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Between the Newsroom and the Pub: The Mobile Phone in the Dynamics of Everyday Mainstream Journalism Practice in Zimbabwe

This study is published as part of a collection of essays in a special issue of Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism (12:6, 2011), themed ‘New Media and Journalism Practice in Africa: An Agenda for Research’, which I co-edited with Professor Chris Atton of Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland. The themed issue sought to mainstream African journalism research in the global discourses of convergence, interactivity and ‘digital storytelling’. In contributing to this agenda, my article sought to offer theoretically driven ethnographic case-study insights into the changing ecology of media narratives in Africa as a result of the pervasive diffusion and penetration of new technologies such as the mobile phone. It forms part of a research theme of mine investigating the changing nature of media-based storytelling in the digital age.

Generally conceived as a response to the general research gap on how African journalism is adjusting to the era of digital mobile communication technologies and convergence, the study’s findings offer empirical data for exploring similarities and differences between developments in the economically developed North and those in the South. It provides an empirical base upon which we can begin to discriminate between what could or should be universal professional values and what might be context-dependent practices of journalism in the age of mobile communication. The study therefore contributes to the development of insights that inform our understanding of journalism and media practice globally. It offers a comprehensive research tool that gives researchers and practitioners models for cross-cultural comparisons as well as insights for understanding contemporary media practice in all its contextual complexities.

The study’s findings were initially presented at a Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) Conference, hosted by the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, (6-8 January 2010).