Prospects for Data Journalism in Zimbabwe: Challenges of Engendering a Democratic Society and an Informed Citizenry in the Digital Age

Abstract

New communication technologies have opened up communicative space for a broad range of institutional organizations including government, media, business, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society organizations but also individuals. The ability to generate data from different platforms at an unprecedented speed has also meant that media audiences or citizens are bombarded with an avalanche of information that they have to constantly interpret in order to understand the world around them. This can result in a dizzying experience that does not make people more informed or knowledgeable to make decisions especially in a fast paced social and political environment. More importantly, vast troves of unanalyzed data can also compromise citizens' ability to fully participate in the democratic process. Journalism has always mediated human experiences by helping citizens to make sense of the world around them. This chapter seeks to show the extent to which journalism in Zimbabwe has taken advantage of data in order to explain the political, economic, cultural, and social environment to citizens so that they are not only better informed but are knowledgeable to make better decisions and be active participants in a democratic political process. The chapter will show that Zimbabwe media is not fully taking advantage of the opportunities that data-driven journalism presents. This is mainly because of the shortcomings in the training of journalism because of limited resources and appreciation of the changes that are taking place in journalism. This can be attributed to the training that most journalists have received or are getting from most of the journalism training institutions in the country. These training institutions are limited or have no capacity to train journalists on how to incorporate the massive data outlay that has become an unavoidable feature of twenty-first century journalism. An additional challenge could also emanate from the failure and inability of most organizations to capture, organize, and present data in a manner that makes it useful to journalism. While this is not an excuse for Zimbabwe's media to fully take advantage of available data, the failure by most organizations to adapt to the demands of the information age through investment in data storage and retrieval systems has exacerbated the situation. All these factors mean that a lot of data that is ceaselessly generated by both individuals and institutions both public and private, is going to waste as it either sits locked in vaults or servers while these same organizations keep on generating more data without it being put to public use and helping citizens to make informed decisions. On the other hand, journalists fail to engage with the data resulting in the failure of journalism to provide complete information, which data-driven journalism can provide. The chapter will show that in as much as it can be easy to be buried in an avalanche of data, data-driven journalism can contribute to a more informed citizenry and can help policy makers to make better and less costly decisions. Above all this, data-driven journalism can also help in cutting costs as many organizations including the media spend a lot of limited financial resources looking for information that might be available already.