Matsilele Trust, Tshuma Lungile, Msimanga Mbongeni
Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Southern Africa.
Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of Johannesburg, Southern Africa.
J Commun Inq. 2022 Jul;46(3):268-288. doi: 10.1177/01968599221085702.
This is a cross-national comparative study of how media in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa reconstructed their operations in response to Covid-19 global pandemic. The study is grounded in a qualitative research design that uses semi-structured interviews with journalists from Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. The study investigated how news operations, newsroom cultures, news gathering, and news dissemination practices were impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Informed by the sociology of news production theoretical lens, the study noted that journalists and editors were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic which ensured they change some journalistic practices. The findings of this study reveal that journalists suffered traumatic experiences such as job losses, covid-19 related illness and fatalities. At a regulatory level, findings confirm the perennial challenges with media freedoms in the region with South Africa remaining a lone outlier. Lastly, interviews with journalists further demonstrate that newsrooms have had to maximise digital affordances for news gathering and dissemination as old revenue streams dried up. As a result, print media scaled back in its operations as a response to containing the spread of the virus.
这是一项跨国比较研究，探讨津巴布韦、博茨瓦纳和南非的媒体如何应对新冠疫情全球大流行而调整其运营方式。该研究基于定性研究设计，对来自津巴布韦、博茨瓦纳和南非的记者进行了半结构化访谈。该研究调查了新闻运营、新闻编辑室文化、新闻采集和新闻传播实践如何受到新冠疫情的影响。受新闻生产社会学理论视角的启发，该研究指出，记者和编辑受到新冠疫情的影响，这促使他们改变了一些新闻实践。这项研究的结果表明，记者经历了诸如失业、与新冠疫情相关的疾病和死亡等创伤性经历。在监管层面，研究结果证实了该地区媒体自由方面长期存在的挑战，南非仍然是唯一的例外。最后，对记者的访谈进一步表明，随着旧的收入来源枯竭，新闻编辑室不得不最大限度地利用数字手段进行新闻采集和传播。因此，平面媒体缩减了其运营规模，以应对遏制病毒传播的需求。
