. The Strategic Review for Southern Africa, 40(1), 4–15. Mignolo, W. D. (2011). The darker side of Western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press. Moosavi, L. (2020). The decolonial bandwagon and the dangers of intellectual decolonisation. International Review of Sociology, 30(2), 332–354. Mpofu, S. (2017). Disruption as a communicative strategy: The case of #feesMustfall and #rhodesMustfall students’ protests in South Africa. Journal of African Media Studies, 9(2), 351–373. Mpofu, S. (2019). Afro-orientalism in the global village: Global media imaginations of South Africa and Africa in the coverage of the 2010 World Cup. In M. J. Gennaro & S. Aderinto (Eds.), Sport in Africa. Routledge. Mpofu, S. (2021). Social media and covid-19: Taking humour during pandemics seriously. In Mpofu, S. (Eds.), Digital humour in the covid-19 pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South (pp. 1–16). Springer. Mundimbe, V. Y. (1988). The invention of Africa. Gnosis, philosophy and the order of knowledge. Indiana University Press. Musitha, M. E., & Mafukata, M. A. (2018). Crisis of decolonising education: Curriculum implementation in Limpopo Province of South Africa. Africa’s Public Service Delivery and Performance Review, 6(1), 1–8. Ncube, L. (2022). Conference calls for government communications in indigenous languages. www. chronicle.co.zw/conference-calls-for-government-communications-in-indigenous-languages/ Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2013a). Empire, global coloniality and African subjectivity. Berghahn Books. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2013b). Decolonising the university in Africa. The Thinker, 51(2), 46–51. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2017). The emergence and trajectories of struggles for an “African university’: The case of unfinished business of African epistemic decolonisation. Kronos, 43(1), 51–77. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2021). The cognitive empire, politics of knowledge and African intellectual productions: Reflections on struggles for epistemic freedom and resurgence of decolonisation in the twenty-first century. Third World Quarterly, 42(5), 882–901. Oelofsen, R. (2015). Decolonisation of the African mind and intellectual landscape. Phronimon, 16(2), 130–146.

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12 JOURNALISM EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN Key Gaps in Curriculum Development Sadia Jamil and Kriti Bhuju

Introduction Pakistan has a multilingual and pluralistic media landscape, with several radio, television, print, and online media outlets operating at local, national, and international levels. In the past two decades, the mushrooming growth of electronic and online media has transformed the traditional journalism practice in the country. Despite the increasing number of media outlets, there has never been any compulsory educational requisite for becoming a journalist (Jamil & Bhuju, 2022). A vast percentage of media professionals, particularly in the print media, lack formal journalism training. As radio and television journalism has grown in popularity, the necessity for formal education in the field has grown even more essential (Bockino  & Ilyas, 2021). The growth of private television news channels, FM broadcast industry, and online media has accommodated many journalism graduates at significant pay rewards, which has substantially attracted the Pakistani youth to choose journalism degree programs for better career opportunities. Journalism has been a well-established taught discipline at the Pakistani universities since its inception as an independent country. Historically, the University of Punjab had its first department of journalism established in 1941 (i.e., before the partition of India and Pakistan). Currently, the department is known as the Institute of Communication Studies, and it provides bachelor’s, master’s, MPhil, and PhD degrees in communication studies. Pakistan’s Sindh province had its first journalism program at the University of Karachi, and that was launched in 1955. Subsequently, Gomal University in Dera Ismail Khan began offering journalist training programs in 1974, and Sindh University in Hyderabad created the Department of Mass Communication in 1977. In 1986, the Allama Iqbal Open University established a Department of Mass Communication, and in 1987, the University of Balochistan established a Department of Mass Communication in Quetta. The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Peshawar started offering a master’s program in 1988, and such a program was introduced at Bahauddin Zakari University in 1991 (Hafeez & Nauman, 2020; Paracha et al., 2012). At present, several public- and private-sector universities offer journalism education, especially in major cities of Pakistan, including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, and Quetta.

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There are some national studies that explore the journalism and mass communication education in Pakistan (Jamil & Bhuju, 2022; Bockino & Ilyas, 2021; Ilyas, 2019; Paracha et al., 2012), industry relevance of media education (Hafeez & Nauman, 2020), and history of journalism in the subcontinent (Ashraf  & Chaudhry, 2013; Shabir et  al., 2011). These past and recent studies are useful; however, there is a scarcity of qualitative studies that incorporate the perspectives of both journalism professionals and scholars to identify key gaps in curriculum development. Thus, informed by Taba’s model of curriculum development (1962, 1971), this study seeks the views of senior Pakistani journalists and scholars about journalism education that can meet the professional and news industry’s requirements. Precisely, this study investigates a research question: What are the key gaps in journalism curriculum development in Pakistan? To investigate this question, this study uses the qualitative method of in-depth interviews (online) and uses thematic analysis to address the findings.

Literature Review Scholarship highlights that the existing courses of journalism education in Pakistan have a huge gap between the theoretical knowledge and the practical needs (Jamil & Bhuju, 2022). Hafeez and Nauman (2020, p. 14), in their study, suggest that “we might say almost everything is wrong when assessing media education in Pakistan.” Rather than a more specialized model that could better educate students for the intricacies of the Pakistani media industry, many Pakistani journalism programs “are still dominated by a model widespread across the developing world” (Pintak, 2017, as cited in Hafeez & Nauman, 2020, p. 4). As journalism and mass communication are a technical discipline, students must receive practical training to meet the demands of the media market. Due to a lack of technical resources, the departments are still unable to meet all the field’s criteria, albeit they were successful in imparting theoretical and practical understanding of the topic to some level (Paracha et al., 2012). For instance, Jamil and Bhuju (2022) suggest that Pakistani universities do put efforts in upgrading their journalism and mass communication departments by amending curricula, initiating new programs, establishing labs, and enriching faculty to meet the need of the hour, but still, wide shortfalls in journalism and media education facilities can be observed. Bockino and Ilyas (2021) highlight that practical journalism courses are taught by regular faculty members with no or limited practical journalism experience or who have retired from practical journalism long ago. They are imparting theoretical and outdated knowledge to journalism students in Pakistan. This indicates not only a persistent gap between theory and practice but also a status quo as far as the growth of journalism is concerned in Pakistan. Despite multiplying media canvas of the country, studies show that there is a high need to enhance the quality and quantity of media education in Pakistan. Pakistani public-sector universities, which are recognized by the country’s Higher Education Commission, do offer journalism education. However, their offered courses are not satisfactory in either quantity or quality. The lack, in quality and quantity, is mainly due to the smaller number of highly qualified faculty members (a few with PhD), a lack of infrastructure for practical training, and outdated curricula which do not meet the industry demands (Jamil  & Bhuju, 2022; Ashraf & Chaudhry, 2013). Therefore, there is a need for developing a liaison between the news media industry and academia so that necessary human resources are produced.

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Moreover, it is an established reality that practical journalism via mass media can play advocacy, information, and education roles to improve a country’s development indicators (Jamil et al., 2022; Mellado & Subervi, 2013). However, various studies have shown that Pakistani journalism lacks such contents, and hence, there is a need to revise the curriculum. Experts hold journalism departments’ curricula responsible for not sensitizing and equipping future journalists with updated courses and training modules to respond effectively to the latest development approaches (Kamboh, 2020). According to Kamboh (2020), in his study, professional journalists find the journalism curriculum development process faulty as it is developed in isolation by journalism academia without taking inputs from media and development sector practitioners. The existing syllabi is unsuited to the changing dynamics of media in Pakistan. Kamboh (2020) highlights several factors that underpin the gap between theory and practice as far as journalism education is concerned, including introduction of irrelevant courses, outdated syllabus, a lack of trained professors, and a lack of required practical exposure. He mentions that Pakistani journalism students are mostly taught the theory of practical journalism courses (like radio, TV, page making, etc.) without being offered any hands-on practice in labs or studios in most of the universities’ journalism department (Kamboh, 2020). This indicates the necessity for curriculum development that can build the gap between theory and practice. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of academic studies that identify key gaps in curriculum development in Pakistani journalism schools. Hence, this study aims to fill this gap in the literature.

Conceptual Framework: Taba’s Model of Curriculum Development Curriculum development generally refers to the systematic organization of taught course that follows a number of stages, including initial preparation (i.e., identification of goals and objectives, content, pedagogical approach), implementation, and evaluation (Hewitt, 2006; Beauchamp, 1981). This study is informed by Taba’s model of curriculum development. Taba highlights the need for the assessment of students’ learning experience and achievement of the taught course content, and that, she believes, can be achieved through proper curriculum development (Taba, 1962). She suggests seven phases of curriculum development, which are the following: 1. Diagnosis of learners’ needs 2. Formulation of objectives 3. Selection of the contents 4. Organization of the contents 5. Selection of the learning experiences 6. Organization of the learning activities 7. Evaluation

(Bhuttah et al., pp. 18–19; Taba, 1962)

At the heart of Taba’s model is the mandatory participation of teachers, who should take part in the process of curriculum development (Oliva, 2009; Taba, 1971). In doing so, she does not view the imperative of any other stakeholder to take part in curriculum planning and evaluation. Some scholars view it as being “realistic” to weigh teachers as the key participant in curriculum development (Bhuttah, 2019, p. 2017). Taba’s model is significant as it

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focuses on all key aspects of curriculum development, which provides us a rationale to use it to identify gaps in journalism curriculum development in Pakistan. However, it is important to recognize the importance of integrating theory into practice, which requires industry’s perspective to make curriculum more holistic. Therefore, this study incorporates both the perspectives of professional journalists and journalism faculty.

Methodology Research Question, Data Collection Method, and Sampling This study uses the qualitative method of in-depth interviews (online) to investigate a research question: What are the key gaps in journalism curriculum development in Pakistan? The rationale for using interviews as the primary source of data collection is that it helps to offer detailed insights into the topic of investigation (Kallio et  al., 2016; Evans  & Lewis, 2018). Using purposive sampling, the interview sample for this study includes 15 senior journalists (i.e., 10 male and 5 female) from Pakistan’s mainstream news media and 12 journalism faculties (i.e., 5 female and 7 male) from Pakistan’s public- and private-sector universities operating in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Islamabad. The selected male and female journalists in this study are of age ranging between 48 and 69 years. They are all full-time employees of Pakistan’s mainstream news media organizations that operate in Karachi. Senior journalists have been selected from each sampled news organizations, including Urdu-language newspapers (i.e., Daily Jang, Daily Express, and Nawa-eWaqt), English-language newspapers (i.e., Daily Dawn, The News International, and Express Tribune), and private television news channels (i.e., GEO news television, ARY news, AAJ News, Dunya News, and Express News). Three senior journalists have been selected from Pakistan Television Corporation (i.e., the state-owned television). The criterion of selected journalists’ seniority is based on their work experience. Journalists who possess at least 15 or more than 15 years of journalistic experience have been selected to take part in this study. Moreover, the selected journalism faculty is of age ranging between 39 and 58 years. They have been selected from four public-sector universities, including Sindh University of Jamshoro (Sindh), Punjab University (Lahore), Bahria University (Islamabad), and University of Peshawar. Interviewees from two private-sector universities have also taken part, including Hamdard University (Karachi) and University Management Technology (Lahore). It is important to mention that there are many other public- and private-sector universities that offer journalism courses in Pakistan. However, many initially contacted faculties could not take part in the research due to their personal and professional commitments, and hence, data collection is limited to 15 interviews of journalism faculty belonging to the aforementioned universities.

Data Collection Process As far as the data collection process is concerned, all journalists’ interviews have been carried out in the first phase of data collection between February 2021 and March 2021. Interview with journalism faculty has been carried out between August 2021 and mid-October 2021. Interviewees have been asked questions related to the students’ learning needs and expectations, objectives of curriculum, content selection, organization of content and learning activities, students’ learning experiences, and curriculum evaluation. The interview guide is 136

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therefore informed by the conceptual model of this study, thereby to explore all key aspects of curriculum development.

Data Analysis and Ethics The interview data has been analyzed using deductive thematic analysis. In a deductive approach, themes emerge from the theory itself (Evans & Lewis, 2018). Further, this study uses Taba’s model of curriculum development; therefore, the data has been analyzed using seven key elements of curriculum development, including (1) diagnosis of learners’ needs, (2) formulation of objectives, (3) selection of the content, (4) organization of the content, (5) selection of learning experience, (6) organization of learning activities, and (7) evaluation. To ensure compliance with the ethical protocols, all interviewees have been provided a project information sheet explaining the research objectives, background, and data collection method. Signed informed consents have also been obtained from all participants who have agreed to take part in this study anonymously.

Findings Journalism courses are now in greater demand than ever before, and this is primarily because of the substantial expansion of local news media industry in the past 15 years (Jamil & Bhuju, 2022). At present, it is being offered in many private and public institutions as a developed undergraduate and graduate program. However, interviewees’ feedback in this study suggests that the current journalism courses being taught do not completely meet the practical requirements of local news media industry in Pakistan. Drawing on Taba’s model, this study reveals some loopholes in the process of journalism curriculum development in Pakistan: 1. No focus on investigating students’ needs. 2. Varying and unclear curriculum goals and objectives. 3. Poor selection of content due to linguistic barriers and untrained faculty. 4. Unsystematic organization of the contents. 5. Theory-focused learning experiences instead focus on practical and experiential learning. 6. A lack of organization in the students’ leaning activities and its integration of learning experiences. 7. A lack of course evaluation. Interviewed faculty responses suggest that the process of curriculum development does not involve the assessment of students’ expectations and their needs, which is important to formulate curriculum goals and objectives. For instance, an interviewee from a publicsector university stated, “We are still quite teacher-centered in the delivery of taught courses. Students’ expectations are hardly asked.” This indicates the need for devising a system of students’ feedback that can help incorporate their needs and requirements at the time of curriculum development. Another interviewed faculty highlights a relevant problem. She states: We have cultural diversity and social stratification in each province. These factors do influence students’ needs that we need to understand. We just straightaway begin with drafting of a document with some unexplicit objectives and borrowed content and then think it curriculum. And even this practice of curriculum development is not 137

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uniform across Pakistan. The quality of journalism education does vary in different parts of the country. Resonating with the views of the recently quoted interviewee, other interviewees mention that journalism curriculum is not consistent across Pakistan’s public- and private-sector universities. The diversity of journalism courses ranges from absolute theory-based programs or courses to intense technical trainings. Also, the objectives and course outcomes are not clearly defined in most journalism schools. For instance, an interviewee from a public-sector university states: Most public-sector universities offer theory concentrated journalism courses, and they are less focused on practical training of students. Then, if you look at course outline, you may get confused regarding the course outcome. So, course objectives are not drafted clearly. And given there is a lack of clarity about course goals, students just end up finish a program or course. But they hardly get sense of its practical usage in their professional lives. Another interviewee, from a private television news channel, reflects upon the ways inconsistency of curriculum and unclear course objectives affect the professional lives of journalism students. He says: We have now plenty of options as far as journalism courses are concerned at Pakistan’s public and private-sector universities. However, they are so varied in their scope and goals that when students go in the job market, they find a skill gap. The situation becomes worse for journalism students who come from universities that offer mere theory-based journalism education. You would be surprised, still history of journalism in Pakistan is taught as the main course in many public sector universities. My concern is history cannot enable students to survive in evolving news media landscape. I think the key gap is that curriculum is not uniform, as well as course goals are not welldefined in most universities. These findings suggest an absence of explicit guidelines regarding the proportion of skills versus theoretical content in the curriculum of media and journalism courses. What is necessary is a consistent, well-balanced curriculum containing a good mix of theoretical modules and practical skills, keeping in mind the industry’s needs. Another gap in curriculum identified by interviewees in this study is related to the concentration of theory-focused learning experience instead of adopting pedagogical approaches that can strengthen students’ practical skills and experiences. “We need to review the learning experiences of journalism students that are mostly theory-based learning experiences and not experiential learning based on their experiences,” states an interviewed faculty staff at a private university. This implies that the current approach to journalism curriculum at Pakistani universities buttresses a “teacher-centered” approach rather than a “student-centered” approach to learning experiences. For instance, an interviewed journalists from an Urdulanguage newspaper mentions: I have spent 30 years in journalism. We have grown up with a “chalk and talk” learning experience. Time has changed. We need to offer student real work experiences so that they can better respond to the practical needs of news industry. 138

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Kartveit (2009, p.  36) suggests that theory-focused learning experience enriches teachercentered learning, which means “the teacher writes on a board and speaks while learners listen and look and try to absorb facts.” Therefore, this pedagogical style does not involve the experiential learning aspect. When talking about the selection of learning experience, a senior faculty at a public-sector university reveals: We need to consider monitory as well as technical limitations to select an experiential learning experience. Many institutes have the latest equipment available such as news and media labs with modern computers, multimedia and editing software these days. But again, resources at public sector universities are not enough and that is why they are just offering theory-based learning experiences to students. These findings indicate the need for bringing a holistic learning experience to journalism students that can combine both theoretical and practical aspects. What else is crucial is the role of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission in pooling up resources for universities that need to build up their technical capacities to enhance the learning experience of students. Interview data further unpacks “poor organization and selection of content” as one of the key gaps in journalism curriculum development at Pakistani universities. In this regard, an interviewee from an English-language newspaper emphasizes: Some factors, such as the selection of appropriate content and then its proper organization, are crucial to meet the industry’s requirements. Pakistan has well-established print media and television news channels that operate in Urdu language. So, it is natural for students to choose Urdu journalism courses for better job prospects. But most of the Western journalism literature is not available with Urdu translation. So, students are not taught an updated version of theory. Libraries and journalism schools need to coordinate to better organize the availability of reading materials and other learning content from other parts of the world. This shall help our students to better make pace with new knowledge, trends, and topics in the field. Likewise, an interviewed faculty at a public-sector university highlights: Linguistic barrier does affect the selection of content. Most journalism literature comes from the West and in English-language. Academic committees find it hard to include it in curriculum given they have access issues to international libraries, as well as they are aware of language constraints faced by the students. Also, we do not have trained faculty staff who can design courses that meet industry’s requirements. Many faculty staffs are not even aware of recent global developments in news industries. That creates problem when selecting the content for students. It is important to consider that the selection of content is not just limited to the language of instruction and course content. Appropriate students’ evaluation methods that align with content are equally important. For instance, an interviewee faculty emphasizes, “We need to ensure that students’ evaluation combines research course work, practical assignments, and exams. This shall help to evaluate the learning outcome of selected content.” This study also reveals a lack of organization of students’ learning activities and its proper integration into their learning experiences, which is not prioritized when developing and 139

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reviewing journalism curricula in most Pakistani universities. “Our ties with the industry are weak. Most news media organization do not cooperate for internship programs for students that affect the integrated learning process,” reveals an interviewed faculty staff. Interviewees’ responses reveal that there are many Pakistani universities offering journalism courses. However, a very few have partnership with the local news media organizations for students’ workshops and internship that can improve their job prospects. Furthermore, one key gap identified by interviewees is the absence of curriculum evaluation (either by universities or the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan), which continues to increase the gap between theory and practice of journalism education in the country. “There is no evaluation and reform mechanism that can update journalism programs and courses meeting the requirements of digital age and ever-changing news media industry,” says an interviewed journalist from a television news channel. Similarly, another interviewed journalist asserts: Pakistan is currently experiencing digital divide in terms of access and usage of the Internet and digital technologies. This technological gap, between haves and haves, is affecting the development and growth in different sectors and news media is no exception. We do not have trained journalists for digital journalism. Why? Most public sector universities are not technologically equipped, and their curriculum is not even up to date that can prepare journalism students to work in a digital news environment. With the advancements in technology, certain digital skills are growing in importance in the newsrooms, for instance, “shooting photos and video, multimedia delivery, multimedia editing and production, capturing audio, animation, and Flash and Podcasting” (Jamil, 2022, p. 15). Therefore, it is crucial to incorporate course content that enhances journalism students’ knowledge and digital skills to qualify better for multiplatform reporting and to be more competitive for the job market. Hence, Pakistan’s tertiary-level educational system is the key point for teaching journalism students more advanced skills. Curriculum planning and evaluation are essential while considering the different aspects of digital skills, which are important for the career development of journalism students to work in digital newsrooms.

Discussion and Conclusion The present-day news media environment necessitates journalism students to be capable of a broad range of skills. Students are anticipated to possess newsgathering, writing, video editing, podcasting, and social media abilities (Mensing & Ryfe, 2013; Barnes & de Villiers Scheepers, 2017). Professional journalists can decide from careers in national affairs reporting, sports journalism, environmental journalism, international reporting, and health journalism, among many others. This increasing pressure to altogether generalize in skills and specialize in knowledge represents a challenge to journalism schools that must try to adapt their curricula to meet industry requirements (Parks, 2015; Mellado & Subervi, 2013). The growth of social media, the decline of local newspapers, and the ambiguity of viable advertising models within news media are some issues that journalists and journalism students need to consider as they move and develop their professional careers (Jiang & Rafeeq, 2019; Franklin, 2014). In the case of Pakistan, the country has witnessed a considerable growth of news media industry in the past 15  years. Despite the growth of news media outlets, the quality of 140

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journalism education remains questionable for many journalism scholars and professionals. Pakistan’s universities do face the challenge of producing skilled journalism students in specialized areas by introducing advanced degree programs focusing on theory and research in the local context. Drawing on Taba’s model of curriculum development, this study reveals some loopholes that do affect curriculum development and result in a gap between the theory and the practice of journalism. As aforementioned, these gaps in the journalism curriculum mainly manifest themselves in forms of no focus on investigating students’ needs, varying and unclear curriculum goals and objectives, theory-focused learning experiences, poor selection of content, a lack of organization of learning activities and its integration into students’ learning experiences, and a lack of course evaluation. This study unpacks that Pakistani journalists and journalism scholars are concerned about the practical outcomes of offered degree programs and courses at the national universities both in the private and the public sectors. Therefore, despite the positive development of journalism as an emerging discipline, educators fail to provide quality education and the training to match the challenges of the modern media industry and prepare diligent and capable media personnel. It is perhaps due to the orthodox education system that is resistant to any change in existing curriculum and pedagogical approaches. The thoughtlessness in identifying the need for the convergence of thoughts, technologies, and the disciplines that are coming together to teach media, journalism, and communication subjects is one of the major hindrances. Authors argue that the gap between theory and practice is not just because of shortcomings in the journalism curriculum. There are some other factors, too, that are relevant to be considered. First, Taba (1962) posits that teachers have a key role in planning, implementation, and subsequently, evaluation of the curriculum. This implies that her conceptual model is teacher-centered in its focus. Nevertheless, she prioritizes to assess students’ needs (i.e., learners’ needs) even before the formulation of goals and objectives. In the case of Pakistan, universities need to assess students’ expectations and their needs from specific journalism courses first. This shall help to align their interest with curriculum objectives for better learning outcomes. Second, the scarcity of appropriate graduate programs in Pakistan and a lack of research funding often push journalism faculty to either switch to other areas of liberal arts or go aboard for quality higher studies. This creates an intellectual deficit, which ultimately affect planning and development of curriculum. Third, many Pakistani universities rely on news and media practitioners to teach graduate-level courses as part-time faculties. Although this setup bridges the gap between the university programs and the news media by offering knowledge delivered by professional journalists at a relatively lower cost and short-term contracts, it can adversely affect the reputation of journalism schools with an overdependence upon visiting lecturers. Another growing trend is to have visiting lectures from overseas faculty. The authors think that foreign faculty can contribute a unique value to journalism schools by bringing fresh perspectives and an up-to-date knowledge of global industry practices. Nevertheless, journalism as a profession operates in its unique socio-cultural context, and any effort to bridge the gap between theory and practice needs to consider the local requirements and needs of journalism students (see also Gladkova & Jamil, 2021). To conclude, journalism education in Pakistan has yet to achieve the thoroughness and research strength that can elevate its status to a top-ranking independent discipline. If it still fails to attain due respect despite being the most sought-after field, it is mainly because of the apathetic attitude toward curriculum development, regular review of curriculum and 141

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pedagogical approaches, and a lack of collaboration between media professionals and academics, who need to work together for bridging the gap between theory and practice. A considerable amount of funding for media labs, international faculty scholarship programs, and curricula uniformity is urgently needed, for which  government and university administrations should contribute. Faculty members should have access to research and professional development opportunities, as well as academic tools for capacity building. Universities and Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission should support industry–university collaboration to provide training, jobs, and shared campus facilities for young media professionals. There is a need to devise a comprehensive curriculum to connect the missing link between journalism education and practice in Pakistan.

References Ashraf, A., & Chaudhry, A. A. (2013). Media education in Pakistan: Curricula, facilities, and practices in public sector universities. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 3(20), 184–197. Barnes, R., & de Villiers Scheepers, M. J. (2017). Tackling uncertainty for journalism graduates: A model for teaching experiential entrepreneurship. Journalism Practice, 12(1), 94–114. doi:10.10 80/17512786.2016.1266277 Beauchamp, G. A. (1981). Curriculum theory (4th ed.). Peacock. Bhuttah, T., Xiaoduan, C., Ullah, H., & Javed, S. (2019). Analysis of curriculum development stages from the perspective of Tyler, Taba and Wheeler. European Journal of Social Sciences, 58(1), 14–22. Bockino, D., & Ilyas, A. (2021). Institutionalized education: Journalism and mass communication education in Pakistan. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 31(1), 34–49. Evans, C., & Lewis, J. (2018). Analyzing semi-structured interviews using thematic analysis: Exploring voluntary civic participation among adults. Sage. Franklin, B. (2014). The future of journalism: In an age of digital media and economic uncertainty. Journalism Studies, 15(5), 481–499. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2014.930254 Gladkova, A., & Jamil, S. (2021). Ethnic journalism in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. Hafeez, E., & Nauman, S. (2020). The relevance of media studies education to industry: Insights from the leading media schools of Pakistan. Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, 75(3), 291–307. Hewitt, T. (2006). Understanding and shaping curriculum: What we teach and why. Sage Publications. Ilyas, A. (2019). Closing the gap: A comparison of journalism education between Pakistan and the United States of America. Global Regional Review, 4(2), 32–41. Jamil, S., & Bhuju, K. (2022). Environmental journalism education beyond the conventional pedagogical approaches: Exploring the scope of experiential learning to train Pakistan’s journalism students. Media Asia. https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2022.2067946 Jamil, S., Iqbal, A., Ittefaq, M., & Kamboh, S. (2022). Building a media literate society: Pathways to improve media and information literacy education in Pakistan. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 77(4), 414–428. Jiang, S., & Rafeeq, A. (2019). Connecting the classroom with the newsroom in the digital age: An investigation of journalism education in the UAE, UK and USA. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 29(1), 3–22. Kallio, H., Pietilä, A. M., Johnson, M., & Kangasniemi, M. (2016). Systematic methodological review: Developing a framework for a qualitative semi-structured interview guide. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72(12), 2954–2965. Kamboh, S. A. (2020). Missing links in practical journalism of developing Pakistan. Journalism and Journalism Education in Developing Countries: India: Manipal Universal Press, 157. Kartveit, K. (2009). Journalism teaching and experiential learning. Zurnalistikos Tyrimai, 2(1), 34–48. https://doi.org/10.15388/zt/jr.2009.2.72

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13 THE PROMISES AND LIMITATIONS OF JOURNALISM EDUCATION IN ETHIOPIA Téwodros Workneh

Introduction Ethiopia has an ancient history of indigenous writing systems. From inscriptions dating back to the 5th century BCE, such as the Garima Gospels, to the liturgical practice of the birana, inscriptions and illustrations have been integral to centuries of Ethiopian Coptic Orthodox Christianity tradition (Elliott, 2017).1 Traditional forms of mass communication, such as dagu (a systematic, regimented exchange of news among the Afar people) and awaj negari (official herald and decree of the Ethiopian court involving mega drums), were also examples of native communication systems (Yimer, 2016). While the rich religious writing tradition did have some impact on the development of modern literature, the advancement of different modes of secular expression have generally been irregular and often suppressed by ruling regimes.2 Although several factors such as conflicts, inaccessibility of media technology, and lack of educational opportunities contributed to the dormant growth of secular modes of expression, state-sponsored censorship and heavy-handed government control of communication resources have played an outsized role in hampering the advancement of freedom of speech and the liberal arts in general (Bonsa, 2000; Mengistu, 2014). For example, the media and the publishing industry in the early days of modern Ethiopian press history (1905–1974) were mainly focused on glorifying the monarchy, the feudal aristocrat class, and the clergy (Reta, 2013). After the Marxist–Leninist inspired Ethiopian Revolution in 1974, the military junta, led by Mengistu Hailemariam, consolidated and nationalized media infrastructures and subjected the press to amplify communist propaganda (Gartley, 1980). Despite initial promises of liberal reform, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)-led government (1991–2019) resorted to cracking down on journalists and the press, often describing them as “anti-development” and “terrorists” (Mengesha, 2016; Workneh, 2019). Although non-state media continue to flourish presently, EPRDF’s successor, the Prosperity Party (PP), has brought back the practice of arresting journalists and imprisoning them without due process. In addition to state-sponsored intimidation, journalists in Ethiopia are currently subjected to attacks, harassment, and intimidation from non-state actors across polarized ethnic-political divides (Workneh, 2021b). DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-15

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The overall historical tenor of authoritarianism and semi-authoritarianism of modern Ethiopia’s governments and their general hostility toward freedom of expression has inevitably shaped the course of journalism education in Ethiopia. For example, most journalism education programs in Ethiopia have been offered at state-owned higher education institutions, where, historically, critical pedagogy involving government entities is inhibited (Weigele & Brandt, 2022; Tamrat, 2022). This condition specifically depressed the training and practice of investigative journalism. While courses related to investigative journalism are incorporated in most undergraduate and graduate programs of journalism education, course contents often refrain from engaging with subjects related to government corruption, nepotism, and other forms of abuse of power. The purpose of this chapter is to assess the state of journalism education in Ethiopia. In doing so, my goal is to demonstrate how the challenges facing journalism education in Ethiopia in recent years cannot be fully understood without meaningfully engaging with the historically repressive political context and the changing political economy of the media industry. I  will start by discussing some key historical highlights of journalism education. Through a survey of relevant literature and personal testimony, I will then outline how political interests shaped the course of journalism education in higher education institutions in recent years. Next, I will highlight opportunities and challenges of journalism education that have emerged in recent years. I will conclude by weighing in on the viability of a “teaching hospital” model as a way forward for journalism education in Ethiopia.

The History of Journalism Education in Ethiopia Although Ethiopian higher education institutions aggressively incorporated journalism programs in their offerings in the past two decades, formal training of journalism practice had not been a common pathway to a reporting career. Traditionally, reporters were recruited from or combined careers with such areas as the performing arts or literary writing. Renowned Ethiopian writers such as Paulos Gnogno (1926–1984), Bealu Girma (1939–1984), and Abe Gubegna (1934–1980) are notable examples of those who infused their literary and historical writing careers with journalism practice (Molvaer, 1997). In this sense, earlier forms of journalism practice recruitment were driven mostly by storytelling talent and proclivity rather than professional training. It should be noted, however, that this phenomenon is not unique to Ethiopia. Early development of media in countries with advanced professionalism in journalism practice was fueled by oral or written artistry rather than professional codes of reporting (e.g., Fishkin, 1988). Another route for a career in journalism involved apprenticeship programs, where new recruits received on-the-job training in media organizations. This practice has been particularly popular in state-owned electronic media operators. Until recently, private entities were not allowed to participate in the broadcasting sector in Ethiopia. This meant would-be journalists were trained under the auspices of state-owned broadcasters, such as the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) or regional state-owned broadcasters.3 With the emergence of private/commercial broadcasters since 2018, the Ethiopian electronic media scene is being modestly populated now, offering more apprenticeship opportunities for aspiring journalists. While apprenticeship pathways continue to produce the next-generation journalists in Ethiopia, a good deal of recent recruits have emerged from higher education training 145

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programs dedicated to the profession of journalism practice. One of the most recognizable pioneers in higher education training of journalists, the Ethiopian Mass Media Training Institute (EMMTI), was notable for staffing a good deal of Ethiopian media institutions’ personnel (Skjerdal, 2011a). Originally offering a diploma program in mass communication with the aim of addressing industry demand for basic reporting skill sets, EMMTI became the first higher education institution in Ethiopia to offer a Bachelor of Arts in journalism focusing on print (newspaper and magazine) and broadcast (radio and television) streams. In 2006, EMMTI merged with the newly established Graduate School of Journalism and Communication at Addis Ababa University (AAU) to form a streamlined undergraduate–graduate program of faculty of journalism and communications (FJC). Since EMMTI started offering a degree program in journalism, more than a dozen of higher education institutions in Ethiopia have developed similar programs producing hundreds of new graduates every year. As I referenced earlier, the School of Journalism and Communication at Addis Ababa University (hereafter referred to as “SJC’ or “the School”) started offering a graduate program in journalism and communication in 2004, the first of its kind in the country. The School was founded through a tripartite agreement between the AAU, NORAD, and Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication (GSJC) in Norway. GSJC provided human resource development support for key Ethiopian staff and comprehensive ICT technical assistance and knowledge until AAU would become self-reliant in terms of manpower and infrastructure within ten years (Addis Ababa University, 2004). Although the collaboration agreement between AAU and NORAD for the specified project was prematurely discontinued in 2007, the School continued to offer a graduate program in journalism and communication.

The Political Conundrums of Journalism Education in Ethiopia: Assessing Prospects and Challenges The monumental hurdle in advancing professional journalism practice and training in Ethiopia has historically been a heavy-handed government control over communication resources. The Ethiopian state had established, until recently, a monopoly over electronic communication, including the broadcasting sector, which resulted in widespread censorship and self-censorship practices among journalists (Dirbaba & O’Donnell, 2012; Stremlau, 2011). For example, under the dictatorship of Mengistu Hailemariam, all media were nationalized, and publication materials were centrally “sanitized” to conform to communist propaganda (Brüne, 1990; Maja-Pearce, 1994). During the latter years of EPRDF’s rule, journalists working for state-owned media were expected not only to amplify government narratives but also to demonstrate loyalty to the ruling party (Arriola & Lyons, 2016; Dirbaba, 2014). In addition to direct control over communication infrastructures and narratives, ruling regimes in the past 50  years have harassed, imprisoned, exiled, and killed journalists, publishers, and other media practitioners associated with non-state media (Dugo, 2016; Lyons, 2016). Most journalists that are targeted by government-affiliated entities/cadres are often targeted for their critical political views on the government or its officials. Others have been targeted for exposing human rights abuses, corruption, and other forms of abuse of power by state officials. This atmosphere of state control over freedom of expression has also seeped into Ethiopian classrooms, most notably higher education institutions. University campuses have long been the epicenters of social change in Ethiopia, including the consequential Ethiopian Student Movement (c. 1960–1974) that resulted in the demise of Ethiopia’s centuries-old monarchic 146

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rule (Zewdie, 2014). The EPRDF-led government viewed universities as grounds of political opposition and worked relentlessly to mold higher education institutions in the image of its political ideology, both in terms of curricular content and personnel composition. Specifically, between 2005 and 2018, higher education institutions became avenues of rampant political indoctrination by the ruling party (Aboye, 2021; Assefa, 2008; Molla, 2018). Dissenters were often punished in different forms. I recall some of the exchanges I had with my students when I  was teaching at Arba Minch University in southern Ethiopia between 2007 and 2009, which gave me some in-depth insight on mechanisms of higher education political indoctrination. It was common for some students to say to me they were not able to attend my classes because they were preoccupied with political party meetings. Eventually, I discovered that nearly all students were EPRDF members. Most of the students were not interested in political masquerading, but they often would tell me they could not get a job after graduation if they did not demonstrate they were “good citizens” loyal to the ruling party. Students who showed exemplary loyalty to the ruling party would get written or oral testimonies from party ringleaders on campuses when seeking jobs with government employers and EPRDF-affiliated organizations. The situation is similar for employees as well. During coffee breaks and other informal social encounters, it was common for some faculty colleagues to share stories of how they were denied scholarship opportunities or promotion due to their refusal to join the ruling party. Such was the pressure of the indoctrination that when I was leaving AMU toward the end of 2009, even political neutrality was seen as opposition to the ruling party. In some instances, students secretly recorded faculty lectures and passed along the recording to party officials to “expose” political and ideological non-compliance. Although I have not encountered such surveillance personally (at least to my knowledge), colleagues in the humanities and social sciences were often subject to investigations over their lectures. I specifically remember how, after complaints were made by “concerned” students, a colleague teaching a course in civic education was summoned to an administrator’s office for the offense of holding a debate in class on the constitutional provisions of fundamental rights. In journalism education, a typical top-down line of communication from government officials was for faculty to focus on limatawi gazetegninet, or “development journalism,”4 which often was a pretext to propagate feel-good stories that glorify the ruling party and its officials. Here, I should note that the direct state stewardship of higher education institutions (often run by a state-appointed president) in Ethiopia has had a negative impact on academic freedom. While patrimonial and nepotistic behaviors still plague state–society relations in Ethiopia, including in higher education classrooms, post-EPRDF Ethiopia has been experiencing a period of volatile political transition marked by paradoxes of liberalization and nationalism, democratization and vigilantism, and regional peace and civil war. With the disintegration of EPRDF and the birth of the Prosperity Party under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed after a wave of anti-government protests between 2016 and 2018, the Ethiopian media landscape experienced an unprecedented emergence of plurality in a relatively short period of time. The suppression of critical political speech through legal means that was coupled with a neopatrimonial design of journalistic licensing, where non-state media were allowed to operate if they were affiliated with or sympathetic to the ruling party’s ideals, has diminished. However, recent trends during Ethiopia’s political transition indicate that, in addition to state-sponsored attack on journalism practice, competing ethnic nationalisms and the realignment of existing as well as emerging press actors along ethnic fault lines are posing a serious challenge. The current trajectory of Ethiopia’s media landscape, especially as it pertains 147

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to issues like investigative journalism, journalist safety, and journalism ethics, is marked by the increasing influence of non-state actors that tacitly demand journalists to identify or organize themselves in concert with ethno-political entities or risk their everyday professional routines and mobility altogether (Workneh, 2021b). Against this emerging disruptive political context, journalism education in Ethiopia is experiencing some opportunities and new challenges which I will list and discuss in what follows.

A Growing Media Industry One of the major developments since the change of guards at the helm of the Ethiopian power echelon in 2018 is the continuous implosion of media, especially in the broadcasting sector. A key challenge for journalism education in Ethiopia has been the lack of internship and apprenticeship opportunities for students pursuing a career in radio and television journalism. Recently founded broadcasters, such as the Ethiopian Broadcasting Service (EBS), Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC), Walta TV, Arts TV, Afrihealth, Oromia Broadcasting Service (OBS), LTV, Kana Television, JTV, Dimtsi Weyane Television (DWTV), Asham TV, Ahadu TV, and Nahoo TV, account for more than 50% of viewership in Ethiopia (Dziadul, 2019). The liberalization of the Ethiopian broadcasting sector creates a demand for a journalism-trained workforce that was forced to seek employment in saturated state-owned media enterprises or pursue a career in advertising, public relations, or other strategic communication careers. Furthermore, I argued elsewhere (Workneh, 2018) that it is impossible to dissociate the link between the development of a democratic and pluralistic political polity and media liberalization in Ethiopia. For students of journalism, opportunities of internship and career development in a space relatively free of government censorship are critically important.

Journalistic Entrepreneurship As impressive as the growth of private media organizations has been in the last couple of years, corporate media development is dwarfed by the large number of individuals utilizing digital platforms to create channels that amass substantial following. While the growing trend of political influencer culture is posing problems of political extremism and sensationalism in Ethiopian digital spaces, it is also bringing about opportunities for citizen journalism and participatory communication. For journalism students, this is yet another positive development that opens a pathway for entrepreneurial career development in journalism.

Potential Resurgence of State Interference One of the enduring challenges of journalism education in Ethiopia is the clout of government interference in the classroom. Although current trends indicate direct interference from government entities has subsided substantially, there is often an unspoken assumption that “old habits never die.” After an optimistic start toward media liberalization and freedom of expression, Ethiopia’s current ruling party is arresting journalists and keeping them in jail, often without a charge and due process. This trend has notably increased since the deadly conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) started in 2021. During the period of the war, state-affiliated media representing both parties of the conflict were propagandizing, while non-state media assumed a 148

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“patriotic” posture (e.g., Esenler et al., 2021). Historically, in times of conflict such as this, the journalism classroom often abdicates the virtues of professionalism and succumbs to uncritical embrace of patriotic and nationalistic narratives. Again, the challenge here is that most journalism schools are housed in state-owned higher education institutions that are often prone to direct and indirect interference by government entities.

Lack of Localized Curriculum One of the key challenges to the pedagogy of journalism in Ethiopian higher education institutions is the deployment of curricula that are rich in conceptual/theoretical courses but rather lacking in locally streamlined content. Here, I am mindful of the universalistic-­ particularistic debate in journalism ethics, values, and pedagogy. A  journalism education curriculum that does not respond to local context and sensibilities is not designed to set up students for success. What is the role of a journalist in a conflict-prone, transitional, multiethnic, and economically stressed society? Is it the same as the role of a journalist in a stable, relatively homogeneous, and rich country? Most journalism education programs in Ethiopia adopted curricula that are not intentional in responding to these questions. As a result, a good deal of course content offerings and framings resemble curricula in the Western world. The proposition here is not to romanticize and essentialize a local epistemology in journalism education but, rather, to invite critical deliberation on the type of journalism that makes sense to a specific context. A  dialectic approach where universal values in journalism ethics; context-driven approaches to journalism practice, such as conflict-sensitive reporting ­(Lohner et al., 2019; Howard, 2003), peace journalism (Galtung, 2003; Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005), contextual objectivity (El-Nawawy & Iskandar, 2003), and journalism of attachment (Bell, 1997); and insights from domestic cultures of journalism practice offer the best chance to develop a curriculum that is likely to equip students with the necessary tools to address unique/complex reporting challenges.5

Media Environment of Extreme Partisanship The transitional period in Ethiopia from EPRDF to PP has been marked by partisanship, political instability, and state fragility. Among other things, this political context set the stage for the rise of non-state actors, such as vigilante groups, influential social media political personalities, and a weaponized media that perpetuate narratives of ingroup victimization and validate aggression on perceived enemies (Workneh, 2021a, 2021b). A notable outcome of this development is the prevalence of native othering accompanied by displacements, conflicts, and fear of cross-regional mobility that present significant hardships to the public, including journalists. The challenge for journalism education here is twofold: (a) the same problems of partisanship and brinkmanship that have plagued journalism practice trickle down to the teaching–learning process of journalism, and (b) in several instances, graduates who aspire to embark on a career of sound journalism practice are often met with a test of ethnic and political loyalty.

Concluding Remarks As I discussed so far, the pedagogy of journalism in Ethiopia in higher education institutions, despite a few promising recent developments, faces several challenges. These challenges are 149

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complex and multilayered. Arguably, the most debilitating hurdle in the advancement of a journalism pedagogy that leads to a creation of a professional journalism practice has been linked to various degrees of state control and interference in classrooms and newsrooms. The idea of the free press in Ethiopia was born many times in the immediate aftermath of regime changes. However, Ethiopians have historically found out that this idea is short-lived, as new regimes bring back old habits of media repression to consolidate their power. Without losing sight of other contributing factors, the conundrum in the practice and pedagogy of journalism in Ethiopia emanates from the political context. While a wholesale political reform is complex and often aspirational, there are steps that lawmakers, civic organizations, and the journalism community can take to dissociate journalism education from state intervention. A good place to start is to consider a “teaching hospital” model, where state-owned media organizations are integrated with journalism education programs in higher education institutions for a cohesive theory-cum-practice teaching–learning experience. In proposing the “teaching hospital” model to journalism education in Ethiopia, Yohannes (2007) proposed the promotion and implementation of: a University-based Public Broadcast and Media Service that doubles as a teaching facility and a knowledge and information disseminator to the broader public, not unlike a teaching hospital where medical students are trained while the public also receives high quality curative treatment, with students and patients alike benefitting from the profound knowledge of medical professors. (p. 18) The teaching hospital model not only creates an ideal student–educator relationship in a space dedicated to actual journalism practice but also fosters an avenue to start dissociating direct government control of state broadcasters. Admittedly, it is no easy task to persuade the Ethiopian government to decisively restructure its broadcasters and publishing houses into public enterprises run by an independent board of administrators. It is, nonetheless, not impossible. One of the successful public institutional-building stories that emerged since the current government came to power is the establishment of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), “an independent federal state body established as per the Federal Constitution and reporting to House of People’s Representatives as a national human rights institution with the mandate for promotion and protection of human rights” (EHRC, n.d., para.1). Since its establishment in 2020, EHRC has performed admirably by monitoring human rights violations in an independent manner, including those committed by the Ethiopian government. A similar gesture for Ethiopia’s media sector may be uncomfortable for the state in the short term, but it gives an opportunity for a sustainable model of journalism education and practice that can meaningfully contribute to the democratization, nationbuilding, conflict-resolution aspirations of a country in transition.

Notes 1 Birana is a parchment made mostly of goatskins. It was commonly used in Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity traditions to write inscriptions. 2 For more on the development and social significance of modern Ethiopian literature, see Kiros (2000) and Molvaer (1997). 3 The Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) is the biggest state-owned broadcaster in Ethiopia. Through its subsidiaries Ethiopian Television and Ethiopian Radio, it provides a nationwide coverage

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Promises and Limitations of Journalism Education in Ethiopia in Amharic, Oromo, Tigrigna, Somali, and English languages. There are also several regional broadcasters run by regional state governments. The major regional public broadcasters are Oromia Mass Media Organization (OMMO), Diré Dawa Mass Media Agency (DDMMA), Amhara Mass Media Agency (AMMA), South Mass Media Agency (SMMA), Tigray Mass Media Agency (TMMA), Harari Mass Media Agency (HMMA), Somali Mass Media Agency (SMMA), and BenishangulGumuz Regional State Mass Media Agency (BGRSMMA). Both federal and regional public broadcasters follow a model where a nucleus organization oversees subsidiaries in different broadcasting, print, and web-based media platforms. 4 For more on the mechanisms, motifs, and perceptions of development journalism in Ethiopia, see Skjerdal (2011b) 5 Although universal ethical cornerstones of reporting such as non-partisanship, independence, and detachment have influenced journalism scholarship and practice, the universalistic, one-size-fits-all approach of “objectivity” has been increasingly contested for its disregard of context (Maras, 2013; Ward, 2004). The proposition of objectivity as a universal construct of ethical journalism practice has thus been likened to Westernization and imperialistic motifs (e.g., Chalaby, 1996; Righter, 1978), inspiring particularistic, context-driven, and regional conceptualizations (Kasoma, 1996; Loo, 2019).

References Aboye, A. (2021). Political ideology and academic autonomy in Ethiopia. Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education, 13(4), 16–27. https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v13i4.2871 Addis Ababa University. (2004). The establishment of a school and centre for journalism and communication: Proposal for a development cooperation programme between Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, and NORAD. Addis Ababa University. Arriola, L., & Lyons, T. (2016). Ethiopia: The 100% election. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 76–88. Assefa, T. (2008). Academic freedom in Ethiopia: Perspectives of teaching personnel. African Books Collective. Bell, M. (1997). TV news: How far should we go? British Journalism Review, 8(1), 7–16. https://doi. org/10.1177/095647489700800102 Bonsa, S. (2000). Survey of the private press in Ethiopia: 1991–1999. Forum for Social Studies. Brüne, S. (1990). Ideology, government and development – The people’s democratic republic of Ethio�pia. Northeast African Studies, 12(2/3), 189–199. JSTOR. Chalaby, J. K. (1996). Journalism as an Anglo-American invention: A comparison of the development of French and Anglo-American journalism, 1830s–1920s. European Journal of Communication, 11(3), 303–326. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323196011003002 Dirbaba, B. O. (2014). Pride versus humility: The self-perceived paradoxical identities of Ethiopian journalists. SAGE Open, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244014528921 Dirbaba, B. O., & O’Donnell, P. (2012). The double talk of manipulative liberalism in Ethiopia: An example of new strategies of media repression. African Communication Research, 5(3), 283–312. Dugo, H. (2016). Violence against free media and knowledge dissemination in Ethiopia: An analysis of the mechanisms of restrictions on information flow. Journal of Pan African Studies, 9(10), 395–410. Dziadul, C. (2019). Ethiopian broadcasters to migrate to SES. Broadband TV News. www.broadbandt vnews.com/2019/07/09/ethiopian-broadcasters-to-migrate-to-ses/ EHRC. (n.d.). Who we are. Ethiopian Human Rights Commission – EHRC. Retrieved July 4, 2022, from https://ehrc.org/who-we-are/ El-Nawawy, M., & Iskandar, A. (2003). Al-Jazeera: The story of the network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism. Westview Press. Elliott, J. K. (2017). The Garima gospels: Early illuminated gospel books from Ethiopia. TLS. Times Literary Supplement, 5957, 35. Gale Academic OneFile. Esenler, A., Chala, E., Masouras, A., Popplewell, G., Sigal, I., & Workneh, T. (2021). A clash of narratives: National identity and violent conflict in Ethiopia (pp. 1–52). Global Voices. https://global voices.org/special/ethiopia-media-ecosystem-observatory/ Fishkin, S. F. (1988). From fact to fiction: Journalism & imaginative writing in America. Oxford University Press.

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14 PIECEMEAL PEDAGOGIES Reflecting on the Nature, Context, and Impact of Journalism Training and Education in Malawi and Zambia Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris, Chanda Mfula, and Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu Moving away from the essentialist views of “African journalism and pedagogies,” this chapter takes a closer reading of journalism pedagogies in two countries which share a common history. Malawi and Zambia, which are nestled in Southeastern Africa, not only do they share a colonial past with the British Empire and exposure to Western models of journalism practice, but both countries also remain highly dependent on foreign aid to support the dearth of formal media and journalism training and education.1 Exploring this common entry point for foreign actors into the education arena, this chapter takes a more critical look at how their presence has shaped, and continues to shape, journalism training and education in the two countries. Focusing specifically on the interests of international and national non-governmental organizations (I)NGOs, private sector institutions and the state, we reveal how Malawi and Zambia have been awash with short-term courses that only provide the next generation of journalists with nugatory “certificates of attendance” and market-driven degree programs that reinforce the growing commodification of students in higher education. As a result, the next generation of journalists in Malawi and Zambia receive an incomplete and in-comprehensive understanding of the journalism field. Inspired by Paulo Freire’s (1970, 1973) liberatory pedagogy toward education that centers social change, transformation, critical consciousness and an engagement with oppressive forces to decenter the economic weight of neoliberal capitalism in educational spaces, this chapter reflects on the important historical, political, and economic connections which are tied to coloniality, neoliberalism, and epistemological inequalities to explore what the purpose of journalism training and education is and for whom. We conclude that whether journalism training and education is crafted using insidious fear from the state or to fulfil the profit-seeking agendas of the private sector, each actor cannot be divorced from the role of what Freire defines as the “oppressor”2 in creating an image of journalism education for their own needs. Using a combination of analysis from past research and interviews with educators, students, donors, and regulators, this chapter indicates that in order to explore the implications of the importation of journalistic theory and practice from countries in the “Global North,”3 it is important to locate the educational and financial gap within its broader

DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-16

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historical context, that is, its relationship with the various self-interests that support a system of hegemonic epistemological dependency.

The Postcolonial Condition Both Malawi and Zambia gained independence in 1964, but since then, they have remained among the most aid-dependent countries in Africa (World Bank, 2019). Following independence, both countries placed higher education as a major public agenda item for the development of human capital (Masaiti, 2013) and as a key element in economic growth (Dunga, 2013). The most recent data suggests that Malawi receives around $1,194 million (USD) in foreign aid (OECD, 2019a), of which 15% is channeled into the education sector, while Zambia receives $976.3 million (USD), of which 4% is allocated to education (OECD, 2019b).4 According to this data, the United States (US) is the largest donor in both countries. Consistent with observations made by postcolonial critics of the postindependence period, the US and former colonizer states, along with their donor-based agencies, have been keen to retain some form of hegemonic influence in newly independent countries (Fanon, 1963; Sartre, 1964; Nkrumah, 1965; Rodney, 1972; Said, 1994; Loomba, 2015; Okon & Ojakorotu, 2018). With media located as a central component within these hegemonic transactions, journalism training and education have become a vehicle for media development and control (McCurdy & Power, 2007; Jenks, 2016, 2019) and a focal point for the imposition of exogenous epistemologies through the use of foreign aid (see Nyarko et al., 2020; Lugo-Ocando, 2020), a strategy that Jenks (2016, p. 2) describes as “benevolent hegemony.” In the wake of WWII, for example, “foreign aid has been substantially directed at disseminating a model of journalism practice and education that is aligned with the interests of (wealthy, industrialised, Northern) donor nations” (Paterson et al., 2018, p. 3). And as colonialism morphed into neocolonialism, imperialist countries, led by the United States, set out to retain and expand their “sphere of influence,” with media development as an important strategic means of this expansion (Jenks, 2016, 2019; Nyamnjoh, 2005). The approach to media development included training journalists in ways which both legitimizes them and sustains this hegemonic relationship. As a result, the journalism training and curriculum shaped by these wealthy, industrialized Northern donor nations have a Eurocentric and “US-centric” hue, which this chapter argues persists. In response to these concerns, others call for a journalism curriculum that is “more reflective of local realities and developments”5 (Rodny-Gumede, 2018, p. 748) and which is not dependent on Eurocentric and US-oriented models of journalism education and training (Hochheimer, 2001; Banda et  al., 2007; Schiffrin, 2010). However, this dependency has historically been tied to the universally accepted epistemologies of organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),6 which in 2007 launched a report titled “Model curricula for journalism education for developing countries” during the first World Journalism Education Congress. This model curriculum may have responded to the needs of its member countries, but it was a curriculum that homogenized countries and their journalistic practices. This method of “institutional isomorphism,”7 to borrow DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) term, was in direct contrast to the demands for epistemic emancipation (Sousa Santos, 2007, 2014) and those calling for a more Africanized curriculum (Motsaathebe, 2011). This universalism illustrates not only the economic instruments and ideological measures that have been used to create a normative

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journalism education based on the interests of those behind UNESCO (which centers on the promotion of democracy, freedom of expression, and access to information and knowledge)8 but also a way of maintaining and expanding the scope of the former colonizers’ postcolonial prerogatives (see Loomba, 2015). As Jenks (2019) highlights in his research on journalism training in Anglophone Africa between 1963 and 1975, the positions left by the vacating nationals from the “Global North” offered an unfettered avenue for exogenous influences. Influences that not only shaped the changing African media landscape but also “advance[d] informal power and influence through education and aid programs [which also] forestall[ed] the Soviets” (ibid., 509). Thus, this form of acculturation through the exposure to exogenous values, norms, and systems was evidently met with larger geopolitical purposes. Others such as McCurdy and Power (2007) raised similar concerns. They argued that “the current state of African media education and training [was specifically related] to the efforts of international donors and NGOs” (ibid., 133). By this they were referring to the ways in which NGOs and donor organizations viewed most of the African media systems as homogeneous. As a result, the journalism education and training they provided was formulaic, because the NGOs and donor organizations failed to understand the countries’ practical and cultural conditions, as well as “the domestic realities of those being trained” (ibid.). Defined as “crash courses” by Jenks (2019, p. 508), these courses have been short-term training sessions that impart specialized skills which “aimed to churn out low and mid-level Western-style journalists quickly and in quantity.” Both examples raise important questions about the intentions behind such interventions. Moreover, these journalistic practices by external organizations must be located within the market-driven logic of neoliberal capitalism – as it is here where the external pressures from foreign actors, as well as internally created perspectives, take root.

Educational Freedom in a Neoliberal World Neoliberal capitalism has, over the past four decades, devalued many public-interest initiatives, especially in relation to higher education, which in many countries has shifted from the public good to the private good (Giroux, 2010). While in some political corridors it is argued that neoliberal capitalism is on the decline with assertive state intervention in the Global North on the rise (Meadway, 2021), state intervention never stopped having leverage over public services in Malawi and Zambia – especially when non-state media and journalism are seen as a threat to the order of the state (Phiri, 1999; Lwanda, 2002; Ndawana et al., 2021). However, inadequate financial resources and socio-political insecurity to support the growth of higher education and the improvement of teaching quality remain among the largest challenges (Teferra, 2013). Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire (1970, 1973) provides a valuable framework for a critical examination of these developments for their links to politics, capitalist economics, and ethics. His critical philosophy towards education is highly relevant in explaining both the past and the present organization of journalism pedagogies in Malawi and Zambia. For example, Freire argued that education should be tied to the project of freedom – and by freedom he was referring to the freedom to question power and authority, and the freedom of participation in a substantive democracy, which functions in the interests of the governed and not those who are governing. To support these ideas, Freire advocated for students to enter into a critical dialogue with history, and not one that is led by the demands of the market to secure the said freedoms. As we shall see in the following sections, the role of the state is not excluded from imposing their interests. While state-supported universities are slowly being superseded by the private sector, the (I)NGO sector is also playing an intentional and 156

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calculated role in the formation of journalistic pedagogies and content in the state education arena. Thus, the pedagogical foundation of journalism as a deeply civic and moral practice has become increasingly subordinated by those who have vested interests in what role journalism should play in society. For many, it’s a profit-making exercise. In Damtew Teferra’s (2013, p.  xv) book Funding Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, he explains how “private higher education is the fastest growing segment of higher education worldwide . . . but it involves serious problems in many countries: low standards, lack of transparency and a forprofit approach that places institutional profits above quality or standards.” This economic lens, he argued,9 can be found in the World Bank’s (WB) philosophy of higher education, which Freire opposed because it centrally aligns education with a framework of economic relationships and statistical indicators of progress. In contrast, for Freire, education should be centered on equal knowledge production and lifelong learning practices, not interests in profit-making. As Freire (1996, p. 58) quoted over half a century ago: The oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surrounding it into an object of its domination. The earth, property, production, the creations of people, people themselves, time – everything is reduced to the status of objects at its disposal. In their unrestrained eagerness to possess, the oppressors develop the conviction that it is possible for them to transform everything into objects of their purchasing power; hence their strictly materialistic concept of existence. Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal. Oppressors, those with the money to possess, he argues, have a necessity for constant control. A form of control which we argue exists today, but in new and nuanced ways. For example, this necessity for constant control could be translated as having the potential to restrict the epistemic emancipation and a more Africanized curriculum that Sousa Santos (2007, 2014) and Motsaathebe (2011), respectively, have been calling for. Transforming students into objects for profit rather than a means for knowledge production, which is embedded in a culture of lifelong learning, maintains the unequal relationship between owners of journalist knowledge from the “Global North” and the recipients in the “Global South.” This topdown relationship is consistent with Freire’s (1970/1996) “banking model” of education that is centered on the idea of teachers (as subjects) “depositing” knowledge into students (as objects), which they have to mechanically memorize. Furthermore, Freire sees this banking model as mirroring the oppressive structures in society, where students/recipients of donor funds are devoid of knowledge, and where the interests of “oppressors” (the ruling class/the (I)NGOs/the donors) are served to maintain the status quo. In other words, they become “automatons” (ibid., 74), stripped of their humanity and power to create knowledge. In what follows, we not only explore whose interests are being served but also recommend how they can be overturned.

Journalism Pedagogies – In Whose Interests? This section considers issues of profit-making and other matters to examine the nature, context, and impact of journalism training and education in Malawi and Zambia, by focusing on three main actors that have been at the center of these discussions: the state, (I)NGOs, and the private sector. Each, like the WB, has a vested interest in what journalism training and education should be, and for whom. 157

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State Interests As mentioned earlier, the allocation of funds in Malawi and Zambia toward higher education is relatively small. Thus, their commitment to journalism training and education is generally reducible to the state’s funding of public universities. In both countries, the government doesn’t has any form of direct control over the content of the courses, unlike countries such as China (Xu, 2018), but neither is it completely divorced from the state’s wider philosophy and acknowledgment of what social function journalism should play in society. For example, Malawi’s lukewarm attitude toward achieving high-quality and relevant media training is largely inherited from the country’s 30 years of post-independence authoritarianism (1964– 1994). Despite the country attaining political pluralism in 1994, most public institutions in Malawi are yet to be emancipated from state control that monitors dissent (Kainja, 2021). Tendencies toward state control of public media have been consistent through the various political regimes since the democratic dawn of 1995 (Kainja, 2021; Manda, 2017). This was evident following attacks to academic freedom in 2011, which sparked protests against government interference in what should be taught in university. Nevertheless, the treatment of journalists and the insidious threat of arbitrary arrests in the country (see Manda & Kufaine, 2013; Pasungwi, 2022) continue to play on the minds of students and teachers, which, in the interests of the political establishment, helps the state maintain some control. A not-sodissimilar situation can be found in Zambia, when in 2016 the Zambian authorities used a tax dispute to close the country’s biggest newspaper, The Post, in an attempt to silence criticism (CPJ, 2016). Again, this illustrates how state control has adverse effects on students joining, as well as staying, in the journalism profession.10 While state authorities under their respective Constitutions should not limit, restrict, or derogate academic freedom, media and journalism departments have been influenced by external ideas. The Department of Mass Communication (now the department of Media and Communication Studies11) at the University of Zambia (UNZA), for example, was established by Professor Francis P. Kasoma,12 who was the brainchild behind the philosophy of the department. As confirmed in an interview with the current head of the department Dr Basil Hamusokwe in 2022: “He drew much of his inspiration from media and communication scholars at the University of Helsinki, Finland.” Similarly, the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the Polytechnic (now the Malawi University of Business and Applied Science, or MUBAS) has been influenced by international journalism approaches, which generally are rooted in Eurocentric epistemic-ontological orientations and traditions that some argue “prioritise the elite and dominant classes of society” (Manda, 2015, p. 159). Though the curriculum has been revised since its establishment in 2002, it is still deficient in offering Malawian or broader African ontological, philosophical, and political outlooks that would help the students to meaningfully and contextually understand and interpret Malawian experiences (Manda, 2017). This deficiency can also be found in UNZA because it continues to draw influence from outside. For example, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix (Arizona), which uses the “teaching hospital” model of journalism education that offers students a real-world, social constructivist approach to journalism. The development of a radio station and a newspaper at UNZA provides students with hands-on experience and the opportunity to interact through “dialogue” with others, which is central to Freire’s notion of freedom. However, the sustainability of the radio station, and thus this pedagogical model, is heavily reliant on government advertising, therefore repurposing the question of the state’s involvement in journalism education. While a simple 158

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economic explanation could be given to justify their involvement, the earlier argument that political interests can silence criticism does not. Here, Freire’s (1996, p. 46) conceptualization of fear is relevant: This fear of freedom is also to be found in the oppressors, though, obviously, in a different form. The oppressed are afraid to embrace freedom; the oppressors are afraid of losing the “freedom” to oppress. Given Zambia’s and Malawi’s history with authoritarianism, the fear of losing freedom is real – as one student from Malawi explained during an interview in 2016: “the government has always maintained control [since independence], we speak of change but if we are afraid to speak, this isn’t change.” For Freire, a student’s education should not be the function of the dominant power, as this makes the educational system an adaptive rather than a critical one. Because, if educational freedom is compromised through fear, is it even education? A question that academics within these institutions must confront and build into their curriculum so students can challenge what they are being taught, in the name of freedom.

The (I)NGO/Donor-Funded Interests In contrast to the state, (I)NGO actors have had a significantly more direct influence over the content of journalism education, which reflects the role of foreign actors in the media sector more broadly (Gondwe Harris, 2018; Paterson et al., 2018; Lugo-Ocando, 2020). International bodies such as the United Nations (UN), specifically UNESCO,13 have invested heavily in journalism education. Their approach is “underpinned by a strong conviction that professional journalistic standards are essential to bring out the potential of media systems to foster democracy, dialogue and development” (UNESCO, 2022). Other players include the Thomson Foundation, Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Internews, the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), Fojo Media Institute, Sigrid Rausing Trust, and National Endowment for Democracy, among others that share UNECSO’s interests in ensuring that journalism pedagogies are centered on fostering democracy, promoting freedom of expression, and supporting the growth of an independent media. Many governments in the Global North, which are also key bilateral donors in Malawi and Zambia, follow this philosophy and share this with those they fund. For example, the Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ), which is a non-governmental project aimed at providing basic and functional journalistic knowledge and skills to their students, was established by the European Union and the Danish government. It was the first ever media training organization in Malawi (Manda, 2017), which opened in 1995, a year after the end of the country’s 30-year authoritarian rule. This shift in the political environment marked an important moment for the involvement of (I)NGOs and donor governments who invested in the country’s media system. Providing certificates and diplomas and, more recently, degrees covering topics from computer skills and multimedia news writing to critical thinking and ethics, the MIJ has produced more media practitioners than the University of Malawi and Malawi University of Business and Applied Science cumulatively at a bachelor’s and master’s level (Manda, 2017). While MIJ provides a four-year bachelor’s degree in journalism, many (I)NGOs only offer short-term courses aligned to their areas of developmental interest. However, this has implications for students’ learning, as these journalists are often provided with an uncritical appreciation of the salient issues and debates within the political economy of journalism 159

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practice, especially given the brevity and ad hoc nature of these trainings. These trainings tend to focus on skilling and drilling rather than on providing a stimulating critical engagement with the material. A pedagogical approach that reflects Freire’s (1970/1996) “banking model” of education, which is centered on the idea of “depositing” the same knowledge over and over again until it becomes second nature, and is anti-dialogical. This market-driven logic of journalism education inhibits the theoretical appreciation of journalism education, which provides students with the opportunity to develop the capacity to read, write, debate, frame, and theorize issues critically. It also places the interests of the (I)NGO at the center of the training. FSD Zambia, for example, campaigns on issues of financial inclusion and provides journalists with such training. In May 2021, it held a training workshop “to equip Zambian journalists with the skills, knowledge and information to enable them to report accurately and effectively about financial inclusion in Zambia.”14 This training was geared toward the interests of the sponsoring organization, not only in terms of the specialty of the training, but also given the fact that, of the 13 trainers at the workshop, only one spoke about journalism skills, while the rest focused on imparting information about financial inclusion. Therefore, the aim of this training was centered on the need of the sponsoring organization to persuade the students to disseminate their information to the public. A similar training was convened in Malawi in the same year by six local and (I)NGOs with funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs on gender and youth reporting. The five-day training, focusing on child marriage, fighting teen pregnancies, gender-based violence, and harmful cultural practices, taught journalists how best to interpret, articulate, and disseminate information provided by the (I)NGO. In the strictest sense, the approach to the journalistic training was reducible to developing a vehicle through which journalists could effectively reach out to the communities that the (I)NGOs were targeting, in order to disseminate the knowledge of the (I) NGOs. Rather than equipping these journalists with broader journalism competencies and providing them with critical journalistic pedagogies needed for lifelong learning, these trainings promoted advocacy reporting that ultimately lauds the interventions of the (I)NGOs. The dangers associated with this narrowcasting of journalism skills also raise concerns about whether journalists can maintain their role as watchdogs, not only over the state, but also over the role and practices of (I)NGOs themselves. Given these issues, these short courses cannot be a substitute for comprehensive journalism training (Schiffrin & Behrman, 2011). These trainings, alongside numerous others, are well-publicized in the media, signaling the intent by sponsoring organizations to use these trainings as a public relations tactic. In the longer term, the media could be co-opted into the strategic communications efforts of these (I)NGOs, consistent with the view that “organisations have sought to offer journalism training as part of their public relations and outreach efforts” (Schiffrin, 2010, p.  405). This benevolent hegemony is a continuation of the “crash courses” that Jenks (2019) discusses. These interventions not only put “a Western stamp on African journalism education” (ibid., 508) but also incorporate strategies that benefit them. Even the master’s program in communication for development (MCD) at UNZA, a school of thought originated by thinkers and practitioners from the Global South (Manyozo, 2012), was not only created by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),15 but also, the literature used on the course was drawn from epistemologies outside of those in Zambia. In fact, of 33 books listed as core reading materials, only 3 were Zambian, with the majority from outside the continent (Makungu, 2018). This intellectual and epistemic dependency on exogenous resources not only maintains the dominant epistemological order but also results in the subjugation and desecration of local knowledge and ideas. To overcome the dependency on 160

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exogenous epistemologies and practices, journalists need to be able to interrogate, challenge, and question not just the educational material provided in the trainings but the very nature of the training they are exposed to by these (I)NGOs. Therefore, we recommend that such trainings be offered in collaboration with state-funded universities that host academics have the local knowledge and understanding of the journalism field in Malawi and Zambia.

Private Sector Interests This last group includes private universities and private-sector institutions. Their interests are not dissimilar to those of (I)NGOs, as they too, are diverse and have wide-ranging selfinterests. At the time of writing, there are two private universities teaching journalism in Malawi (Blantyre International University and African Bible College) and five colleges and universities in Zambia (Catholic University, Cavendish University, Evelyn Hone College, Mulungushi University, and Rusangu University16). It has been argued that the growth of private colleges and universities was an outcome of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) that promoted privatization in the 1980s (Tamrat, 2017) and a response to the demand for higher education, which couldn’t be met by the state (Varghese, 2006). Although these institutions are subject to government regulation and accreditation, some have claimed that “this emerging type of journalism education has sometimes been susceptible to criticism based on quality issues and the possible exploitation of students” (Berger & Foote, 2017, p. 247). As confirmed in an interview with a former journalism student, “those who have attended private universities are often spoon-fed as a means of impressing management and ensuring that students pass.” In Freirean terms, this capitalistic model of education dehumanizes students by objectifying them and treating them as sources of capital rather than knowledge. Even the ethos behind some of these institutions, such as the Blantyre International University (BIU), is situated within the market-driven logic of neoliberal capitalism. It even confirms this in their mission statement which reads “BIU intends to contribute to journalism education by filling the present human resource gap in the industry . . . and continue providing quality service to their clients” (BIU, 2008–2019). With a focus on entrepreneurship and job creation, the course objectives do not mention the production of critical knowledge or the lifelong learning practices of students – in fact, they refer to students as “clients.” Other emerging players in the field of journalism training and education who commonly use the term “clients” would be the large financial institutions and corporations. Those willing and with the financial backing to teach journalism are the World Bank Institute,17 Reuters, and the Standard Bank Group, as they have routinely invested in journalism trainings. However, unlike private universities and colleges, these actors generally offer short introductory courses. In Zambia, for example, such training is typified by mobile telecommunications companies that fund highly publicized training workshops on themed topics, such as the use of digital technologies. Therefore, when large multinational technology corporations such as Microsoft team up with credible non-profits such as the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) to provide journalist training (see Shaw, 2019), journalists often jump at the opportunity without second-guessing Microsoft’s interests, which are centered on opening up to new markets. This not only distorts what journalism is and who it’s for but also contributes to the perpetuation of a country’s intellectual and epistemic dependency. Perhaps a more telling example is that of the tobacco industry. Similar to the case of FSD Zambia, the tobacco industry has frequently sponsored training workshop for journalists but had nothing to do with how the media should report critically on the industry and everything to do with the 161

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interests of the organizations involved. In fact, the training was convened “to create capacity amongst the media and to inform them of developments in the tobacco market and its regulatory characteristics.”18 This exemplifies the tendency of the private sector to sponsor trainings that are piecemeal and tailored to legitimate the interests of sponsors. Knowing that most media houses cannot fund certified professional studies for their journalists, journalists have no choice but to take advantage of whatever free training is on offer. For new business journalists in Malawi, for example, many, if not most, generally learn through unstructured mentoring arrangements and are expected to independently read literature in order to familiarize themselves with the business news terrain (Manjawira, 2014). What was repeatedly shared in interviews was the fact that these trainings are often devoid of sufficient time to engage with the critical aspects of journalism. These aspects critically interrogate questions of power and authority and make these private interests work in the interests of journalism education and journalism more broadly. There are opportunities for students of journalism to work in dialogue with the private sector to express their needs, whether that be challenging access to information and technology, or the epistemological and digital divide; students must create their own project of freedom that moves the colonial axes toward the interests of the governed and not those who are governing.

Conclusion When assessing the piecemeal development of journalism pedagogies in any given country, it is essential to reflect on the competing interests of the actors involved. In the case of Malawi and Zambia, where journalism training and education are overseen and, to some extent, controlled by various actors, the hidden interests of these actors should not escape attention. Criticism is warranted especially when journalism training and education are attached to the neoliberal capitalist agenda centered on viewing students as profit-making tools and maintaining the epistemological divide between the “Global North” and the “Global South.” By reflecting on the historical legacy of coloniality, we have shown how existing trainings are impeding and invalidating localized sites of knowledge and praxis and repurposing dependency on exogenous epistemologies that are often grounded within dominant Western journalist epistemologies. While we do not advocate that journalism pedagogies should be simplistically streamlined to resist this, we do insist that journalism pedagogies, in Freirean terms, should be freed from the interests that do not take into adequate consideration the intricacies, needs, and challenges of the host country. We therefore believe that one way to do this is to ensure journalistic pedagogies are fit for purpose, that is, by centering the epistemic freedom, time, and resources to develop curriculum that functions in the interests of those being taught, and ensuring that journalism can be seen as a long-life career, not just a one-off crash course.

Notes 1 Also see Fackon Banda (2007, p. 163), who argued that “[t]here has been no rigorous academic research conducted into the teaching of journalism in Malawi and Zambia.” 2 Freire refers to “oppressors” as the “ruling class” (to borrow from Marx), who aim to transform everything through domination, which is driven by their materialist intentions. 3 The use of the term “Global North” has been intentionally placed within quotation marks to emphasize our awareness of the ambiguity of the concept. We have used this term to differentiate between Malawi and Zambia on the one side and those historically termed “the West” on the other,

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4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

albeit rudimentary, to emphasize the historical imbalance of power and wealth between former colonial and colonized states. However, in both cases, it is not clear how much goes to higher education and how much goes to local government institutions or projects carried out by donors. Also see Freire (2016), who argued that a curriculum must adapt to the social, political, and historical context of a country. Others include the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) and the World Journalism Education Council. Institutional isomorphism is a concept to explain the homogeneousness of organizations through coercion and mimicking. Also worth reading how conventional educational models have also been critiqued for preserving and reinforcing hierarchical and dominant social orders (see Freire, 1996; Giroux, 2007). Found in the World Bank (2009), Accelerating Catch-up: Tertiary Education for Growth in SubSaharan Africa, Washington, DC: World Bank. This trend is a long-term problem identified in the little available literature about journalism education generally in Africa (Schiffrin, 2010; Schiffrin & Behrman, 2011). This is mainly a result of poor remuneration associated with journalism jobs in Africa. As Schiffrin (2010, p. 409) observes, journalists with certified qualifications “tended to leave journalism often to go into better-paid public relations jobs.” Plans are underway to construct a School of Media and Communication studies similar to that of the School of Communication at the University of Johannesburg. Interestingly, Kasoma studied philosophy and theology in Malawi. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. See media-training-the-role-of-the-media-in-national-development [last accessed on June 5, 2022]. “A specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger” (FAO, 2022) However, Evelyn Hone is best described quasi-government, as it is a public institution but with private/donor funding. The capacity-building arm of the WB that provides learning and training. See joint-tobacco-industry-and-zacci-media-workshop-08–06–2021 [last accessed on June  10, 2022].

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15 TEACHING INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IN A TRANSNATIONAL UNIVERSITY IN CHINA Diana Garrisi and Jiahui Huang Investigative journalism in China is an ever-evolving phenomenon characterized by a nonlinear itinerary (Wang  & Lee, 2014). It witnessed a significant development in the early 1980s, during the period of openness and economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping, the leader of the People’s Republic of China, from 1978 to 1992. Following the curbing of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, investigative journalism suffered a setback, only to reach its zenith between the late 1990s and early 2000s (Zhao, 1998, 2000; Hassid, 2012; Zhi’an & Fei, 2012). A notorious example is the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolitan Daily’s coverage of the death of Sun Zhigang, a freshly graduated migrant worker from Wuhan who was beaten to death whilst in a detention camp, where he had been taken for not carrying a temporary residence identification card with him (“Why it is important,” 2013). The story is exemplary because it prompted the government to abolish the law that permitted his arrest and that of hundreds of thousands of other people like him in China, thus demonstrating the impact that journalism can have in the society. A  surge of new storytelling opportunities arose from citizen media through online networking sites that provided journalism with new resources, means of distribution, and community-building virtual platforms (Svensson, 2012). See for instance the emergence of journalist microbloggers on Weibo, one of the most famous Chinese online networking tools (Jiao, 2013). Many extended investigations appeared in newspapers and broadcast programs, such as Southern Weekend, Southern Metropolitan Daily, Caijing Magazine, and the China Central Television (CCTV) programs News Probe and Focal Interview. Examples include the existence of villages in China with an unusually high rate of death by cancer due to pollution; the controversial building of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, whose construction was completed in 2006; the milk powder scandal in 2008; the use of faulty vaccines in northern Shaanxi province in 2010; and many others. However, while in the years between 1978 and 2012 newspapers benefited from a steady increase in income from advertising and circulation, in 2013, a significant decline started and journalists found themselves in less-favorable working conditions (Li & Sparks, 2018). In 2015, Chai Jing, a former TV state-media journalist, produced an investigative documentary about air pollution (Under

DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-17

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the Dome), which was banned by the government after receiving 300 million clicks online in less than a week, between February and March of the same year (Zhang, 2019). In 2017, according to a report produced by Sun Yat-sen University, there were only 175 investigative journalists, a 58% diminution from 2011 (Cook, 2018). In 2018, Q Daily, an independent news outlet that produces accountability works, was temporarily shut down for “illegally reporting and forwarding news,” according to the Shanghai-based state media daily SHINE (Koetse, 2018). In the past five years, China has been a convergence point between the escalation of the trade war with the United States; a pandemic-driven global health crisis, which incremented state control and intervention in the life of individual citizens worldwide; the Hong Kong protests against the then-withdrawn proposed bill that would have allowed extradition to mainland China; and the always-tense relationship with Taiwan. In 2018, the Chinese constitution was altered to abolish the two-term limit on the presidency. As a result, President Xi Jinping (2013–) will be allowed to remain in power after the end of his second term in 2023. The international organization Reporters without Borders denounced an intensification of government repression in China against journalism and documented the methods and the implementation of policies put in place to restrict freedom of both expression and of access to information (“The Great Leap,” 2021). In a context that would require maximum media scrutiny, investigative journalism can hardly be practiced in China. Against this social background, this chapter aims to document through participatory observation the first-hand experience of teaching investigative journalism in a transnational university in China between 2018 and 2022. Notwithstanding that the Western notion of investigative journalism challenges and contradicts the Chinese party-state ideology (Wang & Lee, 2014), this study will explain what makes its teaching possible as a form of intellectual inquiry, a set of transferable skills, and a character-building experience in a politically sensitive educational context that, ideally, aims to transcend national boundaries through combining notions of Western liberalism with Chinese values. Transnational education can be defined as the provision of study programs in which the students are situated in a nation other than the one where the awarding institution is located (“Trans. Edu.,” 2013). This chapter discusses the delivery of an undergraduate module of investigative journalism within a program of media and communication studies for year 2 students in a Sino-British joint venture based in China. A joint degree is a typology of transnational education whereby an agreement between a provider university and a host university guarantees students the possibility to study during specific times at each university and obtain a double degree from both institutions (Francois, 2016). This articulation scheme has the aim of exposing students to both Chinese and foreign education in one program (Dai et al., 2018). A university system founded on two different and potentially adversarial systems of thoughts is an ideal observatory to scrutinize journalism pedagogy, because neither paradigm, the Anglo-American or the Chinese one, can totally dominate the other, and hence, in the void between two norms, students and teachers can create something distinctive (Garrisi, 2022). This is possible when a variety of voices is heard and the diversity of the context is taken into account. The context includes students, the physical and social environment where teaching happens, and the subject taught in relation to local, provincial, and national standards (Feldman & Herman, 2015). Acknowledgment of the context should not be intended as a way of legitimizing power or focusing only on the relationship between education and industrial

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productivity, hence confining the cultural dimensions of learning within a merely utilitarian scope (Lopes, 2002 in Mouraz & Leite, 2013). As Jovchelovitch (2007) explained: Understanding the heterogeneity of knowledge involves dismantling the traditional representation that sees knowledge in terms of a progressive scale where superior forms of knowing displace lower forms. Different knowledges coexist, responding to different needs and fulfilling different functions in social life. Diversity in knowledge is an asset of all human communities and dialogue between different forms of knowing constitutes the difficult but necessary resource that can enlarge the boundaries of all knowledges. (p. 3) We will now proceed to clarify how the principle of knowledge in context informed the delivery of an undergraduate module of investigative journalism in a transnational university in China by looking at its structure, content, and assessment. The module ran for 14 weeks, with a midterm non-teaching break during week 7, in which students revised content material and started preparing the first assignment. The intended learning outcomes included a historical appreciation of the development of investigative journalism and major figures globally and locally; familiarity with the values, theory, and practice of investigative journalism; and an understanding of the array of personal, professional, cultural, commercial, and political constraints and variables affecting the profession worldwide. Modes of teaching delivery included one weekly two-hour lecture focusing on case studies selected from high-profile investigations and seminars consisting of a group discussion and weekly exercises designed to help students develop practical skills to conduct a basic investigation, mainly through the means of interviews and policy-based research. Academic achievements were examined by means of two pieces of coursework comprising a practice and a theory-based assignment. The duality of this assessment scheme reflected the bipartite nature of the course, equipping students with both theoretical and practical knowledge. The combination of theory and practice enables the teacher to approach the topic critically, allowing for a diversity of simultaneous points of view and voices. For instance, when it came to theorizing investigative journalism, along with some of the classic Western t­ heories of journalism associated with the Western ideal of democracy, that is, normative, socioeconomic, cultural, and technological, the discussion included ways in which China ­conceptualizes journalism for impact. Jingrong Tong (2011) offers a concise explanation of the historical roots of investigative journalism in China. The key traditional principles that have been informing the relationship between journalists and ruler and journalists and audience can be distilled into three main cultural traditions: the Confucian view of intellectuals as social missionaries, the legacy of the late-Qing liberal doctrines, and the Communist Party’s criticism and self-criticism tradition for self-improvement, whose ultimate goal is to serve the rulers (Tong, 2011). The theory–practice link is crucial to realize the principle of knowledge in context via the mental action of reflection. Often, the ability to conduct fieldwork through hands-on exercises of interviewing, time management, data mining, public records digging, writing to deadlines, and following up on a problem for a considerable period of time is prioritized over theory, with the rationale that learners need to know how to work in the industry. However, being an investigative journalist is a peculiar job, as history demonstrates it has a potentially groundbreaking impact, both in China and outside. Action, therefore, is an essential feature of the profession, but in order to have an impact, that action 168

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needs to be grounded on reflection. Paulo Freire, author of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), explains that true liberation from oppression can be achieved by winning back the right to be fully human. The ability to perform intentional actions is a trait of human nature, but Freire (1970) reminds us that action is human when it is not detached from reflection; in his very own words, action “will constitute an authentic praxis only if its consequences become the object of critical reflection” (ibid., p.  66). The social effect of a journalistic exposé resulting from an investigative process is what investigative journalists aim for and also what they should be aware of, for instance, when thinking about the protection of the identity of a whistleblower; trauma reporting; the storage of sensitive data; the retrieval of public records, which are often unavailable in China; and the impact of a project on others and one’s own personal life. Reflection is deeply connected to action and liberation because “[r]eflection upon situationality is reflection about the very condition of existence: critical thinking by means of which people discover each other to be ‘in a situation’ ” (ibid., p. 109). To apply theory to practice, the campus constituted the students’ fieldwork. This approach to investigative journalism for undergraduate students, which emphasizes the necessity of starting with a hyper-local approach, draws on Marcy Burstiner’s Investigative Reporting: from Premise to Publication (2018). The manual features examples of exposés extracted from university student publications. For instance, one article that always made a great impression in class is “Running on Borrowed Time” by Oliver Symonds (in Burstiner, 2009), which was published in the Lumberjack, the student newspaper of Humboldt State University, of which Burstiner is faculty advisor. The article, reprinted in the appendix of the textbook, is introduced by the following outline: How safe is that elevator? Oliver Symonds was going about his day when he noticed something that made him a little uncomfortable. The elevator he was riding in had a permit that had long since expired. That meant that students were riding every day in elevators that had not been inspected in months, and that their safety could be at risk. Symonds started to wonder just how many elevators on campus had gone uninspected and what that meant for his campus community. (Burstiner, 2009, p. 336) This introductory overview plays a key role from a pedagogical perspective because it is where the link between theory and practice is made. In other words, it is as if the tutor is telling her students, “You can do it as well; just have a look inside the elevators of your campus.” It is hard to become a fully fledged investigative journalist, but almost everyone can notice something, get “uncomfortable,” make a speculation, wonder, think of the implications for the community, and take action. This is exactly what one of the students of the module of investigative journalism did. She heard that someone during a rainy evening had broken his leg in the outdoor area of the university by falling on a slippery floor while seeking help by making an emergency phone call through one of the SOS pillars distributed on campus. These pillars had been distributed as part of the health and safety electronic system to offer people in difficulty the chance of immediately alerting someone wherever they were. However, upon pressing the SOS button, the unfortunate student got no response; nobody picked up the call to help. The student of investigative journalism boldly decided to try to press the SOS buttons on all the emergency pillars on the campus, to check whether they were working. To her surprise, she found that a system upon which people were relying for emergency calls had been out of service for 169

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over a month. This triggered the idea for an article which exposed issues of health and safety on campus, revealing maintenance problems and especially a serious lack of consideration for wheelchair users. The story was published in the student magazine and prompted the Property Management Office to conduct inspections and follow up on a problem that was probably connected to the ongoing construction works on the south side of the campus, which could have interfered with the functioning of the SOS system. This article was then used reiteratively in other classes of investigative journalism over the years as an example of how much could be done if only one tested her ability to listen and observe. This is not a Watergate scandal, but students must start somewhere, and the closer the situation is to their experience, the more involved they will be in the reflection, especially in a country like China, where the gap between journalism training and work is huge due to the many constraints experienced by everyone who wishes to inquire into a problem. In the wake of the outlines provided by the teacher, students investigated a variety of issues on campus, including the costs of postgraduate education, student mobility after Covid-19, university attendance policies, academic integrity at university, and constrains faced by the LGBTQ+ student community in China. The first weeks of the course were devoted to a general historical introduction, with an overview of the development of the key values of investigative journalism in relationship to 18th-century Western empiricist philosophical theories, with their emphasis on the value of facts and material evidence to pursuing knowledge. A  historical approach shows students the positivistic ideological roots of journalism in Western countries and the legacy they left in the vocabulary, the image, and the style of investigative reporting. Typical definitions of investigative journalism given to students would include “[g]oing after something someone wants to hide” (de Burgh, 2000, p. 22) or “[t]he unveiling of matters that are concealed either deliberately by someone in a position of power, or accidentally . . . and the analysis and exposure of all relevant facts to the public” (Hunter, 2011). Notwithstanding that students were exposed to a variety of definitions, an emphasis was put on descriptions that highlighted investigative journalism as a method, or even as a personality attitude. For instance, Dorril (2000) said that investigative journalism is “characterised by in-depth and near-obsessional research, dogged determination, accumulated knowledge, team-effort.” Aucoin (2003) calls investigative journalism a “state of mind.” These two characterizations provide evidence for the set of transferable skills that students can gain from learning investigative journalism. Wang and Lee (2014, p. 218) identified nine terms describing investigative journalism in Chinese: Diaocha baodao 調查報道 (investigative reporting), Diaocha xinwen 調查新聞 (investigative news), Diaocha jizhe 調查記者 (investigative journalist), Shendu baodao 深度報道 (in-depth reporting), Piping baodao 批評報道 (critical reporting), Fumian baodao 負面報道 (negative reporting), Jiechou baodao 揭醜報道 (revelatory reporting), Jiehei baodao 揭黑報道 (muckraking), and Yulun jiandu 輿論監督 (supervision by public opinion). To these can be added Fan zhuan xin wen (plot twist news), whereby follow-up media reporting informed by audience engagement contains facts that contradict the originally reported story (Xu, 2021). After the general historical introduction, the module went on to cover a variety of case studies. These mostly focused on Britain and China and the United States, but in order to develop the notion of knowledge in context, a global perspective was included beyond the Anglo-American-Chinese triangle. For instance, in order to de-structure the idea of “West” as a unique block of countries and explain to students the diversity of cultural, political, and economic differences affecting journalism, and therefore the many ways of doing journalism, 170

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case studies were included from many other countries. These drew on Southern Mediterranean cultures, for example, the case of the Italian undercover journalist Fabrizio Gatti, who traveled under the guise of a refugee across the Sahara, but also from Baltic countries, as many English translations of the Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya are widely available online. While it is unavoidable to try to show students the basic influences of Anglo-American journalism in comparison with factors shaping journalism in China, interdisciplinarity might help circumvent the West-versus-East investigative journalism contest. A focus on this contest would unavoidably lead to triggering a confrontation between the political realities, one of which the students are subject to with very little freedom of choice. Two disciplinary areas that can productively overlap with investigative journalism are environmental studies and disability studies. The former was applied through a cross-departmental collaboration. The module included a class of environmental investigative journalism presented through a geological framework by an ecologist who explained the concept of the Anthropocene. The class then went on to show examples of the achievements of environmental investigative journalism in China and competing discourses of risk and modernization in society. These are articulated by Jingrong Tong in Investigative Journalism, Environmental Problems and Modernisation in China (2015), in which she provides nine agendas in Chinese investigative journalism since the 1990s: pollution, cancer villages, dam constructions, ground collapse, the exploitation of natural resources, deforestation, desertification, the water crisis, and the impact of artificial constructions. Students then had a conceptual framework to apply the idea and then reflect on the practice of environmental investigative journalism on a small scale. Assignments included the research on topic such as traffic impact of construction projects, transportation system from rural villages to the city, traffic congestion, street maintenance, waste management and compound-based recycling schemes, and many others. The application of disability studies to journalism stemmed from a research-led summer extra-curricular project drawing on the pedagogical approach of students as partners (SaP). Three students of investigative journalism worked in partnership with the teacher to critically examine how investigative journalism interpreted disability-related issues in China. The findings, which were summed up in a poster for a research exhibition, demonstrated that in-depth coverage of disability raises awareness of diversity but also creates a paradox: the activist nature and the melodramatic style of these journalistic investigations, often based on the binary disabled–nondisabled, perpetuate stigmatic representations that highlight disability as a clinical problem or as an object of pitiful empathy. The project was taken to class to introduce students to basic theories of disability, like the social blame model, the civil right model, the charity model, cultural pluralism, and the supercrip model, and their application through critical discourse analysis to investigative reports in China. The transnational outlook of the university created the optimal context to introduce students to global cross-border collaborative investigative journalism. This is a process whereby journalists from different countries work in partnership on a common story, collecting, verifying, and combining findings, and then coordinate in regard to publication time, target audience, and formats (Alfter, 2016). This class is of paramount importance because this journalistic model was developed precisely with the idea of overcoming national limitations, such as social and political constraints. In fact, cooperation can enhance legal protection, especially when this is not offered at home, and limit exposure and risk to a certain degree (Sambrook, 2018). The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) provides access to exemplary cases of collaborative projects students can get inspiration from 171

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to broaden their target also outside China, and training material, such as a multi-part video series on how to search the ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks Database (see Cosic  & Sadek, 2022). Another international organization, The Global Investigative Journalism Network, translates and publishes highlights of investigative stories from all around the world; the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism connects journalists and journalism trainers from a variety of countries of the Global South, including Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, Papua New Guinea, and other countries in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the South African subcontinent; the German-based European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) showcases examples of investigations focusing on Europe. There are plenty of opportunities to pedagogically explore the relationship between journalistic practice and geopolitical context without looking for a prevailing paradigm, if not the one that today collaboration, in national and cross-national and cross-continental ways, might be the only modality to ensure the survival of investigative journalism. These collaborative projects give students also an insight into what kind of media outlets they could work for after graduation. Academic performance was measured by means of two pieces of coursework comprising a practice and a theory-based assignment. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) explained that the theory–practice pair, as many other dissociations, “expresses a vision of the world and establishes hierarchies for which it endeavors to provide the criteria” (p. 420). The module applied a reversed version of the theory–practice link where practice was tested before theory. The assignment sequencing expected students to write a 1,500-word investigative article by week 11 first, accounting for 40% of the total assessment weight, and then a 2,000word academic essay by week 14, adding 60%. This approach had the advantage of making students lead the way, letting them speak first and find out their method of inquiry. Student expression comes first, and the teacher can mold the second part of the module to address gaps in knowledge, assumptions, or preconceptions. This form of delivery favors the type of dialogue Freire was an advocate of: “Dialogue does not impose, does not manipulate, does not domesticate, does not ‘sloganize’ ” (p. 166). Dialogue can help limit the risk of centering the module on a narrative mode in which, as Freire said, “contents are detached from reality” (p. 71), precisely because the teacher seeks linear connections between events, while the reality is more complex and nuanced. The post-production reflection, after the submission of the investigative article, in light of the theories explained in class and the sharing of the student-specific experience, is of crucial importance in an authoritarian country. Any investigation – performed either through a practical assessment or an analytical essay, as in this case – is most critical when, as Freire notes, “it avoids the narrow outlines of partial or ‘focalized’ views of reality, and sticks to the comprehension of total reality” (p. 108). In other words, students should invest their time in searching meaning, a connection between themes, and an awareness of the historical cultural milieu (Freire, 1970). This is also echoed, in its main application to investigative journalism, by Burstiner (2009), who recommended: “Don’t set out to ‘get’ someone. Instead of centering your story around blaming someone for a problem, center it around the problem.” The aim is to detect broader societal problems rather than exposing an individual and seeing them punished in regard to a responsibility that, in fact, has deeper societal roots. As Freire (1970) said: One of the characteristics of oppressive cultural action which is almost never perceived by the dedicated but naive professionals who are involved is the emphasis on a focalized view of problems rather than on seeing them as dimensions of a totality. (p. 141) 172

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Investigative journalism vacancies are rare and poorly paid; given the censorship and political restrictions, not many Chinese media are still practicing investigative journalism. That said, by providing students with a diverse perspective of investigative journalism around the world, it may help broaden their views on career options and consider, for instance, how to work on their intercultural communication and networking abilities to pursue a transnational collaborative project. Global news agencies like Bloomberg and Reuters hire Chinese reporters covering, in particular, economics, the environment, business, and finance, not to mention cross-collaborative opportunities outside China for those who want to become foreign correspondents for a country that, due to language and cultural barriers, often gets misrepresented. The critical organization and content distribution of this module of investigative journalism emphasizes the disciplinary function of a subject, which remains very popular in universities worldwide despite the scarcity of job opportunities. Investigation, analysis, observation, and interviewing are key features of inquiry-based learning. The pedagogical advantage of training students in investigative journalism is that the very nature of the subject provides them with critical and original tools to understand and change the world whilst acknowledging the variety of human values and needs.

Conclusion A teacher of investigative journalism in China faces the dilemmatic situation of having to train students in a type of journalism that, in principle, aims to express a critical voice toward the authority, especially the political one, which hence cannot be practiced at its fullest in China. Prioritizing Western normative and analytical traditions that primarily assess the role of journalism in relation to its impact on democracy and citizenship means neglecting the broader role that journalism plays in the current global world, including non-democratic and non-Western scenarios (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018). Trying to implant a Western system of ideas and values in a non-Western reality, even within a small semi-liberal context that a transnational university in China aspires to be, would mean overlooking the complexities of the environment from which learners derive their needs, hence limiting the student’s ability to shape the curriculum. In fact, this could add frustration and confusion, because students might find themselves squeezed into two hard-to-reconcile ideas: the individualistic and antagonizing stance of Anglo-American journalism, traditionally originating in a positivistic culture, putting great emphasis on the notion of empirical demonstrations, and the collectivistic and propagandistic style of Chinese journalism, influenced by re-adapted Confucian ideals of a harmonious society. Uncritical references to the Western model of journalism might exacerbate value-laden dichotomies, that is, freedom versus censorship, democracy versus authoritarianism, and the West versus China. This could reinforce a geopolitical Manichean view of news values, bolstering the belief in students whose traditional education does not emphasize the importance of critical thinking that there is one (right) way of doing things and everyone should follow it. That is why in many parts of the Global South, innovative transformations have been made in investigative journalism, rather than directly drawing on Western models of journalism, which take into account journalistic practices that could fit the media system and the political environment in which journalists work (Bebawi, 2021). In order to align the teaching of investigative journalism with the values of diversity and inclusion in a transnational context in an authoritarian country, two practices are recommended. First, following Freire (1970), a dialogic pedagogical approach should replace the 173

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narrative approach. In other words, knowledge should not be taken as a static monolith but as something that teachers and students contribute to building together, engaging in a dialogue with various traditions, including their own. The second practice entails the adoption of the idea of knowledge in context by acknowledging diversity and fostering the exchange of different ideas to contribute to building and enriching communities and broadening their confines (Jovchelovitch, 2007). It could contribute to achieve this objective: avoiding expressing absolutistic value judgments regarding journalism; emphasizing in class that no evaluative judgment can be disentangled by issues such as political influence, commercial influence, and the need to meet the interests of the buying target audience; underlying the importance of knowing the heterogeneity of approaches by including global perspectives beyond the Anglo-American Chinese triangle; and explaining the advantage of developing intercultural communication and teamwork skills. The goal is not to indoctrinate students but to enable them to develop skills and learn how to use resources as best as they can to humanly realize themselves through either the profession or a mindset that can be applied to professions other than journalism, and to contribute to the development of the society in the direction they want the future to go.

References (2013). Transnational education. Asia-Pacific European Cooperation (APEC). Retrieved December 1, 2019, from http://hrd.apec.org/index.php/Transnational_Education (2013). Why it is important to remember Sun Zhigang. China Labour Bulletin. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from www.clb.org.hk/content/why-it-important-remember-sun-zhigang. (2021). The great leap backwards of journalism in China. Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Retrieved August 7, 2022, from https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/2021-01-31_china_report_en__3.pdf Alfter, B. (2016). Cross-border collaborative journalism: Why journalists and scholars should talk about an emerging method. Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 5(2), 297–311. Aucoin, J. L. (2003). Investigative journalism. In D. H. Johnston (Ed.), Encyclopedia of international media and communications (pp. 583–591). Academic Press. Bebawi, S. (2021). Conceptualising innovation through a cultural model: Arab investigative journalism. Journalism Studies, 22(11), 1400–1415. Burstiner, M. (2009). Investigative reporting from premise to publication: Building the big story. Holcomb Hathaway, Publishers. Burtiner, M. (2018). Investigative reporting. From premise to publication (2nd ed.). Routledge. Cook, S. (2018). Investigative journalism in China is struggling to survive. Freedom House. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://freedomhouse.org/article/investigative-journalism-china-strugglingsurvive Cosic, J., & Sadek, N. (2022, February 8). How to take your Offshore Leaks Database searches to the next level. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). https://www.icij.org/ investigations/pandora-papers/how-to-take-your-offshore-leaks-database-searches-to-thenext-level/ Dai, K., Lingard, B., & Reyes, V. (2018). “In-betweeners”: An investigation of Chinese students’ learning experiences in China-Australia 2+2 articulation programs. Scottish Educational Review, 50(1), 36–55. de Burgh, H. (2000). Investigative journalism: Context and practice. Routledge. Dorril, S. (2000). What is investigative journalism? Free Press, 116. Feldman, A., & Herman, B. C. (2015). Teacher contextual knowledge. In R. Gunstone (Ed.), Encyclopedia of science education (pp. 1020–1021). Springer. Francois, E. J. (2016). What is transnational education? In E. J. Francois, M. B. M. Avoseh, & W. Griswold (Eds.), Perspectives in transnational higher education (pp. 3–22). Sense Publishers. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.

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Teaching Investigative Journalism in a University in China Garrisi, D. (2022). The campus magazine as an aesthetic experience in a transnational university in China. Media Practice and Education. doi:10.1080/25741136.2022.2072677 Hanitzsch, T., & Vos, T. P. (2018). Journalism beyond democracy: A new look into journalistic roles in political and everyday life. Journalism, 19(2), 146–164. Hassid, J. (2012). Safety valve or pressure cooker? Blogs in Chinese political life. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 212–230. Hunter, M. L. (2011). Story-based inquiry: A manual for investigative journalists. UNESCO. Jiao, B. (2013). How Chinese journalists use Weibo microblogging for investigative reporting. Reuters Institute. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/ how-chinese-journalists-use-weibo-microblogging-investigative-reporting Jovchelovitch, S. (2007). Knowledge in context. Representations, community and culture. Routledge. Koetse, M. (2018, August 4). Chinese online news outlet Q Daily shut down [Update: Reopened September 2018]. What’s on Weibo. Retrieved August 15, 2022, from www.whatsonweibo.com/ chinese-online-news-outlet-q-daily-shut-down/ Li, K., & Sparks, C. (2018). Chinese newspapers and investigative reporting in the new media age. Journalism Studies, 19(3), 415–431. Mouraz, A., & Leite, C. (2013). Putting knowledge in context. Curriculum contextualization in history classes. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching & Learning Journal, 6(3), 1–11. www.kpu.ca/ sites/default/files/Teaching%20and%20Learning/TD.6.3.12_Mouraz%26Leite_Putting_knowledge_in_context.pdf Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation. University of Notre Dame Press. Sambrook, R. (2018). Introduction. In R. Sambrook (Ed.), Global teamwork: The rise of collaboration in investigative journalism. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved August 27, 2022, from https://ice.xjtlu.edu.cn/pluginfile.php/96228/mod_resource/content/1/sambrook_ e-ISBN_1802.pdf Svensson, M. (2012). Media and civil society in China: Community building and networking among investigative journalists and beyond. China Perspectives, 3, 64–75. Tong, J. (2011). Investigative Journalism in China. Continuum. Tong, J. (2015). Investigative journalism, environmental problems and modernisation in China. Palgrave Macmillan. Wang, H., & Lee, L. F. (2014). Research on Chinese investigative journalism, 1978–2013: A critical review. The China Review, 14(2), 215–251. Xu, N. (2021). Digital media and investigative journalism in China. Media Asia, 48(3), 158–174. Zhang, J. (2019). Chai Jing: The power of vulnerability. In S. Cai (Ed.), Female celebrities in contemporary Chinese society. Palgrave Macmillan. Zhao, Y. (1998). Media, market, and democracy in China: Between the party line and the bottom line. University of Illinois Press. Zhao, Y. (2000). Watchdogs on party leashes? Contexts and implications of investigative journalism in Post-Deng China. Journalism Studies, 1(2), 577–598. Zhi’an, Z., & Fei, S. (2012). A study of investigative reporters’ job satisfaction and influencing factors), Xinwen yu chuanbo yanjiu (Journalism and Communication), 4, 64–75.

