Normative dilemmas and issues for Zimbabwean print journalism in the ʺinformation societyʺ era

Abstract

While new digital technologies offer mainstream journalism in Africa (and elsewhere) alternative opportunities to engage and deliver content to their audiences, few studies have explored their disruptive implications to the practice of the profession. This study thus confronts the normative dilemmas and challenges facing Zimbabwean print journalism in the era of the rapid proliferation and appropriation of new digital technologies. It specifically explores how the appropriation of the internet and the mobile phone by Zimbabwean print journalists has contributed to a transformation of the profession at a number of levels, including news sourcing routines, and the structuring of the working day. While broadly affirming findings from previous studies, the paper submits that the information society era has spawned a number of localised professional dilemmas that border around copyright infringements as well as concerns relating to the invasion of journalists’ personal space and privacy. It contends that despite the wide-ranging resources and technological possibilities emerging with new digital technologies in Zimbabwe, their appropriation in journalism (and in everyday life) presents several unsettling challenges and modifications to the profession.