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PART III

Diversity of Journalism Practices

16 CONSTRAINTS ON JOURNALISTIC PRACTICES IN THE ARAB WORLD POST–ARAB SPRING AND POST-COVID-19 Sahar Khamis The Pandemic of Authoritarianism in the Post–Arab Spring Era Historically, repressive Arab governments deployed a plethora of direct and indirect control mechanisms to tighten their grip on media institutions in the Arab world, including journalistic entities and their practices. These mechanisms included state ownership of major media outlets, especially broadcast media, which are vitally important in a region with high illiteracy rates; hiring of editors-in-chief and top executives in various media institutions; sponsoring and funding of media outlets which agree to engage in government-friendly reporting; and ultimately, cracking down on journalists and media professionals who refuse to abide by the government-dictated boundaries of news coverage, oftentimes risking losing their jobs, their freedom, or even their lives (Bebawi, 2016; Rugh, 2007; Sakr, 2013; Seib, 2007) One of the major challenges which always had negative effects on media credibility and professionalism in the Arab world is the legal challenge, which could be described as “twofold.” On one hand, there is the presence of legal codes and laws that are meant to protect journalists but which are not effectively enforced, leaving them vulnerable to regimes’ pressures and retaliation. On the other hand, there is the exploitation of existing punitive measures, or even drafting new ones, with the purpose of cracking down harder on journalists, many times with harsh consequences, such as imprisonment, handing long jail sentences, and closing down media outlets and websites (El-Nawawy & Khamis, 2013; Rugh, 2007; Sakr, 2013; Seib, 2007). When the Arab Spring uprisings erupted in 2011, the high hopes for democratization and reform in the region were supplemented and aided by the newly adopted phenomenon of “cyberactivism,” defined as the utilization of new media to enact socio-political change (Howard, 2011). At that time, social media were effectively utilized as catalysts, mobilizers, and amplifiers by the young activists, protesters, and citizen journalists, who were many steps ahead of the dictatorial regimes in the region, many of whom were mostly unprepared and/ or taken by surprise in the face of this new wave of digitally enabled protests (Shirky, 2011; Lynch, 2016). Sadly, a wide range of unfortunate developments unfolded in the so-called “post–Arab Spring” countries, causing detours in their journeys toward democratization and reversals

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in their paths to reform. These ranged from sectarian strife and statelessness in Libya and a brutal civil war and a humanitarian disaster in Syria to a crushed uprising in Bahrain, a return to a harsher military dictatorship in Egypt, and a devastating war coupled with a tragic humanitarian disaster in Yemen. Even the only country which was initially perceived as the sole exception when it comes to a successful and smooth democratic transition in the region, namely, Tunisia, suffered from its own political setbacks recently. More than a decade after the eruption of the Arab Spring uprisings, the dashed hopes for smooth political transitions to democratization and reform were clearly paralleled by an equally disappointing trend, namely, the shift from “techno-euphoria,” characterized by the highly optimistic expectations of the democratizing potentials of social media, to escalating “digital authoritarianism,” which is accompanied by a tendency to legitimize political authoritarianism (Dragu & Lupu, 2021; Khamis, 2020a, 2020b). During this new phase, many Arab regimes built, and enhanced, their digital learning curve and are now more capable of not only matching but also, oftentimes, even exceeding the technical capabilities of their dissidents, opponents, and critics, including vocal journalists who dare expose their autocratic regimes’ wrongdoings. In the midst of these heated cyberwars, authoritarian Arab regimes use a plethora of techniques, including, but not limited to, hacking, trolling, sabotaging, and even online shaming and harassment, to shape the public narrative in their favor, while defying and smearing their own critics and opponents, including brave journalists who dare to speak truth to power (Khamis, 2020a, 2020b). This gave birth to a new media landscape characterized by tightening the governmental grip over the media and shrinking the margin of journalistic freedom in these countries. Analyzing this rising wave of authoritarianism and its implications on the shifting Arab journalistic landscape necessitates accounting for the myriad realities in different Arab countries, politically, economically, and technologically, as well as the external and internal factors impacting journalistic practices and media coverage in these countries. These include the underlying media systems and the various professional obstacles impacting media organizations’ routines and journalistic performance (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Although it is important to take into account the distinctive differences between various countries within the Arab region, in terms of the degree of openness, or lack thereof, in their political systems, the type of economy they enjoy, and the level of technological advancement they exhibit, among other factors, we can still highlight a number of overarching similarities which characterized the post–Arab Spring journalistic landscape at large (Bebawi, 2016; Sakr, 2013). These included dire consequences for journalistic practices in the Arab region, with some journalists losing their source of livelihood, through governmental shutdowns of their newspapers and websites, the withdrawal of their journalistic licenses, or firing practices; others losing their personal freedom through imprisonments, arrests, or forced disappearances; with still others losing their own lives through government-ordered killings. The unfortunate consequences of these repressive practices included a shrinking margin of press freedom, a general decline in the quality of journalistic reporting, and waves of resignation or immigration outside the region to practice journalism from the diaspora. Many of these repressive measures worsened and escalated during the post–Arab Spring era, in both the countries which witnessed the Arab Spring uprisings and those which didn’t witness them, albeit for different reasons. The Arab Spring countries, which experienced the previously mentioned unfortunate outcomes, politically, economically, and socially, felt the 180

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dire need to control the media narrative to avoid the eruption of new waves of public anger and revolt among their masses, while the non–Arab Spring countries engaged in similar practices to avoid the eruption of uprisings in the first place and, ultimately, facing the same outcomes. For example, Egypt, a post–Arab Spring country, and Saudi Arabia, a non–Arab Spring country, were among the countries which imprisoned more journalists and activists each year, compared to the previous year, for three consecutive years, marking a worsening press freedom record and an escalating level of authoritarianism (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2018). This disturbing “new normal” for journalists in the Arab region (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2018, 2020) compels us to unpack the complexity of the phenomenon of Arab resistance in the diaspora in general and the potentials and limitations of the deployment of digital tools by Arab diasporic communities, including activists and journalists, to resist their autocratic regimes from abroad in particular (Khamis & Fowler, 2020). One of the paradoxes of exercising journalism from the diaspora in the post–Arab Spring phase is the limited trickle-down effect and the limited ability to trigger grassroots activism and on-the-ground actions back home. According to Nada Alwadi, a Bahraini journalist and writer who has also been living in the United States for many years: On one hand, many Arab journalists in the diaspora are enjoying the advantage of safely raising their voices and speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves, without being easy targets for their regimes. On the other hand, however, living outside their home countries, without being directly in touch with their fellow citizens back home, means that there is only so much they can do when tackling key issues. They can’t have a big impact on the mobilization of the masses. (Alwadi, 2021) Moreover, the fact that some Arab regimes’ opponents started exercising activism and/or journalism in the diaspora, out of fear for their personal safety and the safety of their families, doesn’t mean that they are always safe or immune from their regimes’ retaliation, unfortunately. Some autocratic Arab regimes are still capable of cracking down on their opponents, including journalists, while in the diaspora, sometimes with the brutal ultimate outcome of silencing them forever. One infamous case was the horrific murder of prominent Washington Post columnist and Saudi regime critic Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. Another equally horrifying case was the brutal killing of Syrian journalists and regime critics Orouba Barakat and her daughter, also in Istanbul (Khamis & Fowler, 2020).

The Dual Pandemics of Covid-19 and Heightened Journalistic Constraints The stifling of journalistic freedom in the Arab region significantly exacerbated in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, as various Arab regimes started to deploy new tools and to come up with innovative control mechanisms to ensure that the official, state-orchestrated narrative around the pandemic dominates all media platforms, without any questioning or negation from different journalistic sources. The surge in people’s desire to seek information about the pandemic was alarming to many countries, especially those with authoritarian governments, for whom any window for gaining access to non-state-controlled information 181

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was instantly perceived as a threat, prompting them to shut it down immediately (Khamis, 2020b). Some of the techniques utilized by authoritarian Arab regimes in this regard ranged from closing down websites to arresting local journalists and ousting international correspondents, as well as exploiting punitive legal codes and laws, such as “cybercrime laws” and other restrictive measures, to tighten their grip on all media outlets, under the mantle of countering “disinformation” and fighting “misinformation.” All these official strategies negatively impacted the margin of freedom allowed for legacy journalism on one hand as well as digital/multimedia journalism on the other hand (Khamis, 2020b). According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) “Covid-19 and Press Freedom” map and report, which document the types and locations of various Covid-19-related threats, including digital threats, and their impact on press freedom globally, many restrictions and violations by Arab regimes against press freedom, including shutting down numerous websites or restricting access to them, were widespread throughout the region (CPJ, 2020). Arab governments’ struggle to control, and define, the official narrative around the Covid19 pandemic, including statistics about infections and death rates, according to their own terms, interests, and agendas, resulted in a dual outcome. On one hand, it increased their reliance on manipulated, state-controlled official media outlets as their main communication tools. On the other hand, their desire to ensure “maximum narrative control” resulted in cracking down on both local and international media outlets and journalists who dared to challenge the officially crafted and state-manipulated narrative, through alternative media coverage (Middle East Eye Correspondent, 2020). This new phase of so-called “weaponized censorship” led to the demise of free expression, including journalistic freedom, in many countries in the Arab region (Marzouk, 2020). For example, a number of Arab governments cracked down harshly on both local and foreign media outlets in March and April 2020, in retaliation for noncompliant Covid-19 reporting. These incidents included the Iraqi regulator suspending Reuters’ license for three months, the Iraqi Kurdish authorities closing down the NRT TV station, Jordan arresting two journalists, and Bahrain imprisoning a few journalists and placing one of them in solitary confinement, to mention only a few examples (CPJ, 2020). Other glaring examples included the detention of Lina Attalah, the editor-in-chief of the website Mada Masr, known as Egypt’s last independent media outlet, as well as the journalist Hassan Mahgoub and an editor, Atef Hasballah, in the midst of a growing wave of crackdown on press freedom linked to Covid-19 reporting (Michaelson, 2020). One of the most infamous cases was that of the late 65-year-old Egyptian journalist Mohamed Mounir, who has been described as “murdered by Coronavirus” (Myers, 2020) twice: one time when daring to write about it and comment on it in a manner which angered the Egyptian authorities, and another time when paying his life as a price for this reporting, after contracting the virus in a crowded Egyptian jail and dying from Covid-19-related complications a few days after his release (Khamis, 2020b). An important tool which has been deployed by repressive Arab regimes in their relentless fight against truth-seeking journalists and reporters in the Arab world amid the coronavirus pandemic has been punitive legal measures, such as the drafting, and enforcement, of so-called “cybercrime laws,” which, as the name implies, are intended to punish those who are perceived by various Arab dictatorial regimes as crossing the line in the realm of cyberspace, by committing “online violations.” The definition, and nature, of these violations is, of course, oftentimes decided by Arab governments and their official regulatory bodies, 182

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such as “The Supreme Council for Media Regulation” in Egypt, for example, with severe consequences for those who dare to violate such regulations when publishing about sensitive topics, including the pandemic (Khamis, 2020b). The danger of these new laws and regulations, which are oftentimes broad, obscure, and vague on purpose, is that they criminalize any reporting which falls outside the realm of state approval and/or which contradicts the official, governmental narrative in reporting about these topics and investigates it as a “violation” of spreading “false news.” Those who are accused of spreading so-called “false news” online about the coronavirus could face up to five years’ imprisonment and paying steep fines in some Arab countries, such as Egypt, for example (Associated Press, 2020). Sadly, even international reporters and foreign correspondents were negatively impacted by this surging wave of governmental repression and stifling of media freedoms amid the Covid-19 pandemic. One glaring example was the infamous case of the Guardian correspondent Ruth Michaelson, the British German journalist whose press credentials were revoked and who was expelled from Egypt after publishing an article citing a higher number of Covid-19 cases in Egypt than that which is officially declared by the Egyptian government (Sanders IV, 2020). Another case was that of The New York Times Cairo bureau chief Declan Walsh when the “State Information Service” (SIS), the official information apparatus of the Egyptian government, which is responsible for foreign media accreditation, denounced his tweets in which he referenced the same Covid-19 figures in Ruth Michaelson’s article, and censured him for “bad faith” reporting. Walsh later deleted the tweets, following a severe backlash (Al Jazeera, 2020). Moreover, some Arab governments effectively utilized new surveillance tools and techniques, such as putting in place more rigorous online surveillance mechanisms and utilizing digital contact-tracing applications, for the purpose of monitoring Covid-19 cases and identifying the location, mobility, and social networks of those who tested positive. Such advanced digital applications are more widely used in the affluent and more technologically developed Arab Gulf countries in particular (Nafei, 2020) Although such efforts are meant to slow down the spread of the global pandemic, there are numerous dangers posed by the spread of hacking, spyware tools, and invasion of privacy practices which are deployed by various authoritarian regimes throughout the Arab region. While these new digital tools have been sanctioned and legitimized, under the mantle of tracing the spread of the virus, they can also be utilized effectively to trace the regime’s opponents and critics, including activists and truth-revealing journalists (Khamis, 2020b). Overall, the dangerous wave of governmental repression of press freedom which has been sweeping the Arab world amid the Covid-19 pandemic manifested itself in a number of aggressive ways, covering all ten of the dangerous symptoms of curbing press freedom amid the pandemic, which the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) warned against in 2020. These included laws against “fake news”; jailing journalists; suspending free speech; blunt censorship, online and offline; threatening and harassing journalists, online and offline; accreditation requests and restricted freedom of movement; restricted access to information; expulsions and visa restrictions; surveillance and contact tracing; and emergency measures (Jacobsen, 2020). This grim picture meant that the pandemic created truly dire and dangerous situations for Arab journalists, both in mainstream media and in digital media, compelling many of them to battle the parallel threats of being infected while covering coronavirus-related stories on one 183

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hand and being punished and/or arrested by their own regimes, as a result of this coverage, especially if it is not complying with the official, governmental narrative, on the other hand (Khamis, 2020b).

A Third Pandemic for Arab Women Journalists: Gender-Based Discrimination While journalists throughout the Arab region in general have been hugely impacted by the dual pandemics of authoritarianism and Covid-19, Arab women journalists in particular have been suffering from a third pandemic, in parallel, namely, gender-based discrimination, which worsened amid the detours in the path to democratization, reform, and press freedom in the post–Arab Spring phase and escalated during the Covid-19 era (Khamis & El-Ibiary, 2022). Many of the constraints which Arab women journalists have been grabbling with are due to a unique, and unfortunate, combination of legal and political constraints on one hand and stagnant social traditions and a patriarchal culture on the other hand. Therefore, it could be said that Arab women journalists have been engaging in the dual struggle of resisting legal and political constraints, alongside their male colleagues, while also fighting gender-based discrimination, sexism, and misogyny simultaneously (Khamis & El-Ibiary, 2022). The gender-based challenges which they have been suffering from include sexual harassment, sexual violence, profiling, online shaming, professional discrimination in hiring and promotion, and less access to training, financial resources, and technology. These challenges limit their social and professional “gendered capital” (De Vuyst & Raeymaeckers, 2019). In terms of hiring practices, Arab women journalists have been the hardest to hire and the easiest to fire, due to many professional barriers and socio-economic constraints, in addition to skewed social traditions and biased cultural practices in their male-dominated, patriarchal societies (Melki & Mallat, 2016). Additionally, there is the global trend whereby hard news is assigned to male journalists and softer content, like cooking, fashion, housekeeping, and gossip, is assigned to female journalists. Arab women journalists are no exception (Mellor, 2019). Moreover, Arab women journalists also have lesser chances to get promoted and are often denied senior leadership positions, reflecting the “sex-role stereotyping” and “glass ceiling” syndromes which perpetuate women’s global underrepresentation in editorial and managerial media positions worldwide (Mellor, 2019). This is best expressed by Egyptian journalist Iman Ouf. She stated, “We suffer twice: Once for being journalists, and another for being women! There is only one or two women Editors-in-Chief in Egypt” (Ouf, 2020). This reminds us that Arab media remain male-­ dominated, especially in leadership and managerial positions (Mellor, 2019). Women constitute less than 8% of the top managerial positions in the media in some Arab countries like Egypt (Wharton Kaye-Essien & Ismail, 2020). Many of the challenges facing Arab women journalists worsened and exacerbated amid the reversals in democratization and reform which dominated the post–Arab Spring phase. The increasingly chaotic, dangerous, and unstable public sphere in post–Arab Spring countries invited the increased risks of physical harm to Arab women journalists, including sexual violence and sexual harassment, which are oftentimes used as weapons to discourage women in general and women journalists in particular from playing active roles in the public sphere. For example, describing women’s rights reversals in post-revolutionary Egypt, Zuhur (2014, p. 27) explained that “[w]omen’s rights advocates in post-revolutionary Egypt faced 184

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many daunting challenges,” as they clashed with “counter movements,” deploying political, social, and religious mechanisms to suppress women. We can safely argue that this backlash spilled over into the journalistic field, fomenting an unfortunate combination of political, legal, professional, and socio-economic challenges which constrained Egyptian women journalists’ agency and autonomy (Khamis  & El-Ibiary, 2022). The same situation applies to women journalists in the rest of the so-called post–Arab Spring countries. Finally, the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated some of these gender-based gaps even more in a number of significant ways. With the increased reliance on virtual modes of communication amid the pandemic, the “digital divide,” and even more so the “gender digital divide,” negatively impacted Arab women journalists, many of whom suffer from limited “gendered digital capital” compared to their male counterparts, since digital tools “are not automatically accessible to all journalists,” and therefore, they do not always enjoy the same “professional advantages” (De Vuyst & Raeymaeckers, 2019). Even access to resources, including digital training, was always skewed in favor of their male colleagues. Most importantly, when many Arab media organizations started to either shut down or downsize amid the Covid-19 pandemic, most of those who were negatively impacted were women. According to Iman Ouf: When a newspaper decides to shut down, or to downsize, the first victims are women journalists. The most common bad excuse is that women are busy with domestic obligations and cannot work 12 hours a day, if needed. . . . It’s simply unfair! (Ouf, 2020) Other commonly held misperceptions and lame excuses include the false assumption that women have male providers who can support them financially, and therefore, they don’t need the income, unlike their male colleagues. This is certainly untrue in many cases, of course (Khamis & El-Ibiary, 2022). Overall, the combination of these far-from-ideal political, economic, and social factors, which worsened amid the post–Arab Spring phase and the Covid-19 pandemic, magnified the journalistic challenges and constraints which Arab women journalists have been suffering from for a long time.

Concluding Remarks: Resistance Mechanisms in a Constrained Journalistic Landscape The escalating dangerous trends constraining journalistic practices in the Arab media landscape in recent years are indicative of the shrinking margin of freedom in this troubled part of the world, in general, and the diminishing margin of freedom of expression, both in mainstream media and social media, in particular. The fact that these trends accelerated in the post–Arab Spring phase and, even more, amid the devastating global pandemic had farreaching outcomes and significant implications. Such new trends created a plethora of negative consequences for Arab journalists in general and Arab women journalists in particular, politically, economically, socially, and professionally, as previously discussed. To best analyze the impacts of these complex factors on the shifting Arab journalistic landscape, a myriad of factors has to be carefully considered, including the degree of authoritarianism which is exercised by the regime in power in various Arab countries in the political arena, and its reflections on the media arena; the shifts and 185

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transformations in the socio-political landscape, and the accompanying shifts in the media landscape; the different forms of direct and indirect media control and digital manipulation exercised by various Arab regimes, ranging from censorship to sponsorship; and the varying levels of technological savviness, economic affluence, and digital literacy across various Arab countries. However, it is also important to highlight that such negative trends were not without resistance and pushback. One example is the fact that the oppressive efforts on the part of authoritarian regimes, including those in the Arab world amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which culminated in widespread waves of media and Internet shutdowns, were met by ­counter-waves of resistance and objection to such efforts, not just in the Arab world, but globally as well, and not just on the part of journalists, but on the part of human rights activists, citizen journalists, and others too (AccessNow, 2020). Moreover, such resistance was clearly evident in the efforts of both local and foreign journalists who challenged the Covid-19 official narrative which was put forward by authoritarian regimes in the Arab region, in addition to the important contributions of Arab journalists in the diaspora, many of whom resisted and challenged their governments’ monopoly over the truth, by presenting alternative narratives and raising their loud voices from outside the region. Although such systematic efforts to resist state authoritarianism and monopoly over shared information oftentimes resulted in dire consequences for Arab journalists, both at home and even abroad in the diaspora, this never stopped them from pursuing this path and continuing their noble mission of seeking, revealing, and amplifying the truth. One of the most important tools which many of these journalists resorted to in their struggle against their autocratic, dictatorial regimes is their reliance on digital tools of communication, the very same tools which were oftentimes deployed by their authoritarian governments to shut down, hack, sabotage, or block their websites and/or to defame them and harass them online. This highlights the double-edged-sword effect of these new technologies as tools for both liberation and repression simultaneously, depending on who is using them, against whom, when, where, how, and why. This duality in the roles, and effects, of new technologies and modern means of communication stems from the fact that just like they are providing regimes with strong tools to restrict freedoms and to block the flow of information, they are also providing activists, dissidents, opponents, and journalists with the needed tools and platforms to resist such restrictions and to counter them, creating a never-ending tug-of-war (Khamis, 2020a). Cyberspace provided a unique platform for exercising citizen, non-state journalism, which constitutes an alternative sphere, outside of direct governmental intervention and manipulation, thus creating the needed environment for active civil societies to grow and thrive. It also facilitated the much-needed “spillover effect” from the domain of citizen journalism to the domain of mainstream media, through breaking the taboos around sensitive political issues, such as violations of human rights and regimes’ corruption, as well as sensitive social issues, such as domestic violence and sexual harassment (El-Nawawy & Khamis, 2013). In the case of Arab women journalists in particular, digital media and new communication technologies opened the door for new opportunities. Despite the global digital divide in general and the gender digital divide in particular, which widened in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic, some Arab women journalists, especially those who are younger and more 186

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technologically savvy, started relying on new communication technologies to develop new “gender-sensitive” programs, raise awareness about women-centered issues, and create new professional opportunities for themselves and for other women. Through their reliance on these digitally enabled platforms and communication tools, Arab women journalists are constantly expanding the boundaries of the journalistic field by introducing new genres, innovative ideas, and new patterns of reporting, while striving for more gender equity (Khamis & El-Ibiary, 2022). Undoubtedly, the relentless battles over who controls the mediated narratives in the Arab world took different forms, used differing tools, and exhibited varying degrees of severity in various Arab countries. However, we can be certain about one thing, namely, the continuation of these contestations moving forward. Indeed, it is safe to conclude that the push-and-pull mechanisms and the ongoing tug-of-war between Arab regimes’ imposed constraints and the resulting journalistic professional challenges on one hand and legacy journalists and citizen journalists’ resistances to these constraints on different levels on the other hand are likely to continue for some time to come, giving birth to constantly shifting, ongoing cycles of repression and resistance with broad implications in a shifting region.

References AccessNow. (2020, May 26). Civil society to WHO: Let’s end government-ordered internet shutdowns. www.accessnow.org/civil-society-to-who-lets-end-government-ordered-internet-shutdowns/ Al Jazeera. (2020, March 18). Egypt targets Guardian, NYT journalists over coronavirus reports. Al Jazeera. www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/egypt-targets-guardian-nyt-journalists-coronavirusreports-200318155434068.html Alwadi, N. (2021). Zoom interview on January 20, 2021. Associated Press (AP). (2020, July 6). Egypt arrests doctors, silences critics over virus outbreak. The Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/health/egypt-arrests-doctors-silences-critics-overvirus-outbreak/2020/07/06/65eb7984-bf50-11ea-8908–68a2b9eae9e0_story.html Bebawi, S. (2016). Investigative journalism in the Arab world: Issues and challenges. Palgrave Macmillan. Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). (2018). Prison census: Hundreds of journalists jailed globally becomes the new normal. https://cpj.org/reports/2018/12/journalists-jailed-imprisoned-turkeychina-egypt-saudi-arabia.php Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). (2020). Covid-19 and press freedom. https://cpj.org/ covid-19/ De Vuyst, S., & Raeymaeckers, K. (2019). Is journalism gender e-qual? A study of the gendered accumulation and evaluation of digital capital in journalism. Digital Journalism, 7(5), 554–570. Dragu, T., & Lupu, Y. (2021). Digital authoritarianism and the future of human rights. International Organization, 1(27). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000624 El-Nawawy, M., & Khamis, S. (2013). Egyptian revolution 2.0: Political blogging, civic engagement and citizen journalism. Palgrave Macmillan. El Tantawy, N., & Wiest, J. B. (2011). Social media in the Egyptian revolution: Reconsidering resource mobilization theory. International Journal of Communication, 5, 1207–1224. Howard, P. N. (2011). The digital origins of dictatorship and democracy: Information technology and political Islam. Oxford University Press. Jacobsen, K. (2020). Amid covid-19, the prognosis for press freedom is dim. Here are 10 symptoms to track. Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). https://cpj.org/reports/2020/06/ covid-19-here-are-10-press-freedom-symptoms-to-track/ Khamis, S. (2020a, December 10). Between “digital euphoria” and “cyber-authoritarianism:” Technology’s two faces, Oasis, a biannual. Journal of the Oasis International Foundation, 31, 94–102. Marsilio.

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Sahar Khamis Khamis, S. (2020b). A battle of two pandemics: Coronavirus and digital authoritarianism in the Arab world. In M. Sexton & E. Campbell (Eds.), Cyber war & cyber peace in the Middle East (pp. 145–162). Middle East Institute. Khamis, S., & El-Ibiary, R. (2022). Egyptian women journalists’ feminist voices in a shifting digitalized journalistic field. Digital Journalism. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2022.2 039738 Khamis, S., & Fowler, R. (2020). Arab resistance in the diaspora: Comparing the Saudi dissident and the Egyptian whistleblower. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 13(1), 31–49. Lynch, M. (2012). The Arab uprising: The unfinished revolutions of the new Middle East. Public Affairs. Lynch, M. (2016). The new Arab wars: Uprisings and anarchy in the Middle East. Public Affairs. Marzouk, H. (2020, July 2). Weaponized censorship: The final demise of free expression in Egypt’s media. The New Arab. https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2020/7/2/the-final-demiseof-free-expression-in-egypts-media Melki, J. P., & Mallat, S. E. (2016). Block her Entry, keep her down and push her out: Gender discrimination and women journalists in the Arab world. Journalism Studies, 17(1), 57–79. https://doi.org /10.1080/1461670X.2014.962919 Mellor, N. (2019). The (in)visibility of Arab women in political journalism. In C. Carter, L. Steiner, & S. Allan (Eds.), Journalism, gender and power (pp. 265–278). Routledge. Michaelson, R. (2020, May 17). Egyptian editor briefly detained in Covid-19 reporting crackdown. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/17/egyptian-editor-held-in-covid-19 -reporting-crackdown Middle East Eye Correspondent. (2020, June 21). Fear is overcoming me: Egypt cracks down harder on media amid pandemic. Middle East Eye. www.middleeasteye.net/news/fear-overcoming-meegypt-steps-crackdown-media-amid-pandemic Myers, E. R. (2020, August 25). Egyptian journalist Mohamed Mounir murdered by Coronavirus. Inside Arabia. https://insidearabia.com/egyptian-journalist-mohamed-mounir-murdered-by-coro navirus/?fbclid=IwAR0bgj32CYLOiAuVQFpgNyJD7R_QVnpx9G_GKcxLqMrOp75Wd KcqFws3bog Nafei, M. (2020, April 20). UAE’s coronavirus tracing app-Is it compulsory and other questions answered. Al Arabiya English. https://english.alarabiya.net/en/coronavirus/2020/04/20/ UAE-s-coronavirus-tracing-app-Is-it-compulsory-and-other-questions-answered Ouf, I. (2020). Zoom interview on July 6, 2020. Rugh, W. (2007). Do national political systems still influence Arab media? Arab Media & Society. www. arabmediasociety.com/do-national-political-systems-still-influence-arab-media/ Sakr, N. (2013). Transformations in Egyptian journalism. Palgrave Macmillan. Sanders IV, L. (2020, March 27). Egypt expels British journalist over coronavirus coverage. DW. www. dw.com/en/egypt-expels-british-journalist-over-coronavirus-coverage/a-52942136 Seib, P. (2007). New media and prospects for democratization. In P. Seib (Ed.), New media and the new Middle East (pp. 1–17). Palgrave Macmillan. Shirky, C. (2011, January/February). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign Affairs, 90(1). http://fam.ag/1jBPc4b Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (2014). Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Wharton Kaye-Essien, C., & Ismail, M. (2020). Leadership, gender and the Arab media: A perception study of female journalists in Egypt. Feminist Media Studies, 20(1), 119–134. https://doi.org/10. 1080/14680777.2018.1546212 Zuhur, S. (2014). Women’s quest for equality in post-revolutionary Egypt. In C. Derichs & D. Fennert (Eds.), Women’s movements and countermovements: The quest for gender equality in Southeast Asia and the Middle East (pp. 27–54). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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17 NEWS JOURNALISM AS A CIVIL NORM BUILDER IN POST-CONFLICT SETTINGS The Example of the Daily Nation and The Standard News Reporting after the Kenyan Election Violence, 2007/2008 Stefanie Pukallus and Gemma Horton Introduction It has previously been argued that news journalism has a particular role to fulfil in post–civil conflict settings: civil norm building (Harrison & Pukallus, 2021, 2023; Pukallus, 2022). Such a civil norm building role enables news journalists and news institutions to contribute to the (re)building of peaceful cooperation, associative civil life, and ultimately, a civil sphere in places where they have been seriously damaged or rendered unviable through conflict. A civil sphere, following Alexander (2006), can be defined as a structurally independent set of institutions and associations that are concerned with justice and democracy, daily cooperation, and social capacity building. As such, it is differentiated from the “state” and the “market,” that is, the economic sphere. The ideal civil sphere – public life – can be defined as: the arena not of solidarity narrowly defined in a communitarian and particularistic way but in universalistic terms. It is the we-ness of a national, regional, or international community, the feeling of connectedness to “every member” of that community, that transcends particular commitments, narrow loyalties, and sectional interests. (ibid., 43) Such a civil society is best understood as “a form of social and cultural organization rooted simultaneously in a radical individualism and a thoroughgoing collectivism” (ibid.) which allows for “universalizing ties, bonds that transcend particularistic interest groups and identity communities alike” and is supported by a civil consciousness that acknowledged multiple loyalties and attachments and is confident with these. Of course, this is the ideal of civil society, and though it can never be completely achieved, it can be instantiated in the real, and it is this that news journalism can exemplify and support the achievement of: the actual experience of peaceful cooperation based on three categories of civil norms of peaceful

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cooperation.1 These categories are (a) assenting to civil peace, (b) practicing substantive civility, and (c) building civil capacity and civil competencies.2 Enabling deeply divided post–civil conflict societies to successfully undertake the move from enmity to co-citizenship, from violence to non-violent agonistic communication, from hate to dignity-as-respectfulness (Pukallus, 2022), and from exclusive to multiple loyalties is indispensable to the achievement of sustainable civil peace. It requires a commitment to peaceful cooperation based on shared values and common goals. In short, a common outlook that peace is desirable. Achieving a common outlook, in turn, depends on how the three categories of civil norms are applied in everyday life. This process of application is, in any post-conflict setting, typically widespread and diversified, spanning building new institutions, establishing spaces of cooperation, and re-engineering platforms of communication. Here we are only concerned with the latter, and only in terms of the role of news journalism. The argument we make is simply that where news journalism has developed for itself an ethos of civil norm building,3 it harnesses the civil and solidarizing power of the news (Harrison, 2019). What we seek to demonstrate in support of this argument is that such an ethos has two elements. One is particularistic, the other universal. The particularistic element is a matter of how local news journalism (news journalism in a specific setting) can exemplify in its news reports how its society’s values, goals, institutions, customs, history, and traditions can contribute toward achieving sustainable civil peace and what changes need to occur to support peacebuilding processes in particular contexts. Here, the civil norm building role of news journalism needs to be undertaken organically and resonate with local news audiences’ concerns, desires, and expectations and thereby be able to become an integral part of local peacebuilding initiatives aimed at rebuilding a particular civil sphere. The universal element are the editorial guidelines that are based on the three categories of the civil norms of peaceful cooperation4 and frame the ethos of civil norm building in real news journalism reporting, no matter where it is undertaken. They do so by reporting what peaceful cooperation must minimally display no matter what the local values, goals, institutions, customs, history, and traditions they cohere around. When these two elements – universal and particularistic – are aligned, then the news has a form of civil power that enables it to contribute to civil norm building5 and, by extension, peacebuilding. To empirically demonstrate this duality (universal–local/ideal–real) in operation, we examine the reporting of the Kenyan Daily Nation and The Standard between February 28, 2008, and March 31, 2008, that is, in the immediate aftermath of the signing of the National Accord and Reconciliation Act following the postelection violence of 2007/2008.

Kenyan Post-Election Violence as a Civil Conflict Following the conclusion of the presidential elections on December 27, 2007, Mwai Kibaki (Party of National Unity) gained victory over opposition rival Raila Odinga (Orange Democratic Movement). However, accusations were made which claimed that the election process had been rigged, and as a consequence of this, Kenya bore witness to a two-month civil conflict that resulted in 1,100 people losing their lives.6 In addition to this, citizens were internally displaced. There were numerous injuries alongside economic sufferance (De Smedt, 2009). The post-election conflict manifested itself in two main ways: First, it involved protests occurring concurrently with clashes that took place between protesters, police, and militia groups. Second, landownership became a controversial topic, with questions being raised over who owned certain pieces of land. This was particularly apparent in the Rift 190

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Valley, a multiethnic region where the Kalenjin youths – who had supported Odinga – turned against the Kikuyus Kibaki’s tribesmen. Various Kikuyu families were evicted from their landholdings, alongside members of the Kisii ethnic community who had supported Kibaki. After weeks of conflict and reconciliation appearing futile, Odinga and Kibaki finally came together, courtesy of an African Union–led mediation framework that was facilitated by the president of Ghana, John Kufuor, and headed by the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. Following four weeks of negotiations, the National Accord and Reconciliation Act was signed on February 28, 2008. The act was a power-sharing agreement between Kibaki (president-elect) and Odinga (opposition candidate). The signing of the agreement officially ended the post-election violence.

Universal Editorial Guidelines Based on the Three Categories of the Civil Norms of Peaceful Cooperation: Their Local Application in News Reports Following the National Accord and Reconciliation Act Assent to Civil Peace Assent to civil peace moulds, scopes and shapes the concepts, vocabulary, tropes and images in which a community engages with and expresses its relationship to its past and future. Sustainable civil peace requires an active and on-going individual and collective preference – both civil and political – for peace over war and a willingness to engage with the past in a future-oriented way. (Harrison & Pukallus, 2023, p. 9) Ultimately, this category shapes editorial guidelines concerned with the news reporting trying to engage with the past that essentially, in a way, does not attribute blame, allows for conflicting histories, recognizes the value of transitional justice, understands that peace is not a zero-sum game, and that reasonable losses should be accepted. It also emphasizes solidarity and agonism and encourages putting differences aside to achieve peace. Both The Standard and the Daily Nation translated the category of assent to civil peace into their news reporting in three main ways: First, they emphasized the need for transitional justice as the basis for future peace. In particular, they called for an open investigation to take place to address the crimes committed during the post-election violence and to the different sorts of perpetrators to be held accountable. In short, “those who engaged in criminal activities should be ready to pay for their deeds through the process of justice” (Daily Nation, March  10, 2008). This included those who had killed, kidnapped, and looted (Daily Nation, March 11, 2008; March 21, 2008; The Standard, March 28, 2008), militias (Daily Nation, March 4, 2008; The Standard, March 5, 2008), as well as political parties (Daily Nation, March 31, 2008; The Standard, March 18, 2008). To support the newspapers’ position, the editorial decision was made to use quotes of those that endorsed this call and spoke out against amnesty and impunity. For example, The Standard quoted Cabinet Minister Karua that “giving amnesty to perpetrators of violence would set a bad precedent” (March 10, 2008), and the Daily Nation published an article by Professor Kivutha Kibwana, a political advisor of President Kibaki. Kibwana strongly advocated that a “non-partisan Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission must be established to 191

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investigate gross human rights abuses with a view to ending the era of impunity” (February 28, 2008). Correspondingly, and indicating that peace is an ongoing process that goes beyond immediate transitional justice, both newspapers emphasized the role that legislators would have in promoting peace and reconciliation in the mid and long term, with the Daily Nation stating that “the legislators will need to go all out to heal the nation. They will be required to visit all parts of the country not only to preach peace, but also to tackle the challenges facing communities” (March 6, 2008). Overall, the news reporting endorsed and encouraged assent to civil peace in its reporting by emphasizing the importance of the rule of law, by encouraging Kenyans to place their trust in the justice system and to oppose violence. Second, and building upon the first, both newspapers decided to emphasize the rejection of violence as an integral part of their own assent to civil peace in their editorial line and to encourage non-violent communication instead. This was presumably because editors and news journalists alike recognized the danger of a return to violence so shortly after a peace agreement, as everyday peace was still fragile and the roots of the conflict, such as the questions over landownership and the divisive character of Kenyan tribalism, had by no means been redressed. This, however, was identified as a priority by The Standard (March 6), which pointed out that it was “not enough to preach peace but fail to address the underlying reasons for conflict.” Either way, a renewed outbreak of violence had to be prevented, and it was seen as an editorial priority to support this constructively (Daily Nation, March 31, 2008). The Standard argued that “[t]he solution does not lie in violence or inordinate exhibition of State might, but dialogue and a political settlement. Anything that undermines this civil option is unacceptable” (February 28, 2008). Though both newspapers were explicit about their rejection of violence, they also made the editorial decision to get their own message across more subtly by using quotes. The likely reason for this is that the newspapers aimed to (re)build Kenyans trust in news journalism. More specifically, it was believed that by avoiding giving the impression that it is the news organizations’ task to tell Kenyans what is right or wrong in a top-down way but by sharing with Kenyans what other world leaders or politicians have said instead, Kenyans would be more receptive to the messages. For example, the Daily Nation quoted from one of Kibaki’s speeches about the peace deal: “If one of your neighbours has wronged you, find a way to amicably solve the dispute. Don’t allow it to degenerate into senseless acts of destruction” (March 15, 2008). Both newspapers variously quoted senior officials who called for peace through non-violent means, including Condoleezza Rice (Daily Nation, March  2, 2008), President Kibaki (Daily Nation, March  7, 2008), and MP Dr. James Gesami (The Standard, March 9, 2008). By using this editorial tool of passing the editors’ and journalists’ endorsed message through others’ quotes, the news organizations refrained from engaging in what could have been perceived and rejected as advocacy journalism by Kenyan society. Third, and closely related to the importance of non-violence, was the emphasis on the need for compromise by both newspapers, thereby translating the need for the acceptance of reasonable losses from the category of civil norms into practical and locally relevant journalism. Here the editorial decision was to highlight the benefits that compromises can bring, especially when an important goal is being pursued: lasting peace in Kenya. The newspapers used the negotiation and the subsequent signing of the peace agreement as an example of the benefits of cooperation and compromise: “there is a consensus that executive political powers have to be shared, and that this country can no longer operate on a winner-take-all basis, which largely contributed to the two-month crisis that we are trying hard to live down” 192

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(Daily Nation, March  6, 2008). Compromise, however, did not mean the eradication of difference or the encouragement of homogeneity. Editors and news journalists were keen to emphasize this in their reporting and to explain to the news audiences that compromise enables cooperation where diversity is an asset rather than a hindrance. The Daily Nation published an article written by the UN ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, where he noted that “diversity is one of this country’s greatest strengths and it must be cherished” (March 9, 2008). The Standard also published articles focusing on a need to shun tribalism (March 6, 2008; March 21, 2008) and letters encouraging everyone “to educate ourselves about diverse cultures and cultivate tolerance and love.” Interestingly, both newspapers felt the need to show that their own reporting was supportive of peace and exemplified what was being asked of Kenyan citizens. Accordingly, editors and journalists decided to demonstrate that their news organizations themselves assented to civil peace (and were perceived by news audiences as doing so) and accordingly translated assent to civil peace into their own reporting and engagement with the conflict and its aftermath. Here again, the editorial decision was taken to publish letters and statements rather than have journalists and editors write about themselves, their editorial policy, their opinions, as well as their professionals standards, ethics, and integrity. For example, the Daily Nation published a statement by political advisor to Kofi Annan, Martin Griffiths, in which he “praised local journalists for filing ‘accurate and factual’ stories on the mediation talks” (Daily Nation, March 1, 2008). Another published letter stated that “despite individual media houses’ stands on some issues, all of them have the interest of the country at heart” (Daily Nation, March 8, 2008). The Standard also published letters commending the media for having “the interest of the country at heart” (March 5, 2008). Overall, it appears to have been important for editors and journalists to be perceived as undertaking a civil norm building role and to be speaking on behalf of and writing for a Kenyan society rather than tribal communities.

Substantive Civility The category of substantive civility scopes and shapes a “concern for the common good,” endorses civil codes of conduct and respectful behavior toward each other in public life, especially in times of deep disagreement. It aims, as Shils (1997) noted, to limit the intensity of conflict and to reduce the distance between conflicting demands so that disputes don’t turn violent. Substantive civility does so in four ways: (1) as a concern for a collective good; (2) as an acknowledgment of the equal civil standing of each member of civil society; (3) as a regulator of relationships between citizens, a display of dignity-as-respectfulness; and (4) as a moderating tool for how difference is managed and disagreements are negotiated. This category shapes editorial guidelines concerned when news reports endorse human and constitutional rights, human dignity, equality, the value of diversity and difference, forbearance, pluralism and inclusivity, as well as the deconstruction of conflict communication and when they exemplify moderation in and through their style of reporting. The strongest way The Standard and the Daily Nation editorially endorsed a collective good was when they emphasized an equality of civil standing, collective rights, and shared dignity and, with that, when they also explicitly rejected tribalism and challenged primary tribal identities by endorsing a Kenyan identity instead. For example, The Standard published an article including comments from politician Charity Ngilu and led with the headline “Ngilu tells MPs to shun tribalism,” in which it emphasized Ngilu’s call “for an end to ethnic bias among communities” (March 21, 2008). It further published a letter in which it was argued 193

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that “[w]e need to stop being shallow and appreciate each other” (March 10, 2008). Similarly, the Daily Nation emphasized the need to “enhance liberty, equality and brotherhood of all Kenyans” (March 10, 2008). Once again, and throughout, both newspapers prioritized the voices from their news audiences, political leaders, and others to convey messages endorsed by themselves and to exemplify the performance of the categories of civil norms all by refraining from only letting their journalists speak. Various letters and opinion pieces were published that encouraged Kenyans to come together as one people to achieve self-sustainable civil peace (Daily Nation, March 5, 2008; March 13, 2008; March 15, 2008; March 17, 2008; The Standard, March 23, 2008). One letter, for example, emphasized the need for “every Kenyan to adopt Ruto’s attitude” (March 18, 2008). William Ruto, a politician, had put aside differences in beliefs to serve in the cabinet in the power-sharing deal and, as such, was seen to exemplify the kind of substantive civility needed to overcome differences. Another letter published in the Daily Nation urged that “all Kenyans should emulate the selflessness of Kibaki and Raila” (March 8, 2008). Both newspapers’ editorial lines recognized the need for social policies and institutions that are able to ensure a more material kind of equality. Accordingly, The Standard made the editorial decision to publish a letter that urged the coalition government to “have the interest, commitment and motivation to introduce and implement social policies that address the needs of the majority” (March 16, 2008), whereas the Daily Nation published an opinion piece that advocated that “[s]elfishness, corruption, perfidy, inequitable distribution of resources, tribalism and injustice, should be jettisoned now” (March 24, 2008) and urged politicians to put aside personal ambitions to work together (March  25, 2008; March 29, 2008; The Standard, March 19, 2008). Ultimately, news editors and journalists acknowledged that a discourse on equality needed to be accompanied by structural and material change as it is this substantiation of equality that would make cooperation possible and sustainable. One of the published letters concluded with the statement that peaceful cooperation is the only way to ensure sustainable peace: “[I]f [collaboration] happens, it will not be long before we are out of the woods” (The Standard, March 18, 2008), thereby grounding and endorsing the third category of civil norms: building civil capacity and civil competencies.

Building Civil Capacity and Civil Competencies The third category’s essential concern is the building of civil capacity and responsibility at both an institutional and an individual level. On an institutional level, this regards both communicative and regulative institutions. On an individual level, civil capacity and competencies building relates to citizens being able to acts as informed voters but also, and importantly, to acquire the skills needed to collaborate with those they do not know or would not usually meet to achieve common goals. The focus here is on achieving something that is of value for the community (social justice, equal access of all to education, reintegration programs). This category shapes editorial guidelines in two ways: (1) where news reports advocate the need for inclusive communicative, legal, economic, and political institution, the institutionalization of mediation and problem-solving mechanisms, and independent legal institutions; and (2) where news reports emphasize the desirability and the role of both formal and informal civil associations, the establishment of inter-communal groups to collaborate on peace-oriented projects, and coalitions as well as personal civil duties and responsibilities. Combined, (1) and (2) serve to concretely facilitate the practical application of substantive civility in building sustainable civil capacity, which is nothing other than practical expression of assenting to peace and pursuing the common good. In other words, this category is the 194

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realization of the aforementioned two categories through institution building and collective social action undertaken for civil purposes. With regard to (1), both newspapers editorially prioritized the need for legal institutions and for these to serve three main purposes: First, to ensure that assent to civil peace is practically carried out through setting up transitional justice mechanism and institutions. Throughout March 2008, editorial focus was on the setting up of the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) to investigate the post-election violence (The Standard, March 5, 2008), which was recognized as being of vital importance for Kenyans by editors and news journalists straightforwardly because “the extent and gravity of the post-election crimes calls for speedy investigation, prosecution and delivery of justice” (The Standard, March  12, 2008). The Standard, once again speaking through the UN, advocated legal competence for the TJRC: “The UN said the TJRC should have the mandate to recommend criminal prosecution of perpetrators of violence” (March 20, 2008), thereby continuing its editorial focus on the need for tangible justice and accountability of crimes. It is evident that both editors and journalists saw a risk in amnesty and/or impunity being granted – the risk being a return to violence (Daily Nation, March 30, 2008; The Standard, March 22, 2008). Equally, and supporting their own rejection of violence, the newspapers were frank about the number of crimes committed and perpetrators to be brought to justice and endorsed the recommendations made by Human Rights Watch regarding reforms of the Kenyan police force in order “to enhance the capacity of officers to investigate and prosecute the large number of crimes” (Daily Nation, March 20, 2008). The second purpose is a concern for the building of long-term legal institutions that function on behalf of Kenyan civil society and that ensure that the roots of conflict be legally redressed to prevent future violence. The Daily Nation recognized and reported that the enforcement of the rule of law depends on functioning legal institutions and on the “[u]nity of purpose among legislators [which] is .  .  . vital if we are to realize the legal and institutional reforms that the country badly needs” (March  6, 2008). To show how legal institutions were being built or reformed, editors decided to provide examples of such reform or support initiatives. The Standard (March 18, 2008), for example, focused on the East Africa Law Society, which committed to help build new or support existing institutions in relation to land issues, thereby addressing one of the issues that was seen at the root of the post-election violence. The Daily Nation gave space in its reporting to endorse the creation of “three institutions to address long-term issues that led to the post-election violence in which over 1,000 people were killed and thousands displaced” (March 6, 2008). Overall, strengthening legal institutions, that is, building civil capacity, was also seen as needing more collaboration between different institutions, and such reporting was considered an editorial priority. Here, The Standard published opinion pieces calling for the police force to be given capacity and competence to help the TJRC and future initiatives to carry “out any investigations, independent, concurrently and in support of police work” (March 12, 2008). It is also from transitional justice mechanism that long-term impact was hoped to be derived. Here it is particularly interesting that the colonial heritage was framed as one of the roots of Kenya’s tribalist problem and that this was an opportunity for Kenya to build peace all by liberating itself from its colonial legacy. More specifically, a political activist, Wangari Maathai (quoted as per editorial policy), urged Kenyans to “make use of the proposed Trust, Justice and Reconciliation Commission to address problems inherited from colonialists” (March 9, 2008). Finally, the third purpose was editorially endorsing fair and transparent elections, the lack of which triggered the post-election violence in late 2007; the newspapers strongly welcomed 195

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the establishment of the Panel of Eminent African Persons to probe election irregularities (Daily Nation, March 8, 2008), and the editorial decision was made to report on the election issues, processes, and irregularities which triggered the post-election violence, the investigation of which was committed to through both newspapers’ editorial line soon assenting to civil peace. The Standard endorsed that “findings are expected to provide groundwork for sealing loopholes in the electoral process” (March 20, 2008). With regard to (2), the role of formal and informal civil associations, both newspapers recognized the importance of such associations because of their ability to enable Kenyan citizens to engage in and play an active part in the peacebuilding. In short, “the country needs the input of other politicians and Kenyans in general” (Daily Nation, March 8, 2008), and accordingly, editors and news journalists translated capacity building and civil competencies into their reporting by explicitly recognizing the value of NGOs and civil cooperation, particularly in the form of bazaras (public meetings), to discuss government policies and the role that the public can play in these. A letter published by the Daily Nation insisted that “NGOs should also be invited to such talks to harmonise their programmes with those of the Government. They also serve as action planning avenues and are the essence of community participation” (March 14, 2008). This was the case particularly with regard to countrywide peacebuilding and reconciliation programs that editors and news journalists believed to be “extremely vital to build peace and unity in the areas affected by the post-election violence” (The Standard, March 4, 2008), as well as programs to promote reconciliation, such as programs to aid displaced people, help the youth gain employment, and promote peacebuilding (March 18, 2008; Daily Nation, March 26, 2008). Ultimately, such programs were seen as being required to practically exercise assent to civil peace as well as substantive civility.

Conclusion In this chapter we set out to demonstrate how news journalism can (and does) play the role of a civil norm builder in a particular post-conflict setting and, more specifically, how the carrying out of this role in a practical sense requires to interpret and translate the three categories of civil norms of peaceful cooperation into specific editorial guidelines that, in turn, serve to frame their news reports. To this end, we examined post–peace agreement reporting in Kenya. The analysis we provided shows four things. First, that local editors and journalists do indeed translate the three categories of civil norms into their own reporting. When they do, they identify as key elements of the categories of civil norms those that most closely related to the nature of the specific post-conflict setting, the roots of the conflict, as well as the triggers that ultimately led to violence. Kenyan editors and news journalists clearly saw the roots of the conflict in Kenya’s colonial history, which led to tribalism and tensions over landownership and the trigger for violence in election irregularities. Accordingly, peacebuilding required for the editors and news journalists of the Daily Nation and The Standard to assent to redressing these historical issues as well as combatting amnesty and impunity to lay the groundwork for a future upholding of the rule of law. Justice and equality are a continuous theme that is editorially translated in various ways across the three categories of civil norms. Second, the analysis revealed how both news organizations understood their role with regard to civil society. More specifically, they spoke on behalf of a diverse Kenyan national civil society and refrained from indulging tribalism or appealing to tribal sentiments. Their editorial policy equally prevented journalists from speaking for the people, and therefore, 196

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both newspapers made use of quotes, letters, and opinion pieces, thereby managing to get a peacebuilding message across without advocacy, partisanship, or in a top-down didactic approach. Instead, they spoke on behalf of a diverse Kenyan society representing all Kenyans equally. Third, and directly related, both news organizations themselves exemplified their assent to civil peace as well as their practice of substantive civility in and through their advocacy of civil capacity building. They did so by editorializing and reporting what concrete peacebuilding requires in terms of institution building and diverse civil associations. Fourth, and finally, what the analysis overall shows is a coherent editorial policy that understands the role of civil norm building and how the three categories of civil norms ground and build on each other. They exemplified this interplay throughout their reporting and translated it in line with the particularities of post-violence Kenya.

Notes 1 We define civil norms as “collective norms of common meaning and associative behaviour that guide and govern the cooperative and solidary life of civil society across boundaries of culture, ethnicity, religion or any other sectarian group” (Harrison & Pukallus, 2023, p. 5). 2 These categories are, in part, discerned from empirical work undertaken by Harrison and Pukallus jointly and independently in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and, in part, from analytical considerations derived from the work of Hobbes, Durkheim, Tocqueville, Dewey, Jaspers, Shils, Nussbaum, and Alexander; see in particular Pukallus (2022). 3 On how this approach is different from peace journalism, see Harrison and Pukallus (2023). 4 These were first developed in Harrison and Pukallus (2023) and Pukallus (2022). 5 See Harrison and Pukallus (2021). 6 Human Rights Watch (2017).

Bibliography Alexander, J. (2006). The civil sphere. Oxford University Press. De Smedt, J. (2009). “No raila, no peace!’ Big man politics and election violence at the Kibera grassroots. African Affairs, 108(433), 581–598. Harrison, J. (2019). The civil power of the news. Palgrave Macmillan. Harrison, J., & Pukallus, S. (2021). Creating capacity for peace. In K. Oreget (Ed.), Insights on peace and conflict reporting (pp. 139–151). Routledge. Harrison, J., & Pukallus, S. (2023). The civil norm building role of news journalism in post-civil war settings. Journalism, 24(1), 120–138. Human Rights Watch. (2017, August 27). Kenya: Post-election killings, abuse. www.hrw.org/ news/2017/08/27/kenya-post-election-killings-abuse Pukallus, S. (2022). Communication in peacebuilding. Civil wars, civility and safe spaces. Palgrave Macmillan. Shils, E. (1997). The virtue of civility. In S. Grosby (Ed.), The virtue of civility selected essays on liberalism, tradition, and civil society (pp. 320–355). Liberty Fund.

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18 JOURNALISM 2.0, NEWS PRACTICES, AND CULTURE IN NIGERIA A Critical Examination of Nigerian Television Authority and Nigeria Info FM Ufuoma Akpojivi Introduction The emergence of new media technologies and information communication technologies has not only impacted the professional role of journalists and their practices (Mutsvairo & Salgado, 2020) but also offered innovative approaches and techniques to journalism practice (Caswell & Dorr, 2017; Reebillard & Touboul, 2010). While many studies have used different terminologies, such as automated journalism, alternative journalism, Web 2.0 journalism, and computer-mediated journalism, to describe these innovative approaches, one common feature of these studies is the innovative use of technologies in newsroom practices and culture (Abdul-Mageed, 2008). Within the African continent, the impact of these technologies cannot be overemphasized, as Atton and Mabweazara (2011) argued that these new media technologies are being deployed for journalistic practices, as there has been a growing trend for media organizations to appropriate these technologies for newsgathering, production, and distribution (see Fosu & Akpojivi, 2015). Nonetheless, in a continent characterized by economic imbalances that have hindered the media industry’s development, the appropriation of these technologies poses a challenge. Voltmer (2008) argues that media systems in developing African countries suffer from weak infrastructure due to economic imbalances. Similarly, Adeleke (2020) and Oyedemi (2012) argue that there is a gross digital divide within the continent that has hindered inclusivity due to the disparity in Internet usage, which will consequently hinder the effective appropriation of these technologies within the newsroom. This is especially true in Nigeria, where the media are allegedly impacted by limited resources and weak infrastructure (see Nyamnjoh, 2005), as evident in the failure to meet the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 2015 deadline for digital switchover, with no clarity on when this switchover will be achieved (Abikanlu, 2018). Through empirical observation, this chapter focuses on expounding the concept of journalism 2.0, with the aim of assessing the impact of technologies in the newsroom and how they are being appropriated within newsroom practices in Nigeria. In this study, I  have approached journalism 2.0 as the intersection between journalism and innovation, which has DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-21

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aided journalism practice since journalism is information-driven (Ali & Kaur, 2013). According to Voigt et al. (2017), this innovation is the use of technology to disrupt the normative newsroom practice by aiding news production and distribution and ensuring its sustainability. The use of technology within the Nigerian media landscape is not new (see Akinfenisoye, 2013; Fosu  & Akpojivi, 2015). However, studies around these technological innovations and usage are limited to their impact on enabling interactivity between the media and citizens and ease in data collection. Therefore, it is germane to probe this intersection between journalism and innovation by interrogating what journalists do with this technology within the newsroom, how they navigate around these technologies in their everyday newsroom realities, and how they overcome the challenges confronting their operations. The chapter focuses on two case studies, that is, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Nigeria Info FM, in order to understand how media practitioners use technologies in their everyday newsroom practices, how they ascertain factors that influence usage of these technologies, and how they employ these technologies to overcome challenges in journalistic practice, whether infrastructural, policy-driven, etc., in the ever-changing media environment. This chapter will address the following research questions: How are media practitioners in NTA and Nigeria Info FM using technology in their practices? In what ways are media practitioners using technology to circumvent their realities of infrastructural inequalities and the stifling regulatory framework impacting journalism practice and culture in Nigeria? The chapter is set out in the following sections: the rationale for the cases, a discussion of the changing newsroom culture in Nigeria following the integration of technology, and the affordance of social media. This discussion will help provide the contextual background of journalism practice in Nigeria. Thereafter, the theoretical and methodological approaches of the study will be discussed, followed by a critical evaluation of newsroom culture and practices and how it enables journalism 2.0. Finally, the chapter closes with some recommendations based on case study observations.

Rationale for Cases The two case study stations, the NTA and Nigeria Info FM, were chosen based on their differences in era, ownership structure, work culture, and technological facilities at their disposal. It is therefore useful to interrogate whether there are differences in how journalists within these media stations use technologies and their affordances in newsroom practices and how they circumvent the challenges confronting their journalistic practices while using these technologies. The NTA, on one hand, is a government-owned and government-controlled media organization established by Decree No. 24 of 1977, following the dissolution of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (Media Right Agenda, 2001). With it being a ­government-owned media organization, the station’s activities are overseen by the Ministry of Information under the supervision of a director general, who reports to the minister; thus, NTA is considered to be the government’s mouthpiece. NTA operates a network system, as there are currently about 36 stations, including the federal capital, and 62 community broadcasting stations (NTA, 2022). Consequently, NTA can be regarded as the largest television network in Nigeria (Media Right Agenda, 2001). Furthermore, NTA has the mandate to promote nation-building, as most of its programming is geared toward developmental journalism (see NTA, 2022), which is in accordance with the Nigeria Mass Communication Policy of 1987, which emphasizes that broadcasting should be used to facilitate national culture and identity. 199

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On the other hand, Nigeria Info FM is a privately owned radio station established in 2011 in Lagos by Mr. Amin Mutsalli.1 The station has network radio stations in Abuja and Port-Harcourt and is a sister station to Cool FM and Wazobia FM. Nigeria Info FM can be classified as a talk show station that focuses on news (local and international), talks, and sports (Nigeria Info FM, 2022). The station has been at the forefront of addressing salient socio-cultural, political, and economic issues, which, in some cases, has resulted in sanctions from the regulatory body, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). For instance, the Lagos branch of Nigeria Info FM was fined N5 million naira in 20202 by the NBC for comments made on one of their talk shows by a participant (Onakoya, 2020). Despite the differences in ownership structures, work cultures, and facilities between the two media stations, both stations share a similarity in relation to their network operation structure. It is therefore important to ascertain whether this similarity in operational structure will highlight common patterns within their newsrooms’ culture and practices.

Technology and the Changing Newsroom Culture Numerous studies have looked at the changing newsroom culture due to the use and appropriation of technology and their affordances (Akinfemisoye, 2018; Atton  & Mabweazara, 2011; Fosu & Akpojivi, 2015). The emergence of these technologies raised concerns about the impact of their usage on the media sphere and the news production process. According to Igyuve et al. (2020), the emergence and proliferation of these technologies raised concerns about the future of broadcast media, its impact on the news production process, and the shifting paradigm of the process. This explains the keen interest of scholars in the impact of these technologies on newsroom culture. Nonetheless, the bulk of this literature, according to Akinfemisoye (2018), takes the technological determinism approach to the impact of technology on the newsroom, that is, how they enable participation from the audience and facilitate citizen journalism (Mutsvairo, 2016), and not many studies have looked at how journalists appropriate these technologies. Two dominant themes are common in the discourse of technology and its appropriation in the newsroom. Firstly, the newsroom has been revolutionized due to the appropriation of these technologies in data gathering and in the news production process. Akinfemisoye (2013) argues that new media technologies have revolutionized the newsroom, as it has enabled data collection and information verification by journalists before publication. With these technologies, journalists and the news organization can easily report back to the newsroom and fact-check information before publication. Mare and Allen (2022) also reported that news organizations in Zimbabwe and Namibia were able to fact-check disinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic using these technologies. Secondly, the integration of these new media technologies has enabled data processing (Mututwa  & Akpojivi, 2022). Moyo (2019), while buttressing this, further argued that technological devices and their appropriation have facilitated data journalism in Nigeria and South Africa, where the media organizations can shine a spotlight on corruption and other illicit financial crimes that are a bane in the African continent. The features of these new media technologies of digitalization, interactivity, convergence and multimodalarity have enabled the news media in their data collection, investigation, fact-checking, and citizens participation (Lister et al., 2009). 200

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Theoretical and Methodological Underpinnings This study adopts the technological progressivism theoretical lens of examining new media technology in the newsroom and ascertaining what journalists use these technologies for in their everyday reality. As a critical and constructive theory, technology progressivism sees technological convergence and innovation in the newsroom as a positive development (disruption), but the potential and impact of this innovation are not overemphasized, like technological determinism theory, which tends to exaggerate the place of technology in the newsroom and changing practice and culture (Moyo, 2019). It, however, emphasizes the journalists’ agency, institutional, and social context, influencing how these new media technologies are used and their impact in the newsroom (Moyo, 2019). The theory posits that the mere incorporation of technology in the newsroom will not bring about change in newsroom practices and culture, but the agency of the journalists, social context of technology usage, and institutional culture will drive this positive disruption of journalism practice. Lecours (2005, p.  8) argues that institutional culture shapes actions. Within the context of this study, this implies that journalists’ usage of these new media technologies in the newsroom and their everyday activity and mitigating against challenges are influenced by institutional culture. Institutional culture and context will have an influence on whether journalists use technology, as well as how and when to use technology. As Moyo (2019) puts it, “technologies are not used in a vacuum but within organizational and institutional structures, ideological beliefs (news production routines and professional values), and processes” (cited in Moyo, 2019, p. 36). Hence, Lecours (2005, p. 8) argues that institutionalism “poses the question of structure and agency.” This is relevant to journalism practice within the context of the study; it means that the agency of the journalists and institutional culture and practices in the forms of ideological beliefs and production routine will shape how these technologies are appropriated within the newsroom. This will largely determine the impact of these technologies on the news production process. This impact might differ among organizations due to the difference in ideological and institutional cultures that cut across newsrooms. Paschal (2001), while summing technological progressivism, held that the prime foci of this technological innovation are social change that will lead to human emancipation and empowerment, as the ability of journalists in Nigeria to navigate around the challenges confronting them using technology at their disposal will bring about empowerment and emancipation. Methodologically, this study adopts the qualitative approach because it enables the understanding of social reality or problems (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). This approach is also rooted in post-positivism, which acknowledges that reality is relative. Using this approach within the context of the study will allow insights into how journalists use these new media technologies and why they use them. Thematical analysis was used in the analysis of collected data as it enables researchers to get meaningful insights and patterns relating to the main questions being investigated (see Braun & Clarke, 2006). A total of ten media practitioners (reporters, presenters, and production managers) having between 10 and 15  years of experience from both NTA and Nigerian Info FM were purposively interviewed. Six of these media practitioners were from NTA, and four were from Nigeria Info FM. These media practitioners were selected because they have first-hand experience of newsroom culture and practices and play a significant role in the newsroom. For anonymity and confidentiality of the interviewees, they will hereafter be referred to as participants 1 to 10 (P1–P10). Also, the title and position of these participants in their media 201

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organizations were not used because these individuals could easily be identified, especially for organizations like the Nigeria Info FM.

Findings and Discussion Deeper Connections with Audience Data collected from the participants revealed that institutional culture and the needs of the society informed the appropriation of technology, that is, how these technologies should be used and the newsroom culture. This is in line with Moyo’s argument that technologies are not used in a vacuum but within the ideological and institutional structures and beliefs (Moyo, 2019). Both NTA and Nigeria Info FM share similar institutional culture and beliefs, as they see themselves to be innovative and world-class, bridging the gap that exists between audiences. This position, to a large extent, shaped their usage of these technologies. For example, P2 of NTA states: A]s a foremost broadcaster station, NTA influences the trend in broadcasting so as to stay relevant . . . NTA can no longer lay claim to its monopoly due to the deregulation, and there is stiff competition in the industry and cannot afford not to utilise social media platforms which enhance broadcast operation. (Interview, 2022) Similarly, P5 of Nigeria Info FM stated that “the station is ensuring they are in tune with global trends, and the realisation of citizens’ role in deepening democracy via citizens journalism has promoted and facilitated the usage of these technologies in the newsroom” (Interview, 2022). Both assertions confirm Artz’s (2018) argument about global media trends in media production arising from structured relations, which dictate media practices and content. In the context of both cases, the need to keep up with global practices of integrating technologies has influenced the media stations’ usage of technology, as social and structural relations determine and influence norms and practices. This also corroborates findings from a previous study that the desire for media organizations to live up to “perceived standard” or be cosmopolitan in nature has influenced their decision to appropriate these technologies and how they should be used (see Akpojivi, 2022). Moreover, the sixth edition of the broadcasting code by the regulatory body, National Broadcasting Commission, encourages media organizations to adopt global trends by appropriating these technologies. Furthermore, both stations sought to promote deep connections with their audiences and maneuver technological difficulties in the news production process. Like any other postcolonial African state, Nigeria suffers from a digital divide and unequal infrastructural distribution (see Oyedemi, 2012), which hinder the news production and distribution process. According to Adeleke (2020), the digital divide in Nigeria stems from both economic and social inequalities, and this is split between urban and rural, North and South, etc. Adeleke argues that there is an apparent disparity in the distribution and access of infrastructure among the various regions, and urbanized states like Lagos, the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Rivers, Kano, and Kaduna are the most developed. The network operation structure of NTA and Nigeria Info FM makes it crucial for both stations to report on all activities/events happening across the country, as the sustenance of 202

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democracy is dependent on the media performing its functions of informing and educating the citizens to enable them to make informed decisions (Akpojivi, 2018). Consequently, the stations require media and digital technologies to be able to transmit information to their sister stations across the country. Mutsvairo (2016) argues that media organizations need these technologies for rapid reporting of news and to enable citizen journalism. While scholars often approached this from the perceptive of citizen journalism and their contribution to the newsroom production process, this study highlights the perspective of maneuvering the digital divide and using technologies for news production by journalists. For instance, P10 of NTA held that “at NTA, WhatsApp plays an important role in news production and distribution due to infrastructural issues.” According to P2: [I]t might seem mundane, but NTA as a government entity suffers from lack of funds and modern infrastructure. Likewise, because of the digital divide, and the unavailability of technology across the country, it has become impossible for colleagues to send in their reports immediately for production. However, we decided to use tools like WhatsApp, as this enables us to send and produce news reports immediately. (Interview, 2022) Similarly, P4 from NTA adds: We use WhatsApp every day to produce news. Every news producer picks fresh stories as they come on the WhatsApp group, which helps editors see and rework stories to house style and to standard . . . this has enabled us to meet deadlines and increase our coverage area. (Interview, 2022) These experiences were not different from Nigeria Info FM, as they use technology to facilitate production and maneuver technological and digital issues. According to P8, a senior member of the news production team at Nigeria Info FM: A lot of our newsroom activities happen on WhatsApp, from assigning of reporters to cover stories, reports, news bulletins etc., all occur on the newsroom WhatsApp group. Also, we get official communications from technological platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. For example, it’s easy to get a press statement from the Presidency off social media without being on the contact list of the government’s spokesperson. With these kinds of technology, the job is a little easier. The only newsroom personnel that have to come physically to the office are the newscasters. Every other person- producer, editor, or reporter can work remotely because of the use of these technologies in our newsroom. (Interview, 2022) In addition, P5 held that “to enhance the process of outdoor reporting, Nigeria Info FM designed an internal app called ‘InfoConnect’ which enables the station’s reporters to automatically call into the studio to report any situation they consider to be newsworthy” (Interview, 2022). From the preceding text, the journalist agency facilitates news production and promotes efficient work culture despite the numerous technological challenges resulting in 203

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the incorporation of technology in the newsroom. This idea was buttressed by P7 from NTA, who stated that “technologies have improved newsroom work, it has enabled us to have a deep connection with the news” (Interview, 2022). This idea of deep connection speaks of what journalists do with technology in the newsroom and in the news production process, and this is not necessarily about the impact of technology in the newsroom. Within the context of this study, the deep connection alludes to the desire of newsrooms to reach out to their audience by granting them access to efficient and robust news production despite the challenges. Technologies such as WhatsApp, InfoConnect, etc. have enabled both media houses to bridge the information gap that exists between the media organizations and journalists, the journalists and information sources (field), therefore reiterating Ahonen’s (2008) argument that these technologies are the “seventh mass media” that enables media organizations to produce content and make them available to the public (cited in Gicheru, 2014), thereby shifting the conceptualization of journalism 2.0 from the normative perspective of the impact of technology in newsroom culture and practices into what journalists do with technologies and how they use technologies in their everyday realities to overcome challenges. This is further evident from the study findings, as the study participants from both organizations acknowledged using these technologies to circumvent restrictive government regulatory frameworks. For instance, P5 from Nigeria Info FM stated that: These technologies help us in circumventing the restrictive regulatory measure in the broadcasting industry. One of such is that through the creative deployment of technology, the station has been able to beat NBC in carrying out some network-related activities, which would have originally required the station to apply for a network license in order to link the three branches of Nigeria Info FM together. As such, through the digitalisation of Nigeria Info FM’s operations, broadcasters and reporters from other Nigeria Info FM stations could join a broadcast live. Also, some of our presenters now present their shows virtually in audio-visual formats. This is still a novel practice in Nigeria particularly. (Interview, 2022) According to the Nigeria National Broadcasting Code (2016), currently being used by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to govern the broadcasting industry, broadcasting stations are required to apply for either a national or regional network license if, as content providers, they have “premier channels/stations serving as the nucleus for the production and acquisition of indigenous content of national or regional appeal” (NBC, 2016, p.  84). Nigeria Info FM meets the criteria for a national network as they have offices in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, which serve as the nuclei of program production and distribution, and their content is in line with the requirement of the national network as stipulated by the NBC, that is, having a national appeal with news and current affairs orientation, which should promote national unity and cohesion (see NBC, 2016). The huge financial obligation might have been a reason for non-application for a network license, as none of the participants from Nigeria Info FM was willing to divulge information on this issue. For instance, a senior news production team member declined to comment on the issue. However, technologies and practices like virtual shows’ presentation using audiovisual format have been innovative and aided the station in serving the needs of their diverse audience. With the use of technology, the issue of license fees can be avoided while catering for their 204

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national audiences. The dichotomy between network and commercial broadcaster within the context of this study has been blurred as technology has not only enabled Nigeria Info FM to “circumvent regulatory mechanisms but [also] enhanced the newsroom’s ability to stay objective in the delivery of information to diverse national audiences” (P1, Interview, 2022). Thus, P5 stated that Nigeria Info FM is regarded as the first radio station to become an audiovisual media house. That is, through the adoption of the live streaming features on social media platforms, people can watch what is going on in the studio either on YouTube, or Facebook at all times. (Interview, 2022)

Citizens’ Integration in News Culture Interview data collected revealed that journalists in both media houses use these technologies to encourage citizen journalism and the involvement of the public in news production. According to P4, “contrary to the old ways of producing news at NTA, we encourage the public to interact with us, report events happening in their environment” (Interview, 2022). Similarly, P9, from Nigeria Info FM, added, “We receive news in real-time from both correspondents and citizens across the country.” This practice, which scholars have dubbed alternative journalism, is believed to help strengthen the democratic project and processes due to the devolved newsgathering processes. Akinfenisoye (2013), in her study, argued that the perceived “alternative” journalism is complementary to the mainstream media news culture, and its integration played a pivotal role in deepening Nigeria’s nascent democracy. News can be produced easily due to the interactivity between the media organization and the audiences who report and share content (Mutsvairo, 2016). Both NTA and Nigeria Info FM (institution and individuals) use platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to interact with the audience and feed content into news production. Notwithstanding, findings from the study revealed that this interactivity with the audience and usage of audience content in news production has posed the challenge of data verification; thus, media technologies are employed for fact-checking and verification. According to P2 from NTA, “as much as these technologies have been useful in the news production process, it has also been instrumental for the dissemination of fake news” (Interview, 2022). According to Wasserman and Madrid-Morale (2019), 93% of Nigerians believed that they have been exposed to fake news within the Nigerian media sphere, and this prevalence of fake news (mis/disinformation) in the African continent has resulted in low media trust. Thus, the Nigerian government continues to promulgate policies that seek to address fake news and hate speech, which has been resisted by the public (Olaniyan & Akpojivi, 2021). To this end, media practitioners have used media technologies to address fake news and verify information in the newsroom. According to P1 from Nigeria Info FM: “We use digital tools like company information extractor, reverse image search, fake news debunker in our newsroom for fact checking” (Interview, 2022). In addition, P2 from NTA stated that “as a broadcasting outfit, breaking the news with authenticity, accuracy and factually is crucial to [their] image and reputation; thus [they] use ICT and other media technologies for fact-checking” (Interview, 2022). Similarly, P5 held that: “The station fact checks what is being broadcast on social media before going on air, and 205

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I am aware of the station’s partnership with the BBC, which assists in fact-checking news events” (Interview, 2022). The findings highlight Moyo’s (2019) argument that sees technology from the progressivism theoretical lens that agency, institutional culture, and social context influence how technology is used and its impact in the newsroom. This idea shaped my approach to journalism 2.0, which goes beyond the impact of technology but considers how people, particularly journalists, use technology to overcome their everyday challenges. The agency to establish a deep connection with news, audience, and maneuver regulatory mechanisms, coupled with the institutional culture of being modern, whilst addressing fake news, all influence and shape how these technologies are used in the newsroom by journalists and media stations, especially in the context of the case studies of NTA and Nigeria Info FM. Lecours (2005, p. 8) argues that “institutional culture shapes actions” meaning that journalists’ usage of these new media technologies in the newsroom and their everyday activities, including mitigating challenges, are influenced by institutional culture. The institutional culture and context will influence the journalist, first, on whether to use technology and, secondly, on how and when to use technology.

Conclusion This study broaches a conversation around technology usage in the newsroom and newsroom cultures and practices in Nigeria, focusing on NTA and Nigeria Info FM. This study goes beyond the normative technological determinism approach, that is, the impact of technology in the newsroom that has characterized recent scholarship on newsroom culture and practices. It highlights the significance of the technological progressivism approach that calls for the need to employ this approach more to examine how people use technology in their everyday practices to overcome challenges and newsroom realities. From the study findings, it is clear that the need to meet global trends and standards, overcome the digital divide and infrastructural deficits and regulatory mechanisms, and maintain the organization’s reputation influenced the usage of technology and newsroom practices of these stations, irrespective of their different ownership structures and other factors.

Notes 1 A Lebanon-born businessman who immigrated to Nigeria in 1976 from the United States. He is a naturalized citizen of Nigeria, and he founded and owns many leading media organizations, such as Wazobia FM, Cool FM, and Nigeria Info FM (see https://massmediang.com/meetamin-moussalli-owner-of-cool-wazobia-nigeria-info-fm-stations/). 2 The station was fined for promoting hate speech, as NBC accused the station of providing a platform to a guest who “promote[d] unverifiable and inciting views that could encourage or incite to crime and lead to public disorder” (see www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/408641-breakingnbc-fines-radio-station-n5m-for-hate-speech.html).

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19 EXTRACTIVISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS Al Jazeera English’s Coverage of Latin America Marcela Pizarro Coloma

Al Jazeera English (AJE) was launched in 2006 as the first English-language satellite news channel broadcasting from the Middle East. Since its birth, AJE has played a useful role as foil to Western mainstream media coverage of conflicts waged in Arab countries, from Libya to Lebanon and Iraq and, most consistently, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (Figenschou). During Arab uprisings, scholarly discussions centered on how the channel reported events, but what has also generated much debate over recent years is how the channel is to be understood geopolitically, as a function of Qatari soft power, as AJE has continued to report regional affairs all while being bound up in them. For example, in 2017, when a Saudi-led GCC coalition broke off ties with Qatar, 1 of the 14 conditions laid out for the blockade to be lifted was that Al Jazeera be shut down. More broadly, the channel, funded by the Qatari state, has attracted much academic interest as it sought to set itself apart from global news behemoths such as the BBC and CNN by promoting a journalism from and on the “Global South” as a founding journalistic principle (Sieb). This has been read as part branding strategy from a rich Gulf state whose leaders were seeking to extend their influence throughout the world through soft power initiatives. But there is consensus that to reduce the Al Jazeera “Global South” battle cry to a mere press release for the Qatari state is to sell it short. Instead, communication scholars have deployed the idea of “contraflow” to map AJE onto an increasingly globalized telecommunications market in which the channel’s de-centered locus of enunciation contests the hegemony of Western-dominated global TV news journalism (Thussu). “Contraflow” has been welcomed as an alternative to anti-imperialist concepts structured around center/periphery, North/South metaphors, instead imagining a multidirectional traffic system that eludes the binaries of dependency theory. However, I would argue that this kind of framework, which praises the democratizing power of globalized telecommunications, obfuscates another genealogy of which AJE is part. Many of those gathered around the channel represent a continuation of anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist movements throughout the 20th century, both in the Global South and in internationalist movements that emerged more generally. In this chapter, I  opt for “extractivism” as a way of thinking about international news production and comparing Al Jazeera’s journalism to that from the Global North. Usually

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applied to the exploitation of natural resources in the Global South, the idea also allows for a critical understanding of foreign news production itself. Moreover, while there has already been extensive literature on the outlet’s coverage on and reach in the Middle East and, to lesser extents, Africa and Asia, scholarship on AJE’s coverage of Latin America has been scant, and no mention has been made of lived journalistic experience there. Can AJE’s coverage on Latin America be seen as an antidote to the extractivist dynamics of foreign media coverage of the continent? I begin by showing how news output manages to disrupt certain trappings of foreign journalism in important ways, but I  conclude that it has never veered radically beyond mainstream formats. I then argue that other types of programming on the channel (rarely included in scholarship on AJE) are doing something more critical. The chapter draws mostly on six loosely structured interviews with journalists, mostly who work or worked for Al Jazeera in Latin America; Washington, DC; and Doha. It also relies heavily on my own lived experience at the channel as a producer, reporter, and program-maker for 16 years, on news, documentaries, current affairs, and the media critique show The Listening Post.

News on “Latin America” Traditionally, news outlets of record in the Global North have, to a large extent, determined foreign news coverage on Latin America according to their own countries’ foreign policies and geopolitical considerations. During the Cold War, at worst, the production of “Latin America” in US mainstream media discourse echoed national interests and relied on stereotypes of political backwardness, essentialist understandings of exotic Latin temperament, as the media there often played their role in justifying US covert military actions in the hemisphere at that time. In recent decades, international news attention has moved elsewhere, reflecting political realignments and new conflict zones, depleting coverage and interest on Latin America. One seasoned BBC reporter was once told by the London news desk that the number of dead in the floods in Bolivia had to surpass 100 before they’d consider taking a story. I suspected that many of my London-based colleagues simply didn’t have a concept of Latin America beyond a few stereotyped images – sequined dancers at the Rio carnival or old American cars in Cuba, for instance – and therefore, probably subconsciously, viewed catastrophe there as somehow less important and the victims as less worthy. (Schweimler, 2022) What Schweilmer’s account tells us is that news on Latin America tends toward the sporadic, the superficial, and the spectacular: carnivals, natural disasters, football events. This, coupled with competition for ever-shrinking news budgets, has often reduced coverage on Latin America to a cliché. If we were to list the anecdotal evidence of the fetishizing gaze of English-speaking news journalism on Latin America, the pileup would not look pretty. In 2018, I produced a series on media theory on the channel, and I invited Argentinian journalist and academic Natalia Vinelli, co-founder of cooperative news channel Barricada TV (Frontline TV), to interpret foreign news coverage on the region through the lens of Edward Said’s Orientalism. This was

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an attempt on my part to stage a South–South dialogue and bridge theory and journalistic practice. Vinelli took CNN en Español as an example of a corporate vision of “the perfect Latin American,” which consisted of a competitive, charming businessman, open to western modernity – servile to the rules and regulations of our globalized world, apologetic about his country’s underdevelopment and who feels part of a regional elite who are ultimately aligned with US interests – or at least with the globalizing hegemony of free trade agreements. Vinelli compared this to another stereotype, “the authentic Latin American,” and mapped out how cultural industries produce an image of emotional nations wedded to the whims of authoritarian and populist leaders. They condemn us to a permanent child-like status which prevents us from making decisions about our future. These pre-conceived “Latin Americans” are seen as children or noble savages in countries destined by their nature to live off farming and the extraction of natural resources. Vinelli’s account details how foreign news coverage has consistently imagined Latin America as a site of extraction and points to journalism’s complicity in this process. But one could go one step further by proposing that foreign news’ complicity is more embedded still, as it enacts the very same extractivist dynamics in its own production line. Scholars across disciplines have described “extractivism” as profit-driven operations programmed to remove and process natural resources, turning them into commodities with the aim of generating profit. Alberto Acosta (not a communication scholar but a Latin Americanist working in the field of development) characterizes extractivism as a mode of production which is intrinsically linked to 500 years of conquest and colonization of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Tellingly, Acosta refers to this mode of accumulation as “those activities which remove large quantities of natural resources – not limited to minerals or oil – that are unprocessed (or processed only to a limited degree), especially for export.” It would not be a stretch to argue that the production of news on developing countries follows the same logic: raw material (stories, voices, information on the ground) processed by the Global North commercial news machine, refined by its reporters, pundits, analysts to generate profit (through awards, ratings, and advertising). Al Jazeera English, with varying degrees of success, has represented something different to this system of commodification and representational capture. In its coverage of Latin America, the channel has offered another vision of the region. In 2013, Marwan Bishara, the host of Empire, the then-flagship current affairs show on AJE, said this in his introduction to a program on Latin America: A continent reshaped, America’s playground no longer, developing and deepening South-South relations, what shape will intra-continental shape take? A  decade of a natural resource boom, millions lifted out of poverty, a transformed Latin America emerges. (Empire, AJE, 2013)

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Again the mention of natural resources appears, but this time framed as a continent processing its own for the benefit of its population. This idea can be applied to AJE’s own journalism, serving to disrupt the broader extractivist imaginary on Latin America produced in the Global North. Bishara’s use of “South–South relations” is also a useful geographical metaphor to describe AJE itself as a journalistic experiment that imagined its audiences in the Global South. When AJE launched, it was available on TV in more than 80 million households worldwide. By early 2012, that number was closer to 250 million households, according to the network, which puts its distribution in close reach of CNN and the BBC. It can be seen on television sets in more than 100 countries and on six continents. The channel is viewed widely in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. These are communities who share similar histories when it comes to the legacies of colonialism, migration, and political resistance, as well as a public hungry for coverage about a continent other channels have failed to provide.

News from “Latin America” One of the reasons AJE has been able to provide unprecedented coverage from the region is down to the channel’s hefty budget. Perversely, covering the disenfranchised also costs a lot of money. AJE began with an initial budget of over USD1 billion. They dedicated some of those resources to covering the region from several key cities in Latin America – Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo – and also had freelance journalists working out of Bogota, Lima, Guatemala City, and Caracas. While in recent years budgets have been tightened, at least for the first decade, resources seemed endless, and pitches were rarely turned down (Galiano-Rios, 2022). The channel was never subject to economic pressures akin to those faced by commercial competitors hungry for ratings (CNN) or depleted of funds (BBC), so teams in Latin America have enjoyed considerable freedom. In this media ecosystem, AJE had more time and funding than its competitors to dedicate to coverage, both in quantity and quality (Galiano-Rios, 2022). For example, live reporting is an expensive logistical endeavor, but AJE committed to broadcasting not just from cities but also from remote areas that usually go underrepresented. During the 2019 Amazon fires, AJE had three teams on the ground reporting live, while the BBC had one, and the Chinese English-speaking channel CGTN covered it mostly using agency pictures (Schweimler, 2022). Sometimes, the expensive practice of anchoring on location instead of the studio, such as in presidential elections, revealed how much importance was afforded to the region. AJE has covered the huge swathes of land referred to as “Latin America” by traveling to places which other outlets could only dream of, sometimes hiring light aircrafts, boats, and canoes to get to the remotest of communities and to stay for days on end (Chavez, 2022). Budget also mattered when it came to security, for example, in the favelas of Rio or in cities like Caracas (Pieroni, 2022). Budget buys time, which allows a story to grow organically instead of being pre-scripted, allowing for an authenticity that the quick sound bite filmed by a team parachuted cannot capture. Budget also buys you time needed to win a subject’s trust – be it a community organizing against a transnational mining firm or a guerrilla group traditionally maligned and demonized by local outlets. And a budget that buys you time also renders the journalism less mercenary. When an earthquake hit Haiti in 2009, while most foreign news outlets packed up after the initial breaking news story had waned, AJE

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teams remained on the ground there for a year after the earthquake, dealing with the lessspectacular elements of Haitian reality. The channel’s headquarters also yielded a sense of editorial independence: We are free to report on events or trends on their own merit, and not just because they have an impact on Qatar’s geo-political interests. I find that CNN and BBC are much more US or eurocentric, which means a story must “matter” to their specific audience for it to be considered worthy of reporting. (Lucia Newman, Latin American editor, AJE, 2022) One could, of course, also argue that it is precisely because Qatar has little at stake politically in the region that such freedom was afforded in the first place. Be that as it may, the albeit inadvertent editorial independence has also provided a kind of watchdog journalism that regional media frequently fail to achieve. Without overstating the channel’s impact across the continent, given that it broadcasts in English, it has nevertheless produced independent, critical news coverage that has frequently ruffled government feathers across the ideological spectrum. Bypassing restrictions faced by domestic media, be they commercial interests, political alignments, censorship, or budgetary constraints, AJE coverage has often provided a more agile form of journalism from the outside. This means the channel has not only interrupted the North–South flow but also offered a critical alternative to regional domestic news coverage owned by powerful, privately owned right-wing media conglomerates in Latin America, albeit in English. Examples are plentiful. In Argentina, in a divisive political battlefield where the Clarin network became President Nestor Kirchner’s bête noir after sustained assaults on his presidency in the 2000s, AJE afforded the story nuance and an interest in understanding the Kirchner phenomenon as part of an emerging left-wing populism in the region. In Colombia, the 6-decade-old conflict with the guerilla group FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN was narrated by the mainstream outlets RCN, Caracol, and NTN24 within the constraints of the “war on terror” narrative. Instead, as it has done around the world, AJE often got to sit down with the guerilla leaders to provide the public with an insight into the armed insurgency and its historical context. A subject worthy of another study might be how a channel like AJE was able to bypass the trappings of Manichean storylines and the lure of conflict narratives instead of playing an active role in the peace and reconciliation process. In Brazil, 70% of the 80 million population gets its news from TV, most of which comes from the biggest media conglomerate in Latin America, Rede Globo, who, in 2016, publicly encouraged Brazilians to take to the streets to unseat left-wing President Dilma Roussef and who later unquestioningly reported on President Ignacio Lula da Silva’s downfall even as it emerged that he was wrongly accused of corruption, for which he served time. On both counts, AJE provided circumspection and critical distance from the garish headlines. On the other side of the political scale, in Nicaragua, where the government of Daniel Ortega has progressively encroached on all critical media, Al Jazeera covered the story for years, therefore gaining access to key news makers and providing nuance. In Venezuela, while much of the global media has consistently sided with numerous attempts to unseat the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, AJE has presented a less-dismissive, more-complex picture of the president’s political survival.

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For the purpose of equanimity, it is important to note that from this viewpoint, the channel has performed a similar role to the BBC’s World Service, which has reported on the region for decades – and indeed has done so in Spanish and Portuguese too.

Global News, Local Journalists While much global news coverage in English on Latin America comes from foreign reporters flown in for a few days, AJE made it their aim to hire locally. This produced journalistic knowledge born of expertise and deeper cultural understanding. On the day of AJE’s launch on November 15, 2006, bureaus across the world were given the choice of where to begin the channel’s own narrative. Latin America’s chief correspondent, Lucia Newman, chose to stand outside ESMA, an acronym for the Naval School of Mechanics in Buenos Aires. The building, which had once been the infamous center for torture during Argentina’s 1976– 1983 Dirty War, was billed to open as a memorial museum. By choosing this space as AJE’s first live broadcast from Latin America, Newman harnessed the news channel with a political memory of dictatorial rule and an implicit reference to a personal trajectory so common in many of those who work on the channel – she herself had had to flee from neighboring Chile during the 1970s as military coups spread through the southern cone. The anecdote, an example of Al Jazeera’s now oft-quoted pledge to bring local journalists onto the screens, was considered a welcome departure from the practice of flying in foreign correspondents to cover stories about a region they knew little about – or knew in specific ways that related to their own countries’ investments in the story (Galiano-Rios, 2022). In 2005, when AJE initiated a hiring spree, Lucia Newman was one of many enthusiastic reporters around Latin America suffering varying degrees of disenchantment with their jobs in foreign TV news in the region. I heard that AJE was starting a new news channel at a time when I was becoming very frustrated with my job as Latin American correspondent for CNN, based in Havana. The network that had once invested in broad international coverage, including of Latin America, has stopped having interest in global reporting, with the exception of the conflict in Middle East. (Lucia Newman, Latin American editor, AJE, 2022) As it did elsewhere, AJE scooped up journalists who spoke the local language(s) and had a better understanding of their societies and their particularities (Newman, Schweilmer, Pieroni). Several journalists with whom I spoke were in fact keen to question the nomenclature of “Latin America” as overly reductive. As Lucia Newman comments: Each country has its own unique history, and while the language is predominantly Spanish, culturally each country is different. Some are far more European, others have a predominant indigenous population; others are well educated and industrialized countries; yet others are rural, tropical, or extremely religious, poor (or not), etc. And politically there are huge differences and influences. (Newman, 2022) Jairo Lugo and Andres Cañizales have usefully characterized this as “a romantic view that tends to pursue the idea of a common Latin American public sphere, and by so doing, it 214

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imaginatively collapses historical layers and patterns of diversity in order to provide a shared historical space and homogenous identity” (Lugo-Ocando, 2008). From another perspective, one might also say that AJE made relatively risk-free investments in their recruitment choices, at least when it came to news. In the global market of news journalism, the decision to hire regionally was unprecedented, yet many of these hires were educated abroad, had learnt their craft in the English-speaking industry, winning their professional stripes at outlets like BBC, CNN, and news agencies such as Associated Press and Reuters. On a continent where the most disenfranchised are Black and Indigenous people, the sight of cosmopolitan reporters with mostly European ancestry reflected wider socioeconomic and racialized hierarchies.

Beyond News: First-Person Documentary News may have covered places and stories rarely mentioned in the global news market, but by their own assessment, reporters say the news model itself has never ventured too far from mainstream broadcast conventions. Yet while news makes up 45% of airtime on AJE, a huge 55% is dedicated to programs. Here the channel has opened up critical spaces of journalistic production from the Global South, including talk shows, magazines shows, and documentaries, all of which have given significant time to Latin America. Most noteworthy is AJE’s commitment to observational documentary through its Witness strand, which describes itself as “[a]n inspiring documentary series that brings world issues into focus through compelling human stories.” Much of this series has captured different corners of life in Latin America by producing first-person, authored films. In a global documentary film industry resistant to subtitles, accents, and a tendency, despite no end of waxing lyrical to the contrary, for reporter-led storytelling, Witness has rejected the authoritative gesture of omniscient voice-overs or Western journalists as tour guides. Instead, it committed to producing films in which the voice and the protagonism are given to local filmmakers and the characters they wish to make films about. Specifically on the region, in 2014, Witness launched a project in partnership with DocMontevideo to help develop newer filmmakers in Latin America who would otherwise struggle to reach the bigger platforms. Viewfinder produced 22 films ranging from environmental films (Garbage Homes was about a woman in Bolivia who combats the housing crisis by building homes from old plastic bottles) to social activism (an ex-prostitute who leads a theater group to help others face their trauma as abused women), Indigenous cultures (a couple traveling across the region, teaching Indigenous youth about astronomy and the connection their communities have to the cosmos), and art (in My Dancing Heart, three Mexican women facing aging and loneliness take up dance). In that season, the stage was given to the subject of art as a tool for social change in different communities across Latin America. Another, Hard Road Back, spotlighted ex-FARC fighters and the struggle to integrate into society after years operating as guerrillas. It is highly unlikely that these would have found a home on another channel, and certainly, the filmmakers would not have had the opportunity to collaborate on the in-depth level that Viewfinder provided (Garner). The production of these documentaries over the years reflects an attempt to privilege the so-called “voice of the voiceless,” rendering their experiences visible, be it in the developing world or in the increasingly stratified Global North. These stories gave the channel a distinguishing factor which echoed a postcolonial sensibility aligned to critiques of Western master discourses in news, a commitment to stories of political resistance, anti-racism, migration, the 215

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legacies of empire, and the effects of capitalism in the developing world. In Latin America and elsewhere, the structure of the films and the thought behind their production signaled an attempt to rethink what might more generally be theorized as the extractivist dynamics upon which much of the foreign news industry is built: media outlets of the Global North producing content about the South, in a production line that “refines” “raw material” with the authoritative seal of the global news brand, all while paying derisory sums for labor on the ground. (The figure of the “fixer” describes this relationship well: journalists on the ground recast as lowly assistants, paid low rates despite being employed for their local knowledge to research stories, find sources, and get access.) It would be remiss of me not to note, however, that, again, those who get to make films in the region represent the higher echelons of a cosmopolitan elite, frequently educated abroad, who have access to globalized cultural industries.

From the Journalism of Peace to the Journalism of Solidarity Academics studying AJE in the context of US attitudes to the Middle East have usefully framed AJE as a journalism of peace (el-Nawawy & Powers, 2010) and intercultural dialogue (Khamis). This attention to the conciliatory nature of journalism came in the context of academic discussions on media representations of the Middle East in the United States in the wake of 9/11. On AJE, films on Latin America have produced what I would call a journalism of solidarity, which focuses on the experiences of exploitation around the continent – and shares its histories with former colonized countries around the world. It would be salutary, then, to understand the channel as part of a radical tradition that has its roots in concepts of Third World people oppressed by class structures. This kind of production can be read in dialogue with much Black intellectual history, which reconnects class politics with anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism at a time when such connections have been diluted by the onslaught of atomized identity politics. Al Jazeera’s production on Latin America, whether Qatari bosses like it or not, created a narrative based on a global anti-capitalist common struggle. Indeed, it would be interesting to explore how the channel might be read alongside Black intellectual A. Sivanandan’s unifying notion of political Blackness (2019), a position worthy of evoking decades later, given it lost its currency post-9/11. The Third World has been lost to view in the last 15 or 20 years – lost to view in the deliberations of the Left because in today’s global factories, the low paid workers who do the dirty jobs are literally out there in the Third World and not her in the public view or, if here, only as invisible migrant sweatshop and service workers. The left in the West has failed to understand the changes going on in terms of the qualitative leap in the level of the productive forces, they fail to see that our standard of living depends upon the exploitation of an international working class. (Sivanandan, 2019) While it would be a gross exaggeration to suggest that all journalists shared the same political leanings at AJE (quite the contrary), some journalists who otherwise felt politically and professionally homeless elsewhere carved out a space there that forms part of a historic leftist internationalism and a transnational understanding of global inequality. 216

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AJE: Archiving Latin American Media News and observational documentaries deal with current events. But AJE has also dedicated its airtime to the past, in the shape of hundreds of archive-based documentaries. In Latin America, the channel has covered a whole gamut of countries, adding temporal layers and a political memory of the Global South, which, as a whole, established connections with other regions in ways rarely conceived of in other English-speaking media outlets. The attention paid to Latin America’s history invites another reading of the channel as a growing archive of Global South memory. Indeed, the channel has not just produced history on the region but has produced history of media on the region as well – and among that production, it has dedicated time and money to chronicling the history of Latin American revolutionary media. Much of this work was done at the Listening Post, the only media critique show of its kind in global broadcast and where I worked for ten years on media stories from around the world. In 2016, a historic rapprochement unfolded between the United States and Cuba. I went to Havana to cover the media side of the story. I wanted to concentrate on one cultural institution and its role in constructing the very idea of the revolution: the much-maligned, muchridiculed newspaper Granma, official voice of the Communist Party, founded by President Fidel Castro in the early years of the Cuban Revolution. There we interviewed journalists, readers, and historians all surprised but confident that our project was born out of genuine interest. During my stay, we were given access to film the paper’s printing press – the first time in history the foreign media had been allowed in to film the old Soviet machines, still printing out their daily print run of good news stories (a sign that AJE has garnered considerable trust in the most suspicious of countries). During the shoot, I remember that after interviewing a staunchly pro-Castro Granma reader, my Cuban producer remarked how the man had used the plural “we” throughout. Had I been with a foreign news team, would they have picked up on such a small but significant detail – that many Cubans, to this day, refuse to use the first-person singular? The interest in Cuba’s media history accrued another critical edge when I  returned in 2018. At that time, I  had gone back to make a film on an old newsreel that was gathering mold in the national film institute (ICAIC). “Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano” was a series of cinematic newsreels produced from 1960 to 1990 by the Cuban film institute, ICAIC. Many of those 1,493 newsreels formed a central pillar in what some might call the revolution’s “propaganda” machine and what others might simply refer to as the government’s political communications. I wanted to capture a mode of representation on the verge of extinction (these may be common academic pursuits; they are not usually tolerated in Western journalism), but what I  found was something more: an alternative 20th-century Western history from the Cuban perspective. The reels covered police brutality and the US civil rights movement in the 1960s; they framed the Troubles in Northern Ireland as the result of colonial history (unheard of on the BBC to this day); a critical perspective on the Vietnam War way before the story made it onto the news in the United States; the independence movements around Africa and the Middle East – all these stories were covered from a non-aligned Third World perspective invisible on mainstream Western media. The news archive’s content was one thing. Its form was another. The Noticiero had been directed by Santiago Alvarez and a group of avant-garde filmmakers who had gathered around the film institute. During much of that time, they mixed agitprop with animation, references to French new wave cinema with news from the ground. Often, their target was 217

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the convention of news itself, using different forms of irony and derision to undermine the premise of truth and unmediated reality. By showcasing the history of this weekly news program in our own weekly programs about the news, we were making connections with media history that bypassed the cosmopolitan centers but that reflected a critical image back to it, via an English-speaking global news channel.

Anti-Extractivism: Rethinking Foreign News If we are to understand foreign news production as a form of extractivism, to what extent has AJE managed to counter its logics in the global news market? I have argued that AJE’s coverage of Latin America performs a series of critical operations in the face of a homogenizing global media field of representation on the region. The very fact that AJE has been peopled by many journalists who are themselves first- or second-generation immigrants, political exiles, and therefore living legacies of colonial and imperial histories, gives the channel not just the status of a “contraflow” provided by the democratizing power of a globalized media landscape. Rather, the channel can also be positioned in a more politically charged genealogy that has its roots in the revolutionary movements of the 20th century whose intellectual leaders helped kickstart anti-colonial movements across Latin America and, indeed, Africa and the Middle East. In this vein, and countering the extractivism of global news production, the channel has gone some way to produce intellectual and interpretative labor, be it through local journalists, academics, analysts, from the “Global South.” Indeed, the commitment to reflecting how historically subjugated, socially marginalized, economically exploited people around Latin America have been able to generate their own media, today and in the past, has, to a certain extent, depleted the relevance of the very term “voice of the voiceless” itself. Questions emerge, however. To hire locally has its own limitations, given the elite makeup of local/global English-speaking journalists in the region. And more broadly, the channel’s critical production has taken place in a contradictory space. The Qatari state extolled Global South journalism, albeit from its position as a key player in transnational capitalism. From there, it has structured its own labor system along racialized lines, by importing cheap migrant workers from impoverished countries around the region. Furthermore, to exalt the channel as a site that counters North–South journalistic extractivism risks missing a wider systemic point: that its state funder continues to rely on the extraction of fossil fuels – granted, their own – with little regard for the fact that the inevitable environmental repercussions will disproportionately affect swathes of poor people across the Global South. In this ambivalence, we should go further and ask if the state of Qatar strategically identified itself with the “Global South,” despite its economic and political hegemony, for soft power purposes. In that sense, the charge of “extractivism” should not just be applied to global news production from the west but also to the journalistic project launched by the Qatari state itself.

Interviews Interview with Lucia Newman, Latin America editor and senior correspondent, AJE (March 30, 2022). Interview with Lagmi Chavez, producer, Buenos Aires, AJE (April 5, 2022). Interview with Julia Galiano-Rios, former reporter/producer/camera, AJE (April 15, 2022). 218

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Interview with Daniel Schweimler, former correspondent, AJE (March 29, 2022). Interview with Rafael Pieroni, former Brazil producer, AJE (April 4, 2022). Interview with Jean Garner, former EP for Witness DC, AJE (April 20, 2022).

AJE Coverage Turning a page: Latin America and the US, Empire (2013) www.aljazeera.com/program/ empire/2013/7/28/turning-a-page-latin-america-and-the-us History through Cuban Eyes, Marcela Pizarro, The Listening Post, AJE. www.aljazeera.com/ program/the-listening-post/2017/12/30/history-through-cuban-eyes-noticiero-icaic

References Acosta, A. (2013). Extractivism and neoextractivism: Two sides of the same curse. In M. Lang & D. Mokrani (Eds.), Beyond development: Alternate visions from Latin America. Transnational Institute and Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Chavez, L. Producer, Latin America, AJE. (2022, April 5). Personal communication. el-Nawawy, M., & Powers, S. (2010). Al Jazeera English: A conciliatory medium in a conflict-driven environment? Global Media and Communication, 6(1), 61–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1742766510362019 Figenschou, T. U. (2014). Al Jazeera and the global media landscape: The south is talking back. Routledge. Galiano-Rios, J. Former reporter/producer/camera, AJE. (2022, April 15). Personal communication. Garner, J. Former executive producer for Witness DC and Viewfinder Latin America, AJE. (2022, April 20). Personal communication. Khamis, S. (2007). The Role of New Arab Satellite Channels in Fostering Intercultural Dialogue: Can Al Jazeera English Bridge the Gap?. In: Seib, P. (eds) New Media and the New Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Lugo-Ocando, J. (Ed.). (2008). The media in Latin America. Open University Press. Newman, L. Latin America editor and senior correspondent, Santiago de Chile, AJE. (2022, March 30). Personal communication. Pieroni, R. Former Brazil producer, AJE. (2022, April 4). Personal communication. Schweimler, D. Former correspondent, Buenos Aires, Argentina, AJE. (2022, March 29). Personal communication. Sieb, P. (Ed.). (2012). Al Jazeera English: Global news in a changing world. Palgrave Macmillan. Sivanandan, A. (2019). Communities of resistance, writings on black struggles for socialism. Verso. Thussu, D. (Ed.). (2007). Media on the move, global flow and contra-flow. Routledge. Vinelli, N. (2018). Reading Latin America through Edward Said. Media Theorised, Al Jazeera English. https://bit.ly/3CBegbh

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20 CRACKS IN THE WALL Alternative Journalism in Turkey Bora Ataman and Barış Çoban

Democratic Breakdown and Alternative News Media Turkey a decade ago was shown as an example of economic and democratic development by the West to the Middle Eastern Muslim countries. Today, this is no longer the case. Unfortunately, the so-called conservative-democratic Justice and Development Party (AKP) shifted gradually to the Far Right over the years of its 20 years’ reign. Turkey is now just another country struggling to free itself from the vortex of authoritarianism. Turkey’s place in all international indices, such as justice, law, democracy, freedoms, etc., is a loud and clear sign of the extremist politics of the governing party. Concepts such as illiberal democracy, elected authoritarianism, authoritarian democracies, etc. are now used in describing the current regime in Turkey. Turkey is on Freedom House’s list of not-free countries. It ranks first in the poverty index and is the 96th country in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Moreover, according to World Bank data, poverty in Turkey is surging. Turkey ranks 149th on RSF Press Freedom Index, and according to IPI data, 36 journalists are still under arrest in 2022. This transformation can also easily be observed through the media and journalism. The AKP government’s decisions and sanctions that target all the institutions and practices of liberal democracy also changed the order of media in Turkey (Ayan, 2019). In fact, the neoliberal transformation in the media was completed in the 1990s. During these years, giant conglomerates, which stood out with their investments in various fields, acquired almost all popular newspapers under their own media holdings. These large media conglomerates, formed as a result of deregulation and privatization, also broke the monopoly of public broadcasting. These media holdings had dominated the media landscape when the Islamist AKP came to power in 2002 from outside the borders of the secular republican regime. AKP has, over time, taken over the control of these large media conglomerates by controversial and extralegal means of the executive power. In consequence, the control of all popular TV channels and so-called legacy news media that are owned by these conglomerates shifted to the hands of the government. Even though these media had long left pursuing the quality journalism of liberal theory (being the fourth estate and keeping the watchdog role), transforming to a DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-23

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propaganda machine of the government in a considerably short time had a shocking effect on the media landscape of the country. Almost all the big players in the media industry were overtaken by the AKP tycoons (Yeşil, 2018). The process of abandoning the journalism understanding of mainstream media that was in conformity with liberal codes increased the role and power of alternative media, which has historical roots dating back to the pre-Republican era and organic ties with progressive Left movements in the news sphere of Turkey. Although they do not reconcile with the elitist understanding of objectivity and superficial neutrality that only saves the appearance imposed by the liberal paradigm of journalism, many alternative news outlets, large and small, have always been active and productive in the news field. This includes the reigning years of the AKP as well. The alternative news media, acting with the motivation to become the voice of the oppressed and the other, in the wake of a righteousness that is away from the propaganda, tries to maintain counter-hegemonic news activism and thus, as a result, became vital for Turkey’s newsreaders. In fact, they became the antidotes to the disinformation campaigns of the government media. However, as the value and popularity of alternative media increase, it finds itself more often becoming the target of the fury and violence of the AKP. Today in Turkey, AKP’s propaganda machine consists nearly of a dozen of commercial big media outlets. On the opposite side, however, we see plenty of dissident Internet news sites, YouTube channels, Twitter accounts, national and local TV channels, daily and weekly newspapers, humor magazines, etc. Despite the central position of socialist and liberal Left alternative news outlets in the oppositional media sphere, the ideological spectrum of dissident media is quite encompassing and ranges from liberal conservative to radical Left. Therefore, in this chapter, we define the polyphonic and colorful dissident media, which we consider as the oasis of journalism in Turkey, as alternative news media at the expense of expanding its radical Left–related classical definition (Downing et al., 2001). The main aim of this descriptive study is to demonstrate the resilience of Turkey’s alternative news media against all the AKP-sourced hardships they counter. We first readdress the concept of alternative media according to the political conditions in Turkey. Afterward, we refer to the pressures and threats that alternative news media routinely face. Then, we try to demonstrate its courageous stance and some of its achievements through various examples. The data of the study were gathered purposively from international/national reports and related news articles, paying attention to their inclusive and explanatory nature.

What Is Alternative Journalism? The concept of alternative journalism (and/or alternative media) lies in critical media studies of the Marxist origin, at the intersection of economic politics and cultural studies of communication. And it is in contrast with concepts such as alternative Right and alternative truth, which are shaped in the post-truth era and carry the spirit of the populist Right, rising in harmony with the neoliberalization that dominated the West in the last quarter of the 20th century. In a sense, in the age of post-truth, what the word alternative is an alternative to is forgotten, and it is reintroduced as a doublespeak product that did nothing but reinforce global capitalist hegemony and the hegemony of neoliberal ideology. Whereas concepts such as alternative media and alternative journalism are mainly derived from critical media studies dominated by the anarchist-socialist tradition against liberal mainstream media theories, the concept is based on the works of pioneering names, such as Brecht, 221

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Benjamin, Enzensberger, Williams (Sandoval, 2009). In these studies, the media is idealized as a participant and as an assistant of direct democracy allowing citizens to direct strong criticism to the ideology of the capitalist state and to actively participate in the decision-making and governance in order to help carry the ideal of liberalism forward. These studies highlight the importance of people having their own voice and the ability to organize, being able to represent themselves, and creating an alternative public sphere against capitalist hegemony. In line with the historical roots, contemporary alternative media/journalism outlets are considered to be a part of and/or a contributor to the varied rights-based new social movements that entered the political scene in the 1960s. They are mostly defined in the literature as a radically democratic objection to the homogenizing mainstream culture and monopolized media industry dominated by global capitalism and the resulting hierarchical, commercial, and professional bourgeois journalism (Atton  & Hamilton, 2008; Forde, 2011; Harcup, 2013; Downing et  al., 2001; Rodriguez, 2001). Replacing “alternative,” Fuchs prefers “critical media,” defining it as “the media of the multitude, media of an updated proletarian counter-public sphere,” where class struggle merges with the political struggles of “marginalized identities,” including women and LGBTQ (2010, p. 185). Alternative journalism, endeavoring as a counter-hegemonic practice to reverse the dominant discourse, takes a participatory, anti-hierarchical, and semi-professional view of reporting. It tries to give a voice to those who cannot express themselves, not claiming impartiality but siding with the defense of rights. With references to definitions by Harcup (2013, pp. 162–164) and Forde (2011, pp. 173–175), alternative journalism can aptly be defined from a normative perspective as a progressive, participatory, anti-capitalist, democratic, and inherently gender-equal practice. Alternative journalists are thus politically active professionals/citizens who struggle to establish a more just and egalitarian world in the field of communication. Nevertheless, we need to further elaborate on alternative journalism theories which take the freedom of expression for granted in Western democracies in order to better grasp the media universe created by illiberal democracies such as Turkey and the struggles of its journalists. This alternative news universe, which is constantly criminalized by the authoritarian Turkish government, includes news outlets and reporters, such as printed and online newspapers/ news sites. related to leftist-socialist political organizations, newspapers, and agencies affiliated with Kurdish political movement, feminist media, LGBTQ news sites, online news platforms established by senior professional journalists who lost their jobs in the growing partisanship of the mainstream media, and/or personal journalistic accounts, activist citizen journalism, news outlets with liberal Left, conservative liberal, social democrat, and Kemalist tendencies, and the Turkish branches of liberal foreign media corporations, etc. (Çoban & Ataman, 2015). Therefore, this chapter suggests a broader definition of alternative journalism, which blends “social responsibility theory” (Baran & Davis, 2010) based on updated classical liberal principles and an alternative journalism theory (Atton & Hamilton, 2008, p. 135) so as to assemble the large and small, online and offline, independent, dissident, and alternative news outlets scattered throughout Turkey’s media sphere under a single concept. Accordingly, we consider these large and small news outlets with their different structures, organizational sizes, and political, ethnic, cultural, and gender identities as the democratic front of this struggle. In this respect, alternative journalism is deemed as active political news reporting, truthful and verified critical content creation, encouragement of pluralist democracy, and fundamental rights and freedoms that are carried out by not only the professionals but also the citizens. 222

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Turkish State’s Assault on Journalism In many recent international reports, the threats faced by journalists in both real and virtual worlds have been categorized (IPI, 2020; OGP, 2019; Freedom House, 2017a). Online/ offline threats are often examined in reports where many of the categories of threats appear to echo each other. For example, the 2017 report of Freedom House moves through the actors that are the source of threats, addressing threats posed by “heads of state, violent groups, trolls, judges, security forces and media owners.” Unfortunately, Turkey is at the forefront of countries that can cover every category of these reports with plenty of cases. Mostly, the attacks start with the discrediting, targeting, and threatening dissident voices, including journalists, by the ruling elite, especially Erdoğan himself, and then continue with the lynching campaigns on social media by the AKP’s sponsored trolls (Saka, 2018) and by pro-AKP journalists working in the corporate big media. The ones pointed as targets in this process are also insulted by ordinary people on social media by mentioning their names or via direct messages, by means of which they become the targets of various harassment and threats, including death threats (Ataman  & Çoban, 2019). Some of the journalists harassed on social media have also been subjected to physical attacks by law enforcement agencies and pro-government gangs. The most up-to-date data can be tracked from the reports of RSF Turkey, BİANET Media Monitoring Reports, Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA). And if examined thoroughly, it becomes apparent that almost all these assaults are toward alternative journalists. Today, so many journalists representing alternative news media in terms of our aforementioned definition are either in prison or struggle with lawsuits. Almost every week, journalists get attacked, police warrants are issued, or new prosecutions are commenced against them.

Resistance and Resilience of Alternative News Media Despite all the threats and attacks of the government, resistance in the field of alternative media/journalism continues. Despite the fact that journalism has become a high-risk profession in the crisis the government created and the resulting criminal environment, courageous journalists strive to continue their profession at the expense of paying a price. Events related to the conflictual Kurdish problem that continues within and outside the borders of Turkey are among the issues that journalists working in alternative news media outlets deal with often. The government-based attacks to criminalize the Peoples’ ­Democratic Party (HDP) – the Kurdish movement’s representative in the political sphere and the third largest party in the parliament with 56 deputies – are often cited in the news. Another constant agenda subject are cases such as murder, rape, assault, etc. toward women and LGBTQ individuals facilitated by sexist, male-dominant policies and how the perpetrators of such cases are protected and even acquitted by the male-oriented state. Large-scale c­ orruption involving leading political figures of the ruling elite is also widely mentioned in the news. The looting of nature by companies close to the government, the narrowing of public green spaces in cities due to large construction projects, the allocation of most of these green spaces to luxury housing projects, and the struggle of people, local initiatives, non-­governmental organizations who resist all these actions frequently occupy the sections of alternative news media devoted to environmental and urban news. In addition to the deprivation of the people who are pushed to the periphery of the cities with gentrification projects, the deepening poverty among these people is also at the heart of such news. 223

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A few of the riskiest stories among extra-legal activities of the state are those on crimes such as drug, weapon, and human trafficking carried out by persons or groups that are under the protection of the government. In addition, alleged murders and rape crimes committed by members of the government, as revealed by investigative journalism activities. Recently, the consequences faced by journalists dealing with such crimes started to resemble the consequences journalists working on the Kurdish issue – the most damaging, even deadly, issue in the country for many years – had to face. Nevertheless, journalistic activities continue to be the most dangerous in the Kurdish geography rather than in the rest of the country, where low-intensity civil war still continues. Journalism in that geography is deemed as a support for terrorism by state forces. Alternative Kurdish media tries to reveal any suspicious activities in the region, which are tried to be covered otherwise. During the protests at Newroz, a symbol of the Kurdish struggle for independence, Abdurrahman Gök documented the execution of an innocent teenager by the police at a search point who was allegedly a suicide bomber. Gök said, “If it was not for this photo, we would have thought Kemal Kurkut was a suicide bomber.” After the photographs appeared in alternative media, the police who were involved were prosecuted. However, the actual perpetrator policeman was not punished. Gök became a target of the government and is still on trial, with the charge of being a member of a terrorist organization (Gazete Duvar, 2022). In another case, journalists Şehriban Abi and Nazan Sala were arrested after reporting that two villagers from a Kurdish city, Van, who allegedly helped the guerillas during a military operation against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), were thrown off a helicopter (Artı Gerçek, 2022). Kurdish journalists who strive to make the crimes that are committed by the state and its proxies and that are left unpunished in the Kurdish region visible and heard continue their activities despite all the pressures, with the ideal of contributing to collective memory and social peace. Among the news that the government reacts harshly to are those that focus on the corruption of those in charge and/or their relations with the criminals. If they live in Turkey, journalists who produce such news are immediately investigated, often detained, and even arrested. Moreover, many journalists who go into voluntary exile due to threats and pressures can also be attacked by the proxies of the government even though they are abroad, and in the end, they still continue their lives under pressure and threat. In recent years, popular journalists such as Can Dündar, Erk Acarer, Metin Cihan, and Baransel Ağca have all fled the country. Despite difficulties, they continue gathering, making, and sharing stories and engaging with audiences through their social media accounts. Metin Cihan, once a citizen journalist, has become an online investigative journalist. He is now a high-value target for the government because he produced many stories about the crimes committed by the members of or those close to the government. Cihan has made the most effective news that triggered the AKP recently through the documents leaked to him. With much successive news based on these documents, he revealed how an Erdoğan-linked foundation called TÜGVA (Turkey Youth Foundation) created a parallel network within the state and controls many appointments in public official positions. These news articles dominated and guided the agenda of the Turkish politics at the time they were published, caused controversy in the parliament, and moreover, forced the government to release a statement (Köylü, 2021). Baransel Ağca, who carries out his journalism activities independently on Twitter, has also been the subject of investigation and lawsuit due to his investigative news stories about the corruption involving the ruling party ministers and deputies and the crimes they allegedly committed. He carried the alleged rape case of a deputy of the ruling party and the following 224

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suicide of the victim to the news sphere. Ağca revealed this case, which was tried to be hidden from the public, by sharing the documents he obtained through an online investigative research (Evrensel, 2021). In addition, he looked into the allegations of bribery and corruption against family members of one of the strong ministers of the government and shared the data he collected on his Twitter account. Ağca then had to fled abroad after these shocking reports were published. Erk Acarer, who continues his independent reporting activities on social media, produced serial news articles on the crimes allegedly committed by the ruling party in one of Turkey’s most popular daily socialist newspapers, Birgün. In particular, based on leaked information and documents, news about drug trafficking on the Latin America–Turkey line, allegedly carried out by businessmen close to the government, have long occupied the public sphere. They also had an impact on the political agenda, pushing the opposition deputies to give parliamentary question proposals to the parliament on this subject (Gazete Duvar, 2021). Even abroad, he could not escape being attacked by pro-AKP thugs and was stabbed by them who broke in his house.

The Reward for Good Journalism and Courage . . . In such a brutal environment in which the government tries to criminalize journalism, the courage and success of journalists are appreciated once more with awards given by professional organizations. The vast majority of journalists who receive awards are among those who produce news on the crimes committed by the government. And again, most of the awards are offered to journalists working in alternative news media. These awards are granted because of the risks they take, the courage they have to resist the threats and attacks they face, and their ability to report on issues that concern the public. However, it is evident that the greatest reward for journalists is the positive impact their news reports have on politics and society. News articles that break the stubbornness of the government and even make it back down are even more important. In this respect, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that alternative journalists are among the main actors in Turkish politics. Canan Coşkun, a reporter for the daily Diken newspaper with a liberal Left stance, has received the Musa Anter journalism award for revealing the murder of a citizen who died due to police violence at a police station, with the article titled “The governorship said he died of shortness of breath but blood came from his ears and eyes” (Evrensel, 2021a). Alternative media has been reporting about torture and police violence at police stations for many years and strives to keep the social memory alive in this regard. In such cases, the public pressure alternative news media create sometimes ensures a fair decision is made. The crisis and deepening poverty experienced due to the economic policies of the government caused related news to increase. Socialist daily newspaper Evrensel’s correspondent Murat Uysal’s interview article titled “A day in a plastic factory: Neither assurance nor insurance. Just working for a penny” and liberal Left–leaning ANKA news agency’s correspondent Burhan Demircioğlu’s “I am poor, should I die poor?” were rewarded by the Association of Contemporary Journalists (ÇGD) (Birgün, 2022). Meral Danyıldız, a reporter from Artı TV, a radical Left TV channel, who received the Jury Special Award, stated that they try to become the voice of suffering citizens in a collapsing Turkish economy. Meanwhile, in the field of environmental journalism, the main obstacles are the news blockades. Criticizing the government’s environmental policies is often found enough to get a court order to block access to the news. Alternative news channels reporting on forest fires 225

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in the summer of 2021 were tried to be silenced (IPI Media, 2021). Nevertheless, journalists both reported the fires and created public pressure, forcing the government to accelerate their efforts to extinguish the fires. Hazar Dost, the correspondent of Halk TV, a TV channel on the social democratic front, won the ÇGD Journalist of the Year award for the news he made during those times. In addition, the news articles of Nurcan Gökdemir from the Socialist newspaper Birgün titled “Horizontal rent scheme,” “Another authority coup: The Bosphorus Strait is taken from İBB and connected to Erdoğan!” “There is not enough land for the summer palace,” “Privatization has reached the shore,” and “The ‘public service area’ sheath for the allocation to the palace” were rewarded. Gökdemir said at the award ceremony: It has become ordinary to punish those who do their jobs for the public with imprisonment and fines and to prevent them from doing their job. However, with solidarity, we believe that these days will be left behind. We will continue to decipher the plunder carried out by the AKP government in planned and unplanned areas in order to gather political power and the profit relations they established. We can assert that alternative media that produce environmental news enable the public to hear and support many environmental struggles and thus force the state forces to accelerate legal steps. In this sense, alternative media assumes a very important function (Polen Ekoloji, 2021). For example, the İzmir representative of Evrensel newspaper, Özer Akdemir, who worked in the field of environmental journalism for years, stated that he produced news with an approach that combines environmental journalism with environmental struggle. Akdemir said: As a witness of this era and a conveyor of events, the journalist should show a little more interest in environmental problems than other news, and even make these news reports not only as a journalist but also as an individual involved in the struggle of defending life. It is impossible to talk about the objectivity or neutrality of the journalist where life has to be defended. (birhaberimizvar, 2019) The problems experienced by female journalists working in alternative media are another concerning issue that should be evaluated together with gender discrimination exacerbated by patriarchal power. The news field is also a potential harassment site for female journalists. They are frequently confronted with the male-dominated open/discreet, discursive/ physical oppression and violence imposed by the state and the society. In an environment where misogynistic policies are becoming widespread, the importance of women journalists and news on women in Turkey is increasing. Female journalists have pioneering roles in the defense of women’s rights, especially in bringing women’s harassment, rape, and murder cases to the forefront, in the fight for the prosecution and punishment of guilty men, in the solidarity between women, and in women’s movement. Emphasizing that female journalists are subjected to more pressure, mobbing, sexual abuse, and harassment than male journalists, Pelin Özkaptan, from the socialist newspaper Karınca, said: As a female journalist who embraces the free press tradition, we have to struggle with both dimensions of oppression. Since we defend the truth and are women, we are 226

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constantly under the radar of the state and the police. The lawsuits, arrests, detention, sexual harassment during news follow-up, and violence are unfortunately often faced by female journalists. But the struggle continues not only outside but also within us. Regardless of the ideology, the patriarchy makes its impact felt in every field. (Aygün, 2022) Öznur Değer, the reporter of socialist-feminist Jinnews, Kurdish Women’s News Agency, who won the Musa Anter Journalism Awards in Women’s Journalism branch, said: I was focused only on the news and the problems women experienced in this sense . . . My aim was to be able to express an untold truth, no matter how small it is, to be the voice of women’s lives, and to disclose current unlawful policies. (Journo, 2021) As a result, we can claim that in this ongoing atmosphere of intimidation and harassment in Turkey, journalists working in alternative news media outlets and as independent alternative journalists have to have and show courage to be journalists. The journalistic struggle of the alternative news media drives the dissident political movements; facilitates access of the opposition to the public, and thus its expansion; and becomes the voice, word, and memory of resistance against the reactionary, opportunistic, looting, and unlawful policies of the government. Therefore, alternative journalism extends its function and impact beyond news production and sharing. It contributes to the building of hope in the political sphere and helps libertarian, egalitarian, and solidaristic political movements spread among the public.

Concluding Remarks Turkey has never been a land of freedom, or a county where journalists could practice their profession without any fear. However, we witnessed the annihilation of all rights and freedoms earned until today by a despotic regime in the past two decades. Therefore, pursuing a journalistic style that is in line with the Western codes of liberal journalism is no longer possible in Turkey. The government’s treatment of journalists with the motto “you are either with us or against us” condemned journalists to a vicious cycle of defamation, threat, and suppression, while the government uses all the possibilities and tools it possesses against them. Today, journalism is one of the most unsecured, risky professions in Turkey. Journalism which strives to protect the public’s freedom of information and to ensure that those in power are held accountable for their actions, one that pursues the truth, can only be performed under the umbrella of alternative news media outlets. Moreover, alternative journalists have the courage to work and live under these current extremely unsecured and risky conditions in Turkey. While killing journalists is fortunately not the most popular method to silence them today, it is still a high probability that they spend many years in prison. In these circumstances, the effectiveness of the sources behind the resistance and the endurance of journalists who try to perform their professions under these conditions are vital. Besides their personal courage and professional motivation, journalists are in constant need of the national and international solidarity networks formed to defend journalism. These networks’ effectiveness and enforcement power against a government that is the enemy of journalists, in terms of both the sustainability of the profession and the safety of alternative journalists, play a determining role. Therefore, all activities, such as the awards 227

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granted, official letters with open criticism of the government and requesting information, press releases, material and moral support campaigns, solidarity campaigns organized through traditional and social media, etc., should be better coordinated. Moreover, their inclusiveness and comprehensiveness should be expanded and strengthened under these conditions. Otherwise, the alternative news media that continues to chase the news despite extraordinary risks may become a target of more apparent aggression and may have to completely go underground. This would not mean a loss for only Turkish democracy and public opinion but a serious loss for the global democracy and public opinion.

References Artı Gerçek. (2022). Helikopterden atılan köylüleri haberleştiren gazeteci Bilen’in ihlal davasındaki ret kararı bozuldu. https://artigercek.com/haberler/helikopterden-atilan-koyluleri-haberlestirengazeteci-bilen-in-ihlal-davasindaki-ret-karari-bozuldu Ataman, B., & Çoban, B. (2019). Turkey: How to deal with threats to journalism? In E. Eide, K. S. Orgeret, & N. Mutluer (Eds.), Transnational othering-global diversities (pp. 171–190). Nordicom. Atton, C., & Hamilton, J. F. (2008). Alternative journalism. Sage. Ayan, V. M. (2019). AKP Devrinde Medya Alemi. Yordam. Aygün, Y. (2022). Patriyarka her alanda etkisini hissettiriyor. Kadın İşçi. www.kadinisci. org/2022/04/05/kadin-gazeteci-olmak-zor-patriyarka-her-alanda-etkisini-hissettiriyor/ Baran, S. J., & Davis, D. K. (2010). Mass communication theory: Foundations, ferment, and future. Wadsworth Publishing. Birgün. (2022). ÇGD ödülleri sahiplerini buldu. www.birgun.net/haber/cgd-odulleri-sahiplerini -buldu-383485 BirHaberimizvar. (2019). Özer Akdemir: Geleceğin muhabirleri çevre gazetecileri olacak. https:// 1haberimizvar.wordpress.com/2019/12/30/ozer-akdemir-gelecegin-muhabirleri-cevregazetecileri-olacak/ Çoban, B., & Ataman, B. (Eds.). (2015). Türkiye’de Alternatif Medya. Kafka Kitap. Downing, J., Villareal, F. T., Gil, G., & Stein, L. (2001). Radical media: Rebellious communication and social movements. Sage. Evrensel. (2021a). Musa Anter Gazetecilik Ödüllerini kazananlar belli oldu. www.evrensel.net/ haber/442974/musa-anter-gazetecilik-odullerini-kazananlar-belli-oldu Evrensel. (2021b). Yeldana Kaharman’ın otopsi raporunu yayınlayan Gazeteci Baransel Ağca’ya soruşturma.www.evrensel.net/haber/432635/yeldana-kaharmanin-otopsi-raporunu-yayinlayan-gazetecibaransel-agcaya-sorusturma Forde, S. (2011). Challenging the news: The journalism of alternative and community media. Palgrave Macmillan. Freedom House. (2017a). Freedom of the press 2017. www.freedomhouse.org Fuchs, C. (2010). Alternative media as critical media. European Journal of Social Theory, 13(2), 173–192. Gazete Duvar. (2021). 1.5 ton uyuşturucu yakalanan uçak Ethem Sancak’a mı ait? www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/ chpli-antmenden-soru-onergesi-15-ton-uyusturucu-yakalanan-ucak-ethem-sancaka-mi-ait-haber1534129 Gazete Duvar. (2022). Gazeteci Abdurrahman Gök hakkında yeni dava. www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/ gazeteci-abdurrahman-gok-hakkinda-yeni-dava-haber-1550040 Harcup, T. (2013). Alternative journalism, alternative voices. Routledge. IPI. (2020). IPI activity report 2019/2020. https://ipi.media/ipi-activity-report-2019-2020/ IPI Media. (2021). Türk yayıncılara RTÜK’ten yangın haberleri cezası. https://freeturkeyjournalists. ipi.media/tr/turk-yayincilara-rtukten-yangin-haberleri-cezasi/ Journo. (2021). Öznesi olduğum bir haber, ödül getirdi. https://journo.com.tr/musa-anter-odullerikazananlar-2021 Köylü, H. (2021). TÜGVA belgeleri tartışması. DW Turkish. www.dw.com/tr/t%C3%BCgva-belgeleritart%C4%B1%C5%9Fmas%C4%B1/a-59496193

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21 CONTEMPORARY INDIAN JOURNALISM Digital Response to Traditional Challenges Uma Shankar Pandey

The Indian print media industry is unique in many ways. Mainstream newspapers are published in as many as 23 languages across the country (Registrar of Newspapers for India, 2021). There is a clear division between the English-language press and those in the Indian languages. Although the circulation of the English dailies is only about 9.5% of the total circulation of Indian newspapers, they are regarded as extremely influential and have higher advertising rates compared to their language counterparts. A major challenge for the Indian press at the turn of Independence were low literacy rates and the concentration of the readership in urban areas. The first systematic study of the press in Independent India was done by the first Press Commission (1954). The Commission identified 330 daily newspapers being printed in India in 1952, with a combined circulation of over 2.5 million. Of these, 41 newspapers were published in English, with a circulation of about 700,000, while there were 76 Hindi newspapers, with a combined circulation of 379,000 (Press Commission, p. 15). In the years immediately after Independence, English newspapers were more popular. This was, in many ways, a continuation of the colonial legacy. Most of these newspapers were published from cities and large towns, while only 90 newspapers were published from small towns and rural centers. The Press Commission report estimated that on an average, there were only 5.4 newspapers available for every 1,000 people in the country. The high cost of newspapers, low income of the readers, inadequate distribution networks, and the fact that most publication centers were located at a fair distance from the average Indian town were some of the reasons for the fairly low circulation of the newspapers in the early 1950s (Press Commission, pp. 20–21). In the 1940s and 1950s, many newspapers became unprofitable and had to close down. Among other factors, the Commission found “the major reasons for the failure of the newspapers: (i) inadequate appreciation of the dynamics of the newspaper industry, (ii) lack of adequate finances; and (iii) inefficient management” (Press Commission, p. 27). The first Press Commission report was extremely detailed. It provided deep insights into the workings of the Indian press. Some of the traditions noted by the Commission have sustained to this day. Almost 80% of the total salary expenditure was for the non-editorial

DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-24

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staff. Out of a total annual salary expenditure of Rs 40 million, only about Rs 8.5 million was incurred on the editorial staff (p. 43). Another interesting feature of the newspaper industry in those days was the share of the circulation revenue of the newspapers. The Commission estimated that the annual circulation revenue of the newspapers was about Rs 60 million compared to the net advertisement revenue of Rs 50 million (p. 44). The cover price of the newspapers was quite high, which meant a lower reliance on advertisement revenue. Over the years, we have seen a dramatic increase in the share of the advertisement revenue for the print media industry. While the cover price has remained almost stagnant, the dependence on advertisement revenue has grown steadily. Some of the problems afflicting contemporary journalistic practices in India were noticed among journalists in the early days after political independence. The Press Commission report expressed concern that journalists had given up the “high principles” of the preindependent era. The report also pointed out that many journalists fell short of the ethical standards of verifiability and accountability. The journalists have, to some extent, ceased to assert their individuality and the high principles which should govern their conduct have been subordinated to the exigencies of the situation. The accent on the commercial aspect of newspapers has tended to attract to the profession, persons who may not have the same intellectual equipment and the moral stature as journalists of former days. (Press Commission, 1954, p. 191) The Commission reported that there were growing incidents of news being published in many newspapers without “verifying its correctness,” and often, many journalists “knowingly published incorrect reports” (p. 191). Other such unethical practices, identified by the report, included news that was “obscene and frivolous” and in bad taste. One major reason for the fall in standards according to the Press Commission were the working conditions of the journalists – especially the comparatively low salaries and lack of professional training. “The real wages of the working journalists have gone down as the rise in the wages has not been commensurate with the rise in the cost of living,” the report noted (p. 192). Among other things, the Commission report recommended regular refresher courses for journalists to update themselves with the professional standards in the field.

Contemporary Journalism in India Although literacy rates in the country have grown from 12% at Independence to about 72% according to the 2011 census, one out of four Indians is still illiterate. This also means that with growing literacy rates, the potential for newspaper growth is still very real. Every new person becoming literate is a potential newspaper reader. This has also been born out in recent statistics (Registrar of Newspapers for India, 2021). Readership figures for Indian newspapers in recent years have shown steady growth, especially among language dailies. This indicates that unlike many places in the Western world, print media in India does not face a real threat of extinction in the near future. The growth of print media has been spectacular in the last seven decades. From 330 dailies in 1952, the print industry grew to 9,840 daily publications in March 2020, with a

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combined average daily circulation of over 258 million copies. As discussed earlier, the combined circulation in 1952 was just about 2.5 million. While the number of dailies has grown by about 30 times, the circulation has grown by over 100 times in the last seven decades. Another interesting change has been in the quality of newspaper readership. Almost 46% of the total newspaper circulation is in Hindi, while about 9.5% of the total circulation is for the English dailies (Registrar of Newspapers for India, 2021, p. 48). In 1952, the circulation of English-language dailies was almost twice that of the Hindi-language dailies. The growth in language dailies is an indicator that the readership is not limited to the English-speaking elite but is spread among the 20-odd major languages. Among these newspapers, 561 are regarded as big newspapers, while another 1,559 are medium-sized newspapers with circulation between 25,000 and 75,000 copies every day. The rest are all small-sized newspapers, with 1,737 newspapers having a circulation of fewer than 2,000 copies per day (Registrar of Newspapers for India, p. 62). Interestingly, about 52% of the newspaper circulation is from the newspapers designated as small newspapers while only about 27% of all newspapers are from the big newspapers. Though a major chunk of the advertisement revenue pie goes to the big newspapers, more than half of the Indian newspaper readers are served by the small newspapers. The steady rise in the circulation of newspapers was reversed in 2020–2021. The pandemic took its toll on the print media industry in India, leading to the closure of 90 publications from April 2020 to March 2021. By 2021, the number of newspaper dailies dropped to 9,740. Even the circulation figures fell by almost 13% to 225 million copies a day (Registrar of Newspapers for India, 2021). In recent years, the share of advertisement revenue has grown considerably compared to subscription revenues. From an almost-equal share of advertising and circulation revenues in 1952, at present, almost 85–95% of newspaper revenues is from advertisements. Only 5–15% of the total revenue is from circulation (Kohli-Khandekar, 2021, p.  9). This means that the survival of a newspaper depends on its ability to obtain advertisement revenues. This is where the established big newspapers are at an advantage. A huge chunk of corporate advertisements is taken away by the big newspapers, while smaller and medium newspapers are dependent on local and smaller advertisers. Any disruption in the economy has a tremendous impact on newspapers. The pandemic also saw a sharp fall in the newspaper revenues. From total revenues of Rs 296  billion in 2019, it fell to Rs 190  billion in 2020 following the pandemic (KohliKhandekar, 2021). When the economic growth is slow or stagnant, most companies cut down on their advertisement expenditure. The survival of the print media industry does not just depend on newspaper quality and adherence to high standards of journalism but the extraneous factor of the health of the economy. One reason that 90 newspapers had to close down between April 2020 and March 2021 is the sharp decline in the advertisement revenue. Most newspapers in India have a cover price that is much lower than the cost to print the newspaper. For example, Kohli-Khandekar also points out that while it costs between Rs 8 to Rs 20 to print a newspaper, the cover price of the newspapers generally averages around Rs 4. In a price-sensitive market, any increase in cover price runs the risk of decreased circulation. On the brighter side, 2021 witnessed a growth in the print media industry. Advertising revenues grew by 24% in 2021. Subscription revenues also saw a growth of 12%, backed by increased direct-to-home and newsstand sales as well as rising cover prices in some cases

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(FICCI-Ernst & Young, 2022, p. 12). According to this Ernst & Young report, it is expected that the growth will continue for a few years in the near future.

Digital Growth in India A major success story in the media and entertainment landscape in India has been the growth of the digital sector. In 2021, Internet penetration in India increased by 5%. There are now 834 million Internet subscribers in India, of which 795 million have broadband access. Like elsewhere in the world, a majority of the Indians access the Internet on mobile phones. It has been estimated that an average Indian spent 4.7 hours a day on their phones in 2021. At an aggregate of 700  billion hours of consumption, this mobile usage is the second highest in the world. The online news audience grew to 467 million in 2021. This means more than half of the total Internet subscribers access news online. News is now available in more than 15 Indian languages on the different aggregator platforms (FICCIErnst & Young, 2022, p. 56). This “digital” shift is more profound in the younger generation, which has directly moved to digital platforms for news and entertainment content, skipping television and even cinemas in the process. For every television set in a typical Indian home, there are four mobile phones on an average consuming different amount of high-speed data (Zarabi, 2021). One reason for the growth of the digital media sector is the huge optical fiber network created as a result of the government of India’s Digital India initiative. High-speed broadband access infrastructure is now available at most places in the country. Another reason is the growth of Internet access in rural areas. According to one estimate, the country’s digital population is approximately 658 million active users as of February 2022 (Basuroy, 2022). In 2021, India’s digital media market was estimated to be worth Rs. 300 billion. Most estimates project the digital market to almost double itself in the next four years. Digital media increased its contribution to the media and entertainment sector from 16% in 2019 to 19% in 2021. What this means is that digital media has grown at the expense of other traditional media sectors. Most print and television houses in the country have a digital presence as well. The growth in the digital media sector has been followed by two major developments. At least three major digital media associations have come up in recent years. Among them is the Digital News Publishers Association, which includes some of the major media houses in India – The Times of India, India Today, Hindustan Times, NDTV, and other big media organizations. Then there is the Indian Digital Media Association, comprising Republic TV, India News, Odisha TV, News X, and other outlets. Another digital media association, Digipub, was formed in 2020, comprising organizations like the Wire, News Laundry, and other digital media publications in India (The Wire Staff, 2020). The government introduced the Digital Media Ethics Rules in 2021 to suggest a code of conduct for digital media in India. Formally known as the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, it required digital news outlets to adhere to the conditions of good taste and decency and also ensure that half-truths were not propagated (Kumar, 2021). These rules have been challenged in the courts on the grounds that conditions such as good taste, decency, and prohibition of half-truths have not been specified clearly in the IT Act (Mathur, 2021).

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Crisis in the Indian Print Media It is with deep regret that I announce the suspension of the print edition – the last print edition in its current form will be published on Sunday, August 9. That said, we will be rebooting Mail Today in a digital avatar to meet the challenges of the future. (NL Team, 2020) This email by the CEO of the popular English daily Mail Today is symptomatic of a number of other legacy media outlets in the country. A few of these outlets have closed down, while others have shifted to a digital-only option. Over the last five years, hundreds of Indian journalists have lost their jobs. The situation worsened in the aftermath of the pandemic, as advertisement revenues dwindled and newspaper circulation dropped. Most newspapers reduced the number of pages printed and, in some cases, closed down certain satellite editions. Most journalists had to contend with salary cuts and, at times, more work. It was even more difficult for freelance journalists (Sarma, 2021). The first nationwide lockdown in the aftermath of the pandemic began on March  24, 2020. Within a week, many media organizations suspended print editions. Hundreds of journalists either lost their jobs or were forced to take a salary cut. According to most estimates, the salary cut at the news organizations ranged from 66% to 15%. Almost all news organizations, including the ones that were doing profitable business, fired almost 20% to 30% of the editorial staff. Many of those who lost their jobs had served their organizations for a decade or more. In big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, newspaper circulation declined by almost 40%. Many English newspapers shut down almost half of their satellite editions outside New Delhi and Mumbai (Agrawal, 2021). The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) estimated that at least 78% of those working in the media and publishing industry lost their jobs between September 2016 and August 2021. The CMIE estimated that the media and publishing industry employed a million people across India in September 2016. In August 2021, only over 230,000 people were employed by the media and publishing sector (NH Web Desk, 2021). According to CMIE, this drop was not just related to the pandemic; it had already started in early 2018. During the deadly second Covid-19 wave in 2021, which led to thousands of deaths, the impact on the media industry was even more severe. This was another round of job losses and salary cuts for journalists. Popular discourse has at times identified apparently unrelated causes for the decline in newspaper circulation. According to some newspaper reports, one of the reasons for a drop in newspaper circulation was a drop in the demand for scrap newspapers. As discussed earlier, the cover price of most newspapers in India is very less. Much of the unsold newspapers are sold as scrap to vendors for various usages, including packing fruits and vegetables. The north Indian state of Kashmir went on a lockdown after the abrogation of Article 370 by the Indian Parliament. Kashmir is one of the highest producers of apple in India. Among other things, the supply of apples was disrupted following the lockdown. This meant once the apple supply stopped, so did the demand for scrap newspapers, and as a result, the newspaper circulation numbers dropped (NH Web Desk, 2021). This incident is again a reminder of how at times unknown factors can impact the print media industry in India. Over the last few years, a substantial number of journalists were left without work and with very little social security. A number of trade union organizations, including the National Alliance of Journalists (NAJ) and the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ), the 234

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oldest and premier body of journalists in Delhi, alleged that most media houses were using the pandemic as an excuse to fire journalists. “Covid has become a pretext to crush and browbeat the profession to submission, by throwing out those whose labour built up a booming media industry,” a recent statement by these organizations read (NH Web Desk, 2020).

The Digital Journalism Option The growth in Internet penetration and digital advertising, along with massive growth in mobile phone usage, has been perfect conditions for the growth of digital media outlets in India. A recent report identified three kinds of digital journalism start-ups in India – “forprofit content-based start-ups, aggregation-based start-ups, and non-profit start‑ups” (Sen & Kleis Nielsen, 2016). Initially, most of these digital start-ups were limited to English, but in recent years, a number of popular Hindi and other language outlets have become extremely popular. Many young and mid-level journalists who lost their jobs in the legacy media institutions have turned to one of the digital options, while many have quit the profession for other pursuits (Priyadarshini, 2020). In this chapter, we identify six different types of digital media outlets in India. Most of them came up in the last decade. This typology is different from studies that have identified digital platforms according to ownership orientations. Harlow and Chadha (2019), for example, identified “Darwinian, Communitarian, Missionary, and Guardian” ownership type. This study attempts to map the digital journalism outlets in India, based on the content and the target audience.

Legacy Institutions Most legacy print and television channels in India have a strong digital presence. India’s foremost Hindi news channel, Aaj Tak, has a strong digital presence on YouTube, with over 51.7 million subscribers, while India TV has over 35 million subscribers. Both News 18 India and NDTV India have around 14 million subscribers. Most of these legacy channels use content from their television channels live-streamed on YouTube. Most of these channels use the digital platform to supplement revenues and also to get incremental consumers. According to one estimate, Times Internet had the highest presence among the digital media outlets, next only to Google and Facebook. They had a reach of over 75% and more than 370 million unique visitors in February 2022 (Adgully, 2022).

Digital-Only Sites Some of the digital-only outlets are promoted by legacy media institutions, like the Patrika group’s Catch News, available in both Hindi and English, and the India Today Group’s online opinion platform, Daily O. There are other outlets like Quint. Launched in March 2015 as a website, Quint attempts to “provide a blend of video, audio, and text for a quick visual and social experience” (Sen & Kleis Nielsen, 2016). Targeted toward the youth, Quint is a mobile-first and a social-first outlet. Another popular digital-only outlet is the Wire, founded in 2015, which is published in English, Hindi, Urdu, and Marathi. It also publishes the Wire Science and LiveWire as standalone digital publications. It has a YouTube channel with 3.76 million subscribers and describes itself as financially and editorially independent. 235

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It generally publishes commentary and opinion pieces and also carries contributions from in-house journalists and others. It depends on grants, donations, and subscriptions from consumers.

YouTube “Channels” by Journalists Many popular journalists, including Saurabh Dwivedi, Barkha Dutt, Ajit Anjum, and Abhisar Sharma, run successful YouTube channels with subscribers ranging from 800,00 to over 20  million subscribers. Most of these channels have come up over the last few years and are mostly in Hindi. They largely carry news-based stories. The Lallantop, run by Saurabh Dwivedi, now also has its mobile application. Barkha Dutt’s MoJo channel has won quite a few awards for her detailed coverage of the pandemic. The channel has over 800,000 subscribers.

Aggregation-Based Sites Dailyhunt is the most popular news aggregator application in India. It delivers content in 18 different languages. It provides diverse content, including global, business, entertainment, sports, business, weather, technology, etc. With more and more people opting for digital content in their languages, platforms like Dailyhunt are much in demand. It has a base of 263 million monthly active users and hundreds of content producers across 14 languages. Other aggregators like Inshorts are extremely popular as well.

Genre-Based Digital “Channels” Many YouTube channels are based on specific genres. The ones dealing with entertainment news tend to be more popular. One such channel, “Tinsel Talk,” dealing with behind-the-scenes stories of the Bengali television and cinema world, reached a hundred thousand subscribers recently. There are others that are devoted to street food, electronic goods, sports, cooking, gardening, and other sundry topics. These channels are extremely popular with younger audiences.

Hyperlocal “Channels” This author spoke to a number of hyperlocal channel operators across West Bengal as part of a series of workshops on development journalism. Most of the hyperlocal channels make very little money and have to supplement other odd jobs to keep their ventures running. Most of these operators run a Facebook page and have a YouTube channel. While some of them have reached a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours every year on YouTube to cross the monetization hurdle, many others do not get paid for their content either by Facebook or YouTube. Working with very limited equipment, often from their homes, it is the “thrill of journalism” and identifying oneself as a journalist that keeps them going. In many other cases, there is a steady flow of advertisement support from YouTube and other local advertisers that keeps them going. Prabin Das, a young journalist who runs a hyperlocal channel in Murshidabad in north Bengal, says: Often the money I  get from journalistic work is not sufficient to even take care of my travel expenses. I provide other services like designing, video editing and website 236

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maintenance to sustain myself. Hopefully, my YouTube channel will reach the required number of subscribers to make ends meet. Many others like him have started their own YouTube channels. At times, a small group of journalists with different skill sets comes together to form “news portals.” One advantage of such sites is their access to real on-ground events and stakeholders. They are almost always the first to get a live feed of newsworthy events or sound bites of important stakeholders. However, often, these newsworthy events have a limited audience. It is only when an event or an incident has statewide repercussions that these journalists receive some recognition and much-needed “views” on the digital platforms. Often, these channels go live on Facebook. But monetization on Facebook Live is tricky. One needs a particular number of concurrent viewers before they can run advertisements on Facebook Live. One common complaint of all hyperlocal digital journalists is the lack of official recognition, especially for the purpose of accreditation as journalists. Accredited journalists are invited to cover government programs and have access to other facilities that the state offers regular journalists. However, there is no mechanism for accrediting journalists affiliated with digital portals. Unlike newspapers, which have to be registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India, and the television channels, which need quite a few government clearances, anyone with a Google account can start a YouTube channel. Many journalists feel there should be some mechanism to “recognize” local digital channels, especially at the district and the sub-district level. Most digital journalists record, edit, and upload videos on their channels from mobile phones themselves. However, many of them think they could do with some training for various optimization tools to reach out to a larger audience. Shifting from television and print to the digital medium has not been smooth for many of them. There have been quite a few success stories as well in the local channel space. One example is Arambagh TV in south Bengal, which has about 600,000 subscribers. It generally provides a commentary by an anchor on recent news events. It rarely creates news bulletins by itself but uses content from other channels to provide a particular point of view. One reason for the success of the channel is that it chooses the most talked about events of the day and provides a detailed perspective which is not possible with mainstream television channels. Such channels have a strong presence on the Facebook platform as well.

The Way Forward Digital tools have a big role to play, even in mainstream journalism. Most journalists cannot ignore “what is trending” on the social media and have to constantly measure up to the metrics of the digital media – reach, engagement, clicks, etc. – even when they are working for mainstream television or print media (Petre, 2021). Digital media platforms, especially those addressing local communities or are limited to a particular geographic area, have the potential to address user experiences more effectively than the mainstream media. At the same time, they have a potential diaspora market to address, which if tapped adequately can sustain the local digital outlets financially. At present, the success rate of the new digital journalism outlets is less than 5% (Sen & Kleis Nielsen, 2016). Three immediate steps can be undertaken to address the problems of new age digital journalists in the short term. Firstly, there should be a transparent process to provide accreditation 237

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to the digital news platforms. The proposed digital media code of ethics does not address this issue (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, 2021). At the same time, various stakeholders must equip working digital journalists with updated tools to maximize the potential of the platform in reaching out to the audience and also create content that meets high professional standards. Most digital journalists – especially those working on the hyperlocal platforms – have called for regular training facilities. Over the last two decades, two different wage boards have suggested minimum wages for working journalists in the mainstream media (Ministry of Labour, 2000) (Ministry of Labour and Employment, 2011). However, they have not been implemented for a number of reasons. We have documented the extreme sense of insecurity with which mainstream journalists have been working. Some semblance of social security is essential for journalists not only in the mainstream legacy media but also in the digital media. If we look closely, many of these closely resemble the recommendations of the first Press Commission seven decades ago (Press Commission, 1954). In the present study, we have limited our discussion to the evolving media outlets. However, recent studies on Indian journalism have identified issues like the falling public trust in media in India (Sonwalkar, 2019), the dwindling status of press freedom (Chadha  & Arya, 2021), and the impact of the rising populist politics in the country (Narisetti, 2021). The presence of these digital platforms has had an impact on the changing media landscape in India (Aneez et  al., 2017). The evolution of new digital outlets in India has interesting dimensions. At the very least, it has helped empower regional audiences and producers. Hyperlocal digital news outlets are a possible antidote to dwindling interest in news in particular.

References Adgully. (2022, April 29). Google leads digital rankings in India for March 2022, but reach dips. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from www.adgully.com/google-leads-digital-rankings-in-india-for-march2022-but-reach-dips-117155.html Agrawal, S. (2021, June 18). No jobs, no placements, low salaries: Pandemic leaves young journalists staring at a bleak future. Retrieved June 11, 2022, from www.newslaundry.com/2021/06/18/ no-jobs-no-placements-low-salaries-pandemic-leaves-young-journalists-staring-at-a-bleak-future Aneez, Z., Chattapadhyay, S., Parthasarathi, V., & Nielsen, R. K. (2017). Indian news media and the production of news in the age of social discovery. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, University of Oxford. Basuroy, T. (2022, June 9). Digital population in India as of February 2022. Retrieved June 11, 2022, from www.statista.com/statistics/309866/india-digital-population/ Chadha, K., & Arya, S. (2021). Challenges to press freedom in India. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. FICCI-Ernst & Young. (2022). Tuning into consumer. FICCI. Harlow, S., & Chadha, M. (2019). Indian entrepreneurial journalism: Building a typology of how founders’ social identity shapes innovation and sustainability. Journalism Studies, 20(6), 891–910. Kohli-Khandekar, V. (2021). The Indian media business: Pandemic and after (5th ed.). Sage. Kumar, S. (2021, May 27). India: The new norms for OTT platforms, online news and digital media: An 11, 2022, from www.mondaq.com/india/social-media/1073446/ overview. Retrieved June  the-new-norms-for-ott-platforms-online-news-and-digital-media-an-overview Mathur, S. (2021, July 14). Explained: Why centre’s new rules for digital media face legal test. Retrieved June  11, 2022, from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/why-centres-new-rules-for-digitalmedia-face-legal-test/articleshow/84396534.cms Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. (February, 2021 25). Information technology (intermediary guidelines and digital media ethics code) rules, 2021. Retrieved June 11, 2022, from https://mib.gov.in/digital-media-guidelines-and-policies

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Contemporary Indian Journalism Ministry of Labour. (2000, December 5). Manisana wage board for working journalists and non journalists: Award copy of government notification. Retrieved June 11, 2022, from http://cyberjournal ist.org.in/manisana/notify.html Ministry of Labour and Employment. (2011). Recommendations of the Majithia wage board. Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India. Narisetti, R. (2021). Chapter ten: A loud silence. In Media capture (pp. 160–187). Columbia University Press. NH Web Desk. (2020, April 17). Journalists’ unions move SC, allege media companies using lockdown for layoffs and salary cuts. Retrieved June 11, 2022, from www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/ journalists-unions-move-sc-allege-media-companies-using-lockdown-for-layoffs-and-salary-cuts NH Web Desk. (2021, September 21). Almost 78 per cent jobs lost in media and publishing industry in 5 years: CMIE survey. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/ almost-78-per-cent-jobs-lost-in-media-and-publishing-industry-in-5-years-cmie-survey NL Team. (2020, August 7). Mail Today suspends print edition, plans to “reboot in a digital avatar”. Retrieved June 11, 2022, from www.newslaundry.com/2020/08/07/mail-today-suspends-printedition-plans-to-reboot-in-a-digital-avatar Petre, C. (2021). All the news that’s fit to click: How metrics are transforming the work of journalists. Princeton University Press. Press Commission. (1954). Report of the press commission. Manager of Publications, Government of India. Priyadarshini, A. (2020, September 9). “Can’t rely entirely on journalism now”: How media workers laid 10, 2022, from www.newslaundry. off during the pandemic are coping. Retrieved June  com/2020/09/09/cant-rely-entirely-on-journalism-how-media-workers-laid-off-during-thepandemic-are-coping Registrar of Newspapers for India. (2021). Press in India 2020–21. Registrar of Newspapers for India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. Sarma, D. (2021, October 15). Journalism during Covid-19: Loss of lives, layoffs and cutbacks. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from www.printweek.in/features/journalism-during-covid19-loss-of-lives,-layoffsand-cutbacks-55275 Sen, A., & Kleis Nielsen, R. (2016). Digital journalism start-ups in India. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Sonwalkar, P. (2019). From by-line to bottom-line: Trust deficit in world’s largest democracy. Journalism, 20(1), 60–63. The Wire Staff. (2020, October 28). Eleven Indian digital media publications come together to “build a digital news ecology”. Retrieved June  10, 2022, from https://thewire.in/media/digipub-digital-mediapublications Zarabi, S. (2021, January 21). The future of India’s media is all-digital. Retrieved June 11, 2022, from www.businessworld.in/article/The-Future-Of-India-s-Media-Is-All-Digital/21-01-2021-367995/

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22 THE DAY WHEN MAIDS WENT TO DISNEY Journalism and Neoliberalism in Brazil José Cláudio Siqueira Castanheira, Melina Aparecida dos Santos Silva, and Afonso de Albuquerque Introduction On February 12, 2020, during the opening of the legislative seminar in Brasília, capital of Brazil, Paulo Guedes, Minister of the Economy for Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, made the following remark: “Everybody was going to Disney Land, even the empregadas! That was a hell of a party” (Paulo Guedes, quoted by Acciari, 2021, p. 8). The Brazilian legacy media sustains a turbulent relationship with Bolsonaro. A Far Right populist leader, Bolsonaro has made several outrageous statements since he was sworn in as president. He talked against Black people, women, LGBTQAI+ people, and native Brazilians. He has praised the former military regime (1964–1985) and threatens to intervene in the Brazilian National Congress and the Supreme Court whenever they contradict his interests. In contrast, the traditional media portrays Guedes as the “logical” and sensible side of Bolsonaro’s cabinet. An oldschool neoliberal economist who graduated from Chicago University in 1978 is not so different from Bolsonaro after all. Both admire Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator. In fact, Guedes served as a professor at the University of Chile during Pinochet’s government. Guedes’s statement provides additional evidence that the similarities between Guedes and Bolsonaro are greater than the Brazilian legacy media suggest. This chapter takes Guedes’s statement as an opportunity to discuss the nature of Brazilian mainstream journalism. It considers the problem in three layers. The first one refers to how the Brazilian legacy media present themselves to the public. Here, notions about the media as a “fourth estate” acting as a watchdog in defense of the citizens’ interests come to mind. The second layer refers to the legacy media agenda, which is fundamentally neoliberal. They see as self-evident principles such as “austerity,” cuts in public spending, privatization of public organizations, and a minimum state. The third layer refers to the social values lying beneath the other two layers. It is about elitism, social exclusion, and racism. We argue that we must consider these three layers together in order to understand how the Brazilian legacy media deals with Bolsonaro’s government. The fourth estate model provides the rationale for the legacy opposition to his government. They picture him as an authoritarian populist leader who puts democracy in jeopardy. The neoliberal agenda justifies their support for Paulo Guedes, presented as a serious economist who prioritizes technical DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-25

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issues above political ones. Finally, the negative reference to the maids’ economic and social rights reveals the elitist face of Paulo Guedes – shared by the legacy media. We contend that the coexistence of these three layers allows them to address two different audiences at once. By referring to the fourth estate model and neoliberal principles, Brazilian legacy media looks for external (Western) sources in order to legitimize themselves as bastions of civilization. This is typical of postcolonial elites in peripheral societies. The logic behind the third layer is internal to Brazilian society: it refers to a dispute for status. Domestic workers, and maids in particular, are a category with a particularly low social status in Brazil – a consequence of the country’s past slavery. Otherwise, going to Disneyland is a postcolonial ritual for Brazilian elites and the middle class: by taking their children to Disneyland, they present them with a civilizing (albeit fun) experience of visiting the United States, Brazil’s paradigm of modernity. This experience is supposed to be a privilege. Going to Disneyland is a sign of social distinction. During the time when the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, hereafter PT) was ahead of the presidency, the poor people’s living standards rose considerably, and the maids obtained new workers’ rights. Sectors of the elite and the middle class perceived this as a threat to their status. This was one of the main reasons motivating them to oppose PT. As a strong opponent of PT, the Bolsonaro government attempted to restore the previously existing boundaries. In this chapter we present an analytical framework for handling the complexity and multidimensionality of the positions of the main media groups in relation to the current neoliberal economic policy in Brazil and related social impacts. Thus, we describe the ambiguous position of Brazilian legacy media, which intends to present itself as a moderator within the political scenario but cannot hide its heritage as part of the conservative elite.

Brazilian Media as a Fourth Estate Brazilian society was historically built on the division of the national territory and its wealth between families that carried out the exploration of the colony in the name of the Portuguese Crown. Raymundo Faoro (1975) argues that the relationship created between the Brazilian rural elite and the colonial administrative machine had strong traces of patrimonialism. That is, the idea that the public thing was “owned” by the groups around the central power and that those groups were part of an administrative system with unclear hierarchical contours, which facilitated their exertion of influence. The oligarchic groups in Brazil continued to be intrinsically related to the Estate but were also criticized, especially between the 1960s and 1970s, because of the adopted oldfashioned economic model, which did not allow the modernization of Brazilian society. Consequently, we can notice a shift from a paradigm based on legal precepts on societal stability (especially the stability of the wealthy) to one based on market efficiency. According to Paiva et  al. (2015) mass media in Brazil presents intrinsic patrimonialist characteristics, being controlled by family groups that have always maintained a close relationship with different governments. This relationship was based on the exchange of favors and did not hide the fact that, despite being concessions from the state, the communication vehicles, specifically radio and TV channels, were managed according to the personal interests of the concessionaires as if they were those of the government itself. The largest media groups demonstrated a great capacity to adapt to the different interests of the dominant groups (Santos  & Castanheira, 2021), even in the violent period of the military dictatorship. At the same time, governments were able to take advantage of the support that such 241

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corporations offered to their policies. Among these groups, we can highlight Grupo Estado, constituted by the newspaper Estadão, by the Estado news agency, in addition to broadcasting channels. The Mesquita family has controlled Grupo Estado since 1902. Another important media-related family, the Frias, has managed Grupo Folha, made up of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, a news agency, and the digital content site UOL, among other media outlets, since 1921. The Civita family has led Grupo Abril since 1950. It is responsible for publishing magazines with great political influence, such as Veja, in addition to radio and television channels. Grupo Bandeirantes has belonged to the Saad family since 1937, comprising radio and television stations and other news and entertainment outlets. The Marinho family has run Grupo Globo since 1925. Currently, it operates in very diverse areas, such as radio, television, the Internet, and print media, and is considered the largest media conglomerate in Latin America. Grupo Globo’s power of influence was so great that it inspired the 1993 British documentary Beyond Citizen Kane, directed by Simon Hartog, about the influence that the group exerted on public opinion and comparing the figure of journalist Roberto Marinho to the fictional character Charles Foster Kane from the 1941 film Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles. Beyond Citizen Kane was censored by the Brazilian court and never officially exhibited in Brazil, despite being currently available on YouTube.1 Although media corporations and the government developed such an intimate relationship of interdependence in Brazil, the normative expectations about the role of Brazilian news media present us with a different perspective. According to the canonic approach to the topic, when free of external constraints, the news media are supposed to provide the first line of defense for liberal democracy, working as a fourth estate. In this view, the news media would be a part of an umbrella of institutions – belonging to the state apparatus or not – in charge of averting the concentration of power in a few hands through a checks-and-balances system. The Brazilian media developed a quite-particular version regarding their fourth estate role. In their view, the media should perform a quasi-constitutional political role as the power in charge of solving disputes between the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches. This role has been described as a kind of “moderating power” (Albuquerque, 2005). At first sight, the Brazilian legacy media appears to have accomplished this task in a satisfactory manner during Jair Bolsonaro’s term ahead of the presidency. Almost every aspect of Bolsonaro has been subjected to strong scrutiny and criticism. A non-exhaustive list of these critiques includes (1) Bolsonaro’s attempt to curb the role of other political institutions (the Congress, the judiciary, technical institutions) as a means to obtain more power; (2) his and his relatives’ relations with organized crime; (3) his role as a disseminator of disinformation and conspiracy theories; (4) the militarization of the state apparatus; (5) his incompetent education policies; and not less important, (6) his disastrous mismanagement of the Covid19 pandemic. The Brazilian legacy media recurrently presented themselves as responsible political agents, in contrast to President Bolsonaro. For instance, when his intentions to minimize the impact of the pandemic became clear, several journalistic vehicles joined in a consortium for providing trustable data about the number of infections and deaths related to the pandemic. Throughout Bolsonaro’s tenure, Minister Paulo Guedes was frequently portrayed as the only sane member of a fundamentally mad administration. How and why did this happen? We contend that Guedes’s favorable picture presented by the legacy media must be understood in light of a broader historical context. Paulo Guedes himself is a holdover from the first generation of neoliberal economists who had a concrete effect on public policies. 242

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The origins of the neoliberal movement in Latin America can be traced to the late 1940s, but it was only in 1970 that it became a practical reality. This happened in Chile, in the early 1970s, after the violent coup that killed President Salvador Allende. A  cruel dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet followed until 1990. The brutal repression of political opponents by his regime provided it with the opportunity to enact the implementation of a vast set of neoliberal policies, which proved very painful for the Chilean population. This happened under the guidance of economists, like Paulo Guedes, trained at the University of Chicago – the so-called “Chicago Boys.” The changes that followed became known as “the Chilean miracle.” The “unshakable faith in the free market” (Montes & Fariza, 2019), accompanied by a privatization model of public services, helped raise the country’s per capita income to levels above those of other Latin American countries. This did not mean, however, the reduction of poverty. On the contrary, income distribution became more unequal, access to public services was drastically reduced, and personal indebtedness grew significantly. The Chicago Boys’ economic reform included a labor reform, with the removal of a significant part of workers’ rights; a pension reform, which changed the pension system to an individual-funded system; and the encouragement of the creation of private universities, transforming education into a profitable business. In the words of Claudia Sanhueza, Undersecretary of Finance of the Chilean government, “[t]he liberalization of the higher education market has greatly increased prices and concentrated supply in the capital” (quoted by Montes & Fariza, 2019). The fourth estate views authoritarianism as abhorrent, but from the standpoint of neoliberalism, this is not always the case. This is a crucial issue to emphasize. In fact, Friedrich Hayek, who collaborated with Pinochet’s regime, considered it a necessary “transitional dictatorship,” useful to reorganize Chile’s economy (Farrant et al., 2012). By the same token, for the Brazilian legacy media, as unpleasant as the authoritarian nature of Bolsonaro’s government could be, at least it would provide an opportunity for implementing unpopular neoliberal measures.

The Neoliberal Model in Brazilian Society In Brazil, between 1969 and 1973, during the military dictatorship, there was a phenomenon of economic growth (similar to the Chilean case and equally named an “economic miracle”). The reduction of investment in the public sector and tax incentives for the private sector were also the basis of the economic policy of the period. Despite the increase in growth rates, Brazil showed an increase in social inequality and a greater concentration of income. The so-called “years of lead,” in which the military repression of trade union movements and other popular demands was more intense, saw the emergence of the expression “Brazil, love it or leave it” during the government of General Médici in 1970. The belief in the “invisible hand of the market” has in fact never abandoned the different shades of Brazilian economic thinking, both under left and right governments. The largest Brazilian communication group, Rede Globo, systematically offered a positive view of the country’s economic growth, precisely because it was greatly favored by the military regime, with concessions of broadcasting channels and with the purchase by the government of a generous amount of advertising space in the different media controlled by the group. The space for dissent and political contestation was very limited, if not null. In the same way, other Brazilian communication groups, located in Rio and São Paulo, the two largest Brazilian cities, emphasized the notion of an economic advance without mentioning the increase 243

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of social inequality, the repression of popular movements, or the systematic disrespect for democratic institutions. During the 1980s – especially during Margaret Thatcher’s government (1979–1990) in the UK and Ronald Reagan’s in the United States (1980–1988) – the neoliberal credo became the basis for a new project of globalization, led by the United States and international financing institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Under the “conditionality” logic, several countries around the world were forced to implement neoliberal reforms in exchange for the IFIs’ funding. These new policies had an especially negative impact on Latin America. The worldwide diffusion of the neoliberal credo benefited from a major change in the international university system. In the last decades of the past century, the United States replaced Western Europe as the center of this system. In particular, US economics schools replaced European law schools as the main center of education for the elites worldwide. Dezalay and Garth (2002) have described in detail how this process affected the education of Latin American elites and paved the way for the diffusion of neoliberal policies in this region. Departing from the 1980s, the Brazilian legacy media embraced with enthusiasm the neoliberal agenda. They provided decisive support for candidates promising to carry out neoliberal reforms, presenting them as prerequisites for modernizing the country’s economy. They praised Fernando Collor de Mello, the first president elected by direct vote (in 1989) after the Brazilian military regime (1964–1985), and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002) for championing neoliberal reforms. Despite the initial enthusiasm for the promised changes, both presidents became hugely unpopular. Governments with a more social democratic approach followed. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016), both affiliated with the Workers’ Party, promoted numerous policies aimed at ameliorating the life standards of the impoverished. The legacy media reacted negatively to these policies by associating them with corruption. After failing to defeat the PT in elections, the Brazilian elites sought to seize power via other means. President Rousseff was removed from office in 2016 after what many refer to as a “soft coup,” and former President Lula was found guilty and imprisoned in 2018 following a biased judgment. In consequence, he was not allowed to run in the 2018 presidential elections. This paved the way for Jair Bolsonaro’s victory. During the 2018 presidential campaign, Bolsonaro presented Paulo Guedes as his “super minister of Economy,” in charge of providing a “bath of Liberalism” in the Brazilian economy. The presence of Guedes ahead of the economy ministry would provide a warranty that, under Bolsonaro, his government would follow a “technical” (meaning neoliberal) economic approach. Guedes received the nickname “Posto Ipiranga,” a reference to the advertising campaign of a network of gas stations in Brazil where, theoretically, the consumer could find any type of service or product. Guedes meant, for Bolsonaro, a magical solution to economic issues that the president himself did not know how to deal with. The disastrous administration of the superminister was criticized, but mainly due to the “lack of seriousness” of Paulo Guedes in relation to the liberal project rather than the growing deterioration of the living conditions of the majority of the population: From “Posto Ipiranga” and “superminister” of the Economy, who intended to give Brazil a “bath” of liberalism, Guedes became a guarantor of populist and electoral

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measures that go against everything he had always preached throughout his professional career. (Fucks, 2021, online) In other words, Paulo Guedes’s main error was not attempting to apply the same liberal paradigm that led a huge portion of Chile’s people to suffering but, rather, failing to do it correctly in Brazil. According to the article on the Invest News page, produced by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, when he gave in to populist measures, Guedes had not been liberal enough.

Maids and the Drama of Status In light of this context, Paulo Guedes’s statement about the maids going to Disney being “a hell of a party” acquires a new sense. He presents the unfavorable exchange rate of 4.35 reais for 1 dollar as justifiable for economic reasons. However, there is more to it. Guedes seems determined to place the maids “in their appropriate place,” separate from their employers. After the “mess” provoked by the social policies promoted by the PT-led governments, the Bolsonaro government offered an opportunity to restore the status barriers. In fact, Bolsonaro had been an outspoken opponent of providing domestic workers with the same labor rights as other workers. The drama of status faced by the (White) upper middle classes as a result of poverty alleviation (Porto, forthcoming) is an important reflection to understand Brazil’s socio-economic challenges. The topic of the access of non-White and poor people to prestige universities is particularly important here. Traditionally, Brazilian elites have justified their position as resulting from their intellectual superiority regarding the impoverished: the informal barriers preventing the poor from accessing prestigious universities were a core part of this schema. They were crucial for the elite’s dominance to seem to be rooted in a “natural order.” However, the educational policies adopted by the PT-led governments – especially affirmative action policies that allowed many non-White and poor people to enter public universities – disturbed this state of things. The access to cheap domestic labor provided by maids is an important element constitutive of the status of the Brazilian White middle class. During the colonial period, having domestic slaves was a prerequisite for middle-class families to be considered “respectable.” This situation persisted after the end of slavery (which in Brazil happened only in 1888) (Acciari, 2021). Although not slaves, domestic workers did not have the same legal rights as other workers (Blofield & Jokela, 2018). At the present, there are approximately 4.9 million domestic workers – from which 4.5 million are women and 3 million are Black women. This is the sector with the highest concentration of Black female labor (DIEESE, 2021, online). However, this does not mean that their labor rights are guaranteed: cooks, housekeepers, nannies, and caregivers for the elderly continue to receive remuneration below the minimum wage, and 70% of them work informally, without the guarantee of signing a work card (Acciari & Pinto, 2020, p. 73). Therefore, domestic work in Brazil articulates oppressions of race, class, gender, schooling, geographic origin, and age group, created in the colonization processes, which delimited – and still delimits – the concentration of Black women on the bases of the occupational structure, such as service provision and the informal market (Acciari & Pinto, 2020; Acciari, 2021; González, 2020).

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Still, the situation of maids (and domestic workers in general) improved considerably during the PT governments. During Dilma Rousseff’s second term as president, the complementary law 150 finally guaranteed their fundamental rights in 2015. These included minimum wages, an eight-hour working day, compensation for extra time, and 30 days of paid annual leave, among other rights (Porto, forthcoming). The maids’ professionalization provoked anxiety regarding their status. News articles published at that time presented middle-class families hiring maids as being victims of the new law. It was even suggested that the new requirements established by the novel law would lead some of them to bankruptcy (Cal et al., 2020). The perception that the PT-led governments were a threat to their status fostered a strong sense of resentment among large parcels of the Brazilian upper and middle classes. According to Porto (forthcoming), this was one of the main factors behind the rise of the Far Right, which culminated in Bolsonaro’s electoral triumph in 2018. Aside from the domestic workers’ rights, other topics fueled the elite’s discomfort with respect to the PT-led governments. Projects such as Bolsa Família (BF, hereafter) – a cash transfer program aimed at poor families – also received strong criticism. Social programs, such as BF, exponential economic growth, and more balanced income distribution, have contributed to reducing poverty among Brazilian families.2 In this sense, the Brazilian media and elite would hate Lula and the Workers’ Party because they felt like they had lost their social status because of the “rise of unions and employees” (Anderson, 2011, p. 11). The three leading Brazilian newspapers – Folha de S. Paulo, Estadão, and O Globo – qualified Bolsa Família as a form of populism and paternalism, and even of corruption (Albuquerque & Gagliardi, 2020). O Globo and Estadão claimed that the Bolsa Escola program, implemented by the predecessor government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, inspired the BF. Both newspapers denounced Lula’s social actions, claiming that the exaggerated expansion of the objectives of this program would increase public spending ceilings. However, the most surprising accusation against the BF was that its guidelines gave the PT an electoral advantage over political opponents, as discussed in several editorials in Folha de S. Paulo, starting in 2009 (Albuquerque & Gagliardi, 2020). Another source of status anxiety was former President Lula himself. He was the first person with a working-class background to ascend to the presidency in Brazil, and the only one who did not hold a university degree. This was seen as objectionable by many upper-class and middle-class Brazilians, since it subverted the established social hierarchy. This, according to Krysten Drybread, was one of the primary factors that led to Lula’s conviction on corruption-related charges: To many elites, Lula’s childhood in poverty and his lack of formal education render him more black than white. . . . This is arguably one of the many reasons he was convicted of corruption, while other presidents from the north and northeast who left office in disgrace – namely, José Sarney, the “political chief” of the state of Maranhão, and Collor – have been able to avoid legal consequences for the charges of rank corruption that plagued them at the end of their presidential terms. (Drybread, 2018, p. 334) Furthermore, Bolsonaro’s successive attempts to reduce the labor rights of domestic workers are not recent. When he was a federal deputy (PP-RJ), Bolsonaro was the only voice against the approval of the PEC (project of constitutional amendment) for domestic workers 246

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in 2013. At that time, he said that equating the labor rights of domestic workers with those of formal workers would cause unemployment “because the employer who earns a salary between R$3,000 and R$4,000 will find it difficult to pay an employee with these new fees” (Rádio Câmara, 2013, online). In Brazil, the Covid-19 health crisis made evident the consequences of the decrease in social welfare actions, which directly affected the working class, especially women, Blacks, the poor, and domestic workers (Thomé & Melo, 2021).3 The analysis of emergency financial policies created by the IMF and the World Bank to help Latin America face the Covid-19 crisis did not consider the impacts of their actions on women’s rights (Bohoslavsky & Rulli, 2020). Consequently, domestic workers have faced diminishing opportunities with the health crisis. The hiring rates of domestic workers dropped from 6.4 million in 2019 to 4.9 million in 2021 (DIEESE, 2021). In a way, middle-class families still do not have a forecast for recovering their income, which has reduced the hiring of domestic workers (Thomé & Melo, 2021). Nine years after the approval of the PEC, these workers face again the “precariousness of a service that already has few labor guarantees” (Thomé & Melo, 2021, p. 172). The statement by the president of the National Federation of Domestic Workers (Fenatrad), Luíza Batista Pereira, in an interview with Veja magazine illustrates this issue: “It’s outrageous that unfortunate, petty, and enslaving statement by a minister who disrespects the working class and governs for the rich” (Fenatrad, 2020, online). Pereira’s indignation highlights the “coloniality of democracy” (Mendoza, 2021), which is present in both President Jair Bolsonaro’s austerity policies and Paulo Guedes’s neoliberal policies.

Conclusion This chapter discussed present-day Brazilian journalism under a three-layer framework. The first (and most superficial) layer corresponds to the normative expectation applied to Brazil. This layer is in line with the international literature describing the news media as a fourth estate. To these media, embracing neoliberal values denotes a commitment to modernity and the global society. It means to be attuned to what “everybody else (who matters) is doing.” In both the fourth estate and the neoliberal narratives, the Brazilian legacy media present themselves as civilizing agents, internal colonizers that act as mediators between international models and Brazilian reality. Still, a more careful analysis allows us to perceive a third dimension in this plot. It has nothing to do with “Western” values, such as modernity, democracy, or market efficiency. This basis is much more mundane and local. It has to do with preserving the social order, that is, the barriers separating the upper and lower classes. These barriers are not only economic but also refer to status. From this point of view, it is not enough for the elites to be wealthy; the poorest must also be poor in order to keep intact the boundaries separating them. When we consider the three layers together, a distinctive pattern emerges: the Brazilian legacy media appeal to foreign models to legitimize themselves as “modern” and “cosmopolitan.” Yet beneath these two discursive layers, there is another motivation, which is both local and concrete. They intend to “warrant the social order,” which, in practical terms, means to preserve and reinforce the existing inequalities in Brazilian society. Returning to Faoro’s thesis (1975), the patrimonialist model of Brazilian society has always made it very clear who the “owners of power” were. The symbiotic relationship between the state and powerful family groups, in addition to pointing to an apparently insoluble crisis 247

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between the country’s growth models and the strengthening of its conservative elite, took place together with the non-recognition and erasure of the diversity of the Brazilian population. A country of continental dimensions, with great cultural differences, can only be recognized as a single nation at great cost. The powerful media groups – the majority of them controlled by wealthy and politically connected families – played an important role in the construction of a “Brazilian nationality,” as they were seen as important elements of national integration. At the same time, these same groups contributed significantly to the breakdown of the rule of law and democratic institutions in Brazil.

Notes 1 For further information about the concentrating model of media conglomerates in Brazil, see Santos, M., Castanheira, J. C. S., 2021. 2 The Bolsa Família program transferred income directly to families in situations of deprivation and extreme poverty in Brazil, also helping adolescents and pregnant women enrolled in the program in the areas of health and education. The BF sought to ensure that impoverished children and adolescents were enrolled and attended schools as a way to combat school dropout rates (FGV SOCIAL, 2022, online). The BF was replaced in 2022 by the Auxílio Brasil program by President Jair Messias Bolsonaro. For further information, access https://cps.fgv.br/bolsa-familia-o-que-e-e-comofunciona Acessed 03 Nov 2022. 3 A 63-year-old domestic worker was the first confirmed victim of the coronavirus in the State of Rio de Janeiro in March  2020. The employee was contaminated by her employer, a resident of an uppermiddle-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, after her return from a trip to Italy (Viríssimo, 2020, online).

References Acciari, L. (2021). Becoming ambivalent subjects of labour rights: Subaltern mobilisations, the law and the state. Citizenship Studies, 25(3), 353–370. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2021.18 88882 Acciari, L., & Pinto, T. (2020). Praticando a equidade: Estratégias de efetivação de direitos no trabalho doméstico. Estudos Avançados, 34(8), 73–89. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0103–4014.2020. 3498.006 Albuquerque, A. (2005). Another fourth branch: Press and political culture in Brazil. Journalism, 6(4), 486–504. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849050568 Albuquerque, A., & Gagliardi, J. (2020). Democracy as corruption: The news media and the debunking of democracy in Brazil. In X. Orchard, S. Garcia Santamaria, J. Brambila, & J. Lugo-Ocando (Eds.), Media and governance in Latin America: Toward a plurality of voices (pp. 77–94, Chapter 5). Peter Lang. Anderson, P. (2011). O Brasil de Lula. Novos Estudos CEBRAP, 91, 23–52. Retrieved March 16, 2022, from www.scielo.br/j/nec/a/mVMCd9J76GBrwtWpCV8zCvM/?lang=pt&format=pdf Blofield, M., & Jokela, M. (2018). Paid domestic work and the struggles of care workers in Latin America. Current Sociology, 66(4), 531–546. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392118765259 Bohoslavsky, J. P., & Rulli, M. (2020). Covid-19, instituciones financieras internacionales y continuidad de las políticas androcêntricas en América Latina. Revista Estudos Feministas, Florianópolis, 28(2), e73510, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9584-2020v28n273510 Cal, D., Lopes, L., & Rezende, T. (2020). Enquadramentos da “Pec das Domésticas” no Jornalismo. Gênero na Amazônia, Belém, n. 16–18, jul/dez 2020, dossiê Cidadania. Participação Política, Trabalho e Desenvolvimento. Dezalay, Y., & Garth, B. G. (2002). The internationalization of palace wars: Lawyers, economists, and the contest to transform Latin American states. The University of Chicago Press. DIEESE. (2021). Trabalho doméstico no Brasil. Retrieved June 16, 2023, from https://www.dieese. org.br/outraspublicacoes/2021/trabalhoDomestico.html#:~:text=DIEESE%20%2D%20 outras%20publica%C3%A7%C3%B5es%20%2D%20Trabalho%20dom%C3%A9stico%20no%20 Brasil%20%2D%20abril%2F2021&text=4%2C9%20milh%C3%B5es%2C%20no%20ano%20passado

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The Day When Maids Went to Disney Drybread, K. (2018). When corruption is not a crime: “Innocent” White politicians and the racialisation of criminality in Brazil. Culture, Theory and Critique, 59(4), 332–353. https://doi.org/10.10 80/14735784.2018.1527706 Faoro, R. (1975). Os donos do poder: Formação do patronato político brasileiro (Vol. 2). Ed. Globo, Ed. Da Universidade de São Paulo. Farrant, A., McPhail, E., & Berger, S. (2012). Preventing the “abuses” of democracy: Hayek, the military “Usurper” and transitional dictatorship in Chile? American Journal of Sociology and Economics, 71(3), 513–538. Fenatrad. (2020). Quando uma doméstica vai à Disney, é como babá, diz sindicalista a Guedes. Retrieved March 16, 2022, from https://fenatrad.org.br/2020/02/14/quando-uma-domestica-vai-a-disney-ecomo-baba-diz-sindicalista-a-guedes/ FGV Social. (2022). Bolsa Família: O que é e como funciona? Retrieved November 3, 2022, from https://cps.fgv.br/bolsa-familia-o-que-e-e-como-funciona Fucks, J. (2021). Como Paulo Guedes passou de “Posto Ipiranga” a troféu na Esplanada. Economia & Negócios.RetrievedApril 22,2022,fromhttps://economia.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,paulo-guedesde-posto-ipiranga-a-trofeu-na-esplanada-dos-ministerios,70003887058 González, L. (2020). Por um feminismo afro-latino americano: Ensaios, intervenções e diálogos (R. Flávia & M. Lima, Orgs.). Zahar. Mendoza, B. (2021). Conexiones coloniais. Tabula Rasa, 38, 49–59. https://doi.org/10.25058/ 20112742.n38.03 Montes, R., & Fariza, I. (2019). O “milagre chileno” se choca com a realidade. El País. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2019/11/09/economia/1573308911_ 971311.html Paiva, R., Sodré, M., & Custódio, L. (2015). Brazil: Patrimonialism and media democratization. In K. Nordenstreng & D. K. Thussu (Eds.), Mapping BRICS media. Routledge. Porto, M. P. (2023). Mirrors of whiteness: Media, middle-class resentment, and the rise of the Far Right in Brazil. University of Pittsburg Press. Rádio Câmara. (2013). Jair Bolsonaro é contra a aprovação da PEC das domésticas. Programa Palavra Aberta, Brasília. Retrieved October 31, 2022, from www.camara.leg.br/radio/programas/ 401222-jair-bolsonaro-e-contra-aprovacao-da-pec-das-domesticas/ Santos, M., & Castanheira, J. C. S. (2021). Ethnic media and racism in Brazil: The case of Black Nation TV. In A. Gladkova & S. Jamil (Eds.), Ethnic journalism in the global South. Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03076163-9_16 Strakosch, E., & Macoun, A. (2020). The violence of analogy: Abstraction, neoliberalism and settler colonial possession. Postcolonial Studies, 23(4), 505–526. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.20 20.1834930 Thomé, D., & Melo, H. P. (2021, mai–ago). Empregadas domésticas, cuidadoras e afazeres domésticos – o viés de gênero da pandemia de Covid -19. Política & Sociedade, Florianópolis, 20(48), 153–177. https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7984.2021.78094 Viríssimo, V. (2020). Trabalhadora doméstica é a primeira vítima do coronavírus no estado do Rio. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from www.brasildefato.com.br/2020/03/19/trabalhadora-domestica-ea-primeira-vitima-do-coronavirus-no-estado-do-rio

Films Beyond Citizen Kane (UK, Simon Hartog, 1993) Citizen Kane (USA, Orson Welles, 1941)

Mini Bios José Cláudio Siqueira Castanheira holds a PhD in communication from the Fluminense Federal University, with a doctoral internship at McGill University, Canada. He is a professor at the Communication Department at Fluminense Federal University (UFF) and 249

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at the Graduate Program in Communication at Federal University of Ceará (UFC). He is the leader of the research group GEIST (Group of Studies in Images, Sonorities, and Technologies)–CNPq and a researcher in the areas of digital culture, music, sound studies, and cinema. He has recently collaborated on the book Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, edited by Anna Gladkova and Sadia Jamil. Melina Aparecida dos Santos Silva is a postdoctoral fellow at the Culture and Territorialities Graduate Program–Institute of Arts and Communication (UFF), and holds a PhD in communications from Fluminense Federal University. She has published in refereed journals, such Journal of Black Studies, Journal of European Cultural Studies, and has chapters in the books Live Looping in Musical Performance- Lusophone Experiences in Dialogue and Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South. Her research interests include issues such as music genre, media studies, decoloniality, intersectionality, African and diasporic cultural production, technology, and cultural studies. Afonso de Albuquerque is a full professor in the communication program at Fluminense Federal University. His research interests include political communication and journalism studies.

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23 CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES OF NIGERIAN JOURNALISM Adeyanju Apejoye

Introduction Globally, the role of journalism, such as meeting the information needs of societies and providing templates for deepening democratic values and enhancing participation in public discourse, is acknowledged. Furthermore, and as pointed out by scholars like Görke and Scholl (2006) and Aitamurto and Varma (2018), journalism provides information for citizens to act, anchoring their submissions on the universal descriptions of the functions of journalism to inform, educate, and entertain. However, reducing the role of journalism to this normative prism is inadequate, especially with the shifting nature of journalism as influenced by technology at the core of journalism practice. In support of this, Deuze and Witschge (2018) question the universalist approach to describing journalism and canvass for a form of critique that emphasizes contextuality, recognizing region, country, and the particular form of a newsroom. In Nigeria, the chapter’s focus, the media system not only operates to reflect its normative role but also extends beyond it. The country’s various constitutions from independence to date recognize the critical role of the mass media as a watchdog that ensures the accountability of the government to the citizens. Also, journalism serves as a barometer for assessing the impact of government policies and decisions on the citizen. As such, journalism has played different roles in Nigerian society and continuously evolves to meet the country’s ever-­changing information needs and media ecology. In this chapter, I attempt a contemporary critique of journalism practice in Nigeria, explaining its nature and the various ferments that define its trajectories. I start by providing the historical evolution of the journalism profession in Nigeria. This period helped set the tone and foundation of what later transformed into a vibrant practice today. Equally, the section captures the critical moments of the period, including its contribution to the independence struggle, democracy, and the critical fallouts within the profession. Finally, the remaining section of the chapter attempts to appraise journalism in contemporary times, including the influence of the Internet on the practice in Nigeria.

Evolution of Journalism Profession in Nigeria Historically, journalism in Nigeria predates her emergence as a country and connects to the early missionary activities, including religious proselytization and a platform of information

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for business activities and the colonial administration. The first newspaper in Nigeria was founded in Abeokuta in 1859 by the Reverend Henry Townsend of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, with the name  Iwe Iroyin fun awon Egba ati Yoruba,  translated into English as a Newspaper for the Egba and Yoruba peoples (Daramola, 2006; Omu, 1978). The newspaper was published in the vernacular language of Yoruba, the language of one of the three major ethnic groups in the country, and circulated within Abeokuta and Lagos. Also, journalism has a deep connection to the emergence of Nigeria as a nation-state and has continued to play a crucial role in nation-building. For instance, during the struggle for Nigerian independence, the press played a significant role as a platform for sensitization, mobilization, and activism. Apart from the pre-colonial missionary period signaling the start of media practice in Nigeria, the era contained different historical landmarks and professional reflections. For instance, Ogunsiji (1989) identifies four eras: missionary journalism (1846–1863), an aliendominated press (1863–1914), an indigenous press (1914–1960), and the contemporary era (1960 onward). Another classification of the development of the media system in Nigeria identifies three epochs: the early press, the nationalist press, and the contemporary press (Tador, 1996). However, this description is debatable, as specific features of a previous period overlap with another. For example, hundreds of religious newspapers are still thriving in the country. Therefore, the question is, How do we distinguish the indigenous press from the contemporary era? In addition, does it mean that the nationalities of owners of media organizations between the indigenous and the contemporary era are different? Other scholars focus their discourse on the emergence of the mass media in Nigeria from the nationalists’ struggle for self-determination and independence (Golding & Murdock, 1978; Oso, 2012). This account looks at the period when the press asserted its existence as a veritable tool for criticizing and challenging the colonial system. However, it fails to consider what laid the system’s foundation, even for missionary purposes. Nevertheless, these assertions provide rich historical explanations of the evolution of the media and journalism system in Nigeria. Equally important in the discourse of early journalistic practice in Nigeria are the editorial policies and contents of the early press in Nigeria. The editorial contents around this period primarily reflected missionary activities and some commercial elements regarding advertisements. However, Townsend – the promoter of the first newspaper in Nigeria – argued that the motive behind the newspaper’s establishment was to promote literacy and the reading culture (Omu, 1978). Furthermore, the publication served other purposes, such as its usage by Townsend as a tool for political influence and power in Egbaland (Omu, 1978). The nationalist phase of the advent of the press in Nigeria was solely involved in nationalism and the struggle for independence (Duyile, 1987; Omu, 1978). Also, the editorial contents of the newspapers during the period were highly stimulating, patriotic, and a formidable tool against colonialism (Nwosu, 1996). This era had its foundation in the entrance of the AngloAfrican newspaper published in 1863 by Robert Campbell, a Jamaican businessman (Omu, 1978). Similarly, the second phase witnessed the establishment of several papers within the Nigerian space, such as Lagos Times (1880), Lagos Weekly Record (1894), Lagos Standard (1814), The Eagle and Lagos Critic (1883), West African Pilot (1937), Gaskiya Ta fi Kwabo (1939), Sunday Express (1958), and Daily Telegraph (1959), and most of them took a radical posture in their news reporting. The early newspapers set the tone for political discussion and nationalism apart from being used for Christian proselytization activities. They also contributed to the emergence of a discursive public sphere, although the space was restrictive and comprised the few educated 252

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members of the elite. Despite the low literacy level among the citizens during the period, the indigenes had a good knowledge of the impact of journalism (perhaps due to the influence of the educated elites) in the formation and shaping of opinion. For instance, Iwe Iroyin, the first newspaper, was burned during the cultural and political crisis between the missionaries and the Abeokuta indigenes in 1867. Also, a significant observation about the practicing journalists during this period is that most did not have formal training in journalism, as professionalism was a secondary consideration. Instead, most journalists were apprentices who learned on the job, and some leveraged their qualifications in other academic disciplines to write and analyze social issues. The motive, then, was to have journalists that could help galvanize patriotism and nationalism toward the quest for an independent Nigeria. Through journalism practice, most of the nationalists of the period honed their skills as politicians and used the platform to gain acceptance and popularity. Arguably, journalism practice in the colonial period in Nigeria assumed a form of intellectual protest and a non-disruptive form of protest against colonialism.

The Nigerian Journalism Landscape after Independence As might be expected, the media configuration in Nigeria changed after independence. Various regional governments became interested in running media organizations, and most set up media outfits, including print and broadcast media. Likewise, the number of private ownerships of newspaper organizations increased in the country. One of the reasons for the increase was the desire of newspaper proprietors, most of whom were politicians, to use their media outfits as propaganda tools for their political ambitions. Besides, the nationalistic preoccupation of the pre-independence era media paved the way for today’s press that wants to hold the government accountable and serves as an intermediary between the government and the governed. As Okoro (2012, p. 7) puts it, “[t]he post-independence government and politics produced a more vibrant press which moved from the turf of pugnacious journalism to assume a fourth estate position to accomplish the watchdog goal.” On the other hand, Dare (2010) argues that the editorial contents of the media took a coloration of ethnic, religious, and party affiliation patterns, and the reportorial objectives of media organizations were tilted to reflect, defend, and support such cleavages. Furthermore, a critical reflection on the practice of journalism in Nigeria since independence will reveal checkered antecedents. These antecedents reflect two perspectives: government/press relations and issues that concern profession and professional practice. On the one side, the government–press relationship issue often indicates a no-love-lost scenario. On the other side are the various factors inhibiting the profession and the quest for professionalism. Reflecting on journalism practice and government relationships, the various military regimes in Nigeria up to the country’s return to democracy in 1999 viewed the press as an enemy of the state. One of the earlier casualties of any staged coup in the country was the press. The military government often proscribed news media organizations on the flimsy excuse that they published stories threatening the nation’s security. Also, during the era of the military regimes in the country, repressive decrees were regularly promulgated to restrict the freedom of the press (Okoro, 2012). The military administration of General Olusegun Obasanjo, for example, in 1976 promulgated a decree that, in a way, stymied any attempt at investigative journalism in Nigeria. The decree imposed severe punishments on journalists if an allegation of corruption leveled against a public official was found untrue. At that time, critics referred to this decree as unnecessary and the government’s 253

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subtle way of restricting press freedom since there were constitutional provisions for libelous publications (New York Times, 1976). In some instances, there were outright proscriptions of news organizations. The years between 1984 and 1999 were a difficult period in the practice of journalism in Nigeria. During the period, the journalism profession in Nigeria became precarious as many journalists were arrested and jailed on trumped-up charges. An example that will suffice here is the cancellation of the June 12 presidential election results in 1993 by the then president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Babangida. The election was the freest and fairest in history (Omotola, 2010). According to the prevailing opinion in the country during the period, the late chief M. K. O. Abiola, one of the country’s wealthiest men during the period from the southwest region of Nigeria and a media mogul, won the polls (Omotola, 2010). A section of the Nigerian press known as the Lagos–Ibadan axis press, arguably the most influential, used their various news media organizations to condemn the government and helped place the election saga within the public space of the international system. Also, the struggle for the return to democracy and the validation of the June 12 election of 1993 influenced the press, especially the Lagos–Ibadan press, to rise above board, report factual stories, and give access, especially to opposition groups, to explain their positions on public issues. The activities of the mass media and their pro-democracy stance during this period incurred the wrath of the military government, which embarked on various clampdown policies, such as the banning of news organizations through obnoxious laws, seizure of news publications, and the arrest without trial of journalists (Ajebode, 2010; Olukoyun, 2004). This underlies the argument that the “guerrilla press” pattern of the mass media in Nigeria during the struggle for democracy in the 1990s is a reaction to the experience of the June 12 election impasse and the various repressive government policies during the period (Dare, 2007). Guerrilla journalism from a historical prism was an offshoot of the brand of journalism that characterizes the colonial and postcolonial periods in Nigeria (Kperogi, 2016). Furthermore, rather than serving as a deterrent factor, the various repressive actions of the military spurred the press to become formidable agents in fighting against the army in power. They were at the forefront of the campaign for the return to democracy (Kperogi, 2013). To this end, the mass media in Nigeria have become an analogy for democracy and a means of sustaining democratic traditions. For example, during general elections in the country, citizens see the mass media as a platform for confirming election results through their news reports. They also create space for people to debate and give their opinions on public issues (Olukoyun, 2004). This is similar to Fenton’s (2011) argument that the role of the news media in society is an important institution in the sustenance and survival of a democracy. The struggle for a return to democracy after the June  12, 1993, presidential election cancellation and its attainment in 1999 had its effect on the journalism profession. Some active participants in the struggle were leading journalists and politicians who own news media organizations. Quite a number of these politicians and journalists were involved in the country’s governance after the 1999 general elections. As such, journalistic fervor and professionalism became an issue in the face of the patron–client relationship, as ownership influence and social relations among professionals rub off on ethical consideration and objectivity in reportage. As such, the contemporary realities show that the mass media in Nigeria are an extension of the ruling class and reflect their hegemonic ideology in their editorial and news reports. As a result, one of their functions of serving as a public sphere for debates has become compromised (Oso, 2012). Likewise, the close relationship between the elite, the 254

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press, and the ruling class continuously impinge on the press’s attempt to be unbiased in their reportage and to provide space for citizens’ discussion and debates. The relationship between the press and the government oscillates between pro-government and anti-government in the content of the press. Furthermore, news media editorials often reflect this divide between pro-government and anti-government reporting. Also, the ideological leaning of the owner of a media organization does reflect in news content. As a result, this often accounts for the slanted direction of editorials and news content along the divides mentioned in the preceding sentence. Similarly, the urge for a profitable news organization to stay afloat encourages the commodification and commercialization of news by media organizations in Nigeria. These severely affect their output, quality, objectivity, and the question of news credibility. The press’s failure or reluctance to report, on an impartial and objective scale that the citizens expect on issues like mass corruption, impunity, electoral fraud, and other vices that characterize the civilian administration, creates a vacuum and reduces the quality of news reports (Kperogi, 2016). Aside from the commercialization of news, an area that has become a recurrent issue within the journalistic space in Nigeria is the dichotomous dimension of the press system in Nigeria. Although subtle and not contained in any official document, the press system in Nigeria reflects the religious, geographical, and ethnic cleavage at the core of the nation’s polity. While most news organizations, especially the print media, maintain that they are national in outlook, their reportage approach sometimes indicates geographical, ethnic, and religious coloration. As such, there is ample evidence of the same news event being given different treatment and prominence in line with religious, ethnic, and geographical divides (Demarest & Langer, 2021; Musa & Ferguson, 2013). This dichotomy raises the issues of objectivity and partisanship within the journalism profession in Nigeria. Furthermore, the divide promotes the contextualization of news events along specific patterns. Some of these patterns evolved from ideological imperatives influenced by religion and socio-cultural nuances of a particular geographical space where a news organization is located. The seeming ethno-religious and geographical allegiance of news media organizations has, on several occasions, fueled or escalated crises in Nigeria (Chiluwa, 2011; Demarest & Langer, 2021). An example is an article published on November 16, 2002, in This DAY, a newspaper based in the southern part of Nigeria, as a reaction to the concern raised by the Muslims in Nigeria against the country’s bid to host the Miss World pageant in Nigeria: they claimed that the competition promoted immorality. The Muslims alleged that parts of the article insulted the Prophet Mohammed. As a result, the newspaper article ignited waves of violent reactions in the country’s northern part, resulting in the loss of life and property. Recently, the journalism profession in Nigeria has come under intense criticism over its approach to reporting terrorism and other crises facing the country. Although the country’s Constitution upholds the right and freedom of the press to operate, there are concerns about its social responsibility to the state. Rather than key in to the government agenda and the national security policy toward eradicating terrorism, the press, inadvertently due to commercialization and the profit motive, has been accused of giving terrorists more publicity than it deserves (Ngige et al., 2016). In response to this accusation, some models of journalism practice are emerging to cope with the situation, especially in conflict reporting. One of these models is peace journalism. There is now a concerted effort by journalists and news media organizations to be sensitive in framing news around security issues, like the farmers/ herders clash. Research findings also indicated a growing empathy and increased awareness 255

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of professional roles among journalists in Nigeria, these being indicators of peace journalism (Adegbola & Zhang, 2020). The economy is another factor inhibiting the journalism profession and the quest for professionalism in Nigeria. This affects journalism at the news organization level. The news industry still feels the impact of the structural adjustment program (SAP) introduced over 36 years ago (Anyanwu et al., 2017). Before the adoption of the economic policy, the news media industry was a significant employer of labor. However, contrary to what the International Monetary Fund explained as the economic benefits of implementing the program, it brought untold hardship to the citizens. Also, some of the fallouts of the economic policy include the erosion of the middle class in the country. This class of citizens constitutes a large percentage of newspaper readership in Nigeria. As a result of the erosion of this class due to rising inflation and the high cost of living, the purchase of newspapers became secondary on their list of items, and as a result, there was a gradual reduction in newspaper circulation (Sanni & Issa, 2021). Also connected is the low salaries paid to journalists, which are lower compared to some countries in sub-Saharan Africa. As argued by the vice president of Nigeria, Osinbajo (2017), a poor salary negatively impacts journalism practice in Nigeria, including the attainment of quality journalistic practice. Also, the poor salary of journalists in Nigeria raises the question of whether they can resist the temptation of remaining objective and respecting the profession’s ethical values against the allure of Greek gifts often flaunted by politicians for positive news reportage. The low salary and the poor condition of service experienced by journalists in Nigeria, according to Matthews and Onyemaobi (2020), explain the “precarious and fragile professionalism” nature of the journalism profession in Nigeria. Furthermore, the poor condition affects how journalists discharge their professional duties. As a result, journalists constantly look for an alternative reward system outside their salaries at press conferences and other news events, even when this threatens professionalism. One of these alternative reward systems is the “brown envelope.” The brown envelope, or what some refer to as brown envelope journalism, is a critical issue facing journalism in Nigeria. Although the phenomenon is not peculiar to Nigerian journalism, it is a trend that spreads across different countries and assumes different names in different countries (Skjerdal, 2010). However, it remains one of the significant ethical issues confronting journalism in Nigeria. “Brown envelope” implies a situation where journalists are given gifts, whether in cash or other means, in the expectation that the journalist slants a news story in such a way as to show the giver of the envelope in a good light. The brown envelope puts a journalist in a conflictual state. Sometimes, professionals’ intents to conduct their duties ethically as dictated by the code of ethics are challenged with the moral responsibility to cater for their families in the face of low salaries and poor incentives. As a result, the will to be professional, for example, in the area of investigative journalism, has become compromised. There are even instances of journalists struggling with each other over brown envelopes given out by politicians after a news event (Ali Ibbi, 2016). Although the chapter has highlighted some sore points concerning journalism practice in Nigeria, one of the positive turning points, especially in broadcast journalism, was the deregulation of the sector by the Babangida administration in 1992. From fewer than 30 radio and television stations in Nigeria prior to deregulation, the country now has over 625 radio and television stations. One of the implications of the proliferation of broadcast stations for journalism practice in Nigeria is increased professionalism in how news and information are processed and broadcast. In addition, the deregulation paved the way for the democratization of broadcast media ownership and, by implication, allowed alternative opinions, unlike the 256

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previous monopoly and manipulation of news and information by the government-owned media system before the deregulation.

Internet-Era Journalism Space in Nigeria The introduction of the mobile telephone and the Internet in Nigeria also impacts the news media and the newsgathering system. Apart from the mainstream media, the Internet has altered the dynamics of information processing and dissemination in Nigeria, providing alternative platforms for people to access information and react to issues. Also, the Internet expands public participation and makes visible those hitherto on the fringe and voiceless within the communicative space (Obadare, 2016). Today, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Instagram, and WhatsApp are some platforms through which citizens access news and information and debate public issues. Many news media organizations have created their presence online to maximize opportunities available within the online news ecology. Fidalgo (2013) argues that the Internet and digital technologies have shaped and opened up new possibilities in the journalism profession that were previously unthinkable. There are now multiple platforms to share news content and the affordance of converging the different journalistic genres of print, audio, and video in one space. Furthermore, with Internet access and resources to host a website, it is now possible for anybody to disseminate information to an audience on the Internet. As a result, countless online news portals are disseminating news and information to the audience about Nigeria. Apart from the online news domain of the mainstream media, another journalistic undertaking that has become prominent in the news media ecology in Nigeria is the online diaspora news media. In Nigeria, the Internet is gradually changing the contours of professionalism and the notion of ethical codes of operation. With the new journalistic platforms in Nigeria, there are concerns about whether the traditional way of conducting journalism business still holds sway. Likewise, does professionalism as we know it prior to the incursion of the Internet into the journalism space still mean the same thing? The idea of what news is in Internet-era journalism is shifting, particularly with the entrants of new players who do not have formal training in journalism yet disseminate news stories. As argued by Apuke and Omar (2021), there is a high proliferation of unethical practices in the online journalism ecology in Nigeria. The Centre for Democracy and Development, in its 2022 report “Nigeria’s Fake News Ecosystem,” submits that most of the fake news takes place within the online world (Hassan, 2022). Lately, there has been a growing concern from the government and citizens over citizen journalists and their unprofessionalism in handling and disseminating information (Mohammed, 2019). In addition, the monetary attraction of high traffic to news websites has further worsened the problem of fake news dissemination in Nigeria. Also, the regulatory and legal framework currently is slippery and not firm enough to address the phenomenon of fake news within online journalism practice in Nigeria. Likewise, the professional code of ethics that guides the operation of journalism is not comprehensive enough to cover issues that may occur within the online journalism ecosystem. Nevertheless, the contributions of the digital space to the enhancement of journalism practice in Nigeria have a positive side. It has helped enhance international collaboration, especially in the aspect of investigative journalism. An example that suffices here are the Panama Papers, where Nigerian journalists and news media organizations collaborated with other global media partners in investigative journalism that exposed corruption and international business infractions worldwide. News media organizations in Nigeria have also embraced 257

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podcasting features on their news sites. With this, news stories are selected and given indepth analysis with audio treatment for the readers’ listening. Also, the possibilities enabled by digital technology are gradually influencing news media organizations’ adoption of the crowdsourcing model of journalism and revenue sources in Nigeria. Most news sites argue that the model enables transparency and accountability, promotes freedom, and reduces advertisers’ pressure and patron–client relationship influence, which sometimes impinge on news credibility. For reference, Daily Trust newspapers and The Premium Times have sections on their online news platforms canvassing for readers to donate to their operational costs. However, these features are in their infancy within the journalism sphere in Nigeria.

Conclusion Undoubtedly, journalism practice in Nigeria from 1865 to date has been a floating endeavor, one that has not only continuously evolved as an indicator of what Nigerian society is at any point in time but also regularly adapted to the technological and sociological dictates at any given time. As precarious as operation templates may sometimes appear, especially in the profession’s relationship with the government, it continues to uphold its constitutional roles to the Nigerian state and its citizens. With digital technology and the adoption of its various features like podcasting, crowdfunding, and crowdsourcing within journalism practice in Nigeria, the future opportunities and direction for journalism in Nigeria portend a profession that will increasingly assert independence and disseminate information with less government interference and restraints. Expectedly, as with any profession always in transition, owing to the reliance on technology for its operation, the future challenges will be tackling misinformation, ethical challenges, and professionalism as new players with little or no formal training encroach on the news business through their online presence.

References Adegbola, O., & Zhang, W. (2020). Examining determinants of adherence to peace journalism: Empathy, reporting efficacy, and perceived journalistic roles. Media, War and Conflict. https://doi. org/10.1177/1750635220948548 Aitamurto, T., & Varma, A. (2018). The constructive role of journalism: Contentious metadiscourse on constructive journalism and solutions journalism. Journalism Practice, 12(6). https://doi.org/1 0.1080/17512786.2018.1473041 Ajebode, A. (2010). Yesterday’s guerrilla pressmen in today’s democratic Nigeria: Dissatisfaction and disillusionment. www.ascleiden.nl/pdf/PaperOjebode.pdf Ali Ibbi, A. (2016). The battle for professionalism in journalism in Nigeria amidst unethical practices. Journal of Mass Communication & Journalism, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.4172/2165-7912. 1000301 Anyanwu, F., Ananwude, A., & Okoye, N. (2017). Exchange rate policy and Nigeria’s economic growth: A granger causality impact assessment. International Journal of Applied Economics, Finance and Accounting, 1(1), 1–13. Apuke, O. D., & Omar, B. (2021). The ethical challenges and issues of online journalism practice in Nigeria: What do professionals and academics think? Technology in Society, 67. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101713 Chiluwa, I. (2011). Media construction of socio-political crises in Nigeria. Journal of Language and Politics, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.10.1.05chi Daramola, I. (2006). History and development of mass media in Nigeria. Rothan Press Limited. Dare, S. (2007). Guerilla journalism: Dispatches from the underground. Xlibris, Corp. Dare, S. (2010). The rise of citizen journalism in Nigeria – a case study of Sahara reporters. Reuters Institute For the Study of Journalism, 1–74.

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24 REPORTING THE MENA AS CONFLICT Political Influences, Routine Practices, and Journalists’ Struggles in the Field Claudia Kozman Debates about the universality of the Western model of journalism have been an ongoing topic of interest for most scholars from the Global South. Gaining momentum after recent de-Westernization calls in academia for more inclusion from various parts of the world, these debates prompted more research interest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This is partly due to the geopolitical space the region occupies in relation to world powers in the Global North and, consequently, the need to understand a region deeply involved in global matters of political and economic value. While modern history has put the MENA and its many political conflicts on the world map, long-term Western media focus on these conflicts has made the region itself synonymous with conflict, often conjuring negative images in the minds of detached observers. On the ground, journalism has borne the mark of ambivalence as a result of a variety of factors tugging at reporters from all sides through political, legal, social, economic, and individual means. Reporting in the MENA has thus become an arena of conflict not only due to the topic of war coverage but also as a result of the different kinds of challenges journalists experience in the field on a regular basis. Tucked in the corners are issues about freedom of expression, routine journalistic practices, and journalists’ struggles maneuvering the field of reporting. These and related questions can be best understood in the context of influences that shape news stories in relation to the larger country media system. Taking a media systems approach, this chapter delves into the reasons that have imposed the label of conflict on reporting in and about the MENA.

Media Systems as a Theoretical Framework Although the MENA is not a homogeneous group, common conditions across the countries provide a solid basis of predictions about the factors that impact journalistic work. These directives apply equally to local reporters and foreign correspondents. Regardless of journalists’ country of origin, the conditions of reporting in the Middle East, coupled with longstanding newsgathering practices, inflict on journalists different levels of influences that result in news stories that imply conflict in various forms. One can attempt to understand the brand of conflict that reporting in the MENA has developed through a model of influences that are embedded in media systems. DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-27

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The media sociology perspective of news construction takes into account various factors that shape media content. Particularly, the hierarchy of influences model, which Shoemaker and Reese (1996) first introduced in their classic book Mediating the Message, has, for decades, served as the go-to structure of influences. The five layers of the model include the individual characteristics of news workers, routine practices, organizational factors, social institutions, and social systems. As the hierarchy of influences model explains the influences that shape a news story, it inadvertently occupies an integral space in media systems territory. Providing the larger context that extends beyond the one story, media systems delineate the factors that shape the media in a country or a region. To do so, they depend on a set of constantly changing criteria that include the historical, political, legal, economic, technological, and social structures in a particular area (e.g., Chadwick, 2013; Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Richter & Kozman, 2021; Siebert et al., 1963). Combined, the theoretical frameworks of the hierarchy of influences and media systems can provide a basic reading of how reporting in the MENA has become the poster child of conflict.

The Appeal of Conflict Zones Since the dawn of time, conflicts have grabbed people’s attention due to the significance of the outcomes that are generally measured in terms of gains and losses. Armed conflicts and their ensuing power struggles have changed the course of history, giving rise to new empires while eradicating others. In modern societies, conflicts have additionally alarmed non-profit organizations and human rights groups, who persistently call attention to the imbalances they create in vulnerable populations, such as children and the underprivileged. Concerning the allure of conflicts for the media, news organizations are naturally drawn to these disputes to fulfill their basic mission of information dissemination. How they report wars, however, is the main topic of interest for academic research.

Political and Media Attention on the MENA as a Center for Conflict History has witnessed a series of momentous events that bear the brunt of the responsibility of inflicting on the Middle East and North Africa its reputation of a conflict-ridden region. Since the turn of the 20th century, the MENA region, which extends from the eastern borders of Iran to the western shores of Morocco, has been involved in various types of conflicts and wars. Starting with the two world wars and the waves of resistance local governments exercised against, first, the Ottoman Empire and, later, the Allied powers, the MENA has been involved in different types of conflict, including civil wars and freedom fighting. While by the end of WWII most countries had gained independence from European occupation, Palestine witnessed the beginning of a long conflict with Israeli settlers who established the state of Israel in 1948. Another significant event in the region is the 1978 Islamic Revolution in Iran that toppled the reigning shah, replacing him with the Islamic ruler Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This was followed by the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War. In neighboring areas, the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan created the world’s most recent definition of terrorism. America’s “War on Terror” and the related “Axis of Evil” then US President George Bush first introduced in his 2002 State of the Union Address (Choi, 2004) focused the world’s attention on the Middle East and Afghanistan as war zones that breed terrorism. The term “Axis of Evil,” which included Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, Choi (2004) argues, “functioned to motivate [Bush’s] audience to fear threats against world peace in 261

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order to justify expanding the war on terrorism” (p. 29). Soon after, Taliban’s fundamentalism gave way to a new brand of insurgency in the region, creating al-Qaeda and its infamous Saudi-born leader Osama bin Laden. Extremist jihadi groups continued to mushroom, the most influential of which came to be known as the Islamic State (or ISIS). Before ISIS and Jabhat al Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, had gained any momentum in Syria, a civil war broke out in the street of Damascus in 2011, spurred in part by protests that first erupted in Tunisia in 2010 and quickly spread to Egypt, spearheading a wave of uprisings in the Middle East, known to many as the “Arab Spring.” The political and economic repercussions of the uprisings crept to other parts of the world, creating new socio-political issues for host countries and thus attracting media attention. Combined, these dynamics awakened research focus on the Middle East in general and on its media coverage in particular. Several factors drive media attention to events outside home soil. Political conflict, disasters, and foreign relations have been identified as central topics in the international news coverage of American media (Gans, 1979; Hess, 1996). For what concerns the Middle East, this is partly due to American and European interest in the geopolitics of the region, which take into account issues of economic and political significance, such as energy and security, among others. Beside the weight journalists place on conflict as a central news value, the media’s responsiveness to wars is driven by the involvement of their countries. During political conflicts on foreign land, national media mostly follow the lines set by governments, sometime slanting them in their favor (Hallin, 1986). Research has shown this finding to be consistent across regions, languages, and time periods. In the MENA, the coverage of sub-Saharan African media of the days leading up to the 2003 Iraq War tended to align with the countries’ stance, pushing for a peaceful resolution (Alozie, 2004). Similarly, the Syrian war coverage of leading international newspapers mirrored the geopolitical involvement of their national governments (Godefroidt et al., 2016). Reporting the same war, the websites of three leading international television channels from the United States, Russia, and Qatar were found to be influenced by their countries of origin (Zhang & Luther, 2020). One plausible explanation to such behavior could be the media’s reliance on official sources, at times indexing their stories to reflect the official viewpoint in the government (Bennett, 1990). Notwithstanding the importance governments play in driving national media attention to wars relevant to them, the concept of conflict remains a significant predictor of media coverage of wars.

Conflict as a Central News Value in Reporting Wars in the MENA Entrenched in long-standing traditions of relying on conflict as a prominent news value, reporting in the MENA has been branded mostly as conflict with a capital C. Identifying conflict as a central news value that journalists rely on, Neumann et al. (1992) contended media coverage tends to be “antiseptic,” cleansed of all morality and empathy, focused instead on conflict and responsibility (p. 76). Indeed, research in Western contexts has revealed the media coverage of a variety of issues centers on conflict (e.g., Neumann et al., 1992; Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000) based on the natural occurrence of social collisions in society that quickly get on the news agenda (Miller & Riechert, 2001). As a news value, conflict attracts journalists mainly because it fulfills the concept of balance that attempts to provide equal treatment to opposing sides of a story. Or the reason could simply be that, as MacDougall (1982) put it, “Americans, it must be, like a good fight and consider life as a whole to be a struggle” (p.  119). The significance of MacDougall’s (1982) statement is perhaps most 262

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critical when considering most of foreign news coverage is when some faraway country is in some sort of conflict (Hess, 1996). When reporting war, the media most often than not engage in what Galtung (1986) calls “war journalism.” Contrary to peace journalism, war journalism highlights conflict, pitting one side against another. Although research on this topic in the Middle East is scarce compared to that in the West, existing studies have revealed similar trends (e.g., Cozma & Kozman, 2018; Godefroidt et al., 2016; Hamdy & Gomaa, 2012). Findings from the 2011 Egyptian uprising, the chemical weapons use in Syria in 2012, and the Syrian civil war, in general, indicate Arab journalists have mostly framed wars in terms of conflict and public diplomacy (Cozma & Kozman, 2018), ignoring almost completely any mention of victims, suffering, and the damage caused by wars, similar to their Western counterparts (Cozma & Kozman, 2015; Godefroidt et al., 2016). Focusing predominantly on conflict and responsibility frames, Egypt’s semi-official newspapers differed from independent newspapers and social media (Hamdy & Gomaa, 2012). Similarly, in the 2003 Iraq War, military conflict and violence frames dominated the coverage of leading Western and Arab news media (Dimitrova & Connolly-Ahern, 2007). Yet another comparative research on the media coverage of the 2003 Iraq War between the United States and the Netherlands showed the New York Times favored the conflict frame over all other frames and more so than the Dutch newspaper that also framed its coverage in terms of conflict but less so than responsibility (Dimitrova & Strömbäck, 2005). Besides mainstream media, news agencies tend to behave similar to the news media in their preference of war journalism to peace journalism. Fahmy and Neumann’s (2012) visual framing analysis in leading Western newswire services during the 2008 Gaza conflict revealed a higher tendency for Reuters and AFP/Getty Images to use conflict and aggressors in their photographs versus humanitarian frames that were more prevalent in AP. In rare cases, however, media coverage of wars can be different. A comparative analysis of the CNN and Al-Jazeera coverage of the Afghanistan War found the latter was more intent on showing the humanitarian aspect of the war, which Western media usually “gloss over” (Jasperson & El-Kikhia, 2003, p. 129). These and other studies have consistently indicated wars are often presented as a conflict between sides that excludes the human suffering and loss wars leave behind.

Conflicts Journalists Face Maneuvering the Field Barring wars and armed political upheavals, journalists working in the MENA face numerous challenges that require them to carefully maneuver the field of reporting. The various kinds of conflict that accompany journalists when performing their duties include political pressure based in governmental and legal frameworks at the media systems level and safety in the form of physical and mental health concerns at the individual level.

Conflict beyond Wars: Political and Legal Pressures For journalists, a regular day on the job means coming face-to-face with major decisions that force them to risk their lives for a story or prioritize their safety by abandoning lucrative scoops. Whether it is an investigative journalism project that threatens national security or an internal conflict ensuing from ethical dilemmas, journalists often find themselves dealing with conflict in different forms. Conflict that arises from decisions about defying restrictive state laws to uncover wrongdoing or dropping a story because of its potential harm to mental 263

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and physical health, among others, is a shared experience of journalists from different parts of the world. It is, however, arguably more pronounced in the MENA, further cementing the label of conflict with which the region has been associated. Although scholarly approaches to theorizing media systems have differed, all have placed great emphasis on political structures (e.g., Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Siebert et al., 1963), which have a major say in how the other structures in the country – legal, technological, and economic – operate. Commonly, the media systems in most of the MENA countries limit the ability of journalists to report freely on issues in their communities. The reason lies in the political and legal constraints on journalists (Richter & Kozman, 2021). In general, the authoritative style of governing in most countries restricts reporting on contentious issues the rulers deem unfavorable, confining media coverage to topics approved by the ruling elites, whether directly through governmental personnel or indirectly through prior restraint and self-censorship (Richter & Kozman, 2021; Rugh, 2004). From a legal standpoint, the constitutions in most Arab countries forbid journalists from reporting unfavorably on the rulers, which include the royal family in monarchies such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait; the heads of states in republics like Lebanon and Syria; and religious figures, the military, defense, and others, with most of these offenses treated under criminal law (Kozman, 2021). Physical safety is paramount in these instances, with many offenses reported every year. Recently only, examples include Egyptian journalist Alaa Abdelfattah, who spent years in prison for reporting on wrongdoing by local state officials (CPJ, 2021); Iraqi Kurdish journalist Omed Baroshky, who was imprisoned for posting news critical of officials in Iraqi Kurdistan on social media (Rezaian, 2022); and Lebanese journalist Mariam Seif Eddine, who, after reporting the death of a teenage boy, was accused of treachery against two Shiite political parties in Lebanon, threatened alongside her family, attacked, and eventually exiled (Daoud, 2022). Lebanon, a country purportedly known to have a semi-free press, suffers from the weakness of the state that relinquished the reign of the country to its political leaders, who, much like in a feudal system, assumed their authority on specific lands, government offices, and the media (El-Richani, 2016). Although freedom of expression is guaranteed in country constitutions across the region, these clauses are mostly viewed as lip service and rarely ever used primarily because they are accompanied by vague phrases that penalize such expressions (Kozman, 2021). Conflicts journalists face while performing their job, however, are not confined to the physical realm. Women journalists in particular constantly suffer from online harassment and hate speech. Lebanese journalist Seif Eddine, who was subject to such threats, believes they “aim to silence women journalists by fueling the misogynistic society already against them . . . [including] slut shame[ing]” (Daoud, 2022, par. 11). Concerned with “the escalation of sexual and gender-based violence and harassment” against women journalists and media workers, the Media Freedom Coalition (2022) released a statement on International Women’s Day in March 2022, asking its members “to combat sexual and gender-based violence, protect women journalists and media workers both online and offline, and defend their ability to practice journalism freely and safely.”

Conflicts within Reporters: Mental Health Struggles beyond Wars Ever since journalists started traveling to conflict zones to cover military actions on the ground, their safety has come into question. More recently, the conversation about safety has focused on mental health, with more calls for media workers to undergo proper training 264

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before they start their missions. Indeed, research has revealed frontline reporters exposed to long periods of work in war zones suffer from intrusive symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression (Feinstein et al., 2002, 2018). In the West, the conversation about mental health arguably peaked after the September 11 terrorist attacks (Jukes, 2015) and intensified in the ISIS era of terrorism, sparked by the group’s gruesome and inhumane treatment of captured journalists. Expectedly, not all institutions have responded well. Similar to other areas that affect the quality of journalism, conscious efforts to incorporate best practices of reporting have stayed in the domain of world-class international media that generally have the means and resources to engage in these efforts. This has meant journalists in smaller institutions and in poorer countries have not been able to benefit much from such efforts, unless they proactively seek them (Agha & Demeter, 2022). The unpreparedness of journalists to cope with trauma on the frontlines is a central concern that needs to be addressed at both the individual and the media system levels. Journalists’ readiness to face the difficult aspects of wars, their social identities in how they view themselves vis-à-vis the stakeholders in the war, and the policies media institutions have in place for such conditions help us understand how struggles with mental health can affect journalists’ internal stability and the stories they produce. At the media systems level, the various demands of social, political, and technological systems exert different types of pressure on journalists who, when not equipped with proper training to effectively handle the situation, could sometimes stigmatize mental health or dismiss it as groundless. The resulting conflicts journalists experience could extend well beyond one context and seep into other seemingly unrelated ones. The personal stories war correspondents from the MENA tell shed light on the heavy burden they carry after finishing their jobs, which underlines the significance of addressing mental health issues among this group. In the MENA, journalists sent to war zones are oftentimes convinced they are dispatched to cover fighting. New York Times correspondent in the Beirut bureau, Hwaida Saad, recounts her experience in reporting the Syrian war and her initial oblivion as to what lies outside the fighting groups, saying, “[T]here are people, some of them silent voices paying the price silently, and my job is to reach them to make their voices heard” (Saad, personal communication, 2022). Journalists seeking balanced reporting also come in close contact with perpetrators, forcing themselves to exercise restraint when they interview war criminals, with a constant reminder “to be objective and a good listener even with those who have committed atrocities” (Saad, personal communication, 2022). The result is a high price war correspondents pay as they deal with the aftermath of such exposure, without proper coping mechanisms to shield them from the effects. Saad, who has been covering the Syrian war since it started in 2011, in addition to living the civil war in Lebanon for almost 20 years, has been regularly exposed to death, destruction, and trauma victims, making it increasingly challenging “to keep the normal person in you” (Saad, personal communication, 2022). Prolonged exposure to trauma can indeed lead journalists to experience physical problems, such as headaches, fatigue, and muscle tension, accompanied at times by sleeping difficulties and even nightmares (Bedei, 2020). Journalists covering conflict silently deal with the repercussions of their jobs, most of which become too normal to share. In sharing her experience as war correspondent in the Middle East, Bakri (2019) writes about the many people whom she knew and interviewed and who have the word “dead” written next to their name in her phone’s contact list. Such experiences could be additionally burdensome in war-torn sectarian countries, the likes of Lebanon and Iraq, where funerals for gunshot victims turn into another bloodshed of 265

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violence (Bakri, 2019) or where reporters stop covering car bombs of some dozen deaths because they have become too “commonplace” (Allam, 2019). Anecdotal evidence from war correspondents has also underlined the gender disparity. Women journalists on the front line have continuously complained about the difficulty in carrying their job, mainly due to harassment that threatens their safety in the field, further exacerbated by a patriarchal newsroom culture that undermines their legitimacy as capable war reporters (Fleming et  al., 2004). In-depth interviews with women who have covered conflict in and outside the Middle East showed women sometimes downplay their gender, engaging in what Palmer and Melki (2018) call shapeshifting to adapt to the situation at hand. Lebanese British journalist Zahira Hankir emphasizes the difficulty of being a female journalist, specifically a woman war journalist. To some, she writes in her edited collection of essays by Arab women journalists, “this could mean you are defying not only the state but also your society, family, and the role you are expected to play within your home” (Hankir, 2019, p. xxiii). Regardless of identity, gender, or culture, war reporting remains a dangerous job. Even the utmost precautions could sometimes prove insufficient. Recently, veteran Palestinian American war journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was fatally shot by Israeli Defense Forces while reporting for Al Jazeera in the West Bank, wearing a press suit that identified her as a media worker (CPJ, 2022).

Conclusion The editors of this volume raised an important yet often-ignored question in their introduction: “What can journalism players living and working in industrialized markets learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa?” While most of the resources about journalism, from textbooks student use to manuals journalists rely on, are Eurocentric, the Global South has much to offer the West. Taking a media systems approach, this chapter outlined the various reasons that have labeled most of journalism from the Middle East and North Africa as conflict. The reasons are spread across several areas: reactive journalism to existing political conflicts of global value, traditional journalistic practices in highlighting conflict as a prominent news value, the countries’ repressive laws that stifle media freedom, and war correspondents’ own struggles coping with trauma. Although journalists can argue they are merely reporting what is, research has provided solid evidence on the media’s inclination to focus on the news element of conflict while ignoring the repercussions of wars on the victims. War journalism and its propensity to fuel further violence because of journalists’ bias (Lynch  & McGoldrick, 2005) can be replaced with peace journalism as the “high road” (Galtung & Fischer, 2013, p. 96). As it gives voice to all those involved in an issue, its “broader, fairer and more accurate way of framing stories” (Lynch  & McGoldrick, 2005, p.  6) can have everlasting impact on how audiences view one another. As the frameworks of the hierarchy of influences model and the larger media systems offer explanations for why reporting in the MENA is packaged as conflict, they also allow us to address the problems associated with this label for a deeper understanding of the region’s media. From a theoretical standpoint, the arguments outlined in this chapter can enrich existing literature on the usages of the term conflict both in the West and in non-Western contexts by adding a set of nuances that could help scholars better understand the many layers involved in conducting media research in the MENA. Lastly, the practical implications rest on the ways media institutions can implement policies to help their 266

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reporters present a more accurate picture of wars and maneuver the field of reporting in general and war reporting in particular.

References Agha, S., & Demeter, M. (2022). “No difference between journalism and suicide”: Challenges for journalists covering conflict in Balochistan. Media, War & Conflict. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 17506352221101258 Allam, H. (2019). The woman question. In Z. Hankir (Ed.), Our women on the ground (pp. 3–12). Penguin Books. Alozie, E. C. (2004). African perspectives on events before the 2003 Iraq War. In R. D. Berenger (Ed.), Global media go to war (pp. 39–55). Marquette Books. Bakri, N. (2019). Love and loss in a time of revolution. In Z. Hankir (Ed.), Our women on the ground (pp. 13–27). Penguin Books. Bedei, C. (2020, November 5). Tips for coping after reporting distressing and traumatic stories. https:// ijnet.org/en/story/tips-coping-after-reporting-distressing-and-traumatic-stories Bennett, W. L. (1990). Toward a theory of press-state. Journal of Communication, 40(2), 103–127. Chadwick, A. (2013). The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Oxford University Press. Choi, J. (2004). The framing of the “axis of evil”. In R. D. Berenger (Ed.), Global media go to war (pp. 29–38). Marquette Books. Cozma, R., & Kozman, C. (2015). The Syrian crisis in the news: How the United States’ elite newspapers framed the international reaction to Syria’s use of chemical weapons. Journalism Practice, 9(5), 669–686. Cozma, R., & Kozman, C. (2018). The Syrian crisis in U.S. and Lebanese newspapers: A cross-national analysis. International Communication Gazette, 80(2), 185–204. CPJ. (2021, December 20). Multi-year prison terms for Egyptian journalists Alaa Abdelfattah and Mohamed Oxygen “unacceptable”. https://cpj.org/2021/12/multi-year-prison-terms-for-egyptianjournalists-alaa-abdelfattah-and-mohamed-oxygen-unacceptable/ CPJ. (2022, September 5). Israel finds Shireen Abu Akleh likely killed by unintentional Israeli fire. https://cpj.org/2022/09/israel-finds-shireen-abu-akleh-likely-killed-by-unintentional-israeli-fire/ Daoud, D. (2022, April 26). “When you stop writing, they win”: Exiled after attacks, Lebanese journalist Mariam Seif Eddine is still reporting. https://cpj.org/2022/04/when-you-stop-writing-they-winexiled-after-attacks-lebanese-journalist-mariam-seif-eddine-is-still-reporting/ Dimitrova, D. V., & Connolly-Ahern, C. (2007). A tale of two wars: Framing analysis of online news sites in coalition countries and the Arab world during the Iraq War. The Howard Journal of Communications, 18(2), 153–168. Dimitrova, D. V., & Strömbäck, J. (2005). Mission accomplished? Framing of the Iraq War in the elite newspapers in Sweden and the United States. Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies, 67(5), 399–417. El-Richani, S. (2016). The Lebanese media: Anatomy of a system in perpetual crisis. Springer. Fahmy, S., & Neumann, R. (2012). Shooting war or peace photographs? An examination of newswires’ coverage of the conflict in Gaza (2008–2009). American Behavioral Scientist, 56(2), 1–26. Feinstein, A., Owen, J., & Blair, N. (2002). A hazardous profession: War, journalists and psychopathology. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 1570–1575. Feinstein, A., Osmann, J., & Patel, V. (2018). Symptoms of PTSD in frontline journalists: A retrospective examination of 18 years of war and conflict. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 63(9), 629–635. Fleming, C., Chambers, D., & Steiner, L. (2004). Women and journalism. Routledge. Galtung, J. (1986). On the role of the media in worldwide security and peace. In T. Varis (Ed.), Peace and communication (pp. 249–266). Universidad para La Paz. Galtung, J., & Fischer, D. (2013). High road, low road: Charting the course for peace journalism. In J. Galtung & D. Fischer (Eds.), Johan Galtung: Pioneer of peace research (pp. 95–102). Springer. Gans, H. J. (1979). Deciding what’s news. Vintage. Godefroidt, A., Berbers, A., & d’Haenens, L. (2016). What’s in a frame? A comparative content analysis of American, British, French, and Russian news articles. International Communication Gazette, 78(8), 777–801.

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Claudia Kozman Hallin, D. C. (1986). The uncensored war: The media and Vietnam. University of California Press. Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems. Cambridge University Press. Hamdy, N., & Gomaa, E. (2012). Framing the Egyptian uprising in Arabic language newspapers and social media. Journal of Communication, 62, 195–211. Hankir, Z. (2019). Introduction: Sahafiya. In Z. Hankir (Ed.), Our women on the ground (pp. xiii– xxiv). Penguin Books. Hess, S. (1996). International news and foreign correspondents (Vol. 5). Brookings Institution Press. Jasperson, A. E., & El-Kikhia, M. (2003). CNN and al Jazeera’s media coverage of America’s war in Afghanistan. In P. Norris, M. Kern, & M. Just (Eds.), Framing terrorism: The news media, and government and the public (pp. 113–132). Taylor & Francis. Jukes, S. (2015). Journalists at risk: Looking beyond just physical safety. The Future of Journalism Conference, Cardiff. Kozman, C. (2021). Media in the Middle East & North Africa. In D. Dimitrova (Ed.), Global journalism: Understanding world media systems. Rowman & Littlefield. Lynch, J., & McGoldrick, A. (2005). Peace journalism. Hawthorn Press. MacDougall, C. (1982). Interpretive reporting. Macmillan. Media Freedom Coalition. (2022, March 8). International Women’s Day 2022: Media freedom coalition statement. https://mediafreedomcoalition.org/activities/joint-statements/2022/internationalwomen-s-day-2022-media-freedom-coalition-statement Miller, M. M., & Riechert, B. P. (2001). The spiral of opportunity and frame resonance: Mapping the issue cycle in news and public discourse. In S. D. Reese, O. H. Gandy, & A. E. Grant (Eds.), Framing public life: Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world (pp. 106–120). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Neumann, W. R., Crigler, A, N., & Just, M. R. (1992). Common knowledge: News and the construction of political meaning. University of Chicago. Palmer, L., & Melki, J. (2018). Shape shifting in the conflict zone: The strategic performance of gender in war reporting. Journalism Studies, 19(1), 126–142. Rezaian, Y. (2022, April 26). Iraqi Kurdish journalist Omed Baroshky: Press freedom “an illusion” in the region. https://cpj.org/2022/04/iraqi-kurdish-journalist-omed-baroshky-press-freedom-an-illusionin-the-region/ Richter, C., & Kozman, C. (2021). Arab media systems. Open Book Publishers. Rugh, W. A. (2004). Arab mass media: Newspapers, radio, and television in Arab politics. Praeger. Semetko, H. A., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2000). Framing European politics: A content analysis of press and television news. Journal of Communication, 50(2), 93–109. Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1996). Mediating the message. Longman. Siebert, F. S., Peterson, T., & Schramm, W. (1963). Four theories of the press. University of Illinois Press. Zhang, X., & Luther, C. A. (2020). Transnational news media coverage of distant suffering in the Syrian civil war: An analysis of CNN, Al-Jazeera English and Sputnik online news. Media, War & Conflict, 13(4), 399–424.

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25 CAPITALIZING THE SOCIAL MEDIA Exploring Branding of Indonesian Journalists on Instagram Indra Prawira and Regita Anggraini Ekaputri Introduction The increasing use of social media is reshaping journalistic practices, and journalists are actively engaging in social media for various motivations (Barnard, 2016; Brems et al., 2017; Bruns, 2012; Molyneux et al., 2018). Social media is considered an alternative channel for journalists to be acknowledged as independent journalists, which has always been known as dominated by the media owner (Baum & Potter, 2019; Shultziner & Stukalin, 2020). The television news producers who hold a medium (meso) level of a media organization’s and reporter’s (micro-level) political capital in news production processes also exist and negotiate with the control of media owners (Prawira, 2019). Research on journalists and social media has been carried out in various Western countries. However, research on this subject need to be conducted in the Global South, such as in Indonesia. Scholars agree that a region or a country’s journalism culture is influenced by the media system and the political system applied in the area (Hallin & Mancini, 2017; McQuail & Windahl, 2015). Journalism study related to social media in Indonesia offers rich data because, according to Kemp (2020), Indonesia is ranked the fourth most populous country in the world of social media. The existence of an individual journalist found its channel along with the development of the Internet and digital technology. Journalists use social media to convey their thoughts that might be contrary to media owners’ political views (Brems et al., 2017; Rizkiansyah & Wiratma, 2020). Journalists are easily adapted to social media because they have knowledge and better access to technology compared to ordinary citizens. With such modality, journalists potentially gain a large number of followers on social media and earn public sympathies (Brems et al., 2017). Television news presenters are considered to have the highest popularity among other types of journalists. Therefore, television news presenters possess the opportunity to gain a more significant number of followers on social media. News presenters could benefit from the information they convey on social media. They can act as influencers to gain political and economic benefits (Nebot et al., 2018). This study focuses on news presenters as part of the journalist corps because of their popularity. However, both terms journalist and TV news presenter will be used in this study. The examination of Instagram is based on the consideration that Instagram is one of the most

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popular social media platforms in Indonesia (Kemp, 2020). Previous research showed the active personal engagement of journalists in social media (Djerf-Pierre et al., 2016; Molyneux et al., 2018; Muslikhin et al., 2021), though Indonesian journalists’ motivation to use social media for personal branding and make benefit from their influence must receive further attention with a variety of considerations. The exploration of the journalist’s engagement in social media could explain the journalistic field dynamics to support a new understanding of contemporary journalism. This research asks two research questions: How do Indonesian journalists brand themselves on social media, and how do Indonesian journalists benefit from their activities on social media?

Literature Review Bourdieu’s Journalistic Capital of Social Media Media scholars considered Pierre Bourdieu’s work of field theory as an alternative way to understand journalism practice (Benson, 2006; Hesmondhalgh, 2006; Schultz, 2007; Willig, 2013). Bourdieu introduced the capital concept to explain agent interaction in the journalistic field (Benson  & Neveu, 2005). Benson and Neveu (2005) stated that Bourdieu’s journalistic field concept could be useful to understand the development of the journalistic field.   Bourdieu mentioned capitals as accumulated labor that could be materialized or latent, which is used by agents in the field to dispute them from others (Bourdieu, 1986). Other scholars have adopted Bourdieu’s capital concept to determine the motivations or reasons that drive humans or agents in a field (Julien, 2015; Van Dijk, 2005; Wright, 2015). Bourdieu (1998) mentioned the influence of cultural and political-economic power of capital in the journalistic field: (1) Economic capital, which refers to money and assets or goods that can be exchanged for money and have financial values. Economic capitals in the journalistic field can be translated into audience rating, circulation, and advertising revenue (Benson, 2006; Bourdieu, 2005). (2) Political capital, which refers to the affiliations, alignments, connections, and relationships with those who hold political power, such as politicians (Benson, 1999, 2006; Vos et al., 2019). And (3) cultural capital, which refers to cultural and social legitimacy or recognition that promotes social mobility and shows social status such as education, knowledge, abilities, expertise, and sensibilities in various sectors. Cultural capital in journalistic field can also be identified by awards, such as the Pulitzer Prize (Bourdieu, 1986).  Bourdieu argued that journalism is a heteronomous field that is influenced by economic forces (Bourdieu, 1986). This character distinguishes the journalism field from, for example, mathematics. Journalism highly depends on economic capital directly and indirectly to survive. In general, the media benefit from advertising (McChesney, 2016), but economic benefits are also obtained from the efficiency of the production process (Mosco, 2008). A media company will attract advertisers if it has a high number of audiences, as indicated by ratings, circulation, or page views. Media companies earn public trust by being the fastest and exclusively covering big news, known as indirect economic motives (Bourdieu, 1998). Suciati and Fauziah (2020) said that Indonesian journalism is in a dilemma whether to maintain its social responsibility or its economic function. Scholars found that this condition is not unique to a country such as Indonesia. The development of the Internet and global technology has significantly affected journalism (Barnard, 2016; Pavlik, 2016). With 270

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an increasingly sophisticated technology, opportunities for exchanging social, cultural, symbolic, and even economic capital continue to grow (Barnard, 2016). Barnard (2016) said the development of online news media and the recent crisis of “old” media increase the journalism economic capital in the online world. However, the development of online media in Indonesia is also in line with the declining quality of journalism in following journalistic principles (Rizkiansyah et al., 2020). The press quickly adapted to it, using social media as a referral medium or a medium for news dissemination (Nielsen et al., 2016). Social media then becomes a new public sphere or a place of interaction between forces influencing the public. In this new public sphere, the types of interacting agents are much more than in the journalistic field. In addition to media organizations that seek to dominate social media, individual journalists become agents to influence the public (Tandoc Jr & Vos, 2016). Social media has become a field in which agents compete to be the most influential. Social media is giving access to ordinary people to be an influencer of public opinion. Ordinary people now have to compete with privileged people, such as the president, politicians, and journalists. Nevertheless, the number of active Indonesian citizens on social media is increasing. They are active on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to challenge the dominance of mainstream media, especially in political news dissemination (Tapsell, 2012).

Indonesian Journalists and Social Media The economic capital of journalism has increased in the online world, supported by the emergence of websites and the recent crisis in the newspaper industry (Barnard, 2016). The online world offers opportunities for exchanging social, cultural, symbolic, and economic capital. One of the most prominent and attractive forms of capital on Twitter is social capital (Barnard, 2016). Barnard (2016) stated that there are significant gaps in how culture and technology, combined with political and economic shifts, can change the practical dynamics of journalism. Indonesia has 160 million active users, making it the most active country on social media after the Philippines and Brazil (Kemp, 2020). The data showed that 79% of the total Indonesian social media user number is on Instagram. The huge market potential has given rise to people utilizing social media platforms for economic motives, known as influencers and buzzers. Social media influencers are defined as public opinion leaders and people known as primary sources of public opinion. Opinion leaders are important political players because they send messages to the broader public who do not access messages directly from the political elite. Opinion leaders are trusted and believed to be experts on specific topics (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1964). There are four core aspects of influence suggested by Dubois and Gaffney (2014): having followers, being seen as an expert, being knowledgeable/skilled, and being in a position within their local community to exert social pressure and social support/social attachment. Individuals or groups of people use cyber troops (Mantell, 2020) or cyber armies (Chiang et  al., 2020) to influence public opinion. In the context of public communication on Indonesian social media, the term “buzzer” is also known. A  social media buzzer is described as an Internet user (netizen) paid by a person or an organization to disseminate information for the promotion of certain products or brands on social media accounts. In political campaigns, buzzers are recruited to promote issues that benefit specific election candidates (Lim, 2017). Buzzers produce noise (Suciati et al., 2019) and fake news 271

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(Wahida & Syahputrab, 2013) that could also influence journalists in producing news. Fake news and news content could be mixed in the news products to make journalists’ credibility decrease (Kwanda & Lin, 2020). Journalists are among privileged people aside from politicians and media outlets that are most influential (Dubois & Gaffney, 2014). These opinion leaders could influence people in their networks on social media. Political leaders engage and use commercial branding techniques through networks of volunteers, buzzers, and celebrities to fill public spaces with emotional messages designed to foster trust in their political brands (Lim, 2017), while media outlets and journalists earn their credibility through the news. The public refers to social media personal accounts for information simultaneously as the decrease of trust in mainstream media. At the same time, individual journalists build their personal branding to gain public trust. Molyneux et  al. (2018) said that there are three types of how journalists build their brand, namely, (1) personal branding, which reflects the individual identities and personality of journalists through the expression and disclosure of personal details, information, and interests, which frequently are related to the affective aspects to “show the human side” and be “likable,” “relatable,” or “funny”; (2) organizational branding, which reflects journalists’ affiliation with the institution or news organization to which they belong or are employed by; and (3) institutional branding, which reflects the ideals, roles, and standards of the journalistic occupation and production that legitimize their identity as skilled professionals. Journalists are considered to hold a privileged position in Indonesian society. Hanitzsch and Hidayat (2012) stated that one is proud to be a journalist even though he/she does not make much money from his/her profession. Journalists play an important role as a mediator in communication between the community and the government. The Indonesian press law protects journalists’ independence in doing their function. In Indonesia, journalists generally have a bachelor’s degree (Hanitzsch & Hidayat, 2012), making them able to think critically. However, in the media environment, capitalist interests control journalists. Political factors affect media coverage either directly or indirectly. Scholars have said that the political opinion of media owners or macro-political capital is the dominant factor in the production of news in a media (Baum & Zhukov, 2019; Shultziner & Stukalin, 2021). However, political capital at the meso-level (medium) and the micro-level (lowest) also exists and negotiates with the political capital of media owners (Prawira, 2019).

Research Methods This study utilized a convergent parallel mixed method research of qualitative and quantitative data with a side-by-side comparison strategy (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). We generate quantitative data from a content analysis of 1,972 journalists’ posts on Instagram from May to June 2020. The period of data collection does not encompass any specific event or phenomenon, but it is chosen to represent a time frame where the researcher could collect data from the overall use of social media by journalists on a daily basis. We developed a codebook based on personal branding, organizational branding, and institutional branding (Molyneux et  al., 2018). The codebook is useful to guide intercoders in a reliability test (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007; Neuendorf, 2004), which showed a mean value of Cronbach Alpha 0.857. Every branding type is then analyzed based on economic, political, and cultural content approach (Bourdieu, 1986). Meanwhile, the qualitative data is obtained from ten semi-structured interviews with selected Indonesian national 272

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television news presenters based on purposive sampling. The selection of news presenters is selected with various considerations, such as news presenter’s popularity on Instagram and access to them.

Findings and Discussion Quantitative Data Analysis We have gathered a quantitative dataset (n  =  1,927 posts) using ReShare Story application that helps us download, screenshot, and save Instagram posts. The data was generated from ten Indonesian journalists with purposive sampling chosen by popularity (high number of followers), type of television (news television, entertainment television), and gender (see Table 25.1). Journalists’ posts on Instagram were captured and saved into an external hard disk and categorized based on journalist branding and analyzed by its economic, political, and cultural motivations. 

Personal Branding of Indonesian Journalists Journalists utilize Instagram for various personal motives by uploading photos and texts about their daily lives. This research found that Indonesian news presenters/journalists brand themselves heavily with the personal brand identity, totaling 82% of the dataset (1,577 posts), as can be seen in Table.25.2. However, the organizational and professional brand identities are still practiced, with a percentage of, respectively, 11% (221 posts) and 7% (129 posts), through various forms of expression for each of the branding levels. Personal branding is found to be communicated through various forms of content. We categorize this branding level into several types of expression that are used by Indonesian journalists. Firstly, the personal brand identity is expressed and communicated through selfies or photos and video self-recordings. As a visual networking platform, Instagram is known to be a platform of self-expression that is popularly associated with the rise of the social phenomenon of selfies or self-portrait imageries (Wagner et al., 2016). The political motivation of personal branding practices refers to political opinion and to information about news production before and after on-air. We found different forms

Table 25.1 The Selected Ten Indonesian News Presenters  Name 

Instagram Account 

Television Channel 

No. of Followers 

Aiman Witjaksono  Frisca Clarissa  Bayu Andriyanto  Tysa Novenny  Rory Asyari  Aviani Malik  Tomy Ristanto  Rikha Indriaswari  Tommy Tjokro  Ledi Marina 

@aimanwitjaksono  @frisca_clarissa  @bayu.andriyanto  @tysanovennysariosa  @roryasyari  @aviani.malik  @tomrist_  @rikha_indriaswari  @tomtjok  @ledimarina 

Kompas TV  Kompas TV  TV One  TV One  Metro TV  Metro TV  NET. TV  NET. TV  RCTI  RCTI 

29.3k  42.7k  2.6k  44k  150k  140k  7.8k  94.3k  31.3k  31.2k 

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Motivation 

Number of Posts 

Personal (82%) 

Economic  Political  Cultural  Economic  Political  Cultural  Economic  Political  Cultural 

478 14  1,085  148  5  68  40  6  83  1,927 

Organizational (11%)  Institutional (7%)  Total (n) 

in which economic motivation drives the adaptation of Indonesian journalists’ personal branding practices, through (1) the promotions of self-owned businesses or occupations that are not related to their profession as journalists or news presenters; (2) endorsements and promotions of external businesses and brands. Meanwhile, their affiliations or relationships with politicians or those with high political power were identified as political motives. This research finds that personal branding practices with cultural motivation are the most common result that reflects the social media contents in the dataset. Cultural motivation of personal branding practices refers to the implementation of knowledge sharing, showing skills, upholding journalistic value of the media they work for.

Organizational Branding of Indonesian Journalists Organizational branding identity is the second most practiced by Indonesian journalists, as shown in Table 25.2. It is shown by news presenter activities related to their affiliation. They displayed their professional activities, such as performing on the screen and television news interviews, both inside and outside the television studio. They shared tips on how to become a news presenter and shared their activities as one. This research identified that the organizational branding practice has slight difference with personal branding practice related to its motivations. For example, the economic motivation behind organizational branding practices refers to support of the accumulation of profit to related news organization, which in turn will possibly also benefit the individual through the improvement of audience rating, circulation, and all types of revenues such as advertising. The expression of organizational branding identity with economic motivation can be done through promoting the news organization which they work for or promoting the news program that they appear in.

Institutional Branding of Indonesian Journalists This research shows that institutional branding is the least branding practiced by journalists. Journalists rarely post Instagram content related to the value of their profession or institution as journalists. Quantitative data shows only 7% of journalists’ Instagram posts were identified as institutional branding, such as showing skills, sharing engagement with high-profile news sources, knowledge sharing related to their profession as journalist. 274

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The small number of journalists’ institutional branding on Instagram can be assumed to be because social media is more private for journalists and they do not want to always be associated with their profession. Institutional branding activities with economic motivation showed when journalists promote a public speaking training for which they act as coaches, as shown by Tommy Tjokro, Rory Asyari, and Bayu Andriyanto. This type of training is related to their profession as TV news presenter or journalist, but not related to their media companies.

Qualitative Data Analysis We have gathered qualitative data almost at the same time as quantitative data. Compared to quantitative data collection, qualitative data gathering is more difficult to conduct, for two reasons: firstly, we have limited access to interviewees. Secondly, interviewees are known as elites, and therefore, they are not easily interviewed. However, we gathered ten interviews even though we failed to interview all the aimed interviewees. Our interviewees are decided to be anonymous and will only be named by number (NP1, NP2, and so on) in this qualitative dataset. Every interview lasted approximately an hour, which was then transcribed verbatim to be ready for analysis utilizing computer software NVIVO12.

Personal Branding of Indonesian Journalist NVIVO’s frequent word analysis of personal branding shows keywords: personal, benefit, and politics. All interviewees said that social media is their private domain, and they use social media to show another side of themselves as a TV news presenter. Most journalists considered that monetizing social media is very common among TV news presenters. They think that making money out of social media is allowed, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the media company’s image profile. For example, NP2 willingly signed as a product endorser for several years because the product is a high-class mobile phone. NP2 also admitted that she has a price list or a rate card for her social media content. In the same tone, NP4 and NP5 value their content on social media with a negotiable tariff. Besides working as a TV news presenter, NP5 owned a household product company and routinely promoted the product on social media. NP5 once stopped working for a media company to manage his company before joining another television station. Television news presenters recognized that mainstream media outlets cannot always be used to convey criticism to the government to carry out journalists’ function as watchdogs. Therefore, social media is an alternative channel to share this criticism. This research found that journalists often differ in political views from media owners but cannot convey it in regular news production.

Organizational Branding of Indonesian Journalists The results of qualitative data analysis show that the journalistic organizational branding of this research indicate several keywords: media, marketing, and political. Apart from publishing the personal lives of the informants, they also show their daily lives as media workers. They share events, meet popular sources, and display exciting activities at work. TV news presenters often engage as the company’s free-of-charge marketers. 275

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They all voluntarily posted content about their upcoming hosted television programs to enhance the program’s popularity. This type of behavior is in line with the findings of Tandoc et al. (2016), who found that journalists also act as marketers for media companies (Tandoc Jr & Vos, 2016). Journalists willingly support media companies in promoting programs to boost program ratings. The types of posts that are commonly disseminated are posters of upcoming programs featuring the presenter’s face.

Institutional Branding of Indonesian Journalists The NVIVO frequent word analysis identified several motivations of institutional branding for television news presenters to use social media, namely, for journalists’ professionalism, social responsibility, and information. All journalists interviewed use social media as an alternative source of information in the news production stage. In general, interviewees said that they must verify social media information because of the contamination of hoaxes or fake news spread on social media. They understand that social media has the potential to provide useful first-hand information for the newsgathering process. The comparison of data findings related to branding level shows that qualitative data confirm the quantitative dataset. Both datasets revealed that Indonesian news presenters conduct personal branding rather than organizational and institutional branding. Quantitative data shows that personal brand identity is the most commonly used by Indonesian news presenters, with 82% out of 1,927 Instagram posts. We conducted a side-by-side comparison between the aggregated dataset to understand the quantitative and qualitative analysis. TV news presenters utilize Instagram as their personal space; therefore, they display their private life. Social media give journalists the opportunity to “play solo,” apart from the media company’s business rules. However, they also acknowledge that news presenters are representatives of the media company, so they have to be selective in choosing the types of content to be displayed, including their political views. This study offers a way of exploring journalism practice to support a new understanding of journalism, especially in the Indonesian context. It confirmed journalists’ engagement to previous studies’ social media (Brems et al., 2017; Bruns, 2012; Molyneux et al., 2018). Social media development has given journalists an opportunity to develop their personal branding rather than their institutional brand. News presenters, as journalists, have the privilege to be opinion leaders in society. 

Conclusion This study shows that TV news presenters, as part of the journalist corps, utilize Instagram mainly for personal branding, aside from their organizational and institutional branding in their Instagram accounts. Journalists rarely use social media to convey their personal political messages even though they have different political views from the media owners. At the same time, they build their brand as an independent journalist who has professional capabilities to give way to “play solo.” Economically, journalists benefit from getting endorsements and other side job opportunities. However, the main reason for utilizing Instagram is for their cultural motives. This study is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis that focuses on news presenter activities on Instagram. Therefore, more comprehensive research is needed with wider journalism stakeholders. 276

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PART IV

Platforms for Collaboration with the Global North

26 JOURNALISM AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR COLLABORATION BETWEEN SCHOLARS IN THE GLOBAL NORTH AND SOUTH Summer Harlow and Ingrid Bachmann Collaborative investigative journalism has been around at least since the 1970s, and with the rise of globalization, such projects increasingly have adopted a “global mindset” (Houston, 2021, p. 1099), as evidenced by transnational projects like the Panama and Paradise Papers, which involved multiple newsrooms around the world, or cross-border networks aimed at strengthening journalism and protecting journalists. A global mindset involves not just an awareness of common stories across borders – like immigration, the environment, drug trafficking, or the pandemic – but also a recognition of structural inequalities and cultural differences that impact reporting practices, news values and ethics, and even the content produced. The lessons learned from transnational, collaborative journalism offer a springboard for understanding the challenges and opportunities of international scholarly collaborations. In particular, we focus on collaborations between journalism scholars in the Global North and South in order to offer best practices for creating equitable, mutually beneficial partnerships that find value beyond Western paradigms while accounting for the repercussions of globalization and (neo)colonialism. North–South collaborations serve as a remedy to the universalism – and isolation – of scholarship informed by Northern concerns, question the power dynamics in academic research, and redress the invisibility of knowledge produced in the Global South. In this sense, collaborations between Northern and Southern scholars offer a better and more nuanced understanding of the range and complexity of journalism as a whole, which may be global in scope but is marked by contextual particularities. The Global North domination in communication and media studies has been thoroughly documented. Most journals and databases are dominated by research from the United States, followed by Western Europe. Journals’ editorial boards also over-represent scholars from these Northern countries. This bias typically has been attributed to cultural, linguistic, economic, historical, and political factors, including the “Euro-American precedency” in the institutionalization of communication education and the fact that most of the “founders” of communication studies were educated in or from the United States (Demeter, 2018). Demeter (2018) suggested that academic capital, in a Bourdieuian sense,

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also is at play: norms about publishing, such as related to theory, method, importance, and originality, are predicated on a Global North perspective, thereby placing researchers from the South at a disadvantage when it comes to acquiring the capital to facilitate publication and recognition. Treré and Harlow (2023) likewise identified this North–South imbalance in their meta-analysis of research on digital media activism, which showed a propensity to employ theoretical frameworks from the Global North, resulting in a lack of North–South and, especially, South–North dialogue. Journalism research from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries similarly suggests a dependency on Western and Anglosphere scholarship (Ai & Masood, 2021). Arguably, attempts by Global South scholars to fit into Western canonical requirements further normalize the Global North intellectual hegemony, putting the North at the center and leaving the South in the periphery of academic knowledge (see Das, 2017). Much of the research on North–South collaborations comes from the fields of global health and international development. Studies point to power imbalances, disproportionate benefits for the Global North, Southern partners limited to token or subordinate roles, and negative assumptions or misconceptions about the lack of experience, knowhow, or resources among researchers in the Global South (Voller et al., 2022). A “scoping review” of studies on frameworks for North–South research collaborations showed that most focused on procedural guidelines more than power dynamics or shared benefits. Studies also were dominated by a Northern perspective of what “good” partnerships should look like, and even when they emphasized the importance of equity and equality, they often overlooked structural inequalities, such as differences in “opportunities, resources, and capacities” (Voller et  al., 2022, p.  532). When international collaboration occurs in communications research, it mostly entails co-authorship from similar rather than dissimilar countries: “Authors tend to cooperate with at least as successful and respected co-authors as they are, so mixed winner and loser country co-authorships are far more infrequent than winner – winner contributions” (Demeter, 2017, p. 419). This is in line with research dating back more than 40 years, showing international collaborations tended to form along lines of proximity, language, and political similarity (Davidson Frame & Carpenter, 1979). The result is that scholars from peripheral countries have little chance of being published in top communications journals, and when they are published, they are cited less than their Northern counterparts (Demeter, 2018). Calls to “de-Westernize” communications research have become almost commonplace, or what Waisbord and Mellado (2014) referred to as a “new mantra” (p. 361). They argued that de-Westernization should apply to the subject of study, the body of evidence, analytical frameworks, and academic cultures. It is important to note, though, that de-Westernization originated outside of the West, and de-Westernization and decolonization have long histories among research in the Global South (Waisbord, 2022). Even with the emphasis on de-Westernization, however, we have yet to see a demonstrative shift in scholarship. In fact, despite increasing work by scholars from and research about the Global South in notable journals, “diversification does not necessarily alter existing structures and dynamics between the center and periphery. Nor does it address inequality in resources and presence” (Waisbord, 2022, p. 5). Along these lines, Demeter (2017) called for “systematic intervention and correction” (p.  419) to equitably internationalize communications research, and we suggest that reimagining what North–South collaborations could – should – look like is an important first step and will help identify some of the milestones along the path toward de-Westernization. 282

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The Challenge Obviously, conducting collaborative Global North–South journalism research is not easy, starting with the very use of “Global North” and “Global South” as descriptors. These labels might not be unequivocal – they suggest a binary distinction that is neither clear-cut nor necessarily holds in practice. When we talk about the North and the South, we often mean very specific contexts that are not as homogeneous as these (clearly geographically inaccurate) labels suggest. There are also matters of the stances on which collaborative research is conducted and the paradigms and expectations informing it. For example, comparative research approaches have historically compared countries (albeit terminology and rationale of these comparisons have been ambiguous). In these cases, “countries” have typically served as a label for a set of different systemic constraints and particularities (Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995), but adding countries to a research project for the sake of geographical diversity does not necessarily lend itself to meaningful comparisons (see Hanitzsch, 2019). Moreover, not all conceptualizations work the same way in all places or over time, and theoretical models developed in the Global North do not necessarily apply to other contexts (see Claussen, 2020). When research into countries’ similarities and differences relies on normative standards – for instance, one model of journalism practice is deemed better than another – and ignores regional or local contexts, the interpretations are likely to cast the Global South as a barbarous place that has yet to meet Western standards (Hanitzsch, 2019; see also Claussen, 2020). After all, colonialism is at the base of the Global North–South (or West/rest of the world) divide (Grosfoguel, 2008). Arguably, North–South collaborations may provide antidotes to universalism and ethnocentrism and awareness of other systems, cultures, and patterns of thinking and acting (Hanitzsch, 2019), as long as the comparisons are conceptually and theoretically sound (Pfetsch & Esser, 2008). The very definition of what “journalism” means, or what constitutes a “journalist,” may differ from one location to another, and that is why well-conducted collaborative studies may serve as important tools of theory-building by contextualizing and generalizing theories, verifying the validity of concepts, and identifying differences and similarities (Pfetsch  & Esser, 2008; see also Hanusch  & Hanitzsch, 2017; Glück, 2018). Another important challenge has to do with the meaning of collaboration – that is, working together. This implies a partnership that does not always come to fruition. Similar to the trials and tribulations of integrating qualitative and quantitative methods in a mixed-method approach (see Creswell, 2011), North–South collaborations raise several questions, including whether they further marginalize Global South scholarship (relegating it to a secondary status, a matter of geographical diversity, homogenizing cultural and historical diversity) or whether a globalist approach is feasible when journalism studies as a discipline remains defined by Anglocentric and Eurocentric ways of representing knowledge. Other concerns have to do with the division of labor, including at what point the Global South gets involved and how. In that sense, there have been calls for research with the Global South, not just about or from it (Glück, 2018). This might be easier said than done. The knowledge infrastructures of the North – such as advanced degrees or research universities – are not always found in other locations, and the ways of conducting studies in the South might differ, and greatly, from Northern standards. Yet Southern scholars may very well offer insights and expertise that, while foreign to other backgrounds, constitute valuable research 283

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traditions. Such unique academic capital may be unconventional from a Northern perspective, but still a worthwhile contribution. Along these lines, cooperative North–South efforts should not only address the global imbalance in journalism studies and knowledge generation but also value Indigenous theorizations and concepts, the incorporation of local realities on their own merits, and wider contextualization (Glück, 2018). Domination of collaborative agendas by Northern funding agencies and scholars (Bradley, 2007) prevents this kind of scholarship from meaningfully contributing to a global dialogue and better understanding of journalism theory and practice. Thus, for North–South collaborations to work and have an impact, they not only need to be mutually beneficial but also actually be rooted in Southern needs and priorities (Bradley, 2007).

Understanding Collaboration Just as the practice of journalism has become more transnational and collaborative, so too can journalism research. Transnational, collaborative journalism has been defined along four dimensions: (1) journalists from different countries (2) collaborating to research a common story and (3) together produce joint content that (4) is shared with individual audiences on national and subnational levels (Alfter, 2016). Types of collaboration can vary from loose cooperation (such as requesting something from a colleague in another country based on their local, cultural, or thematic expertise and access) to more intense and close forms (like collaboratively investigating and writing a story with a colleague from another country) (Heft et al., 2017; Heft, 2021). Such collaborations often are motivated by journalists’ desire to improve the quality of their news coverage, strengthen the impact of their work, reach a wider audience, and better manage big amounts of data (Heft, 2021). Benefits of such transnational collaborations include knowledge sharing, diversity in perspectives and languages, networking, and even individual capacity-building in terms of journalists’ skills and personal enrichment (Heft, 2021). These journalistic understandings of the types and advantages of transnational collaboration can be applied to a research setting. For example, Katz and Martin (1997) identified types of research collaboration ranging from the negligible, like offering advice or insights, to substantial, such as active partnerships to produce research. Partnerships can take the form of researchers working on a common project, capacity-building projects, university chairs, networks, and institutional connections (Gingras et  al., 1999; Lansang  & Olveda, 1994). Motivations for collaborations also have been shown to be similar between journalistic and research projects, with research collaborations likewise spurred by the desire for individual capacity building (gaining knowledge about other topics, fields, methods, theories, etc.), reaching wider audiences (scientific recognition and visibility), and achieving diversity (interdisciplinarity) (Katz & Martin, 1997). Importantly, though, truly de-Westernizing and internationalizing communications research demands an understanding of collaboration that goes beyond the negligible – like mere co-authorship. Including authors from the Global North and South is a foundational requirement for collaboration, but substantial transnational research collaboration must, like journalistic collaboration, involve the joint investigation, production, and distribution of content. When it comes to joint research and writing, this means not just working together but working together to bring in diverse perspectives, theories, and approaches – citing Southern scholars and using theories and frameworks developed in the South. For example, 284

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international collaborations should focus on referencing non-Western studies (Chen, 2010) as a way to internationalize research and thereby begin the shift away from a system that is imbued with a tendency to disproportionately value and visibilize work from the Global North (Chakravartty et  al., 2018). Notably, this is not just a problem for scholars in the Global North to solve: research suggests scholars in the Global South also do not regularly cite or rely on other research from the South (Ai & Masood, 2021; Treré & Harlow, 2023), thereby continuing the cycle of citations reinforcing the centrality of the Global North in communications research. Further, even when Southern scholars depend on Southern research, that work remains insular (Ai & Masood, 2021), making little headway in the Northern-dominated realm of journals or indexes. In part, this problem can be attributed to the lack of linguistic diversity: most indexed journals are limited to English-language research (Bogotch, 2012; Curry & Lillis, 2018), and English-language scholars often are either unaware of – or dismiss for being inferior – non-English-language journals, or they lack the multilingual ability to access research in languages other than English. Just as transnational journalistic collaborations can allow journalists to cross geographic, cultural, and linguistic barriers, so too can North– South research collaborations – especially among mono- and multilingual scholars – broaden researchers’ horizons to include knowledge produced outside their limited areas of expertise. Research produced by North–South partnerships – especially when collaborators are well cited or have achieved international recognition – also should be submitted to journals produced in the Global South in further efforts to disrupt the (North’s) assumptions about “good” research being limited to that published in Western or English-language journals. Of course, doing so creates a Catch-22: internationalizing research requires non-Western scholars to be made more visible in the North-centric world of academia, but if Southern scholars continually publish in English-language journals, this perpetuates the devaluation of research published outside the North. Substantial transnational collaborative research also entails focusing the research itself on cases in and data collected from the Global South. As both the authors of this chapter know from experience, this sounds easier than it actually is. Too often, scholarship about Global South nations and peoples is delegitimized unless it can prove its worthiness in a Northern context. With journal reviewers typically from the United States or the UK (Chakravartty et  al., 2018), it’s no wonder that often they ask authors to justify their focus on a non-Northern country or region. The Global South is seen as a testing ground for Northern theories, rather than a place (capable of) producing its own theories and methods (Connell, 2014). Further, the US-centric focus of communications research and institutions implies an understanding of anything outside the West (or the United States particularly) as “foreign” or “international” (Kraidy, 2018). North–South collaborations thus require a transformation in our approaches not just to co-authorship (seeking partners outside our geographic, cultural, and linguistic bubbles) but also in our research values, processes, production, and distribution. It is not enough to create partnerships if the scholars are working in silos, only to merge their research into one paper at the end. Rather, like journalists, we have to develop a “global mindset” (Houston, 2021) that promotes intense, mutually beneficial collaborations, where the goal is collaboration in practice and theory. Doing so will create the individual-level capacity building, networking, and broadening of our horizons that can finally start to create truly global – instead of the West and “all the rest” – communications research that is valorized and worthy in and of itself. 285

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Ethical Considerations North–South collaboration is not an easy task. There are important considerations and hurdles along the way, including matters of power, agency, and the structures and resources determining the hierarchy of knowledge in the academic world (Glück, 2018) and the obvious imbalances of the global distribution of knowledge. While scholars in the Global South often consider theories of the North and borrow from their formulations, Northern scholars can easily operate without engaging concepts of Southern origin (Glück, 2018). Yet the meaning of journalism and journalism studies is not uniform across the world, and it should not be presumed that all reporters, media outlets, or audience members operate the same way globally. That is why North–South efforts have to be particularly sensitive to cultural, social, and economic differences in the context they explore, as collaboration implies dealing with complex factors shaping mass communication processes. News itself is shaped by multiple structures, and journalists are not impervious to outside stimuli (Hanitzsch, 2019; Pfetsch  & Esser, 2008). Likewise, research also is not free of ideologies and biases, including what constitutes scientific knowledge or what is the right way of conducting research or laying bridges between theory and practice. Western scholars often approach non-Western contexts as if they were exotic, uncivilized, or non-modern, assuming that only Western values are relevant and that other contexts must fit their seemingly adequate typologies. Along these lines, Shome (2016) argued that media research in general “universalizes a particular history of modernity . . . that neglects how media function in the Global South (including in the ‘developed South’),” and this has prevented other epistemes on media and communication from getting traction in the academic world (p. 246). The risk of approaching research collaboration with the Global South as if it were a cultural safari should not be underplayed. Such collaborations have important consequences, including that alternative or Indigenous theorizings may not make sense in the eyes of the North, or even be well received in traditional academia (see Bachmann & Proust, 2020; Das, 2017). Dismissal of Global South contributions on grounds of not meeting certain standards often ignores that research that is unconventional or done differently is not necessarily unscientific or less rigorous. However, Western scholars often look at non-Western scholarship with non-traditional approaches as low-quality or unsophisticated rather than simply different or even unique (Bachmann & Proust, 2020; Das, 2017). There is no denying that the structural conditions to conduct studies in the Global South are different from the Global North and that the socio-economic inequalities in many nonWestern locations make research in these contexts quite difficult on many accounts. One major burden is the dearth of resources to conduct research. Software, hardware, travel costs, academic databases, scholarly publications, or news media archive access come at great costs – if they are available at all – for research that might not be groundbreaking or even relevant in the eyes of funding agencies. Such lack of access to materials more easily available in the North may go hand in hand with less proficiency in the ways of doing of the discipline, including considerations about analytical procedures or data processing, or writing styles. Other important considerations for North–South collaborations are that scholars in the Global South are not necessarily fluent in Indigenous languages, that their access to populations to study may be less than ideal (for logistical, geographical, and practical reasons), and that their subjects themselves may not have the resources to understand academic procedures 286

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and comprehend, for instance, a consent form or one’s right to withdraw from a study (see Bachmann & Proust, 2020). What may be obvious for Western scholars sometimes is just not feasible, and creative solutions often go to great lengths to ensure that ethical standards are met.

Implementing Collaborations Sometimes, the best international collaborations are serendipitous. In our case, we were lucky enough to have worked together at the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas while PhD students at the University of Texas at Austin. After so much time working closely together in the office, it was not a surprise that our work relationship quickly transformed into a friendship and research partnership. We recognize, though, that not everyone has the benefit of already knowing or working in a department with colleagues – potential ­collaborators – from other parts of the world. Further, we believe it is important to e­ ncourage international collaborations that go beyond working with international colleagues from our universities, by partnering with researchers living outside the countries where we work. To this end, we must actively seek out potential collaborators via formal and informal networks: join international associations (like the Asociación Latinoamericana de Investigadores de la Comunicación, Brazilian Association of Journalism Researchers, South African Communications Association, East African Communication Association, Asian Media Information and Communication Centre) and listservs; read bilingual, regional, and international journals (beyond the “Global North-approved” usual suspects) to introduce ourselves to scholars from other countries with common research interests; and do not underestimate the power of the snowball method – ask people you know to recommend someone you should read or get to know. As we pursue these North–South partnerships and think about what a research agenda might look like, we need to keep in mind that a collaboration is not merely replicating a Northern study in the South or applying Northern approaches to a Southern case – in other words, it is not the North instructing the South, but rather the North and South mutually and simultaneously informing one another. Further, collaboration begins with knowing what level of collaboration is best for a particular study. For example, international collaboration does not require a study to be comparative – studies based on a single context or country can be just as valuable as those comparing multiple countries or regions. That being said, though, we argue that all research can – perhaps should – be collaborative at some level, even if it is just in terms of consulting and citing research and using theories or approaches from another world region. North–South collaborations should not be limited to data collection – collaboration can occur in various stages of research, outside of working together. Bringing in the Global South perspective from the very beginning in recognition that scholarship does not have to revolve around the Global North would go a long way toward answering the call for research with the Global South, not just about or from it (Glück, 2018). Like with any kind of teamwork, North–South collaborations require us to take advantage of each other’s strengths – acknowledge that everyone has something different to contribute and “different” does not mean less valuable, secondary, or supplemental. The best collaborations will not be top-down but instead be participatory, with decisions made collaboratively. Even as we are aware of each other’s strengths, at the same time, we also need to be cognizant of our weaknesses, especially when it comes to cultural and academic capital. This is 287

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particularly true for North–South collaborations that have inherent power imbalances built into them from the start. This also requires being aware of our biases and our conditions to make knowledge claims. Trust and reflexivity here become a key element in collaborations – we need to trust each other’s insight while weighing different agendas and ways of doing research (Parameswaran, 2021). As explained by Myrna Garcia (2014), scholars’ biographies, locations, and backgrounds foster a specific understanding of social reality, thus affecting knowledge production. Acknowledgment of such positionality, rather than complicating collaborations, allows for a powerful insight to improve and transform research and reconsider research agendas, conceptualizations, designs, methods, data-gathering instruments, or analytical lenses, to name a few (Parameswaran, 2021). The importance of pursuing North–South collaborations stems from a recognition that, while everything indeed is global, there are critical local differences that preclude a GlobalNorth-fits-all approach. Even as journalistic cultures, practices, values, and even our very understanding of journalism and who is a journalist vary around the world and change across regions and time, the same holds true for journalism research. Research methods, theories, and concepts can be adopted across countries, but they also must be adapted to fit local contextualities. And in these adaptations, we have to be mindful that what we think we know about one Global North or South country does not necessarily apply across all the North or all the South. Recognizing the importance of the global without losing the value of the local has given rise to a body of media, communications, and journalism research (e.g., Kraidy, 2003; Robertson, 1994) focused on glocalization, or the understanding that the global and local are complementary, integrated, and reciprocal. We propose a glocalized approach to journalism scholarship that starts with the assumption that research must be global while still emphasizing the value in the local – consulting, citing, and collaborating with Global South scholars. Doing so is the only way to ever truly internationalize journalism research. Transnational collaborations have led to noteworthy impacts and innovations in news reporting, and scholarly collaborations can similarly contribute to our understanding of journalism practice and the betterment of the field.

References Ai, M., & Masood, M. (2021). De-Westernization in journalism research: A content and network analysis of the BRICS journals. Scientometrics, 126(12), 9477–9498. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11192-021-04194-5 Alfter, B. (2016). Cross-border collaborative journalism: Why journalists and scholars should talk about an emerging method. Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 5(2), 297–311. https://doi. org/10.1386/ajms.5.2.297_1 Bachmann, I., & Proust, V. (2020). Old concerns, renewed focus, and novel problems: Feminist communication theory and the global South. Annals of the International Communication Association, 44(1), 67–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2019.1647445 Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1995). The crisis of public communication. Routledge. Bogotch, I. E. (2012). Who controls our knowledge? International Journal of Leadership in Education, 15(4), 403–406. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2012.707688 Bradley, M. (2007). North-South research partnerships: Challenges, responses and trends (IDRC Working Paper 1). International Development Research Centre Canadian Partnerships. Chakravartty, P., Kuo, R., Grubbs, V., & Mcllwain, C. (2018). #CommunicationSoWhite. Journal of Communication, 68(2), 254–266. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy003 Chen, K. H. (2010). Asia as method: Toward deimperialization. Duke University Press. Claussen, D. S. (2020). Beware of international comparative research. Newspaper Research Journal, 41(1), 3–7. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739532919898774

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27 COLLABORATION IN JOURNALIST EDUCATION Finding Multiple Perspectives through Global Journalism and Local Practices Kristin Skare Orgeret Joint research projects and cooperation in higher education are increasingly common platforms for collaboration on journalism practices between the non-Western world and the Global North. Based on central understandings and experiences from several journalism education collaboration projects and the NORHED project 2014–20191 in particular, this chapter discusses what possibilities and challenges such collaborations may involve.2 The point of departure for the following discussion is that the ultimate goal of journalism education, regardless of its provider, is to empower not only the students but also journalism itself (Berger & Foote, 2017), as the quality of journalism education is believed to impact the quality of citizenship and society. Hence, journalism education educates not only practitioners but the public as well. This chapter, drawing on some of the key experiences from the 2014–2019 NORHED project, discusses to what degree professionalization of journalism education in South Sudan, Uganda, and Nepal is shaped by values stemming from local settings and adjusted to local needs. The South–South dimension of the project is highlighted, as is the need for journalism to reflect the constantly changing demands of the media industry while simultaneously focusing on larger political and social issues.

A Global Journalism? It is often argued that although media systems and journalistic cultures may differ widely (Hanitzsch et  al., 2019), the changes and challenges facing journalism education around the world are largely similar and thus would benefit from a “global” approach. Peter Berglez (2013, p. 97) describes “global journalism” as, first and foremost, a mode of communication. He emphasizes that, despite the importance of technical means, what constitutes global journalism is an epistemological component: it is based on a global mode of thinking about society, an emergent “global outlook” that journalists sometimes enact when they seek to render visible the complex of global power dynamics and relationships that are shaping global news events. The NORHED project found its roots in the belief that to enhance such a global outlook among journalist students, cooperation with students and lecturers from different backgrounds and cultures would be core. This is quite in line with what Mark Deuze describes

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as “lateral links one can identify across (real and perceived) national and cultural boundaries, which get particular meaning in situated contexts” (2006, p. 20). A global approach is also a principle of the current UNESCO curriculum model (2013), which is globally developed, is rich in content from different settings, and attempts to set standards based on good practice internationally, providing a resource on which stakeholders around the world can draw to improve the quality of journalism education in their countries. Earlier cross-national work in the field signaled an ever-increasing international formalization and standardization as a fundamental feature of developments in journalism education worldwide (e.g., Frohlich & Holtz-Bacha, 2003). Many of these central standards stem from Europe and North America, and it is increasingly argued that there is a continuous need to focus on decolonization or de-Westernization of the academic field – journalism included. While the global dynamics of “big tech,” “big money,” and “big data” are accelerating, it is becoming even more important to see connections between the local and the global – at the same time as opening discussions problematizing the universality of Western knowledge.

Journalism and Global Norms Journalism training in the Global South, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, borrows extensively from the UNESCO model curricula for journalism education (UNESCO, 2013). The NORHED project was no exception. While reviewing curricula under the NORHED project, the UNESCO model curricula provided a relevant tool to be adopted and adapted to local training settings in Nepal, Uganda, and South Sudan. Within the UNESCO model curricula for journalism education, several pertinent themes relevant to Global South settings are proposed, including community radio journalism, humanitarian journalism, reporting on human trafficking, and media sustainability. Eric Freedman and Richard Shafer (2010) argue that the UNESCO model offers a valuable, welcome springboard for discussion of effective, pragmatic ways to improve journalism education. It provides a multinationally endorsed, credible leverage point for educators to promote curricular modernization in their own countries and universities. Freedman and Shafer also stress that: [W]orking effectively to improve the quality of journalism education in a wide range of national settings and under a wide range of media and academic environments will require educators and professionals to eschew what Brislin calls belief in “the universal portability of Western values.” (2010, p. 35) One of the NORHED project members, Gerald Walulya, illustrates this powerfully, defining “hybrid journalism” (Walulya, 2018) as a mixture of what might be called professional and unprofessional journalism, and highlights the tension between universal professional ideals such as objectivity and the activism of local realities. Through analyses of the press coverage of elections in the one-party-dominant states of Tanzania and Uganda, Walulya reveals that the African realities described do not really fit the instruments developed elsewhere. Walulya’s discussion offers a clear indication of the tensions and shows that agendasetting theory, for instance, is not easily applicable to the situation in Uganda and Tanzania. Methodologies developed in another context may not cater for some of the local professional particularities, such as the “underground markets of journalism” in Uganda and Tanzania, where bribes and corruption are widespread during election periods (Walulya, 2018). 292

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Anthea Garman advises that we must “never forget that most of the theory and methodology we use in media and communication studies did not come out of Africa, and that much of it has ambiguous histories of alliance with colonial power” (Garman, 2015, p. 17). Along the same lines, Last Moyo and Bruce Mutsvairo argue that “all scholars must realise and acknowledge their physical location in relation to the global power structure of colonial modernity in terms of the geopolitics and biopolitics of knowledge production” (2018, p. 22). For many scholars in the field of journalism as well as in other disciplines, Europe is still generally perceived as the source of theory, while Africa can only provide case studies for testing Western theory (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2012). Dama Mosweunyane (2016) argues that few African universities have contributed meaningfully to the intellectual, economic, political, social, or environmental culture of their countries or their continent. He suggests that this is because they rely too heavily on Western concepts, which undermines this development. Mosweunyane points out that imported research methods and agendas limit the inventiveness and creativity of African academics and that they draw too heavily on the work of scholars from the West, ignoring the work of fellow African scholars and the wisdom of local communities. Such tendencies have traditionally been exacerbated by the global political economy of publishing. And of course, a lot of the literature is still produced in the North. According to Priyamvada Gopal (2017), decolonizing the curriculum means, first of all, the acceptance that education, literary or otherwise, needs to enable self-understanding. This, she argues, is particularly important for people not used to seeing themselves reflected in the mirror of conventional learning or in the mainstream media. Decolonizing should also be about including more women’s voices; thus, increasing the percentage of female contributors should be an explicit aim of collaboration projects. Thus, a positive outcome of the NORHED project was that new journalism scholarship was produced by local scholars, both men and women, in South Sudan, Uganda, and Nepal. Some of it explicitly problematizes the universality of existing theories and methods, not only drawing their agency from local history and experiences, but also critically engaging with reigning epistemologies (e.g., Ntulume, 2019, 2021; Kakooza, 2018; Koirala, 2018). It was interesting to see the legacy of efforts that have been made to formulate genuine African journalism models in discussions about how to include ingrained African cultural values, such as “community participation, consensus building, widespread communal consultation, and religious belief systems” (Tayeebwa, 2016). It was argued that an appreciation of Afrocentric media values found within “ubuntu-journalism” – such as “co-operation and consensus, patience and moderation, reconciliation and forgiveness, humanness, communal justice, communal harmony” (Fourie, 2010; Tavernaro-Haidarian, 2019; Tayeebwa, 2016) – could, over time, improve how the Global South is framed, particularly the African continent, where dehumanizing frames of people as disease-ridden, perpetually malnourished, and barbaric killers are frequently used. Devoted journalism professionals may be critical of such blurring of professional boundaries, just as they are critical of the “prescriptive” nature of peace journalism (e.g., Loyn, 2007), and it may be argued that more activist forms of journalism such as ubuntu run the risk of being misused for political purposes (Fourie, 2010). The idea of interventionism, which points to the extent to which journalism should actively advocate change in society, has characteristics similar to the journalism referred to as “alternative” earlier in this chapter, posing a threat to the notion of objectivity. At the same time, the idea that journalists are unbiased and should keep their values and beliefs out of their work might, as several scholars have stressed, be connected to a “myth of objectivity” 293

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(Zelizer, 2008). These interesting discussions feed into what has been referred to as an “epistemic liberation,” which aims to critique and challenge basic assumptions and themes of knowledge from the Global North. The focus of these normative discussions was primarily set on ideal-type journalism rather than actual journalism practice but may, in turn, give directions for journalistic practice.

New Dynamics and Journalism Professional Needs Most, if not all, journalism training institutions realize the changing face of the profession due to advances in technology and the changing nature of journalism in digital times. The revisions of the “multimedia journalism” and “online journalism” curricula in Uganda, South Sudan, and Nepal under the NORHED project were cognizant of the new dynamics and, therefore, new professional training needs and heavily incorporated social media as new tools for the field. Of particular interest to journalist students in the Global South in the first phase of the NORHED project was the fact that the use of social media or social networking sites could provide an improved opportunity for them to circumvent draconian media regulatory regimes that were often not adapted to the new technologies. Nevertheless, the entrance of digital media also meant that digital violence against journalists and their sources was growing in different formats, including online harassment, doxing, and surveillance. Coupled with equipping journalism students with new media technology competences, the NORHED project partners heavily emphasized the issue of safety of journalists, including knowledge about digital safety (e.g., Nakiwala, 2020; Nassanga & Walulya, 2020) and gender dimensions (Koirala, 2020). “Bridging gaps” alludes to cooperating in research endeavors, but also to building bridges between academia and society at large. Part of the work of the NORHED project was to establish contact with practitioners in the journalism field in order to discuss issues related to the challenges of journalism in post-conflict situations, including the safety of journalists. The latter issue saw both media houses and other actors, such as the International Federation of Journalists, working to ameliorate the situation in the field. In the first phase of the project, there was a widespread optimism of the role of the social media platforms in the African countries. While authoritarian regimes would try to restrict online media freedom and free speech, it was argued also that networks such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others based in the West would not agree to requests by African regimes to delete a post by a journalist who, for instance, had reported on human rights abuses. Important research was done to see how Ugandan journalists made use of social network in their day-to-day work (Namasinga, 2018; Namasinga Selnes & Orgeret, 2020). As the project went on, it increasingly became clear how the expanded social networks also involve new challenges, as they may add to processes that could “weaponize information” (Singer & Brooking, 2018) and potentially also de-escalate conflict (Schirch, 2021). As there is an increasing need to prepare journalism students globally to deal with strategic manipulation, partisan hostility, threats, and shifting concepts of discourse in social media, future cooperation projects will need to delve deeper into such challenges, including how to teach media technologies, ethics, fact-checking, and coping with disinformation.

Implications of Intercultural Interactions The NORHED journalism education project had as its overarching objective, and as a subtitle, “Bridging Gaps, Building Futures in Uganda, South Sudan, Nepal and Norway.” Clearly, 294

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the project brought together three main cultural traditions, namely, African (South Sudan and Uganda), Asian (Nepal), and European (Norway). Inevitably, there was mutual intercultural learning on a wide range of issues. The focus on gender is but one example, where the initial approach of several of the team members was the huge contrast between the role of women in traditional African settings and Norway, the latter being very advanced in terms of gender equality. Interestingly, the event of the global #MeToo campaign, highlighting sexual abuse and harassment that took place during the project period, also showed that Norwegian female journalists shared some of the challenges experienced by their colleagues in Nepal, South Sudan, or Uganda (Idås et al., 2020; Koirala, 2020). Questions of how to teach norms and values in journalism in contexts that, in many ways, are radically different from one’s own were of pedagogical interest to all lecturers involved in the program. All the scholars involved in the project seemed to agree that “who teaches whom” is a perennial question, as the teacher learns a lot from the students and their contexts too. Sometimes, the cross-cultural exchange was much more challenging, as when diving into topics in which the cultural and political differences were great and worldviews collided. A case in point, in which conflicting values between the journalism education institutions on three different continents became very clear, was the controversy over the acceptance of homosexuality. Norway, Nepal, South Sudan, and Uganda have very different political and historical trajectories and represent highly divergent views on homosexuality. This had consequences for both discourse and cognition within the cooperation. Some Norwegian colleagues at the Department of Journalism in Oslo felt that OsloMet should not cooperate with countries not adhering to the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights and believed that “all academic contact with Uganda should be cut short as a clear message to the Ugandan government” (quoted in Orgeret & Tayeebwa, 2016, p. 250). The discussions around homosexuality represented a thorny subject in the collaboration but were also educational, shedding light on how journalistic concepts that appear to be globally shared – like “objectivity” and “balance” – are actually highly polysemic, with varying definitions across and within geographical regions. The fact that the Nepalese PhD candidates shared their experiences of the “third gender” with the colleagues from South Sudan, Uganda, and Norway was particularly valuable, as they were not part of what could be read as a “Western frame of understanding.” It may be argued that much of the pressure for both strict religious laws and LGBTI+ rights in Uganda has its origins in the West, and some argue that the topic of homosexuality is yet another ideological struggle that “the West” is fighting on African soil. Hence, input from another “South partner” certainly had its own value, as it was not perceived as being part of the old “patronizing discourse of the West.” Mainstreaming gender was an important part of the NORHED project, and here the argument of the Women Major Group (WMG, 2014), that it is not sufficient merely to include women in projects but that truly transformative projects should present strategies that focus on increasing women’s and girls’ agency and autonomy so as not only to end discrimination and violence against women but also guarantee gender justice and sustainable development, served as an inspiration. As the group points out, structural and underlying causes, combined with social norms that influence and perpetuate gender inequality, make it difficult to see how isolated initiatives can succeed in delivering the gender-transformative agenda that is essential to end the current status quo, which ensures that half of humanity is held back (WMG, 2014). Clearly, mainstreaming gender also involved intercultural aspects, which manifested not only in the discussions but, on a more physical plane, also in the 295

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classroom when it became necessary to consider female graduate students with children, for instance. It was initially culturally shocking to Ugandan students to see their South Sudanese female colleagues bring babies to class. Interesting exchange happened as mechanisms were developed to ensure the babies were taken care of during class. The South–South dimension of the partnership opened the space for interesting discussions about journalism in relation to issues ranging from post-conflict situations and democratization to climate change, human rights, and sexualities. Furthermore, a particular solidarity in the South–South dimension proved its strength when the Gorkha earthquake hit Nepal in April 2015, killing nearly 9,000 people and injuring some 22,000. Due to the aftershocks, the NORHED partners in Kathmandu had to sleep outside in the streets for several nights in a row. During this challenging time, colleagues in Uganda shared their own experiences of similar circumstances during the Ugandan war where they slept under the open sky due to attacks against their villages. Similar acts of solidarity happened again when, not long after, master students from Juba, South Sudan, in their turn, had to install their families in refugee camps in Uganda as the unrest in South Sudan increased.

Final Reflections Underlying the research collaboration that brought together Northern and Southern researchers and across the graduate cohorts of doctoral and master’s students was a model that ensured horizontal and vertical academic growth within the project. Joint publications between Northern and Southern partners featured works of faculty staff, but also of graduate students. Further, collaboration between Northern and Southern researchers ensured internationalization and de-Westernization of knowledge and epistemologies, emphasizing that developing global abilities must also include the willingness to be exposed to and learn from other perspectives. There are numerous examples in the network of the project’s mutual benefits and of knowledge traveling in many directions, not at all only from the North to the South, as oldfashioned knowledge transmission theories and modernization paradigms would predict. In the course of workshopping the NORHED group’s first joint anthology (Orgeret & Tayeebwa, 2016), it became clear to several of the Norwegian colleagues how much there was to be learned from partners in the South, particularly in the aftermath of the Oslo and Utøya terror attack of 2011, when discussing the role of journalists and trauma, crisis journalism, and the safety of journalists (Frey, 2016). The strength of multiple perspectives was also, time and again, reflected within the network – in scholarly discussions about the role of journalism in transformative development, climate change, democratic and economic governance, for instance (e.g., Nassanga, 2020). Many of the universal global journalistic ideals were both challenged and acquired new relevance when applied in a local context – in the true spirit of “glocalization.” While the NORHED project model was successful in promoting North–South collaborations in research and teaching, as well as the movement of Southern graduate students to the North, the project afforded hardly any movement of Northern students to the Global South to allow for intercultural experiential learning. It is such both-way exchanges that will truly break cultural barriers and bring about what UNESCO refers to as the search for a “new humanism” based on “interculturalism as an adherence to a set of common values, potentially fed by each cultural expression” (2013, p. 61).

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Nevertheless, the NORHED project certainly achieved its overarching goal of “bridging gaps and building futures” between North and South, and South and South, through the training of a new generation of journalists who are equipped with skills and competences that respond to the demands of the current (dis)information age. The project created opportunities for new theoretical considerations questioning Western-centric media values (Tayeebwa, 2016) while simultaneously reflecting on the relevance of the sacrosanct norms of the profession (Rich, 2009). It is our hope that we will see more North–South student exchange included in future projects, to continue the building of knowledge exchanges and to continue strengthening journalism education in ways that undermine threats against the freedom of expression and academic freedom core to our democracies. This echoes the statement of Beate Josephi that “the kind of education future journalists receive matters because journalists matter among the many factors that make up journalism” (2009, p. 42). Despite the changing nature of journalism, or rather, of the conditions under which it is practiced, it is important to keep the sense of public service in the profession, that journalism is providing crucial information but also performing a variety of functions necessary for societies to thrive. Hence, to paraphrase Deuze (2019), in addition to preparing students for the process of rigorous verification and the craft of telling compelling stories that matter to people’s lives, journalism studies, perhaps more than anything, need to prepare future journalist to be dedicated to finding multiple perspectives. There are few ways that this can be done better than through international collaboration projects on journalism education and research.

Notes 1 Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development. Partner institutions: Makerere University (Uganda), College of Journalism and Mass Communication (Nepal), University of Juba (South Sudan), and Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway). 2 Some of the discussions in this chapter partly draw on Orgeret and Tayeebwa (2019).

References Berger, G., & Foote, J. (2017). Taking stock of contemporary journalism education: The end of the classroom as we know it. In R. S. Goodman & E. Steyn (Eds.), Global journalism education in the 21st century: Challenges and innovations. Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas. Berglez, P. (2013). Global journalism: Theory and practice. Peter Lang Publishing Group. Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. L. (2012). Theory from the South: Or how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa. Anthropological Forum, 22(2), 113–131. Deuze, M. (2006). Global journalism education: A conceptual approach. Journalism Studies, 7(1), 19–34. Deuze, M. (2019). What journalism is (not). Social Media+ Society, 5(3). https://doi.org/ 10.1177/2056305119857202 Fourie, P. J. (2010). African ubuntuism as a framework for media ethics: Questions and criticism. In S. J. A. Ward & H. Wasserman (Eds.), Media ethics beyond borders: A global perspective (pp. 105–122). Routledge. Freedman, E., & Shafer, R. (2010). Ambitious in theory but unlikely in practice: A critique of Unesco’s model curricula for journalism education for developing countries and emerging democracies. Journal of Third World Studies, 27(1), 135–153.

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Kristin Skare Orgeret Frey, E. (2016). Improving post-conflict journalism through three dances of trauma studies. In K. S. Orgeret & W. Tayeebwa (Eds.), Journalism in conflict and post-conflict conditions: Worldwide perspectives. Nordicom. Frohlich, R., & Holtz Bacha, C. (2003). Journalism education in Europe and North America: An international comparison. Hampton Press. Garman, A. (2015). Making media theory from the South. African Journalism Studies, 36(1), 169–172. Gopal, P. (2017, October). Yes, we must decolonise: Our teaching has to go beyond elite white men. The Guardian. Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F., Ramaprasad, J., & de Beer, A. S. (2019). Worlds of journalism: Journalistic cultures around the globe. Columbia University Press. Idås, T., Orgeret, K. S., & Backholm, K. (2020). #MeToo, sexual harassment and coping strategies in Norwegian newsrooms. Media and Communication, 8(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/mac. v8i1.2529 Kakooza, F. (2018). The potential and contribution of Facebook in HIV/Aids prevention among young people in Uganda [PhD thesis, University of KwaZuluNatal]. Koirala, S. (2018). Gender representations in the Nepali press during pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict periods [PhD thesis, University of Oslo]. Koirala, S. (2020). Female journalists’ experience of online harassment: A case study of Nepal. Media and Communication, 8(1), 47–56. Loyn, D. (2007). Good journalism or peace journalism? Conflict and Communication Online, 6(2), 1–10. Mosweunyane, D. (2016). Panjandrums in African universities: Inapt scholars for African development. English Language Teaching, 4(1), 1–8. Moyo, L., & Mutsvairo, B. (2018). Can the subaltern think? The decolonial turn in communication research in Africa. In B Mutsvairo (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of media and communication research in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. Nakiwala, A. (2020). Risk perception and negotiation of safety among Ugandan female journalists covering political demonstrations. In A. G. Larsen, I. Fadnes, & R. Krøvel (Eds.), Journalist safety and self-censorship. Routledge. Namasinga, F. (2018). Sourcing in converged media spheres [PhD thesis, University of Oslo]. Namasinga Selnes, F., & Orgeret, K. S. (2020). Social media in Uganda: Revitalising news journalism? Media Culture & Society, 42(3), 380–397. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443719900353 Nassanga, G. (2020). Translating the global climate change into action as reflected in Uganda’s media. Journal of African Media Studies, 12(3). https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00024_1 Nassanga, G., & Walulya, G. (2020). Democracy at stake: Self-censorship as a self-defence strategy for journalists. Media and Communication, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i1.2512 Ntulume, C. (2019). Framing a local conflict: Perspectives from the local press [PhD thesis, University of Oslo]. Ntulume, C. (2021). Resolution, resistance, resilience: Covering the conflict in South Sudan. In K. S. Orgeret (Ed.), Insights on peace and conflict reporting. Routledge. Orgeret, K. S., & Tayeebwa, W. (Eds.). (2016). Journalism in conflict and post-conflict conditions: Worldwide perspectives. Nordicom. Orgeret, K. S., & Tayeebwa, W. (2019). Bridging gaps building futures. In T. Halvorsen, K. Orgeret, & R. Krøvel (Eds.), Sharing knowledge: Transforming societies. African Minds. Rich, C. (2009). Writing and reporting news: A coaching method (6th ed.). Wadsworth. Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social theory and global culture. Sage. Schirch, L. (2021). Social media impacts on conflict and democracy: The techtonic shift. Routledge. Singer, P., & Brooking, E. (2018). Like war: The weaponization of social media. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Tavernaro-Haidarian, L. (2019). Decolonization and development: Reimagining key concepts in education. Research in Education, 103(1), 19–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0034523719839750 Tayeebwa, W. (2016). In quest of Afro-centric media values: Inspirations from the ubuntu philosophy. In A Lahjomri (Ed.), L’Afrique Comme Horizon de Pensée. Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco.

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Collaboration in Journalist Education UNESCO. (2013). Model curricula for journalism education: A compendium of new syllabi. https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000221199.page=103 Walulya, G. (2018). Hybrid journalism: An investigation into press coverage of elections in East Africa’s one-party dominant states of Tanzania and Uganda [PhD thesis, University of Oslo]. Women Major Group (WMG). (2014). https://sdgs.un.org/statements/major-group-women-11032 Zelizer, B. (2008). Explorations in communication and history. Routledge.

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28 ETHNIC JOURNALISM IN RUSSIA Theoretical Approaches for Potential Global Collaboration Anna Gladkova and Elena Vartanova Introduction Ethnic journalism as a profession and as a social mission received extensive coverage in academic literature in recent years. Attempts have been made to draw a line between ethnic, local, locative, diaspora, community, alternative, immigrant, and other types of media, the terms which are sometimes used interchangeably while they should not (Matsaganis et al., 2011); to study ethnic news media in a broad digitalization context and the spread of digital journalism practices, methods, instruments, and platforms (Jamil, 2020); and to examine current development trends of ethnic media in specific regions of the world, also as part of broader “emerging states” group (Vartanova & Gladkova, 2020). Another important and currently, in our view, underexplored approach to ethnic journalism and ethnic media is through cultural discourse studies framework developed by Shi-xu (2016). Within this framework, it is argued that human discourse is today reconceptualized as a multi-faced but integrated communicative event in which people accomplish social interaction through linguistic and other symbolic means and mediums in specific historical and cultural relations. Looking at ethnic journalism in Russia through cultural discourse studies framework, we think an important question should be addressed, that is, interrelation of linguistic means (spoken or written texts) and contextual meanings that lie behind mediated texts/talks in human communication in multiethnic and multicultural context. Research on ethnic journalism has been so far centered mostly on ethnic journalism in Europe (Sahin, 2018) or North America (Yu, 2018). Countries of the Global South remain underexplored when it comes to the analysis of ethnic journalism and ethnic news media (Soobben & Rawjee, 2013; Shamala et al., 2019; Gladkova & Jamil, 2021). Overall, research approaching ethnic journalism in the Global South remains rather limited and often narrow in focus, not allowing for broad cross-country analysis. Recently published Ethnic Journalism in the Global South (Gladkova & Jamil, 2021) is one of the few studies approaching ethnic journalism and ethnic media in the countries of the Global South in a broad comparative way. The book draws a picture of multiethnic, multicultural, multilinguistic character of the Global South region, underlining an important role ethnic media play in this context. It discusses the role of ethnic media in protecting cultures, DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-32

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languages, history, and identities of ethnic groups by providing them an opportunity to voice their ideas and beliefs and securing ethno-cultural diversity in public space. Furthermore, it provides comparisons with countries of the Global North region, aiming to put the book into a global context and allow for deeper understanding of the processes. A certain asset of this book is that it brings together many different examples of ethnic journalistic practices in Brazil, India, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Russia, and other countries in a comparative perspective, that is much needed today in ethnic journalism and ethnic media academic context. This chapter contributes to the discussion about ethnic journalism in the Global South focusing on ethnic journalism in Russia as a changing field that is being significantly influenced by global processes typical for both Global South and Global North regions of the world. Under ethnic journalism hereinafter, we understand journalism of ethnic groups as part of a broader multiethnic and multicultural journalism and media landscape. Here we rely on a broader distinction between ethnic and mainstream journalism, as well as ethnic and mainstream media, where the content of mainstream news media is produced by and produced for the majority population of any society (Jamil, 2020; Matsaganis et al., 2011). It is disseminated by the leading distribution channels as well as delivers news and information to a larger set of population at a time. Mainstream news media is the major source of news consumption by news consumers in any society, and it is considered as a trusted and reliable source of information (Tsfati, 2010). Ethnic news media differ from the mainstream news media as they do not provide information to a large number of people; rather, they focus on news content relevant to specific communities belonging to diverse ethnic and linguistic groups. In terms of content, mainstream news media generally reflect and represent the voices of majority, and thus, it is opined that they can ignore the issues of minority ethnic groups (Jamil, 2020; Holt et al., 2019). Given unprecedented number of ethnic groups living in Russia (over 190 ethnic groups, according to the 2010 all-Russia census, speaking over 170 languages), an important role of ethnic media in securing ethno-cultural diversity, pluralism, multicultural understanding, equality, and inclusion, as well as the fact that minor ethnic groups are often underrepresented in public space due to many reasons – access to ICTs, digital literacy, different forms and levels of divides (age, gender, income, education, motivation, etc.) – we believe a study of ethnic journalism in Russia as part of the Global South region of the world is highly relevant today. This chapter starts by discussing multiethnic character of the Russian society and the state of ethnic media in the country. Then it outlines key transformation trends of ethnic journalism development in general and in Russia in particular, paying attention to both global tendencies such as mediatization, the rise of social networks and others, and specific features typical for Russian context. In the end, we discuss several areas for further research in the field of ethnic journalism that can hopefully bring together discussions around ethnic journalism in the Global South and the Global North and contribute to deeper understanding of both common trends and peculiarities of ethnic journalism in these regions of the world.

Ethnic Journalism in Russia: Cultural Context Russian Federation is one of the most multiethnic and multicultural states in the world. According to the Russian census of 2010, there are over 190 ethnic groups in the territory of the Russian Federation, speaking more than 170 languages. Among the biggest ethnic groups, except for ethnic Russians, according to the data of 2010, are Tatars, Bashkirs, 301

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Chuvash, and Chechens. For 138 out of 142.9 million people living in the territory of Russia, Russian is their mother tongue. Other widespread languages are Tatar, Chechen, Bashkir, Ukrainian, and Chuvash. Oftentimes, people speaking these languages, and other ones which are less frequently used, speak Russian too, thus being bi- or even trilingual. What is unique about Russia is not just linguistic and ethno-cultural heterogeneity of the society but also its historical past as a culturally, linguistically, religiously, and ethnically diverse state – starting from the early years of the country and continuing through the Russian Empire, USSR, post-Soviet, and contemporary Russia (Gladkova & Vartanova, 2021). In the past, however, the status of ethnic groups living in Russia was somewhat different: population of the Soviet Union included many ethnicities and indigenous groups traditionally based in other lands, outside the territory of Russia, which became Soviet republics in 1920–1940s, and returned their status of independent states after the USSR breakup in 1991 (ibid). As Zorin and Abramov (2018) note, keeping ethnicities and their languages, cultures, and traditions has always been a “mega-trend” of the long history of the Russian state, which certainly remains acute nowadays too. Ethnic groups living in the territory of Russia have always had different languages, cultures, lifestyles, religion, and other factors that contributed to their unique character. The development of ethnic media in Russia is largely determined by the broader supportive policies, which are part of the national multicultural strategy aimed at cultural preservation of ethnic minorities in the Russian Federation. Official documents aimed at supporting ethnic languages, cultures, and media in the languages of ethnic groups include state documents, such as Constitution of the Russian Federation, Law on the Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation, Strategy of Russian State National Policy till 2025, National Cultural Policy Framework, as well as international agreements, such as Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Other measures include state-targeted programs and strategies, such as the recently completed Strengthening the Unity of the Russian Nation and Ethnocultural Development of the Peoples of Russia (2014–2020) program. Besides, several organizations were established to foster cultural diversity and tackle ethnic issues in a wider policymaking and public space: Presidential Council for Inter-Ethnic Relations, Centre of Inter-Ethnic Education “Ethno-sphere,” Moscow House of Nationalities, Guild of InterEthnic Journalism, and many others. Today, over 2,200 media outlets in ethnic languages are officially registered in Russia, with absolute majority of them being print media, including 1,500 newspapers and magazines. Still, this number is constantly changing, with many media outlets, especially in small cities and rural areas, being closed because of lack of financing or low profitability. Print media in ethnic languages, which constitute the biggest part of ethnic media in Russia, have been experiencing significant decrease in circulation copies and audience reach. This is an ongoing trend that was earlier discussed by scholars examining the Republic of Tatarstan, Republic of Bashkortostan, Chuvash Republic (Gladkova et al., 2019), and many other Russian regions, including 22 national republics and other federal subjects/constituent units within Russian Federation. Clearly, this is a general trend, mentioned by scholars examining ethnic media in Brazil (Retis, 2021) and other multiethnic societies. The number of online ethnic media differs in Russia significantly, depending on the republic and, possibly, the audience’s access to digital technologies there, the size of indigenous ethnic population, their digital literacy level, and other factors (Vartanova, 2013). The Republic of Tatarstan is currently among the Russian leaders in terms of the number of online media in ethnic languages, possibly also due to successful policies aimed at 302

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overcoming digital inequalities and increasing digital inclusion of local population in the republic (Gladkova & Cherevko, 2020). Earlier studies have shown that more opportunities for education/training/re-training of ethnic journalists in Russia are currently needed. Journalistic work in ethnic media outlets requires special competences and skills, as well as the knowledge of ethnic languages, which is not always the case in ethnic newsrooms in Russia, where journalists often have low level of ethnic languages or have difficulties using digital technologies in their work (Gladkova & Mkrtycheva, 2021). This is in line with what Appiah-Adjei, for example, discussed in Ghana context, arguing that: [J]ournalism training . . . is giving some attention to ethnic journalism but it needs to give more attention to the teaching of ethnic journalism as a full course with a focus on both indigenous-language competence and the principles and necessary skills of news writing and production in ethnic journalism. (Appiah-Adjei, 2021, p. 43) This signals a more or less common trend for many countries of the Global South. Adding up to this, we think special educational programs at graduate or undergraduate levels in Russia are much needed today, as well as continued development of special projects, such as the School of Interethnic Journalism, run by the Guild of Interethnic Journalism in Russia since 2010; Media Forum of Ethnic and Regional Media; “SMIrotvorets” contest for journalists creating publication on ethnic issues; and others. In the next section, we will discuss some trends typical, in a way, for both mainstream and ethnic journalism, with the latter being specifically affected by them due to its unique character. We will show how ethnic journalism is overall changing, illustrating it with examples from Russia.

Ethnic Journalism: Ongoing Changes under Global Transformation Processes If we approach ethnic journalism in a broader perspective, not limiting ourselves to a specific country or region of the world, we can observe a clear trend. Traditionally produced for, and usually also consumed by, a particular ethnic community, ethnic journalism has been generally rather stable in the course of time. Its mission has been traditionally associated with safeguarding multicultural understanding and inclusion, as well as keeping languages, identities, and pluralism of ideas in multicultural settings. Its target audience has traditionally been specific ethnic and cultural communities speaking the languages and associating themselves with these ethnic/cultural groupings. Its funding has come, in many cases, from public funds (Gladkova et al., 2019) as part of the state and media policies aimed at supporting smaller ethnic groups. At the same time, we can see today how ethnic journalism is being affected by ongoing global processes, typical for most regions of the world, including countries of the Global South. The growing power of digital platforms, the increasing popularization of social networking sites, and the development of digital journalism as a new academic field with its theories, research methods, normative underpinnings, and possible futures for academia, as well as for professional journalistic community (Steensen & Westlund, 2021), have clear impact upon both mainstream journalism (in Russia, it is journalism in Russian language 303

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oriented primarily upon Russian-speaking audience) and ethnic journalism (journalism in the languages of smaller ethnic groups based in Russia oriented mostly upon people who speak those languages – to clarify once again here). Ongoing changes in the society, including digitalization, migration from offline to online, the change of communication and news flows (Widholm, 2016) affect journalistic work and call for new competences, skills, and knowledge journalists should possess. Recent research into ethnic journalists’ work (Jamil, 2020) has shown a clear trend taking place in ethnic newsrooms around the world. That is the remaining traditional and, in a way, “oldfashioned” way of news production and distribution, interestingly combined with increasing endeavors to explore new formats and digital journalism tools. Looking into this curious mixture of the old and new elements in ethnic journalism, let us give a few examples illustrating our points. Newspapers and magazines in smaller ethnic languages are often published in Russia as hard copies and distributed through subscription or sometimes even for free. Subscription to a newspaper in the native language has been, for many years, a tradition in many families living in small cities and rural areas of the national republics – Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Sakha (Yakutia), Dagestan, and others (Gladkova et al., 2019). Ethnic media outlets do not normally have a broad audience, being limited, like in Brazil (Retis, 2021) or New Zealand (Ross, 2017), to particular ethnic and cultural communities sharing common identity, history, and social and cultural experience. The readership of these media outlets are often elderly people who speak the languages and are interested in keeping native languages and cultures alive (Gladkova & Cherevko, 2020). More than that, in some cases, only a minority of ethnic minority group members prefer or actually use ethnic media. This raises the possibility that for a majority of ethnic group members, ethnic media are currently not important. Many journalists working in ethnic newsrooms and editorial offices, particularly elderly people, are not able to use digital technologies and digital journalism tools, such as social media and blogging tools, data and statistics websites, etc., and are not confident Internet users either (Jamil, 2020). This situation can be particularly challenging in countries where digital inequalities in ICT access and use are present, including countries of the Global South (Mutsvairo  & Ragnedda, 2019). Digital convergence, migration from offline to online, increased user participation, and a “situation when the reader becomes a content producer while remaining the reader at the same time” (Rublescki & da Silva, 2012) require ethnic journalists today to be flexible, multi-skilled, open to changes, and capable to work with different online platforms and different audiences. As current research shows, ethnic journalists are gradually adapting to this new reality and start following the new rules it sets. Although in some ethnic newsrooms in Russia ICTs are still not being fully used due to the remaining digital divide, lack of motivation, or other reasons (Vartanova, 2013; Gladkova & Mkrtycheva, 2021), a gradual implementation of digital technologies in daily journalistic work is currently becoming more widespread. Some digital journalism tools, such as, for example, social media tools and messengers for collecting and sharing data, are being used more actively by ethnic journalists, while others, including data and statistics websites, data visualization tools, image and audio editing tools, are used less frequently. Another positive implication of ICTs for ethnic journalists’ work is an opportunity to make news production and distribution processes easier and quicker. In this context, mobile journalism, news websites, and news applications are certainly helpful. Mobile phones and other devices play an important role, too, allowing journalists to gather, produce, and distribute news, as well as to communicate with the audience quicker and more efficiently. 304

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In summer/autumn 2020, we conducted a series of expert interviews with journalists working for ethnic media outlets in three national republics of Russia – Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Sakha (Yakutia). In a series of expert interviews with 20 ethnic journalists, we asked about main challenges journalists working for ethnic media outlets – print, TV, radio, and online – face in their professional routine (technological, economic, social, and other challenges) and the new demands the digital environment poses to ethnic journalists in Russia (Gladkova & Vartanova, 2021). Our study revealed several main problems ethnic media in Russia face today, as seen by journalists themselves. First, it is a lack of specialists (correspondents, producers, editors, etc.) speaking fluent ethnic language(s). Many journalists working for ethnic media outlets in Russia speak just Russian, while their knowledge of the language of the national republic they are based in is limited or non-existent. Another issue is lack of digital skills, which are getting more important, as all media are gradually shifting to online. For ethnic media, this trend is specifically important due to a number of advantages online version can bring. This includes, among other things, broadening the audience by reaching out to young people who are active online media users, trying out new platforms for communication, using visualization and multimedia instruments in content production, and much more. Some challenges that have been noted by journalists have remained a problem for a long time already, that is, for instance, a decrease in print copies circulation, which we have mentioned already earlier in the chapter. Quite often, ethnic newspapers and magazines close due to lack of funding, lack of professional staff members willing to work in ethnic newsrooms, full shift of media to online, or other reasons. When asked about the advantages active use of ICTs can bring to journalistic work, most respondents mentioned new opportunities for making content in ethnic languages available to a broader audience, also with the help of social networks. This is particularly important in Russian regions where the audience of ethnic media are usually elderly people, often living in rural areas, and not young people (Gladkova & Cherevko, 2020). Social networks can therefore help ethnic media outlets attract new viewers/readers and increase their profitability on media market. Concluding, as current research shows (Jamil, 2020), ethnic journalists around the world experience similar challenges in their work caused by the changing world around them – the need for new digital skills paralleled with remaining digital gaps in the societies (Mutsvairo & Ragnedda, 2019), lack of funding allocated for ethnic media from the state and lack of additional funding from advertising or donations, decreasing interest of ethnic groups in non-mainstream/alternative media as opposed to commercially viable mainstream media in the dominant language, and other trends. Although in different national contexts journalistic practices vary because of differences in the news production process, the ownership structure, regulation, and funding of ethnic media outlets, we believe that on the whole, ethnic journalism can be perceived as rather stable compared to mainstream journalism. In the last section of the chapter, we will discuss some ideas for further research based on observations we made, aiming to build bridges between ethnic journalism research in the Global South and Global North regions of the world.

Conclusion and Ideas for Further Comparative Research Putting together earlier research on ethnic journalism in Russia and in the countries of the Global South, we believe there are several key areas in ethnic media and ethnic journalism 305

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studies that deserve closer examination together with analysis of specific case studies and examples of ethnic media practices. These are the areas that can also be kept in mind for further comparative studies of ethnic journalism in the Global South and Global North regions of the world, allowing for better understanding of both regions and professional journalistic practices there. First, it is ethnic journalism as a professional field, approached as part of broader national media systems with their specific characteristics (Hallin & Mancini, 2004), currently changing journalistic roles (Mellado  & Hermida, 2021), specifics of media regulation in each country (Vartanova, 2013), and many other aspects. Here, more studies of professional journalistic practices in ethnic media outlets in the countries of the Global South region, challenges they face in their work (availability of ICTs and digital technologies in editorial offices, digital literacy issues, etc.), education/training of journalists working for ethnic media, and best journalistic practices from the Global South are needed. Second, is it ethnic journalism as a social mission, including studies on the role of ethnic media in safeguarding pluralistic media landscape, fostering multicultural understanding and inclusion, protecting ethnic identities and cultures in the Global South. As we noted earlier, cultural discourse studies (Shi-xu, 2016) can suggest a valuable and currently underexplored framework for closer analysis of ethnic journalism in multiethnic societies, so we believe more research should be done in this area in the future. There are currently studies on how cultural discourse studies framework is approached in Chinese (Shi-xu, 2016) and Russian (Gladkova & Vartanova, 2021) multicultural contexts, but not that many attempts to implement this framework in the Global South contexts yet. Third, it is ethnic journalism and digital inequalities. Previous research has shown that a digital divide at the levels of access and skills is present in Russia (Gladkova & Ragnedda, 2020), hindering the development of ethnic media in regions where indigenous ethnic groups experience difficulties accessing the Internet and ICTs, therefore lacking opportunities for development in mediated digitalized reality. Digital divides are present in many countries of the Global South too (Mutsvairo & Ragnedda, 2019; Ragnedda & Gladkova, 2020). In this context, more research on how inequalities in access, skills, and benefits people receive through being online can negatively affect the development of ethnic journalism in the Global South and the ways to overcome these inequalities is needed. Studies of digital inclusion of “vulnerable’ groups (Tsatsou, 2021), including ethnic minorities, as well as of digital inclusion’s relation to social inclusion should be welcome too. Fourth, it is the ownership, regulation, production, and financing aspects of ethnic journalism that constitute essential parts of its work and of its understanding as a professional and social area. In this vein, questions like how ethnic media are regulated and funded (through state subsidies, grants, donations, advertising, subscription, etc.); who owns such media (state, public institutions, private owners, etc.) and, possibly, has control upon their content and editorial strategies; who produces such media (members of an ethnic community in a particular geographic area of a country, one or more media organizations based in an ethnic community’s country of origin, etc.); and how media policy in the Global South today protects media outlets in ethnic languages on a broader federal and regional/local levels should be asked. Recent studies by Elmaghraby (2021) on Egypt, Jena (2021) on India, Matsilele and Maunganidze (2021) on Zimbabwe, and many other related studies have raised those questions and provided multifaceted overviews of the ownership, regulation, production, and financing aspects of ethnic journalism in specific national and cultural contexts. 306

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Fifth, it is ethnic journalism through case study analysis. Here, deeper analysis of journalistic practices and ethnic media in the Global South with a focus on their managerial and editorial strategies, content specifics (including choice of themes and topics for publications), target audience (ethnic communities in a particular geographic space, ethnic communities outside a home country and audiences within the home country, etc.), distribution channels (mail service, door-to-door, public radio or television broadcasting networks, Internet-based networks, etc.), main challenges and trends of development in the digital age, etc. is needed. The earlier mentioned Ethnic Journalism in the Global South (Gladkova & Jamil, 2021) is a good example to be mentioned here, but there is certainly a need for more cross-national and cross-cultural comparative research in this area. In conclusion, we would like to underline two more factors than can contribute, in our view, to further development of ethnic journalism worldwide and are, in a way, general fundamental factors. First, in order to efficiently operate in the information age or information society and be both digitally and socially included, ethnic journalists need a certain level of digital capital (Ragnedda, 2018). For this reason, for scholars, journalism educators, and policymakers involved in tackling digital inequalities, it is important to monitor if any differences in the level of digital capital occur among different population groups living in different part of the country, as well as what specific measures can be taken to increase the level of digital capital and digital inclusion among citizens. Earlier research on Russia (Gladkova et al., 2020) revealed a difference between digital capital among Russian and non-Russian Internet users, which signals a need for more straightforward policies and practices aimed at increasing the digital capital of smaller ethnic groups in multiethnic societies. Furthermore, an important role of media education and digital literacy programs, enabling people to increase their digital capital level and fully use the benefits of online realm – civic engagement, social activism, communication in online space, self-representation and selfactualization, the use of digital services, and much more – should be mentioned. The media and information literacy umbrella concept championed by UNESCO is aimed “to empower people, communities and nations to participate in, and contribute to, global knowledge societies” (UNESCO, 2021). UNESCO’s vision of media and information literacy has a strong emphasis on equality – in this instance, between global communities, in terms of the media they can access and the tools they have to understand it. Given the specific character of the Global South context and the remaining digital gaps between social groups and individuals there, as well as between ethnic groups, we feel there is a clear need for straightforward and consistent educational program aimed at increasing local journalists’ digital competences, media and information literacy, digital capital, and digital inclusion, ensuring ethnic journalists can successfully operate in both offline and online/digital realms.

References Appiah-Adjei, G. (2021). Journalism education and ethnic journalism in Ghana: The case study of Ghana Institute of Journalism and University of Education, Winneba. In A. Gladkova & S. Jamil (Eds.), Ethnic journalism in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. Elmaghraby, S. S. (2021). Mapping ethnic media in Egypt: An examination of counter-publics, reality, and challenges. In A. Gladkova & S. Jamil (Eds.), Ethnic journalism in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. Gladkova, A., & Cherevko, T. (2020). Online media in the languages of Russian ethnic groups: Current state and key trends. World of Media: Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies, 2, 21–35.

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29 THE CHALLENGE OF DISINFORMATION IN THE PORTUGUESE-SPEAKING AFRICAN COUNTRIES’ JOURNALISM Susana Salgado and Nuno Andrade Ferreira Introduction As elsewhere, cases of disinformation originating online have become more and more common in Portuguese-speaking African countries. In Cape Verde, a female opposition party leader was depicted in a fake photo in a pornographic setting, and no one was held accountable for posting it. In Angola, the most notable cases involved doctoring the speeches of the highest figures of state (e.g., former President José Eduardo dos Santos or the current head of state, João Lourenço), attributing to them statements that had not been uttered by them. In Guinea-Bissau, a disinformation episode resulted in the lynching of a Nigerian citizen and attacks on the Nigerian Embassy after rumors circulated on social media that Nigerian citizens (part of the ECOWAS military force that remained in Guinea-Bissau after the 2012 coup d’état) were killing children in Bissau to extract and sell their organs in international markets. Following those rumors, a radio journalist went live to report that the dead body of a child with several organs missing had been found. This terrible news was fake but eventually caused serious diplomatic incidents involving several embassies and the United Nations delegation. The news media in these countries are by no means strangers to manipulation attempts, and these episodes could have occurred without the Internet; however, the Internet has made the production and dissemination of fake content much easier, and disinformation now spreads faster than ever. The actors and goals of disinformation do vary extremely; in some cases, they denote rivalries between political opponents, and in other cases, they reveal structural features of society and, ultimately, its inner prejudices. Nevertheless, these cases demonstrate how exposed journalism is to manipulation and the need to rethink journalistic practices in such complex media environments. Relying on an exploratory approach supported by ten semi-structured interviews with editors-in-chief from some of the most important news media outlets in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe (the interviewees have requested anonymity, and given that they are editors-in-chief, their news media outlets will not be DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-33

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identified as well), and with the main journalists’ professional associations of some of these countries, this chapter examines how the new media environments have been impacting news production and distribution and whether and how the new forms of online disinformation are disrupting the practice of journalism in the Portuguese-speaking African countries. The interviewees were asked to comment on how they perceive disinformation and how their newsrooms are responding to disinformation, including the impact it has on their news organizations and journalistic practices (e.g., relations with sources of information and audiences). The definition of disinformation in our approach closely follows extant literature: disinformation as inaccurate information shared with the intent to deceive, with misinformation as inaccurate information shared by someone who believes it is true (e.g., Ireton & Posetti, 2018; Kapantai et al., 2021). Wardle (2018) has put forward the term “information disorder” to encompass an extensive range of current forms of disinformation and misinformation, such as satire and parody, false connections between news items and photos, misleading content, false context, imposter content, manipulated content, and totally fabricated content.

The Issue of Disinformation in New Democracies As social media content spreads online and by word of mouth, it can influence news media outlets, and therefore, it is critical that journalists understand how disinformation is produced and disseminated and are prepared to both recognize and act against it. If the current information environments and the new information disorders are a challenge for journalists in consolidated democracies, they are even more problematic in new democracies with fragile media and political systems, as it is the case of Portuguese-speaking African countries, where cases of disinformation have been disseminated to shape narratives, manipulate opinions, or delegitimize political opponents. As Wasserman and Madrid-Morales (2022) underline, the issue of disinformation is as widespread in the Global South as in the Global North, but the available knowledge originates mostly from the North. This imbalance not only impairs our general understanding of the phenomena currently seen as information disorders but also undermines the attempts to find solutions, as social and political contexts shape decisively how disinformation is produced and disseminated, and how it affects citizens. Disinformation has been shaping the practice of journalism all over the world. While the news has often become a matter of contention (e.g., Salgado, 2021), many newsrooms have had to rethink some of their journalistic procedures, and journalists were expected to acquire new skills (e.g., Papanagnou, 2021). Ignoring such pressing challenges results in negative consequences, as inaccurate information that flows freely online can cause different kinds of harm, including undermining confidence in journalism and in democracy. New democracies are particularly permeable to disinformation and to manipulation by economic, political, or even foreign interests (the interest of Russia in Africa, for example, is well-known; see, for example, Katsakioris, 2021 for a historical account on the Portuguese-speaking countries). Disinformation campaigns seek to manipulate, distract, confuse, or sow anxiety and discord and tend to be more successful in polarized environments, in which socio-economic inequalities and propaganda are common (Ireton & Posetti, 2018). Indeed, much of the motivation for producing and disseminating fake content and disinformation is politically or economically motivated (Bakir & McStay, 2018). Populist political leaders, for example, have been highly successful in using online disinformation to gain advantages, and African countries are 311

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no exception in this (Mutsvairo & Salgado, 2021). In addition to convincing the public to believe that the fake content is true, disinformation can also impact agenda setting, that is, in what the public sees as important in a given moment (e.g., Vargo et al., 2018). The problem is thus more pressing in fragile democracies, in which access to education and technology is very uneven and challenges to independent media are greater (e.g., Salgado, 2011). Issues of accuracy, transparency, and trust in the news are not new in the Portuguese-speaking African countries (Salgado, 2012, 2014); however, with the growing use of the Internet and social media, disinformation and misinformation have been proliferating, and for not checking appropriately the accuracy of the online content and their sources, journalists are often unknowingly complicit in amplifying such contents. Disinformation has also shaped election processes and outcomes in Africa and has been used to undermine democratization. Following the coup d’états in Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso, narratives were spread about how democracy is inadequate to promote peace and is failing to bring development to these countries, while China and Russia are portrayed as highly effective both economically and politically. Several African governments have devised ways of countering disinformation, but these are often in conflict with democratic values (e.g., freedom of the press and freedom of expression). Such measures include increased surveillance, stricter legal restrictions, or Internet shutdowns (e.g., Rydzak et al., 2020). Given the broad definitions of what could be considered disinformation, such measures have also been used to silence opponents and curb public debates. Furthermore, these laws against disinformation have resulted in further regulation of journalistic practices, limits to freedom of the press, and have increased self-censorship among journalists due to arbitrary applications of the law (it was, for example, the case of the arrest of two Ugandan female journalists, in early 2022, on charges of cyberstalking the country’s president, or in Niger, where the “cybercrime law” led to the conviction of two investigative journalists for republishing the findings of an international report in 2022). This is all the more important considering that journalists’ freedom and self-criticism are not just important to improve journalism but essential in new media environments (Harber, 2020). Journalism could have an importance in soothing political polarization and social inequalities if it is given the opportunity to cover the news independently and to give a voice to all those who are disadvantaged and have been marginalized from public debates.

The Specific Context of the Portuguese-Speaking African Countries The combination of economic precariousness with the lack of specific formation and training has been a pressing problem in the Portuguese-speaking African countries’ journalism, which has affected their democratization paths (Salgado, 2016). In fact, the number of independent professional journalists is not high in the Portuguese-speaking African countries (e.g., 45 in Sao Tome and Principe, 250 in Cape Verde, and approximately 2,000 in Mozambique). And there are acknowledged problems in the journalism practiced in these countries that have become more urgent with the practices of incorporating user-generated content in the news and looking for sources of information online. These problems manifest in news items that are published without proper verification and validation from sources, containing factual inaccuracies, and are worsened by the pervasive lack of preparedness of most journalists to identify and deal with manipulation. The media context of the Portuguese-speaking African countries is characterized by a preponderance of state-controlled, public media outlets; financial difficulties faced by private 312

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press organizations; and self-censorship by journalists (e.g., Salgado, 2014; Reporters Without Borders, 2022). At a greater or lesser degree, such features define the journalistic activity and should therefore be accounted for in any analysis of how newsrooms deal with disinformation. Access to technology, Internet penetration, and use of social media also bear considerable importance in the production and propagation of disinformation (Turcilo & Obrenovic, 2020). And there are disparities in Internet access, with penetration rates ranging from 61.9% in Cabo Verde to 23.1% in Mozambique (Data Reportal, 2022). Similar disparities can be found on the use of social media platforms, particularly Facebook, with penetration rates ranging from 54% in Cabo Verde to 8 or 9% in Angola and Mozambique, respectively (Data Reportal, 2022). Although there are some similarities in the political and media systems of the Portuguesespeaking African countries, their differences are striking. In fact, in some cases, press freedom and news media independence are not guaranteed. Angola ranks 99th in the Reporters Without Borders, 2022 Press Freedom Index. The Angolan media landscape is dominated by state-owned media and an over-representation of the ruling party (MPLA). Several private news outlets were forced to shut down their activity due to financial constraints, while several others were acquired by individuals close to the MPLA government. The same report also highlights obstacles in access to sources of information, and to government sources in particular, and self-censorship is pointed out as a common practice among Angolan journalists. As any journalistic work involving MPLA political figures or the justice system can lead to lawsuits, several Angolan media professionals have been asking for the decriminalization of press offenses. Cape Verde stands in the opposite side of Angola with the freest media environment and the most developed democracy of the five Portuguese-speaking African countries. It is one of the best-ranked African countries in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, but its 36th position in the 2022 ranking represents a drop of nine places compared to 2021. Government pressures have been motivating the rise of self-censorship, and a culture of secrecy persists, making it difficult to access public-interest information. Nevertheless, despite this and the relatively small size of the territory, there is a diverse media environment in which, according to the Cape Verde Association of Journalists (Associação dos Jornalistas de Cabo Verde – AJOC), approximately 250 legally qualified journalists are currently active (interview with AJOC). In general, private media operate under difficult conditions, facing a limited advertising market, and state-owned media are financed by public funding. Guinea-Bissau ranks 92nd in the 2022 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. The country’s political instability and the high levels of poverty result in a particularly difficult environment for journalism. In recent years, there was a deterioration in the safety of journalists, as well as increasing economic pressures. Polarization and political pressure are also characteristics of Guinea-Bissau’s landscape, with the state-owned media being under close government influence. The advertising market is very small, and the news media coverage of certain events frequently depends on the payment of a fee by the organizing entity. Furthermore, self-censorship is pointed out as a common practice among journalists, especially when issues are considered sensitive. Mozambique ranks 116th in the Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 Press Freedom Index. The country was the only Portuguese-speaking African state to worsen its position, with a drop of eight places compared to 2021 (108th). Despite the registration of more than a thousand news media outlets, many of these are not actually active because they lack economic viability. The journalists’ union currently has 2,180 members (interview with Sindicato 313

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Nacional de Jornalistas – National Journalists’ Union). Political authorities and people close to the ruling party (FRELIMO) actively control the news media activity, and the placement of advertising by public companies is another (indirect) form of controlling the news media. There is a culture of secrecy and fear, and despite a rather-complete framework of legal guarantees to protect journalists and journalistic independence, these laws are hardly ever enforced, according to Reporters Without Borders. Sao Tome and Principe is one of the few countries in the world not included in the annual index prepared by Reporters Without Borders. The tiny dimension of the news media sector contributes to explain the lack of data on the archipelago’s performance in terms of press freedom. The Association of Santomean Journalists estimates a total of about 45 journalists currently working in the country (interview with the Sindicato dos Jornalistas e Técnicos da Comunicação Social de São Tomé e Príncipe). As in the other countries, journalists face economic precariousness and political pressures (Salgado, 2014).

The News Editors’ Perceptions of Disinformation Disinformation affects not only journalistic practices but also trust in journalism. The spread of rumors, propaganda, and disinformation has contributed to the undermining of journalism and access to quality information globally (Reporters Without Borders, 2022). In our interviews, journalists in the Portuguese-speaking African countries have demonstrated awareness of the problems that disinformation causes to the quality of information and to democracy in general and have expressed concerns about the lack of measures to address these new challenges. In Guinea-Bissau, for example, the editor-in-chief of one of the main privately owned radio stations argued that disinformation is an additional challenge to journalistic activity in the country and, specifically, for those who hold management duties in news media organizations, making it more necessary than ever to increase the levels of professionalism and journalistic training. The editor-in-chief of another privately operated radio station related the circulation of disinformation to the financial weaknesses of the country’s news media and explains that such weakness exacerbates both the problem and the consequences. In Angola, the general director of a media group that owns several leading titles emphasized precisely the same idea and revealed that the lack of resources, both material and human, along with insufficient technical preparation of most journalists to deal with disinformation, conflate in lack of responses and, often, in them ignoring the problem. The news editor of an Angolan public television channel believes that disinformation is a challenge that requires daily action, because it is not just produced online but also comes from the other news media. In Mozambique, the gravity of the consequences of disinformation was also recognized, and the editor-in-chief of a long-lasting, privately owned newspaper sees disinformation as an additional challenge for journalists, and particularly for those with editorial responsibilities. Conversely, the deputy editor-in-chief of a newspaper published in Cape Verde does not think that the journalistic processes are threatened by the circulation of disinformation, because the journalism practiced in the archipelago is mostly based on official sources. Indeed, a senior editorial staff of another Cape Verdean newspaper disclosed that the journalism produced by this outlet was mostly based on official sources, press conferences, press releases issued by the government, state agencies, and political parties, as well as the news coverage of public events. This is not a specific feature of Cape Verdean journalism, as in the other four countries, the weight of institutional sources is similar. 314

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The emphasis placed on institutional sources is an important feature of journalism in the Portuguese-speaking African countries that could mitigate some of the impact of disinformation. But if journalists mostly rely on official sources in their news reports, the almost inexistence of investigative reporting and the absence of key journalistic routines, such as fact- and source-checking, and systematic verification make these journalists easy preys to all kinds of manipulation, including disinformation. The use of the Internet in journalistic routines has facilitated access to all kinds of information, but it also means that the direct contact with the sources of information often gets lost. This was acknowledged by the editor-in-chief of an Angolan public television channel, who admitted that the Internet had made journalistic scrutiny processes much more difficult for journalists. But many of the online sources are also institutional ones, according to the deputy editor-in-chief of a Cape Verdean newspaper: the information collected on the Internet originates mainly from national and international news agencies and other news media in Portuguese and English languages. The same happens in Angola and Guinea-Bissau, as an Angolan editorial director explained, official accounts of public institutions are regularly checked by journalists searching for information and statements; while in Bissau, as explained by the editor-in-chief of a radio station, websites considered reliable and social media accounts of political leaders and other public figures are commonly used. In fact, in a country with the dimension and the fragilities of GuineaBissau and considering the lack of resources in newsrooms, it would be almost impossible to maintain an influential, updated news outlet without resorting to online sources for gathering information, as the editor-in-chief of another radio station based in Bissau recognized. But here, too, the most widely used websites include news agencies and other news media published in Portuguese language. In Mozambique, the editor-in-chief of a privately owned newspaper admitted to resorting to all kinds of online sources for information but also recognized that many of these resources are full of problematic, misleading, and fake content.

Journalistic Procedures to Counteract Disinformation The Internet is thus a key resource for journalists in news media outlets that struggle with financial difficulties. It offers the opportunity to access sources otherwise unreachable, and it is a way to mitigate financial constraints that result in few resources for on-the-ground journalism. And news editors in the five countries have confirmed the growing importance that the Internet has had in their journalistic practices. Nevertheless, due to the widespread circulation of online disinformation, the use of the Internet also requires that journalists have more skills to identity and deal with contents that are distorted or fake, and that newsrooms adopt efficient procedures to verify the credibility and reliability of online information. Extant research has identified tensions between such verification processes and the growing demands for fast-paced publishing (e.g., Brandtzaeg et al., 2016), as well as tensions between the goals of responsible reporting and the social media platforms’ objective of maximizing monetizable audience metrics (Caplan & boyd, 2018). Some newsrooms in the Portuguese-speaking African countries have established new information verification procedures, but the practice is not common. For example, the deputy editor-in-chief of a leading newspaper in Cabo Verde explained that to scrutinize information obtained online, the practice in his newsroom includes identifying the author and possible sponsor of the information, as well as the domain of the website; and following this first assessment, journalists then evaluate whether the content is factual or opinionated. Still, there is no specific procedure for disinformation, and journalists use the general rules 315

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for information verification. A similar situation happens in one of the oldest Mozambican newspapers, where journalists rely on their usual professional protocols when they come across suspicious information. A reason for not engaging in new, specific procedures to deal with online disinformation is given by the editor-in-chief of one of the main radio stations in Bissau, by underlying that lies and rumors are old and highly disseminated phenomena that the newsrooms have always had to deal with. Therefore, journalists are simply instructed to confirm any information obtained online, resorting to credible sources. The editor-in-chief of another radio station in Bissau strongly believes that the editorial staff is perfectly capable of identifying disinformation, which he defines as the act of deceiving or the will to make a lie appear as if it were the truth. In Angola, the verification procedures vary according to the news outlet, but information attributed to official sources is not usually verified. The editor-in-chief of an Angolan public television channel explains that his newsroom always cross-checks sources to validate online information, and that information not coming from an official or credible source is excluded, but his definition of “credible” was not clear. The approach to online information in a privately owned Angolan media group is similar and involves validation of the credibility of the source and the reliability of the site where the information was originally published. If any suspicions are raised, journalists are required to cross-check the information and obtain confirmation from at least three other online sources, and when doubts persist, direct contact with the original source becomes mandatory. In Angola, information released by official bodies and published in other outlets are not usually validated. Despite the lack of strategies and tools to deal with disinformation in the newsrooms, the issue of disinformation seems to be downplayed by several of the news editors interviewed in this exploratory study. Being that the news media in these countries are no strangers to manipulation attempts or because disinformation itself is not a new phenomenon, the advantages brought by the use of the Internet largely outweigh the dangers in these news editors’ view.

The Importance of Journalistic Training Although the disinformation threat is widely acknowledged, it does not seem to be in a sufficient manner to update established practices. But considering the lack of systematic newsroom protocols for dealing with disinformation, these news editors are aware of the importance of specific journalistic training, including clear guidelines on how to detect and report disinformation. Journalism now faces challenges that come from being practiced in an information environment that is increasingly complex. Thus, any effective remedy needs to include not only the formulation of best practices and protocols adjusted to the new reality but also providing access to training and new tools. The Mozambican Journalists Union (Sindicato Nacional de Jornalistas de Moçambique) has been carrying out highly attended training programs on disinformation. But the union believes this work has just begun, as technology is constantly changing and most journalists are not well prepared and lack the necessary skills to assess the credibility of information found online. The editor-in-chief of a Mozambican newspaper confirmed the existence of different training initiatives which have allowed Mozambican journalists to revisit basic concepts regarding source credibility; however, sessions with a focus on practical cases would be more important to study past mistakes and discuss best practices adjusted to the country’s reality. 316

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In Angola, also recognized is the need for comprehensive training programs to enable journalists to understand what disinformation is, its effects, both on journalism and society, and the mechanisms to prevent it. Training sessions on disinformation have been organized, for example, by the Centro de Formação de Jornalistas (CEFOJOR – Centre for Journalists Training), but these initiatives have not been widely promoted, as several news editors noted they had not been informed about them. The editor-in-chief of a privately owned radio station in Bissau stressed the importance and recollected several journalistic training programs in which disinformation was addressed, including the presentation and explanation of different verification strategies and procedures on how to deal with fake news. But the director of another private radio station based in Bissau was not aware of the existence of any specific training on disinformation. He does believe, however, that such initiatives would be very useful for journalists working in the country, by illuminating the concept of disinformation, its historical background, the applicable legal measures, including those related to freedom of the press and ethics. The lack of specific training initiatives on disinformation and verification of information is a fact in Cape Verde. According to the Cape Verdean Association of Journalists (AJOC), the inexistence of these training initiatives is not due to a lack of acknowledgment of their importance, as journalists in Cape Verde are not prepared to deal with these new challenges and their work would highly benefit from training on legislation, the impacts of disinformation, and on how to identify and address different cases of disinformation. Despite positing a low level of threat of disinformation in Cape Verdean media, the deputy editor-in-chief of a newspaper acknowledged the relevance of specific training programs on disinformation as a response to the production and dissemination of fake news. The small dimension of the media sector in Sao Tome and Principe does not make it immune to the phenomenon of disinformation. Both the threat and the need for specific journalistic training were recognized by the Sindicato dos Jornalistas e Técnicos da Comunicação Social de São Tomé e Príncipe (San Tomean Journalists and Social Communication Technicians’ Union), which highlighted that such training should be focused on the definition of disinformation, its consequences, and how to address it.

Conclusion Online disinformation has been used to delegitimize opponents, institutions, or democracy overall. Its impact depends on the access to quality information, on the strength of democratic institutions, as well as on the social and economic conditions that determine access to education and technology. This suggests that dealing with this problem entails comprehensive approaches that, in addition to new legal frameworks and digital literacy measures, include robust forms of supporting quality journalism. The amount of content produced and spread is enormous, and journalists are expected to act as a filter determining the provenance and veracity of such content and deciding whether or not to amplify its visibility in their news reports. This is part of their role as gatekeepers, but one for which many of them do not feel prepared to take on. This exploratory approach of the situation in the Portuguese-speaking African countries demonstrated how journalists in new democracies are even more challenged by the free flows of online disinformation. The highly institutional character of the journalism practiced in these countries could function as a barrier, but not as a shield. Although not always admitted by the editors-in-chief interviewed in this study, newsrooms in these five countries are, in general, underequipped 317

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to effectively counter online disinformation, similarly to what historically has happened with conventional forms of political manipulation. Fact- and source-checking and verification have long been journalistic practices, but online user-generated content brought new difficulties that require improved practices and new skills. As Internet and social media become more and more part of newsgathering, production, and distribution, as it is the case in the Portuguese-speaking African newsrooms, journalistic training on disinformation becomes more crucial as well, including on the existing responses and their effectiveness and the best practices to counteract the spread of disinformation. Such training initiatives have been almost inexistent in these five countries. Among the editors-in-chief interviewed, there was awareness of the scale and impact of today’s forms of disinformation; however, they have also stressed that disinformation is not new and that journalists in their countries have always dealt with manipulation attempts. Scholars and international organizations have underlined the different types of fragilities of the media systems of the Portuguese-speaking African countries, and our interviewees have confirmed these constraints, by referring to the poor robustness of means in their newsrooms, to the high reliance on online information, and to an inadequate training of journalists. Our exploratory study has just scratched the surface. It intended to provide a first account of how the news media in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe are dealing with online content and disinformation. Further research should examine further, resorting to ethnographic methods in addition to interviews, the journalistic practices in different types of media, both public and privately owned, in the five countries.

References Bakir, V., & McStay, A. (2018). Fake news and the economy of emotions: Problems, causes, solutions. Digital Journalism, 6(2), 154–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1345645 Brandtzaeg, P. B., Lüders, M., Spangenberg, J., Rath-Wiggins, L., & Følstad, A. (2016). Emerging journalistic verification practices concerning social media. Journalism Practice, 10(3), 323–342. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2015.1020331 Caplan, R., & boyd, D. (2018). Isomorphism through algorithms: Institutional dependencies in the case of Facebook. Big Data & Society, 5(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951718757253 Data Reportal. (2022). Global digital insights. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from https://datareportal. com/reports/digital-2022-global-overview-report Harber, A. (2020). So, for the record: Behind the headlines in an era of state capture. Jonathan Ball Publishers. Ireton, C., & Posetti, J. (Eds.). (2018). Journalism, “fake news’ & disinformation: Handbook for journalism education and training. UNESCO Series on Journalism Training. Retrieved August 12, 2022, from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000265552 Kapantai, E., Christopoulou, A., Berberidis, C., & Peristeras, V. (2021). A systematic literature review on disinformation: Toward a unified taxonomical framework. New Media & Society, 23(5), 1301– 1326. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820959296 Katsakioris, C. (2021). Students from Portuguese Africa in the Soviet Union, 1960–74: Anticolonialism, education, and the socialist alliance. Journal of Contemporary History, 56(1), 142–165. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009419893739 Mutsvairo, B., & Salgado, S. (2021). Populism in Africa: Personalistic leaders and the illusion of representation. In H. Tumber & S. Waisbord (Eds.), The Routledge companion to media misrepresentation and populism (pp. 335–344). Routledge. Papanagnou, V. (2021). Who is a good journalist? Evaluations of journalistic worth in the era of social media. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211036848 Reporters Without Borders. (2022). 2022 press freedom index. Retrieved August 8, 2022, from https:// rsf.org/en/index

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The Challenge of Disinformation in Journalism Rydzak, J., Karanja, M., & Opiyo, N. (2020). Internet shutdowns in Africa | Dissent does not die in darkness: Network shutdowns and collective action in African countries. International Journal of Communication, 14, 4264–4287. Salgado, S. (2011). O digital entre os muitos “divides” de África [The digital among the “divides” of Africa]. Media & Jornalismo, 18(10), 100–111. Salgado, S. (2012). The Web in African countries: Exploring the possible influences of the Internet in the democratization processes. Information, Communication & Society, 15(9), 1373–1389. https:// doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2011.647044 Salgado, S. (2014). The Internet and democracy building in Lusophone African countries. Routledge, Taylor and Francis. Salgado, S. (2016). Political participation, alternative media and citizen journalism in Lusophone Africa. In B. Mutsvairo (Ed.), Participatory politics and citizen journalism in a networked Africa: A connected continent (pp. 187–201). Palgrave Macmillan. Salgado, S. (2021). Disputes over or against reality? Fine-graining the textures of post-truth politics. In H. Tumber & S. Waisbord (Eds.), The Routledge companion to media misrepresentation and populism (pp. 101–109). Routledge. Turcilo, L., & Obrenovic, M. (2020). Misinformation, disinformation, malinformation: Causes, trends, and their influence on democracy. Heinrich Böll Foundation. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from www. boell.de/en/2020/08/25/misinformation-disinformation-malinformation Vargo, C. J., Guo, L., & Amazeen, M. A. (2018). The agenda-setting power of fake news: A big data analysis of the online media landscape from 2014 to 2016. New Media & Society, 20(5), 2028– 2049. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817712086 Wardle, C. (2018). The need for smarter definitions and practical, timely empirical research on information disorder. Digital Journalism, 6(8), 951–963. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2018.150 2047 Wasserman, H., & Madrid-Morales, D. (Eds.). (2022). Disinformation in the Global South. Wiley-Blackwell.

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30 CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE IN JOURNALISM STUDIES The Three-Faced Disadvantage of Underrepresentation, Isolation, and Westernization Gergő Háló and Márton Demeter Introduction In this chapter, we argue that the challenge for de-Westernizing Central and Eastern European (CEE) media studies is marked by three interconnected notions: underrepresentation, isolation, and Westernization. On one hand, within the international context of the extensively Westernized journalism and media studies, the study of CEE journalism necessitates a more culturally and historically attentive, as well as epistemically diverse, analysis of media and journalistic cultures, norms, values, and practices that might differ from the ones typical for Western normative models of liberal democracies. Notwithstanding, such processes are hindered by both the ideological and actualized isolation stemming from the state socialist past of the region, as well as the international underrepresentation of CEE scholars and journalists marked by Western hegemonies and the exclusiveness and superiority of Western norms and standards. To amend these shortcomings, connecting research and journalistic communities of Western and CEE scholars and practitioners in a collaborative manner that enables flourishing knowledge exchange is prompted. In the first part of the chapter, we provide a brief overview of the changes that media environments went through within the region after the post-socialist transition, as well as the historical legacies these societies and markets are fundamentally determined by, with a special attention toward cultural and media environmental diversity within the region. At the same time, we formulate our critique with regards to culturally insensitive, epistemologically skewed, and paternalistic Westernization of Central and Eastern European journalism and journalistic cultures. In the second part, we provide an empirical analysis in which we investigate the international position of CEE journalism studies as it is represented by scholarly publications, editorial board memberships, and international collaborations in the most prestigious international journals in journalism studies. We argue that journalism studies in the CEE region have a specific development that is, in many senses, different from DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-34

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the discipline’s Western evolution, and scholarship from the region is almost invisible on an international scale, and thus the region’s contribution in shaping the field is limited. In this sense, the CEE region shares the same disadvantages of underrepresentation as other regions of the Global South, like Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Unfortunately, unlike Latin America or Asia that started to develop a regional identity in academic knowledge production (Demeter, 2020), the CEE region lacks a regional cohesion, shows a very low level of international collaboration, and the limited number of international papers are “Westernized” in the sense that they are written with Western, and not with other CEE (or other non-Western), co-authors.

(Center and) East Meets West Following the fall of communism and the inauguration of the post-communist era more than three decades ago, widespread democratization processes started across the CEE region. Notwithstanding, these changes took highly diverse forms across countries. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced various reforms (glasnost, “transparency”; perestroika, restructuring of the political-economic systems) related to media and media freedom in the Soviet Union. As a result, a plethora of new media outlets appeared, steering the chatter regarding Stalin’s repressions toward an open questioning of the ideological principles that the Soviet Union and its alliances had been built on (Coman & Karadjov, 2021). The widespread state socialist media model, whereby the government undertakes and controls the totality of media in order to disseminate and promote state socialist and communist ideologies, was to face novel liberalization processes as CEE and Russia chose a free market logic over planned economies and traded state socialism for capitalism at the time of transition, also providing grounds for comparative media and journalism studies to analyze the region.

Problems with Homogenization At the same time, from a scholarly perspective, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) seem to be a rather ambiguous and problematic region to analyze (Mutsvairo et al., 2021). On one hand, there is prominent debate on which countries should be considered to be part of CEE in the first place (Dobek-Ostrowska, 2015; Minielli et al., 2021). In fact, there is no generally accepted consideration of the countries that constitute the CEE region. Furthermore, studies applying Western frameworks – generally with the aim of contributing to the “fourth model” of media and political systems typical to post-socialist countries (Castro Herrero et al., 2017; Hallin & Mancini, 2012) – are having a hard time categorizing and conceptualizing the CEE media environment. One of the main reasons for this is the cultural-political diversity that is apparent in the region. As current CEE media environments are heavily dependent on national historical and cultural legacies, a high variance of media–political relationships and media freedom is also indicated within the region (Bajomi-Lázár, 2015). Dobek-Ostrowska (2015), merging the four theories of the press (Siebert et al., 1956) with the typology offered by Hallin and Mancini (2004), indicates at least four typical media models to be prominent in the area today. The liberal hybrid model describes Estonia, Czech Republic, and Slovenia; the politicized model reflects Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania; the authoritarian model, which stays closest to the state socialist communist historical legacy, is represented in Belarus and Russia; while the media environment in Albania, Kosovo, Moldova, and Montenegro is 321

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to be described by the media in transition model. Following the analysis, Dobek-Ostrowska (2015) emphasizes the importance for scholarship to acknowledge both the diversity of the region with regards to media contexts as well as the shared historical aspects and common state socialist legacies. For that, and at the same time, the CEE region provides a prolific foundation for investigating cultural diversities of media environments.

Problems with Underrepresentation Journalism and media studies regarding CEE also seem problematic because CEE scholarship – and therefore CEE epistemologies – is being severely underrepresented in global academic knowledge production (Demeter, 2018a; Goyanes  & Demeter, 2020). Besides apparent biases of the Westernized academic sphere against more peripheral regions (Demeter, 2019, 2020; Ha, 2016; Main et al., 2019), historical legacies also hinder integration processes into the international research community of the CEE region. Researchers agree, for instance, that the development of CEE scholarship is severely burdened by the general lack of ideological openness of research during the Soviet oppression (e.g., Karady & Nagy, 2018; Warczok & Zarycki, 2018). Western scholarship was, in fact, considered as suspicious if not antagonist during the Cold War (Dobbins, 2011). Furthermore, rooted in the official promotion of Russian as a second language instead of English, which, by that time, and ever since, was the international academic lingua franca (Demeter, 2018b), linguistic disadvantages arose, rendering access to international literature not only ideologically but also technically problematic. The chronic underfunding of higher education is also evident from historical-­statistical data, and it causes several burdens (e.g., low mobility, underpayment) with regards to research excellence (Kwiek, 2012). It is important to note that while ideological closedness has been slowly decreasing ever since the transition, the CEE region’s economic underdevelopment and the underfunding of higher education remain (Karady  & Nagy, 2018; Kwiek, 2014; Warczok & Zarycki, 2018), and despite the new state strategies by which CEE countries try to make the field of the academy more competitive (Dobbins & Kwiek, 2017), the region is still lagging behind developed Western countries in terms of both research funding, publication excellence, and scholarly collaborations (Dobos et al., 2020). Kwiek (2012) argues that these communist and post-communist legacies may also results in CEE scholarship being effectively cut off from the emergent European research area (Antonowicz et al., 2017).

Problems with Paternalistic Westernization Consequently, recent interest in CEE as a research field in journalism is less attributed to CEE scholars gaining international visibility and a following impact within the field, and rather to Western scholarship’s growing interest in whether post-communist CEE media systems and journalistic culture developments following the transition would attune to the Western liberal democratic norms (Dobek-Ostrowska & Głowacki, 2015; Harro-Loit, 2015; Jakubowicz, 1998; Price et al., 2003). Processes of societal-political transformations in the last three decades, following the transition, have been substantially hindered by authoritarian path dependencies, frequent political regime alterations, wars, and economic crises. Hallin and Mancini (2012) posit that the weak journalistic autonomy (and a strong political parallelism) is rooted in the shift toward a post-industrial societal context with tensions between 322

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liberalistic and collectivistic traditions. In most cases, the introduction of democratic institutions, therefore, led to the media being heavily exposed to external political and economic pressures (Jakubowicz, 2004; Peruško, 2014), while cultural memories of the communist and state socialist years once again brought about clientelism, nepotism, and self-censorship (Mihelj & Huxtable, 2018). Analyzing media systems of CEE countries in a comparative manner, at the same time, involves several shortcomings. First, as already mentioned earlier, we cannot talk about a CEE media model (“fourth” model of media systems; Brüggemann et al., 2014; Hallin & Mancini, 2011), as the region’s diversity has been plainly indicated with regards to both media markets and economies as well as democratic values and media freedom (BajomiLázár, 2015; Freedom House, 2020; Reporters Without Borders, 2020). Second, analyzing media environments through institutions, structures, and systems – mainly when frameworks are derived based on Western notions of democratic institutions – does not correspond to the dynamics of emerging democracies (Jakubowicz, 2004, 2008) and the variant political context of CEE countries (Chadwick, 2013; McNutt, 2018). For that, journalism studies must embrace a culture-based perspective that is able to illuminate these complex processes and dynamics between economical, political, and media environmental factors and agents in more detail (Coman, 2000). Notwithstanding, both these issues indicate the need of a de-Westernization process with regards to CEE journalism (Curran & Myung-Jin, 2000; Lauk, 2008). Unsurprisingly, then, the culturally insensitive and uncritical implementation of Western journalistic norms within the CEE was unsuccessful. Lauk (2008) identifies colliding cultural values to be at the core of the problem here, where local values (i.e., social harmony, unity, respect toward central authority, and collectivism) are questioned by exported Western norms (i.e., individualism, rule of formal law, creativity, and the “watchdog” role of journalists). Within this context, and from a Western perspective, CEE journalistic cultures – that propagate journalistic practices of opinion leadership (Horváth, 1991; Jakubowicz, 1998) or advocacy for the people (Goban-Klas, 1997; Gross, 1996) – are most often labeled as biased and subjective, even though they potentially embody legitimate professional values, however different from Western norms. Historical ­legacies and path dependencies, therefore, although valuable tools for analysis, should not be ­considered to negate regional journalistic values by default, values that also potentially enrich our understanding of adequate – that is, epistemically diverse and culturally sensitive – journalism. The problem, afterward, is that the aforementioned unbalanced power relations of the academic sphere open the gates for unbalanced cultural epistemic and normative dynamics to arise. The general developmentalist normative attitude (Mutsvairo et al., 2021) among most Western and many CEE journalists and scholars implies CEE journalism to be heavily corrupted and underdeveloped when contrasted to the “professional” and “ethical” journalism of Western liberal democratic cultures (Curran & Myung-Jin, 2000), and as media environments are heavily reliant on local cultural-political contexts, these implications of inferiority concerning the CEE region’s journalistic culture are then easily seen to further implicate cultural-historical hegemonies. These unbalanced and paternalistic power relations of international journalism are also often echoed by CEE practitioners. Wojciech Maziarski, a journalist from Poland, for instance, summarized the context rather adequately: “Western journalists decided to be good to us, assuming that we are people coming from the bushes and it is necessary to enlighten us” (Lauk, 2008, p. 195). 323

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Collaboration in Journalism Studies: CEE Connections In the first part of our chapter we argued that the state of international journalism research should be contested for the exclusive and superior manner Western norms and standards are currently being promoted. At the same time, connecting Western scholars with CEE specialists via collaborations is necessitated for local scholars and journalists to be able to present and disseminate their views on journalistic norms, values, and practices, as well as theories and research. Consequently, a more balanced epistemic field in international journalism research is desirable for at least two reasons. On one hand, a diversity of theories, models, and approaches widens the perspective of mainstream research, that – following Merton’s norm of universality – assures a better (that is, more culturally sensitive and contextualized) scientific understanding of social phenomena. At the same time, such environment promotes inclusivity toward CEE scholars with regards to the mainstream discourse so that they can formulate their opinions and disseminate their views in a meaningful, visible, and participatory manner. To account for the current international state of journalism studies regarding CEE, in the following section we provide an empirical analysis in which we investigate the international position of CEE journalism studies as it is represented by scholarly publications, editorial board memberships, and international collaborations in the most prestigious international journals in journalism studies. The analysis of the publication patterns of CEE journalism scholars is instructive for at least two reasons. The first is about the content of the academic curriculum that is offered to CEE journalism and media students. As more and more CEE universities offer international courses, the literature these courses use should be written in English, and thus, Englishlanguage textbooks and academic papers have a significant effect on the epistemic and thematic content of the courses. Moreover, as CEE journalism and media studies’ regional tradition is relatively short, there might be a lack in national media theories, and thus, these theories – as well as the main textbooks – are imported from the West or translated from Western literature (Minielli et al., 2021). Second, research found that there might be a professional antagonism between the academic culture of more internationalized younger scholars and the academic culture of their senior peers that might follow the path dependencies of the state socialist legacy (Bajnok et al., 2022). Consequently, the international collaboration network of those typically younger CEE scholars that publish in the globally visible publication platforms can be characteristic for the future of CEE journalism and media studies. Besides the international visibility of its publications, a region’s academic representation is also manifested in its share in the editorial boards of leading international journals. As many studies observed, the geographic diversity of journal editorial boards correlates with the authorship and content, so a journal with a geographically more diverse editorial board might be geographically more diverse in terms of authors or topics (Demeter, 2020; Goyanes & Demeter, 2020; Lauf, 2005). Consequently, we can assume that the representation of CEE scholars in the editorial boards of international journals in journalism studies (together with the representation of CEE scholars among the authors of these journals) can be instructive in assessing the international position of CEE journalism scholars.

Methods and Analysis Data Collection We selected the five journalism journals with the highest international reputation as it is represented in the disciplinary ranking of Scopus/Scimago: Journalism (n = 1,315), Journalism 324

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Studies (n = 1,402), Journalism Practice (n = 1,031), Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly (n  =  2,505), and Digital Journalism (n  =  667). We suggest that these “elite” international journals are primer sources for the international dissemination of journalism research from several reasons. First, in many countries, publishing in JCR-ranked journals might be mandatory for promotion or even to defend one’s PhD thesis. Second, most of these journals have many-decades-long tradition, so they are very well established in the field. Third, these journals are considered as general platforms with the widest scope within journalism studies, without a specific emphasis on a given subfield or geographical region. Finally, as it is reflected by their top positions on various journal rankings such as Scimago Journal Ranking or the Journal Citation Report, these are the journals that have the most citations and thus have the greatest impact on the field. Consequently, while there are some indexed international journals that might publish a considerable number of CEE papers, such as the Central European Journal of Communication, the Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations, or Medijske Studije, they have lower impact, are less focused on journalism studies, and have a specific geographical focus. This peripheral position is reflected by the low citation rates for these journals. For example, all the aforementioned CEE journals have less than 35 citations for the last three years, while the citation counts of our analyzed elite journals are much higher – the range is 693 to 2,249. Moreover, many CEE journals, while they have English abstracts, publish many papers in national languages, such as the Javnost (Slovenian), Medijske Studije (Croatian, Bosnian), or Informacijos Mokslai (Lithuanian). So when assessing the international contribution of CEE journalism scholarship, we focused on those journals that, both historically and empirically, have the highest visibility, reach, and impact among international scholars. For the analysis, we selected only full papers and did not consider other publications, such as editorials, book reviews, errata, or letters. We collected data from Scopus on the country of authors, and we also coded the co-authors of all the papers with at least one author from the CEE region. The dataset consists of all the papers that are indexed in Scopus; thus, the time interval is full and varies across journals (for Journalism, for Journalism Studies, for Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 2013–2022, Digital Journalism, and Journalism Practice). Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is a diverse geographical and cultural space. There are different classifications of countries belonging to the region. For example, the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) classifies only nine countries as a part of the region, while others expand the classification to Southeastern European, Baltic, and some Eurasian countries, so the extended classification consists of 23 countries (Demeter, 2018a). In this current study, we chose the classification based on methodological considerations. Scimago and Scopus define Eastern Europe as consisting of the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. Accordingly, we considered CEE as the set of countries directed to the category “Eastern Europe” by Scimago, without respect to possible alternative categorizations. The country of the analyzed researchers is based solely on the country of their academic affiliation in the time of publication, and it does not refer the country of origin or the nationality of the researcher. This coding is in line with the coding of Scopus as it identifies authors’ country on the basis of their affiliations. For coding the countries of editorial board members’ affiliations, we used manual coding, and we followed the geographical categorization of Scimago/Scopus as discussed earlier. 325

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For the calculation of the CEE representation in authorship and editorial boards, we used simple statistics for showing the presence of regional scholars. For the development of the collaboration graph, we used Gephi for network analysis and visualization. Vertices represent the countries of scholars, while edges represent co-authorship between scholars from different countries. For clustering and showing graph properties, we used Force Atlas algorithm in Gephi. From the 113 papers that were published by CEE scholars, there were 30 international papers with at least two authors from different countries. We did not consider multiauthored cross-country analyses where more than ten countries participated as data providers (n = 2); thus, the full sample consists of 28 papers.

Results Authors’ Representation As Table 30.1 shows, the field is dominated by US scholarship, which provides more than half of papers that have ever been published in the selected journals (3,514 from the totality of 6,600 papers). There are neither countries outside the Euro-American context nor countries of CEE on the top 10 list of the most representative countries. As Table 30.2 shows, the share of non-Western world regions in the publication output of the selected journals is marginal, with 2% of papers from CEE authors. Together with the information provided in Table 30.1, we can see the striking truth that even some relatively small Western countries like the Netherlands publish more than twice as many papers as the whole CEE region (including large countries such as Russia or Poland). The UK alone publishes more papers than all the non-Western world regions (Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East). North European countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway) publish much more papers than Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East altogether. In the CEE region, there are no countries among the top 30 most prolific countries in journalism studies, and the vast majority published fewer than ten papers ever in the selected journals (Table 30.3). Interestingly, Slovenia, with a population of merely two million people,

Table 30.1 Publication Share of the Top 10 Countries in the Selected Journalism Journals Position

Country

Digital Journalism

Journalism Practice

Journalism Studies

Journalism

Journalism and Mass Comm. Quart.

Total

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

US UK Germany Australia Netherlands Sweden Norway Spain Canada Denmark

236 94 69 39 55 36 30 18 25 24

365 147 40 74 42 44 52 50 33 33

486 274 96 89 64 70 51 44 35 42

460 246 65 83 72 31 25 44 35 31

1,967 32 31 11 26 6 2 3 18 4

3514 793 301 296 259 187 160 159 146 134

326

Central and Eastern Europe in Journalism Studies Table 30.2 World Region’s Publication Share in the Selected Journalism Journals Region

n

Percent

US + CAN + AUS + ISRAEL W. EUROPE ASIA AFRICA LATIN AMERICA MIDDLE EAST EASTERN EUR

4,086 1,789 415 81 130 46 113

61 27 6 1 2 1 2

GLOBAL NORTH GLOBAL SOUTH

5,875 785

88 12

Table 30.3 CEE Countries’ Share in the Selected Journalism Journals Position Country

Digital J. J. Practice J. Studies Journalism J. and Mass Sum Comm. Quart.

31 36 37 40 42 44 45 50 53 54 58 60 62 66 67 68 72

4 2 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Slovenia Poland Russian Federation Czech Republic Estonia Romania Hungary Serbia Latvia Bulgaria Albania Croatia Lithuania Ukraine Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Kazakhstan

4 3 1 2 5 2 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1

7 5 4 3 1 3 1 0 2 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0

6 4 10 6 2 3 2 4 2 0 1 1 1 2 1 0 0

0 2 0 0 0 0 3 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

21 16 16 11 9 9 8 5 4 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1

published the most. However, despite being small, Slovenia is held to be the most Westernized CEE country (Mihaljov, 1991); thus, its international visibility in journalism studies can be partially explained by its cultural and industrial Westernization.

Editorial Boards Similarly to the situation we found in authorship, the representation of the CEE region in journal editorial boards is minimal, generally under 2% (Table 30.4). We found the highest contribution in Digital Journalism, the youngest journal we selected; in other cases, the 327

Gergő Háló and Márton Demeter Table 30.4 CEE Countries’ Share in the Editorial Boards in the Selected Journalism Journals

Digital J. J. Practice J. Studies Journalism J. and Mass Comm. Quart. Sum

EB (n)

EE (n)

EE (%)

128 66 79 81 99 453

5 1 2 0 1 9

4 1 2 0 1 2

presence of CEE editorial board members is idiosyncratic or even zero, like in the case of Journalism.

Collaboration Network In the case of the collaboration network, one important issue to note is the relatively small number of international papers, as from the 113 CEE papers, there are only 28 international, less than one quarter of the published papers. More interestingly, from the 28 international papers, there are only 3 that are co-authored by CEE scholars from different countries, and 87% of CEE’s international papers are Westernized in the sense that they are co-authored with Western scholars. The network shows that cross-country collaboration is not strategic; most countries collaborate with each other on one paper only, with the exceptions of Spain–Hungary and Russia–Germany. However, in the first case, all co-authored papers are signed by the same pair of authors, Manuel Goyanes and Márton Demeter, which refers to their personal, and not national, relations. In the second case, all the Russian–German papers are coauthored with scholars from St. Petersburg State University, from which one scholar, Anna Litvinenko, received a position in Germany, so their collaboration is also personal and not institutional.

Implications and Recommendations In line with the underrepresentation of the CEE region in social sciences in general and in communication and media studies in particular (Demeter, 2018a), we found similar CEE underrepresentation in journalism studies. Beyond underrepresentation, we found both the isolation and Westernization of the region that has region-specific implications to CEE journalism studies (Table 30.5). This three-faced disadvantage of underrepresentation, isolation, and Westernization decreases the region’s international competitiveness on the one hand and decreases the international field’s diversity on the other hand, as CEE perspectives remain invisible for the international community. To fight against these disadvantages, CEE community can look at some ways of internationalization and de-Westernization. Demeter et  al. (2022) argued that there are, basically, three different ways of academic de-Westernization, and the CEE region should choose which one is the best for the regional academia. The first way leads to isolation, when a region is mainly concerned with its own language and culture, 328

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Figure 30.1  Co-authorship network of CEE scholars.

Table 30.5 The Three-Faced Disadvantage of Underrepresentation, Isolation, and Westernization Type

Main Characteristics

Implications

Underrepresentation

Less than 2% among authors Less than 2% among editorial board members

Isolation

Small number of international co-authored papers Idiosyncratic collaboration Personal ties instead of institutional ties Almost exclusive collaboration with Western countries No interregional international collaboration

CEE perspectives and contribution remain invisible Week position in gatekeeping Lower diversity in international journals A limited opportunity for knowledge transfer Increasing knowledge gap A danger of intellectual balkanization Weak international ties Assimilation of CEE knowledge and perspectives Underdevelopment of CEE academic identity

Westernization

remaining closed to the international field. While this effort can be seen as a resistance to Western hegemony, it does not influence or confront international knowledge production in any meaningful way. The second version of de-Westernization is assimilation, when regional scholars go to the West, participate in the Western academic life, and follow Western norms. Specifically, it means publishing in Western journals, citing and collaborating with Western authors, and having EB memberships in Western academic journals. While this can provide 329

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better positions for individual scholars, this type of de-Westernization results in an even stronger Western hegemony and thus further increases systemic inequalities. Finally, the Ibero-American way of de-Westernization shows a hybrid accommodation: “by establishing, preserving, and multiplying its specific agencies such as Ebs, journals, languages, and citation networks, Ibero-America not only remains on the map of international communication research, but even gains greater visibility without either assimilation or isolation” (Demeter et al., 2022, p. 338). As the CEE region does not have those linguistic advantages that Ibero-America has, our recommendation is a region-specific fusion of the three ways of de-Westernization and a strengthening of international positions. First, regional identity should be strengthened by more frequent collaboration, organizing internationally visible conferences in the region, publishing special issues with regional focus in leading periodicals. Second, CEE scholars should raise their visibility in top-tier international journals, as if they publish more papers, the more likely they will be invited as editorial board members as well. Thus, as gatekeepers, they can serve both international (raising diversity) and regional (raising regional visibility) purposes. Finally, following the Ibero-American way, CEE scholars might establish and manage international journals that are indexed in international scientific databases. In these periodicals, scholars from the region could be internationally visible without losing their epistemic values, their traditions, and the specific societal problems their research focuses on.

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31 ONTOLOGIES OF JOURNALISM Conceptualizing Objectivity and Emotions in India and the United Kingdom Antje Glück

Introduction In 2022, journalism in the so-called “Global South” has taken on an increasing confidence in affirming its professional values, despite its frequent failure to correspond to the “classic Western” normative aspirations of what journalism ought to be. This shift toward self-assertion takes place against the backdrop of a growing contribution to journalism from previously marginalized knowledge producers across multiple fields, with Global South countries displaying their own emancipating  ontologies and epistemologies (Mutsvairo et al., 2021). Unsurprisingly, perhaps, these developments are attracting the interest  of scholars and experts worldwide. This includes practitioners in the North who are coming to realize the need to de-Westernize our broader understanding of journalism as political institution in society and the practices associated with it. A noticeable expression of the self-awareness of Global South countries is the changing power dynamics when it comes to locating agency in finding solutions for current problems. A testimony for this is the prognosis of Brazilian journalist Natalia Viana for the NiemanLab 2022, arguing that “in the face of climate collapse, it’s time for the North to start looking South – and learn from its people and journalists” (Viana, 2021). These trends and shifts in focus extend beyond the study of journalism. They also play out across disciplinary boundaries, such as with recent calls in academia of, for example, the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK or the Berlin Center for Global Engagement in Germany. These institutions show a keenness to foster more North–South collaborations, aiming to leave behind a time “when solutions to problems located in the Global South were to be found in the Global North” (Baker & Thompson, 2020). The change of mindset brings two sets of opportunities. There is, firstly, the potential for innovation held by knowledge producers in the Global South within a global framework, which includes an ability to incorporate multiple perspectives and a flexibility in adaptation in face of frequent disruptive conditions. At the same time, it provides orientation to Northern countries to engage with developments in society and crisis scenarios through climate



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change, which had previously rather been a part of lifeworlds in the Global South. Viana illustrates this ably: As I see my peers from the U.S. and Europe grappling with the notion underlying climate change – that economic decisions of the past are having devastating consequences over how we live now and how we see the future, if we do at all – I’m reminded of the countless times we reporters from the global South covered the very same issues. (Viana, 2021) Hence, innovation and originality in adapting to dynamics of change and crisis and in finding solutions are not limited to Western democracies but can take place, first and foremost, in any country having undergone radical transformations, such as countries of the Global South or Eastern Europe. In this context, de Albuquerque (2022, p. 1), among many, points to the imperfections of Western democracies which “experience a major crisis,” demanding a subsequent removal of ethnocentric prejudices in the current “multipolar structure.” This includes, too, the questioning of importing “Western” types of knowledge into Eastern European countries (Ţichindeleanu, 2021) or the Global South. Thus, the solutions to key problems can be found in different ways and calling upon a variety of intellectual contexts. And this, in turn, finds its response in journalism, where a refined understanding of the varying ontological manifestations of journalism across different societies is on the rise. Overall, this chapter seeks to contribute to discussions around the ontological complexity within journalism. This by highlighting that it has mostly been dominated by Western/ North journalism assumptions, which are projected as universal axioms. To challenge this, I will focus on the fluidity of journalistic core assumptions in countries of both the Global South and North, and the potential for intellectual growth. In this chapter, through looking at the interrelation between objectivity, emotions, and professional role concepts, I first explore how Global South countries work with and along (imported) Western models of journalistic knowledge production. Secondly, I  investigate how own journalistic practices result to be a better adaptation to production contexts across the Global South while, in parallel, the fragility of long-established professional practices within countries of the Global North becomes visible.

Journalism Ontologies in the Global South and North Ontology, in a philosophical sense, refers to the aim of understanding the basic structures of reality and being. The term itself was introduced rather late into Western philosophical thinking, within the subfield of metaphysics in the 16th century, although its essential ideas were discussed and debated since ancient Greece. The Oxford English Dictionary (1971, p. 131) defines the term as “the science or the study of being.” More specifically in terms of journalism appears the concept of social ontology, which describes “the study of the constituents and construction of social reality, including social institutions and social practices” (Hakli & Mäkelä, 2015). This interlinks with socially constructed realities through collective intentionality. Ontologies of journalism – or fundamentally the differences of how journalism appears in its essence across societies – receive a growing scholarly interest which extends beyond the Global North, which, for a long time, claimed the discursive power of defining (or 334

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even universalizing) what journalism ought to be. This includes conceptualizations about place, space, social role, agency, or actors of journalism. In the Global North, journalism is rethought, for example, through challenging core normative assumptions around objectivity (Martine & Maeyer, 2019) or redefining what journalism is (Ryfe, 2019). The ontological differences of journalism in the Global South have most recently been highlighted by, for example, Mutsvairo et  al. (2021), in repeated calls to de-Westernize and/or decolonize media and journalism studies (e.g., Glück, 2019; Hanitzsch, 2019; Minielli et al., 2022; Ray, 2012; Waisbord, 2015; Waisbord & Mellado, 2014), or in debates integrated into Western-led media conferences, such as in 2022 ECREA in Aarhus and ICA in Paris. The latter brought together a diversity of Global South and Eastern European scholars (Daya Thussu, Hanan Badr, Márton Demeter) who emphasized the need for a nuanced analysis of the conditions for journalistic practice across the globe (ICA, 2022) countering the often “hegemonic epistemologies and ontologies of Western-centric journalism studies” (Mutsvairo et al., 2021). This “ontological complexity of reality” (Capilla, 2021, p.  313) transcends all realms of journalism: news production, content, and consumption. Among the many examples, Mohammed (2019) describes how Ghanian newsrooms use oral epistemologies (or storytelling) when presenting news in an indigenous language, which links to older traditions favoring narrativity in news stories instead of relying on written scripts. Another example from Brazil and Egypt emphasizes a side of journalism which normalizes a certain type of emotive engagement within journalism – away from more rigid “Northern concepts” around objectivity and detachment (Medeiros & Badr, 2022). This chapter links to this by drawing on a comparative empirical study of British and Indian television journalists and their attitudes toward emotionality and affect within their work routines. The following sections draw on a document analysis of nine journalistic codes of conducts1 across the two countries, as well as interviews with more than 40 journalists of different gender, age, and work experience from national TV stations. This chapter presents some empirical core findings of this study. The data illustrates how objectivity as an often vaguely defined principle in journalistic work practice allows a flexible integration of emotions into the normative sphere of journalism.

The Relationship of Objectivity and Emotions in the Global North/South The journalistic idea of objectivity understood as a “scientific rationalism” originated in the 19th century and favors a type of reporting that centers on disconnected facts (Lippmann, 1920), excluding possibilities of reporting and understanding wider structural backgrounds and contexts of social phenomena, such as the context of social tensions being interpreted through class struggles (Lugo-Ocando  & Glück, 2018). In Maras’s (2013) conception, objectivity can be understood as a “product of history, linked to particular cultural formations, as well as the professional aspirations of journalists themselves.” In this sense, LugoOcando (2020) analyzes the wider ideological foundations of the objectivity paradigm as supporting a distinct political and economic model of liberal democracy and market-driven economy, serving as “core feature in the quest for professionalization” of journalism (ibid., 61), as well as being tied to wider frameworks around modern anti-communism. Objectivity and impartiality as key paradigms of the West not only became a deontological and professional aspiration in Western journalism (Deuze, 2005) but was also embraced in many countries of the Global South, where perceived non-ideological journalism gained 335

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popularity among audiences. In the present, these ideas reflect foremost when it comes to usually well-meant capacity-building initiatives by Western media organizations, where teaching Western models of journalistic reporting (such as the objectivity paradigm) might be understood in the continuation of exporting Western journalistic models to Global South countries.

Comparing Journalisms I: What’s the Value of Objectivity within Indian and British TV News Production? British and Indian TV journalism share persisting postcolonial ties. However, both are embedded in two very distinct journalism cultures marked by different media economics and, subsequently, expressiveness for affect and emotions on TV (Glück, 2018). The main aim of this section is to explore the nature of the relationship between “objectivity,” “facts,” and a journalistic understanding of “emotions” in news. For this, I will first analyze journalistic codes of conducts before moving on to journalistic practitioners’ reflections. Objectivity does not seem to be a relevant feature of British and Indian codes of conducts. Only two of the Indian codices (Press Council of India, NBA News Broadcasters Association) and the British OFCOM code mention it but leave its meaning unspecified. In addition, it poses a challenge to translate “objectivity” as a Western term into Hindi – the Indian NBA (2008) code of ethics transliterates it as वस्तुनिष्ठता (vastunishthata, factual error, taking out of context). Though “objectivity” can retain its quite “mythical” looming character, in written codifications, it is largely replaced by the more pragmatic “due impartiality,” referring to context-dependent balance. Van der Wurff and Schönbach (2013) suggest a rather symbolic function of codices, where an interpretation largely depends on the ethical culture of individual news desks. This setup allows journalists to maintain their flexibility in reinterpreting and adapting professional values to shifting professional requirements in journalism. When it comes to journalistic reflections about their work practice, this relationship between objectivity turned out to be diametrically opposite. In the interviews, journalists across India and the UK referred more than four times as often to “objectivity” than to “impartiality.” Indeed, British and Indian journalists shared a broad agreement about the importance of objectivity as guiding principle in today’s news journalism. This is exemplified in statements such as “You have to be objective” by a BBC senior foreign correspondent, echoed by “Objectivity is a very dear value” from an Indian ABP News group editor. Here, the CEO of an Indian private broadcaster recalls his journalism education received in England: [Objectivity] is classical traditional simple straight-forward journalism. That’s journalism; that is what we all are taught as journalists, that what we should be. While the ideal of objectivity matters for journalists across countries, the data equally show that essentialist notions of journalistic cultures do not serve much. In my study, British journalists share a rather-ambivalent attitude toward the value of objectivity, as do Indian journalists. This shows in manifest sketchy answers where objectivity is seen as “multi-dimension[al], multi-faceted” (editor, BBC News24) or a “relative concept” with an “element of grey” (news editor, Doordarshan). Thus, the strong defense of the objectivity principle identified by Pantti (2010) among journalists in Western Europe cannot be sustained. 336

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However, British and Indian journalists disagree about the flexibility of boundaries and qualifiers used in the discourse about objectivity. Journalists in Britain referred to a cluster of professional values which seem highly normative and, at times, idealized, closely in line with journalistic codes of conduct (Golding, 1977; Waisbord, 2013). The most frequently cited values were fairness, balance, and impartiality. This is constantly linked with the demand for fact-based coverage. A senior editor in charge of news summarizes: First of all, our reporters must be impartial; they must be objective; they must report facts. And that is of primary importance. . . . So we guard our independence jealously, and if we ever give side to someone or something, we risk losing that reputation . . .; [nothing should] jeopardize[s] your ability to be impartial, objective, accurate, truthful. (senior news editor, ITN) This objectivity understanding confirms notions about a “Western” role understanding in journalism (Richards & Rees, 2011). Contrasting this normativity, India’s journalists appear to be overall pragmatic. They expressed to seek to deliver facts, “not speculation” (senior correspondent, India), with the appeal of “don’t become judgmental” (senior editor, India Today), giving all sides of a story – within the limitations of Indian news journalism. The habit of discursively linking objectivity to professional practice indicates how much harder it seems to be achievable in the Indian television context, where pragmatic adaptation dominates due to financial constraints and pressures of competition. When it comes to the functionality of objectivity across the two countries, both British and Indian journalists consider it important to provide opportunities for informed choices by audiences. What they differ in, however, is their assessment on how to contain personal bias. British notions partially favor disseminating “truth” while containing individual opinions: The routines of impartiality and objectivity [are] designed to get around the fact that individuals have personal opinions and biases but that journalism needs to get above those. . .. It was a professional discipline that they put themselves through because they realized they did have opinions, and they needed to get beyond them. (Former director general, BBC UK) Indian journalists appear more grounded. They consider objectivity as a less-powerful means to control bias. In interviews, disillusion about the objectivity ideal quickly made its way out. It can be explained through production realities in India, where bias constitutes a relevant issue. Bias might be enforced on the organizational level, for example, through a (paid) program agenda or externally “good” political contacts. Equally, objectivity might fail on the individual level – as “subconscious impulses could be hindering that objectivity,” states a senior editor of ABP News. His colleague from NDTV India outlines humorously the positive aspects of subjectivity: “if there is no subjectivity, no salt – it becomes tasteless.” Both aspects (organizational pressures, individual dispositions) were hardly addressed by British journalists. It could be suggested that this matters less in a British news ecology – or it is not admitted even within anonymous interviews due to boundary control and paradigm repair (Ruggiero, 2004). In summary, it can be seen that British and Indian journalistic discourses agree in emphasizing the value and leading position objectivity occupies in today’s news journalism but differ on epistemological and practical grounds. Whereas British journalists see objectivity more 337

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academically as a normative ideal, comprising several journalistic routines and as a principle to enforce a “truth”-approaching coverage while controlling personal bias, Indian journalists struggle to maintain a similar professionalization discourse. They regard subjectivity as a given element of news, and bias as externally institutionalized by unequal power relations in media economics or politics. To incorporate objectivity into news coverage appears as a more difficult endeavor in an Indian context, restrained by resources and hierarchies of editorial decision-making. Here, objectivity appears to be less related to “routines by which journalists work” or “unwitting bias,” as other studies suggest (Chuma et al., 2017; Dalen, 2012, p. 34), but rather to the degree of autonomy of individual news organizations. The lower autonomy of Indian television news journalism sees boundaries as more flexible and adaptable, with Indian journalists considering themselves with what Waisbord (2013, p. 100) describes as “firmly embedded in political and economic structures dominated by narrow interests.” On the British side, however, we see individual agency emphasized, retaining objectivity as individual responsibility to be upheld within the contested field of journalism in order to distinguish journalism from other professions and to perform maintaining distance from politics (see Waisbord, 2013, p. 124).

Comparing Journalisms II: How Do Emotions Fit into Indian and British News? Objectivity, understood as part of 19th-century “scientific rationalism,” is, at the same time, an often-criticized epistemological concept and a practice of professional defense (Maras, 2013; Tuchman, 1972). In overemphasizing rationality and detachment, attributing to the individual merely the role of an observer, the ideal of objectivity does not seem to provide much space for emotive elements in news and news production. The normative demand to be non-judgmental and remain unbiased with regard to multiple perspectives in pluralistic societies affects the level of emotions in several ways. It ideally requires refraining from any emotive stance toward a news subject, going back to the ideas of European Enlightenment as well as positivist stances. Subjective relationships or personal identification with issues is seen as unprofessional. As a consequence, this will necessarily conflict with synchronous feelings of sympathy or empathy as well as journalistic engagement. Along these lines, most normative journalism theories reject emotion five elements in news coverage (e.g., McQuail, 2010; Schudson, 2001). However, it should not be forgotten that objectivity remains an ideal with a guiding role for professional practice. It gets modified by different media ecologies, organizational constraints, and journalistic cultures. Therefore, transgressions might be negotiable – but what kind of norm breach is still considered an acceptable boundary? And how does this play out across countries, in British and Indian TV journalism? Of central importance is the question of “emotion regimes” (Reddy, 2001) – of whether and under what conditions journalists are allowed to acknowledge and/or display emotions within the realm of professional news journalism in the two countries. The interviews with journalists resulted in three demeanors: first as a rejection of emotivity (normative-idealistic stance), second as naturalizing emotions (realistic-disruptive stance), and third as conveniently accepting emotions (pragmatic negotiating journalistic boundaries). The three stances overlap but can be sufficiently separated from each other. In the following, I give a brief outline about all three stances, explaining how differently they play out in interviews across the two countries.

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The first stance can be understood as an inherently normative-idealistic stance. It is deeply embedded within traditional journalistic role conceptions and rejects emotions as a workinfluencing element. It comprises a non-negotiability of idealized professional norms. The involvement of personal emotions – or “authorial” emotions (Stenvall, 2014) – is relegated to be outside the professional canon. Initially, journalists from both countries agree nearly intuitively that “emotional journalists” ought to be rejected, reflecting in statements by British and Indian journalists, such as: You can’t get emotional about a subject as a journalist in broadcast journalism. . . . Most importantly, we have to remain fair, balanced, objective, and impartial. And if not – then we are in danger of not doing our job. (senior editor, ITN UK) When I see death and destruction around me, if I let my emotions override me and I break down, I cannot do my job. (senior editor, HT India) However, when interviews shift from the normative to contextual factors of news production, this type of discourse remains especially present within the British journalist sample, who discursively stick to the normative realm, as an emotional journalist is “no longer in the position to keep functioning and objectively assessing what’s going on around” (senior anchor, Sky News), or as overly emotional responses can “contaminate your ability to judge a situation properly” (senior correspondent, ITN). Moreover, emotions could inhibit a journalist to be “fully aware of the facts” and “cloud the real emotion of the situation” (junior news editor, BBC). British interviewees seem to fear a loss in legitimacy as soon as emotions threaten to enter the professional realm with fixed rules of journalistic news decision-making. The Indian statements rather evoke a notion of pragmatic functionality to ensure a smooth news production. They were most concerned about staged emotionality by news sources and their conscious abuse of journalistic empathy. More than once it were politicians faking emotions or simply parents who “broke down; they started crying” (senior editor, former CNNIBN) about losing their child when it turned out later that they were guilty of murdering them (senior editor, former CNN-IBN). This aspect of other-centeredness in interpreting emotions was not addressed by British interviewees at all. The second stance can be described as quasi-realistic clash zone of naturalized emotions, which comprise the sobering experience of an ever-present existence of emotions. This fundamentally challenges journalistic identity. Emotions appear as intrinsically linked to audience engagement, context, and even human biology, though their potential as disruptive forces for professional boundaries remains eminent. In essence, journalists across the two countries follow an ongoing cycle of admitting and denying own emotions during work routines, without modifying it. A BBC senior correspondent reporting from crisis-ridden areas describes how deeply emotions are interwoven with her journalistic work: You can’t separate emotions from reporting. You have your own feelings about a story when you go as journalist. Obviously, you have to be accurate. And you have to be objective. But that doesn’t mean that you can be completely dispassionate. And often,

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when you arrive particularly on some stories, there is a big emotional impact for you, depending on what you are seeing and what you are filming. (senior correspondent, BBC) Another retired leading BBC journalist declares “tabloid emotions” as outside the normatively acceptable – in short, “bad” journalism. I think we have got to get away from a sense of “emotion is bad, objectivity good.” I  think there is obviously a place for emotion, as long as they don’t become cheap emotions. (senior editor, foreign desk, BBC, ret.) Most Indian journalists agree with their British counterparts on the point of controlling emotions, but – again – their discourse appears to be rather shaped by pragmatic production realities oriented on audiences. ABP News’ managing editor summarizes: I would never want a journalist to emotionally approach a story, but to approach it very objectively, very dispassionately. But it has to be told in a manner that it reaches the people it is intended to reach. So, there would have to be at the recipient level, it would definitely EVOKE an emotionality. (senior editor, ABP News) While he defends “classic” professional values, he considers the relevance of emotions for connecting to a television audience. A similar ambivalence is expressed by an experienced British journalist who admires the scripting practice of BBC correspondent Fergal Keane, who lets “a dispassionate almost unemotional script bring out the emotion in the viewer.” Where British and Indian journalists differ in their assessment of news emotionality is a profound understanding of emotions being part of human nature, drawing on debates about objectivity (Waisbord, 2013) and the interplay with cognition and emotions (e.g., von Scheve, 2009): How can we be detached?! We should not be detached! . . . There are not only eyes, ears, mouth, hands – we are made by our emotions, our sentiments, our prejudices. Everything. (I19, senior news editor, NDTV India) This matters especially when it comes to points of emotional connection with or closeness to news subjects, such as through gender or geography, though posing the danger of bias. The third and final understanding of emotions focuses on incorporating this into a productive and modified role understanding of pragmatic boundary-negotiating stance, where emotions are accepted partially. Especially, Indian journalists’ statements suggest a greater flexibility to include emotions. The earlier-stated absence of emotions in journalistic codes of conduct indicates both objectivity and emotionality to be a tacit value. This translates into flexibility in journalistic news production. In consequence, emotions surface as being legitimate, losing their predominantly disruptive-negative connotation. Hence, emotions become an accepted element of journalistic work practice on the levels of input, throughput, and output. Hereby, emotions work across two dimensions: (1) 340

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emotions as legitimate work resources, either in form of empathy or as means of style (Glück, 2016, 2021), and (2) emotions as moral impulse and performative display rules, either as humanitarian intervention or journalism of engagement, or in event-specific display rules (Glück, 2018). However, it needs to be acknowledged that only a minority of the Indian interviewees explicitly propagate engaged forms of journalism (partisanship, activist journalism).

Conclusion To sum up, in ethical guidelines for broadcasting, objectivity appears to remain a transcendent myth in both India and the UK. This opens up a space to observe an ontological flexibility, adaptability, and negotiability of journalism. In the interviews conducted, objectivity emerged as a continuous core principle of journalistic normative orientation. Where ontologies of British and Indian news journalism diverge are that journalists in the UK show a tendency to engage more in normative debates, while journalists in India tend to display a rather-pragmatic discourse rooted in given production realities, and an understanding of a pragmaticconstructive inclusivity of emotionality. The previous sections mapped out where emotions found “legitimate” gaps and moments of invalidation of classic (Western) professional values. Indeed, journalists appear to depend on emotions as part of their news coverage, be it in the United Kingdom, where emotions are rather understated, or in the Indian news broadcasting, driven by an excessive level of emotionality. Within their professional normative boundaries, journalists legitimize emotions through adopting the status of “facts” or “factual appearance,” making it a performative but essential item of journalistic news work. However, across the two countries, journalists underacknowledge that emotions are more than reactions to facts – that they are indeed capable of shaping news reality, including the impact of less “newsworthy” event – preceding emotions which emerge, for example, as anger of social movements, (deviant) public opinions, or political power.

Note 1 For this study, first, four Indian and five British journalistic codes were analyzed; all available in English.

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32 DIASPORA JOURNALISM AS A PLATFORM FOR COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH Ola Ogunyemi Introduction Advances in information technologies and diaspora policies by continental and state governments are providing opportunities for diaspora journalism to be used as platforms for collaboration between the Global North and South. Collaboration in this instance refers to how diasporic media facilitates interaction among diaspora peoples and the sharing of information to achieve common purposes. Therefore, conceptualizing diaspora journalism as collaboration platforms enables us to monitor and assess how it is used for debate about cultural, social, and political issues of the day, or to scrutinize the activities of governmental and private organizations (Royal Commission on the Press, 1977). However, the traditional orientation and connective roles of diaspora journalism are not well suited to take a full advantage of these opportunities. For instance, the orientation role enables it to educate audiences about how the system works, promote positive contributions of the diasporas to socio-economic growth in the host nation, and agitate for their rights, while the connective role enables it to carry information and entertainment from the homeland and link the diasporas to political and economic developments at home. Both roles are interconnected and adjust to the way in which immigrants incorporate into the host society and connect with the homeland (Mendieta-Bartolomé, 2021). While both roles are still relevant, they are limiting in enabling diaspora journalism to promote diaspora initiatives for nation building. Governments and continental organizations are leveraging on with advances in technology to deepen diaspora engagements and to get diaspora journalism onside to promote collaboration between the diaspora people, diaspora agencies, and other stakeholders. This initiative was given more push when, at the end of the African Union Summit in 2003, the heads of state declared (14 (XVIII) that the African Union (AU) has decided to recognize the African diaspora as an effective entity contributing to economic and social development of the continent (SOAD, 2020).  To take this pronouncement a step further, a group of people constituted the State of the African Diaspora (SOAD) to promote diaspora engagement at different levels, including repatriation, culture, justice, and currency. On repatriation, the SOAD launched the International Decade of the African Diaspora Great Return DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-36

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(2020–2030) by building many smart cities for returnees and local people to live together in Mauritania, Zambia, Liberia, and DRC, among others. On culture, the SOAD has decided to create the World Pan-African Carnival, as we need to claim and to promote our Pan-African legacy. On justice, the SOAD has launched the Pan-African Caucus of Lawyers to bring more justice to our community in different areas, including reparation, discrimination, police brutality, land, and immigration. On currency, the SOAD launched its own currency, the lumi, in October 2020 to support the Pan-African world, citizens, businesses, businesses, NGOs, Medias, through the Pan-African Diaspora Central Bank (SOAD, 2020). To promote diaspora initiatives in the media, a think tank called the African Diaspora Policy Centre (ADPC) published a concept note on diaspora-led development projects with a focus on Somalia because it found that the Somali diaspora has already positioned itself as an indispensable agent of change in the social, economic, and political life of Somalia. ADPC aims to promote these projects through diaspora mapping and profiling exercises; diaspora outreach missions; organizing diaspora summit in Somalia; offering technical assistance for institutional capacity development to the Directorate of Diaspora Affairs in the form of training, coaching, mentoring and consultancy services; and developing diaspora-oriented projects in a number of key sectors. (ADPC, 2022) From social responsibility and hierarchy of influence perspectives, this chapter gives a brief overview of the ways in which diasporic media could effectively be used as a platform for collaboration. It offered a critical evaluation of the challenges of repurposing diaspora journalism for collaboration through a scoping review of selected diaspora literature between 2000 and 2021 using the keywords diaspora collaboration, diasporic media, and diaspora agencies in the database search engines of Scopus and EBSCO.

Diaspora Journalism and Social Responsibility Theory Siebert et al. (1956) expounded four theories which shape journalism practice in a society, that is, authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility, and communist soviet theory. These theories are rarely applied to diaspora journalism because it is commonly discussed from the prism of ethnic theory, globalization, and nation-state. Ethnic theory enables us to understand the processes involved in reinforcing particularistic identities from commonalties of history, language (in some cases, religion), and past achievements (Shuval, 2000). The globalization theory enables us to understand how diaspora journalism projects a sense of being part of an ongoing transnational network that includes a homeland (Tololian, 1991). The nation-state theory enables us to comprehend how diasporas present a unique challenge to the hegemony of modern nation-states (Shuval, 2000). However, these theories do not provide a deep insight into recent changes in the attitudes of nation-states to engage with their diasporas. Therefore, this section will explore this phenomenon from the prism of social responsibility theory. Diaspora journalism usually plays an opposition role to the homeland government because of its authoritarian rule and tendency to directly control the communication outlets. In this homeland media ecosystem, journalists follow the government’s instructions to publish the news. In contrast, diaspora journalism exists in a libertarian society and is characterized by 345

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two types of ownership systems, that is, media-by, media-for, or media-about (see Caspi & Elias, 2011). The former is a publication owned and managed by Blacks, intended for a Black audience, and committed to advocating for the racial equality of African Americans (Wolseley, 1990). The latter is publication perceived as a media source (television show, radio station, novel, magazine, movie, or Internet website) to be something that “belongs” to Black people (Harris-Lacewell, 2004). This is an important distinction, because ownership can shape audience loyalty and preference on the one hand and shape the extent to which home governments and diaspora agencies can access and influence content on the other. The orientation and connective roles of diaspora journalism fit within the concept of libertarian values to serve diaspora audiences by providing culturally relevant information, education, and entertainment contents. However, a collaborative role will entail embracing the tenets of social responsibility which straddle libertarian and authoritarian theories. It means that diaspora journalism will still be able to think about the diaspora and how to meet their needs. For instance, diaspora journalism tempers news values by being sensitive to audiences’ cultural sensibilities. Hence, Ogunyemi (2008) argues that a form of cultural burden hovers over the functions of diaspora journalism because diaspora audiences perceive it as a vehicle for cultural transmission and preservation. Moreover, diaspora journalism will be able to avoid covering conflict-driven content by focusing on diaspora’s contribution to national developments as well as “offsetting the negative images of their own ethnic members in the mainstream media and depicting the roles of their own group as victims of other racial/ ethnic groups” (Bai, 2010). However, adopting the social responsible principle will make diaspora journalism susceptible to ideological and political influences that will include taking instructions from homeland governments about diaspora-led development projects. Nevertheless, the social responsibility theory provides a backdrop to our conceptualization of the prospects and challenges of using diaspora journalism as collaboration platforms between the Global North and South both from historical and contemporary perspectives.

The Historical Use of Diaspora Journalism as Collaborative Platforms The literature review reveals three dominant themes about the use of diaspora journalism as collaborative platforms for advocacy for diaspora groups, promoting education about the host country and building connection to the homeland. Exploring its advocacy role enables us to understand the processes of raising public awareness about civic issues or certain causes. This advocacy function can be traced back to the time after the emancipation of Black people from slavery and before the Second World War, when they had to stand against prejudice and discrimination in the political and economic arena. For example, the Freedom Journal was a significant contributor to the many advancements African Americans have achieved, such as civil rights laws and the abolition of slavery (Fayne, 2020). However, Fayne (2020) argues that any coverage of African Americans can be considered advocacy due to the need to combat misrepresentation or exclusion from mainstream media (ibid.). And Arafat (2021) adds that engaging in the political discourse by informing the public, telling the truth, and challenging restrictions on press freedom is a form of advocacy in itself (ibid.). This suggests that advocacy has no fixed period but is on a continuum for as long as diaspora groups perceive a sense of marginalization. For instance, diaspora journalism defends the rights of immigrants in the host nation. According to Mendieta-Bartolomé 346

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(2021), destination-binding contents play an important role in community-based ethnic media, which often engage in advocacy journalism by defending immigrants’ rights (ibid.). For example, diaspora journalism presents stories affecting the legal rights of the ethnic community: civil rights violations, changes in immigration laws, and crimes against immigrants (Viswanath & Arora, 2000). Literature reveals that the advocacy function encompasses three approaches, that is, promoting the interests and welfare of the diaspora groups, a fighting approach, and a “safety valve” in which certain stereotyped modes of compensatory behavior are regularly exhibited (Burma, 1947). These shaped their news agenda to voice and fight for the rights of Negroes, to keep Negro politicians from becoming docile and subservient, to prevent educators and social workers from compromising too much, and to expose those who have found personal profit and advantage in a conservative point of view (ibid.). For example, in the 1980s, Zimbabwean exile journalists adopted a “fighting approach” in the 1980s because they were so personally affected by the issues on which they reported (see Batist, 2010). Similarly, this approach aided the struggle against apartheid in South Africa (see Pinnock, 2007) and the radical news magazines in the fight against the military regime in Nigeria (see Maringuez, 1996). Diaspora journalism adopts advocacy to build a consensus around public policies, to influence audiences and leadership, thereby reinforcing democratic dialogues (see Kamboh  & Yousaf, 2019; Arafat, 2021). For instance, Black press has been found to serve as a potent political and ideological force in galvanizing mass support for a wide array of Black protest and cultural movements (Everett, 2002). For example, the Black newspapers ran a stinging series of editorials on what they called “linguistic profiling” to protest against landlords who were discriminating based on accent, renting to people who “sounded White” when New Orleans residents began returning to a city after Hurricane Katrina in 2006 (see Matsaganis et  al., 2011). Moreover, the Black newspapers printed the findings of the National Fair Housing Alliance alongside information about renter’s rights, state and national policies on racial discrimination in housing, and legal resources for people who had experienced this discrimination first-hand (ibid.). One of the benefits of using diaspora journalism to facilitate collaboration, especially from the period between the Black Power Movement from the late 1960s and Black Lives Matter from 2013, is that it galvanized the peoples of African descent living in various societies to be united by a past based significantly but not exclusively upon “racial” oppression and the struggles against it on the one hand and helped them to share an emotional bond with one another and with their ancestral continent (Palmer, 1998) on the other. However, advocacy journalism is not the same as activism. According to Careless (2000), the former might adopt a biased viewpoint to raise public awareness about certain causes or issues, while the latter involves taking direct action or intervention to achieve a political change through political campaigning; organizing protests, strikes, or boycotts; consulting politicians and bureaucrats; or conducting cyberattacks or hacktivism (Ginosar  & Reich, 2020; Hall, 2018; Arafat, 2021). It should be noted that diaspora journalism seems to prefer an advocacy role because it is editorially manageable and less confrontational. Exploring its use for promoting education about the host country enables us to understand the milestone achievements in educating the diasporas about their voting rights. For example, during the 2008 US election period, the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism (2009, cited in Matsaganis et al., 2011) found that Latino and African American media took more of a hands-on approach to election reporting than their mainstream counterparts. 347

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Specifically, they found that these media acted as teachers, voter advocates, and even watchdogs (Matsaganis et  al., 2011). This track record of educating the diasporas about their voting rights in the host country will serve diaspora journalism in good stead to support the drive to extend voting rights to the African diasporas. A milestone achievement was when Kenyan diasporas were able to vote in the 2022 Kenyan national election. Considering the concept of promoting education about the host country enables us to understand the milestone achievements in reinforcing identity formation. For instance, diaspora journalism focuses on the stylized self, that is, fashion consciousness, including clothing and hair styles, to gain an insight into the formation of Black diaspora identity. According to Leopeng and Langa (2019), the diasporic media representation of consumerism, fashion, and masculinity offers a vital contribution to the African diasporas’ dress sense (ibid.). Hence, Fayne (2020) argues that entertainment is seen as another means for positive imagery of African Americans that is oft missing in mainstream outlets. Within this context, entertainment serves as another space where Black bodies need to be included and represented (ibid.). When the model is also used for promoting education about the host country, it enables us to understand the milestone achievements about inclusion, racism, and identity politics. Caldwell’s (2007) study gives an insight into the experiences of persistent and deep-seated patterns of racial discrimination and inequality among Afro-Brazilian women. He highlights the continuing relevance of identity politics for members of racially marginalized communities in Brazil through an ethnographic study which demonstrates that the act of assuming a Black identity for these women takes different forms, including therapy, activism, education, contact with foreigners, or through contestation of hegemonic constructions of race and gender (ibid.). Moreover, Squires (2002) argues that diaspora journalism agitates for political voice, socio-economic advancements, and racial equality through the production and circulation of social and political ideologies within the Black community (ibid.). Exploring its use for building connection with the homeland enables us to understand the milestone achievements in diaspora empowerment. This function is vital because the UN statistics show that growth in the number of international migrants has been robust over the last two decades, reaching 281 million people living outside their country of origin in 2020, up from 173 million in 2000 and 221 million in 2010 (UN, 2020). With respect to the Global South, the OECD (2014) notes that 82 million migrants are involved in South– South migrant flows, which account for about 36% of the total number of global migrants (ibid.). With regards to destinations, Adamek (2018) notes that the 140 million Africans in the diaspora are predominantly located in Brazil, Colombia, America, Dominican Republic, and Haiti (ibid.). Therefore, diaspora journalism is not just a tool of resistance but also a tool of empowerment and link to the homeland on a range of issues, including health, education, and land rights. Diaspora journalism acts as gatekeepers and agenda setters, highlighting the achievements of Black diasporas individually and collectively, assisting in the formation of group identity by spreading cultural beliefs (Fayne, 2020). Without doubt, the different ways in which diaspora journalism has been used as a platform for collaboration will serve it in good stead to link contents to both origin and destination which strengthens readers’ ties with their homeland. The adoption of a social responsibility principle by diaspora journalism is, therefore, an “outwards focused” approach that seeks to influence broader national and international audiences (Burrows, 2018). This claim bodes well for the drive to use diaspora journalism for collaboration platforms between the Global North and the Global South. 348

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The Prospects of Using Diaspora Journalism as Collaboration Platforms The prospects of using diaspora journalism as collaboration platforms between the Global North and South in the 21st century are enhanced not only by the high global population of diasporas due to conflict and economic purposes but also by advances in information technology, which enables small groups, sometimes down to the individual person level, to create media outlets with potentially large audiences, often with far better legal and logistical opportunities than in the homeland (Skjerdal, 2011). As a collaboration platform, diaspora groups have an opportunity to contribute to debates and shape discussions about politics, economics, socio-culture, technology, and conflict resolution in order to foster peaceful coexistence between the Global North and South. Hence, diaspora journalism may be used to collect hybrid contributions from the countries of origin and destination (King & Wood, 2001). For instance, it may be used as a community booster to convey a positive and successful image of the members of the community, with profiles and stories about their political participation in the country of destination and their solidarity projects in their countries of origin (Viswanath & Arora, 2000). Moreover, it may be used to bring the governments and diaspora groups to negotiate the terms of participation in elections through diaspora voting. It has the potential for political deliberation by linking the diasporas working for change with the political groups in the homeland. This is evident in the observation that diaspora digital networks collaborate closely with local and international organizations and social movements to mobilize for a real-world change, serving primarily as “lobbyists” (Pintak & Nazir, 2013; Arafat, 2021). For example, the diasporic media have been able to set the agenda in Nigerian politics and have prompted the local government to react officially on accounts of corruption and other issues (Kperogi, 2011). The potential of diaspora journalism as a collaboration platform was evident when it was used by the Ethiopian diasporas to position themselves to act as “agents of changes for homeland” (Skjerdal, 2011). Diaspora journalism as collaboration platforms could accelerate economic development between the Global North and South by promoting infrastructural development, fostering human capacity development and to foreign direct investment. The latter is important because remittances are financial or in-kind transfers made by migrants to friends and relatives back in the communities of origin (Migration Data Portal, 2021). However, they fluctuate year by year and are difficult to calculate. For example, the World Bank expects remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to reach $589 billion in 2021, a 7.3% increase over 2020 (World Bank, 2021). Diaspora journalism could be used as a collaboration platform between the diasporas and homeland governments to deliberate on how to move remittances from an informal to a formal market to aid economic growth. It has the potential to broaden technological exchange and enhance capacity building. For instance, diaspora journalism can promote knowledge exchange and enhance a deeper knowledge of the digital literacy of their current audiences, the targeting of new ones, and the collaboration with other ethnic media to develop online content production and distribution platforms (Matsaganis & Zhou, 2019). Moreover, it can be used to create collaborative media projects with immigrants to raise collective awareness on issues such as migration and domestic violence, the problems of at-risk youth and other marginalized groups, or the promotion of health initiatives and computer literacy (Miñana, 2017). It can also be used to diversify the voices in the public sphere. Scholars note that diaspora journalists, empowered 349

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by digital technologies, are using their new locations to continue their truth-telling mission, support the human rights initiatives, provide unfiltered independent news to local, diasporic, and international audiences, and de-Westernize the representations of their homeland conflicts by diversifying the coverage perspectives (Balasundaram, 2019; Kämpe, 2017; Ogunyemi, 2018; Arafat, 2021). As a collaboration platform, it has the potential to incorporate social media effectively to provide and promote deliberation and distribute vital information. Rana Arafat’s (2021) study of the Syrian diaspora journalists describes how diaspora journalists use social media to create and engage with transnational digital networks to maintain connections with their conflict-torn homeland and advocate for transnational human rights and political reforms after fleeing its repressive political sphere. This study gives an insight into how these networks facilitate developing online collaborations between diaspora journalists, activists, civil society actors, and human rights associations to advocate for homeland-related causes and mobilize a transnational change, expanding the concept of networked journalism beyond the newsgathering and reporting purposes (ibid.). Diaspora journalism has the potential to promote conflict resolution, reconstruction, and nation rebuilding. For example, Syrian diaspora journalists use their Facebook pages as a platform to promote homeland-related advocacy and developing the independent Syrian media sector, connect the Syrian cause to international human rights movements, create transnational solidarity, document violations and threats against journalists, cooperate with local news websites to produce visual stories, update followers about the networks’ regional and international meetings/conferences, and inform journalists about training programs, job vacancies, and grant competitions either organized by them or by third parties (Arafat, 2021). Hence, Balasundaram (2019) argues that when diaspora journalists collaborate in this way, they serve as human rights advocates with the power to influence the international media agendas and policy decision-makers and mobilize transnational processes of justice and accountability (ibid.).

The Challenges of Using Diaspora Journalism as Collaboration Platforms Adopting a social responsibility role alongside orientation and connective roles will expose diaspora journalism to the ideological level (system-level influences) of influence identified by Shoemaker and Reese (1996). Hanitzsch et al. (2010) extended our understanding of the hierarchy of influence by exploring the relative importance of these influences on the basis of a pan-cultural analysis. Two of the six domains of perceived influences on journalism they identified are particularly relevant here, that is, political influences, including government officials, censorship, and the businesspeople who represent the business interests negotiated in the realm of the political on the one hand, and the reference groups incorporating other influencing institutions and groups such as audiences, colleagues from other media, and competing media outlets on the other (ibid.). These connote potentials for conflict between the influences originating from the homeland and the influences originating from diaspora journalism’s immediate environment. Diaspora journalism continues to face the challenge of a limited access to politicians, especially in the homeland. Diaspora journalists constantly complain that their mainstream counterparts are preferred by government officials in the homeland. The implication is that they do not get “breaking news” to retain audience patronage or win new audiences. However, 350

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the use of diaspora journalism as collaboration platforms could expose them to undue influences from homeland governments who promise regular access. There is the challenge of limited access to advertising revenue, especially in the host country. Diaspora journalists complain that the mainstream advertising agencies do not patronize them. The implication is that achieving financial autonomy is impossible for diaspora journalists, whose opposition media outlets and digital networks cannot depend on advertising or crowd-funding as a sustainable business model (Arafat, 2021). This shortcoming could expose them to influence from homeland governments who promise to advertise or finance them. The distrust between homeland governments and diaspora people may pose a serious challenge to the use of diaspora journalism as collaboration platforms. This is because the homeland may be concerned about possible revolutionary activity within it (Bandele, 2010). This perception is reinforced when diaspora news websites adopt a journalism practice characterized by activism and favoritism, posing a critical attitude to the homeland governments (Skjerdal, 2011). As a result, some homeland countries have been blocking diaspora websites. For example, the Ethiopian government blocked critical news channels edited by Ethiopians in the diaspora, plus Blogspot.com, a host site which contains a number of critical blogs on Ethiopian politics (ibid.). Another means by which the homeland governments restrict the diaspora journalists’ freedom of expression and influence their news production routines and advocacy practices is referred to as digital state surveillance or “transnational repression” (see Moss, 2018). The host government’s distrust of diaspora journalism may also pose a serious challenge to its use as a collaboration platform. This is because the host countries may believe a political goal or economic project will be disrupted by the diasporic political activity (Bandele, 2010). As a result, the resulting licenses provided by the host country may present new aspects of state intervention that influence the diaspora advocacy work (Arafat, 2021). On an upbeat note, diaspora journalism as a platform for collaboration may offer opportunity to overcome the challenge of low subscription, especially from diaspora audiences, and advertising revenues from government patronage. For instance, the editor of Africa Today lamented that the magazine would be selling over 5,000 copies monthly if many Black Africans and friends of Africa subscribed to it (Ogunyemi, 2012). A collaboration role may also enable diaspora journalism to enhance professionalism because it suffers from lack of professionalism that can affect their production quality (Georgiou, 2003; Pham, 2021). For instance, diasporic media online, especially its social media, is not robust because they don’t have the resources to hire a dedicated staff to post new information and monitor and track comments. Moreover, a collaboration role will expand diaspora journalism beyond the professional centers of news production proposing a novel form of journalism advocacy that combines both “journalist” and “civic” advocacy (Russell, 2016; Arafat, 2021). Advocacy is a traditional function of diaspora journalism and should remain so to foster collaboration between the Global South and North. In addition, a collaboration role will extend its production processes beyond newsgathering and publishing to include petitioning, creating transnational solidarity, collaborating with civil society organizations, and carrying out various institutional work (Arafat, 2021). The opportunities to use diaspora journalism to drive initiatives about knowledge exchange, foreign direct investment, de-escalating conflict, nation building, good governance, and cross-cultural understanding are enormous and should be exploited for the greater good. 351

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Conclusion The scholarly debate about the use of diaspora journalism as a platform for collaboration between the Global North and South is only just starting. This chapter argues that its traditional orientation and connective roles are limiting and should, therefore, adopt social responsibility principle in order to take advantage of this opportunity. However, this will make diaspora journalism susceptible to the influences of ideological, political, and reference groups. Therefore, the chapter proposes that further research should focus on the processes of understanding these influences and how diaspora journalism is responding to them. The chapter concludes by stressing the challenges posed by digital surveillance and political persecution, which has caused diaspora people to distrust their governments in the past. But this trust can be restored through honest interaction between all stakeholders. Then, diaspora journalism will be better primed to foster participation in diaspora-led development projects on media/digital literacy, technological exchange, trade, exhibition, and cultural shows that will bring the diasporas and their homeland counterparts together to appreciate their potentials and interdependence.

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PART V

Ethical and Other Emerging Journalism Critiques

33 STORYTELLING IN THE AGE OF DATA Data Journalism in Hong Kong Roselyn Du

Introduction As Asia’s media hub, Hong Kong has a well-developed media industry due to its open society with close ties to both the West and the East. It is home to many of Asia’s and the world’s biggest media players. The city was deeply influenced by British colonial governance and tradition and has embraced capitalism and developed a mature market economy where the free flow of information is highly valued. According to the Washington, DC, based Freedom House (2014), Hong Kong boasted the most diversified, competitive, and democratic media market in the Asia-Pacific region and was the most open society and enjoyed the highest level of press freedom in Asia. Although Hong Kong is now under the rule of communist China, a policy of “one country, two systems” was designed to ensure the autonomy of this special administrative region (SAR). Under that political framework, in theory, the press is supposed to be able to continue to operate within the Western normative concept, facilitating the flow of information. This translates into open access to data, which is the core of data journalism. This chapter reviews the background for both Hong Kong’s data journalism profession and its data journalism education. It identifies the status quo of data journalism in Hong Kong and examines actors, data access conditions, and practice in the newsroom versus the classroom. It addresses the subject matter from several perspectives regarding data journalism in Hong Kong, including (1) development and status, (2) the challenges of working data in an increasingly monitored media environment, and (3) opportunities and prospects. Under the British colonizers’ rule in the 1800s and 1900s, Hong Kong’s colonial government operated on a laissez-faire governing philosophy with minimal government intervention in the city’s media system. This fostered a plethora of anti-authority media that were critical of the governing power, and the Hong Kong media system as a whole enjoyed a long tradition of independent journalism. Hong Kong’s journalists have been known to pride themselves on their mighty adherence to liberal journalistic ideals and fierce professionalism (Du et al., 2018). After the handover from the United Kingdom to China in 1997, Hong Kong media largely continued to maintain their freedom under the “one country, two systems” principle (Wu, 2018) until June  2020, when the new national security law (NSL) was put in place in Hong Kong by China’s central government after several years of



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political struggles and pro-democracy unrest over universal suffrage. The NSL specifically targets sedition, separatism, subversion, and collusion with foreign countries. Symbolic of a deteriorating media environment was the shutdown of three pro-democracy media outlets, Apple Daily, Stand News, and Citizen News, on June 24, 2021, December 29, 2021, and January 4, 2022, respectively. In reality, as a SAR of communist China, Hong Kong stands at an awkward juncture. Politically, the relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong has become increasingly tense, and pressures have been borne on Hong Kong’s media system since 2003. With the ownership of some major media outlets reshuffled to involve business tycoons or corporations that have ties to the mainland (Wiebrecht, 2018), there have been growing concerns that Beijing is indirectly and gradually shifting the stance of Hong Kong media to be less critical of the central government. The implementation of the new NSL in 2020 has tightened the regulation of the media and the Internet in Hong Kong, reinforcing an effective culture of self-censorship among Hong Kong journalists as they fear the consequences. According to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (https://rsf.org/en), in 2002, Hong Kong had a free press that ranked the 18th freest (out of 139 countries included in its World Press Freedom Index of that year, with China being 138th) in the world; Hong Kong’s ranking slipped to the 70th place (partly free) in 2015 (after the 2014 “Occupy Central” movement) and has now plummeted to a stunning 148th (nearly not free) in 2022 (after the 2019–2020 “Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement”). This ranking of 148th is utterly close to that of China (175th, not free, out of 180 countries included).

Previous and Current Research In Hong Kong, skills in data-based reporting are highly valued by many journalists. Data journalism is regarded as a saving grace to the traditional media audience decline, which is represented by drastically shrinking newspaper circulation and television viewership. Such decline was brought about by the intertwining media convergence, social media, citizen journalism, and eroding public trust in mainstream media. In the past years, the evolution of new media technologies and the development of big data have allowed data journalism in Hong Kong to thrive. Hong Kong–based media outlets have increasingly embraced data as an effective vehicle to tell stories with complexity, unveil the truth, and uphold social justice. These media outlets have since won numerous world-class data journalism awards. Representative of Hong Kong’s world-class status in the field of data journalism, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) has scored numerous wins in international data journalism awards, including Global Editors Network’s Data Journalism Awards, Google News Initiative/European Journalism Center’s Sigma Awards, and World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA)’s Asia Media Awards. Wu (2022) notes that SCMP, the oldest English newspaper in Hong Kong, remains one of the most decorated news organizations based in the non-West that has bagged the most honors in data journalism. Wu’s content analysis of 130 data stories produced by SCMP from 2016 to 2020 identifies the exemplary work of SCMP in its coverage of important issues of the day, its critique and analysis of the stories (especially those that stem from Hong Kong and the world), its use of non-governmental data sources, its effort at producing objective stories that are explanatory and informative, and its extensive use of visualizations. The study also unveils challenges faced by SCMP during that period of time, among other Hong Kong media, given the inability to report on 358

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sensitive topics related to China or that may be critical of the Beijing central government’s politics (Wu, 2022). Hong Kong’s Chinese-language media have also adopted the practice of data-driven storytelling in the past ten years, chief of which are Internet-native news media outlets like Initium Media, Stand News, Hong Kong 01, and Citizen News, most of which have produced remarkable data stories. As such, data-driving storytelling has evolved from the early years as an innovation to nowadays as a mainstream in newsrooms. Zhang and Chen (2020) applied the diffusion of innovation theory, the technology acceptance model, and the trading zone framework in their study to explain how journalists in Hong Kong adopt data-driven journalism and how this journalistic practice is communicated to the public through media coverage. An online survey was conducted with 255 news professionals in local media organizations, as was a supplementary content analysis of 57 news articles on data-driven journalism published in Hong Kong media in 2009–2019. Results uncovered that perceived ease of use and perceived popularity were positively associated with the adoption of data-driven journalism. The more designers were involved in the news production process, the more likely it was for participants to adopt data-driven journalism. Additionally, most media coverage was found to tend to highlight the positive outcomes of data-driven journalism, particularly its observability and usefulness, as well as the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. As for the classroom, journalism education has been popular in Hong Kong. University journalism programs in Hong Kong are highly ranked, with Hong Kong Baptist University regarded as a top journalism school in Asia. Among the eight public-funded institutions, at least four, including the University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, and City University of Hong Kong, provide journalism or related programs for bachelor’s and higher degrees and have increasingly incorporated the data element into their journalism education. In 2017, Hong Kong Baptist University’s School of Communication was the first in Hong Kong to offer data journalism as an elective course for its undergraduate students. A year later, the school added a second data journalism course with a specific focus on data visualizations for news. Data journalism education scaled up from elective courses to a formal concentration status in 2019, when the school admitted its first class of DMC (data and media communication) undergraduate students as a joint effort in partnership with HKBU’s Department of Computer Science. According to its online description (https://bu-dmc.hkbu.edu.hk/), this new interdisciplinary concentration aims to provide specialized data analytics and journalistic education and training to students. On top of general computer science training, students are required to take a set of courses offered by both Department of Computer Science (Faculty of Science) and Department of Journalism (School of Communication and Film). Upon completion of this concentration, students are expected to be able to make use of data collected from various sources according to the journalistic practices to produce analytics, solutions, and insights for media organizations and other related fields. While data journalism, as an innovative journalism practice, has attracted considerable academic attention in the recent past, research on data journalism in the non-West, Hong Kong included, has been scarce. Only a small handful of scholarly publications are found to have addressed data journalism education in a Hong Kong context. Curating and analyzing a list of 219 unique data journalism modules and programs offered across the globe, Heravi (2018) observed that Hong Kong was among the several countries/regions with the highest number of data journalism–related modules and programs, and out of the 24 countries/ 359

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regions included in the study, Hong Kong is among the few that present a strong focus on data journalism as a program of its own rights, with more than one module dedicated to data journalism and having postgraduate programs in data journalism. Yang and Du’s (2016) survey of 121 college journalism students in Hong Kong, in combination with in-depth interviews, revealed that (1) while journalism students were eager to understand what was data journalism and its practice, they did not have comprehensive knowledge of data collection, data analysis, and interpretation; (2) computational tools were absent from journalism curricula at that time, which led to students’ misperception about data usage in news reporting; and (3) while students had high willingness for learning data journalism, about half of those surveyed expressed a dislike of data work. Gender, year in school, and major area of study appeared to play a role in these Hong Kong students’ varied perceptions of data journalism. Male students seemed to master more data journalism–related knowledge than their female counterparts. Interestingly enough, those majoring in Chinese journalism showed the least interest in data journalism or learning its substance, among other journalism majors. Zhu and Du (2018) used data collected in the assessment survey of a series of data journalism training activities in Hong Kong to compare participants’ learning activities. These participants consisted of students, scholars, and professionals from diverse academic backgrounds. Survey and in-depth interviews were both used in this research to provide references for data journalism students and instructors. The findings show that significant differences exist between learners with journalism-related backgrounds and those with science backgrounds. Compared with journalism majors, during the activities, science majors interacted with others more and got more practice; they also gained more theoretical and practical outcomes alongside higher levels of learning enjoyment. Interviews with journalism majors indicated that a lack of fundamental knowledge, time, and support in practice brought difficulties to their data journalism learning. Suggestions for an interdisciplinary approach to journalism education were also collected through interviews, which included more information on data journalism and a deeper level of interdisciplinary interaction and more interactions with the industry. This current chapter utilizes in-depth interviews of five key persons (Table  33.1) who are related to and representative of Hong Kong data journalism, as well as a review of documented background information regarding the general development of data journalism in the city. A  series of CAPIs (computer-assisted personal interviews) were conducted in May and June of 2022. The interviews were conducted in English. Informed consents were obtained at the beginning of each interview. The interview instrument consisted of a total of 10 questions, all of which were open-ended. Each interview session lasted about one hour and generated a transcript ranging from 4,544 to 9,790 words. The answers in the interviews were coded and analyzed with NVivo. By reading/re-reading the answers, coherent information was organized into categories. A descriptive label was assigned to represent each category, and in such a way, major themes emerged. Major themes were then broken down into lower-level sub-themes to sort the responses more specifically. Representative quotes were then collected and organized into the correspondent themes. Visualizations such as word clouds and sentiment charts were generated.

Overview of Data Journalism in Hong Kong The personal experience and observation of Pili Hu, who is currently a Google consultant for the adverting industry and formerly the CTO of Initium Media (which had the biggest data 360

Storytelling in the Age of Data Table 33.1 Profiles of Interviewees Affiliation

Bio

Li, Raymond

Hong Kong Baptist University

Hu, Pili

Google

Leung, Kai Chi

Chinese University of Hong Kong

Wang, Feng

Financial Times Chinese

Wong, Ho Wa

The Lane Crawford Joyce Group

Professor of Practice and Chair, Department of Journalism, HKBU; Veteran journalist having worked at the BBC for over 24 years Ad Solutions Architect at Google; Formerly Initium Media Chief Technology Office Lecturer in Data Journalism and China Studies; Data Consultant Editor-in-Chief of FTChinese; Formerly online editor at the South China Morning Post, Editor-in-Charge at Thomson Reuters Chinese News Services and Consumer Media Editor at Thomson Reuters Data Scientist at Lane Crawford; Formerly convener of the open government data community g0v Hong Kong Chapter from 2016–2021

news team in Hong Kong) and a lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University, can be considered a miniature of the development of data journalism in Hong Kong. In 2013–2015, we didn’t have a professional title; we just came together informally to do data news works. 2015–2017 was the time I was leading the Initium data team and being the CTO. That was the time we worked with a clear focus to produce data-driven news. After 2017, I went to teach at the university level, still on data journalism. That part ended in 2019 when I left for Google. Between 2017 and now, one of the major changes in Hong Kong is, the university programs not only have set up data courses, but also established data-centered majors. With that, I can predict that we will be having more and more people equipped with a data background. Hu has observed that the change in data journalism in the classroom and in the industry appear not to be in tandem. On the other hand, in terms of the industry, from 2017, we didn’t see much scaling up; quite the opposite, it seems [to be] shrinking, possibly due to the overall political climate change in Hong Kong leading to the loss of talents who chose to leave. In terms of data communities, Hu has also observed that people still work on data together, especially for corporations, but no longer as actively pursuing data journalism as before, because it could become sensitive. Hu worries that sustainability of data journalism may become an issue in Hong Kong. Collectively, the interviewees, when speaking of their experience with data journalism in Hong Kong, showed positive or mixed sentiments. There is no apparently negative feeling toward data journalism (Figure 33.1). They spoke highly of the incorporation of data in journalism as an added value to journalists’ professional identities in Hong Kong and largely agreed 361

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Figure 33.1  Word cloud of assessment of data journalism education.

that data-driven storytelling is one critical way to make professional journalism distinctive at a time when the credibility of journalist and public trust in media are eroding (Table 33.2). Some cautioned, however, that data literacy education has a long way to go. Feng Wang, currently editor-in-chief of Financial Times Chinese network and formerly data news project leader at the South China Moring Post, commented: It is easier to tell a much more objective, bigger-picture story with data than with randomly selected facts or quotes or anecdotes. I trust data more than I do anecdotes and random cases and definitely pundit quotes, but you have to have a very high standard, especially in the journalism schools where they teach data journalism. They have to teach them a very high standard. I think a big problem is we do not have enough qualified data journalism educators anywhere, especially in Hong Kong. There are some very good journalism schools here. I have worked with some talented data journalism educators here. There are some big names in Hong Kong, but certainly not enough. Wang also said: Personally, I would ask all the journalism students to go through data courses. I would make it mandatory for every level, from undergrad, graduate, to postdoc. Some 362

Storytelling in the Age of Data Table 33.2 Role of Data in Professional Identity Interviewee

Sample Quotes

Wang

“One problem I have had with journalism about Hong Kong or about China in general in the last ten years since I have been here is objectivity. I personally find objectivity in all international media organizations on the decline. In such a rapidly changing political environment with so many conflicts going on, especially ideological clashes becoming more fierce by the day, people tend to be led by their own ideology, even journalists, who are supposed to be completely objective and neutral, but in reality, that is a very, very tall order these days, even for the best news organizations and for the most professional journalists. That is an issue across the board. That is not with any particular organization or people of any particular group, but data, and data journalism, is a powerful tool to help us to maintain objectivity, to help pull us away from our tendencies to be affected by our own politics, by our own biases. It can prove a very useful tool to save the whole industry from further descending into opinionated, eyeball-catching journalism.” “In 2013–2016, the golden years for data journalism, there were a lot of data communities here. We had the Hack/Hackers, Open Source Hong Kong, Open Data Hong Kong. We also had a lot of seminars. So people came together for data journalism from different backgrounds. After the golden years, a lot of people went back to their original identities. For example, the investigative journalists prefer to be called investigative. Similarly, for the designers, they produced data journalism before, but if you ask who they are they would say they are designers. Like myself, I worked as a data journalist but now I am back to data scientist. But my works do not stop at getting and having data. If I discover something interesting and socially valuable, such as some interesting big data in restaurants, I may dig further and involve news people to produce meaningful news stories. When journalist friends ask me if they can use my data, I of course say yes.” “Data journalism is something that many professional journalists are taking seriously. When news reports use data to tell the story, that certainly helps to make the storytelling more authoritative and more transparent, may be easier to understand, too. In that sense, it certainly helps enhance the credibility and public trust, too. But I can feel that suspicion exists among the public. As we can see, from time to time, people will question the data, the way you collect data, and the analysis of the data. In my experience as a journalism educator, it is still difficult to convince some Hong Kong students to embrace data.” “Data journalism is still not a very popular term among Hong Kong journalism students. Do you want to learn Python? Do you want to learn R? Most of the time the answer is no. But I think even if you do not want to be a data journalist, you should be a data-minded journalist.” “Data mind is a must-have. I definitely believe it is one important thing to make preprofessional journalists distinguished.”

Hu

Li

Leung

Wong

journalists tend to think, “I  came into this industry because I  don’t like numbers, because I’m bad at math,” which was my own case. But after 20 years, I have come to realize it does not matter. If you have a passion for journalism, if you want to make this your profession, data is something that, whatever field of journalism, you cannot do without it. 363

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Challenges When asked of the challenges for doing data journalism in Hong Kong, the interviewees appeared to agree with one another that access to data is a primary one, although they acknowledged that the situation is not too bad compared to that of mainland China. Feng Wang observed that data transparency standards are much higher in Hong Kong than in mainland China. Wang commented: The government is, until two years ago, dedicated to releasing more data to the public, and there is a very healthy, robust atmosphere of data researchers, not just for journalism, but in various fields; people are pushing for the government to be more transparent; the political situation in the last few years may have reversed the trend in some areas, but overall, the city is still moving towards a more data transparent scheme. But in mainland China, it is a totally different story; especially these days, with the political, economic, and public health problem the central government and various local governments are facing, they are inclined, probably, to be much less transparent than before; we have seen reversals in many, many fields; even talking about macroeconomy could get you in trouble these days. Many countries in the world have freedom of information laws that grant the public at large, journalists included, the right to know more about what their governments are doing. For instance, there is FoIA (Freedom of Information Act) in the United States, and in the United Kingdom, there are the FoIA 2000 Act and the Scottish Act 2002 (Information Commissioner’s Office, UK, https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-freedomof-information/what-is-the-foi-act/). In Hong Kong, the Code on Access to Information (Hong Kong SAR government, www.access.gov.hk/en/codeonacctoinfo/index.html) is not legislated by the Legislative Council and has a minimal legal status. While governmental agencies are required to appoint Access to Information Officers to answer citizens’ request for governmental records, the code does not require the government to archive information. Because of the lack of legal constraints, transparency in government is inconsistent across different agencies and policy areas. In many cases, the public cannot get important information about how major policies are formulated. In contrast, the financial interest declarations of key policymakers and lawmakers, as well as land-related public information, are transparent and readily accessible to the public. Speaking of data access in Hong Kong, Kai Chi Leung, who is a data consultant for several local media outlets and a lecturer of data journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, commented that the openness and accessibility are getting better overall: The government data portal used to be a joke, but now it’s better. However, somehow the government still has this habit of releasing data in tables in PDF files, only to make your life difficult. People are so frustrated with it. Likewise, Raymond Li, chair and professor of the journalism department at Hong Kong Baptist University, observed that data availability is a major challenge for both journalists and journalism students: “I think the challenge increasingly is about the availability of data. Apart from the government or governmental institutions in Hong Kong, there are few other organizations or companies willing to spend money on creating databases.” Li also noted 364

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that there may be a political reason with Beijing tightening its grip on Hong Kong society: “Lack of transparency seems to have a political reason, too. Sometimes it is about the unwillingness of the government officials to share the data.” Pili Hu mentioned two other challenges, finance and readership. Hu said: The financial challenge is common everywhere in the world, but in Hong Kong it’s probably more serious given the heavy capitalism culture here. People have to focus on the tasks that earn real money for the employer. News organizations are no exception because they need to fund their operation. Back in the days when I was CTO of Initium Media, we produced a lot of investigative stories, which took months or even years to produce. But think about when these stories were published, how much traffic did we get? Hundreds of views, thousands at most. Just compare to celebrity scandal stories, which are not so hard to produce. You get at least tens of thousands of views just within hours, and those could grow exponentially, reaching the million level. Hong Kong is a small place with seven million people, so a million is a lot and will certainly please the boss.” In terms of readership, Hu pointed out that not all users (or readers) are so used to data, especially charts, but he was optimistic that, with more and more data being woven into people’s life and education, the situation would change to be better sooner or later, although, “I don’t know how many years it will take. Ho Wa Wong, who was the convener of the open data community “g0v” Hong Kong chapter and currently a corporate data scientist, noted that business corporations enjoy much more resources than the media industry does. “In terms of both manpower and money for data work, we have relatively much more resources in the corporates compared to the journalism people.” He pointed out that news organizations may not have the capacity to hire the right data people and invest to acquire the right data in a timely manner. “In terms of resources and time constraints, it is super challenging and difficult for doing data journalism in Hong Kong.”

Journalism Education The data and journalism experts interviewed in this current research were also asked of their assessment of the state of data journalism education in Hong Kong. Are Hong Kong journalism students sufficiently trained to be data-savvy? In other words, are they trained properly to handle data-driven journalism tasks? As Figure 33.1 illustrates, “training,” “courses,” “need,” “able,” and “advanced” appear to be the top five most frequently mentioned in their comments (Figure 33.1). “The simple answer is no, not yet,” said Raymond Li, department chair of HKBU. Li noted that data journalism courses are still largely elective, and the percentage of journalism students who receive data training is still of a very small portion, but he would like to see more than half of his students be able to deal with data. “I don’t think we are doing enough data training; we can always do more,” said Kai Chi Leung. “Obviously, there is a lack of data literacy in general,” said Ho Wa Wong. “It’s not just about journalism. Every student needs to have a data mindset and learn some advanced or more updated data tools.” Wong noted that while some of the recent journalism graduates 365

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cannot even handle Excel, others are, however, able to work out sophisticated data visualizations, such as infographics; some even know programming languages. In the past few years, when Feng Wang recruited interns, he always specifically asked for students who had taken data journalism courses. “We want to find students who had already been well trained in these skills who can hit the ground running, come up with good data ideas.” Wang shared that he had worked with those really good interns to produce wellresearched data stories, for instance, writing algorithms to detect or assess public sentiments in a large amount of text in both English and Chinese.

Advice for Future Journalists What advice does this group of experts has for journalism students? Collectively, they urged students to learn to accept that data is now ubiquitous and unavoidable. As such, being or becoming data literate and data-minded is critical to a successful future career. “If they just do not like numbers, that is a foundational problem. Even before data journalism emerged, you still need to have basic understanding of numbers,” said Pili Hu, who has a background in science. “I would think you can still focus on what you are good at, but you should learn how to work with people across the board.” Feng Wang, who has a background in humanities, shared his own experience to encourage number-phobic journalism students. Wang said: Sometimes you think you do not like numbers, maybe this was because like me, you were not very good at math, but if you are truly passionate about journalism, if you are truly dedicated to the truth and the facts and serving the public, you will find out soon enough in your career that data is something you definitely cannot do without. And it is not that complicated. You do not have to have an advanced computer science or mathematics degree to be able to process data. You can always learn on the job, and since data journalism courses are now widely taught in various schools and mid-career training workshops, it is never too late to pick it up. Once you have those skills, you will find that your journalism will be up a level. Additionally, Raymond Li said: Technological advancement and the data environment are changing the news media industry in every way possible. It is very important for our students to understand that, if they really want to work in the news media, there is no room to escape data in the future.

Acknowledgments The author is grateful to the interviewees for taking time from their busy schedules to support this research. Her gratitude also goes to Pili Hu and Bennie Zhu for providing valuable assistance at various stages of this study.

References Du, Y. R., Zhu, L., & Yang, F. (2018). A movement of varying faces: How “occupy central” was framed in the news in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, the UK, and the US. International Journal of Communication, 12, 22.

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Storytelling in the Age of Data Freedom House. (2014). Freedom of press. www.freedomhouse.org Heravi, B. R. (2018, June). Data journalism education globally. In Proceedings of the 2nd European data and computational journalism conference (Vol. 8). University College Dublin. Wiebrecht, F. (2018). Cultural co-orientation revisited: The case of the South China morning post. Global Media and China, 3(1), 32–50. Wu, S. (2018). Uncovering alternative “journalism crisis’ narratives in Singapore and Hong Kong: When state influences interact with Western liberal ideals in a changing media landscape. Journalism, 19(9–10), 1291–1307. Wu, S. (2022). Evaluating “exemplary data journalism” from Asia: An exploration into South China Morning Post’s data stories on China and the world. Journalism. doi:10.1177/14648849221093509 Yang, F., & Du, Y. R. (2016). Storytelling in the age of big data: Hong Kong students’ readiness and attitude towards data journalism. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 26(2), 148–162. Zhang, X., & Chen, M. (2020). Journalists’ adoption and media’s coverage of data-driven journalism: A case of Hong Kong. Journalism Practice, 1–19. Zhu, L., & Du, Y. R. (2018). Interdisciplinary learning in journalism: A Hong Kong study of data journalism education. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 28(1), 16–37.

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34 MEDIA CAPTURE The Conceptual Challenges for Studying Journalism in Transitional Democracies Mireya Márquez-Ramírez

Introduction As a theoretical concept that has taken off recently across a broad range of disciplinary studies, media capture has become useful to name and compartmentalize a range of similar but dispersed scholarship tackling the most long-observed issues across transitional democracies in the Global South: state control of the media, media power, media clientelism, censorship, or patrimonialism. Conceptually, media capture was first coined in the Economics literature but is a relatively new term as it helps media and communications scholars to re-brand oldage intertwined phenomena. Broadly understood as the undue influences exerted by external forces on news content, it is often the status quo more than the exception in most developing democracies, where the outcomes and benefits of capture are the raison d’être of many news outlets. The undue influence of vested interests can take many forms at the macro, meso, and micro levels, from regulatory capture to investment in media firms, political advertising, paid articles, subsidies, or bribes (Petrova, 2008, p. 121). Is capture a new form of media control or just another name? Can capture account for any form of deliberate control or just the subtle means of influence? Does capture materialize only in democracies or also in authoritarian regimes, where governmental control and intrusion in the media tend to be explicit? Does it only count at the macro-level of actors seeking to distort news media functions for their benefit or applies to the micro-level of newsgathering and routines? This chapter argues that, although media capture is becoming a practical term to name familiar phenomena, the term risks becoming a meaningless “catch-all” concept affecting all societal contexts indistinctively. Further scholarship needs to adopt a more systematic approach to capture and aim for a more solid theorization to move the concept forward and allow for better comparison across various dimensions of media and journalism. The chapter’s purpose is to reflect and shed some light on the multiple pathways that research on media capture has taken, offering a cursory chartering of the various literature threads that address such trajectories, first by providing different stances that qualify as capture, then by tracing the origin and expansion of the concept in the literature. It briefly reflects on the multiple levels, objects, actors, and actions encompassing the concept of media capture. Overall, a call is made for a more systematic theorization of media capture for better trans-disciplinary use of the concept when studying media and journalism. DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-39

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Media Capture: The Status Quo of Transitional Democracies A local businessman owns a few convenience stores across a conservative city in central Mexico but now wants to venture into the profitable nightclub business. In theory, he would have to face the same challenges that other applicants in the queue face: the hardto-get council clearance on liquor licenses, plus, informally, having to afford the privately paid-for police protection for the business to thrive. His old political allies and acquaintances in the police force are no longer in office. A new, center-right party has been elected in the city, and he is not sufficiently acquainted with the right type of agent within the local government who would accept a hefty monthly payment in exchange for permit clearance and protection. Luckily, the visionary businessman need not to worry. Like other experienced peers, he knows the solution to these challenges. His portfolio of business ventures includes the second most influential newspaper in the region, which he recently acquired from the bankrupt family who launched it decades ago and was desperate to sell it to the highest bidder. He is savvy enough to know that in a small city where readerships are small and private advertisers scarce, local media are not meant to be profitable, at least not the old way. His profit will not come from circulation, subscriptions, or commercial advertisement, because he did not acquire the outlet to run a legitimate news business according to professional journalistic standards but to earn political leverage and power. In the name of watchdog journalism, he can use slightly critical, front-page stories to blackmail the new council until getting the nightclub he wants. He can order to kill critical stories unfavorable to political actors to forge the vital alliances he needs. Soon enough, not only will his outlet capitalize from earning most government advertising contracts and perks, but also, by shifting political alliances, it will be the politicians’ turn to fawn over him. The preceding fictional but plausible example is typical across transitional democracies at national and sub-national levels. As a flagship case of  media capture, journalism and news media fall prey to the distorting forces that aim to curtail their expected democratic and societal functions. As Bajomi-Lázár (2014) notes, there is no consensus on the definition of capture. However, the most popular working definition for media capture is: “the interference of influential actors and vested interests in the news media, as individual parties act on their benefit, for private purposes, and to the detriment of the public interest and the democratic functions of journalism” (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2013, pp.  40–41). According to the studies of media capture, this interference can take many faces, formal and informal, legal and illegal, opaque or crystal-clear. However, the spirit remains: various agents forge scenarios, alliances, and situations to control the media for personal benefit at the expense of public service. The most prominent forms of media capture can exist in transitional democracies, where an “informal order coexists . . . alongside the rules and institutions of the market and democracy” (Ryabinska, 2014, p. 47). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, during the so-called third wave of democratization, many governments across the Global South implemented neoliberal reforms to privatize several crucial sectors handled by the state, including media and telecommunications. Instead of creating healthy and plural media markets, these processes of privatization and deregulation often created a web of clientelist relations that benefited political cronies and allies. In Mexico, for example, as in other Latin American countries, the private ownership of the media involved a new crony capitalism (Hughes & Lawson, 2004) characterized by collusive arrangements between media executives and the new political elites based on the prospect of future advertising contracts, business concessions, or other favors. 369

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In liberal political thought, free market economies and robust electoral democracies jointly enable a hospitable environment for media plurality, healthy press freedom, journalistic professionalization, and the functioning of the press as a fourth estate. Anchored in this liberal tradition, the dominant narratives of transition studies optimistically predicted the complex but eventually successful evolution of authoritarian models of journalism into the free liberal media systems typical of Western established democracies. In these narratives, “the media became free, switched their allegiance from the government to the people, and served democracy” (Curran, 2002, p.  7). The underlying assumption is that free markets provide the relevant institutions and processes of public communication to support a democratic polity (Garnham, 1992, p. 363). To some extent, liberal media systems in established democracies often uphold the professional standards of a free press that holds political powers accountable (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). However, media systems in most transitional democracies failed to fit such paths of straightforward transformations. The “transitology” literature (Sparks, 2008) has primarily acknowledged the complex and dissimilar process of transition from authoritarian to democratic societies (Voltmer, 2013; Gross & Jakubowicz, 2013; Márquez-Ramírez, 2014). “Not only the ‘efforts’ to ‘implant’ ‘western’ values and principles in post-communist journalisms” failed (Lauk, 2009, p. 69), but countries across Eastern Europe also evolved into oligarchic capitalism controlled by old political and new economic elites (De Smaele, 1999, p. 177). A similar path is found throughout Latin America, where clientelism is rampant (Hallin & Papathanassopoulos, 2002). Media houses in the region flourished from the collusive relations between media owners and the dictators and autocrats of the day. They thrived even more and became the leading Spanish- and Portuguese-language conglomerates they are today from forging questionable alliances with self-proclaimed reformers and modernizer rulers, from Carlos Menem in Argentina to Mexico’s Carlos Salinas. The new free market economies allowed news media to capitalize from more electoral competition due to a more diverse catalog of potential patrons and political advertisers, easing their switching of political allegiances. Although with specific national and sub-national nuances, similar features typify the “captured-liberal” term to characterize media systems in the region (Márquez Ramírez & Guerrero, 2014). In sub-Sharan African countries, characterized by patriomonialistic exercise of power, widespread political corruption, weak institutions, and the weak rule of law, authors find that fragile economic environments and journalists’ poor working conditions create “intersecting forms of media capture” (Mabweazara et al., 2020, pp. 18–19) underpinned by relations of patronage and clientelist practices. Capture is materialized either in brown envelopes handed out to reporters or, in the upper echelons of the hierarchy, in appointing politically aligned individuals to most regulatory institutions. The Tunisia of the post–Beni Ali regime, one of the few countries that, in the eyes of the Western world, saw the positive impact of the Arab Spring, faces its challenges. The new leaders devised regulatory processes and actors to protect media independence. However, in a long-known twist of events, media owners associated with political parties, and former Ali’s cronies have hindered the effective implementation of the new rules to bend them in their favor, seeking to emulate Italy’s Berlusconi (Labidi, 2017, pp. 125, 130). In most countries across Asia and Africa, Atal (2017, p. 23) argues that media capture is rooted in the legacy of colonialism, where private-funded newspapers catered primarily to colonial elites and acted as a branch of the colonial state, only for postcolonial governments to maintain and expand colonial-era laws that restricted media freedom. 370

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These new transitional settings, often plagued with continuity, have paved the way for the erupting studies of media capture worldwide. Mungiu-Pippidi (2008, p. 91) distinguishes between oligarchization and media capture – characteristic of semi-democratic and semiauthoritarian regimes – from a return to strict censorship and controlled media. In that sense, while both can overlap, no consensus exists on whether media capture is exclusive of transitional democracies or can also include typical state control mechanisms of autocratic governments. China has experimented with deep economic liberalization, but not political democratization. In a context of state control of the media, Chinese journalists are typically trapped between the continuing pressures of the state and the communist ideology, but also the market and the public, which could add different capture mechanisms to the equation. The Chinese government is said to exert media capture in Hong Kong, as corporate-owned legacy media outlets are increasingly deferential to the Beijing government’s news agenda due to its economic and political influence (Frisch et al., 2018). However, Guerrero (2023, p.  36) believes that media capture should not be applied to contexts like China, where state control of the media is explicit, since it is impossible to capture what is already being captured. He argues that criminal violence against the press should also not be considered capture. In contrast, in Cuba – arguably an authoritarian political regime – Olivera (2023) argues for a sui generis type of self-capture involving a contradiction between the alleged socialist ideals of democratic communication and the actual strict control of the state. In Central America, elites also resort to violent mechanism to capture the media (Robles Rivera, 2020). In Afghanistan, Relly and Zanger (2016) found captured news media by various actors, and they include organized crime, militia, and terrorist organizations, triggered by a volatile and insecure context, while still under US intervention, as crucial capture perpetrators. From all these uses and emerging debates about capture, it is clear that the widespread use of the concept has become as standard and popular as it is problematic.

Media Capture: The Problematic Concept and the Elusive Theorizations As a verb, the word capture hails from Latin and generally means to seize or take the possessions or control of something, usually by force. The noun is more ambiguous, though: it can involve both the actions of capturing and being captured. Today, this primary distinction is almost invisible in relevant scholarship. The cases presented earlier involve different actors, scenarios, and conditions across distant geographies united by the familiar presence of capture. Many proponents of the concept consider it a macro-level outcome of different mechanisms operating at a micro-level (Mungiu-Pipidi in Schiffrin, 2021, p. 6). In this definition, capture appears to be an effect rather than a cause. However, today media capture functions as an overarching concept encompassing various intertwined phenomena. A cursory literature review suggests that capture has been studied separately under different labels, contexts, and even disciplinary sub-fields, such as economics, media management, political economy, political communication, and media policy. The benefit of using a similar concept is that many phenomena can be covered under the capture umbrella, allowing for more systematic cross-disciplinary comparison. The downside is that the concept can become redundant if used as a synonym for more theoretically developed terms, like media control, media bias, censorship, partisanship, or media instrumentalization. Moreover, a consensus is lacking in the literature about the nature of capture. What characteristics set capture apart from other forms of control and power? What concrete processes, actors, and stages are involved in the media capture phenomena? In most studies, structure 371

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and agency play a fundamental role in promoting, enabling, or resisting capture. If most forces and actors at stake can be both captors, facilitators, and victims of capture, how to move forward to distinguish more explicitly processes, outcomes, and mechanisms of capture (Schiffrin, 2021), more discernible sub-types of capture, and more concrete levels of analysis? Which forms of capture explicitly affect –or are the effect – of factors at the systemic, institutional, and news-production levels? Of course, this chapter is too limited in extension and scope to attempt to answer the preceding questions. Instead, these are the questions that need reflection in future research. While scholars have adopted different levels of analysis, the first studies only focused on regulatory capture or state control of the media, making the factors and actors at play more discernible. Nevertheless, the concept has taken off in different directions, arguably departing from its initial direction. Media capture initially drew from the more established concept of  state capture, consisting of certain actors and sectors successfully imposing their private interests in developing and implementing public reforms and policies. In the context of the political transitions discussed earlier, Hellman and Schankerman (2000, p.  546) coined the term to illustrate how corporations and firms influenced the state and colluded with public officials to extract advantages. Public officials and politicians privately sell public goods to generate advantages for individual firms in a capture economy. The authors were careful to distinguish between state capture, influence, and overt administrative corruption, like bribes, considering capture as a phenomenon more intangible and opaquer. Moreover, transnational corporations can unduly lobby and influence various national and local policies through electoral financing of local candidates, lobbying, the revolving door phenomenon, cash handovers, and bribes aimed to dictate or “buy” laws (Durand, 2019). Transferring this concept to the field of media but still from an economics perspective, Besley and Prat (2006) shifted the role of the state from capture victim to primary capture perpetrator and beneficiary. Their trailblazing study proposes a macro-level, multi-factorial framework of media capture where specific features of the media market, like concentration, determine the ability of governments to exercise media capture. In their study, capture is operationalized as media bias, influencing political outcomes such as corruption, voting turnover, electoral results, and political accountability. Distorted market structures and barriers to entry in the media market led to more capture and worse political outcomes. In contrast, media plurality is an effective defense against capture (Besley & Prat, 2006, p. 729). In this pioneering study, the state was the captor, the concentration of the media market was the facilitator, media bias was the result of capture, and lack of political accountability was the long-term effect. Including media property in the equation, Corneo (2006) transcends the former unidirectional relation and introduces a multiplicity of private agents that may capture the media, including interest groups and media proprietors. The study found that wealth concentration is conducive to captured media because it gives the media a patron with more to benefit from untruthful reporting and who is, therefore, willing to pay more for this (Corneo, 2006). An increase in the degree of wealth concentration can undermine objective news coverage. In sum, the earliest studies introduced various dependent and independent variables, understanding media capture as a mechanism, action, and outcome. In the earliest literature, politicians, interest groups, and media actors can be both promoters and facilitators of capture. The concentration of media property and market structures can be the capture mechanisms and the capture facilitators. Content bias and manipulation are the outcomes 372

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of capture, while ultimately, a misinformed electorate and null accountability is the most pervasive effect of it. Since these pioneer studies opened the ground, research on media capture has expanded its scope and sophistication, especially across the economics literature. This discipline has provided plenty of empirical evidence about the multiple conditions that lead to media capture. Its determinants, effects, faces, variables, and limits are observed through sophisticated equations, mathematical propositions, and statistical models that predict the scenarios more likely to illustrate capture (Petrova, 2008; Gurun  & Butler, 2012; Bignon  & Flandreau, 2014; Prat, 2015; Enikolov  & Petrova, 2016; Louis-Sidois  & Mougin, 2020; Szeidl  & Szucs, 2021). The review by Enikolopov and Petrova (2015, p. 698) shows that governments use many methods for media control, including censorship, sponsorship via direct ownership or advertising, or media regulation (p. 698). Likewise, states and governments are not the only groups interested in distorting media content to their benefit. Interest groups like media owners, advertisers, journalists, politicians, or private companies partake in the processes (pp. 691–692). Their study notes and separates the various conditions that favor the “demand” for capture, that is, the incentives enticing governments and other interest groups to control the media and the capture “supply,” or willingness of media outlets to change their content (p. 693). In tandem, some of these scholarships do offer explicit distinctions between media control and media capture (Besley & Prat, 2006), or between media power and media capture as two “stylized extremes” (Prat, 2015, p. 671). However, these distinctions have not necessarily been made in subsequent scholarship, and many reviewed studies do not explicitly use the capture term. For their part, the more established and complex empirical studies often have failed to identify their research position concerning the macro-, meso-, or micro-level analysis, observance, and materialization of capture. Still, the concept has proved popular and sound over the years, far beyond economics, to refer to a growing number of phenomena. In part thanks to the work and initiative of Anya Shiffrin, a professor at Columbia University, the media capture concept is impacting and gaining a foothold in the field of media and communications but also leveraging from related disciplines like international relations or political science. Shiffrin has developed and promoted the exploration of media capture across different geopolitical contexts, disciplines, and milieus (2017, 2018), encouraging its examination freely, more recently in new digital environments and platforms (2021) that enable direct and indirect forms of capture (p. 9). She has advanced the argument that instead of allowing greater competition to inhibit capture, digital media have the opposite effect: making media capture more likely and hindering the policies aimed at preventing capture in digital environments (Schiffrin, 2021). Native advertising, platform algorithms, digital business models, and the shady motives for business owners to own digital websites are not different from the businessman in the opening example (Nielsen, 2017). In expanding the concept, Shiffrin is one of the few authors insisting on the potentially problematic understanding of the term media capture based solely on government control. For her, the involvement of the private sector enables a distinction between media capture and other familiar forms of government control (Schiffrin, 2017, p. 3), but this distinction is not always explicit in the scholarship. Instead, across the Global South, capture studies provide a broad analytical framework to address contemporary challenges to freedom of expression: media ideologically controlled by the government, media subjected to owner’s control, and media that push and defend agendas and questionable motivations. Examples of media control, the vested interests at stake, the means and shapes of media capture, and the context and direction in which this 373

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interference takes place have exponentially grown. Therefore, the conceptual development of media capture is crucial to untangle the overlapped phenomena that it increasingly entails worldwide. The specific media capture work of media and political scholars across Eastern Europe (Dragomir, 2019; Filipova, 2021), Latin America (Márquez Ramírez & Guerrero, 2014; Orchard, 2021; Robles Rivera, 2021), Africa (Höglund & Schaffer, 2021; Mabweazara et  al., 2020), Middle East (Labidi, 2017), and Asia (McElhone, 2017; Pan, 2017; Frisch et al., 2018) takes the concept of media capture to multiple directions and cases. The aggregated findings of these studies show various types of capture working simultaneously and being functional to established and de facto powers. They all show that capture is not static, as it can take many faces and operate in multiple scenarios beyond the concentrated markets and corporate types of ownership that prevail in established democracies. But one effect of this conceptual and geographical explosion is that the variables and factors at stake are inconsistently reported and problematized. For example, topics like media control, regulation, political parallelism, partisanship, or media instrumentalization are referred to as “media capture” in some studies. The range of perpetrating actors that perpetrate capture and factors that facilitate it has broadened: authoritarian states, political actors, multinational forces, lobbyists, media moguls, media cartels, advertisers, criminal organizations, digital platforms and algorithms, and even international donors and well-meaning sponsors. In doing so, old known phenomena are being used as proxies of capture. They include distorted regulation, censorship, control, media–state collusion, media power, partisanship, instrumentalization, political parallelism, biased digital algorithms, source–journalist interactions, or brown envelopes, with various external and internal actors and factors in between. Similarly, without clarifying what is to be understood by “media” – whether the industry, system, organization, editorial staff, news beat, individual journalist, news routines, or news content – almost anything can function as a proxy for “media.” In other words, the subjectnoun-action distinction is not always clearly identified in the capture web. Simple issues like who is the capturer, what is captured, who is the victim of capture, and what capture consists of are often elusive. The level of analysis in which capture materializes is also often taken for granted and theoretically neglected. At first, it was a phenomenon only applied to a macro-level analysis with a micro-effect, studying how endogenous forces like the state, the market, regulatory frameworks, and ownership structures unfavorably affected news content. However, nowadays, studies also cover meso- and micro-level analysis to account for centripetal forces inside the newsroom and news-making processes. The structures of ownership and shareholding (Bignon & Flandreau, 2014), as well as sponsored content and advertisers, can influence reporting routines and hinder critical business journalism (Atal, 2018). Similarly, old observed issues of source interaction, deference to sources, and privileged access to information in the so-called press corps of beat reporting are observed through the lens of media capture (Au & Kawai, 2012). While there are growing taxonomies of capture in the literature (Relly & Zanger, 2016; Atal, 2017; Stiglitz, 2017; Dragomir, 2019), conceptual dispersion is still a pressing challenge. The amount of research on media capture potentially allows for more systematic comparison across various disciplines and case studies. The field of media and communications across the Global South has matured enough evidence of the many factors obstructing the compliance of journalism’s societal functions, like the watchdog role. The actual performance of journalism’s normative roles is contingent upon socio-political contexts and subjugated to commercial and institutional logic and complex newsroom decision-making processes. 374

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Therefore, if capture is understood as “interference” alone or as the actions deliberately perpetrated by other actors, one could assume that journalism is perpetually at the risk of capture or, to some extent, captured already.

Conclusion Media capture can take many shapes and shades, nowadays involving multidirectional interactions between macro-structures and micro-relations. Descriptively, the long processes of media democratization across the Global South are shaped by – and resulted in – multiple and recognizable facets of capture. We have argued that for those of us skeptical of liberal narratives of media democratization, media capture can be a helpful term to account for the changes imbued in familiar continuity that characterizes media systems across our transitional democracies. The phenomena are recognized from Tanzania to Guatemala or from Ukraine to Indonesia: media owners imposing their own economic and political interests by building convenient alliances at the expense of public service, private-owned media functioning and benefiting from crony capitalism, media owners functioning as cartels or media regulation being dodged by the powerful. In that sense, capture is a term that has been much easier to identify as a practical, observable condition than a complex but ambiguous conceptual construct still needing a more solid and systematic theorization. In other words, capture has been much easier to observe, describe, and exemplify than to conceptualize, systematize, or typify. Most media capture studies now adopt a broad, generic understanding of capture to describe a growing diverse number of actors, scenarios, and forces, not always explicitly distinguishing between perpetrators, triggers, mechanisms, and outcomes. Also, we have noted that the discussion is underdeveloped on whether capture is exclusive of transitional settings that enjoy formal regulation distorted by vested interests or can also be identified in formal autocratic countries. The level of analysis from which capture is observed and where it materializes is also rarely explicit. Hence, how to make the most of this concept and move the field forward? How can new scholarship adopt a more rigorous and systematic comparative framework that can operationalize, compare, and measure different capture forms to transcend the “catch-up” umbrella concept? The answers are manifold and escape the scope and extent of this chapter. However, capture researchers should reach at least a minimal consensus and be explicit about the direction that capture takes, the actors and factors at stake, and crucially, the levels of observance of the interplay between actors, mechanisms, and outcomes of capture. Doing so will enable the measurement and comparison of different levels and types of capture across various contexts, reveal patterns of relations and interactions that can yield a more systematic picture of the Global South countries more affected by media capture, and allow for the recommendation of protective measures and strategies that can ameliorate the effects of capture.

References Atal, M. R. (2017). Competing forms of media capture in developing democracies. In A. Schiffrin (Ed.), In the service of power: Media capture and the threat to democracy (pp. 19–31). Enter for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy. Atal, M. R. (2018). The cultural and economic power of advertisers in the business press. Journalism, 19(8), 1078–1095.

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Mireya Márquez-Ramírez Au, P. H., & Kawai, K. (2012). Media capture and information monopolization in Japan. Japanese Economic Review, 63(1), 131–147. Bajomi-Lázár, P. (2014) Party colonisation of the media in central and Eastern Europe Central European University Press. Besley, T., & Prat, A. (2006). Handcuffs for the grabbing hand? Media capture and government accountability. American Economic Review, 96(3), 720–736. Bignon, V., & Flandreau, M. (2014). The price of media capture and the debasement of the French newspaper industry during the interwar. The Journal of Economic History, 74(3), 799–830. Corneo, G. (2006). Media capture in a democracy: The role of wealth concentration. Journal of Public Economics, 90(1–2), 37–58. Curran, J. (2002). Media and power. Routledge. De Smaele, H. (1999). The applicability of Western media models on the Russian media system. European Journal of Communication, 14(2), 173–189. Dragomir, M. (2019). Media capture in Europe (No. 2019). Media Development Investment Fund, Center for Media, Data and Society. Durand, F. (2019). La captura del Estado en América Latina: Reflexiones teóricas. Fondo Editorial de la PUCP. Enikolopov, R., & Petrova, M. (2015). Media capture. In S. Anderson, J. Waldfogel, & D. Strömberg (Eds.), Handbook of media economics (Vol. 1, pp. 687–700). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/ B978-0-444-63685-0.00017-6 Filipova, R. (2021). Tackling Kremlin’s media capture in Southeast Europe: Shared patterns, specific vulnerabilities and responses to Russian disinformation. Център за изследване на демок рацията. www. ceeol.com/search/book-detail?id=944169 Frisch, N., Belair-Gagnon, V., & Agur, C. (2018). Media capture with Chinese characteristics: Changing patterns in Hong Kong’s news media system. Journalism, 19(8), 1165–1181. Garnham, N. (1992). The media and the public sphere. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere. (pp. 359–376) MIT Press. Gross, P., & Jakubowicz, K. (Eds.). (2013). Media transformations in the post-communist world: Eastern Europe’s tortured path to change. Rowman & Littlefield. Guerrero, M. A. (2023). ¿Por qué definir como “liberal capturado” al modelo de sistemas mediáticos en América Latina? In M. Márquez Ramírez & M. A. Guerrero (Eds.), Los Sistemas de Medios en América Latina. Políticas de Comunicación, Regulación y Captura (Vol. 1, pp. 35–66). Tirant le Blanch/Universidad Iberoamericana. Gurun, U. G., & Butler, A. W. (2012). Don’t believe the hype: Local media slant, local advertising, and firm value. The Journal of Finance, 67(2), 561–598. Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge University Press. Hallin, D. C., & Papathanassopoulos, S. (2002). Political clientelism and the media: Southern Europe and Latin America in comparative perspective. Media, Culture & Society, 24(2), 175–195. Hellman, J., & Schankerman, M. (2000). Intervention, corruption and capture: The nexus between enterprises and the state. The Economics of Transition, 8(3), 545–576. https://doi.org/10.1111/ 1468-0351.00055 Höglund, C.-M., & Karlsson Schaffer, J. (2021). Resisting media capture: Mobilizing for media freedom in Uganda (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. 3912443). https://doi.org/10.2139/ ssrn.3912443 Hughes, S., & Lawson, C. H. (2004). Propaganda and crony capitalism: Partisan bias in Mexican television news. Latin American Research Review, 39(3), 81–105. Labidi, K. (2017). Tunisia’s media barons wage war on independent media regulation. In A. Schiffrin (Ed.), In the service of power: Media capture and the threat to democracy. (pp. 125–136). Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy. Lauk, E. (2009). Reflections on changing patterns of journalism in the new EU countries. Journalism Studies, 10(1), 69–84. Louis-Sidois, C., & Mougin, E. (2020, March 1). Silence the media or the story? Theory and evidence of media capture. SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3561443 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn. 3561443

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Media Capture Mabweazara, H. M., Muneri, C. T., & Ndlovu, F. (2020). News “media capture”, relations of patronage and clientelist practices in sub-Saharan Africa: An interpretive qualitative analysis. Journalism Studies, 21(15), 2154–2175. Márquez-Ramírez, M. (2014). Post-authoritarian politics in a neoliberal era: Revising media and journalism transition in Mexico. In M. A. Guerrero & M. Márquez-Ramírez (Eds.), Media systems and communication policies in Latin America (pp. 272–291). Palgrave Macmillan. Márquez-Ramírez, M., & Guerrero, M. A. (2014). Introduction: Media systems in the age of (Anti) neoliberal politics. In M. A. Guerrero & M. Márquez-Ramírez (Eds.), Media systems and communication policies in Latin America (pp. 1–23). Palgrave Macmillan. McElhone, J. M. (2017). The state, the military, and the market: Capture in the new Burmese media landscape. In A. Schiffrin (Ed.), In the service of power: Media capture and the threat to democracy (pp. 59–82). Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy. Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2008). How media and politics shape each other in the New Europe. In K. Jakubowicz & M. Sükösd (Eds.), Finding the right place on the map: Central and Eastern European media change in a global perspective (pp. 87–98). Intellect Books. Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2013). Freedom without impartiality. The vicious circle of media capture. In P. Gross & K. Jakubowicz (Eds.), Media transformations in the post-communist world: Eastern Europe’s tortured path to change (pp. 33–48). Rowman & Littlefield. Nielsen, R. K. (2017). Media capture in the digital age. In A. Schiffrin (Ed.), In the service of power: Media capture and the threat to democracy. Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy. Olivera Pérez, D. (2023). El sistema mediático cubano: Resistencia y captura. In M. MárquezRamírez & M. A. Guerrero (Eds.), Los Sistemas de Medios en América Latina: Políticas de Comunicación, Regulación y Captura (Vol. 1, pp. 157–182). Tirant le Blanch/Universidad Iberoamericana. Orchard, X. (2021). Mecanismos de captura y práctica periodística: Explorando los límites al ejercicio del periodismo en Chile, en. In G. Santangelo et al. (Ed.), Derecho a la Comunicación en América Latina. Editorial Javeriano-ITESO. Pan, Y. (2017). Managed liberalization: Commercial media in the People’s Republic of China. In A. Schiffrin (Ed.), In the service of power: Media capture and the threat to democracy (pp. 111–123). Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy. Petrova, M. (2008). Political economy of media capture. In R. Islam (Ed.), Information and public choice: From media markets to policymaking (pp. 121–138). World Bank Publications. Prat, A. (2015). Media capture and media power. In Handbook of media economics (Vol. 1, pp. 669– 686). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-63685-0.00016-4 Relly, J. E., & Zanger, M. (2016). The enigma of news media development with multi-pronged “capture’: The Afghanistan case. Journalism, 18(10), 1233–1255. Robles Rivera, F. (2020). Élites y estrategias de captura de medios en América Central. Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 83(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.22201/iis.01882503p.2021.1.60021 Ryabinska, N. (2014). Media capture in post-communist Ukraine. Problems of Post-Communism, 61(2), 46–60. Schiffrin, A. (2017). In the service of power: Media capture and the threat to democracy. Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy. www.cima.ned.org/resource/ service-power-media-capture-threat-democracy/ Schiffrin, A. (2018). Introduction to special issue on media capture. Journalism, 19(8), 1033–1042. Schiffrin, A. (Ed.). (2021). Media capture: How money, digital platforms, and governments control the news (p. 328). Columbia University Press. Sparks, C. (2008). Media systems in transition: Poland, Russia, China. Chinese Journal of Communication, 1(1), 7–24. Stiglitz, J. E. (2017). Toward a taxonomy of media capture. In A. Schiffrin (Ed.), In the service of power: Media capture and the threat to democracy (pp. 9–18). Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy. Szeidl, A., & Szucs, F. (2021). Media capture through favor exchange. Econometrica, 89(1), 281–310. Voltmer, K. (2013). The media in transitional democracies. John Wiley & Sons.

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35 WOMEN JOURNALISTS IN MEXICO They Will Not Silence Our Voices Yennué Zárate Valderrama

Introduction “Nobody told us they would kill us, but neither did they tell them they would not silence us.” It was the leitmotif of a women regional journalist in this research that shows how violence and resilience cohabit. In Mexico, multiple forms of violence coexist: gender violence, organized crime, and the state. This research exemplifies precisely how these three types of violence overlap, from its most “subtle” forms to the most serious and visible. Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in which to practice journalism (Reporters Without Borders, 2022a, 2022b); more than 160 journalists have been murdered and disappeared in recent years. 2022 has been the most lethal year, with 18 journalists having been assassinated (Article 19, 2022). Since 2000, Article 19 has documented 331 aggressions against journalists and media related to their work. This country has a rate of 10 femicides per day according to the report of the Mexican Security and Citizen Protection Ministry report (2023). Mexican women journalists face a four-layered challenge: firstly, to work in a country with a high level of anti-press violence; secondly, the situation of their gender in a context riddled with femicide; thirdly, their sources, colleagues, and bosses immersed in patriarchal structural violence (cultural and symbolic) of naturalized misogyny; and fourthly, the state. Journalists “are subjected to systematic attacks rooted in structural causes, such as widespread domestic violence, political violence, limitations on access to justice, high levels of impunity, human rights violations” (Zárate et al., 2022). A survey indicated that 73% of Mexican women journalists have experienced harassment, intimidation, or sexual assault during the course of their work, both outside and inside newsrooms (PUM, 2019). Women journalists scholar Julie Posetti et al.’s (2020) and Posetti & Shabbir (2022) research shed light to online violence globally; the common denominator for female journalists in different geographical contexts are harassment and gender violence. Further research by Posetti et  al. (2021) identified global trends of online violence; as Lebanese journalist Ghada Oueiss stated, “a journalist is at the epicenter of online risk amid weaponized geopolitical threats” (Posetti et al., 2023: 1). The 2017 UNESCO report recognizes specific threats to women digital or offline journalists. Likewise, it recognizes that women journalists have experienced more attacks than men DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-40

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and additional types of abuse, coupled with gender prejudice, mysoginist work environments, and when they are reporting in the field. Therefore, being a journalist in Mexico implies operating in a context where multiple actors – state and non-state – utilize violence to silence, censor (self-censor), shape narratives, close or constraint spaces for debate and freedom of expression. The Mexican state and organized crime alike have completed such powers against the journalistic guild in Mexico (cf. Article 19, 2023). This chapter will shed light on the safety of women journalists and their experiences in different dimensions of violence and, on top of that, how they face their employers and colleagues who also use violence against them and, additionally, their sources that harass them; all these actors are immersed in a patriarchal structure of naturalized misogyny. Being a woman facing powerful criminal groups and a corrupt and colluded state is a challenge; moreover, precisely because of their gender, it is naturalized to exert violence toward female journalists and for these and the high level of impunity to go unnoticed. As the Women’s Communication and Information Centre nongovernmental organization’s director puts it, when female journalists file a complaint, “there is twice as much judgement. They tend to pry into their private lives first, instead of following the thread of free speech. The right to equality and to live free from violence should  be guaranteed” (Lagunes in Zárate Valderrama, 2020, 00:15:10). Violence against women journalists and human rights defenders, politicians, women that challenge the status quo is used to silence and discipline them. In 2018, 164 attacks against women journalists were documented, of which 13 attacks had a gender connotation and 10 had a sexual component. The Mexican municipalities with the highest number of attacks during 2018 are Veracruz with 57, followed by Puebla and CDMX. The main sources of aggression come from public officials, followed by organized crime (CIMAC, 2018). In 2022, Mexico City, Guerrero, and Puebla were the most dangerous states for women journalists (CIMAC Women’s Communication and Information Centre, 2022). Between 2013, with 47 registered cases, and 2021, with 232, the number of attacks has increased almost five times. In 2015, there was an escalation in violence against women journalists in four years – from 2012 with 30% to 2015 with 70% cases. The states with the highest rates of violence were Veracruz with 19.7%; Mexico City, 18.7%; Guerrero, 8.1%; and Oaxaca and Morelos, 5.4% (CIMAC Women’s Communication and Information Centre, 2016, p. 36). During the pandemic, violence against female journalists increased on social media,  from January to September of 2020; 25% of the attacks have been online, with smear campaigns (CIMAC Women’s Communication and Information Centre, 2022). The types of violence exerted against journalists have been classified as psychological, physical, patrimonial, economic, and sexual. In the case of female journalists, there are data (2014–2015) on psychological violence at 87.7%; physical violence, 40.8%; patrimonial violence, 21%; economic violence, 9.5%; and sexual violence, 2%. The threats against women journalists deal with their bodies and families; the threat is expressed with sexual connotations, humiliations, qualifiers around their sexuality. Likewise, the threats seek to silence women by cutting off extremities, such as the tongue, hands, and head, in reference to their profession (Beard, 2017). In Mexico, at the beginning of the 19th century, the publications had inserts with special sections for women, with moral and fashion news. Mexican Eagle (El Águila Mexicana), Almanaque de las Señoritas, El Iris from 1826, El Calendario de las Señoritas Mexicana, and La Semana de las Señoritas, all written by male journalists, reinforced the stereotype 379

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of femininity through articles on beauty, fashion, and childcare. In 1861, Mexico passed the decree that women could have formal education, particularly to become teachers; they were the ones that began to establish their own publications: The Anahuac Violets (Violetas del Anáhuac), The Woman’s Album (El album de las señoras), and The Ladies’ Courier (El correo de las señoras). However, they also began to question the world they lived in and to denounce discrimination. Laureana Wright, in the 19th century, founded The Anahuac Violets, where we can observe the presence of women who now felt that journalism was part of their transformation within society. Wright wrote about participation in public sphere, seeking for women to have greater knowledge of society (Hernández Carballido, 2010), politics, science, as well as rejecting the morality proposed by that time on the myth of femininity. Mexican women began to appear as reporters in the 1930s, a time that was also significant to the struggle for the vote for women (Hernández Carballido, research interview, 2020).

Method and Theories This research analyzes the praxis and rationality of journalists in violent environments through semi-structured interviews aiming to show the different types of violence women journalists face. They will be examined from a tripartite perspective: professional culture, their employment status, and personal environment. It will seek to map the world of female Mexican journalists through their insights by using a feminist methodology and epistemology. This research conducted 38 in-depth semi-structured interviews with female journalists; the sample will be the following states that have registered the highest level of violence to women journalists (CIMAC Women’s Communication and Information Centre, 2019, 2020, 2022): Baja California North (n = 17), Mexico City (n = 8), Veracruz (n = 5), Chihuahua (n = 4), Oaxaca (n = 3). The geographical selection of the sample aims to analyze states with high rates of violence against women journalists and to examine patterns of violence directed at journalists between regions and the city. The fieldwork was carried out in 2019 via face-to-face in-depth interviews in situ and in 2020 via online (Zoom) due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The sampling comprises a diversity of regions and diversity of media (private, public, and community media), all female journalists, including local reporters and correspondents of national media, and hyper-local news agencies. The research subjects were considered under the lens of intersectionality to attain a comprehensive sampling landscape. This research examines through in-depth, semistructured interviews and visual anthropology research subjects who cover the beat of hard news (crime beat, justice, social movements, migration, politics, and those who report on women’s issues). Subjects are between 25 and 55  years old, to have an age-comparative scope. Data was analyzed with Nvivo and Taguette qualitative software. The research subjects’ analyzed data will be presented in this chapter as “Research Subject 1” and the year of the interview (shown as RS1, 2020), to illustrate the data. A methodological limitation to study Mexican women journalists was the novelty of being questioned with feminist methodology-specific questions (i.e., harassment, gaslighting, misogyny, work gender violence), which the totality of research subjects reported never having been questioned before. Therefore, the in-depth technique utilized – in most cases – had to become a long-form interview (2–3 hours) to gain trust to talk about certain key gendersensitive issues. Regarding this delicate topic, some of the respondents asked for their right to anonymity and to be off the record. This research acknowledges the limitations of a social 380

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science researcher as this approach needs a multidisciplinary alliance (psychology-social science). To mitigate the risks to interviewees’ re-victimization, we assured all respondents of their ethical standpoint of the qualitative research and their right to anonymity. All of them signed a consent form. This research data has been used to make a documentary, They will not silence our voices (Zárate Valderrama, 2020), directed by the author, presented at the Fifth International Conference on the Safety of Journalists in Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet), Norway, 2020. It then led to scientific disclosure with a wide non-academic audience and to spark the dialogue on the theme. The theoretical standpoint undertaken in this research is multidisciplinary, given that there is not a single theory to examine the social conditions of women in society. The aim is to intertwine professional field theory (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) and feminist theory to examine women journalists. The professional field theory examines the media as an institution embedded in a larger social context. Professional fields are perceived as microcosms that unite the agents and institutions in charge of producing a utility – in the case of journalism, information. For Bourdieu and Wacqant (1992, p. 96), the field is, to think relationally, a network of objective relations among positions. In this regard, this research uses the prior theory interlaced with the feminist standpoint epistemology (Haraway, 1995) asserting that knowledge is socially situated as the power relations that structure social life. The theory helps identify power relations and production of knowledge which analyzes categories of patriarchy, oppression, and/or exploitation of women, the patriarchal mode of production, sexual discrimination, sex/gender system, empowerment, gender relations (Bartra, 2010). Therefore, the main study subjects are women, as a non-androcentric methodology (Bartra, 2010). In this sense, it seeks to support the debate on gender issues in the construction, methodologies, and theories of science. The central themes are “the critique of the interpretation frameworks of observation, as well as the description and influences of social and political roles and values in ​​ research . . . as well as proposals for reformulation of epistemic authority structures” (Blazquez et al., 2010, p. 22). Blazquez elucidates a “feminist epistemological critique” of scientific androcentrism on the construction of knowledge. This research utilized the categories constructed by Lagarde y de los Ríos (1990 [2014]) analyzing the anthropology of women under the categories of the historical generic condition of women, the situation of women, and this research proposed double/triple working day, objectification, infantilization, sexual morality, and disqualification. However, to analyze this phenomena of violence and safety of women journalists, this research used the framework proposed by Krook and Restrepo Sanín (2020) that violence against women politicians originates in the dynamics of structural, cultural, and symbolic violence. Therein, anti-press and misogynistic violence against women journalists is expressed in a threefold manner (structural, cultural, and symbolic).

Findings and Discussion: Mexican Women Journalists’ Experiences of Work Harassment, Infantilization, Threats Drawing on the thematic method design and interview responses, we identified key issues that women journalists face. In this chapter, we will develop the themes of work harassment, threats, infantilization, and digital violence. This study reveals that the majority of Mexican journalists interviewed have experienced some form of harassment and gender discrimination 381

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during their careers (either in their media outlet or during their work outside the media). The degree varies from the more subtle to the most open discriminatory practices. Journalists are subjected to the questioning of their prestige and sexual smear campaigns. “To defame them [women journalists] and link them as lovers of some congressman, I mean, it’s a bit much to use your image, your body to smear you” (RS3, 2020). This is ominous, given that Mexico is a conservative country, with a Catholic majority; to question their sexual moral enhances the belittlement to female journalists’ work in a culture of misogyny. The testimony of the following regional journalist reveals that journalists’ skills are questioned not by their ability to produce information but by another type of access: They try to make us look bad, to play down our information and always say that we must have gotten it by behaving indecorously. They launched a simultaneous campaign against me, alleging that I was “a brothel madam”, I was presented as the “provider” of women to government workers and leaders. (RS5, 2020) We have found that a higher degree of work harassment occurs with their sources, which is particularly dangerous when the sources are armed forces. The following testimony exemplifies the issue clearly: When covering crime beat [nota roja], if I had to interact with cops, sometimes they’d give me their number and I’d take them as sources. There were many, many occasions when marines, soldiers, cops, stepped over the line, and it was kind of scary to say anything, I mean, I can’t refuse or make a fuss because, after all, it’s an armed person and I knew that the violence was coming from the police institutions. . . . [O]nce they texted me unrequested sexual photographs, it was dreadful. (RS1, 2020) A Northern regional journalist concurs (RS17): I always minimize it . . . specially in the Mexican context, if they see you as a young reporter, as a woman . . . if they see you alone . . . it has happened to me a lot with the police, once with a town judge, he made inappropriate comments. Also with politicians, whether it’s my appearance, they send me messages after [the interview]. When you interview someone, you get their mobile phone in case you need to verify something later. And they ask me if I’m married if I want to go out with them. Specially the police. Most of the women journalists relate to the safety risk of having shared (WhatsApp or mobile contact) communication with their sources which are males in power positions (i.e., politicians, businessmen, security forces, public officials, local public servants, corporate actors). We collected accounts of stalking and sexual harassment (via text messages, phone calls, and interviews). This is a particular safety risk to female journalists, given that the harassment, stalking, and mobbing come from a person in a power position. This connects with Posetti’s (2021) research that elucidates the contemporary specific targeting of female journalists by the state and corporate actors. In the case of Mexico, they engage not only in

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disinformation campaigns and attacks but also in non-public displays, harassment, and stalking, which show the cultural violence of normalization of harassment of female journalists as a part of the journalistic labor condition.

Threats Regarding the Threats that women journalists receive, they are linked to intimidation of their families. By infantilizing them, they subtly discipline them to stop researching on certain topics which are uncomfortable for certain actors. There was some news with murders, and they were apparently associated with the military, I was sent to cover that story. I remember soldiers arrived at my office, they got out with a silver tray that held an envelope addressed to me to have a meeting at the military barracks . . . A circular table where I am greeted . . . between six and maybe ten soldiers, all uniformed and decorated. They asked me: “Are you the girl who’s been misbehaving?” Like a child, right? As though I were in trouble and had to listen to my parents and my uncles lecture me. “Look here, we’re not the bad guys. For example, if I wanted to, I could make you disappear, I could do that and no-one would find out, don’t you think?” (RS2, 2020) The infantilization as a category is shown in different forms: firstly, their right to undertake a professional critical job, the questioning of their “place” in the newsroom, their right to work in the media, and additionally, to attain certain hard news beat, for instance, the political beat that is given traditionally to male journalists. A Northern regional journalist states: Chihuahua, it’s a machista [misogynistic] environment . . . to begin with, the assignments you get first, are health beat, education beat, because they’re considered the weakest topics, they’re not beats of power, those sources you have to earn bit by bit, right? You as a woman because they are given to men. (RS3, 2020) A Mexico City journalist concurs and also exemplifies the questioning of her right to work in the newsroom: “Some of my colleagues doubt my ability, they infantilize you, based on the little experience I have, certain questions began to emerge, uncomfortable ones: ‘Why are you here?’, ‘Why did they hire you?’, ‘Aren’t you young to be here?’ ” (RS4, 2020). This category is linked with an age-specific group of the interviewees. An east-central regional journalist states: “They would call me names like ‘little girl’ or ‘sweetheart’, while my male colleagues would be addressed by their professional titles [licenciado]” (RS1, 2020). Regarding the threats, there is subtlety, as some of them do not come in an open manner; on the contrary, journalists must read between lines for their own security: “[The threats] they’re subtle, it’s not like they stick a gun in your face and they call you and tell you we’re going to kill you, I mean, no, they’re subtle, but they’re threats” (RS3, 2020). From the subtlety to the most evident silencing threats, a Northern journalist recalls the murder of their colleague – an investigative reporter in Chihuahua – Miroslava Breach Belducea: “When

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Miroslava was assassinated, there was a derogatory message on a poster board that said: ‘we killed her for being a blabbermouth’ in other words, a gossiping woman” (RS3, 2020). The research subject had received threats and left the country for a couple of years. In this context, a Northern journalist states: A “narco-banner” showed up and announced that a colleague and I we were going to get killed, they made it seem it was a narco-banner put up by the drug cartels, threatening us so we wouldn’t report anything. And, as a result of that, another narco-banner showed up the following day over a street close to our newsroom, which was attributed to groups of local drug runners, it said something like, “Honorable journalists, that wasn’t us, nothing to do with us, this is about something different” and well, you’ve never seen anything like this, right? Another journalist experienced an open symbolic construction of online threat: When I published these articles, on the newspaper’s social media sites, fake accounts started to comment: “old dumbass” [Tr: vieja pendeja]. They also posted edited pictures that suggested they wanted to see me dead. In these images they had a [videogame] fight scene with a wrecked body, where the female figure was split in two and had my face and the man standing over her had the town mayor’s face. Another image of someone sitting down and they had my face, and behind was the town mayor pointing a gun at me. (RS1, 2020) The same journalist recalls the effects of this specific threat on her work routines and ethos: Then I  was scared, by then we’d had a lot of journalists assassinated in this state [Veracruz] and absolutely nothing had been done about it and nobody’s going to give me my life back, right? And what I thought of the most was the pain my mother would feel, so great was her despair and worry that she shut down her business to accompany me on my jobs and in some way say that she protected me, right? Because we were together. (RS1, 2020) As shown, the data sustain the distinct typology of threats, infantilization, and harassment as part of their everyday labor. Violence has evident effects in their personal and professional lives, their families, and networks. An element to consider when analyzing female journalists in hostile environments is the double-edged safety risk: journalists and woman.

Conclusions To study journalists with gender perspective has allowed us to analyze in-depth patriarchal social structures that permeate the labor of female journalists. By examining, firstly, the journalist in her condition and situation as a woman, this research provides insights on understanding of female journalists in a country with a high level of femicide and misogyny. The

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“safety of journalists” debate can consider the vulnerabilities that women journalists in this case study face. As shown in this chapter, the aggressions are directed to discipline and silence women, by attacking their credibility and prestige, but also question their rationality and their right to be part of the public sphere as professional women. This finding is intersected with feminist researcher Krook’s (2020) research on violence against female politicians, activists, and opinion leaders. Women journalists in this case study have to worry about their security beyond their work. Further research could rethink the conception of “security” itself. Not only for women, but also how it was built that it did not include them. The conceptualization did not consider them to accurately analyze the physical and digital security of female journalists, particularly in the Global South countries with weak democracies and high impunity rates. The range of violence against women journalists is wide; firstly, we should point out the importance of the language, the words that belittle journalists, referring to and labelling them as “little girls,” reducing them as infants because of their gender. The pigeonholing of their labor as only qualified of covering certain topics, such as light news (i.e., health, education, entertainment, weather), alluding to the stereotype of the caring role of women, and closing the possibility to open the access to hard news as something they shall earn because of their gender. Regional female journalists have a critical understanding of their praxis and professional logic of covering violence in a context of more than ten years of war against drug trafficking, as well as endemic violence. Additionally, Mexican women journalists in violent environments experiment different typologies of discrimination, cultural misogyny. Women journalists are concerned to carry out their work in this adverse environment. Their worry is the safety of their women’s bodies in different physical and virtual settings as female journalists, which adds layers of violence normalized by established social, cultural, and symbolic patriarchal structures. Regarding both digital and physical risk factors for violence, the data from this research reveal that violence is not exercised only through direct and personal interactions, but through social networks, where violence multiplies from anonymity, therefore the risk resides psychologically, it ruins reputations and careers (cf. Zárate Valderrama, Ortíz & Vázquez, 2022). Carrying out this research with feminist epistemology and methods allowed us to evidence the patriarchal structures. This research started in 2019; therefore, to focus on women as exclusive research subjects helped to understand the standpoint theory of marginalized subjects and to reflect on the differentiated violence and to consider public policies. The accounts of strength and resilience reveal their journalist ethos: “In this country in the throes of upheaval, there is no other option than to continue to cause disruption through journalism” (RS5, 2020). “If we survived under other governments, this new environment of social media and violence against women journalists . . . we will survive this too” (RS7, 2020).

References Article 19. (2021). Distortion: The discourse against reality, annual report 2020. https://articulo19. org/distorsion/ Article 19. (2022). Impunidad y negación ante la Violencia extrema persiste semestre de 2022. https:// articulo19.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Informe-primer-semestre-2022.pdf

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Yennué Zárate Valderrama Article 19. (2023). Voices against the indifference, Annual report. https://articulo19.org/wp-content/ uploads/2023/03/Voces-contra-la-Indiferencia-INF-A19-22-PDF-Prel-vf.pdf Bartra, E. (2010). Acerca de la investigación y la metodología feminista. In N. Blazquez Graf, F. Flores Palacios, & M. Ríos Everardo (Eds.), Investigación feminista. Epistemología, metodología y representaciones sociales (pp. 67–77). UNAM-CEIICH. Beard, M. (2017). Women and power: A manifesto. Paidos. Bellingcat – Collective March 23 & allies. (2019). Miroslava: The Journalist Who Refused to be Complicit. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/09/06/miroslava-the-journalist-whorefused-to-be-complicit/ Blazquez, N., Flores, F., & Ríos, M. (Eds). (2010). Investigación feminista. Epistemología, metodología y representaciones sociales. UNAM-CEIICH. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Polity Press. CIMAC Women’s Communication and Information Centre. (2016). Cartographies of violence against journalists. https://cartografia-cimac.uwazi.io/ CIMAC Women’s Communication and Information Centre. (2018). Herencia de un sexenio: Simulación y desplazamiento. Violencia contra las mujeres periodistas 2012-2018l Report. Mexico. CIMAC Women’s Communication and Information Centre. (2020). En México 70 de cada 100 periodistas mujeres que investigan corrupción, son agredidas. https://cimacnoticias.com.mx/2020/07/02/ en-mexico-70-de-cada-100-mujeres-periodistas-que-investigan-corrupcion-son-agredidas CIMAC Women’s Communication and Information Centre. (2022). Palabras impunes: Estigmatización y violencia contra mujeres periodistas en México 2019-2022. Report. Mexico. https://cimac.org.mx/ wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Informe_CIMAC_2022_AMLO_Estigmatizacion.pdf Haraway, D. (1995). Ciencia, cyborgs y mujeres. La reinvención de la naturaleza. Cátedra. Hernnández Carballido, E. (2010). Dos violetas del Anáhuac. Documentos y Estudios de la Mujer (DEAC). Krook, M. L. (2020). Violence against women in politics. Oxford University Press. Krook, M. L., & Restrepo Sanín, J. (2020). The cost of doing politics? Analyzing violence and harassment against female politicians. Perspectives on Politics, 18(3), 740–755. Lagarde y de los Ríos, M. (1990 [2014]). Los cautiverios de las mujeres: Madresposas, monjas, putas, presas y locas. Siglo XXI Editores. Mexican Security and Citizen Protection MInistry report (2023). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1 gh15U5y0t9jjnQ3hsNEcLf3iHm1JW-Km/view Posetti, J. (2021). The new frontline: Women journalists at the intersection of converging digital age threats. In K. Skare-Ogeret (Ed.), Insights on peace and conflict reporting. Routledge. Posetti, J., Aboulez, A., Bontcheva, K., Harrison, J., & Waisbord, S. (2020). Online violence against women journalists: A global snapshot of incidence and impacts. UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco. org/ark:/48223/pf0000375136/PDF/375136eng.pdf.multi Posetti, J., Maynard, D., Al-Kaisy, A., Harb, Z., & Shabbir, N. (2023). International Center for Journalists – Big Data Case Study Ghada Oueiss. https://www.icfj.org/sites/default/files/2023-02/ ICFJ_BigData_Ghada%20Oueiss_Online%20Violence.pdf Posetti, J., & Shabbir, N. (2022). (Eds.). The chilling: A global study of online violence against women journalists. International Center for Journalists-UNESCO. Posetti, J., Shabbir, N., Maynard, D., Bontcheva, K., & Aboulez, N. (2021). The chilling: Global trends in online violence against women journalists. UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000377223 PUM United Mexican Women Journalists. (2019). AcosoDATA 1: Survey on harassment, mobbing and sexual violence against Mexican women journalist’s media workers. https://tinyurl.com/ acosoDATA Reporters Without Borders. (2022a). In 2022, journalist killings continue unabated in Mexico amid climate of impunity. Retrieved 20 October, 2022, from https://cpj.org/2022/08/in-2022journalist-killings-continue-unabated-in-mexico-amid-a-climate-of-impunity/ Reporters Without Borders. (2022b). 2022 el año más mortífero para los periodistas en la historia de México. Retrieved 20 October, 2022, from https://rsf.org/es/2022-es-ya-el-a%C3%B1o-m%C3% A1s-mort%C3%ADfero-para-los-periodistas-en-la-historia-de-m%C3%A9xico Segato, R. (2018). Contra-pedagogías de la crueldad. Prometeo Libros.

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36 UNVEILING THE MASTER SIGNIFIER IN MEDIA ETHICS TRANSGRESSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA Glenda Daniels Introduction Based in political philosophy, this chapter draws out the main trends from the Inquiry into Media Ethics and Credibility report to unveil the master signifier of ethical transgressions in the media in South Africa. The report, over 300 pages, was released in 2020 after an independent commission, consisting a three-person panel headed by retired judge Kathy Satchwell, was set up by the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef). The research was commissioned after a series of transgressions of the Press Council of South Africa. The report covered breaches by mainstream media, such as not affording subjects enough time for the right to reply, false reports emanating from journalists drawn into political factional battles, and even “brown envelope”1 journalism. This chapter uses concepts from political philosophy theory to identify the trends to unveil the master signifier. The research complements the recent theoretical contributions of listening journalism, peace journalism, and ubuntu as frameworks. It makes reference to as many works as possible from our Global South theorists: Rodny-Gumede, Chasi, Mutsvairo, Mabweazara, Wasserman, Reid, Duncan, Chiumbu, Chuma, Bosch, Tomaselli, Fourie, Mano, milton and Langmia et al., who have made significant contributions to theorizing decolonization of media, journalism, and communication studies. In reimagining journalism in the Global South, this chapter discusses gaps and spaces for any resignifications. Resignification would mean not repeating norms from the oppressive apartheid and colonial past. Indeed, to detach from past signifiers and past passionate attachments could mean some freedom. To put it in a Fanonian way: “we must find a different path” (1963, p.  251). This chapter searches for the main ethical transgressor (the culprit) in a changed world mediascape, overlapping with the particular political and cultural context of the Global South. A master signifier, to paraphrase Zizek (1989), means a sort of knot of meanings, all rigidly designated to one thing. Applied for this chapter’s purposes, the questions are: What is the issue that anchored journalists in their practice when they transgressed ethical codes of good practice; what is it that the breaches were tied to beyond all else; or are they merely random and free-floating signifiers? In this consideration of ethics, the first code in South African DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-41

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journalism, indeed almost everywhere, is this: journalists are obliged to report news truthfully, accurately, and fairly. Today, we accept as a fact that a critical, independent, and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy, as articulated by South Africa’s first democratic president, Nelson Mandela, in 1994. By 1996, the democratic normative values of freedom (for example, free expression, including for the media) were stamped in the Constitution. Media freedom is, therefore, constitutionally protected. The regulation of media, a self-regulation and voluntary system, takes place through codes of ethics via the Press Code of the Press Council of SA and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of SA (BCCSA) code of conduct for broadcasters. All these overlap, and there is potential for a single code which encompasses broadcast, print, online, and social media.

It’s Complicated: Digitization and the New Mediascapes Over the past two decades, much change has taken place. The following quote from the Inquiry report evidences this change vis-à-vis the entrance of digitization and social media, which have muddied the waters and made the strict boundaries of what journalism is blurry. To the traditional media roles of informing, educating and entertaining and, as the “Fourth Estate,” speaking truth to and asserting checks on power, have been added new responsibilities: countering the self-reinforcing echo chambers of social media; fighting mis- and disinformation; and counterbalancing the hegemony of powerful international information platforms such as Facebook and Google. (Satchwell et al., 2021, p. 9) The preceding extract summarizes massive changes from nearly 30 years since the constitutional protections of media freedom. It complicates the questions of what democratic values, ethics, and morality should now guide journalism in the age of digitization and social media. Indeed, should there not be one inclusive media code which governs both traditional, online, and social media? Universal today are the blurry and messy borders of what is journalism and who is a journalist, given “citizen journalism” in the age of technology (Gillmor, 2004; Deuze, 2012; Mutsvairo, 2016; Mabweazara & Mare, 2021). As social media takes up more space in journalism (Daniels, 2014, 2020), there is global widespread casualization of labor and retrenchments in mainstream newsrooms (Marjoribanks et al., 2022), with the gig economy reigning supreme for journalism. Mark Deuze (2015) theorized about how intense and immersive media use is turning us into helpless addicts, slaves to machines, unthinking: We are zombies because we use media in ways that erase our distinctiveness as individuals as we record and remix ourselves and each other into media. Our society zombifies as we navigate it – willingly or involuntarily – augmented by virtualising technologies. Within this changed global mediascape, there are advocacy efforts in South Africa from the Press Council and Sanef, among other bodies, to lobby for one big umbrella media code which will encompass online and social media (Daniels, 2020). Part of the new and changing media landscape (the gig economy in journalism, casualization of labor, retrenchments, 389

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social media competition, big-tech domination, advertising loss to multinationals, and smaller newsrooms) is the increased disinformation in an era of populism and factionalist politics (Finlay, 2020). In addition, the Global Disinformation Index 2021 suggests that 41% of South Africans distrust the media and 70% are concerned about the problem of distinguishing valid from “fake” news (Wasserman, 2021b). This could be part of the media zombification theorized by Deuze in Media Life (2012). Nonetheless, however much the media ecosystem has changed, journalism has to have credibility, à la Journalism 101: The Elements of Journalism by Kovach and Rosenstiel (2007), in order to maintain its lifeblood link to democracy. Ethics relates to morality, codes, and values, rather than the law (Kruger, 2004). And ethics cannot exist without context – political, economic, cultural, and historical – as theorized earlier than the recent decolonial theorists, such as Kasoma and Nyamnjoh.

Literature Review, Theoretical Framework, Method Clearly, there are layers upon layers to deconstruct. There are the decolonial theoretical questions of universalities versus particularisms and the contention of whether one size (or code of ethics, in this case) fits all media and all contexts, Global North and South. Are there many new and floating signifiers for media ethics today, and are transgressions fixed to one master issue? This chapter examines these transgressions in the journalism world in South Africa, according to the Inquiry report, to answer these questions. Francis Kasoma, as far back as 1994, argued that that morality and ethics in journalism in Africa are based on northern values, and if they were based in African contexts, they would be “kinder.” Be there for the poor and marginalized, for example. What Franz Kruger (2004) wrote in Black, White and Grey: Ethics in South African Journalism (nearly two decades ago) still holds firm the concept of fairness. Irrespective of the context, whether local or global, it is essential to check that these five key elements are in a story: [H]ave all parties been spoken to? Have they all been given the appropriate weight and consideration? Has the report gone beyond the obvious sources? Does the reporting reveal any bias? Is the story as a whole being given the right weight? (Kruger, 2004, p. 83) Social media and the Internet complicated matters somewhat, or a whole lot, raising the question of how does one regulate giant tech companies (Hanitzsch et al., 2019; Zelizer, 2005)? Who is a journalist now in the age of citizen journalism, engagement, and public participation? Deuze and Yeshua (2001, p. 276) wrote that the Internet “shapes and redefines a number of moral and ethics issues confronting journalists when operating online and making use of online resources.” This issue of the digitization of media and prominence of social and online media complicates journalism ethics today, in terms of seeing one set of ethics for the Global South and another for the Global North. Mutsvairo et al. (2014) observed the changed media landscape includes citizen participation,  where members of the public showed anti-authoritarian tendencies and an antipathy toward government regulation. But are they subject to the same ethics that guide traditional journalism? The theory that frames this chapter is the premise that journalism is a public good; it is meant to serve the public and be part of communities rather than capital (Wasserman, 2021a). Journalists should be more than just watchdogs outside of their communities. He 390

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critiques the mantra of “speaking truth to power” and “holding the powerful to account” as the be-all and end-all to the purpose of journalism. In addition, Wasserman proposed a framework of listening journalism, supported by Julie Reid and Dale McKinley (2020) in their book Tell our story: Multiplying voices in the news media.

Old Attachments and New Signifiers The preceding theorizing highlights that journalists should listen more rather than be so attached to the signifiers of objectivity, detachment, truth, and fairness. The demand is that we should reflect on whether we, in the Global South, impose Global North values on journalism. Could we examine particular conditions and tailor-make our storytelling to contribute to deepening democracy? This is the politico-philosophical tension of the universal versus the particular, and a recurring backdrop theme is the media’s role in a democracy. Wasserman’s book (2021a) proposes a radical intervention, meaning, a total overhaul of the self-regulation system of the Press Code in South Africa toward more ethical engagement within the framework of “listening journalism.” How does journalism report ethically? Does it amplify conflict, or does it contribute to peace? To address these questions, one should consider Rodny-Gumede and Chasi (2021) exploring decolonization of media, new models of journalism through ethics of listening (Wasserman, 2013), peace journalism (Hyde-Clarke, 2011; Rodny-Gumede, 2015a, 2016), and ubuntu journalism (Christians, 2015; Fourie, 2011; Metz, 2015; Rodny-Gumede, 2015b). Salient in these works and in the broader debate about the role of journalism is the quest for developing a new ethos for reporting in various local contexts. This includes finding ways of “talking back” to ideas and practices that have shaped the reporting of issues and events regarding Africa and Africans by local, as well as international, media outlets and journalists.

Enter Decolonization Thinking Mano (2021) built on Kasoma’s concept of Afriethics in advocating Afrokology, which centers African ethics, derived from African lived experiences, in their own right, not as appendages or a mere add-on to global ethics. The digital age has amplified both binary opposition journalism in the age of populist politics and their impact on society, including in Africa. The result is that journalism ethics are in a conundrum, a zombified mess. A recent excellent book, Decolonising Communication Studies by Langmia (2022), focuses a new gaze on old issues while including the complexities of current realities of digitization and ethics. These works and perspectives grapple with context in the Global South and trying to find new paths which are fresh and imaginative.

The Method Is Conceptual Using all this as background, indeed building on them and sometimes disagreeing, serves as a theoretical foundation upon which the methodology rests. So how does this chapter investigate South Africa’s journalism breaches of ethical codes to unveil the master signifier? Methodologically, this chapter uses concepts from the works delineated earlier, where Global South scholars are re-theorizing journalism in an attempt to move away from imposed norms and values, contextualize, and reimagine a journalism. In this chapter, theoretical concepts 391

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are used to make sense of purposively selected cases from the Inquiry report. The concepts used here to analyze the state of affairs are based in political philosophy: master signifier (what binds and holds everything together), floating signifier (what is not tied down to any particular one thing), rigid designator (what is fixed), and resignifications (what moves and can change), allowing for a new gaze, a move away from past attachments. Some of data from the Inquiry report will be drawn out to show a wide range of ethical breaches. These breaches have been purposively selected cases from the past five years. The cases selected were from a wide range of issues: from media not belonging to the Press Council, which governs the voluntary system of regulation; brown envelopes (taking bribes); false reports and fake news; concocting a story; to not allowing subjects the right to replies (running with publication before the accused has had a chance to give their side of the story). These are drawn from the Inquiry report, which is the largest report into this issue since democracy, taking more than two years to complete. It engaged with 167 oral and written submissions (from editors, journalists, owners, academics, media organizations, and other interested parties), as well as over 200 documents. In order to unveil the master signifier, this chapter looks at what is behind the transgressions, what is the one big, fixed thing.

The Ethical Breaches: Myriad and Disparate or Showing a Clear Pattern? This data section highlights the seemingly disparate transgressions over the period of nearly a decade. This includes the Sunday Times stories for which it had to apologize to freelance journalist Jacque Pauw’s false expose in the Daily Maverick; the Independent Newspaper absconding from the Press Council; and the ten babies stories: the report of the birth of decuplets, which made world headlines but has, as yet, never been spotted; a global award for fake news; a case of plagiarism; and not giving subjects rights to lies.

False Reporting: The SARS Rogue Unit Stories in the Sunday Times The main impetus for the Inquiry report was the country’s biggest weekly and largest circulating newspaper, the Sunday Times, which had published more than 35 stories over a decade prior, which had proved to be false or partially false, for which the paper had to retract and apologize. One of the better-known stories found to be false was the SARS Rogue Unit. The following data contains extracts from different sections of the Inquiry report: The Sunday Times issued retractions and apologies in respect of the work done by its Investigations Unit on a series of articles which covered what came to be known as the “Cato Manor Death Squad” and the “South African Revenue Services (SARS) Rogue Unit.” . . . These stories made money for the journalists as well as for the Sunday Times and its owners; presumably furthered the personal and political ends of those by whom the Sunday Times eventually claimed to have been manipulated; destroyed careers and harmed the lives of the subjects of the stories and some of the journalists involved, and damaged the credibility of – and faith in – essential state institutions: the South African Revenue Service (SARS), the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Department of Home Affairs. At issue in this Inquiry is the damage done by one newspaper and its

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Investigations Unit, which reverberates throughout the rest of the media industry and the political discourse of this country. (Satchwell et al., 2021, p. 201) The Sunday Times was directed to retract all the texts, which it did. The Inquiry suggests that the reporters had a political agenda. They had sided with the Zuma faction’s allies, who were all found to have been guilty of corruption according to the Inquiry into state capture or the so-called Zondo Commission. The editor of the Sunday Times, who came into the position after the departure of the previous editor, under whose watch the stories were published, explains in the extract that follows: While we were interrogating, investigating and reporting these stories, there was clearly a parallel political project aimed at undermining our democratic values and destroying state institutions, and removing individuals who were seen as obstacles to this project. We admit that our stories may have been used for this purpose. It is this project that also tarnished our reports on SARS. (Satchwell et al., 2021, p. 213) Even though the Sunday Times apologized and the investigative journalist was fired, the newspaper’s circulation dropped. One of the harshest critics of the Sunday Times and its investigative journalists has been veteran investigative journalist Jacques Pauw. He told the Inquiry that the work of the Sunday Times was “not just sloppy reporting or journalism that got it wrong but was manufactured journalism that was meant to disinform and to ultimately damage our law-enforcement agencies” (Satchwell et al., 2021, p. 230). Pauw’s analysis is correct. And yet ironies of ironies . . .

The Jacques Pauw Drunken Saga Story in the Daily Maverick Daily Maverick,2 recognized as one of the country’s most credible online sites, published a story (February 12, 2021) which knocked journalism’s credibility. One of the most embarrassing transgressions of media ethics in 2021 was Pauw’s sad and plaintive story of how he was wrongfully arrested by police at the Waterfront in Cape Town for not paying his restaurant bill. Who could disbelieve his story of how he was assaulted and mishandled, and how they stole his money? He was one of the foremost investigative journalists in the country, who wrote a bestseller, President’s Keeper, about corrupt dealings of the former president Jacob Zuma. Daily Maverick published the story because it was Pauw writing, after all, and the police have a reputation for being inept. He wrote affectively of how he was arrested while walking to an ATM to withdraw money to settle a bill at a V&A restaurant. He claimed he was forced to walk to the ATM to draw cash money as the R1,600 payment would not go through on his credit card. He wrote that, while he was walking to the ATM, with the waiter close behind, three police officers “pounced on [him], grabbed [his] arms and cuffed [his] hands tightly.” Pauw said the officers told him he was being arrested for theft after a complaint by the restaurant. He then goes on to describe the ordeal, including how the officers took R1,000. But after meeting with management from the restaurant and the Waterfront, Pauw was forced to change his story, saying he made “mistakes” in his column.

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Writing when he was sober, he said: “On the Wednesday following my court appearance, I wrote a column for Daily Maverick, in which I related my experience as I recalled it.” He stated that he wrote the article as he was “emotional, angry and humiliated by the entire experience.” Pauw withdrew his claim that the policemen stole his money, saying he was “only provided with the evidence on Monday.” “I apologise to the three policemen for having said this.” “I feel embarrassed about my conduct. In this era of fake news, propaganda and lack of accountability, I  must publicly accept responsibility for my own actions and apologise. It is the right thing to do.”3 Daily Maverick, a member of the Press Council, apologized for publishing the report by Pauw. Pauw was found to be drunk when he wrote and was then fired as a columnist from the Daily Maverick. All this in an era of fake news. This point is instructive, as where does this genre of breaches of ethics fit it? Fake news and politics?

Going Rogue: Independent Media Abandoning the Press Council One of the biggest flaws of the Inquiry report is that it does not examine the Independent Newspaper Group and its affiliation with the corrupt side in factional politics in South Africa. This is the country’s biggest print company but does not belong to the Press Council of South Africa. It left the Press Council in 2016 and set up an internal ombud system. Absent from the panel’s report were ideas on how to deal with “rogues” – those who do not subscribe to the Press Code. In other words, the big question remained unaddressed: How do you have a credible journalism industry when such a large portion of media do not subscribe to the Press Code (of Ethics)? The disquieting news is that, whereas journalists from Independent Newspapers and others who had previously worked there provided information in interviews to the Inquiry, they wished to remain anonymous, and their stories could therefore not be documented in the report. Rich Mkhondo stated: “What saddened me the most was to hear the fear, anxiety; there were disturbing stories of conditions that journalists are working under.” While Nikiwe Bikitsha said: “Threats are from within, the media companies themselves create the toxic environments.” When asked what her big takeaway from this inquiry was, Satchwell replied: “The media’s role in a democracy and the importance of self-regulation.”

Ten Babies Were Born in SA but Have Never Been Spotted This story broke the Guinness World Record; it was reported by the BBC, which later had to withdraw or retract their report, saying it was “fake news.” Author of the story, Piet Rampedi, had a scoop when he first reported that ten babies were born to a woman from Thembisa in June 2021. The story went viral. When the babies could not be “verified” as no one had seen them, the Independent group alleged that the Gauteng Department of Health (DoH) was involved in a “cover-up” of its “medical negligence.” Another major scoop. The Gauteng DoH has since released a statement of its intention to take legal action against the editor and Independent Newspapers. No matter what kind of story it is – column or opinion, investigative, reportage or advocacy – you have to be sure of your facts, which you check and double-check before publishing. The best check for this particular story entails 394

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counting the actual little beings and seeing them for yourself. A year later, they have still not been seen. The Press Council has a system of retractions, corrections, apologies, and appeals, where a newspaper can, for example, be ordered to run a correction story that takes up the same amount of space as the offending, un-factual story. However, the Independent group left the Press Council to set up its own internal ombud system. This raises the question: How unbiased is that?

Global Award for Fake News The next part of the story is that the story wins a global award. The International News Media Association (INMA) Global Media Awards shortlisted the  Baby Trade  story in the category Best Use of Social Media. At that time, the story was hailed by the owner of Independent News, Iqbal Survé, as a “good news story.” Subsequently, the group released a “docuseries” about the babies being trafficked and traded. After strong objections from the South African National Editors’ Forum and others, the docuseries Baby Trade was removed from the INMA shortlist. The judges said they had been “judging the quality of the social media campaign – not the story itself.” So does this mean I can make up anything and attach a fantastic social media campaign to it and win because the form was good, never mind the content was not verified? This harks back to Deuze’s theorizing: When we live in media, we become less aware of our surroundings, less tuned in to our senses, and thus more like lifeless automatons. (Deuze, 2015, p. 307) Journalism is in the center of a zombified storm with such lack of thinking, that is, judging the social media campaign, never mind the story from where it emanated.

Plagiarism and Revolving Doors Many of the theorists cited on decoloniality and an Afro-centric approach to journalism may have missed this point: while journalism is of the bulldog watchdog variety – holding the powerful to account – to itself it appears that South African journalism is full of ubuntu, but not to its subjects. The Inquiry found that many disgraced journalists leave for public relations but come back again, or journalists that plagiarize go into hiding but re-emerge as columnists. Here is an extract from the Inquiry: The Panel was advised that South African print journalism is “replete with examples of journalists who have been found guilty of wrongdoing and then ‘readmitted’ to the profession”. These examples pertained to plagiarism and included Sharda Naidoo, who was allegedly fired from the Financial Mail (FM) for lagiarizing an article on rhino poaching for which the FM published an apology stating that plagiarism was “contrary to the publication’s code of conduct and the ethics of the journalism profession”. Yet a few months later she was employed as a journalist by the Mail & Guardian . . . Mention was also made of Darrel Bristow-Bovey who was exposed by the Sunday Star in 2003 for having “imported” passages from Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Country into his own book The Naked Bachelor. Bristow-Bovey publicly “pleaded guilty” and 395

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“begged for pardon” and has now (in his own words) “returned from hiding” and resumed writing columns for South African newspapers and magazines. (Satchwell et al., 2020, p. 67)

I Will Subject You, but You Are Given No Right to Replies According to the Press Council of SA, the biggest transgression is the issue of right to replies. This has been the pattern for more than a decade now. In research commissioned by this Panel, the most frequent complaint upheld by the Press Ombud was that journalists had not given the subject of a story the right to respond and tell his or her side. In part, this complaint relates to the lack of newsroom mechanisms to check story adequacy discussed above. The complaint is so often upheld because journalists and newsroom colleagues do not take (or may not have) the time to follow through on every aspect of a story. The resulting errors represent a gross failure in basic journalism skills and ethical standards. (Satchwell et al., 2020, p. 220) What are we to make of such disparate transgressions? Are they disparate, or is there something that holds them together? The last section attempts to make sense of this while trying to unveil the master signifier.

Analysis and Conclusion In all the cases cited, the issue of politics plays a role. Whether journalists are too close to power and caught up in facts of the ruling party, scapegoating the government and the department of health for trafficking babies after publishing fake news, or exposing the government for corruption and wrongly “exposing” the police for ineptitude (Pauw). It seems the same standards do not apply to all. Subjects by the “watchdog” media are given the harsh treatment, but often not given the right to reply, while journalists themselves appear to get away with many shenanigans (such as plagiarism and the revolving door). Media immersion. One of the conclusions that can be drawn is that old trends persist and new trends abound due to easy jumping on some political bandwagon enabled by media immersion, social media, and spreading of fake news. The Western normative perspective of standing outside, being detached, and being the fourth estate per excellence is criticized by peace journalism, ubuntu journalism, and decolonial perspectives. Context, Trust, and Codes. Journalism has become chaotic and messier, leading to a huge trust deficit. While ethics must be situational and context-driven, this chapter also argues for a single, cross-platform umbrella code of ethics which all media must belong to; otherwise, the preceding cases will persist. We have to find a different path and reimagine journalism which serves all the people, all the time. But in order for this to happen, it has to regain some of the trust that it once had, by abiding by the ethical rules that are already in place. Indeed, one of the much-needed and urgent tasks is to have an umbrella code of ethics – which encompasses social media, online, broadcast, and print. Floating Signifiers. There were many floating signifiers contributing to the messy state of journalism in South Africa today: the lack of one code which unifies all media, the lack of 396

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all media belonging to the present code, involvement of many being too close to one faction, and the revolving door syndrome, with lots of ubuntu being given to journalists from other journalists. All the cases highlighted showed tangents that were hard to pin down to a single master signifier, rigidly designated tied meaning to one thing. But the one thing that is rigidly designated is the crisis that journalism finds itself in as a result of the digital age. It’s as Deuze theorized a decade ago, media zombification, in the digital age, with no end in sight. In South Africa, an umbrella code to encapsulate all media could partially halt the zombification. Master Signifier. Is the master signifier politics, or could it be Deuze’s media zombification enabling the transgressions? It appears to be apparent that the master signifier of ethics transgressions in journalism is related to politics and factional battles. The master signifier could possibly be named as politics – and involvement in politics – with journalism being too close to the factions. While it plays a huge role upon closer inspection, it is suggested here that media zombification is the master signifier for ethical breaches. The conditions for media today, in the age of digitization, social media, and the fast spread of fake news, make it ripe for media zombification. It is what ties all the seemingly disparate transgressions together.

Notes 1 Brown envelopes refer to taking bribes to publish a story, or to kill a story; it is regarded as the ultimate form of corruption in journalism. It is not common in South Africa but has crept in to the media landscape. 2 The original apology published by Daily Maverick is no longer available online.

References Christians, C. G. (2015). Introduction: Ubuntu for journalism theory and practice. Journal of Media Ethics, 30(2), 61–73. Daniels, G. (2014). State of the newsroom: Disruptions accelerated. Wits Journalism. Daniels, G. (2020). Power and loss: News in the age of social media. Wits Press. Deuze, M. (2012). Media life. Polity Press. Deuze, M. (2015). Living as a zombie in media is the only way to survive. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 25(2–3), 307–323. Deuze, M., & Yeshua, D. (2001). Online journalists face new ethical dilemmas. Lessons from the Neth�erlands. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 16(4), 273–292. Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the Earth. Grove Press. Finlay, A. (2020). State of the newsroom. Wits Journalism. https://journalism.co.za/wp-content/ uploads/2020/11/State-of-Newsroom_2019_2020_30112020.pdf Fourie, P. (2011). Normative media theory in a changed media landscape and globalised society. In N. Hyde-Clarke (Ed.), Communication and media ethics in South Africa (pp. 25–45). Juta. Gillmor, D. (2004). We the media. O’Reilly. Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F., Ramaprasad, J., & de Beer, A. (2019). Worlds of journalism: Journalistic cultures around the globe. Columbia University Press. Hyde-Clarke, N. (2011). Political posturing and the need for peace journalism in South Africa: The case of Julius Malema. Communicatio, 37(1), 41–55. Kasoma, F. P. (1994). Journalism ethics in Africa. African Council for Communication Education. Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2007). The elements of journalism: What newspeople should know and the public should expect. Crown. Kruger, F. (2004). Black white and grey: Ethics in Journalism. Juta and Company. Langmia, K. (2022). Decolonising communication studies. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Mabweazara, H. M., & Mare, A. (2021). Participatory journalism in Africa: Digital news engagement and user agency in the South. Routledge.

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Glenda Daniels Mano, W. (2021). Decolonizing African journalism ethics: From Afriethics to Afrokology. In N. Maladi (Ed.), Global media ethics and the digital revolution (pp. 250–266). Routledge. Marjoribanks, T., Zion, L., O’Donnell, P., & Sherwood, M. (2022). Journalists and job losses. Routledge. Metz, T. (2015). African ethics and journalism ethics: News and opinion in light of Ubuntu. Journal of Media Ethics, 30(2), 74–90. Mutsvairo, B. (2016). Participatory politics and citizen journalism in a networked Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. Mutsvairo, B., Columbus, S., & Leijendekker, I. (2014). Reconnoitering the role of (citizen) journalism ethics in the emerging networked public sphere, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 35(3), 4–22. Reid, J., & McKinley, D. (2020). Tell our story: Multiplying voices in the news media. Wits University Press Rodny-Gumede, Y. (2015a). Coverage of Marikana: War and conflict and the case for Peace Journalism. Social Dynamics, 41(2), 359–374. Rodny-Gumede, Y. (2015b). An assessment of the public interest and ideas of the public in South Africa and the adoption of Ubuntu journalism. Journal of Media Ethics, 30(2), 109–124. Rodny-Gumede, Y. (2016). Awareness towards peace journalism among foreign correspondents in Africa. Media and Communication, 4(1), 80–93. Rodny-Gumede, Y., & Chasi, C. (2021). Decolonising media and communication studies: An exploratory survey on global curricula transformation debate. In W. Mano, & V. Milton (Eds.), Routledge handbook of African media and communication (pp. 107–125). Routledge. Satchwell, K., Bikitsha, N., & Mkhondo, R. (2021). Inquiry into media ethics and credibility: Independent panel report. Sanef. https://sanef.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SatchwellReport.pdf Wasserman, H. (2013). Journalism in a new democracy: The ethics of listening. Communication, 39(1), 67–84. Wasserman, H. (2021a). The ethics of engagement. Oxford University Press. Wasserman, H. (2021b). Public trust in the media is at a new low. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/public-trust-in-the-media-is-at-a-new-low-a-radical-rethink-of-journalismis-needed-155257 Zelizer, B. (2005). Definitions of journalism. In G. Overholser & K. H. Jamieson (Eds.), The press (pp. 66–80). Oxford University Press. Zizek, S. (1989). The sublime object of ideology. Verso.

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37 DE-WESTERNIZING PHOTOJOURNALISM From Photojournalism of the Global South to Photojournalism in the Global South Saumava Mitra and Brenda Witherspoon Joining the calls for de-Westernization in related areas such as journalism studies (Mutsvairo et al., 2021; Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2021) and visual communication and culture (Herdin et al., 2020), this chapter provides a critical discussion regarding the state of knowledge on photojournalism in, and of, the Global South and a call to action for researchers to decenter the study of photojournalism. By way of entry to this discussion, we will expand on the heuristic distinction we make between photojournalism of and in the Global South. The distinction might appear limiting because photojournalists, photojournalistic practices, and photojournalistic images defy any such demarcation, traveling and transcending, moving and circulating as they do across what is now understood as a transnational arena (Solaroli, 2016; Gürsel, 2016; Ilan, 2019; Mitra et al., 2022). But this distinction can help shape a critical discussion on the scholarly study of photojournalism vis-á-vis the simultaneously notional and imagined, yet viscerally and even violently real, Global South (de Sousa Santos & Meneses, 2020). We ask the reader to think of the Global South in historically contingent terms,1 replacing the notion of a static, geographic Global South with an awareness of the epistemic inequalities in how knowledge production about certain parts of the world was and is undertaken unequally (de Sousa Santos  & Meneses, 2020). Within the scholarly study of photography, the epistemic inequality in favor of the Global North has meant that practices outside of North America and Europe too often become the subject “for footnoted descriptions which are intended to counterpoint a core Photographic History, European in its sources and nature, but which declines to name itself as such” (Pinney, 2012, p. 142). Thus, when focusing on photojournalism and the Global South, we focus on photojournalism in those parts of the world that are left outside the core of photographic history and are marginalized historically and geo-culturally. These are spaces where the power to represent, analyze, and define objects, events, and actors exists unequally between the (photographic, journalistic, or academic) observers from the Global North and the observed who inhabit these spaces. We call photography undertaken in such situations and spaces to produce visual information and news for the primary benefit of public and private spheres in the Global North photojournalism of the Global South. Most importantly, we understand both the practices of

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photojournalism of the Global South and in the scholarly production of knowledge as practices, observations, and analyses which begin and end from a Global North–centric subject position vis-á-vis the places and peoples of the Global South. In contrast, our use of the term photojournalism in the Global South is meant to refer to photojournalism practiced within the institutional frameworks situated in the Global South and by photojournalists who inhabit these spaces and produce photographs primarily (but not exclusively) for the public and private spheres within this Global South. Importantly, our understanding of photojournalism in the Global South also includes any transferences, and transcendences into the transnational arena of photojournalism, of photographic practices and images produced from subject positions beyond the Global North. We will return to a discussion of what such critical inquiry of photojournalism in the Global South from an epistemic standpoint within the Global South can include, but first, we must expose the areas left dark when scholars engage only with photojournalism of the Global South.

Photojournalism of the Global South Arguably, photojournalism as a term has been retroactively or anachronistically applied to certain early practices of photography (Griffin, 1999; Brennen, 2009, pp. 73–74; Wilson, 2016), as the adoption of photography for journalistic purposes only very gradually coalesced over decades. We contend that, in addition to retroactively applying the tag of photojournalism, scholarly discussions have also applied the term rather selectively. Though scholars strive to provide accounts of photojournalism history with critical perspectives on the photojournalistic image and professional norms of photojournalism (Gleason, 2000; see, for example, Griffin, 1999; Brennen, 2009; Good & Lowe, 2017, pp. 17–42; Wilson, 2016), it rarely does so outside its remit and locus within the Global North. As a result, the “ ‘sovereign’ Euro-American subject” who has been largely displaced within conventional historiography, as Pinney points out,2 remains within the history of photojournalism, just as “alive and well” (Pinney, 2012, p. 141) as in photography more broadly. As a result, a broader, more diverse history of photojournalism’s emergence that takes into account its developments and appropriations, adoptions and adaptations in contexts beyond the Global North is absent. When the Global South makes an appearance in historical accounts of photojournalism, it does so as sites where photographers traveling from the Global North practiced their craft and as loci where these pioneers tested and honed the profession’s claims of facticity and norms of objectivity. The earliest examples outside of Europe and North America often discussed are the conflict zones of the rebellion in South Asia against the East India Company in 1857 and the Boer War in Southern Africa in 1899–1901 (Griffin, 1999, p. 132; Morgan, 2002, pp. 9–10). In this way, this historiography naturalizes the tendency in photojournalism scholarship to pay attention to the Global South only to conduct investigations of Euro-American photojournalistic subjectivities toward crises and conflicts, and their victims, in the Global South. Current scholarship also functions within this discursive structure, a point we revisit further in what follows. The selective approach in photojournalism scholarship has also left unrealized the possibility of a deeper, more critical history of photojournalism. The received historiography of photojournalism mostly overlooks relationships with early photography’s other positivist, “factual” genres, especially when it comes to visual representations of peoples and places in the Global South. Though we hear of proto-photojournalists at work in the colonial battlefields of South Asia or Southern Africa, left unexplored is photojournalism’s relationship 400

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with the contemporaneous colonial mission of visually cataloguing subjugated landscapes, cultures, and peoples in the Global South. Yet it is well-known that photography was an integral tool for the visual modalities of observation and travel at the heart of the intertwined imperial projects of spatial expansion and positivistic knowledge production about class, gender, and ethno-cultural differences in these conquered spaces (Bale, 1999; Hayes et al., 1998; Pinney, 2008, pp. 386–388, 2013; Granqvist, 2012; Manzanilla, 2020). Early visual journalism was pivotal to these reimagining of peoples and places from colonial perspectives in the Global North, as these photographic narratives of exotic lands and peoples were reproduced in the illustrated presses and newspapers of imperial centers of Europe and North America.3 Photojournalism scholars are yet to critically engage with how early photojournalism’s tenets about facticity, and professional norms regarding knowledge creation of events, objects, and actors in the Global South, were negotiated within the broader political-cultural consensus of photography as a “truth-apparatus” (Hartmann et al., 1998, p. 5) during the era of “documentary certainty” when it came to photographing “Others,” which stretched well into the 20th century (Edwards, 2015, p. 236). The elision over photojournalism’s relationship with early and late colonial photographic knowledge-projects in how the profession’s development is conceptualized in current scholarship, and, consequently, how the epistemic extent of “core” photojournalism has come to be determined, is also marked in – to borrow from Sekula (1983) – these discussions’ “romantic auteurism” (p. 200). The historical narratives of photojournalism proceeded from Roger Fenton, Felice Beato, or Mathew Brady (Griffin, 1999), through descriptions of early socially conscious documentary photography by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine (Good & Lowe, 2017), to discussions of Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson (Brennen, 2009), and then onward to contemporary inheritors of this 1930s tradition of the celebrity photojournalist (Wilson, 2016). Lately, this auteur-driven understanding of photojournalism is being scrutinized, and critiques of this received historiography are emerging from political-economic (Wilson, 2016), as well as from gender-critical, perspectives (Nelson, 2020; Somerstein, 2021; Mitra et al., 2022). However, operating within its narrow North-centric episteme, photojournalism research continues to perpetuate the historical invisibility of professional photojournalism and photojournalists’ labor in the Global South (Mitra et  al., 2022, pp.  161–163). In his recent conceptualization of photojournalism as a “global field” following a post-Bourdieusian framework, Solaroli (2016) visualizes the established photojournalism organizations and agencies in the United States and France as the “core” of this field (2016, p. 53) and a collective of individual Italian, German, French, and American photographers as the “periphery” (2016, p. 60). Thus, the transnational professional field in Solaroli’s analysis remains contained fully within Europe and North America. Locales in the Global South, such as Darfur, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Ethiopia, and Chechnya, only appear within this discussion as spaces which the professionals from North America and Europe photograph (2016, pp. 58–60, 61), and not as places inhabited by professional photojournalists who are part of the “global” field. Solaroli’s conceptualization is mirrored in other bodies of scholarship within the study of photojournalism, which also assign professional photojournalists in the Global North the status of being representative of the profession as a whole. This can be seen in the myriad investigations of interactions between professional visual journalism in the Global North with extra-journalistic photographic practices in the Global South, which have been conducted over almost a decade now. This body of scholarship mainly focuses on user-generated 401

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visual content (UGC), for example, photographs produced by NGOs, activists, bystanders, or eyewitnesses from the conflict and crisis zones of the Global South (see, for example, Allan, 2017), to the near exclusion in analysis of any images produced within professional frameworks of photojournalism in the Global South. The most recent theorization building on this body of scholarship, of “flesh witnessing” in and through UGC (Chouliaraki & Mortensen, 2022), acknowledges the “historical relations of domination between the Global North and the Global South” in its analysis of the “economies of visibility” produced in Global North–centered mass media industries and social media networks (Chouliaraki & Mortensen, 2022, p. 593). However, with no parallel expansion of scholarship on photojournalism in the Global South or of investigations of professional photojournalistic content from the epistemic Global South, we argue that this body of scholarship reflects within its epistemology the very same hierarchical, geopolitical structures that it criticizes. In starting its inquiries about the visibilities of “black and brown bodies” (ibid.) of the Global South as they appear in the Global North, such scholarship does little to de-center the entrenched, “sovereign Euro-American subject” in photojournalism studies. In sum, aided by a selective historiography and conception of itself, photojournalism scholarship continues to see and show the Global South as a space meriting attention only for institutional, political, and ethical investigations of how events, actors, and objects in it are photographed for the benefit of the Global North.

Photojournalism in the Global South It is time to break away from the epistemic tradition of studying photojournalism of the Global South and to explore professional photojournalism in the Global South, its norms, institutions, and practices, and to engage in analysis of journalistic and extra-journalistic photojournalistic images produced within these structures from an epistemic standpoint (Harding, 1993) that does not naturalize a Global North perspective. In what follows we outline a three-pronged approach that we believe can be fruitful. Reclaim photojournalism’s lost histories. To broaden and deepen photojournalism scholarship, scholars need to merge analysis of photojournalism’s relationship with the beginnings of modern journalism as a popular offshoot of the positivistic scientific rationalism of the 19th century which was exported around the world from the Global North (LugoOcando, 2020, p. 64) with the critical understanding of the historical uses of photography in the more esoteric, positivist pursuits of colonial knowledge production that also traveled outward from colonial centers to make sense of other parts of the world (Pinney, 2013; Edwards, 2015; Karlekar, 2018). In particular, it can be fruitful to introduce the so-faroverlooked relationship of early photographic practices of “capturing” colonized landscapes, cultures, and peoples within the historical understanding of the development of travel and conflict photojournalism. For this purpose, photojournalism studies can be enriched by cross-fertilization with the rich historiography of colonial and Orientalist photography practices in South Asia (e.g., Pinney, 1997; Karlekar, 2005), Middle East, and North Africa (e.g., Behdad, 2016), Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Hartmann et al., 1998; Hight & Sampson, 2013), and Latin America (e.g., González-Stephan & Good, 2016). In addition, reclaiming other histories of photojournalism from the critical explorations of the adaptations and adoptions of photographic practices in the Global South over the course of the late 19th century and the 20th century offered by many of these same scholars (cf. Pinney & Peterson, 2003) will 402

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also be necessary to de-center the Global North–centric epistemic standpoint of photojournalism scholarship. A historical conception of photojournalism that is both broad and deep in these ways, we argue, will help future scholarly investigations recognize and include the diversities and differences of photojournalistic images and practices that did not always, or necessarily, enter into transnational exchanges with the Global North. Revisiting the neglected photographic archives of the news media organizations and agencies of the Global South can bring out new critical perspectives on the photojournalistic image and practices. For example, Li (2020) has shown, with an analysis of Chinese photographers’ simultaneous adoption and adaptation of Western norms of photography, how such projects can be fruitful. By revisiting photographs of a specific historical moment of the global Non-Aligned Movement – the 1959 Bandung conference – Lee (2020) has recently argued that these photographs offer traces of a “decolonized” visual language engaged “in deconstructing remaining forms of colonial power – discursive, symbolic, and intellectual” (p.  219). Photojournalism scholarship will gain much by reclaiming such lost threads. Recognize photojournalism’s multiplicities. Enough evidence shows material and immaterial differences within global practices of photojournalism to argue that there is much to understand about the multiplicities of photojournalism practice worldwide and in the Global South. Since 2015, quantitative data and comparison of trends and patterns in the photojournalism profession have become available, thanks to periodic surveys of members of the World Press Photo Association (Hadland, Campbell et al., 2015; Hadland, Lambert et al., 2016; Hadland & Barnett, 2018). These data, though with professionals from the Global North over-represented (Hadland & Barnett, 2018, p. 11), go some way in showing how material conditions within which photojournalists function is markedly different in the Global North and South. Photojournalists based outside of Europe and North America work under very different macro-economic conditions (see, for example, Hadland, Campbell et  al., 2015, pp. 54–57), and the surveys have consistently noted that non-Caucasian photographers, or photographers based outside the West (as well as female photographers), are more likely to report financial and physical insecurity (Hadland, Campbell et al., 2015, pp. 47–48; Hadland, Lambert et  al., 2016, p.  9; Hadland  & Barnett, 2018, pp.  15–16). Expanding and deepening our knowledge of such material differences in photojournalism in the Global South, as well as the effects of these conditions on photojournalism practices, is needed in the future. These survey findings also consistently show that ethical norms related to staging and manipulating photographs are understood differently across the world by photojournalists (Hadland, 2015, pp. 39–43; Hadland & Barnett, 2018, p. 8). This consistent finding about the intangible, immaterial differences within professional practice, we argue, hints at a particularly rich, unexplored vein of critical inquiry. Questions regarding the relationship of the photojournalists’ conception of the truth-claim inherent in the photojournalistic image vis-à-vis their geo-cultural subject position in the North–South epistemic divide merit further exploration. For example, in a recent study by the authors, female-identifying photojournalists in the Global South were found to have an uneasy, reflexive relationship with the camera’s professional and social function as a truth-apparatus. Their reflexivity was based on their awareness of the gendered and colonizing role played historically by photography in their countries and communities (Mitra et al., 2021). There are parallels to such reflexive, critical, and skeptical approaches to photojournalism among other groups of photographers 403

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in the Global South, especially when it comes to producing images from conflicts and crises in the Global South that the photojournalists see themselves as situated within (Mollerup & Mortensen, 2020; Mitra, 2020; Blacksin, 2022, see esp. p. 9). Paying attention to this limited empirical evidence about photojournalism in the Global South alerts us to the potentially reflexive and critical forms of photojournalistic practices, as well as active projects of photographic resistance against the male- and Global North–centric nature of the profession, being undertaken by photojournalists and documentary photographers in the Global South (Oliart & Triquell, 2019; Mitra, 2020; Mitra, Creta et al., 2021; Mitra, Witherspoon et  al., 2022). When read along with the relevant findings from the Worlds of Journalism annual survey, which shows journalists in the Global South conceptualize the social function of their profession differently from their Global North counterparts (e.g., Kalyango et al., 2017), the scattered evidence regarding the differences in the institutional, professional, and individual approaches within professional photojournalism in different parts of the world, we argue, shows the need for sustained and systematic studies of the multiplicities in the conceptions of ethics, norms, and social functions of photojournalism around the world. Reimagine the field of transnational photojournalism. Researchers have recently tried to make sense of the global interconnectedness of photojournalism. While providing insightful analysis, the Global North–centric epistemological standpoint of these studies is indisputable. Studies of the transnational visual economy that underpins global photojournalism (Gürsel, 2016; Ilan, 2019) have been undertaken at nodal sites largely within the Global North, where the production and post-production of photojournalism of the Global South takes place within global news and image agencies. We have also mentioned how the professional field of photojournalism has been theorized, following a post-Bourdieusian inductive framework, as a global field but visualized as containing both its core and periphery within the Global North by Solaroli (2016). If we are to engage meaningfully with the professional culture of transnational photojournalism as a globally interconnected field, we argue that a geo-culturally informed epistemic expansion of Solaroli’s (2016) visualization will be needed. It should be understood that such expansion will benefit from being grounded in observations and investigations conducted outside of “New York, Rome and Milan” (Solaroli, 2016, p.51) when conceptualizing a “global” field. Also, an expanded conceptualization will have to become aware and critical toward the sanctifying process by which certain symbolic capitals, which are more readily available to professionals operating within the Global North, become the requisite cosmopolitan capital needed to succeed in the transnational field of photojournalism (Mitra et al., 2022, pp. 162–163). This will also help future analysis of transnational photojournalism to remain nimble to changes in its power configurations. For example, recent trends would suggest that the consecrating agents of global photojournalism are placing more value on the “localised knowledges” and “regional expertise” about the Global South as forms of symbolic capital (World Press Photo Contest Regional Winners: Jury Perspectives, 2022). An epistemic expansion of this nature would thus bring within scholarly purview the transnational struggles for visibility in and through photojournalism that are taking place in the Global South, both within the market-oriented production of news photographs as well as within what Solaroli calls “unconsecrated, avant-garde” photojournalism (2016, p. 55). While the first arena of photojournalism has seen the growth of transnational collaborations and professional networks that seek to make photojournalists in the Global South more visible in the marketplaces of the Global North, for example, Native Agency, Everyday Africa, 404

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Women Photograph, or the African Photojournalism Database run by the World Press Photo Foundation, though not all such trans-border initiatives align themselves on the traditional North–South power axis, for example, the Foto Féminas collective in Latin America (Witherspoon & Mitra, 2021). Within the latter category, photojournalism collectives across the Global South are seeking to reclaim aesthetic and narrative agency from the consecrated individuals and institutions of the Global North to produce more personalized and affective photojournalism and documentary photography, which highlight the particularities of the places and peoples they photograph rather than submit to a patriarchal and Global North– centric gaze. Some examples would be Somali Arts Foundation, Supay Colectivo de Fotografía in Peru, Colectivo Manifiesto in Argentina, and a palette across South and Southeast Asia encompassing the Thuma Collective in Myanmar, the Kaali collective in Bangladesh, the Packet Collective in Sri Lanka, and Her Pixel Story in Kashmir (see Oliart & Triquell, 2019; Witherspoon & Mitra, 2021; Varma, 2021).

Final Words Unlike these constant collaborations and collisions occurring between, within, and among the transnational, national, and local fields of photojournalism in the Global South and North, scholars have only recently begun questioning how photojournalism has been practiced and understood as the purview of the male, professional auteur hailing from the Global North (Nelson, 2020; Somerstein, 2021; Mitra et al., 2022). We must now also begin to question how scholars have understood, studied, and even criticized such practices from the same Euro-American epistemic positions. Revisiting photojournalism’s many histories (cf. Pinney  & Peterson, 2003) and its historical complicity in creating the epistemic division between the Global North and South will allow us to more fully appreciate and investigate its current differences and diversities and future divergences and convergences.

Notes 1 For example, the historical changes in who occupied the “West” and photography’s complicity in reducing or erasing the forcible evictions from land, and from history, of these peoples (see Gidley, 2012; Croft, 2013). We also remain aware of the specific and shared historical traditions of photography in countries of the ex-Soviet Imperium (see Tupitsyn, 2000). 2 See Chakrabarty (2000). 3 See, for example, The people of India by Watson and Kaye (1868); Samuel Bourne’s 1863–66 travel photography series in the British Journal of Photography, cited in Guégan (2011); In the heart of Africa by Mecklenburg (1910) cited in Bale (1999).

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38 EVOLVING JOURNALISM PRACTICES IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH Convergence, Continuities, and Disjuncture Cleophas Taurai Muneri Introduction Technological changes have wrought changes in journalism in ways that are faster, revolutionary, creative, and in some instances, destructive. Journalism still experiences the coexistence of old and new practices as well. Other, more revelatory changes are evident in how media have adapted in their interaction with technology by blending or creating hybridized forms of journalism that do not share similarities with old journalism practices. New technologies have therefore created instability and unpredictability in journalism. As Franklin (2014) points out, “the ‘age of digital media’ is witnessing innovation and radical change across all aspects of journalism, creating economic difficulties for legacy media and a frenzied search for alternative business models to fund a sustainable journalism for the future” (p. 481). New technologies in journalism show both a break from the past and a continuation with some traditional aspects of journalism. This chapter seeks to highlight these changes by showing how newsgathering, processing, and dissemination have changed, given the centrality of the digital era to journalism. Technology has also brought in new forms of journalism, such as citizen journalism (Wall, 2015), platform journalism (Bell et al., 2017), and data journalism (Borges, 2016; Mutsvairo et  al., 2020). Even as new technologies continue to flood the market, journalism is also influenced by changes happening with research on artificial intelligence. Additionally, this chapter will explore how new forms of digital journalism have influenced and changed journalism cultures (Mabweazara, 2015) and practices (Spyridou et  al., 2013), as use of technology affects not only the news but also the people using that technology. This has far-reaching social, political, and economic consequences for broader society. Examples to illustrate these changes will be drawn from Zimbabwe and other African countries. Ultimately, the exploration of these issues is linked to a broader need to broaden understanding and contribute to further theoretical understanding of media and journalism in Africa.



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Blurring Journalism Lines The debate about who is or is not a journalist has been with the field of journalism for as long as the formal study of journalism started. This is partly because as a field of study, journalism has borrowed and has been influenced by other disciplines ranging from the humanities disciplines, such as literature, linguistics, to social sciences disciplines, such as sociology, political science, economics, and psychology. The influence of digital technologies has further blurred the lines between different types of journalism. The proliferation of platforms through which individuals who ordinarily could not be characterized as journalists could write, record, and broadcast information, opinions, and commentaries in ways that historically were not available has also broadened the participation of people into journalism and information dissemination (Moyo, 2009). This has led to debates and research on citizen journalism. Whereas historically, through the medium of print journalism, only people working for newspapers, newsletters, and later, radio and television could do so, now citizens can also disseminate information. The traditional process of gathering and reporting news itself involved a lot of gatekeeping and, in that respect, kept other voices/perspectives out than it gave space to all those keen to share or spread their viewpoints. The widespread availability of blogs, podcasts, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook pages and many other platforms has made it possible for information to be disseminated in ways that were unthinkable before the widespread development of the Internet. In that respect, more people can now participate in the production and dissemination of information. This has, to some extent, supplanted some of the roles that traditionally were the preserve of professional journalists. In some instances, individuals who are not professional journalists have monetized their involvement with journalism or information using platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. Mainstream media have had to reinvent themselves in ways that allow them to survive the ever-changing journalism and technological landscape. This is mainly because they now must compete not only with traditional competitors in news business but also with new entrants that have been ushered in by new technologies. As Stroud (2017) points out, “newsroom business models are showing signs of weakness as audiences increasingly move to digital forms of news” (p. 160). Many news organizations have either completely switched to publishing online or maintain both traditional ways of disseminating information together with a digital presence. This digital presence entails having active social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter that ensure breaking news can be quickly disseminated. In responding to these digital technologies, legacy media can continue their work of disseminating news without being left behind. Most media in Africa are now able to disseminate breaking news through their digital platforms (Mabweazara, 2016). More importantly, this is connected to business survival, as it ensures that news media do not lose their audiences, who are pivotal in the cutthroat competition that now characterizes the field of journalism. These changes have meant that individual journalists have presence on social media to assist in building audiences for the news organizations that they work for. Being on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, for example, allows journalists to monitor and gather news by observing and following their sources. This has become even more imperative, given that more people have social media presence and spend most of their time on it. What people say and do on social media are now part of news sourcing. The issues that leading businesspeople say and do make news and, in some instances, can affect stock markets, as the United States–based example of Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk’s Twitter posts have shown. 410

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Newsgathering has changed in significant ways, as journalists cannot only rely on reaching out to their sources as they can easily monitor the activities of these sources. Many news stories have been broken out based on the social media activities of individuals on social media. These individuals could be politicians, entertainers, business leaders, or ordinary people. With the advent of social media, many aspects of people’s lives that historically would have been private or unknown to the public can now easily be accessible because of what they choose to share with the public. In this respect, new communication technologies and social media have forced journalists to make a break with old ways of sourcing news (Wanda & Gondwe, 2020). The monitoring of social media of news sources is therefore a good example of the disjuncture that has occurred with the traditional ways of gathering news. New technologies have also influenced and changed the ways audiences consume news. Whereas to access news prior to the advent of the Internet, new communication technologies, and social media people had either to wait for next day’s newspaper or be present at preset hours to listen or watch news on radio or television, now they can easily get breaking news on their phones and through social media. The changing news ecosystem means that competition among news organizations has witnessed major shifts as news organizations have to compete with a wide array of other digital platforms. Whereas historically, newspapers used to compete against other newspapers, same with radio and television, in the digital era, audiences for each different type of media organization have become less distinct. This is mainly because new technologies allow any media to package and present news in ways that combine various news formats that traditionally used to constitute a competitive advantage for that specific media. This has led to the development of multimedia journalism (Deuze, 2004). Newspapers were distinct in providing news through texts and pictures, while radio was known for audio, and television mainly focused on video and audio. With the era of digital media, news organizations can present news in ways that incorporate all the different elements of text, picture, sound, and video. This is a big break from the way news media were organized and constituted. Many news organizations in Africa have adopted multimedia journalism. All these changes have meant that the skill set of a journalist and the roles they perform within news organization have changed. Whereas traditionally, journalists could focus on specific skills, whether it be writing, recording, or taking pictures, in the digital era, they need to perform all these activities for them to be effective in communicating with their audiences. This has become necessary, as news stories have to be packaged in ways that, in most cases, combine all the different elements that used to be performed by different individuals. As a result of the reconfiguration of the skill set for journalists, newsrooms have been reorganized to align with the changing technological environment (Cohen, 2019). Where clearly marked lines of responsibilities used to exist, they have now been replaced with roles that are more fluid and can be performed by fewer people. This is also consistent with the fluid nature of audiences’ media consumption habits that have also become more fluid as they are no longer rigid in their news consumption habits. New technologies allow them to access news in ways that have blurred the lines that used to exist between and among different forms of media. In all these changes, ranging from the ways journalists present and package news stories to how audience access and consume news, there are also convergences and continuities. News formats have converged as hard news and opinions that used to be clearly marked are also witnessing the blurring of lines in the digital era (Domingo, 2008). This can be attributed to new communication technologies and social media that have made it easier for individuals that are not professional journalists to use social media to report and comment on issues 411

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with their followers. In doing so, these individuals perform tasks that traditionally used to be performed by journalists. This is because social media allows them to do so. Depending on their followers, some of these individuals might have a large following bigger than the audiences of some media outlets. Individuals with a large social media following not only share facts about a breaking news event but can also mix it with their opinions. These developments have blurred not only the lines between opinion and facts but also the distinction between who is a journalist and who is not. Many activists in Africa have taken advantage of these technological changes to advocate for various causes (Muneri, 2016a, Chuma, 2016). Whereas ordinary citizens can use not only social media platforms to share their views on various issues, others have personal blogs or digital newsletters that they use to share information and opinions on topics of their interest. What this means is that the information ecosystem has been liberalized and opened ways that allow many people to participate, create, or make news in ways that were nonexistent prior to the advent of new communication technologies. In Zimbabwe, for example, bloggers such as Takura Zhangazha and Alex Magaisa have a large following, and their commentary is, at times, included as newspaper columns. This also connects with arguments about the blurring of lines between academic and journalism (Shapiro, 2014; Stroud, 2017). While these new participants might not necessarily be regarded as journalists (where journalists are individuals professionally engaged in the process of news production with accredited or registered news organizations), it can be argued that their participation has broadened the public’s access to information. This is mainly because non-journalists can contribute to available information in ways that they could not prior to changes brought in by the Internet, new communication technologies, and social media. The involvement of ordinary citizens in some aspects of journalism has therefore contributed to the blurring of lines of fact- and opinion-based journalism. Even among traditional news organizations, new communication technologies have contributed to the blurring of lines as news organizations are now characterized by opinionbased journalism as media organizations also compete for audiences that have now moved to other platforms. This is evidenced in the increased number of journalists hosting their own television, radio, or podcasting shows or writing opinion pages for their respective news organizations. While opinion journalism has always existed even prior to technological changes, it needs to be highlighted that the platforms through which this type of journalism can be shared have significantly increased. Additionally, it has also become increasingly difficult to distinguish between opinion and facts as many news organizations have changed their journalism to combine the two to present journalism that has a clear ideological perspective (Rieger et al., 2015). This therefore means that the debate on “objective” journalism that has long animated scholarship on what journalist should or should not be appears redundant as journalism has always meant that news organizations were ideological as they presented a specific perspective through selection, framing, and presentation of information. While the other side of the debate on objectivity was about the need to be “neutral,” it must be highlighted that news organizations have always reported news from a specific ideological perspective (Schudson, 2002; McChesney & Pickard, 2017). What therefore can be argued now is that new communication technologies have made the debate moot as news media have to compete with non-news entities and individuals who are able to package information in ways that provide audiences with a clear ideological perspective. 412

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New Technologies and Political Polarization New communication technologies have therefore provided clarity in that debate, given that new entrants to the production and distribution of information allow audiences to choose information and news organizations that align with their own ideological understanding of the world. In a world characterized by polarization, this can be problematic, as these new forms of journalism can exacerbate polarization as audiences only pay attention to news that align with their own ideological perspectives. This can result in audience existing in parallel news ecosystems where there are no shared facts. With parallel interpretive communities ((Rieger et al., 2015), the fragmented understanding of the world can exacerbate tensions that, at times, can lead to conflict. Ultimately, this has potential to undermine the role of media in society as they lose credibility, especially when they are accused of bias. The example of politicians like former US President Donald Trump accusing news media of being “fake” has become the strategy that is employed by many authoritarian and undemocratic leaders when faced with unpalatable facts. In some political environments in the Global South, the undermining of news organizations can have grave consequences to the struggles for democracy. This is mainly because without strong media institutions in many countries, especially in Africa, it becomes easier for governments to thwart the will of ordinary citizens, who have limited options to influence the government. In short, media institutions that are accused of bias or being “fake news” can have difficulties in advocating for disenfranchised citizens, who have limited resources to make their government accountable to their citizens. This is mainly because the political process through the electoral route is difficult for most citizens because of the use of violence against opposition and the rigging of elections (Muneri, 2016b). Elections in most African countries are disputed, and most governments use incumbency to undermine the opposition as they control instruments of violence, such as the police and the military. This leaves media as the last line of defense against governments that are not accountable to their electorate (Mutsvairo & Muneri, 2019). The explosion of information channels and the use of digital technologies have facilitated the disaggregation of audiences into disparate, like-minded small communities that are more united by ideology. All this has resulted in journalism competing for audiences with many platforms responsible for this disaggregation. In competing against these digital platforms to win audiences, some news organizations have ended up copying some of the strategies that characterize how these digital platforms present information. As already indicated earlier, these platforms are characterized by the blurring of lines between facts and opinions. The more the lines are blurred, the more the role of journalism in society is further undermined. All these developments clearly show that inasmuch as there are some continuities in selected aspects of journalism (Zelizer, 2019), there is also a disjuncture between journalism that existed prior to the advent of new communication technologies and the emerging new forms of journalism. The implications of these changes go far beyond the field of journalism, as their negative effects are likely to be felt more in the Global South because of the limited presence of other strong institutions central in entrenching democracy. Further disjunctures in journalism are now evident in how audiences pay to access media content. Whereas historically, advertising used to subsidize the costs of news, this model has increasingly become difficult to sustain for many news organizations, as advertising revenue has moved to other digital platforms ranging from Google to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and many other social media outlets. This means news organizations that traditionally used 413

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to rely on advertising have had to find other sources of funding to remain viable. Most news organizations have resorted to using paywalls to generate revenue. While news media still generate revenue through advertising, the contribution of advertising to the overall financial base of news media has been drastically reduced. Advertisers now have more digital platforms to advertise their goods and services to targeted audiences. While there are some continuities in generating revenue through advertising, many news organizations now rely on paywalls to sustain their operations, as advertising revenue is not enough to support news media operations. As a result of these changes, the reach and access to news media for most people in the Global South have been reduced, as news has become too costly. This has resulted in the dearth of local news emanating from either local news outlets shutting down or major news organizations scaling back on their coverage of local issues. The scaling back is a consequence of news organizations cutting costs because of dwindling revenues and intense competition from the explosion of digital platforms that now characterize the news ecosystem. The preceding developments have serious implications to the quality of information that many people can access. While it has become easier for individuals and groups not traditionally involved in news to share information, this does not necessarily lead to more informed citizens. As a result of the breakdown of the traditional ways in which most people access news, people are resorting to other sources of information that do not follow some of the basic principles of journalism, where information is checked for accuracy (Esser  & Neuberger, 2019). Individuals and groups pursuing various causes now compete with registered news organizations for attention. Because non-news individuals and groups are not accountable to their audiences as news organizations are, it means they are also able to appeal to their followers by using populist discourses (Sorensen, 2021) that are fact-free but are meant to mobilize followers in ways that are more driven by political considerations than the need to inform through presentation of accurate information. The lack of accountability on digital platforms therefore incentivizes individuals and groups to be polemical and to use conspiracy theories. This can result in fringe ideas that historically used to circulate within closed communities spreading more quickly and easily than they would had it not been for the availability of digital platforms now acting as megaphones. This has potential to “pollute” news, as news organizations end up giving ventilation to some of these ideas to appeal to some of the audiences that would have shifted to these digital platforms. This further weakens the ability of news media to influence politics, as they compete with non-news entities for attention. As fringe ideas and conspiracy theories are brought into the mainstream of society, extreme groups can gain traction. This can result in dire consequences for minority groups, which end up being blamed for most of societal problems. In some African countries, this could be immigrants who get blamed for economic problems or unemployment, as examples of xenophobic attacks on foreigners in South Africa have shown (Nyamnjoh, 2010; Chenzi, 2021). Women and other minority groups also suffer because digital technologies have made it easier for violent and misogynistic ideas to circulate on digital platforms. While on one hand local communities are experiencing news deserts (Barnidge & Xenos, 2021) because of news organizations concentrating on bigger news markets that can generate more revenues, there is also more information on many platforms that, however, might not serve the best interests of communities that are losing their local sources of news. This has implications on the ability of local communities to participate fully in the affairs of their own lives. In the case of many African countries, where most people still live in rural areas 414

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and most news media are based in urban areas, the evisceration of local news that can provide alternative viewpoints compared to mainly government-controlled media can lead to further disenfranchisement, as failure to access reliable information weakens their ability to participate meaningfully in the democratization process. Under these conditions, one would expect other forms of media, such as radio, that are less costly to be made available to rural communities, but unfortunately, the existing regulatory policies are highly restrictive, as radio broadcasting licenses are tightly controlled and allocated to those connected to the ruling party (Mabweazara et al., 2020). In the face of these conditions, most rural communities are left to rely on social media to access information. While some of the information that can be accessed outside formal channels might be helpful, a lot of it can be highly unreliable as, it is mainly made up of rumors, jokes, and conspiracy theories that do not strengthen the ability of people to make better decisions regarding social, economic, political, and cultural participation as full members of a local, national, and global community. The journalism that has emerged from the explosion of digital platforms has led to political polarization, as extreme ideas gain more currency because of the ease at which they are able to spread on social media, especially on WhatsApp, which is popular in most African countries, as it is a cheaper way to connect with others. The ability of WhatsApp to amplify rumors and conspiracy theories has been enhanced through functions that allow users to form groups and share comments both from individuals and from one group to another. This means that a group with hundreds of members can have a multiplier effect when the same members post messages from one group to another group where they have membership. In most cases, users of WhatsApp are affiliated to many different groups. This means that many people receive information through these groups. Some individuals that might be more active on WhatsApp groups than they attend to news media might be more influenced by information circulating through these groups than through news media. It does not help that most news media use paywalls that most people in the Global South cannot access, as already highlighted. The shift of most audiences to relying on social media for news and information is therefore a consequence of the changing news media landscape, where the Internet and technological changes have forced news media to use paywalls to sustain their operations. This, in turn, has driven audiences away to other sources of information that might not be necessarily reliable or credible as news media. This has consequence to the journalism that has emerged from the changing technological environment. Most news media have shifted to personality-based news that focus less on issues but mainly on social media activities of these personalities, irrespective of the value of what these personalities might be saying (Maares & Hanusch, 2020). The shift of journalism to preoccupy themselves with social media posts of prominent people can distract journalists from focusing on other issues that affect ordinary people. New technologies have therefore not only influenced journalism to shift to digital platforms but have also affected the content of that journalism. This can potentially lead to further disenfranchisement of ordinary citizens, as issues that affect them are now seen through the prisms of social media, where those with the most followers are the focus of news media. Additionally, the journalism that has emerged from all these technological changes is also driven by algorithms. This has implications on what journalists focus on, and if the algorithm metrics can make an issue seem unpopular, journalists might pay less attention to that issue, irrespective of how that issue might gravely affect the welfare of many people. 415

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Use of Algorithms in Journalism While algorithms and the data-driven journalism it has spurred have led to major changes in the Global North, these algorithms have had mixed results in the Global South, especially in Africa. This is mainly because of the limited financial resources that many media in Africa face that make it challenging to invest in the requisite technologies (Muneri, 2019). As a result, inasmuch as technology has made many inroads in changing the journalism landscape in Africa, many newsrooms are still hamstrung by a lack of investment in data journalism. Because of this limited investment, many news media still do not have the capacity to use some of the capabilities of algorithms to enable them to provide their audiences with well-researched news stories that provide a complete picture that can help them explain to understand issues affecting their communities better. As a result of these limitations, there are some continuities with old practices of researching from old archives that rely on hard copies instead of carefully organized and searchable digital data that can speed up the newswriting process. Resultantly, this has limited news media’s ability to capture patterns that help audiences make sense of issues and the world around them. News media are, however, deploying algorithms in tracking audience demographics. This is mainly for purposes of reaching out to advertisers. More still needs to be done to ensure that news stories are more researched and the process of news-writing is streamlined, quicker, and more informative to audiences.

Conclusion It can therefore be argued that whereas technology has wrought many changes on journalism, in many African countries, this has happened mainly in those aspects of journalism that do not require major economic investments. This is mainly because of the limited financial resources of most news media in Africa. Overall, the effects of technology on journalism and the changes that it has brought are not necessarily because of the influence of technology on journalism alone but also because of how technology impacts society. Inasmuch as journalism can influence society, it is also influenced by the same society. It can be argued that new technologies’ influence on politics, economics, or cultural life has also impacted journalism. As highlighted already in this chapter, the turn of the century has witnessed the growing influence of social media, misinformation, and disinformation that have led to political polarization. These changes have not spared journalism. As societies become more divided, journalism, to some extent, has also become more politically polarized, thereby leading to further divisions. The role of news media in bridging these divisions has been severely weakened because of these technological changes. These divisions are felt more intensely in the Global South because of weak or fragile institutional frameworks to hold those exercising economic and political power accountable. Inasmuch as journalism can benefit from technological changes, technological change can also be deployed by malign actors and authoritarian leaders. This can create a toxic operating environment for journalism. Some technological changes have the potential to weaken the role of media in engendering democracy. Finally, it can be argued that some technological changes have enhanced journalism and its ability to make public officials accountable to the broader citizenry, and for that reason, there are continuities with the traditional role of news media. New technologies have brought convergence of old and new journalism practices that have, in some cases, 416

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resulted in a break or disjuncture with old practices. There have also been dramatic changes in the environment in which journalism operates, and this has brought a lot of disjuncture with previous contexts, where the information ecosystem was largely influenced by activities of news media. In the contemporary environment, news media must compete against social media, YouTube, blogs, and other digital platforms to break through with their news. This can be difficult and, in some instances, has forced some media to change how news is reported and presented to the public. What has emerged from this seemingly chaotic environment is a mixed bag where there are continuities, convergence, and in some cases, disjunctures with the way news is sourced, presented, and accessed by audiences.

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39 CLIMATE CHANGE JOURNALISM IN PAKISTAN Ethical Deliberations Muhammad Ittefaq, Shafiq Ahmad Kamboh, and Ayesha Ashfaq

Background and Context According to climate scientists, climate change is not only threatening to vast ecological systems but also posing great risks of accelerated extinctions, resulting in “forced human migrations from low-lying lands, diminished food resources for a growing population,” and will cost more than $10 trillion to the world in the next 50 years (Ward, 2009, p. 14). Because of the enormous impact of global warming, it is crucial that journalists move beyond just simply stating the impact of climate change or sharing shocking statistics to readers specifically in the Global Southern countries like Pakistan, where human sufferings are increasing due to rising temperature, frequent floods, and air pollution. Climate, science, technology, and health journalists need to take ethical responsibilities to not only sensitize the general public and policymakers on the ongoing and upcoming effects of global warming but to also put their share to report it in a more responsible way to bring worldly attention to their people’s sufferings. Furthermore, “journalists should begin to help people not only understand climate change, but also understand the paths forward by leading with how we can still make a difference” (Verma, 2019, para. 11). In this context, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) provided ethical principles for journalists in relation to climate change in 2017. These guidelines are useful for decision-making, policy formulation, and other actions related to climate change globally. Ethical climate change communication refers to the “moral aspects of interaction, either way, between an expert (communicator) and the audience (for example decision-makers, local officials, jury, legislators, students, public, etc.)” (Behl, 2016, pp.  624–625). Ethical issues in climate-related discussions may arise when the experts (scientists and journalists) seek to present information, inform and educate the audience, demonstrate the existence and relevance of a societal issue, persuade readers concerning the importance and magnitude of the crisis, influence policymakers, advocate a solution, and promote actions. The UNESCO’s (2017) Article 4 of the Declaration of Ethical Principles in relation to Climate Change (DEPCC) states, “[G]lobal engagement that mobilizes governments, international organizations, including the United Nations system, private sector, civil society, and other relevant actors may be beneficial” (p.  130), and “pertinent actors should facilitate and encourage public awareness, and participation in decision-making and actions by making access to

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information and knowledge on climate change” (p. 130). Similarly, deliberation’s concept originates from rhetoric which argues that social issues should be resolved based on logic and reason by involving all stakeholders in the society (Dietz, 2013). Ethical deliberation on climate change and UNESCO’s ethical principles are useful to make sense of current climate change journalism in Pakistan. In this chapter, we shed light on climate change journalism in Pakistan and its ethical deliberations through the lens of UNESCO’s ethical principles, coupled with ethical deliberations concept. We start this chapter by discussing UNESCO’s guidelines and ethical deliberations. Then highlight the role of five actors/stakeholders (i.e., industrial pollution, transportation, agriculture, poverty and population, and climate journalism) who are directly or indirectly involved in climate crisis in Pakistan. These actors not only contribute to environmental degradation and air pollution by ignoring the warnings of scientists about the dangers of the climate in Pakistan, though they have a strong ability to mitigate the effects of climate crisis. We argue that, for journalists, ethical deliberations and UNESCO’s ethical guidelines can play an important role in covering climate change in Pakistan. Moreover, we contend that these guidelines should be adapted at the local level and countries should amend principles which are culturally, socio-politically, financially, and emotionally appropriate to their local journalism and academic cultures to address climate change crisis. We conclude our chapter by suggesting some guidelines for the normative role of media and government in responding to the climate change crisis in Pakistan.

UNESCO Guidelines and Climate Change Ethical Deliberations The UNESCO has devised and adopted a DEPCC in the year of 2017. These comprehensive principles of well-devised 18 articles assign responsibilities to various stakeholders to address the challenge, while setting ethics the focal point of the climate change discussion. For instance, to highlight the significance of enhancing public awareness through various communication channels, Article 12 aptly assigns media, among others, certain responsibilities and recommends: “promote awareness regarding climate change and the best practices for responding to it, through strengthening social dialogue, and communication by the media, scientific communities, and civil society organizations, including religious and cultural communities” (UNESCO, 2017, p. 132). This study considers DEPCC’s articles as a framework for climate and environmental ethics and argues how contemporary Pakistani journalism can comply with these principles in order to create awareness and educate the public on the effects of climate change and persuade policymakers to take concrete actions. Certainly, these guidelines are not new to climate scientists but complement the idea of ethical deliberations. In order for the policy decisions to be accepted and implemented, it is critically important to gain support from all stakeholders. For instance, in issues such as climate change, which involves technical as well as scientific knowledge, stakeholders, such as industrialists, public, farmers, transporters, and media workers, sometimes are ill-informed or lack in education to make healthy choices about the environment. Since the climate change issue is unique in its characteristics and entails unequal distributions of damages and benefits within a country, intergenerational effects, and risks and uncertainties around the costs and benefits of policy interventions, therefore this issue needs careful attention and deliberation (Cavalier et al., 2008; Stern, 2006). In order to mitigate the effects of climate change, policymakers need to weigh economic impacts and lifestyle changes. To make informed decisions, the media can mirror this situation and make people aware of the dangers of rising sea level and frequent 420

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heat waves. Deliberations is “collective and/or individual weighing involving discussion, reflection, or both” (Cavalier et al., 2008, p. 10). In addition, during the deliberation process, the discussions should be informed and be based on factual claims. For instance, the relationship between climate change and human activities has been established based on scientific facts (Maibach et al., 2014). Deliberation also means that arguments should be balanced; stakeholders should respect and listen to each other; claims should be judged based on merit, not on who is delivering them; and arguments should receive comprehensive attention. In information-rich societies, mass media is still one of the most popular medium of information for the general public (Kamboh et al., 2022). In order to diffuse ethical debate among all stakeholders, the media need to cover climate change as a problem that affects everyone in society. Climate, science, technology, and health journalists should translate the complex findings of scientific studies and explain to the audience what they meant by the impact of climate change on agriculture, poverty, climate refugees, heat waves, epidemics, food production, industries, air pollution, economic development, and people in society. Oversimplifying scientific concepts may lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations on the part of journalists. Such constructions challenge journalists’ duty of fidelity to their audience (Valentine, 2009). In general, audiences rely on journalists to bridge a gap between climate change issues and common knowledge about the issue. In this regard, public attitude is important for the support of public policies, which can mitigate the effects of climate change. In the next section, we discuss how various actors/stakeholders have contributed to climate change in Pakistan, and what local media and the government need to do to tackle this acute challenge.

Stakeholders Responsible for Climate Change Crisis in Pakistan Industrial Pollution and Waste Management The industrial sector is the backbone of the economic development in Pakistan, as it is the second largest sector (18.7%) that contributes to GDP, but untreated effluents are wreaking havoc with the ecosystem of the country (O’ Neil, 2022). Besides the vehicular emissions that cause almost 45% of air pollution, industrial chemicals and wastes are equally responsible for environmental degradation in Pakistan (Mehdi, 2019). However, no serious efforts have been made by any stakeholder in the country, especially the government. The broad-based industrial sectors of Pakistan include textile, fertilizers, agriculture, leather, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, cement, metal, non-metallic minerals, steel, automotive, tobacco, automobile, electrical goods, paper, light and heavy engineering, and food processing industries. These sectors generate huge precarious solid waste, harmful gaseous chemicals, liquid pollutants, and various health- hazardous emissions. Due to the lack of policy directions or legislation for the management of industrial waste in the country, solid waste placed on low-lying land or burned pollutes groundwater and causes dust and toxic chemicals, all of which are mainly detrimental to human health and the environment. Research suggests that the accumulation of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the main driver of climate change (Demeneix, 2020). Some of the pollutants like heavy metals released from unchecked industrial dumping sites end up polluting natural resources, including seawaters, fresh groundwater, rivers, and fertile agricultural land. According to the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, drinking water in 17 major cities in the country is harmful for human 421

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consumption, and 70% of drinking water is contaminated in Lahore (i.e., the second largest city in Pakistan) only because of industrial pollutants (Mehdi, 2019). Pakistan has an environmental protection act, but the lack of the will of all the stakeholders, including government and the citizens, to follow and implement the directions remain a major challenge (Huma, 2018). Pakistan has signed the Basel, Stockholm, and Rotterdam conventions, but poor institutional capacity is a hurdle in the implementation of these international agreements toward controlling the industrial pollution and environmental degradation. The state needs to pay serious attention to curbing the threats to the environment due to the rapid industrial expansion, which is almost missing. National environment quality standards must be revised. The development of renewable energy sources can substantially reduce biodiversity loss, chemical waste, and air pollution. The concerned stakeholders must design a system to monitor and properly manage industrial effluents before the discharge to save aquatic and human life from serious environmental damages. For reducing GHG emissions in Pakistan, no policy or technology will be able to improve the situation unless the mitigation alternatives and solutions are implemented, by adding the industrial waste sector as an integral part. Moreover, a large number of common effluent treatment plants must be constructed to meet the needs of the industrial areas, and cleaner production centers must be expanded and strengthened properly. Awareness, trainings, and capacity building of all the stakeholders must be prioritized to change public attitude toward environmentfriendly industrial waste management. Finally, in bringing stakeholders together, public policies should be centered on mitigation of climate change effects, and the media should report on this aspect more to frame it as one of the biggest threats the country is facing over the last few decades.

Transportation System, Vehicular Emissions, and Air Pollution The transportation system relying on old infrastructure and motor vehicles is considered as one of the major sources of economic development in Pakistan, as it contributes 10% of the GDP and helps generate 6% of the total employment opportunities in the country (Khan & Majeed, 2019; Sohail et al., 2021). Contrary to its positive role in economic growth, it has also become one of the highest sectors of carbon emission and fossil fuel consumption in Pakistan (Chaudhry, 2017). The rapid growth of modern economies and the consequent pressure on the urban transport have created a plethora of environmental and climate issues and are a major threat to rising air pollution in Pakistan, with large cities like Lahore and Karachi ranking among the most polluted worldwide (Khan, 2021). Air pollution is generally considered as an urban problem, but with the expansion of industries and the persisting trend of vehicle usage, it has also been penetrated into the rural areas of Pakistan. According to Punjab Development Statistics (Fareedi, 2021), almost 19.7 million vehicles have been registered in Punjab (i.e., the largest province of Pakistan) alone, but at present, air pollution monitoring and control actions in Pakistan are both insufficient and only centered for large cities. In Pakistan, the urban residents largely either own their private vehicles or two-wheelers or rely on public transport. This has led to a tremendous growth in private motor vehicle ownership. Similarly, the number of two-stroke vehicles, outdated infrastructure, and poorly maintained public/private transports, including auto-rickshaws, minibuses, jeeps, coaches, station wagons, cabs/taxis, and trucks, in Pakistan has been more than doubled over the last decade. Among these, rickshaws and motorcycles, due to their two-stroke engines, and diesel vehicles using crude diesel oil, emitting excessive 422

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carbon/visible smoke, are of the most serious concern (Khan, 2009; Yaqoob et al., 2021). They are becoming a serious threat to climate and health in almost all large and small cities by contaminating the air. On the one hand, the pollution from the growing traffic and poorly maintained transportation has increased significantly; on the other, the evident negligence of the government and the concerned authorities in adopting necessary transport policies and encouraging sustained investments in the public transport system has exacerbated the situation. These challenges evidence the critical need to introduce a systematic national transportation policy with more sustainable green energy paths. The concerned authorities need to take drastic measures to curb air pollution and implement several policies ranging from halting the import of low-quality fuel to mandating refineries and industries to install emissions-reducing technology. Similarly, the authorities must ban poorly maintained and outdated vehicles on roads. Recently, the government ordered a switch to the Euro 5 emissions standard for all new vehicle approvals in Pakistan from January 2021 to control air pollution, but only less than 5% of cars conform to the standard (Khan, 2021). Therefore, following the vision 2030 of the National Transportation Policy, proper planning and policy directions for a sustainable and environment-friendly transportation system in Pakistan are required to meet the challenges of inadequate infrastructure, lack of resources, governance structure, and overall irresponsible attitude of the concerned authorities and the general public toward climate change and air pollution.

Agriculture Sector Globally, agriculture is the largest contributor to methane (CH4) emission, which is a powerful greenhouse gas primarily emitted by human activities, such as rearing livestock, rice cultivation, and residue burning (Ritchie & Roser, 2020; Smith et al., 2021). In Pakistan, the agriculture and livestock sector accounts for as much as 44.8% of the national GHG emissions, eventually making it the second largest contributor after the industry and transportation sector (Mir et al., 2017). Being as a potent cause of global warming, methane is mostly emitted at dairy farms from the mouths of buffaloes, calves, and cows. It is produced in the bovine animal’s stomach during the digestion process, also referred to as enteric fermentation (Bačėninaitė et al., 2022). In Pakistan, it is estimated that methane contributes to 70.6% of the total livestock sector annual emissions. Local breeds of buffaloes produce maximum methane, followed by cattle, goats, sheep, and poultry. Farm animals’ enteric methane averaged 63.4% of the total CH4 emissions, followed by 25% from manure degradation (Habib & Khan, 2018). The second methane source is manure, that is, animal dung used for fertilizing land (Khan et al., 2021). Methane from manure is generated when livestock waste is heaped in open places by farmers to be used further for fertilizing crops (Cárdenas et al., 2021). Scientists have recommended to improve farm animal diet and cow/buffalo breeds to lower methane emissions from the dairy sector (Bačėninaitė et  al., 2022). A  recent study by Pakistani scientists estimated that by improving fodder quality or digestibility of poorquality feed and by enhancing the genetic potential of animals, methane emission per unit of milk can be reduced to around 43% compared to baseline, with an associated benefit of 100% increase in milk production (Habib & Khan, 2018). Similarly, methane emissions from manure can be reduced by adopting proper storage and processing techniques or by using it to produce biogas (Cárdenas et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2021). 423

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In terms of agriculture, rice is one of the most important cash crops in Pakistan, meeting a major portion of the dietary needs of the local population (Mir et al., 2017). However, its cultivation in agricultural fields is responsible for somewhat 10% of global methane emissions (Umali-Deininger, 2022). In fact, flooded paddy fields produce methane due to the low-oxygen environment of water-logged rice fields. Scientists suggest that instead of keeping their fields continuously flooded, farmers should drain rice paddies two to three times during the growing season. This alternate wetting and drying can reduce methane emissions from paddy rice fields by almost half (Smith et al., 2021). Apart from rice cultivation, rice stubble burning also releases CH4 and CO2 through incomplete combustion of biomass, which causes emergency-level air pollution in India and Pakistan (“Emergency-level Air,” 2022). Experts suggest promoting zero-tillage agriculture, biomass used as animal feed, biocomposting, biomass-based thermal power plants, and mushroom cultivation (“Emergencylevel Air,” 2022). In short, these practices can increase rice productivity, improve climate resilience, and reduce GHGs (Umali-Deininger, 2022). In addition to the aforementioned supply-side measures to reduce GHG emissions, interventions on the demand side are highly recommended by experts (Smith et al., 2021). For instance, a significant reduction in food waste is direly needed, keeping in view the fact that food waste is common at wedding ceremonies and at various hotel banquets (Mughal, 2018). Given the elevated meat-based food consumption trends in Pakistan (Afzal et  al., 2022), awareness campaigns are required to shift the community to a plant-based diet (Smith et al., 2021). Last but not the least, the role of mass media can be vital in terms of educating rice and livestock farmers. Recent studies recommend that apart from dairy extension and technical public services, “dairy farmers’ training should include the effective use of electronic media so that they may equip themselves with advanced dairy production information” (Asghar et al., 2021, p. 489). Kamboh et al. (2022a) recommends that “to make future journalism more inclusive of environmental discourse, civic advocacy groups should aim at influencing the existing media studies’ curriculum development process to add to the latest environmental health and advocacy journalism debates in various course contents” (p. 2,661).

Population, Poverty, and Environmental Degradation Nexus Pakistan is on the verge of two volcanic eruptions (Ali, 2019). One is rapid population growth, and the other is environmental degradation due to population explosion. More than half of the country’s population resides in rural areas and relies heavily on the quantity and quality of natural resources, whose status has begun to deteriorate with every passing day. It is imperative to control unabated population growth, because the findings of many scientific studies inform that the increasing population and poverty rate has greatly contributed to environmental degradation in Pakistan (Khan et  al., 2019; Zaman et  al., 2011). However, in defiance of scientists’ caution that “humans alter the climate by emitting greenhouse gases” (Cohen, 2010, p.  163), various conservative religious leaders serve as one of the main hurdles in the way of population planning and control efforts in the country (“Pakistan Birth,” 2017). Understanding this connection between environment and poverty helps countries achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which require a more solutionoriented approach to solve climate change issues. To that end, media in countries like Pakistan can play an active role in disseminating information, imparting education, and establishing 424

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the link between poverty, overpopulation, and environmental degradation. Media can also sensitize common people their ethical responsibilities to curtail the country’s population within the resources. Since environmental degradation impacts agricultural productivity, the media can educate people and eventually play an important role in poverty alleviation. At the local level in Pakistan, broadcasting messages on TV and writing long reports in newspapers on the effects of climate change can have a wider and immediate impact on how sectors like agriculture and dairy farming can utilize that knowledge. The media needs to make a connection between these aforementioned issues and sensitize all stakeholders so that they may come together and have relevant discussions to make informed decisions. Some studies found that media coverage of global warming affects people’s attitude for a short period of time; however, the media needs better and effective communication of global warming and its impact on all aspects of their life in order to have sustainable change in their attitude and lifestyles.

Climate Journalism In the summer of 2022, climate-fueled disaster hit Pakistan that affected 10% of Pakistan’s land; 33  million were impacted and 7.9  million were displaced, 1.7  million homes were destroyed, more than 1,700 people died, thousands of animals got killed, and estimated damage was $10–40 billion (Wyns, 2022). Pakistan as a whole received 243% more rainfall than usual during this period. These devastating events were covered extensively not only in Pakistani media but also in international media (Kamboh & Ittefaq, 2023a). Most of the media reporting was about human sufferings, extreme floods due to GHG emissions, and climate justice issues (Reed & Bokhari, 2022). Many scholars have recently examined how Pakistani journalists cover climate change in Pakistan. Scholars have discussed journalists’ challenges, influences, environmental issues coverage in editorials during Covid-19, environmental journalism education, and China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and climate change (Ejaz et al., 2022; Hussain et al., 2022; Jamil  & Bhuju, 2022; Kamboh et  al., 2022a; Qusien  & Robbins, 2022; Sharif  & Medvecky, 2018). Sharif and Medvecky (2018) documented the challenges journalists face in order to provide adequate coverage to climate change issues in the Pakistani news media. By using interviews, their study found that most of the journalists noted that their reporting on climate change is event-oriented, journalists only pay attention to this issue when it gets highlighted in international media, climate journalism does not bring advertisement to media companies, and journalists cover politics more than any other issue in the country. Similarly, Ejaz et al. (2023) analyzed ten years’ media coverage of climate change in the three largest English-language newspapers in Pakistan. By using computational content analysis approach, the study found that Pakistan’s media coverage falls into six themes, including climate politics, climate governance and policy, climate change and society, climate change impacts, climate science, and climate solutions. In addition, overall, climate change news coverage in Pakistan has substantially increased between 2010 and 2021. Both studies show that news media still cover political news, but if media report on climate change, it only talks about the political aspect of it. Climate science and solution are the least-covered topics; this means that newspapers do not pay heed toward climate change solutions. Ethically, the media should be reporting more on this aspect of climate change. In Pakistani media, climate change reporting has several problems, such as lack of financial and organizational support (Wadud, 2022), lack of expertise and education, influences 425

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of advertisers and corporations (Ejaz et  al., 2022), scant culture of specialized treatment of environmental news (Sharif  & Medvecky, 2018), lack of responsibility from journalists and organizations (Hussain et al., 2022), and expert knowledge and the journalists’ ability to frame environmental stories in an effective manner (Jamil & Bhuju, 2022). In addition, some studies show that Pakistani newspapers cover human development issues inadequately (Kamboh & Ittefaq, 2023b; Kamboh & Yousaf, 2020). These inadequacies may lead toward low-quality and less-critical media coverage. For instance, Kamboh et al. (2022a) examined the editorial coverage of environmental issues in mainstream English newspapers of four majority world countries (i.e., Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, China) amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Their results suggest that “in relation to advocating environmental issues, the editorialists either ignored linking environmental issues to the pandemic or, if they established a link, gave negligible coverage, hence seem to have failed to perform their normative role” (p. 2,646).

Summary Global warming is a serious threat to humans, societies, and ecosystem, and it needs systematic research to understand its effects. This multidimensional crisis faced by every country on Earth needs a comprehensive response which is based on financial, cultural, psychological, and educational aspects. Although scientists are playing a key role in influencing policymakers, engaging with the public, and researching its links with poverty, frequent epidemics, increasing poverty in developing countries, low production in agriculture, increasing populations, and environmental degradation, non-profit organizations are also playing their vital role in creating awareness among the masses about the determinantal effects of climate change globally. Overall, researchers have taken a predominantly empirical, positivistic, and critical approach to investigating the various facets of climate journalism and environmental communication. In summary, scholarly research related to climate journalism has increased significantly during the last few years in Pakistan. In addition, research suggest that news coverage is also increasing despite having various problems and influences on journalism in Pakistan. However, still today, most of the environmental and climate change–related stories are based on news releases. Due to the lack of expert knowledge and resources, reporters prefer not to go into the field and do in-depth reporting on these climate change issues. Because media organizations do not encourage and provide required resources to their reporters to undertake in-depth and extensive reporting on climate justice issues, climate racism, climate ethical violations, and climate and poverty, most of the climate reporting is based on self-interest and self-motivation of the reporters to do good for the society. Because of routine journalistic pressures to produce content for multiple platforms, journalists do the bare minimum in reporting climate change–related stories. Due to the nature of climate journalism, it requires long-form stories, which take months to produce, to get a viewpoint of scientists and read complex findings of the empirical research. Climate journalists have lost their passion for climate reporting due to a lack of support from their organizations. Audiences demonstrate a keen interest in accessing science-related content, yet the prominence of other content categories, including showbiz, sports, and politics, often relegates climate, health, education, and other issues relevant to the general public to a lower editorial or reporting priority. Consequently, it becomes crucial for the media to assume a heightened ethical and moral responsibility in addressing this urgent issue in Pakistan. 426

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40 JOURNALISM IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES Alternative Theories and Practices of Fairness and Justice Muhammed Musa and Sameera Ahmed Introduction The epistemological and ethical foundations of contemporary journalism and news media production are often rooted in Western paradigms and ideologies. Consequently, the production of news, by its commitment to the principles of objectivity, truth, democracy, and a particular set of news values that decide “what is news,” is structurally positioned to reproduce existing hierarchies in society. However, critiques of the Euro- or Western-centric approaches to journalism practices and studies have questioned the universality of models, especially through a decolonialization of journalism and communication. It must be recognized that other geographies and histories have experienced their own forms of journalism set within frameworks distinct to their localities and identities. One of these non-Western approaches to journalism that can provide an alternative to the dominant order stems from Islamic or Muslim standpoints. In this chapter we examine that, in theory, the media charters of Muslim countries lay claim to distinct ethical values guiding the practice of journalism. In practice, however, there tend to be varying degrees of adherence and operationalization of these stated ethical values among countries. The objective in analyzing these charters is to provide insights into the centrality of fairness and justice in journalism in Muslim countries. By charting the history of media in the Muslim world and exploring the frameworks within which many contemporary Muslim countries operate, this chapter presents a different perspective of journalism. By referring to the press codes and media laws and ethics in a selected sample of Islamic/Muslim countries, a typography of news values is suggested which defines an alternative theoretical approach to Western journalism ideas and practices. Whilst professional journalists in Muslim countries share several values with journalists around the world, they follow certain principles underpinned by religious values. The extent to which these are manifested in the ideology of news media production and its practices will provide a clearer understanding of the existence of different ways to think about journalism in contemporary society. Outlining the historical development of Islamic or Muslim media and examining how it is currently implemented demonstrate how epistemological and ethical

DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-45

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foundations for contemporary, global journalism practices are not always rooted in the West or Western models of journalism.

Journalistic Values in Western Societies – Objectivity The objectivity norm in Western journalism is traced to the 20th century, a period when objectivity became an occupational ideal ushered in by market considerations. That was not the case before this development. The practice of objectivity in journalism stands in contrast to the partisan press that existed until the early part of the 19th century. At that time, newspapers were unashamedly partisan as they addressed or aligned with a particular constituency of readers. (Allan, 2010; Gans, 1979; Knight, 1982; Schudson, 1981, 2004). Where the information did not serve the interest of the newspapers’ constituency, it was suppressed (Elliot, 1978; Rutherford, 1978; Smith, A. 1978). The economic situation that followed the Great Depression of the 1880s and early 1890s ushered a period of consolidation of capital markets by the emergence of large corporations. Such changes in economic activity brought the need for further expansion of markets, and the press had to play a central role in this quest for market expansion, which meant more competition could be generated through advertising. The dependence on advertising revenue by the press required newspapers to reach a general audience rather than a specific interest-based audience. Consequently, partisanship had to make way for a non-partisan and, therefore, “objective” journalism. However, as economic consolidation led to increasing concentration of media ownership into fewer hands, there was also a growing public disenchantment about diminishing diversity. For journalists, commitment to objectivity, then, served to displace such criticism by eschewing an overtly partisan orientation, by separating “facts’ from “opinion’, and by relying on formally accredited sources as primary definers of news content. (Knight, G. 1982, p. 23) Thus, in the practice of objectivity, the reliance on accredited sources is one of three elements enshrined in Western values of journalism. Such accredited sources or experts are therefore always provided unparalleled access to the media, where their views are normalized as the views of those they represent. In this way, journalism reproduces and legitimizes the bureaucratic order or what Weber called “legal-rational” form of authority (Weber, 1968). For this reason, news in conventional media today is largely skewed in favor of the middle class in society (Gans, 1979; Gitlin, 2003). The second element in the practice of objectivity as a journalistic value is impartiality, the separation of fact from opinion that would place journalists in a detached position from what is reported in the news. The third element in the practice of objectivity which also helps in entrenching it as a core value is the subscription to empirical rationality. Thus, the idea of “detachment” in reporting the news that is expected of journalists speaks to empiricism and objectivity, and both cannot be separated from the ideology of scientific rationality, which, according to Knight (1982), was appropriated at the turn of the century. What is today known as professional journalism has not always been so. Journalism started as an endeavor to cater for the need of the working class by articulating their struggles against the dominant class of the time (Hartley, 2013; Knight, 1982), and as such, popular

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journalism was unequivocal about both its mission and constituency allegiance. In addition, unlike today, when professional journalism is an elite profession, early journalism was amateur, and its audiences were also its writers, who were seen to be educating and mobilizing readers politically. This differs from the normative ideal of professional journalism, which believes in the factual nature of news that can be brought to the public by a “detached journalist.” What emerges from this brief account on the professionalization of journalism is that it marked the beginning of the displacement and emasculation of partisanship in journalism and, more importantly, that the process itself was a product of the development of Western societies. That development is related to the desire for the creation of a market for capital. When such professional journalism, guided by the principle of objectivity, is exported and universalized, it is done by displacing what existed in recipient nations, such as in the case of Muslim countries, which often had their own Islamic media charter.

Critique of Western Journalism Our accounts of journalistic values in Western societies indicate that they are rooted in Western enlightenment traditions of liberal philosophy and scientific investigation that emphasizes empiricism as a central feature of objectivity, among others (Donsbach & Klett, 1993; Knight, 1982). Taking a cue from Hallin and Mancine (2004), who note the interaction between media and political structures with social systems, and given the Western roots of contemporary journalistic values, we want to contend that these values are embodiments of the cultural cosmology of their place of origin. In their study of media professionalism in developing countries, for example, Golding and Elliot (1979) have observed how the ideology of media professionalism was transferred to developing countries through such things as training in formal Western institutions, overseas courses attended by media practitioners from developing countries, as well as the adoption of imported Western journalism training curricula in developing countries. All these led to the prescriptive nature of Western journalistic values and, at a broader level, part of the process of the incorporation of developing societies into the Western sphere of professional practices. Yet the ideological conveyor belt of Western values introduced to developing countries is to be found in the modernization school of thought prescribed to these societies at independence as an essential requirement for them to attain development vis-à-vis Western countries (Rostow, 1991; Schramm, 1967). Classical modernization theory sees developing societies as traditional and in need of modernization to attain development. Such development would only come through the acquisition of modern paraphernalia of development, including the mass media and the adoption of modern practices. By the 1970s, modernization theory had come under fierce criticism for its universalizing tendency and for its attempt to treat all societies as one or an extension of the West. Andre Gunder Frank (1967), Immanuel Wallerstein (1974, 2004), and Samir Amin (1991) have all argued that modernization theory is an attempt at universalizing capitalist modernity as the only path to progress and development. Its Eurocentric inclination is especially criticized by alternative dependency theory, which says modernization theory merely exacerbates the neo-colonial exploitation of developing countries by reducing them to sources of raw material needed to serve the European industrialization project. If we can trace the link between the transfer of ideologies of media professionalism to developing countries with the modernization school of thought, its theoretical rejection can be found in the dependency school of thought. The prescription for the acquisition of 432

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modernizing tools that include the mass media is criticized for its colonial undertones, as the mass media were seen as channels of promoting and consolidating capitalist modernity. At the empirical level, the discourse of cultural domination of developing societies advanced by scholars such as Schiller, (1976, p.  84), Hamelink (1983), Nordenstreng (1999), and Thussu (2000) establishes a link between Western media content flow and cultural domination of developing societies.

The Paths of Western Journalistic Values into Muslim Countries Muslim-majority countries, whether in the Middle East, Asia, or Africa, fall outside the orbit of Western societies. The early history of colonialism, industrialization, and the ascendancy of the neoliberal market system has seen many of them adopting Western structures of society and its social relations. Under the guide or blueprint of modernization that was sold to them as the only path to development, these countries and others in the developing world have embraced Western patterns of development, and as a result, institutions and values governing them have been imported. Commenting on the practice of media professionalism in developing countries, media sociologist Peter Golding (1977) described the guiding values as transplanted ideologies from developed Western countries. In most Muslim countries, modern journalism exists as part of the paraphernalia of modernization that was bequeathed to them through colonialism or as part of development blueprint called modernization. Yet both colonialism and modernization are phases in the process of incorporating Muslim countries into the orbit of capitalist modernity. The accelerated phase of the process in the contemporary era has come through neoliberal policies of market de-regulation, or what is also referred to as globalization (Bhagwati, 2004; Held, 1999; Lechner, 2005; Rubin, 2009; Smith, 1978). In Golding’s (1977) assessment of the manner that professional ideologies of media practice were transferred to such countries, both training in Western educational institutions and transfer of syllabuses into home universities are highlighted. This reflects the situation in many Muslim countries where pioneering media practitioners were sent for formal training at media and journalism departments in Western universities or attachment at media institutions in those Western countries. Pioneer journalists in Pakistan, Egypt, Kuwait, and Morocco all boast of having received training at some point, in Britain or France (Dajani, 2011). The outcome of these initiatives is that Muslim journalists have returned to their home countries duly equipped with Western values of media practice that they apply in practicing their trade. In addition, media and journalism departments in many Muslim countries had their course structures and syllabuses patterned after or directly transplanted from Western countries. Today, many of these departments have either Western professors or Western-trained professors who become the conveyors of Western values of media practices. Under the latest phase in the international division of cultural labor, American, British, French, Canadian, and Australian universities have established satellite campuses in Egypt, Lebanon, UAE, and Qatar. Now students do not need to travel to Western countries for studies as universities are stationed in many Muslim countries and indirectly import values of professional practice in various fields, including journalism. The acquisition of media hardware from the United States, Europe, and Japan into Muslim countries is also another channel through which Western professional values are imported. Evidence of this in many Muslim countries today, in the case of broadcasting, for instance, is that programming patterns built around familiar Western formats of news, adverts, sitcoms, 433

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and talk shows dominate television screens (Ayish, 2011). Exports of screen content and formats into these Muslim countries were viewed with suspicion as to their implications on local initiatives and culture, and this made many Muslim countries active participants in the developing world alliance that agitated against what was then seen as a Western offensive and domination of their media landscape (Hamelink, 1983; Nordenstreng, 1999; Schiller, 1976; Thussu, 2000). Such Western domination of the media landscape in Muslim countries was also evident in the structure of media institutions themselves, for the structure is itself a transferred model from the West so that what existed in many Muslim countries is a mixture of the public service and commercial broadcasting models. In most countries today, the duopoly is giving way to a monopoly in two ways. First, governments are either withdrawing or reducing their support for public media. Secondly, and as a result, there is an emerging trend in most Muslim countries of a broadcasting landscape that is under the monopoly of private capital. Legitimized by the neoliberal policies of deregulation, the media landscape is dominated by private, commercially oriented, and profit-driven media organizations.

Development of Journalism in the Muslim World The chronological order of the development of journalism in Muslim countries is not different from that of Western countries, as the printed word preceded broadcasting and other forms of mass communication. The recorded experiences of the visit of the Moroccan ambassador Mohammed Abd-al Wahab to Spain in 1690 suggest that the emergence of printed news in the Muslim world came some decades after that of Europe. For on that historical visit during the reign of King Carlos, Abd-al Wahab, a guest of the king on a mission of reprieve for Moroccan prisoners in Spanish jails, was fascinated by a “writing mill.” This was the first time he experienced news collected and printed from different places which the owner sold to people at a small fee. These kasita (from the Spanish word gaceta for gazette) seemed untrustworthy to Abd-al Wahab because they were full of exaggerations. That he lacked an Arabic name for the kasita which Abd-al Wahab first encountered in Spain in 1690 is an indication of the absence of the practice of printed stories in Muslim countries. It was not until the 19th century that the two interchangeable names of jarida and sahifa were adopted in Arabic-speaking countries to stand for the newspaper medium and its practice. Three centuries later, publications appeared in Arabic Muslim countries and largely in the native Arabic language. Today, the publishing of newspapers in hard and soft copies has become part of established popular culture in Muslim countries. As the chapter sets out to explore the theory and practice of journalistic values in Muslim societies, it is important to understand the evolutionary paths of such values, how they differ or resemble those of the West, as well as the factors that shape these developments. Two approaches have emerged in exploring the history of the Arabic press by Arab authors. One starts from the late 18th century with the French invasion of Egypt and the introduction of printing shops by General Bonaparte. Within this approach, the history of the Arabic press is factored into the two world wars and the role they played in shaping such an evolution (see Ayalon, 1995). The second approach in the exploration of the history of journalism in the Muslim world is one that traces its roots to earlier Islamic periods. Muruwwa’s (1961) account, for instance, traces the foundation of Arab journalism in the first century of Islam during the Ummayad, Abbasid, and Mamluk periods. He points to the existence of journalists (sahafiyyin) and 434

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reporters (riburtaj) (Muruwwa, 1961). For Muruwwa, the first Arab to have engaged in the practice of journalism is the Egyptian historian Abd al Rahman Al-Jabarti, whose book Aja’ib al-athar recorded daily events and occurrences in a similar fashion to modern journalism. By looking at the etymology of the concept of sihafa as a 19th-century coinage, Muruwwa has observed that it came out from the original sahifa that meant, among others, a leaf, page, or letter. Its allusion to a newspaper, therefore, dictates an importation from Europe about two centuries later. But even by the time Bonaparte established his printing facility in Egypt, newspapers were already known in Istanbul, where they were called ghazeta, which was also imported from the Turkish language to refer to newspapers, but in Arabic, it was confined to printed official government announcements or decrees. Beyond the etymology of the word sihafa and its relation to journalism is the question of the import of its form from the West and domestication in the Arab world. As a result of this, in the words of Zaydan (1957), the newspaper “more than any other element of our recent revival is tied at its very root to the West, for we have taken it from them, body and soul”. As Ayalon (1995) noted, the transfer of institutions and practices from the West into non-Western societies has not always been smooth. This is no less true as it relates to the introduction of the press in the Arab world, where the “dissemination of secular knowledge was incompatible with traditional cultural conventions” (Ayalon, 1995, p. 262). As a cultural treasure to Muslims, the Arabic language also had a degree of holiness attached to it, especially in the written form, so that its scripted form was especially associated primarily with scared books. Other uses for which written Arabic was deployed were largely educational or administrative, and both were confined to authority either of knowledge as Islamic scholars or state officials. The reluctance of Ottoman Sultans to introduce printing into the empire around the 16th and 17th centuries was said to be partly born out of the fear of desecration of scriptures. As the Arab experiment with journalism took off in Egypt, a notable scholar or alim, Shaykh Husayn Al-Marsafi, out of fear of corrupting the scriptures and misleading readers through the printed word, advocated for the formation of a body of scholars to supervise any printed material. Deep-rooted and prevalent, this view must have delayed the birth of Arab journalism, just as it had earlier hampered the introduction of printing to the Ottoman Empire. When Arabic newspapers did begin to appear, it necessarily inhibited their assimilation, since many from among the educated class – their potential readership – shared this view (Ayalon, ibid.).

Obstacles Confronting Early Journalism in the Muslim World Understanding the obstacles confronting early journalism in the Arab world is important in pointing us to the theory and practice of the values that guide journalistic practices. Several key factors are especially worthy of attention and analysis. These are the role of scholars or ulaama, low levels of literacy, general lack of interest in printed news, conservative views about who should be the harbinger of news, general poverty, and the overarching political constraint. Islamic scholars have always held a high position of status and respect in Muslim societies, to the extent that consensus among them is considered an important source of Islamic jurisprudence. Ijma, or consensus among Muslim jurists, where the Qur’an and hadith are silent on an issue, constitutes a third acceptable source of Islamic law. The reluctance of these jurists in their acceptance of printed stories, either because of fear of lack of credibility or 435

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fear of undermining sacred texts, has imposed considerable impact on the development of journalism in Muslim societies. A second important inhibition in the early development of journalism in Arab countries are low levels of literacy that negatively impacted readership. A literacy rate of meagre 4.1% and 6.8% in Egypt in 1897 and 1917 is indicative of the state of literacy in Arab countries so that even by 1960, illiteracy in the Arab states was estimated at 75% (see Reid, 1975; UNESCO, 1967). The third factor was a general apathy toward printed news, a factor predicated on the negative view of such news among ulaama. Moreover, the mosque, coffee houses, and marketplaces were deemed adequate sources of news, often by word of mouth. Other scholars have interpreted the apathy to printed news as a factor of the perception of the Arab public that public and political affairs should be left to authorities who made these available in decrees and official information channels, rather than newspapers. A fourth factor that shaped the development of journalism in the Muslim world is general poverty, which impacted on the capacity of citizens to afford a newspaper. The few who could afford newspapers shared them with others or read them to others. This meant circulation figures had remained low and beyond viability levels. Furthermore, printed advertising, which in Europe and North America had long been the economic backbone of the press, was not an important part of Middle Eastern commercial activities in the 19th century (Ayalon, 1995). A combination of some of the listed factors adds to laying the foundation of political constraints on journalism in Muslim countries. The earlier role of the ulaama or the learned authority, and the conservative view about who should be the harbinger of news, may not constitute political constraints in themselves but can be catalysts in the emergent state/media relations in Muslim countries. For instance, given that the state was responsible for the general welfare of the people, rulers had become vested with authority on such matters of state that bordered on general welfare as well as general societal values. In such matters, therefore, state officials assumed sole authority, including as sources of information. It is this situation that formed the foundational basis of state/media relations in the Muslim countries and explains why media in most of these countries started as stateowned institutions rather than private, as is the case with the press in most Western countries. As a result of these factors, many newspapers in the early days of Arab journalism died a premature death and, consequently, turned journalism into a despised profession synonymous with poverty. Other newspapers that survived did so with the injection of financial support from individuals, governments, or political parties with vested interests. This trend has become an important feature of journalism in the Arab world, unlike in Europe and North America, where it started and thrived as a private affair.

Broadcast Journalism in the Muslim World In providing a historical account of the development of television broadcasting in the Arab world, Ayish (2011) identified three phases: formative, national, and globalized. In the formative phase of 1954–1976, there were a few countries in the early stages of independence, while others were still under colonial rule. The introduction of television at this stage was first attempted by commercial interests. Due to factors such as the strong hold of radio as a popular medium, the existence of very few television sets, as well colonial rule in many countries, that pioneering effort by commercial interests did not last. A more enduring attempt at the introduction of television happened in the 1970s, when most of the region was independent. At this time, governments saw their role as one of building national cohesion and 436

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promoting nationhood, and this made the British model of public service broadcasting (PSB) an obvious choice. Following this model of broadcasting, television in the Gulf region was established as a government-run operation, mostly subordinated to ministries of information. Television’s mission in these countries was about serving national development goals, including fostering cultural identity (Ayish, 2011, p. 87). In the national expansion phase of 1976–1990s, a period of both consolidation of nationhood as well as early days of introduction of neoliberal market policies, there was “perception of structural arrangements and editorial practices” that come with the PSB model. It was also the phase in which the Gulf War broke out and majority of Arab audiences got first-hand experience of news coverage of the war through Western networks. This development played a role in raising awareness about the need to open the airwaves to private players in television broadcasting so that by mid-2009, more than 400 television channels were operational, most of them owned by private broadcasters. Those channels range in their affiliation from foreign broadcasters to national state-owned services to private operations, all seeking to address Arabic-speaking audiences in their native language. (Ayish, 2011, p. 90) Most analyses on the development of television broadcasting in the Arab world in this phase tend to focus on two things. First, scholars allude to a new, robust public sphere introduced by the television format that is free from the grip of government that used to be the case in the region. Second, concern with importation of content and format that are deemed threatening to Arab cultural values. While some continue to view television as a powerful force of national development, many others see broadcasting as a Trojan horse for Westernized cultural hegemony that threatens the basic premises of Arab Islamic social and cultural traditions and values (Ayish, 2011, p. 101).

The Gulf War and Recent News Development in Muslim Countries The Gulf War of 1990/1991, in which the American-led coalition forces attacked Iraq to bring an end to the occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s forces, has influenced news development in many Muslim countries (Ghareeb, 2000; Mellor, 2007). The event turned the Gulf region into a theater of war, where hundreds of foreign journalists were deployed to cover the conflict. A very significant development arising from the war was the establishment of television as the primary news medium of that time, as it brought images to audiences in real time (O’Hefferman, 1993). Journalists were not only reporting the war but were also part of the war, as they were “embedded” with troops at the war front to bring news to their viewers. Western television networks such as BBC and CNN, especially the latter, emerged as major sources of narratives and images of the conflict to Muslim countries and to the world. Their reports not only set the agenda for discourse on the war but also defined formats of reporting to existing and emerging news organizations in Muslim countries. As conflict raised the appetite and expanded the market for news, most Arab countries witnessed a proliferation of news media organizations in both print and broadcasting. Existing newspapers grew bigger to respond to the news appetite among audiences who were keen observers of the Gulf War. As well as hard news on the war, the newspapers began to feature soft news and human-interest stories. In broadcasting, new channels provided news modelled 437

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after the CNN format to an Arab audience already “used” to it (Mellor, 2005). The Gulf War reporting by global (Western) networks has therefore become a conduit for the export of Western news agendas and values, but also of orienting Arab audience to such news. Both conflict and abundance of oil resources in the region have turned Muslim countries into important audiences for Western news networks, such as CNN, NBC, and BBC, who have started their own Arabic-language news services (Mellor, 2007). This, according to Gunter and Dickinson (2013) reflects an influence of changes in journalism practice in the Western world and the infiltration of Arab news markets by non-Arab news suppliers, particularly those operating on satellite TV platforms. Global news operators such as BBC and CNN have left their mark on news audiences in the MENA region and perhaps more importantly on Arab news professionals themselves. (Gunter & Dickinson, 2013, p. 7) The raison d’être of the neoliberal market system often called globalization is to create a single global value system so that the world can subscribe to common ideologies and consumption of goods and services, including those of the media. If deregulation was the catalyst for this policy, technology was the major enabler. In exploring how the media are connected to the spread of neoliberalism, Berry (2019) pointed at key areas such as the legitimization of the social order through propagation of government withdrawal, as well as promotion of the market system generally. Secondly, Berry also pointed at the negative representation of voices opposed to neoliberalism, while a third area is the role of neoliberalism in the structural transformation of the media industries with implications for content production. Our focus here is especially on the third area epitomized by a wave of privatization of Arab media and telecommunications that started in the 1990s and that signaled the acceptance of neoliberalism by the Arab countries. Following this development, entrepreneurs in the region with desire to maintain political support for their businesses stepped into media ownership (Galal & Lawrence, 2005). In broadcasting, the popularity of both CNN and BBC in reporting the Gulf War of 1991 and their introduction of Arabic-language services in their news menu have set the tone for the kind of news expectation among Arabic-speaking audiences and a benchmark for news culture among the newly emerging private channels in Gulf countries. Thus, the first Arab private television, the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), owned by Saudi tycoon Walid Al-Ibrahim, launched in 1991. ART and Orbit followed in 1993. The expectation of the Arab audiences is captured by Ayish (quoted in Gunter & Dickinson, 2011): The hunger among Arab publics for news services in their own language that offer the range and quality of news provision observed on international TV channels located in the West such as the BBC and CNN provided the right climate of interest for the launch of new more liberal news services in the region. (p. 25)

Islamic Communication and Journalism – Theory and Practice The values and principles of truth, objectivity, and justice are considered essential aspects of Islam. These values are pertinent in the conceptualization and practice of newsgathering and 438

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journalism across the diverse Muslim world. Whilst factors such as history, socio-economics, politics, culture, and language remain important in determining how journalists see their role and practice their profession, a shared understanding of Islamic values in constructing a framework for news production is apparent. Journalism in the Muslim world incorporates truth, honesty, objectivity, ethics, fairness, and justice into both its theoretical and methodological approaches. However, it is important to acknowledge that these values have not simply been transferred from the West through the mechanisms outlined earlier. Islam has its own history of mediating information to its communities and societies. For as we observed earlier, due to the high premium placed on the accuracy of disseminated information, and also because of the concern over the likelihood of using printing technology to temper with divine scriptures, early Muslim societies had put in place procedures where such information comes from authorities of letters and state. The Islamic religious scholars, or ulaama, were recognized as sources of such authentic knowledge to be shared with citizens, while state officials disseminated official information through decrees and other government channels. Moll’s (2020) examination of Islamic media demonstrates that media organizations and individual journalists have long debated whether Islam provides a framework for media and journalism practices, connecting instances in the early days of Islam to both general and specific rulings about how to collect and disseminate information. In using the Qur’an to present a method to decolonialize mass communication, what Moll (2020) calls epistemic emancipation, she contends that Islamic media does not necessarily have to be about Islam or religious matters alone, and a structure based on the Qur’an offers an alternative to the predominant, Western model of journalism. For this media to be Islamic would mean to adopt and implement an outlook and ethical standpoint that maintained the principles laid down in the Qur’an and the teachings of the Holy Prophet (saw). Objectivity is certainly not a concept monopolized by Western journalism. The country guides and media codes/ethics that were examined, including those in Pakistan, Malaysia, Bahrain, and Turkey, show clearly that such principles are evident in Muslim countries, both in the codes of practice and also through the behavior of journalists. This is something that has been explored by Pintak (2014) and Steele (2011), who show that journalists employ a set of rules and guidelines that govern their profession which are rooted in Islamic principles. Truth (haqq), independence (nasihah), promoting good and forbidding evil (hisbah), justice (adl), balance and verification combined with the concept of isnad (chain of transmission) are all identified as journalistic values that Pintak (2014) and Steele (2011) elaborate on. Ramli (2005, quoted in Muchtar et al., 2017) introduces the idea of prophetic journalism, based on four positive attitudes: always telling the truth (siddiq), keeping anonymity of sources (amanah), spreading truth, and good deeds to the public (tabligh). The preceding table illustrates how Islamic principles such as honesty, truth, and justice manifest themselves in media laws and codes of practice and align with Western concepts of objectivity, fairness, and balance. Whilst it may appear that these concepts and codes have been adapted from the Western model of journalism, such principles were evident in Islam before any formal Western journalism practices came into being. Data from a study conducted by Hafez (2002) is also presented in the table, enabling a comparison over time and between different documentation for some countries. The compatibility between Islamic/Muslim and Western models is obvious even though the journalistic outcome may vary according to the political economy, culture, and media landscape in different countries. Indeed, whilst Muchtar et  al. (2017) identify four similar principles within an Islamic perspective to journalism – truth and truth-telling (siddiq and haqq), pedagogy (tabligh), seeking the 439

Muhammed Musa and Sameera Ahmed Table 40.1 Comparison of Journalistic Values Country

Journalism Ethics* 

Islamic Values** 

Shared Journalistic Values (Selected) 

Malaysia

Accurate, faithful, truth Liberal, tolerant, democratic society and in the traditional role of a free and responsible press Social morality  Fair, objective, no willful departure from facts Freedom of information of the press Freedom of the press Refraining from publishing anything derogatory to religion or religious feeling of any sect/minority Avoiding immorality and obscenity Freedom of expression Obedience to God (and) His Messenger

Morality

 Accuracy 

Morality Ethical Truth Islam***

 Truth

Righteousness Honesty Justice Truth Prophet Moral Honesty Moral/morality Tolerance Justice Moral Ethics/ethical Honesty Fairness Truth Islam Quran

Honesty Justice 

Pakistan

Saudi Arabia

Bahrain

– 

Turkey Egypt

Freedom of communication Objectivity Present the facts complete without distortion Ethics, reliability, and truth Freedom of the press, thought, opinion, and publication Loyalty to the country’s history Not allowed to contravene the society’s general values, principles, and morality  –

Brunei Kyrgyzstan

Bangladesh

Reality through actual and detailed information Information which has been confirmed as true Freedom of speech Religious beliefs of journalists should not influence objectivity Truth and accuracy Malicious news is immoral News which projects degeneration of moral values in our society

440

Charity Truth –

– 

Tolerance Fairness

Freedom of speech Objectivity

Journalism in Muslim Societies Country

Journalism Ethics* 

Islamic Values** 

Shared Journalistic Values (Selected) 

Algeria

Respect the truth Right to information, to free expression, and to criticism Respect the truth Freedom of expression Free and balanced coverage, reporting, critique, and comments Freedom of speech Defend freedom and civil liberties Freedom of the press Tolerance toward those who do not share his/her views

– 

Right to information Right to criticize

Morocco Indonesia Kazakhstan Lebanon Tunisia

–  –  – – –

Free Balanced  Civil liberties Plurality of views

*   Adapted from Hafez (2002). **  From media press code documents of individual countries. The same countries were not represented in both studies. ***  Some words relating to the ethical (religious) framework but are not regarded as actual values.

best for public interest (maslahah) and moderation (wasatiyyah) in Muslim-majority countries – they conclude that “journalists’ roles in Muslim-majority countries are not so much shaped by a distinctively Islamic worldview as they were by the political, economic and socio-cultural context in which journalists operate” (p. 570). This is also the case in other countries around the world that may share the same journalistic values but news output is significantly different. Furthermore, Dastgeer and Stewart (2021) explore the relationship between recognizing Islam as a state religion in the constitution of 47 Muslim-majority countries and the Palestinian territories and freedom of speech and press. Their analysis shows that there is no simple correlation between Islam in a country’s constitution and media laws, confirming Muchtar et al.’s (2017) findings that several other factors influence the actual practice of journalism. Even though the inclusion of religion and religious laws in the constitution can be a factor in the restriction of freedom of speech and press, the actual freedom in a country likely depends more on the political regime and the history or culture of the country, rather than recognition of Islam as a state religion alone. (Dastgeer & Stewart, 2021, p. 5019)

Conclusion In charting the historical development and contemporary practice of news and journalism in the Muslim world, this chapter has shown how distinct frameworks of journalism have come into being. Even within the Muslim world, the great diversity and experiences of politics, economics, culture, society, education, and language have played a part in how journalism

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has developed and the forms it takes today. Concepts of objectivity, truth, validity, justice, fairness/impartiality have always had a place in operationalizing the practice of mediating and disseminating information, and the principles enshrined in Islamic teachings delineate how individuals, organizations, and authorities transmit information and news to their audiences. The frameworks within which many Muslim countries operationalize newsgathering techniques and journalism practices have developed from within a distinct religious context. The history of this development and context means that nothing was “borrowed” from the West until later periods of exchange and interaction. Generally, though, a glance into Arab countries where the Muslim population is highest points to shared factors that have shaped early development and practice of journalism. Often, these factors, such as literacy levels, general attitude about printed news and its source, and its implication for sacred texts, role of religious scholars, as well as entrenched culture of state as guarantor of welfare and custodian of cultural values, including those to do with information, have exerted political constraints on the development of modern journalism in the Muslim countries. Contemporary developments surrounding the rise of digital technology as well as the Gulf War are additional channels in the transfer of professional journalistic values from the West into the Muslim countries. During the current phase of globalization and push into the neoliberal market economy, journalism in Muslim countries has adopted many common practices in order to survive financially. However, even whilst functioning in a particular business model, the principles, ethics, and values of journalism and journalists in the Muslim world are strongly connected to the teachings of Islam. There are, therefore, certain fundamental values that are shared among journalists around the world – fairness, justice, balance.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Tariq Zumot in compiling data for the chapter.

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41 CONCEPTUAL CRITIQUES TO AFRICAN JOURNALISM Levi Obonyo

Discourses around both existential and desirable media models have been going on for decades now. The publication of the Four Theories of the Press (Siebert et al., 1984) first fleshed out what became known as the theoretical models of the media, namely, authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility, and soviet communist. Some of the factors that contributed to the characterization of the media, they argued, were political factors, defined by the type of government in power, the trade demands of the printers, and the dominant philosophical principles in society. Ouma (2018, p. 6) notes some of the contributory factors to understanding media and theorizing around it include “the general nature of the political system, the media regulatory regime, and the political economy of the media industry.” There were always attempts to contribute to this basic approach to understanding media. For example, Hachten (1992, p. 38) built on the four theories and added a fifth while varying the others. His modeling included authoritarian, communist, Western, revolutionary, and developmental, the last of which was then emerging in the developing world (Ogan, 1982; Lent, 1977). For a long time, Siebert et al. remained the dominant voice in characterizing media models. However, on the golden anniversary of the book, University of Illinois media historian and critic John C. Nerone (1995) edited Last Rights, which provided a comprehensive critique of Four Theories. At the core of their arguments, the contributors to the Last Rights posited that only two theories – libertarian and social responsibility – were given detailed consideration in the Four Theories. The other two – authoritarian and soviet communist approaches to media classification – were seen as mere “straw men,” not fully developed and, in any case, possibly an aberration. To a great extent, the Cold War political divide provided the context of this media characterization. Nevertheless, Four Theories laid a foundation upon which continued analysis of media operations has been anchored for decades. It is noteworthy that for Siebert and his colleagues, a democratic government was the default setting. Since the publication of Last Rights, which from the title was supposed to set up a new order and retire the Four Theories, other scholars have weighed in not only exploring normative media models and not just confined to the role that journalism plays in democratic societies but, rather, also the role journalism ought to play in democratic societies (Schmitter & Karl, 1991). In Normative Theories of the Media Christians and his colleagues viewed media in general as a moderating

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-46

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influence on governance (Christians et al., 2009). But they, too, still fall back on the notion of an ideal government which is a democracy. In describing the role of the media, they propose four roles: monitorial, facilitative, radical, and collaborative. This is a comparatively radical departure from the thesis of the Four Theories. But like the Four Theories, Christians et al., too, assume that a democratic government forms the premise that administrations are founded. Yet the reality globally is different, and even in the traditional democracies, their governments are evolving in forms that depart from the traditional tenets of democracy. But what is democracy, anyway? Schmitter and Karl (1991) have offered an extensive definition of democracy as a concept. Broadly, they aver, democracy is “a unique system for organizing relations between rulers and the ruled” (p. 76). They write that democracy is not necessarily “a single unique set of institutions” but rather “diverse practices [that] produce a similarly varied set of effects.” One of the critical components of democracy is the media. But while the media contribute to the type of democracy that emerges in a county, the nature of democracy that may be practiced in a country will provide the coloration that the media of the country assumes. There are many characteristics of a democracy, among them being the rule of law, regular elections, independent institutions, tolerance of divergent views, freedom of expression, majority rule, societal cooperation, and representation. When it comes to Africa, it is debatable the frequency or even the regularity with which some of these features are manifested in governance (Nyamnjoh, 2005). Of course, the continent of 54 countries offers great diversity in terms of the nature of the governments that run these countries. Africa’s diversity is one of those features that are often not well appreciated. The continent is multi-racial, multiethnic, and multilingual. Occupied in the North by populations of Arab extraction, the big part of the continent is inhabited by Black people, who, in themselves, are not unitary. There are Bantus, Nilotes, and Cushites among them. Then Africa is capped in the South by the White Africans. Put together, all these populations speak thousands of tongues. The continent’s history is equally diverse. Some parts were colonized by the French, others by the British, and still others by different former European powers, like Italians and Portuguese. While some of these African countries have been independent for over 60 years, others are only newly independent, with hardly a history of elections or power transition. While some have remained largely peaceful, others have had intermittent civil wars, insurrections, and instability for the better part of their independent history. The continent’s economy is itself diverse. This diversity is reflected in the kinds of governments that are to be found within the continent’s boundaries, the natural resources in many of these regions, the different climatic patterns, and so on. While the Four Theories presupposed the operations of media in a democracy, it is the more challenging diverse government types, such as are found in Africa, that call for a closer examination of how the media types to be found in Africa could be categorized. This diversity is not a feature of Africa alone; indeed, no two countries may have a mirror reflection of each other from a governance point of view. This is much more so for a continent the size of Africa. Does the African media fit neatly in the normative categories as laid out in the Four Theories and other later iterations, such as in Christians et al., or are there variations that set it apart? This chapter is an attempt at such exploration through the prism of one African country: Kenya. A former colony of Britain, Kenya gained independence in 1963 and has since experimented with a range of government types while holding regular elections, even if at times the integrity of the elections has been questioned. Kenya styles herself as a democracy. But so does many other African countries. 446

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Many scholars over the years have explored the nature of media in Africa and how to categorize it. Guy Berger (2002) explored how media is analyzed in Africa and sounded the dangers of “lifting concepts like media and democracy from western conditions and applying them unthinkingly to Africa” (p. 21). This is largely because of the uniqueness of the continent and, indeed, the uniqueness of other regions that calls for models that respond to the peculiarities of the region. The notion of a universal standard that fits all is generally problematic. The parameters that set out what a democracy entails are not necessarily standard, and nations vary in their adherence to them. For example, the concept of freedom of the press is a continuum with curtailed freedoms at the one end and unfettered freedoms as provided for in the laws at the other. Take for example the United States of America, often heralded as a case study in the exercise of freedoms, yet there are limits imposed by the First Amendment. For example, the use of loudspeakers in residential areas and at night or demonstrations that inhibit the mobility of other citizens may be limited. There are types of speeches not protected by the law. These include incitement, defamation, fraud, obscenity, child pornography, fighting words, and threats. In the case of Kenya, the Constitution, under Article 33, limits freedom of speech if such speech includes propaganda for war, incitement to violence, hate speech, or advocacy to hatred. The same applies to other parameters of democracy. For example, the independence of the judiciary is itself a contested notion in many countries. How independent would a judiciary be if it is appointed by the executive and funded by the exchequer? Yet some would argue that in a country with strong democratic culture, such concerns may not be an issue. But what in a country whose democratic shoots are only sprouting? At the core of democracy is the right of citizens to freely choose their leaders. It assumes that every individual has the right to cast a vote to choose a leader. Such leaders have freedom within the law to sell their campaign platforms to the voters. Yet the process of choosing a leader is long and elaborate. The extent to which democracies give their citizens the right to vote and the degree to which the vote is counted are not necessarily standard. It is possible to hold elections and yet have results that do not reflect the will of the people. Such variations of adherence to the principles of democracy run across democracies. But these countries remain democracies, nevertheless, or so they claim to be. The nature of government is certainly one of the determining factors of the kind of media that a region will have. This is one area where Africa poses a challenge. However, democracy is not the only form of government that exists. Other forms of government include “autocratic, authoritarian, despotic, dictatorial, tyrannical, totalitarian, absolutist, traditional, monarchic, oligarchic, plutocratic, aristocratic, and sultanistic” (Schmitter  & Karl, 1991, p. 76). Ali Mazrui has argued that what has been obtained in Africa is not necessarily democracy, as the concept is alien to the continent. He fronts a different approach in categorizing the leadership styles in African countries. It is purely determined by how the leaders come to power and how they govern. He outlines that the predominant typology of African leadership is charismatic, mobilizational, reconciliational, housekeeping, disciplinarian, patriarchal, technocratic, monarchical, and personalistic (Mazrui A. A., 2001; Mazrui & Tidy, 1984). Initially, following independence, the leaders that took power tended to be viewed with awe among their followers. They had saved their people from colonial oppression. There were other elements that contributed to their being viewed with awe, among which were that these leaders were the first among their generations to have been educated. Drawing from this, Mazrui (2002) fronts a governance style he Christianizes as sage leadership. Falling under this category were leaders such as Julius Nyerere, a former teacher and generally an academic 447

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who went on to translate Shakespeare into Kiswahili. Nyerere remains a sage among many, even in death. Mobutu Sese Seko, military leader and later president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is an interesting character to situate, given his transition from warrior to sage. He was born Joseph Desire Mobutu. Coming to power in relative youth and staying in power for over three decades, he soon sought to shed off symbols of Western influence, including his baptismal name. Instead, he became Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbendu wa Zabanga, translated to mean the all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake. He did not stop there; instead, he changed the name of the country, changed his wardrobe, and ordered citizens to drop their first names as well. He donned leopard skin designed wear to complete the transformation, in this case, marking the transition from a warrior to a sage and ruling the country with the combined features of the two, even if the former, warrior characteristics persisted stubbornly. Regarding his leadership philosophy, Mobutu posited that he was not leaning to the Left; neither was his leadership style leaning to the Right. But he also denied that he was neutral. Such classifications did not apply to him only. It is not hard to imagine the kind of media that operated in this instance. The other tradition is the elder occupied by people who came to power in their old age and thus simply were revered on account of their age. Mazrui divides the elders into two categories, the first based on patriarchy, while the second based on gerontocracy. Be that as it may, these leaders, in their day-to-day appearances, bore symbols that resembled their stations in leadership, whether those symbols were flywhisks, walking sticks, or adoring names. Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya is an example. He came to power just a year shy of his 70th birthday and ruled for a decade and a half. He had a constant flywhisk, a mark of his elderly status, and was adoringly known as Mzee. Kenneth Kaunda was another elder in Zambia, with his trademark white handkerchief. Daniel arap Moi of Kenya followed in the same track with his baton, which became his constant companion symbolizing his nyayo philosophy. The first generation of leaders gave way to the second. In some cases, the first generation was deposed off through military coups, elections – whether authentic or otherwise – or through natural attrition. In Uganda, military officer Idi Amin came to power by forcesending Milton Obote into exile. Amin symbolized the warrior leaders, most of them believing that they came to power to set right what had been done wrong by the first generation of leaders. Amin was not alone. Central Africa Republic foisted upon the population Jean Bedel Bokassa. If they were not warriors, then they were technocrats learned in the art of governance and service provision and ruled as such. On top of these are charismatic leaders, who draw a large following from their people. Sometimes a leader could traverse these categories. In Burkina Faso, for example, Thomas Sankara took power through a military coup, but probably his charisma was much more pronounced and is what he is immortalized with. Gonye and Moyo (2013) have discussed in detail the concept of transformational leadership as an aspirational goal and as a model but seem to suggest that transformational leaders probably occupy Africa’s past and now immortalized in the works of literature. The leadership traditions that a leader assumed often colored their relationship with the media. For example, a sage perceived journalists as students to be schooled on the basics of information that they were looking for. Such categories of leaders would, when asked a question by a journalist, paraphrase the question to reflect what they wanted to say and proceed to answer their own questions. Obviously, for this leadership dispensation, the functions of journalism are contestable. The media cannot educate since that is the role of the sage, the media cannot inform since information has its custodians which does not include the media, 448

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and certainly, the media cannot perform its watchdog role since the media would be out of its depth to even know what to look out for. In such dispensation, the media would be no more than conveyer belts through which to reach the people (Bourgault, 1995; Nyamnjoh, 2005). In most instances, the leader would take time to educate journalist not only on their role but also on the workings of government. Suppression of the media in this case would be seen as mere discipline for an errant child. The warrior view focused much of their attention on their mission that they had little time to be questioned by journalists, and criticism or playing a watchdog role could lead to one’s death. Invariably, most of the warriors assumed leadership while young. Mobutu, who metamorphosized while in leadership, was 35 when he came to power. Liberian Samuel Doe was hardly 30 when he came to power and, at some point, is believed to have changed his age to meet constitutional requirements to legally run for office of president. Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso was 33 when he assumed power. Yahya Jammeh was 29 when he came to power in the Gambia. In Sierra Leon, Captain Valentin Strasser captured power three days after his 25th birthday. In Nigeria, General Yakubu Gowon was 31 when he assumed power, General Murtala Muhammed was 37, while General Olusegun Obasanjo was 39. These leaders come to power on the back of their impatience with the extant regime and did not only seek to change things quickly but radically as well. In the process, things seem to have gone awry in most cases, and for many of them, the end came quickly and badly. Most saw the questioning, watchdog role of the media as part of the old order seeking to maintain status quo. Since they all had a military background, eliminating those who stood in their way seemed an easy option. Again, under these leaders, the media may not play its function effectively. They would wonder why the media never educated the old order of leaders, why their watchdog role never helped things in the past, and consider media to be bereft of knowledge to educate the populace. Such peskiness as demonstrated by the media is therefore to be punished. Journalists were frequently detained, jailed, maimed, or even killed. This happened not infrequently, and probably one of the enduring examples is the case of Nigerian journalist Dele Giwa, believed to have received an explosive delivered by the military regime to his home office. Indeed, Barratt and Berger (2007) tell the challenges that African journalist have endured in their line of duty since Ghana led the pack of African countries to become independent. Many leaders in office in Africa, like Mobutu, morphed in office from one form to another. Daniel arap Moi in Kenya came to office following the death in office of his predecessor, Jomo Kenyatta. He started off in a populist form, freely mingling with citizens and promoting populist policies. Then the military attempted a coup in 1982, four years after his ascension to power, an experience that seemed to have scarred and changed Moi for the worse. From then his regime cracked down on descent, and his years in power witnessed probably the most brutal attacks on the media since Kenya’s independence. Under him, access to airwaves for broadcast were restricted for years, publications were frequently banned or simply bought off the streets, journalists were detained or jailed (some escaped into exile), and Moi took to lecturing journalists at will. Kenya and Tanzania are neighbors but whose leadership styles were very different from independence. While one was a sage who veered toward centralized economy, the other was an elder who embraced a market economy, later succeeded by a charismatic leader who eventually tilted toward warrior characteristics while still focused on a semblance of market economy. The media of the two countries took clearly divergent trajectories. Probably, the life of the recently diseased Philip Ochieng is illustrative of this. Ochieng was a typical journalist 449

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gadfly liberally criticizing both government and the media itself. He was among the pioneers of Kenyan journalism but soon found himself out of favor with the first Kenyan regime under President Kenyatta. He traversed east Africa practicing his trade, first in Uganda, after fleeing Kenya. But under Idi Amin, he soon found the Ugandan press too constricted and moved to Tanzania, where Nyerere was then president. Here, he found kindred spirit and could operate with the kind of freedom he could not find in Kenya (Ochieng, 1992). He had moved from elder type of regime to warrior and eventually to sage, and the differences seemed clear to him. It is one of the ironies that a later chastised Ochieng would return to his country of birth to edit a paper sponsored by the then ruling party, KANU, whose president was the country’s feared leader and Kenyatta’s successor, Moi. Ochieng would edit Kenya Times for a while before the going got rough and he had to be relieved of the responsibilities of leading the paper to allow a more compliant editor to take over (Ochieng, 1992). While at Kenya Times, Ochieng even defended the regime but equally took on the regime, at one time reporting attendance of legislators in parliament to try to make the legislators take their parliamentary responsibilities seriously and go to parliament to debate and pass laws. This watchdog role did not go well for his publication and could have contributed to his exit from the ruling party newspaper. Just as diverse as the leadership of African countries have been, so has the economic models to be found across the continent. Sibert et al. referred to trade demand of the printers as a determining factor in the shape that media assumes. Market economies lead to the growth of independent enterprises that form the bedrock of the advertising revenue for the media – the bloodline for its operations. During the earlier years of their independence, African countries were broadly divided along the Cold War lines, often for political convenience rather than ideology. At the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, the economies, some which had depended on the largesse from these superpowers, were so exposed and forced to adapt and start developing independent economic structures. It took decades for some of those economies, for example, in Somali, to find their level. The economies that eventually emerged were often neither centralized nor market economies but rather a hodgepodge economy designed simply for survival. Mobutu remarked that he was neither aligned nor neutral. Obviously, this moment of transition presented the continent with great challenges, among which were incessant coups that brought in warrior leaders, who found that their assumptions of easy solutions could not work. The gun may have been useful in propelling them to the executive state mansions, but not in helping them find solutions to the challenges facing society. It is probably only now that some of these economies are beginning to find their levels. Even today, the emerging African economies are pragmatic, and they are few, while majority are a touch-and-go exercises oscillating between engagement with the West and the East. Indeed, China has moved aggressively and is heavily invested in Africa, particularly in the infrastructural sector, for which, in many cases, these countries owe China and may continue to owe the giant from the East for many years after. Press freedom, then, must be defined within the context of the nature of the leadership and the vibrancy of the economy to support the press. Press freedom is often difficult to define, and even more so to determine. As Burrowes (1994, p. 30) outlined in his extensive study of the subject in Liberia, freedom of the press presupposes a call to “minimum government involvement in communications, derived primarily from philosophical models of the media’s place in society.” Eribo (1997, p. 52) postulates that press freedom is “the availability of a free marketplace of ideas and information for all the citizenry without fear, or favor, intimidation, or obstacles.” He (op cit) adds that press freedom abhors “government 450

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control, censorship, interference, and undemocratic regulations aimed at abridging the freedom of opinion, expression, and transmission of information or ideas through the mass media and other channels of communication.” According to Freedom House, as of 2022, only four countries in Africa had a free media. These were South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Ghana. Another 20 were partly free, among them Kenya and Tanzania from East Africa. The countries that were either free or partly free constitute less than half of the countries in the continent. Obviously, the data from Freedom House must be consumed with a critical eye, paying attention to the NGO’s assumptions that inform its report. Assessing how the reports are gathered, against which the classification of the countries is based, is important. Journalism sometimes faces many challenges in Africa. States use various means to bring pressure to bear on the media. Kent (1972, p. 68) outlined seven tools of controlling the press, among them being control of periodical distribution, control of periodical content or format, control through official censorship, control of newspaper personnel, control of official news, control of publication’s existence, and control through punitive action. Even then, it seems that his tools presuppose a liberal governance structure. What are the variables that determine the nature of the press in a country? Nixon (1960, p. 13) has argued that these include socio-economic factors and technological and cultural influences. But there are equally more important factors, such as governance, legal frameworks, and the strength of the civil society movement. Governments can use economic tools, such as access to advertising revenue, to manipulate the press. There are other tools, such as laws and regulations, that can also be applied. Media in the continent falls broadly into two categories: print and electronic. Increasingly, social media is becoming important in terms of its spread, but it is still a preserve of the affluent and the elite. While the spread of the cellphone has picked up like a bushfire across the African villages, there are still mitigating factors that make its use beyond the basics of voice data, financial transactions, and short messaging out of reach for many. As of 2022, smart feature phones remain expensive and out of reach of the African mass population. But that is not their only challenge. Smartphones require access to power, which is still less spread across many African countries relative to other parts of the world, with majority of Africans still living in the rural. Further, the cost of bandwidth to access the Internet is another inhibiting factor. There are the other challenges, including that much of the content on the Internet is in languages that majority of the African population, most of them with little literacy, can relate to. UNESCO only recognized Kiswahili recently, and the rest of the African languages are far from being registered in a substantial way on the Internet. Print media has been in the decline globally, except in a few markets in the East. In Africa, print media has always been a medium for the urban middle class and therefore limited in its reach. Many factors have always inhibited its spread. First, Africa is the least-literate continent. Even among the literate Africans, difference must be made between the functional literates and the general literates. Among the literates, there are those who, following the attainment of their qualifications, have kept off literacy materials, such as books, newspapers, and magazines. While data is limited on this, these categories may be the majority of the literate Africans. They consume very little of these printed materials. These have to be differentiated from the functional literates, who consume print media, such as newspapers, magazines, and books. The second factor is the economy. With high joblessness levels, underemployment, and related job challenges, few Africans can afford print media. With a daily newspaper costing an average of half a dollar in Kenya, for example, in a country where 451

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the average income is about twice that much, it is not difficult to see why newspapers are out of reach of the majority. Beyond that is the fact that unlike in the West, with clear home addresses facilitating media subscription, homes in Africa, apart from a few African countries, are a jungle of addresses. It is only with the rise of motorbike home deliveries that buying goods and having them delivered at the residential addresses is becoming possible. Africa, therefore, has not had a significant print media subscription base. Subscription provides a stable predictable income for the media. Van der Haak, Parks, and Castells note that “journalism is funded and sustained through a variety of financial models, including government license fees and taxes, philanthropy, advertising, subscriptions, pay-per-view, crowdsourced contributions, and mixes of all of the above.” They give the examples of the UK’s BBC and Spain’s TVE, which carry no advertising and are funded with taxpayer money. Further afield, Al Jazeera is paid for by Qatar’s royal family, and “the fashion designer Miuccia Prada has floated the Italian communist newspaper l’Unita for many years; and most European broadcasters are funded with a mix of taxpayer money and advertising revenue” (Van Der Haak et al., 2012, p. 2,924). Much of Africa thrives on electronic media, and more specifically the radio. While television is increasingly the medium through which Africans access news (Curran, 2010, p. 469), the real medium for Africans has remained the radio. It is portable, it is easily powered, it is now available in their handheld devices, it delivers its content in the people’s language, and it is interactive. In Kenya, as in much of Africa, the radio has spread with the liberalization of the airwaves, far from what Bourgault (1995) or even Nyamnjoh (2005) observed in their studies a few decades back. It is the radio that African governments, over the years, have been keen on controlling. Such control has come through a range of strategies. For many years, the government kept a close lid on broadcasting through the control of access to the airwaves. This precious natural resource was initially out of reach of all and later preserved for the friends of government. Those privileged to access it were not allowed to rock the boat and therefore broadcasted only content that supported the regime. The Kenyan experience was instructive. While friends of the ruling party were granted license to launch the private television station KTN, the Nation Media Group, then the largest media house in East and Central Africa, and with ready capital to invest, was kept waiting and was only able to access the airwaves almost a decade after KTN. Considering the nature of African leadership, of the African economies, and regulation, among others, it is important to explore how the media have functioned. Lamb (2011, p. 244) has argued that in Africa the prime role of the media is to serve the government, not to inform the people. The press is a propaganda vehicle, used to manipulate and organize and control; any questioning voice is a potential threat and only the government is wise enough to know what the people need to know. Other writers on African media seem to concur (Nyamnjoh, 2005; Bourgault, 1995; Eribo & Jong-Ebot, 1997). It is a strong argument and well-founded, going by the indices from Freedom House. According to Freedom House, in 2022, over half of African countries did not have a free media. To be fair, while governments are viewed as the prime suspects in the suppression of the freedom of the press, they are not the only guilty party. There are other factors in the suppression of the freedom of the media, even if fingers tend to point mostly at the government. In fact, in Kenya, for example, the media and civil society have learned how 452

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to deal with government encroachment into the freedom of speech and of the press space. They organize public demonstrations that draw the sympathy of the public and the attention of the world, and soon the government retreats to save its image. In the case of Kenya, the media community and civil society often find comfort in courts, where government has tended to lose most of the cases. But the Kenyan government has found a subtle way to exert influence on the media beyond the more overt mechanisms. Government, through its various departments, is one of the largest advertisers in the Kenyan media, followed by, among others, the telecommunication companies, the educational sector, and the alcohol industry. In some cases, government advertising is anchored in law. There are requirements that some actions by government departments must be placed in multiple media with the widest circulation to reach the widest public. In the past, individual government departments managed their own advertising activities, buying space and negotiating their own rates. Then the administration that came to power in 2013 changed all that. Instead, it created a behemoth called Government Advertising Agency (GAA), with the mandate to negotiate advertising rates on behalf of the government. The sum of this is that the government could decide to withhold advertising from some media, pay media houses for services rendered when it pleased, and indeed, at one time, withheld payment for a while, putting media operations under strain. The government was using the same tactics that the commercial sector has often applied in dealing with the press. When the government applies these market tactics, then it is difficult for the press and the general public to counter its approaches, for they are not overt suppression of the freedom of the press. Going to court takes a commercial dispute route. There is no such luck with other organs that suppress the press. The first and probably most lethal is the organized religion. There are subjects that the press would hardly touch without consideration of the repercussions that would come from members of religious groupings. Said to be a majority-Christian population and with a substantial part of it belonging to the Catholic Church generally opposed to contraceptives, the media must approach discussions around birth control, such as the use of condoms, gingerly. There is always the fear that the church will organize press conferences, demonstrations, and other forms of protest, all of which will have an impact on how journalists continue to cover the subject. The church may not be the most lethal of the religious groupings. The approach of other faiths is often not benign. The experiences in France in 2015, when the Charlie Hebdo magazine came under attack, are not always too far from the surface in Africa. Indeed, some media houses in Kenya, such as Hope FM, a protestant church– owned radio station, have come under attack following the broadcast or display of content of religious nature. Even secular media, the daily newspapers, among others, have to be cautious with what they say about some religious groups and consider what cartoons may be safe to feature. The third source of suppression of the press freedom is commercial interest. On the surface, advertisers are the lifeblood of the media, providing the capital and revenue on which media operations are based. But this happens only if their interests are safeguarded and the media stay off any form of negative coverage of their operations and the deleterious impact that such operations may have on society. Instances are legion when, due to what commercial interests may consider negative coverage that may injure their business, such business have voted with their wallets and withdrawn existing advertising contracts or further engagement through advertising in the same media that have been hostile to them. This forces media 453

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houses to retreat. In some cases, such protests from advertisers have led to some journalists being relieved of their duties. Politics and organized thuggery around political interests are still another form of suppressing media freedom. Such organized groups around either individual politicians or political parties abhor seeing their candidate covered in any but flowering colors. But since these are not formal groupings, they do not use a formal means of responding to coverage that they do not like. Thus, their response is crude, often in the form of violence meted out to journalists in the field, limiting the circulation of newspapers they do not like by making it difficult for vendors to display them, among other crude tactics. Royal Media Services in Kenya, the media house with the widest television footprint reach – four television stations broadcasting in vernacular languages and over a dozen radio stations – has suffered accusations by commentators and political interest groups of being biased. This is without any empirical evidence to support the claim. The basis of the claim appears to be that the owner of the station showed open support to one side of Kenya’s fractious political sides. This easily puts the journalists from any of the stations in jeopardy when covering political events. It presupposes that the journalists are not objective. Yet another form of threat to media which may seem benign is through the judicial system. That media would offend, whether deliberately or otherwise, is a given, for to err is human. The judicial system provides a mechanism for redress which hopefully is through a civil litigation but, in many African countries, assumes criminal libel disposition. Courts in some African countries, like Kenya and Lesotho, have ruled that criminal libel is unconstitutional. The Konate case in the African Court of Justice and Human Rights is particularly helpful in advancing this argument, given the number of African countries that have signed as member states to the court (Duffy, 2015). Lohe Issa Konate is the managing editor for L’Ouragan, a private weekly with an independent editorial policy focusing mainly on political and social issues in Burkina Faso. The weekly carried two articles that were alleged to have defamed the country’s state prosecutor, Placide Nikiema. The editor and his reporter were sued, found guilty of all charges and sentenced to 12 months in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $12500 USD. The court also ordered the newspaper L’Ouragan, to shut down for six months. It further ordered that, upon reopening, the newspaper must publish the operative provisions of the Court’s judgement for four months. Finally, the court demanded that the judgement be published in three successive issue of three other Burkina Faso newspapers, L”Evenement, LObservateur and Le Pays. (Duffy, 2015, p. 5) Konate appealed the case to the higher court, but the lower court’s judgment was upheld. He had the option of going to the Supreme Court of Appeals (Cour de Cassation), but deeming that he had no chance of getting justice in that court, Konate instead appealed to the African Court of Justice and Human Rights in Arusha. The court dealt with related matters touching on journalists, among which was the right of journalists not to be registered to operate and the case of criminal libel. The Arusha court ruled that: 1) a petitioner can approach the regional court before exhausting local legal remedies if the country’s court system is unable, by design, to rule in a petitioner’s favor; 2) the licensing of journalists violates freedom of expression; 3) custodial sentences for 454

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defamation are an impediment to free speech; and 4) public figures must tolerate more scrutiny than private individuals. (Duffy, 2015, p. 1) For African countries that have ratified the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, the ruling provides a guide on how defamation should be treated. Sadly, many African countries have not ratified the court membership. Criminal libel aside, civil suits arising from libel proceedings often result, in some countries, in heavy penalties preferred by the courts. A  former powerful minister in Kenyan government once earned Ksh. 67.5  million from four libel cases. He was awarded Ksh. 15  million each from two book authors, Ksh. 20  million against a nascent newspaper in Nairobi whose cumulative assets would not be worth the amount and the balance against a bookshop for storing the books considered to be defamatory. Hefty judicial penalties are a simple way of putting pesky publications and media houses out of business. Duffy quotes a Qatari newspaper: [I]t is the prosecution’s prerogative to refer a matter to court, many complaints against journalists do not reach the court at all and end up in journalists being harassed and humiliated rather than being put on a fair trial. Many a time prosecution officials call a journalist concerned at 5am, when he is in the middle of sleep. The entire process is so harrowing and humiliating for a journalist that he chickens out when it comes to writing critically on issues. (Duffy, 2015, p. 2) The psychological impact is unsettling. Once bitten, twice shy. A journalist who has been sued for libel lives in fear of being hauled to court and possibly penalized. But that fear is not isolated; equally terrified are the colleagues, who fear that their work may attract similar penalties or harassment. This has a bearing on the overall quality of the content on the media. As the governance of African countries evolves, so does the relationship with the media and the freedom of the press. This has also affected what is viewed as the role of media in the African society. Increasingly, African media has assumed functions and roles beyond information, education, entertainment, market survey, surveillance, among others, to assume activities previously a preserve of civil society. This is more than just the development role that has for long been prescribed to the media. For in development role, media assumes development support functions. But let us start with the more recent function that, for example, has been executed by the Kenyan media. Faringer (1991, p. 91) posits that: The basic idea of the development concept is that all mass media must be mobilized by the government for the task of nation building – to fight illiteracy and poverty, to increase political consciousness, and to further economic development – and it implies that the authorities themselves have to provide adequate mass media if there are not enough resources in the private sector. There is no room for dissent or criticism, as the alternative to the ruling government in the new and often unstable nations is perceived to be chaos; and therefore, the concept also implies that individual rights of expression and other civil liberties are to some extent irrelevant in relation to the overwhelming problems of poverty, disease, illiteracy, and ethnic conflicts facing these countries. 455

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Development journalism has had a long history, even if it has not been appreciated by scholars from the West. It did not help that the coming of age of the concept of development journalism coincided with the debate on the free flow of information and the hearings related to the McBride Commission. This backdrop, set against a sense of mistrust of UNESCO by the West, probably led to the characterization of development journalism by some commentators as “government say-so journalism” (Ogan, 1982, p. 3). Nora Quebral provided some of the first distilled thoughts on development journalism. As chairman of the Development Communications Department in the College of Agriculture at the University of the Philippines, Quebral babysat the nurturing of the nexus espousing the role of the media in spreading information on agriculture. She defines development communication as the art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country and the mass of its people from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth that makes possible greater social equality and the larger fulfilment of human potential. (Quebral, 1975, p. 2) Long before the anticipation of development communication as a concept, African founding fathers had captured this thought in their articulation of the role of the media in society. The notion of media as a mobilizer and tool for national development was rooted in their speeches. While Western media disparaged development communication, Lent noted that both Washington Post and London Times viewed “UNESCO as being used quietly by the Soviet Union to curb freedom of the press” (Lent, 1977, p. 24). Early scholars in development communication, most of them Westerners, had themselves promoted the role of the press in development (Rogers E., 1983; Schramm & Lerner, 1976; Rogers & Shoemaker, 1971; Lerner, 1958; Pye, 1963; Lerner, 1974; Schramm, 1964). Daniel Lerner summarized it thus. The role of the media would be to act as “a major instrument of social change. They make indispensable inputs to the psycho-political life of a transitional society via the minds and hearts of its people” (Lerner, 1974, p. 870). Huntington and Nelson noted that “the overall process of social, economic, intellectual, political and cultural change that are associated with the movement of societies from relatively poor, agrarian conditions to relatively affluent, urban, industrial conditions” (Huntington & Nelson, 1976, p. 17) is a function of the press. Schramm noted that: No one who has seen modern communication brought to traditional villages will ever doubt the potency. . . . No one who has heard the happy shouts with which a cinema van is greeted in an African village is ever likely to forget the experience. (Schramm, 1964, p. 20) But Sussman saw development communication as government controlling mass media in the name of economic development (Sussman, 1978, pp. 76–77). Mass media theorizing must therefore be seen to be progressive, and particularly by bringing into the conversation the experiences of parts of the globe that have not been included. These experiences are as legitimate as any, and in any case, media evolve to take on the coloration of its context. Which leads us to the more recent role that media has been playing in Kenya as a microcosm of the African experience. Elections were held in August 2022. Kenya, like many African countries, for long has had a history of troubled elections. In 1988, it held what were known in Kenya as the “mlolongo” 456

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elections. Essentially, a candidate for elections stood at the head of the line in an open field, or his or her picture was placed at the head of the line, and those voting for him or her lined either behind the candidate or his/her picture or agent. But that was not the dramatic part of the elections. Drama ensued when lines that were perceived to be short were, in some cases, declared winners. Influential politicians but in favor with the government would disrupt the lines, scatter the voters, and declare themselves to have won. Essentially, it was a chaotic general election. A Nairobi magazine, Beyond, then owned by the National Council of Churches of Kenya, criticized the elections. For all their troubles, the government banned then past, present, and future publications of the magazine. It was the most comprehensive media ban meted out to Kenya yet. The editor ended being incarcerated over some obstruse violations of failure to file returns. Kenya has not had much luck with elections to date. Subsequent elections since then have ended up in violence. The 2007 one was so bloody over 1,000 people died and over half a million others were displaced. Several leading Kenyans, including one journalist, were hauled to the Hague to be tried at the International Criminal Court of Justice for their suspected involvement in the violence. Still, Kenya does not seem to have learned its lessons. The 2013 elections were contentious, the 2017 elections were thrown out by the Supreme Court and had to be repeated, and the 2022 elections equally ended up at the Supreme Court. So media chose to get involved in the elections by taking in greater responsibilities. They organized the presidential debates and even attempted to tally the results from the reports made available in the public portal by the electoral body. But even the media seem to be getting the activity wrong. No presidential debates took place even after a great fanfare by the media through promotions and a yearlong organization. Instead, the media organized interviews for the candidates. In fact, what was billed to be a presidential debate turned out to be a long interview of one candidate in each of the two slots set aside for the debates after the candidates they were paired with failed to turn up for the debates. The tallying was another debacle. The media houses all had incredibly different numbers that the exercise collapsed long before the contested results were announced. The role of the media is to tell stories, and the role of journalists is to be storytellers and not to be the story itself. In the case of Kenya, media are increasingly the story told by journalists through their media. A few instances here will suffice. In 2011, parts of Kenya faced famine, and while the government mobilized resources to assist the sections of the country that were going hungry, it was equally noteworthy the role of the media in championing this course, not in the mold of development support journalism, but as a player. Berger (Berger, 2002) has considered a range of roles that media has played in Africa: propagandist role, developmentalist role, but more critical, as part of civil society. He argues that confusion exists between the consideration of civil society and public sphere and argues that “analyses will work with either one framework or the other” (Berger, 2002, p.  24). While there tends to be confusion between the notion of public sphere and civil society, it seems that the former reference public space where public actors, civil society included, perform, whereas civil society is an actor in that space. Quoting Sachikonye, Berger (2002, p. 25) defines civil society as the aggregate of institutions whose members are engaged primarily in a complex of non-state activities – economic and cultural production, voluntary associations and household life – and who in this way preserve and transform their identity by exercising all sorts of pressures or controls upon state institutions . . . business associations, tertiary institutions, churches, self-help associations and the (private) mass media. 457

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Scholars in this school (Ronning, 1994, 1999; Mansson, 1999; Kupe, 1999, Wanyande, 1997), while they may differ in details, tend to see “private media as part of civil society” (Berger, 2002, p. 25). Wanyande opines that the notion of civil society is rooted in the Marxist discourse. He writes that it “presupposes the existence of an unrepresentative monarchy, an emergent bureaucracy and incipient middle class that is conversant with interest articulation and pressure group politics” (Wanyande, 1997, p. 4). Civil society is viewed in its contention with the state. Some of the features of civil society, then, is that it is conflictual with the state, operates outside the state, works in the interest of the citizenry. But this is only one view. In fact, civil society needs the sobriety that only the state is capable of putting in place in order for the civil society to function. In Africa, where there are so many organizations operating in the civil society space, the state comes in as a moderating influence, guarantying the space of operation of every civil society organization, and even enabling it to operate by providing security. There is also the idealism that civil society organizations necessarily operate for the benefit of the community. But that is not automatically the case. Some of the civil society organizations are essentially self-serving or may be there to counter the more egalitarian organizations. He thus proffers a definition: “civil society will be defined as the assemblage of associations of the state and government that would otherwise wish to influence the direction of public affairs including political discourse and action by using and expanding political space” (Wanyande, 1997, p.  6). Failures by African governments have promoted the sprouting of civil society organizations to fill in the gap. It has helped the organizations that, because majority of African governments are corrupt, donors have sought alternative routes to channel development support to local communities and that has given civil society organizations some relevance. It is this space that the media in Kenya seems to move to occupy. In 2011, parts of the nation were engulfed in famine. Once, when the story become public, Kenyan media started featuring malnourished children from the northern part of the country that was the epicenter of the famine. But they did not just stop at reporting the event. In a mobilization work to raise resources to respond the famine, the media sector organized itself to raise and receive funds that were channeled to the famine relief efforts. Nearly half a billion shillings were raised in partnership with the private sector. While this figure may have been relatively low compared to the over 14 billion that was put together by the government, the gesture itself spoke of a media that was not just confined to reporting the event, that is, telling the story, but being part of the story – occupying the civil society space. At other times, the media have been involved in conservation efforts by mobilizing citizens to contribute resources to construct fences that keep animals in the parks and reduce conflict between animals and human beings. Again, ideally, going by the other theories of communication, the role of the media could have been confined to storytelling. But in seeking to participate in the process of creating social changes, the media seems to play an active role in social development.

Conclusion Theory construction around media structure is an evolving pursuit. Africa has tended to hardly participate in the evolution of the thought. Siebert et al. pioneered by articulating the four theories even if, over the years, different scholars have made attempts to revise them.

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This is all in good stead, moving forward theory construction. The assumptions at the core of their thinking provide guiding poles from which further consideration can be drawn. But the more we draw from them, the greater the realization that such considerations lead us to possibly different outcomes. There is necessity to consider whether besides development journalism so well-articulated as a function of the press in the developing world, the civil society role is an additional feather that media in Africa need to wear.

Bibliography Barratt, E., & Berger, G. (2007). 50 Years of journalism – African media since Ghana’s independence. The African Editor’s Forum. Berger, G. (2002). Theorizing the media democracy relationship in Southern Africa. International Communication Gazette, 64(1), 21–45. Bourgault, L. M. (1995). Mass media in sub-saharan Africa. Indiana University Press. Burrowes, C. P. (1994). Press freedom in liberia, 1830–1970: The impact of modernity, ethnicity and power imbalances on government press relations (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation), Temple University, Philadelphia. Christians, C. G., Glasser, T., McQuail, D., Nordenstreng, K., & White, R. A. (2009). Normative theories of the media: Journalism in democratic societies. University of Illinois. Cohen, M. S., & McIntyre, K. (n.d.). Local language radio stations in Kenya: Helpful or Harmful? African Journalism Studies, 40(3), 73–88. Curran, J. (2010). The future of journalism. Journalism Studies, 11(4), 464–476. Duffy, M. J. (2015). Konate V. Burkina Faso: An analysis of a landmark ruling on criminal defamation in Africa. Journal of International Media and International Law, 6(1), 1–20. Eribo, F. (1997). Internal and external factors affecting press freedom in Nigeria. In F. Eribo & W. Jong-Ebot (Eds.), Press freedom and communication in Africa (pp. 51–74). Africa World Press. Eribo, F., & Jong-Ebot, W. (1997). Press freedom and communication in Africa. Africa World Press, Inc. Faringer, G. L. (1991). Press freedom in Africa. Praeger. Franklin, B. (2014). The future of journalism in the age of media and economic uncertainty. Journalism Studies, 15(5), 481–499. Gathara, P. (2017, October 19). When the press fails the people: A critique of Kenya’s media. AfricaPortal. Gonye, J., & Moyo, T. (2013). African nationalist transformational leaders: Opportunities, possibilities and pitfalls in African fiction and politics. Journal of African Studies and Development, 5(6), 125–134. Hachten, W. A. (1992). The world news prism: Changing media of international communication. Praeger. Huntington, S. P., & Nelson, J. M. (1976). No easy choice: Political participation in developing countries. Harvard University Press. Kent, K. E. (1972). Freedom of the press: An empirical analysis of one aspect of the concept. Gazette, 18, 65–75. Kroll, A. (2015). The role of journalism in the digital age. Reuters. Kupe, T. (1999). Media and democracy. Unpublished paper. Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University. Lamb, D. (2011). The Africans. Random House. Lent, J. A. (1977). A third world news deal? Part one: The guiding light. Index on Censorship, 6(5), 17–26. Lerner, D. (1958). The passing of traditional society: Modernizing the Middle East. Free Press. Lerner, D. (1974). Toward a communication theory of modernization: A set of considerations. In W. Schramm & D. F. Roberts (Eds.), The process and effects of mass communication (pp. 861–889). University of Illinois Press. Mansson, K. (1999). The independent press and civil society: Can its interaction foster democracy in Zimbabwe? [MA thesis]. University of Lund.

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42 JOURNALISM IN CAMEROON A High-Risk and Dangerous Profession? Peter Tiako Ngangum

Introduction The media plays a critical role in all societies, particularly in defending and promoting democracy and the public’s right to be informed and to debate (Ronning, 2016, p. 44). In addition, the media serves as an independent monitor of power. Vondoepp and Young (2013, p. 1) contend that, by serving as a watchdog of society, a free and independent media can help build accountability and deepen democracy. Since the public relies on the media for information and awareness, journalists, who are largely responsible for media content, have a key role to play in any society. Thus, the right to access information presupposes that journalists operate in a safe environment, where they can provide citizens with relevant information that enables them to make informed decisions. Vondoepp and Young (2013) argue that while this environment reflects the legal framework under which the media operates, it also reflects the behavior of the authorities toward the media. To the extent that media professionals are victims of intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and detention in the hands of the authorities, the capacity of the media to serve their daily roles is seriously undermined. According to RSF (2021a), 37 journalists, 1 citizen journalist, and 4 media assistants were killed in connection with their journalistic work. Furthermore, 344 journalists, 101 citizen journalists, and 25 media assistants were imprisoned. A world report that assessed inter alia the physical, psychological, and digital safety of journalists revealed that 530 journalists were killed, with an average of two deaths per week, between 2012 and 2016. The report points out the high levels of impunity for crimes against journalists, with only 10% of the 930 cases of death of journalists between 2006 and 2016 being resolved. Out of 930 cases that were registered, 33% were ongoing or unresolved. In at least 55% of the cases, there was no information on judicial follow-up of investigations (UNESCO, 2018). Comparatively, Western Europe and North America experienced a lesser degree of impunity, with 50% of the cases resolved; Africa had only 13% of cases resolved, whereas the Arab states had the highest level of impunity, with only 2% of cases resolved.



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The aim of this chapter, therefore, is to map out the risks, security, and safety challenges that Cameroonian journalists face in their daily routines, to ascertain whether and how such risks can be avoided, prevented, or compensated. Moreover: [E]ven though there is a wide range of research based on content produced by African journalists and disseminated by their media, the parameter of context in which journalists do practice their professional activity and the possible impact of the risks they face on the content they produce is not often taken into account. Better identification of those risks can therefore help not only to better understand what it means to be a journalist in sub-Saharan Africa but also shed another light on media content. (Frére, 2014, p. 1) As Ngangum (2019) argues, how many Cameroonian journalists, especially those working for private media outlets, have a health insurance policy? How many journalists have basic safety equipment when covering protests and/or when operating in hostile, high-risk environments? How many have received basic training and counseling in minimum safety security measures before covering a demonstration, riot, or conflict? How many journalists have a health insurance policy to cover illness, disability, injuries, and loss of life derived from an assignment? As we are going to read later in this chapter, a surprisingly high number of journalists working in the private media operate in extremely alarming conditions. This chapter begins by discussing the methodological and theoretical approaches that underpin the discussions. Then it moves on to unpack the wide range of threats and risks facing journalists in Cameroon and the array of sources from which violence, intimidation, and assaults can emanate. The main interrelated questions addressed in this chapter are: What factors provoke intimidation and assaults against Cameroonian journalists? Why has the media continued to expand despite the ongoing risks? Why are people still interested in becoming journalists, and why do media owners choose to continue to invest in such a challenging environment? How can the risks be minimized? Should Cameroonian professional journalists be held responsible?

Methodology I have collected the data to support my arguments and answer the research questions at the heart of this chapter through rounds of field research between 2016 and 2019. The empirical data and cases used to examine the research questions span this period to the early 2000s. I interviewed over 25 journalists and, on October 30, 2019, sent questionnaires to 25 investigative journalists for self-completion. The sample was composed of 10 females and 15 males (17 broadcast and 8 print journalists). The working experience of the respondents ranged from 6 to 18 years. Newsroom visits were also conducted to have an overview and better understanding of the difficulties and challenges journalists face on a day-to-day basis in the context of newsgathering and production and the forces constraining news output. The newsrooms that were visited were Canal 2 International Douala and Group La Nouvelle Expression (GNE), incorporating the French-language daily newspaper La Nouvelle Expression and the broadcast mediums Equinoxe radio and Equinoxe television Douala. The visit and observation took place from February 1 to March 30, 2016, and included informal conversations/talks and in situ interviews with the journalists of the researched media outlets. 462

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To achieve a deeper analysis of the complexities of the risks and assaults faced by journalists, intensive interviews were used to complement self-completion questionnaires. Thus, follow-up interviews were conducted with five respondents, who had provided arguments and concrete examples to the questions asked. Each interview lasted 40 minutes. The results of the questionnaires, interviews, and newsroom observation all inform the research findings reported in this chapter. To protect the anonymity of the respondents, pseudonyms have been used.

Theoretical Framework This chapter uses the provocative theory to inform its discussions. It argues that an important perspective on government interference in the media focuses on the role of the media itself as the progenitor of such interference. Based on this view, state interference in the media takes place when media outlets, in either the tone or content of their reporting and editorials, violate the boundaries of permissible discourse. Accounts of government interference in the media frequently articulate this theme. As Bruce Cohen observes of Malawi, and this is true of other African countries: Most newspapers . . . are not interested in mundane matters of fact, evidence, rebuttal, or attribution. They find far more satisfaction in using their pages as a rough canvas for raging brush strokes of rancid insults and wild propaganda, signing their vitriol reliable source. (Nyamnjoh, 2005, p. 82) Commenting on the situation in the whole continent, Kasoma (1996, pp. 99–100) acknowledges that: The independent tabloids in particular have spared no one in their muckraking journalistic exploits, libeling, invading privacy, and generally carrying out a type of reportage that can best be described as “vendetta journalism’. This journalism often uses abusive language, chooses not to approach a source for a comment on a story that incriminates him/her, selectively chooses facts that paint a bad picture of the source, and uses sarcasm in reporting sources a journalist hates or dislikes. Zaffiro (1993) reports that media outlets in Botswana became the target of violent government reactions in the wake of particular news stories. Likewise, Lucas (2003, p. 87) argues that restrictive press legislation in Jordan emerged in reaction to the increasingly critical tone adopted by media outlets. According to Vondoepp and Young (2013), several journalists in Malawi and Zambia indicated that media harassment was often in response to media content that offended the government and provided a pretext for actions against the media outlet. Thus, provocative or critical content is likely to bring the media and journalists into conflict with the authorities, business interests, and advertisers. This partly explains the major reason that self-censorship is prevalent in the media. However, despite its primary strength in explaining self-censorship on the part of the media, the provocation theory is limited in providing an overall explanation for attacks on the media. As I will discuss later, not all attacks and assaults on the media in Cameroon are provoked by media reports. This presupposes that other factors deserve central consideration and scrutiny. 463

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This brings to light the arbitrariness by design theory that has been expanded by Vondoepp and Young (2013). Studies of state–media relations in China by Stern and Hassid (2012), Hassid (2008); Stern and O’Brien (2012) have indicated that in some contexts, uncertainty is the defining feature of state interference in the media. The authorities can intentionally keep ambiguous the boundaries of the permissible, that is, reacting to media reports arbitrarily and unpredictably. This has the overall impact of inducing self-censorship on the part of the media, who consciously seek to avoid crossing the red line of the state. By adopting the tactic of “arbitrariness,” state harassment and assault on the media are generally unpredictable and not wholly related to the tone of the specific news stories. Vondoepp and Young (2013) have maintained that although insightful, this approach is also limited in that it does not offer suitable guidelines on how to investigate variations in state interference in the media over time. The approach rests on the premise that such interference in the media does not follow patterns. Hence, it presents a challenge to find consistent predictors of state harassment and assaults on the media. The primary strength of the analysis lies in its explanation of self-censorship on the part of the media and the lack of overt and routine government interference with media outlets, rather than patterns of attack. However, we can also expect the authorities to intensively intimidate and harass the media during periods when the need to restrict and limit the flow of information into the public sphere is high. For instance, when the government is facing threats to maintain power or undertaking measures to enhance or consolidate power (Vondoepp  & Young, 2013). In other words, different interests inform and underpin the state’s reaction to the flow of information into the public sphere. Moreover, these interests are shaped substantially by the socio-economic and political landscapes in which the leaders and wielders of political power find themselves. Drawing from the preceding information, it is evident that whenever information circulation poses an eminent threat to the authorities, leaders will have the incentives to restrict or minimize its flow and circulation into the public sphere through efforts to control the media. Thus, contextual differences can give rise to different interests, approaches, and strategies regarding information circulation across countries. After the preceding introduction, methodology, and theoretical approaches, this chapter moves on to unpack the wide range of risks facing journalists in Cameroon and the array of sources from which they can emanate.

A Vast Variety of Threats Cameroonian journalists have been, and still are, victims of cumulative acts of violence and abuse that fall under familiar categories: arbitrary arrests and detention, death in pretrial detention, imprisonment, heavy fines, and suspension or ban of journalists and media organizations. For instance, Wazizi (whose real name is Samuel Ajiekah Abwue), a presenter for the privately owned broadcaster Chillen Muzik and Television (CMTV), was arrested by security forces in Buea on August 2, 2019. He was kept under military custody on August 7, after which he was held incommunicado. On June 5, 2020, the Cameroonian military announced that Wazizi had died in military custody (CPJ, 2020). The journalist was accused of openly criticizing the authorities’ handling of the crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, where clashes between government forces and separatists clamoring for independence have led to more than 3,200 dead and 700,000 displaced over the last three years (CPJ, 2020). Kalara publisher Christophe Bobiokono and journalist Irène Mbezele were given suspended two-year prison sentences on charges of defamation and “insulting a state institution,” 464

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as well as exorbitant fines: Bobiokono was fined the equivalent of 6,080 euros, and Mbezele was fined the equivalent of 2,300 euros (RSF, 2020). Furthermore, Amadou Vamoulké́ , the former director of the state-owned Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV) from 2005 to 2016, was arrested in 2016 for alleged embezzlement. The journalist has been held for five years, during which time he has attended 68 hearings. The trial is continuing in the absence of any legal basis: the Cameroonian penal code limits provisional detention to 18 months, while the law creating the special criminal court that is trying the journalist specifies that its trials must be completed within nine months (RSF, 2021a, p. 1). After six and a half years in provisional detention and a trial that was adjourned 150 times, Amadou Vamoulké was sentenced to 12 years in prison and a fine of more than 500 million CFA francs (almost 763,000 euros) on December 20, 2022. After his appeal, the court ordered him to pay an additional 390,000 CFA francs (600 euros) for photocopying case file costs (RSF, 2023; CPJ, 2022). I argue that such exorbitant fines and long periods of imprisonment have a dangerous chilling effect on journalists and their media outlets. Ngangum (2019) contends that some particularly outrageous acts have been documented behind the earlier “standard” treatments: being abused and stripped naked, abducted, and held up in a special cell at the rectorate of the university and beaten for days with a machete; seizure and confiscation of travel documents; death threats; exile; and pressure on parents and family members. Thus, Cameroonian journalists fear not only the police or forces of law and order but also various officials, businessmen, and even the owners and directors of media outlets, who sometimes do not hesitate to abuse and mistreat their staff. This is in a context where most journalists (private media) are not covered by any appropriate labor legislation and have very limited or no judicial protection. Examples abound illustrating the difficulty in categorizing and classifying security and safety challenges involving journalists in Cameroon. Caristan Isseri, a reporter for the French-language daily newspaper Le Jour, visited the home of the ex-minister of transport, Edgar Mebe Ngo’o. The journalist was working on a story about President Paul Biya’s recent cabinet reshuffle in which the transport minister had lost his job. After reporting to a guard at the entrance of the residence, the journalist was arrested by the minister’s security guards, undressed, slapped, put inside a dog’s cage, and sprayed with water. He was accused of espionage (RSF, 2018; Le Jour Newspaper, Issue No. 2641 of 8th March 2018). In 2016, the Cameroon Journalists Trade Union (SNJC) took the staff and management of the Gynaco-Obstetric Hospital, in Yassa, Douala, to the Ndokoti Court of First Instance following the attitude of some hospital staff who, on June 11, 2016, assaulted a journalist. The journalist, Jacky T., who works for Sweet FM radio station, Douala, was to investigate newborn and premature babies and the case of nursing mothers held hostage by the hospital for being unable to pay their hospital bills. The journalist, who had identified herself at the entrance to the hospital, was intercepted by an administrator. On the premise that she was to be searched, the journalist was stripped of her clothes and her genitals examined (Ngangum, 2019). The abduction of journalists is prevalent. Manfred Moumi Nginya, a journalist for the French-language daily Challenge Hebdo, when covering the protests and demonstrations organized by Yaoundé University students seeking university reforms, was abducted by a group of youngsters known as the auto-defense, who opposed the strike. The journalist was kept in a special cell at the rectorate of the university and beaten for four days (Atenga, 2004). Martinez Zogo was the Managing Director of the privately owned broadcast media, Amplitude FM. He was found dead on January 22, 2023. His body was dumped in an empty plot on the outskirts of Yaounde. Martinez endured substantial physical abuse: he was sodomized 465

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with a stick and subjected to electric shocks. His right foot was broken and multiple fingers were severed (CPJ, 2023). The secretary general of the Presidency of Cameroon, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, on behalf of President Paul Biya, ordered a combined Gendarmerie and Police investigation, which resulted in the arrest of several individuals highly suspected of being linked to or involved in the heinous crime, including inter-alia the General Directorate of External Intelligence (DGRE), Maxime Eko Eko, and Lt. Colonel Justin Danwe, Director of Operations at the DGRE, business mogul, Amougou Belinga, Bruno Bidjang, the Director of L’Anecdote newspaper (Amabo, 2023; RSF, 2023a, 2023b). This chapter argues that one of the most dangerous and life-threatening things journalists can do is to cover or report conflict, abuse of power, and unbridled corruption. Martinez Zogo was deliberately targeted for using his radio program to denounce corruption and unlawful practices involving public figures. In order to safeguard the contributions of the media to the public debate, journalists are supposed to operate without threat and should be able to rely on a high level of protection and safety. I contend that the media in Cameroon is one of the mediums through which politicians, business people, and the public can verify that state resources are spent according to the principles of transparency and accountability and not used to enrich certain individuals. Thus, the abduction and assassination of Martinez for his criticism, and the exposure of official wrongdoing or corruption remains a gross violation and interference with freedom of expression and of the press. I argue that it has a dangerous chilling effect, which is the tendency to dissuade the media and its professionals, and others from taking part in the discussion of matters of public interest. This chapter argues that even in highly democratic societies (for example, European Union) investigative journalists like Martinez Zogo have had to be on guard. Renowned Dutch investigative journalist and crime reporter, P. R. De Vries was shot in the head in Amsterdam. He later died of his injuries on July 15, 2021. Greek organized crime reporter, Giorgos Karaivaz was gunned down in broad daylight in Athens on April 9, 2021. The Maltese writer, blogger, journalist, and anti-corruption activist, Daphne Caruana Galizia died close to her home when a car bomb was detonated inside her vehicle. About 20 journalists live under permanent police protection in Italy (RSF, 2021b). The diversity of both the types and sources of violence against journalists is encouraged by two main factors present in many African regimes: impunity and the malleability of norms, which are fashioned according to circumstances (Frère, 2014). Regarding the malleability of norms, journalists find themselves up against manipulated legislations, tailored and interpreted freely, in a context where neither parliament nor the judiciary can assert their independence in the face of the executive (Frère, 2014). Little wonder Cameroon is currently ranked 135 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021a World Press Freedom Index. In 2020, Cameroon was ranked 134.

Democratically Acceptable Pressure In Cameroon, the risks faced by journalists are not limited to acts of physical, psychological, and material violence (see, for example, Ngangum, 2019). Other threats and abuses abound, but they assume the form of legitimate interferences by the state authorities in the media sector. The directors of critical private media organizations can be subjected to varying forms of harassment. For example, financial inspectors have been used to shut down media organs that were unable to pay their taxes, although, in these contexts, the collection of taxes is often politically motivated (Frère, 2014). In Cameroon, the private media organization 466

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Jade Press Agency was unable to operate after seals were affixed to its offices, entirely legally. Equinoxe radio, Equinoxe television, and Magic FM radio were equally shut down in 2008. Bureaucratic harassment can also be used by the state to control the media sector by blocking the issuing of licenses to private radio stations, which remain the predominant media in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, in 2004, state officials sealed the offices of Freedom FM radio station in Douala a day before the station was to start broadcasting. In Communication 290/2004: Open Society Justice Initiative (on behalf of Pius Njawe Noumeni) vs. Cameroon, the complainant argued that: The MINCOM of Cameroon had the habit of processing applications for operational licenses in an arbitrary, illegal, and discriminatory manner and had on many occasions refused to grant a statutory license to operators of radio stations, and on the contrary resorting to the practice of informally issuing temporary authorization to operate on some frequencies, which did not provide any legal cover to the operators of radio stations but only placed them in a situation of uncertainty since the informal authorization could at any given time be withdrawn. In addition, the complainant maintains that by refusing to process applications for operating licenses or providing reasons for refusal to grant licenses, the MINCOM tends to ban, in an arbitrary, discriminatory, and politically motivated manner existing operators from continuing to operate. As one Freedom House annual report observed, “governments are using the more subtle tools of media regulation to restrict press freedom, maintaining a veneer of legality and pluralism that is less likely to draw attention or criticism abroad” (Frère, 2014, p. 184).

A Menacing Legal Framework of the Media In the 1990s, the media landscape in Cameroon was liberalized. Parliament passed Law No. 90/052 regulating the press for five years until its slight modification by Law No. 96/04 of January  1996. However, even where there was such liberalization in principle, government tended to introduce, by underhand or roundabout ways, measures and practices that effectively curtailed press freedom (Nyamnjoh, 2005, p. 161). Thus, as Ngangum (2019, p. 1) argues: Although the constitution and the 1990 law, including subsequent modifications of these, guarantee media freedom, there is limited optimism for press freedom, and the role of the media in democratization for what the press supposedly gains by the new law is taken away in the same law by more severe provisions and a host of informal regulatory practices that have enhanced the arbitrary powers of the administrator. Similarly, Allen Munoriyarwa and Sarah Chiumbu (2019) have shown how journalism in Zimbabwe has been impacted by the threats posed by surveillance laws, in particular, the Interception of Communication Act, promulgated in 2007. They argue that state-sanctioned surveillance in militarized semi-authoritarian regimes like Zimbabwe undermines newsgathering and production, particularly the relationship between journalists and their sources. Furthermore, investigative journalism, which is already under pressure from political influence, is also seriously undermined (Sampaio-Dias et al., 2019). On January  4, 1996, Law No. 96/04 was promulgated, modifying certain provisions of Law No. 90/052 of December 19, 1990. However, if one takes into consideration the 467

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degree of persistent censorship, searches, and raids on media houses, as the harassment, arrest, and detention of journalists, then it would be lopsided to reason that the 1996 modification changed much in practice. See, for instance, Ngangum (2019).

The Cameroon Anti-Terrorism Legislation of 2014 In 2014, the government of Cameroon passed Law No. 2014/028 on December 23 on the suppression of acts of terrorism. Although the government claimed that the new law was necessary to contain the Boko-Haram terrorist group that had carried out kidnappings and attacks in Cameroon, a senior investigative journalist maintained that: This law is complex because of its context and its application. Indeed, its application constitutes a real violation of press freedom. It falls out with the Munich Convention, which clearly states that journalists must tell the truth and above all have access to all sources. In the case of Cameroon, the mere fact that a journalist gives the floor to an actor in the Anglophone crisis currently affecting the Southwest and Northwest provinces can expose him. In the end, it is a law put in place for a perfect muzzling of the press in Cameroon. It is a means of controlling the system in place. (Jane, personal communication, November 15, 2019) Another senior journalist argued: The 2014 Cameroon anti-terrorism legislation has seriously influenced the way journalists investigate, gather, and present news stories. More than ever before, journalists and newsrooms are conscious of prison, threats, and dismissals. Angles of reporting, choice of language, and persons interviewed are well thought through. Everyone is on the defensive. It is very difficult for us being a private media organ. We get constant threats of license withdrawal. To protect our jobs and media organ, there is a lot of self-censorships to stay out of trouble. (Liz, personal communication, November 15, 2019) The following sub-sections demonstrate how the law has been invoked to arrest and prosecute journalists. It also highlights the demand for information and the duty of the media to inform the authorities proactively. There are also ramifications for the media for failing to denounce acts of terrorism and the glorification of terrorism.

Failure to Denounce Acts of Terrorism and Glorification of Terrorism Chapter 2, Section 8 (acclamation of acts of terrorism) of the 2014 counter-terrorism law imposes heavy charges on those who acclaim acts of terrorism. This provision, I argue, may violate the right to press freedom and freedom of expression, as a vast latitude of expression and acts could be misconstrued as the glorification, acclamation, or encouragement of acts of terrorism or its non-denunciation. The senior divisional officer for Mezam shut down the popular radio station Hot Cocoa FM 94.0. The authorities cited unethical practices in the morning program called Biggest Breakfast Show (BBS), anchored by Kevin Brenda. The authorities allege that the radio station and the journalist ran programs advocating terrorism and separatist tendencies, hence posing threats 468

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to national peace and security (African Freedom of Expression Exchange, 2019). The police raided the journalist’s home with no warrant, searched the entire premises, and after finding nothing, confiscated the journalist’s laptop (African Freedom of Expression Exchange, 2019). Ngangum (2021, p. 249) argues that: The police raids at Kevin Brenda’s home without a warrant along with the attendant searches and acts of confiscation pose a serious threat to the protection of journalistic sources, a key ethical value of investigative journalism. There is growing concern about the dangerous chilling effect that raids and searches have on journalists, their sources, and news outlets.

To What Extent Are the Media Responsible? Even though the media operate within a particularly difficult legal, economic, and political environment, some of the risks and constraints to journalistic safety and security are internal to the institution itself. This section examines the extent to which the media is responsible for the risks and tribulations that they face in the fulfillment of their daily responsibilities. In doing so, this section focuses on media self-regulation and the profit motive: financial incentives in the media, that is, paid news and the prevalence of gombo within the Cameroon media industry.

Self-Regulation After the liberalization of the media landscape in the 1990s, the Union of Cameroon Journalists (UCJ) was created in 1996 and, in 2006, adopted a code of ethics. The UCJ succeeded in establishing and putting forth a code of ethics, set down procedures and principles relating to the issuing and withdrawal of press cards, and created sub-committees charged with the responsibility of enforcing professionalism (Nyamnjoh, 2005). Furthermore, the UCJ created the Cameroon Media Council (Conseil Camerounais des Medias-CMC) in 2005. According to Fanucci et  al. (2008), the impetus for self-regulation came from the state. Thus, the council is viewed with mistrust and suspicion by many journalists. However, with the inception of the National Communication Council with its consultative and disciplinary powers, the roles of both the UCJ and the CMC have been diminished. On November 12, 2008, a National Collective Convention (NCC) was signed between the print and audiovisual information publishing enterprises, Cameroon Employed Journalists Trade Union (CEJTU), Cameroon Journalists National Union (SNJC), National Media Workers of Cameroon Trade Union (SYNATMEC) on the one hand and under the chairpersonship of Mr. Bell Mathias Louis, inspector no. 3, representing the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. But how do we account for the fact that during the NCC of 2008, three different journalists’ trade unions were represented? Nyamnjoh (2005, p. 198) reiterates that the “greatest motivating factor for the creation of these associations is the frantic quest for money and personal gain rather than the promotion of any professional ideals,” a view shared by most of the journalists I interviewed. Tabuwe and Tanjong (2010, p. 7) contend that: There is also a proliferation of journalism associations, Cameroon Union of Journalists (CUJ), the Cameroon Association of Anglophone Journalists (CAMASEJ), and many others. Due to the confusion of journalism practice in the field, there are too many dichotomies: public versus private journalists, Anglophone versus Francophone journalists, and Anglo-Bamileke versus Beti (ethnic) journalists. Amid this confusion, some 469

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journalists find themselves in more than one category. This has led to a division in the field of journalists, rendering it difficult for them to negotiate with government and private media owners. Both government and journalism associations find themselves at loggerheads in the fight to define who is a professional journalist and what is expected of them. Furthermore, professional journalists’ associations in Cameroon have been paralyzed by financial, material, and structural difficulties, for example, members’ inability to pay membership fees and travel expenses to attend meeting sessions. Most union leaders are involved in other daily activities of a political, media, and economic nature (Frère, 2016; Fierens, 2014). As Fierens (2014) argues, the majority of African journalists have a double identity (hommes doubles), adopting both journalistic and political identities. Thus, when it comes to risk prevention, self-regulation in Cameroon has failed to assert its role. This chapter argues that if the Cameroon anti-terrorism legislation and the legal framework of the media and a host of other risks threaten journalists with heavy sanctions, one would expect that one way of minimizing the risks undertaken by journalists would be by practicing responsible journalism. However, many scholars have observed that African journalists sometimes lay themselves vulnerable to sanctions by violating codes of ethics and the rights of individuals (privacy, honor, dignity, reputation, etc.). As Diana Senghor (1996, p. 1) observes: Various media have in the name of freedom and the right to inform abused certain human rights, and it is hardly surprising that between 1992 and 1996 hundreds of legal actions were instituted in the region against the press, mainly on charges of undermining the dignity and respect of the government and important officials (libel, sedition). As the Senegalese journalist Tidiane Kassé contends: Among the many dangers threatening the press is the press itself. And while no law compels us to be fair, unbiased, and honest, except those laws we freely impose on ourselves, it is our duty to practice them and to enforce them. (Kassé, 1996, p. 207) Self-regulation rests on the adoption of journalistic codes of ethics and the daily enforcement of those codes to protect the profession from public interference. Press councils and media observatories can also help reduce the risks of committing a fault and offer an alternative to legal proceedings against a journalist (Frére, 2014). There is, of course, the risk that faced with the inefficiency of self-regulation, the state authorities can decide to step in and retake control. The state can use this as an excuse to introduce statutory regulation (Karlekar, 2011). For example, in 2008 in Kenya, on the premise that the media played a role in post-election violence, the government adopted the Kenya Communications Act, which reinforced the power and authority of the Communications Commission of Kenya, the public regulatory authority, at the expense of the selfregulatory authority (Ristow, 2009, p. 18). Despite the frailty of self-regulation, all the daily risks, safety, and security challenges, why has the media in Cameroon continued to expand? Why are people still interested in journalism, and why do media owners continue to invest in the media? The reasons are manifold: financial incentives in the media (paid news and political advertisements), the 470

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media is seen as a “strategic asset” to occupy public space and in relations with the ruling and governing elites, a source of informal employment, a stepping stone to a political career and/or greener pastures, and the prevalence of gombo. Cameroon’s only national newspaper is the state-owned Cameroon Tribune. Several hundred other newspapers and periodicals flourish throughout the country. The state monopoly over television ended in 2001 with the introduction of TV Max in Douala. Many other private television stations have emerged since then: STV1, STV2, Canal 2 International, Ariane TV, Equinoxe TV, Samba TV, Liberty TV, L.T.M TV, Vision 4 TV, and DSB TV, to mention just a few. Radio remains an important medium for news broadcast in Cameroon; most of the country’s privately owned stations (about 200) are in large urban areas. Online media are expanding rapidly, driven in large part by mobile Internet access (Freedom House, 2016). Thus, by some accounts, and in comparison with neighboring countries (Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Chad), the media has been thriving. This is not to negate the very real risks, security, and safety challenges that many journalists have faced, and continue to face, in Cameroon but rather to recognize the rich media ecology that exists in Cameroon which can challenge assumptions of what the media might look like in a challenging and hostile environment ravaged by war.

The Profit Motive: Financial Incentives in the Media Private media outlets generally continue to be regarded as supporting individual ambitions and economic interests or supporting political, tribal, or religious factions (Ngangum, 2019; also see Nyamnjoh, 2005). Notwithstanding the widespread recognition of this situation, media mapping studies have seldom systematically analyzed or captured the motivations of media owners and managers for opening and funding media outlets. The close connection between media and politics is evident through the prevalence of journalists and media owners as politicians (and vice versa). Many journalists I interviewed were clear about their political aspirations and ambitions. As one interviewee who was forthcoming about his dual role in media and politics argued: “The roles are not only compatible but they are also complementary. They are closely interrelated; you cannot differentiate media and politics” (Ian, personal communication, February–March  2016). Examples of Cameroonian journalists who have moved into politics abound. Establishing or working at a media outlet might not only help further one’s political career, but it is also a floodgate to greener pastures.

Informal Employment In an economy in crisis, with few formal employment opportunities, journalism represents a relatively accessible option. There are low entry requirements, both in terms of education level and work experience. Almost anyone with good connections, a network, and enough initiative can be a “journalist” and put themselves forward as a reporter or stringer for a media outlet. As Ngangum (2016) argues, the majority of journalists and/or interns currently in Cameroon are young people working especially for private media outlets, a common mechanism for giving an individual institutional backing with little financial commitment on the part of the media outlets. Investing in the media, or using the media as a stepping stone for a political career, is a potentially lucrative strategy for people interested in gaining access to state resources, both symbolic and material. In the words of one radio editor, “most of the people are staying in journalism with only one leg; they are looking for greener pastures: 471

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opportunities to enter politics, go abroad or to get a better position” (personal communication, February–March 2016).

Paid News and Political Advertisements In a media landscape with very low revenues for media outlets from commercial advertisements and low or no salaries for journalists working for private media outlets, a crucial source of income for the media is the practice of paid news. Political elites, influential figures, clan leaders, and businessmen in Cameroon regularly use the media to help forge their agendas. Paid news can take various forms, and one of the most common, as the name suggests, is for politicians, businessmen, or other influential figures to pay a media outlet to get their news, agenda, or statements aired. According to Ben, a senior reporter for a broadcast media outlet: Some companies may not be business partners with the media outlet, but the journalist is requested by the commercial department to write an advertorial or article for the company. This is the case of Cimencam Douala, the cement company. Following instructions from the commercial department of my media outlet, I was asked to write an advertorial for Cimencam in March this year. Cimencam had paid the fees of the advertorial to the commercial department. The commercial department asked me to put all other assignments aside to ensure that the advertorial is done immediately. (Ben, personal communication, February–March 2016) Jane also observed that: I wrote an advertorial for the PMUC, a partner of our news outlet. I already had an assignment at hand pending completion but was told to suspend the assignment for that of the PMUC which was giving support to a regional hospital in Bafoussam with the cooperation of the minister, Zacherie Perevet. Whenever we receive instructions and directives from the commercial department, the writing of advertorials and/or articles enjoys absolute priority over all other newsroom assignments. (Jane, personal communication, February–March 2016) The preceding cases fit well into current debates in the West about “native advertisement.” Both are very much similar in effect. This chapter argues that this integration of advertising within journalism contradicts the long-standing normative tradition of separating editorial and commercial content. Such transgressions of commercial influence over editorial content are not a new development, but they have often been seen as questionable journalistic practices against the social responsibility role of the media (Conill et al., 2021). Despite the above, it is important to underline that Cameroon ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on June 27, 1984, and thus is under the obligation to fulfill a range of positive obligations, that is legal, administrative, and practical measures aiming to ensure the safety and the security of journalists. Cameroon also ratified the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) on 20th June 1989 and is thus under the obligation to comply with ACHPR/Res. 468 (LXVII) 2020: Resolution on the Safety of Journalists and Media Practitioners in Africa (ACHPR, 2020). States parties to the above treaties must ensure that all its principles are being upheld and respected, not only nationally but also universally. Thus, Cameroon should respect its international obligations 472

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informing the safety and protection of journalists and reinforce protection measures for journalists and other media professionals, especially those media professionals working on issues related to organized crime and unbridled corruption. Intense safety training programs are needed to ensure journalists’ safety during protests, conflicts, and war. Media organizations, NGOs, and government agencies should ensure that regular training programs on safety are available. Journalists need to be constantly assured and provided with physical safety, that is hardware such as flak jackets, helmets, first aid kits, etc. The government, employers, and newsrooms should provide news teams and journalists with private security, permanent police, or security protection (see for instance, Ngangum (2023, 2021). Ngangum (2023) argues that there is an urgent need to build more solidarity for the safety of journalists across national boundaries. Cooperation and collaboration across borders, including the sharing of information, preventive techniques, and strategies, best practices with investigative journalists and newsrooms could help mitigate the culture of impunity against journalists. Furthermore, setting up a national committee for the protection and safety of journalists should be emphasized. This committee should be composed of government representatives, journalists, the forces of law and order, the judiciary, and civil society. The committee should have as its major goal to work together to ensure that journalists in Cameroon operate in an environment that is free from threats and violence (Ngangum, 2023).

Conclusion The chapter has illuminated the wide range of threats and risks facing journalists in Cameroon and the array of sources from which assaults can emanate. The frailties of self-regulation and the prevalence of unethical journalism have accentuated the risks, safety, and security challenges of journalists. Despite all the contextual challenges and tribulations, the media has been thriving, as we have seen elsewhere in this chapter. This is not to negate the very real risks, security, and safety challenges that many journalists have faced, and continue to face, in Cameroon, but rather to recognize the rich media ecology that exists in Cameroon, which can challenge assumptions of what the media might look like in these sorts of a turbulent and hostile environment. Furthermore, the risks, security, and safety challenges faced by Cameroonian journalists are not limited to those that appear in the rankings of international press freedom organizations. While some have an external source (government, judiciary, political and business elites, forces of law and order) and threaten those who are too inquisitive and daring, others are linked to economic and/or commercial interests or are caused by the very nature and practice of the profession itself. Thus, the prevention and protection of journalists against daily risks, security, and safety challenges incorporate not only a deep understanding of the complexity of their tribulations but, equally, also a more nuanced and mitigated picture than what is often presented in international press freedom rankings. I  argue that the restrictive environment under which journalists operate in Cameroon has a serious impact not only on the role of the media as a public watchdog but also on its ability to serve democratic ideals. Furthermore, it has a chilling effect on the way newsrooms operate and foster a culture of self-censorship, which impinges on the broader rights of society to access and obtain information of public interest. As Cottle (2017, p. 29) argues, the responsibility to protect and the “responsibility to report” implicates journalists in the practice of their craft and the conduct of civil societies 473

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around the world. They should be seen as indivisible, mutually constitutive, and implicate us all in the conduct and safeguarding of journalists. In other words, the safety of journalists as they carry out their daily responsibilities to gather and report the news is no longer a concern of individual nation-states but a global concern. As we have seen in the case of Cameroon, the commitment of states to press freedom and freedom of expression has been found deficient. This failure on the part of nation-states and journalists as an occupational group partly accounts for the increase in the number of journalists assaulted, harassed, arbitrarily arrested, and imprisoned in Cameroon and across the globe.

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INDEX

Page locators in bold indicate a table AAU see Addis Ababa University Abd-al Wahab, Mohammad 434 abduction 465 – 466 Abramov, Andrej 302 academic: affiliations 2, 5, 28, 123, 295, 325; culture 282, 324, 420; freedom 147, 158, 297; literature 1, 3, 28, 300; studies 13, 135, 261, 281 accountability: governmental 251, 258; lack of 35, 100, 231; political 372 – 373 accuracy 193, 205, 266, 312, 414, 439, 440 Acosta, Alberto 211 acquiescence 29, 104 acquisition: financial 282, 313, 369; knowledge 124, 204, 365; media 220, 432 – 433; skills 194, 311 activism 181, 221, 252, 282, 292, 307, 348 activists: civil society 94, 179, 350; human rights 30, 186; imprisoned 181, 183; violence against 385 Adamek, Tayo 348 adaptability 341 adaptation 20 – 22, 274, 288, 337, 353 – 334, 400, 402 – 403 adapted 60, 85, 258, 269, 292, 409, 439 Addis Ababa University 146 adoption: ethics 470; photographic 400, 403; policy 256; social media 205, 258; social responsibility 348, 359 ADPC see African Diaspora Policy Centre advertisers: platforms 414, 416; political 21, 370, 373 – 374; pressures from 100, 103, 258, 453; private 17, 19, 369

advertising: government 158, 369, 453; market 313; messages 51, 103, 368; public 15, 314; revenue 27, 47, 232, 236, 351, 414, 431 advocacy journalism 160, 192, 346 – 347, 424 advocates: free speech 27, 125; human rights 350; voter 348; women’s rights 184 affiliate 21, 113, 146 – 148, 222, 237, 244, 262, 415 Afghanistan: Soviet invasion 25, 29; terrorism 29, 261, 263, 371 Afghanistan War 263 Africa: communication scholarship 14, 46 – 47, 50, 52; culture concepts 57 – 59; state sponsored terrorism 28 – 31 African Court of Justice and Human Rights 454 – 455 African Diaspora Policy Centre 345 African digital journalism: concept 90; emerging practices 91 – 92; fake news/ disinformation 95 – 97; issue-based news 92 – 95; journalistic changes 89 African Indigenous-language journalism: globalization 48 – 49; media/ communication 49 – 52; purpose 46; sociolinguistics 47 African journalism cultures: context 56 – 58; epistemology 61 – 63; journalistic norms 59 – 60; transnational research 63 – 65 African Union 344 African Union Summit, 2003 344 African universities 125 Africology 391

477

Index Afriethics 58, 391 age: digital 89, 140, 307, 391, 397; respect for 5, 58 ageism 111 agenda: government 255; neoliberal 240, 244; political 39, 41, 225, 393; public 92, 155; research 1 – 3, 42 – 43, 63 – 64, 287; transformation 123 agent: of change 349; interaction 270 – 271, 369, 372; political 242, 247, 323; terrorist 28 aggregation 235 – 236 aggression 18, 27 – 28, 149, 228, 306, 379, 384 aggressive 20, 40, 145, 183, 450 air pollution 422; China 166 – 167; Pakistan 419 – 424 Aitamurto, Tanja 251 AJE see Al Jazeera English Al Jazeera English 209 – 211 Al Tae, Sarmad 30 – 31 Al-Ibrahim, Walid 438 al-Qaeda 262 Albania 321, 325, 327 Algeria 441 algorithm 326, 366, 373, 415 – 416 Allan, Stuart 26 alliance 234, 293, 321, 347, 369 – 370, 375, 381, 434 alternative: ideas 48; journalism 198, 205, 220 – 222, 227; media 20, 51, 182, 221 – 226, 305; perspective 62, 64, 415 alternative lifestyles 2 Amenaghawon, Francis 50 Amin, Idi 423, 448 Amin, Samir 432 AMU see Arba Minch University analysis: comparative 70, 263, 320, 324; cultural 62, 350; data 137, 273, 275, 360; discourse 27, 75, 77, 84 – 85, 171; journalistic practices 307; network 326 Andi, Simge (et al 2020) 2 anonymity 201, 310, 380 – 381, 385, 439, 463 anthropology 380 – 381 anti-capitalist 209, 216, 222 anti-government 147, 255 anti-immigrant/foreigner 79, 81, 85 – 86 anti-poverty 40 anti-press violence 378 anti-social 72, 81 AP see Associated Press application: digital 183; investigative reporting 171 – 172; language media 50 – 51, 191, 304 Apuke, Oberiri Destiny 257 Ara, Shamim 114 Arab journalism 6, 434 – 436; see also Muslim journalism

Arab World 4, 8 Arab Spring 179 – 180, 262, 370 Arabic: language 434 – 438; newspapers 435 Arafat, Rana 346 Arba Minch University 147 Argentina 18 – 21, 37 – 40, 213 – 214, 371, 405; see also Latin America Journalism armed conflicts 35, 261 Armenia 24, 325 ART 438 artificial intelligence 409 Arts and Humanities Research Council 333 Asia 4, 13; academic knowledge 321; extractivism 211 – 212; investigative journalism 172; poverty/famine 35 – 36; press freedom 99 – 100, 102, 357 – 359, 370; publications 327 Asian values 6 assassination 30, 466 assaults 213, 223, 462 – 464, 474 Associated Press 263 asylum seekers 27, 74 attack: political 38, 147, 464; terror 296 attract 96, 231, 257, 270, 305, 455 AU see African Union Aucoin, James L. 170 audience: feedback 52, 103, 200; loyalty 346; news 35, 206, 233; reach 205, 238, 257, 302, 304 – 305; target 171, 174, 235, 303, 307 audio 78, 140, 204, 235, 257 – 258, 304, 411 Australia 27, 326 authenticity 57, 117, 169, 205, 211 – 212, 439, 448 automatically 47, 185, 203, 458 autonomy 17, 101, 185, 295, 322, 338, 351, 357 average 2, 19, 41, 78, 103, 230, 232 – 233, 451 – 452, 461 Awad, Isabel 42 award 225 – 226, 392, 395 Axis of Evil 261 Ayalon, Ami 435 Ayish, Muhammad 436, 438 Azerbaijan 325 Babangida, Ibrahim 254, 256 Baby Trade 395 Badr, Hanan 6 Bahrain 30, 180 – 182, 439, 440 Bajomi-Lázár, Péter 369 Bakri, Nada 265 balance 100, 262, 295, 336 – 337, 439, 442, 455 Balasundaram, Nirmanusan 350 Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) 171, 325 Bangladesh 405, 426, 440

478

Index banking 157, 160 banks 74, 82 Baroshky, Omed 264 Barratt, Elizabeth 449 BBC see British Broadcast Corporation BBS see Biggest Breakfast Show Beato, Felice 401 beats/newsbeats 16, 36, 42 behavior: compensatory 347; nepotistic 147; news media 75 – 76, 262, 276, 461; respectful 193; xenophobic 79 Belarus 321, 325, 327 benchmark 438 benefit: journalist 270, 276, 347; media 270; personal 275, 369 Benson, Rodney 270 Berger, Guy 447, 449, 457 Berglez, Peter 291 Berlin Center for Global Engagement 333 Berry, Mike 438 Besant, Annie 112 Besley, Timothy 372 best practice 7, 129, 265, 281, 316, 318, 420 BF see Bolsa Familia Bhanot, Kavita 129 Bhuju, Kriti 134 biased: representation 3 – 4, 244, 374; traditions 184, 323, 347 big tech 292, 390 Biggest Breakfast Show 468 Bikitsha, Nikiwe 394 bin Laden, Osama 262 Bird, W. (et al 2020) 69 Bismarck, Helene von 127 Biswas, Masudul 2 BIU see Blantyre International University Black: audience 346; identity 348; press 347; violence 68; women 240, 245, 247 Black Lives Matter 347 Blakeley, Ruth 29 Blantyre International University 161 blog 92 – 95 blogger 412, 466 Bobiokono, Christophe 464 – 465 Bokassa, Jean Bedel 448 Bolivia 18, 21, 210, 215 Bolsa Familia 246 Bolsonaro, Jair 20, 240 – 247 Bonaparte, Napoleon 434 – 435 Bosch, Tanya 388 Bosnia and Herzegovina 325, 327 Boston Marathon 90 boundaries: cultural 167 – 168, 197, 292; dictated 179; disciplinary 333; expanding 187; flexible 338; land 29; professional 104, 339, 341, 389; social 82

Bourdieu, Pierre 270, 381 Bourgault, Louise Manon 452 Brady, Mathew 401 Brammer, Leila R. 117 branch 17, 47, 200, 204, 222, 227, 242, 370 Brazilian journalism and neoliberalism: drama of status 245 – 247; fourth estate 240 – 243; legacy media 240 – 241; neoliberal model 243 – 244 Brazilian National Congress 240 breakdown 28, 103, 248, 414 breaking news 89, 212, 410 – 412 Brenda, Kevin 468 – 469 Bristow-Bovey, Darrel 395 British Broadcasting Corporation 60, 206, 209 – 215, 336, 339 – 340, 361, 394, 437 – 438, 452 broadcast: journalism 256, 339, 436; media 25, 172, 179, 200, 253, 256, 465 broadcasters 71 – 73, 75, 145, 150, 204, 389, 437, 452 Browne, Donald 46 Brüggermann, Michael (et al 2014) 323 Bryson, Bill 395 Buddhism 6 Bulgaria 321, 325, 327 Burrowes, Carl Patrick 450 Bush, George 26 – 27, 261 business: model 3, 373, 409 – 410, 442; profitable 234, 243 Business Standard 114 Byman, Daniel 29 bystanders 402 Cable News Network 2, 26 – 27, 209 – 215, 263, 437 – 438 Caldwell, Kia Lilly 348 CAMASEJ see Cameroon Association of Anglophone Journalists Cameroon Association of Anglophone Journalists 469 Cameroon Employed Journalist Trade Union 469 Cameroon journalism: anti-terrorism legislation 468 – 469; financial incentives 471 – 473; legal framework 467; media responsibility 469 – 471; methodology 462; private media 466; safety challenges 461 – 462; state interferences 466 – 467; theoretical framework 463 – 464; threats of violence 464 – 466 Cameroon Journalists Trade Union 465, 469 Cameroon Media Council 469 Cameroon Radio and Television 465 Cameroon Tribune 471 Cameroon Union of Journalists 469 Campbell, Steve (et al 2020) 126

479

Index Canada 326 Canal 2 International (Cameroon) 462, 471 cancel culture 116 CAPIs see computer-assisted personal interviews capitalism 369 Carcasson, Martin 117 Careless, Sue 347 Castells, Manuel 25, 28, 31, 452 Catholic Church 382, 453 CCTV see China Central Television CDA see critical discourse analysis CEE see Central and Eastern Europe CEJTU see Cameroon Employed Journalist Trade Union censorship: media 18, 93, 173, 368, 371, 373 – 374, 467; perceived 103; state sponsored 95, 97, 102, 144; weaponized 182 – 183, 186 Central and Eastern Europe 325; communist legacy 322; media models 321; societal-political transformations 322; underrepresentation 322 Central Intelligence Agency 29 Chakravarti, Uma 114 Chasi, Colin 388, 391 Chen, Minyi 359 Chibita, Monica 47 Chicago University 240 China Central Television 166 Chinese investigative journalism: academic performance 172; agendas 171; Anglo-American influences 171, 173; development 166; historical approach 170; microblogging 166; reflection 169, 172; SOS system 169 – 170; terms 170; theory-practice 168; training materials 172; transnational education 167 – 168; vacancies/poor wages 173 China Pakistan Economic Corridor 425 Chiumbu, Sarah 70, 388, 467 Choi, Jinbong 261 Chomsky, Norm 29 Christians, Clifford G. (et al 2009) 445 – 446 Chuma, Wallace 388 CIA see Central Intelligence Agency civil rights 217, 346 – 347 civil society: actors 94, 189, 350, 451, 457 – 458; Kenya 193, 195 – 196; organizations 18, 189, 351, 420 civil war 26, 147, 180, 224, 261 – 263, 265, 446 clickbait 116 clientelism 5, 15, 17, 58, 99, 323, 368, 370 climate change 334; deliberations 421; ethical communication 419; greenhouse gas 421, 423 – 424; stakeholders 420 climate journalism 420, 425 – 426

climate science 425 CMC see Cameroon Media Council CNN see Cable News Network Cold War 29, 210, 322, 445, 450 collaborate 194, 215, 250, 257, 328, 349 – 350 collaboration: educational 51, 90; global 21, 257, 282, 285, 287, 297, 300, 320, 324, 329; international 272, 285, 287, 320, 324; network 324, 328; platforms 279, 344 – 345, 348, 351 – 349; scholarly 5, 31, 81 collectivism 5 – 6, 189 collisions 262, 405 Collor de Mello, Fernando 244, 246 collusion 358, 374 Colombia 17 – 19, 21, 28, 37, 39 – 40, 43, 213, 348 colonization 4, 116, 123 – 124, 211, 245 Columbia University 373 commercial pressure 100, 103 – 104 communication technology 186 – 187, 198, 411 – 413 Communications Commission (Kenya) 470 computer literacy 159, 349 computer-assisted personal interviews 360 confidentiality 201 conflict: civil 189 – 190; communication 193; reporting 149, 255; zones 210, 261, 264, 400 Confucianism 6 Conor, Bridget (et al 2015) 111 contemporary journalism 14, 101, 270, 430 controlled media 26, 41, 199, 371, 415 Cormack, Mike 46 Corneo, Giacomo 372 corruption: allegations 246, 253, 349; networks 17; political 93, 370 Covid-19: dual pandemics 181 – 186; economic crisis 83 – 84; gender pay gap 114; poverty 35, 38, 40; reporting 2, 20; student mobility 170 CPEC see China Pakistan Economic Corridor creativity 5, 293, 323 criminality 28, 80 – 81 crisis: food 419, 421, 424; health 167, 247; immigration 71, 74; scenarios 333 (see also climate change) critical discourse analysis 27, 77, 171 Croatia 325, 327 CRTV see Cameroon Radio and Television Crystal, David 49 Cuba 17, 210, 217, 371 CUJ see Cameroon Union of Journalists cultural: barriers 183, 285, 292, 295 – 296; capital 270 – 271; crisis 253; discourse 300, 306; diversity 57, 137, 301 – 302; imperialism 124; motivation 273 – 274,

480

Index 276; movements 347; pluralism 171; studies 46 – 47, 52, 221 culture: academic 3, 282, 324, 420; African journalism 57, 65; diverse 193; domestic 149; non-Western 101, 104; popular 50, 434 Curran, James 3, 129 curriculum: decolonization 121 – 123, 128; journalism 122, 134 – 139, 141, 155 cyberattack 347 Czech Republic 321, 325, 327 Daily Maverick 91, 97, 392 – 394 Dare, Sunday 253 Dastgeer, Shugofa 440 Dastile, Nontyatyambo P. 127 data and media communication 359 data collection: implications/recommendations 200, 328; methods/analysis 136 – 137, 275, 324; results 287, 326 data journalism Hong Kong: challenges 364 – 365; education 365 – 366; future journalists 366; interviews 360, 361, 361 – 362, 363; media industry 357 – 358; research 358 – 360; word cloud 362 de Albuquerque, Alfonso 334 de Beer, Arnold S. 3 de-Westernization: academic/journalism 292, 296, 323, 328 – 330; discourse 62; as new mantra 282 death threats 116, 223, 465 Dębnicki, Krzysztof 25 Declaration of Ethical Principles in relation to Climate Change 419 – 420 decoloniality 124 – 126, 130, 395; accelerated pursuit 127; definitional conundrum 126; journalism curriculum 128 – 130; power transmission 128; qualitative methodology 125 defamation 227, 447, 455, 464 deliberative pedagogy: contacts culture 111; gendering 118; project of hope 118; slow movement 117 Demeter, Márton 5, 281 – 282, 328 democracy: pillar 15, 24; platforms 96; return to 253 – 254; spirit 90 – 91, 168, 447 Democratic Republic of Congo 92 – 94, 345 Denmark 102, 326 Department of Health 394 Department of Mass Communication (Pakistan) 133 DEPCC see Declaration of Ethical Principles in relation to Climate Change detention 166, 182, 227, 461, 464 – 465, 468 Deuze, Mark 59, 251, 291, 297, 389 – 390, 395, 397

development journalism 147, 236, 456, 459 DGRE see General Directorate of External Intelligence diaspora audiences 346, 351 diaspora journalism: collaboration platform 344 – 345, 349 – 351; history 346 – 348; social responsibility 345 – 346 Dickinson, Roger 438 digital: capital 185, 307; literacy 186, 301 – 302, 306 – 307, 317, 349, 352; technology 258, 269, 349, 442; violence 294, 381 digital journalism: practices 94 – 32, 300; startups 235; trends 20, 89, 91 – 92 digital media: activism 282; code of ethics 238; development 7, 50, 373, 411; growth 233, 235, 237, 409; journalists 183, 186, 294; opportunities 114 digital platforms: contribution 96, 410 – 411, 413 – 415; development/growth 89, 233, 235, 237 – 238, 303; journalist 19, 148; shutdown 93 DiMaggio, Paul J. 155 disaggregation 413 disinformation: challenge 310 – 311; counteracting 315; dark practice 90; perception 314; spreading 95 – 96 (see also fake news); strategy 24 disjuncture 409, 413, 417 Disneyland 240 – 241, 245 dissatisfaction 27 disturbing 181, 394 diversity journalism 2 DMC see data and media communication Dobek-Ostrowska, Bogusława 321 – 322 Doe, Samuel 449 DoH see Department of Health Doharty, Nadena (et al 2021) 130 domestic violence 186, 349, 378 Dominican Republic 348 Dorril, Stephen 170 DRC see Democratic Republic of Congo Drury, Sara A. Mehltretter 117 Drybread, Krysten 246 Du, Ying Roselyn 360 Duffy, Matt J. 455 Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 160 Eastern Europe 4, 325 – 326, 334, 370, 374; see also CEE ECREA see European Communication Research and Education Association editorial boards 281, 324, 326 – 327 Egypt: journalistic values 440; literacy rate 436; media practice 433 – 435; press freedom 180 – 184; religion 101; storytelling 335; violence 25, 262 – 262

481

Index EHRC see Ethiopian Human Rights Commission EIC see European Investigative Collaborations Ejaz, Waqas (et al 2023) 425 Elliot, P. 432 Elmaghraby, Sara S. 306 ELN 213 embezzlement 465 EMMTI see Ethiopian Mass Media Training Institute emotions: display of 338 – 341; in news 336; pragmatic boundary-negotiating stance 340 employment opportunities 19, 46, 69 – 70, 82, 101, 113, 196, 422, 471 enlightenment 323, 432 environmental: communication 426; damage/ degradation 71, 82, 420 – 422, 424 – 425; journalism 140, 171, 225 – 226, 424 – 426 epistemic inequality 399 epistemologies 65, 123, 127 – 128, 155, 160 – 162, 296, 333 EPRDF see Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front Eribo, Festus 59, 450 espionage 465 Estadao (newspaper) 242, 246 Estonia 321, 325, 327 ethical breaches 392, 397 Ethiopia, journalism education: curriculum challenges 149; development journalism 147; entrepreneurships 148; Indigenous writing system 144; media environment 149; media industry 148; political conundrum 146 – 147; state interference 148 – 149 Ethiopian Human Rights Commission 150 Ethiopian Mass Media Training Institute 146 Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front 144, 147, 149 Ethiopian Revolution 144 Ethiopian Student Movement 146 ethnic: cleansing 25; theory 345 Ethnic Journalism in the Global South (Gladkova/Jamil) 300, 307 ethnicity 1, 83, 101, 197, 459 European Communication Research and Education Association 335 European Investigative Collaborations 172 exploitation 83, 93, 111, 161, 171, 179, 210, 216, 381, 432 exposure 22, 60, 91 – 92, 124, 135, 154, 170, 265, 466 extractivism 209, 211, 218 extremist 24 – 26, 28, 30 – 31, 119, 220, 262

extremist ideologies 24 – 26, 28, 30 – 31, 119, 220 eyewitnesses 402 Facebook 30 – 31, 89, 203, 205, 235 – 237, 257, 271, 294, 313, 350, 389, 410, 413 fact checking 20 – 21, 200, 205 – 207, 294 faculty of journalism and communications 146 Fadipe, Israel A 50 Fahmy, Shahira 263 failed state 24 – 25, 29 – 31 fairness 337, 390 – 391, 430, 439, 440, 442 fake news: ethical breaches 392, 394 – 397; exposure 205 – 206; laws against 183; platforms 95 – 96, 257, 271 – 272, 276; verification strategy 317, 390, 392 false reporting 392 Fanucci, Francesca (et al 2008) 469 FAO see United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Far Right politics 117, 220, 240, 246 FARC see Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia Faringer, Gunilla L. 455 Fataar, Aslam 124 Fayne, Maya Williams 346, 348 femicide 378, 384 feminist theory 381 Fenton, Natalie 254 Fenton, Roger 254, 400 Fidalgo, Joaquim 257 Fierens, Marie 470 Financial Mail 395 fines 183, 226, 464 – 465 FJC see faculty of journalism and communications floating signifiers 388, 390, 396 FM see Financial Mail FoIA see Freedom of Information Act Folha de S. Paulo (newspaper) 242, 246 Fomunyam, Kehdinga G. 128 foreign aid 154 – 155 Four Theories of the Press 445 – 446 Fourie, Pieter 388 France 4, 102, 104, 401, 433, 453 Frank, Andre Gunder 432 Franklin, Bob 409 free speech 27, 183, 294, 379, 455 Freedman, Eric 292 Freedom House 223, 357, 451 – 452, 467 freedom of expression: challenges 373, 379; government hostility 145 – 146, 148, 222, 351; guarantee 264, 446, 454; multilingualism 49; promoting 159; protect 18, 466, 468, 473; shrinking margins 185; threats 297 Freedom of Information Act 364

482

Index Freire, Paulo 154, 156 – 157, 159, 169, 172 – 173 FSD Zambia 160 – 161 fundamentalist 25, 94, 113, 117 – 119 GAA see Government Advertising Agency Gatti, Fabrizio 171 gender: discrimination 226, 381; mainstreaming 295; prejudice 379; violence 160, 264 General Directorate of External Intelligence 466 genocide 24, 27 – 28 Georgia 325 Germany 24, 326, 328, 333 GHG see greenhouse gas Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication 146 Global Disinformation Index 390 Global Investigative Journalism Network 172 Global Media Awards 395 Global North: collaborations 281; concepts of 13 – 16; donors 159; influences 102, 104, 123; journalistic theory 154, 156 – 157; news outlets 210; photojournalism 399; power dynamics 59 – 60; traditions 75 Global South: associational-deliberative democracy 117; concepts 11 – 16; de-Westernization 260, 399; decolonization 121 – 124, 127 – 130; diaspora journalism 348, 351; disinformation 311; ethnic journalism 300 – 305; extractivism 209 – 210, 212, 217 – 218; female journalists 385; first time scholars 49; government pressure 99; influence of globalization 59; investigative journalism 172 – 173; journalism practices 269, 281 – 283, 286, 409; journalism theory 11, 388; journalism training 292, 294; journalist knowledge 157, 160, 162; media ethics 388; objective/emotion 221, 335; ontologies 334; photojournalism 399 – 405; poverty 35; research 63; traditions 75; transitional democracy 368, 373; underrepresentation 321 globalization: agenda 48 – 49, 56; influences 59, 68, 86; neoliberal market system 438, 442; rise of 281; theory 345 Głowacki, Michal 5 GNE see Group La Nouvelle Expression Golding, Peter 432 – 433 Gonye, Jairos 448 Google 235, 237, 360 – 361, 389, 413 Google News Initiative 21, 358 Gopal, Priyamvada 127, 293 Görke, Alexander 251 government: advertising 158, 369, 453; controlled communication 21, 144, 146,

150, 199, 368, 373; controlled media 41, 199, 221, 257, 373, 415, 456; forms of 373, 447 Government Advertising Agency 453 Goyanes, Manuel 328 Great Depression 431 greenhouse gas 423 – 424 Group La Nouvelle Expression (Cameroon) 462 GSJC see Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication Guatemala 18, 212, 375 Guedes, Paulo 240 – 245, 247 Guerrero, Manuel Alejandro 371 Guinness World Record 394 Gulf War 26, 112, 261, 437 – 438, 442 Gunter, Barrie 438 hacktivism 347 Hafez, Kai 439 Hailemariam, Mengistu 144, 146 Haiti 212 – 213, 348 Hallin, Daniel C. 432 Hamelink, Cees 433 Hammond, Philip 26 Hamusokwe, Basil 158 Hanitzsch, Thomas (et al 2010) 57, 103, 272, 350 harassment: bureaucratic 467; media 463; sexual 116, 184, 186, 227, 382 Hashimi, Hashim Al 30 Hassid, Jonathan 464 hate speech 205, 264, 447 Haw, Ashleigh L. 27 hegemonic 1; epistemologies 127, 154, 335; journalism model 14; transactions 155 Heleta, Savo 124 Hellman, Joel 372 Hennis-Plasschaert, Jeanine 31 Heravi, Bahareh 359 Hickman, John 24, 27 Hine, Lewis 401 historiography 4, 400 – 402 historical: approach 13, 74, 170; legacies 13, 320, 322 – 323; perspectives 346 HKBU see Hong Kong Baptist University homogenization 5, 321 homosexuality 114, 295 Hong Kong 357; data-based reporting 358; financial challenge 365; Internet news media outlets 359; interviewees 361, 363; media 358; professionalism 357 Hong Kong Baptist University 359, 361, 364 Hu, Pili (Interviewee) 360 – 361, 361, 363, 365 – 366 human: agency 37, 47; communication 300, 456; nature 169, 340

483

Index human rights: activists 30, 186; violation 30, 150, 378 Hungary 321, 325, 327 Huntington, Samuel P. 456 Hurricane Katrina 347 hybrid journalism 292 I-NGOs see international and national nongovernmental organizations ICA (International Communication Association) 333 ICFJ see International Center for Journalists ICIJ see International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ideology: media 7, 430 – 432; militant 25 – 26; neoliberal 221 – 222; political 147; workings of 76, 78, 83 – 85 illiteracy 179, 436, 455 IMF. see International Monetary Fund immigrant rights 346 impartiality 83, 222, 335 – 337, 431, 442 inaccuracy 25 – 26, 48, 56, 311 incitement 24 – 25, 27, 447 inclusion 129, 173, 260, 301, 306 Indian ABP News 336 Indian journalism: communication education 112; dogma 115; gender inequalities 113 – 114; media education 113; postliberalization 112 Indian journalists 234, 336 – 340 Indigenous peoples 123 individualism 5, 58, 189, 323 Indonesia: commercial media 100; investigative journalism 172; journalism ethics 441; news presenters 273; religion 101; social media branding 269 – 273, 274, 274 – 276, 375 infantilization 381, 383 – 384 influence: digital technology 410, 416; political 46, 174, 242, 252, 335, 467; potential sources 102 – 103; power 242, 350; religion 101, 104 information explosion 413 – 415 infrastructure 6, 18, 63, 130, 134, 198, 202 – 203, 233, 422 – 423 Initium Media 359 – 360, 361, 365 INMA see International News Media Association Instagram 30 – 31, 203, 205, 257, 269 – 276 inter alia 5, 58, 461, 466 Interception of Communication Act 467 international and national non-governmental organizations 154, 157, 159 – 161 International Center for Journalists 161 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 171 – 172 International Criminal Court of Justice 457

International Monetary Fund 39, 244, 247 International News Media Association 395 International Research and Exchanges Board 159 Internet: bandwidth cost 451; shutdowns 186 intersectionality 112, 114, 116, 119, 380 intimidation 461 – 462; atmosphere of 227; political 28, 31, 99; state-sponsored 144; towards women journalist 378, 383; verbal 18 Iran 29 – 30, 261 Iraq: invasion 26 – 27, 30; terrorism 24 – 25, 31 Iraq War 261 – 263 IREX see International Research and Exchanges Board ISIS see Islamic State Islamic: communication 438; law 435; media 432, 439; principles 439, 442 Islamic Revolution 261 Islamic State 24, 26, 30, 262, 265 Islamisation 26 Islamist 29, 220 isolation 15, 56, 64, 135, 281, 320, 328, 329, 330 Isseri, Caristan 465 Izard, Ralph 2 Jamil, Sadia 134 Jammeh, Yahya 449 Jena, Aniruddha 306 Jenkins, Joy (et al 2020) 90 Jenks, John 155 – 156, 160 Jihad 24 – 25, 262 Jing, Chai 166 Jong-Ebot, William 59 Journal Citation Report (JCR) 325 journalism 3; algorithms 373 – 374, 415 – 416; bad 340; best practices 7, 129, 265, 281, 316, 318, 440; blurred lines 410; brown envelope 100, 256, 370, 374, 388, 392; collectivist 104, 173, 323; concepts 333; decolonize 62, 121 – 123; ethics 3, 16, 58, 148, 390 – 390, 440 – 441; evolution 20, 251, 409; hierarchical model 7; liberal/liberalistic 5, 227, 323; mainstream 89, 237, 301, 303, 305; majors 360; mode of communication 48, 291; normative 155, 222, 338; objective 335, 412, 431; ontologies 4, 333 – 334; political institution 41, 57, 194, 242, 333; research 61, 63 – 64, 282 – 284, 287 – 288, 324 – 325, 401, 404; students 134, 138 – 141, 148, 294, 360, 363 – 366; terrorist 24, 28 – 31; TV (televised) 336; war 26, 263, 266 Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 4, 325

484

Index journalism education: collaboration 291; global approach 291 – 292; global norms 292 – 294; intercultural interactions 294 – 296; new dynamics 294 journalism platform 90 – 91, 94, 96, 409 journalism scholars: African 63 – 64; CEE 324 – 325; collaboration 281, 288, 293; Pakistan 141; photojournalism 400 – 403; Western 2 – 4, 8 journalist 1; abusive treatment 146, 192, 215, 226, 339, 379, 464 – 465; agency 37, 185, 201, 203; disgraced 392, 395; legislation/protection for 18, 36, 463, 465; violence against 294, 371, 379 – 381, 385, 466 journalistic: codes of conduct 335 – 337, 340; culture 63 – 65, 89, 288, 291, 320, 322 – 323, 336; practices 179, 185, 198, 231, 269, 305 – 307, 323, 399, 435, 474; values 6, 16 – 17, 323, 431 – 434, 439, 440, 441 Journalistic Role Performance Project 6 JRP see Journalistic Role Performance Project Kamboh, Shafiq Ahmed (et al 2022) 135, 424, 426 Karl, Terry 446 Kartveit, Kate 139 kasita 434 Kasoma, Frances 58, 61, 158, 390, 463 Kassé, Tidiane 470 Kataib Hezbollah 28, 30 Kaunda, Kenneth 448 Kazakhstan 327, 441 Keane, Fergal 340 Keane, John 90 – 91, 97 Keeble, Richard 27 Kellner, Douglas 26 Kent, K.E. 451 Kenya: elections 189 – 190, 457; government 29, 453, 455; independence 446, 449 Kenya Communications Act 470 Kenya Times 450 Kenyatta, Jomo 448 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah 261 Knight, Kathleen 431 knowledge production 86, 121 – 122, 124, 157, 288, 293, 321, 334, 399 Konate, Lohe Issa 454 Koopman, Oscar 123 Kosovo 26, 321, 401 Kovach, Bill 390 Krook, Mona Lena 381 Kruger, Franz 390 KTN 452 Kwiek, Marek 322

L’Ouragan (newspaper) 454 Lagarde y de los Rios, Marcela 381 Lamb, David 452 Langa, Malose 348 Langmia, Kehbuma 388, 391 Last Rights 445 Latin American journalism: essentialism 16; geographical concept 13 – 15; labor conditions 18 – 20; poverty 35 – 40; professional values 16 – 18; trends in journalism 20 – 21, 42 – 43 Latino 347 Latvia 325, 327 Lauk, Epp 323 leads 62, 111, 116, 122 – 123, 150 Lebanon 24, 209, 264 – 265, 433, 441 Lee, Christopher J. 403 Lee, Francis L.F. 170 Lent, John A. 456 Leopeng, Bandile 348 Lerner, Daniel 456 Leung, Kai Chi (Interviewee) 361, 363, 364 – 365 LGBTQ+ 170, 222 – 223, 240, 295 Li, Raymond (interviewee) 361, 363, 364 – 366 Li, Shi 403 libel 254, 454 – 455, 463 Liberia 26, 93, 345, 449 – 450 libertarian 227, 345 – 346, 445 linguistic: barriers 113, 137, 285; disadvantage 322; discourse 85 literacy: data 362, 365; digital 186, 301 – 302, 306 – 307, 317, 349, 352; media 307 Lithuania 325, 327 LMICs see low-and middle-income countries Louis, Bell Mathias 469 low-and middle-income countries 349 Lucas, Russell E. 463 Lugo-Ocando, Jairo 335 Lum, Cynthia (et al 2005) 28 Mabweazara, Hayes Mawindi 5, 59 – 60, 388 Macamo, Elísio 122 Macedonia 325 Magaisa, Alex 412 mainstream media: African 50, 128; Arab 183, 185 – 186, 209 – 210; Indian 237 – 238; Indonesia 272, 275; Latin America 37 – 38, 41; Nigeria 205, 257; Russia 301, 305; Turkey 221 Majid, Ahmad Abdel 27 Malawi/Zambia journalism training/education: Africanized curriculum 155, 157; authoritarian history 159; educational gap 154; freedom 156; I-NGO/donor funding 159 – 160; journalism pedagogies

485

Index 157; neoliberal capitalism 156 – 157; postcolonial aid dependency 155 – 156; private sector interests 161 – 162; state interests 158 – 159 Malaysia 439, 440 Maldonado-Torres, Nelson 124 male journalists 184, 226, 379, 383 Mancine, Paolo 432 Mancini, Paolo 321 Mandela, Nelson 389 Mano, Winston 388, 391 Maras, Steven 335 market structure 372 Marquez-Ramirez, Mireya 5 Marxist discourse 458 mass media: ‘seventh’ 204; colonial undertones 433; patrimonialist characteristics 241; photojournalism 402; power of 26, 47, 424; practical journalism 135, 432; watchdog 251, 254 master signifier 388, 391 – 392, 396 – 397 Matsilele, Trust 306 Matthews, Julien 101, 256 Matus, A. 42 Maunganidze, Golden 306 Maziarski, Wojciech 323 Mazrui, Ali 447 – 448 MBC see Middle East Broadcasting Corporation Mbezele, Irène 464 – 465 McBride Commission 456 McCurdy, Patrick M. 156 media: educator 115; freedom 183, 264, 266, 294, 321, 323, 370, 389, 457, 467; harassment 463; hardware 433; immersion 396; market 323, 369; professionalism 432 – 433; suppression 449, 453 – 454 media attention 261 – 262 media capture 17, 99 – 100; concept 368, 371, 374; definition 369 – 371; research 373; theory 371 – 372 media control 186, 243, 368, 371, 373 – 374 media environments 310 – 312, 320 – 323 media ethics transgressions: decolonization 391; digitization 389 – 390; ethical breaches/ false reporting 392 – 396; Inquiry report 389 – 390, 392, 394; master signifier 388, 397; old attachments/new signifiers 391; theoretical framework 390 – 391, 396 Media Freedom Coalition 264 media house 113, 162, 193, 204 – 205, 233, 294, 370, 453, 467 Media Institute of Southern Africa 159 Medvecky, Fabien 425 Melber, Henning 122 Mellado, Claudia 3, 5, 282

MENA see Middle East and North Africa Mendieta-Bartolomé, Ana María 344, 346 Menkhaus, Ken 29, 31 Merton, Robert (Merton’s norm of universality) 324 MeToo movement 111, 116, 295 Mexico: clientelistic system 17 – 18; transitional democracy 369 – 370; violence against journalists 18 – 19, 101, 378 – 383 Microsoft 161 Middle East: alignment 65; insurgency groups 24, 29, 31; news broadcasting 209 – 210, 212, 216, 218 Middle Eastern and North African journalism: conflict zones 261; media systems 260; mental health struggles 264 – 266; political/media attention 261 – 262; political/media pressures 263 – 264; value in war reporting 262 – 263 Middle East Broadcasting Corporation 438 Mignolo, Walter D. 125 militant journalism 24 – 28, 31 militias 24 – 25, 28, 30 – 31, 191 Mill, John Stuart 49 Milton, Viola 63, 388 MINCOM (Cameroon) 467 MISA see Media Institute of Southern Africa misinformation 96, 182, 258, 311 – 312, 406 misogyny 184, 282, 378 – 380, 384 – 385 Mkhondo, Rich 394 modernization theory 432 Moeller, Susan D. 27 Mohammed, Wunpini Fatimata 335 Moi, Daniel arap 448 – 450 Moldova 321, 325 Moll, Yasmin 439 monitory journalism 90 – 91, 95 Montenegro 321, 325 Morocco 261, 433, 441 Motsaathebe, Gilbert 157 Motshekga, Angie 121 Moyo, Thamsanqa 448 Muchtar, Nurhaya (et al 2017) 439, 441 Mundimbe, V.Y. 121 Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina 371 Munoriyarwa, Allen 467 murder: cases 181 – 182; drugs and 72, 80; gender 223 – 226; incitement 27; journalists 18, 378 – 379, 383; parental 339 Muruwwa, Adid 434 – 435 Musk, Elon 410 – 411 Muslim: populations 115, 442; women 116 Muslim journalism: broadcast 436 – 437; critique 432; development 434; epistemology 430; imported values 433; modernization 433 – 434; objectivity

486

Index 431 – 432; obstacles 435 – 436; recent news developments 437 – 438 Mutsvairo, Bruce (et al 2020) 3, 63, 203, 293, 335, 388, 390 mythmaking 27, 76 – 77, 84 Nadler, Anthony 58 National Broadcasting Commission 200, 204, 438 National Collective Convention 469 National Federation of Domestic Workers 247 National Languages Conference 121 National Media Workers of Cameroon Trade Union 469 national security law 357 – 358 National University (Madras) 112 NATO 26 NBC see National Broadcasting Commission NCC see National Collective Convention Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. 122 – 124, 130 Nelson, Joan M. 456 neo-colonialism 2 neoliberal capitalism 154, 156, 161 Nepal 291 – 296 Nerone, John C. 445 Netherlands 263, 326 Neumann, Rico 263 Neumann, W. Russell (et al 1992) 262 Neveu, Erik 270 New York Times 60, 183, 263, 265 news agency 225, 242 news coverage 17, 27, 30, 36 – 43, 70, 210 – 214, 263, 338, 368, 437 News Hawks, The 91 – 92 news media: coverage 78, 128, 313; organizations 123, 136, 140, 253 – 258, 314, 403, 437; outlets 26 – 28, 37, 86, 140, 223, 227, 310 – 311, 315, 359 newsgathering 89, 94, 198, 205, 257, 260, 276, 318, 350 – 351, 411 newsroom: diversity 2; pressure 103 – 104 Ngangum, Peter Tiako 462, 465, 467 – 469, 471 NGOs see non-governmental organizations Niblock, Sarah 114 Nigeria: general elections 254; guerrilla press 254; military regimes 253; newspapers 252 – 253 Nigeria Info FM 199 – 206 Nigerian journalism: evolution 251 – 253; independence 253 – 256; Internet-era 257 – 258; role of mass media 251 Nikiema, Placide 454 Nixon, Raymond B. 451 non-governmental organizations 39, 42, 156, 160, 196, 345, 402; see also INGOs non-Western Journalism: challenges 99 – 101; comparison sampling 102; perceived influences 103, 104 – 105

NORAD 146 Nordenstreng, Kaarle 433 NORHED project 291 – 297 Normative Theories of the Media 445 Norris, Pippa (et al 2004) 28 North America 1 – 4, 76, 102, 292, 300, 399 – 403, 436, 461 North Korea 261 Norway 102, 146, 294 – 295, 326, 381 NSL see national security law Nyamnjoh, Frances B. 57, 60 – 62, 389, 452, 469 Nyerere, Julius 447 – 448, 450 O Globo (newspaper) 246 O’Brien, Kevin J. 464 Obasanjo, Olusegun 253, 449 Obote, Milton 448 Ochieng, Philip 449 – 450 OECD see Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Oelofsen, Rianna 123, 127 Ogunsiji, M.A. 252 Ogunyemi, Ola 346 Okoro, Nnanyelugo 253 Okwudishu, Abiodun 49 Olbrechts-Tyteca, Lucie 172 oligarchic 241, 370 – 371, 447 Olivera Pérez, Dasniel 371 Omar, Bahiyah 257 Onyemaobi, Kelechi 101, 256 Operation Cyclone 29 oppressors 157, 159 Orbit 438 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 348 Orientalist 6, 402 Oslo Metropolitan University 381 OsloMet see Oslo Metropolitan University Ottoman Empire 261, 435 Oueiss, Ghada 378 Ouma, Seth 445 Oyesomi, Opeyemi 49 package 31, 266, 411 – 412 Pakistan 25; agriculture 423 – 424; curriculum development 135 – 136; curriculum findings 137 – 140; data collection/ analysis 136 – 137; digital divide 140; environmental protection 422; industrial pollution/waste management 421; journalistic values 440; journalism education 133 – 140; methane emissions 423; news media growth 140 – 141; population growth 424; transportation system 422; Urdu journalism 139

487

Index Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources 421 Pakistan Higher Education Commisssion 134, 139 – 140, 142 Palestine 261, 401 Pan-African 75, 86, 345 Panama Papers 2, 257 Pantti, Mervi 336 parallel news 413 Park, Myung-Jin 3, 129 Parks, Michael 452 partisan reportorial routines 5, 58 Pathak, Anil 125 patriarchal structure 379, 385 patronage 5, 58, 100, 350 – 351, 370 patronizing discourse 295 Pauw, Jacque 392 – 394 PBS see public service broadcasting PEC see project of constitutional amendment Pennycook, Alastair 47 Pentagon 26 People’s Republic of China 166 perception: audience 27; foreigners 70, 79; journalist 6, 103, 126, 351, 360; public 28, 436; victimology 86, 246 Pereira, Luíza Batista 247 Perelman, Chaim 172 Persian Gulf War 261 personal influence 101, 103 – 104 Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism 347 philanthropic 20 photography: ‘factual’ 400 – 401; documentary 405; practice of 399 – 403 photojournalism 399; adoption of photography for journalistic purposes 400; de-Westernizing 399; Global South defined 400; historiography 400, 402 – 403; scholarship 400, 402; transnational 404 photojournalists 70, 399 – 405 physical violence 18, 379 Pinoche, Augusto 240, 243 Pintak, Lawrence 439 plagiarism 392, 395 platforms: digital news 91 – 96, 238; investigative 89; journalism 90 – 91; media 70, 86 – 87, 181, 237 (see also social media) Poland 323, 325 – 327, 327 political: parallelism 5, 16 – 17, 58, 322, 374; polarization 17, 36 – 38, 312, 415 – 416; pressure 99, 102, 104, 263, 313 – 314 political conflict 260, 262, 266 political economy: analysis 70 – 71, 77 – 79; journalism industry 115; migrant reporting 68 – 70, 71, 80; news reporting 75 – 77; xenophobia 72 – 74, 82 – 85

polysemic 295 populist discourse 414 Portuguese-speaking countries, journalism: counteracting disinformation 315 – 316; disinformation 310 – 312; disinformation, perception of 314 – 315; journalistic training 316 – 317; specific context 312 – 314 Posetti, Julie (et al 2020) 378, 382 poverty: alleviating 68, 211, 243, 245 – 246; news coverage 36 – 38, 42 – 43 Powell, Walter W. 155 Power, Gerry 156 Prada, Miuccia 452 Prat, Andrea 372 Press Council 388 – 389, 392, 394 – 396 press freedom: concepts 5, 17 – 18; shrinking margins 180 – 183, 238, 254, 346, 467 private media 17, 113, 148, 313, 458, 462, 465, 468 – 471 project of constitutional amendment 246 – 247 propaganda 24 – 28, 30, 94 – 95, 144, 163, 221, 253, 311, 394, 447, 452 Prosperity Party (Ethiopia) 144, 147 PT see Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores) public officials 372, 379, 382, 416 public service broadcasting 437 Punjab Development Statistics 422 Qatar 209, 213, 216, 218, 233, 252, 262, 264, 455 Qur’an 435, 439 race 1 – 2, 69, 245, 348 raids 467, 469 Ramani, Priya 116 RCN 213 reductionism 5 Reese, Stephen D. 7, 261, 350 Rege, Sharmila 114 Reid, Julie 388, 391 religion 101, 103 – 104, 114 – 115, 197, 255, 345, 440, 441, 453 Relly, Jeannine E. 371 reporters: government controlled 41 – 42; rural 111; skill 2, 7 Reporters Without Borders 17 – 18, 220, 223, 313 – 314, 358, 461, 466 repressive 145, 179 – 180, 182, 253 – 254, 266, 350 Republic of Tatarstan 302 researchers 64, 69, 100, 122, 201, 282 – 287, 296, 325, 364, 399 resignification 388, 392 resources: access 82; allocation 36, 38, 47, 62; competition 69, 71; fact-checking 21;

488

Index financial 61, 156, 184, 416; human 134; natural 93 – 94, 171, 421, 424, 446, 212214 respect for old age 5, 58 Restrepo Sanín, Juliana 381 revenue: advertising 27, 231 – 232, 270, 351, 413 – 414, 431, 450, 452; circulation 231 – 232; commercial 100; generating 414 Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia 213, 215 Riis, Jacob 401 Robinson, Piers 26 Rodny-Gumede, Ylva 388, 391 Romania 321, 325, 327 Rosenstiel, Tom 389 Ross, Jones (et al 2007) 2 Ross, Karen 2 Rotberg, Robert 29, 31 RSF see Reporters Without Borders rule of formal law 5, 323 Russia, ethnic journalism: comparative research 305 – 307; cultural context 301 – 303; cultural discourse studies 300 – 301; global transformation process 303 – 305 Russian Federation 301 – 302, 325, 327 Rwanda 25, 94 SABC TV News 70, 71, 72, 78 – 79, 80, 81, 83, 85 Sabereen News 30 – 31 Sachikonye, Crispin 457 Salawu, Abiodun 49 – 50 sanctity of authority 5, 58 SANEF see South African National Editors Forum Sankara, Thomas 448 – 449 SAPs. see structural adjustment programs SAPS see South African Police Service SAR see special administrative region SARS see South African Revenue Services SARS Rogue Unit 392 Satchwell, Kathy 388, 394 Saudi Arabia 27, 29 – 30, 181, 264, 440 Schafer, Richard 292 Schankerman, Mark 372 Schiller, Herbert 76, 433 Schmitter, Philippe 446 scholarly publications 286, 320, 324, 359 scholarship: CEE 322; communication 14, 46; journalism 2 – 4, 8, 64, 288, 293, 325; photojournalism 400, 402 – 403 Scholl, Armin 251 Schönbach, Klaus 336 School of Journalism and Communication 146 Schramm, Wilbur 456

scientific rationalism 335, 338, 402 Scimago Journal Ranking 325 SCMP see South China Morning Post Scopus 324 – 325, 345 SDGs see Sustainable Development Goals sedition 30, 358 Seif Eddine, Mariam 264 Sekula, Allan 401 self-awareness 333 self-censorship 18, 99, 146, 264, 313, 323, 358, 463 – 464, 468, 473 self-criticism 168, 312 self-regulation 389, 391, 394, 469 – 470, 474 Senghor, Diana 470 sensationalism 24, 27, 77, 148 separatism 63 – 64, 358 September 11 90, 265 Serbia 325, 327 Sese Seko, Mobutu 448 sexual: discrimination 381; harassment 116, 184, 186, 227, 382; morality 381 Sharif, Asim 425 Shiffrin, Anya 373 Shiite 24, 28, 30 – 31, 264 Shoemaker, Pamela J. 7, 101, 261, 350 Shukla, Nikesh 129 Siebert, Frederick S. (et al 1978) 321, 345, 445, 459 Sierra Leone 2, 103 sihafa 434 – 435 SJC see School of Journalism and Communication Slovenia 321, 325 – 326, 327 SNJC. see Cameroon Journalists Trade Union SOAD see State of the African Diaspora social: change 5, 52, 146, 154, 201, 215, 456, 458; crisis 20, 68; harmony 5 – 6, 57, 323; institutions 7, 62, 261, 334; phenomena 324, 335; reality 201, 288, 334; responsibility 222, 255, 276, 345 – 346, 348, 350, 352, 445, 474; sciences 328; space 25 social media: campaign 20; freedom of expression 185; growth 140, 272, 294, 313, 411; personalities 149; platforms 31, 116, 179 – 180, 202, 205, 270 – 271, 294, 313, 410, 412; xenophobic violence 70 Solaroli, Marco 401, 404 SOS buttons 169 Sousa Santos, Boaventura de 157 South African National Editors Forum 388, 395 South African Police Service 392 South African Revenue Services 392 – 393 South China Morning Post 358, 361 South Sudan 291 – 296

489

Index Soviet-Afghan war 29 Spain 15, 326, 328, 434, 452 special administrative region 357 – 358 speculation 169, 337 Squires, Catherine R. 348 stability 5 – 6, 15, 18, 56, 58, 149, 241, 265, 313, 409, 446 state capture 372, 393 State of the African Diaspora 344 – 345 state terrorism 28 – 29 state-media: China 166 – 167, 464; Muslim 436 status quo 2, 31, 123, 134, 157, 295, 357, 368, 379, 449 Steele, John 439 stereotypes 1, 3, 42 – 43, 68, 72, 81, 86, 128, 210 Stern, Rachael E. 464 Stewart, Daxton 441 stigmas 1, 3, 171, 265 Stohl, Michael 29 Strachan, J.C. 118 Stroud, Natalie 410 structural adjustment programs 161, 256 Sub-Saharan African media 262 subversion 358 Sunday Times 392 – 393 Supreme Court 31, 240, 457 Sussman, L.R. 456 Sustainable Development Goals 424 Symonds, Oliver 169 SYNATMEC see National Media Workers of Cameroon Trade Union Syria 31, 180 – 181, 262 – 265, 350 Taba, Hilda 134 – 135, 137, 141 Taba’s model (curriculum development) 134 – 135, 137, 141 tabloids 16, 27, 463 Tabuwe, Manka E. 469 Taliban 26, 29, 261 – 262 Tanjong, Enoh 469 Tanzania 292, 375, 449 – 451 Taoism 6 Teferra, Damtew 157 Telegram 30 television stations 70 – 72, 79, 85, 87, 242, 256, 454, 471 Tenny, Steven (et al 2022) 125 terror 29, 213, 296 terrorist journalism: militant journalism 25 – 28; promotion of violence 24; statesponsored 28 – 31 theory and practice: gap 135, 141 – 142, 286; journalistic 154, 168 – 169, 284, 434 – 435

They will not silence our voices (documentary) 381 Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ Wa 125, 127, 129 third gender 295 threats: death 116, 223, 381, 465; online/ offline 182, 223, 294; security 24; workplace 350, 378 – 381 three-faced disadvantage 328, 329 Thussu, Daya 433 Tigray People’s Liberation Front 148 tobacco market 162 Tong, Jingrong 168, 171 Toolan, Michael 49 Townsend, Henry 252 TPLF see Tigray People’s Liberation Front transnational comparative work 6 transparency 18, 93, 157, 220, 258, 312, 320, 364 – 365, 466 Trump, Donald 413 truth/truth-telling 350, 439 Tumber, Howard 26 Tunisia 180, 262, 370, 441 Turkey: alternative journalism 220 – 221, 223 – 22, 227; financial sanctions 99; journalistic values 440; objectivity 439 TV news 209, 214, 233, 269, 275 – 276, 336 Twitter 30 – 31, 92, 203, 221, 257, 294, 410, 413 UAE see United Arab Emirates UCJ see Union of Cameroon Journalists Uganda 101, 291 – 296, 312, 448, 450 UGC see user-generated visual content Ukraine 30, 325, 327, 375 ulaama 435 – 436, 439 underrepresentation 76, 184, 320, 328, 329 UNESCO see United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations Union of Cameroon Journalists 469 United Arab Emirates 30, 264, 433 United Mexican Women Journalists 378 United Nation International Criminal Tribuanal 25 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 86 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations 155, 159, 292, 296, 307, 378, 419 – 420, 436, 456 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization 160 United Nations Statistics Division 325 United States Armed Forces 29 unity 5, 57, 196, 204, 323 University of Hong Kong 359, 361, 364 University of Malawi 159 University of the Philippines 456 University of Zambia 158, 160 UNSD see United Nations Statistics Division

490

Index UNZA see University of Zambia user-generated visual content 401 – 402 Van der Haak, Bregtje 452 van der Wurff, Richard 336 Varma, Anita 251 vendetta journalism 463 Viana, Natalia 333 – 334 vigilantism 84, 86, 147 violence: Black 68; cycle 95; election 95, 189 – 191, 195 – 196, 470; militant 27; physical 18, 379; promotion 24 – 26, 28; threats of 101; against women 380 – 380; xenophobic 69 – 70 visibility 21, 317, 322, 324 – 325, 327, 330, 401 – 402 visual: communication 399; journalism 401 Vondoepp, P 461, 463 – 464 Wacqant, Loïc J. D. 381 Waisbord, Silvio 3, 56, 63 – 64, 282, 338 Wallerstein, Immanuel 76, 432 Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Phoenix, Arizona) 158 Walulya, Gerald 292 WAN. see World Association of News Publishers Wang, Feng (Interviewee) 361, 362, 363, 364, 366 Wang, Haiyan 170 Wanyande, Peter 458 war correspondent 26, 265 – 266 War on Terror 213, 261 – 262 war reporting 25 – 26, 266 – 266, 438 Wardle, Claire 311 Washington Post 60, 181, 456 Wasserman, Herman 3, 205, 311, 388, 391 watchdog journalism 4 – 5, 16, 160, 213, 240, 253, 275, 369, 374, 449, 461, 473 water pollution 421 WB see World Bank Weber, Max 431 Western Europe 1 – 4, 102, 244, 281, 336, 461 Western Journalism: critique 432, 439; ethics 18, 58; influence 99, 103; literature 139; models 4, 430; traditions 15 – 16, 431 Westernization: industrial 327 – 328, 329; paternalistic 322 WhatsApp 203 – 205, 257, 382, 415 White: capital 83; establishment 129; male privilege 122; middle-class 245; sounding 347 Witschge, Tamara 251

WJS see Worlds of Journalism Study WMG. see Women Major Group Women’s Communication and Information Centre 379 women journalists: agency 185; Arab 187; harassment/threats 381; methods/ theories 380; Mexico 378; online hate/ trolling 116; safety 379 – 380 Women Major Group 295 Wong, Ho Wa (Interviewee) 361, 363, 365 work harassment 381 – 382 Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores) 241, 244 – 246 World Association of News Publishers 358 World Bank 155, 157, 161, 220, 244, 247, 349 World Press Photo Association 403 World Press Photo Foundation 405 World War II 155, 261 World Wide Web 49 Worlds of Journalism Study 6, 101 – 102 Wu, Shangyuan 6, 358 xenophobia 68 – 70, 72, 79, 85, 87 Yang, Fan 360 Yemen 24, 30, 180 Yeshua, Daphna 389 Young, D.J. 461, 463 – 464 YouTube 30, 205, 235 – 237, 242, 271, 294, 410, 413, 417 Zaffiro, James J. 463 Zambia: foreign aid/financial assistance 155, 160; tax dispute 158; universities 158, 161 Zanger, Margaret 371 Zelensky, Volodymyr 31 Zelizer, Barbie 26 Zhang, Xinzhi 359 Zhangazha, Takura 412 Zhigang, Sun 166 Zhu, Bennie 366 Zhu, Lingzi 360 Zimbabwe: bloggers 412; government language 121; journalists/journalism 59 – 60, 123, 306, 347; migrant crisis 85; migrant reporting 71; violence 69, 72, 83, 92 – 93, Zizek, Slavoj 83, 388 Zogo, Martinez 465 – 466 Zondo Commission 393 Zorin, Vladimir 302

491