Teach New Media in Africa

Teach New Media in Africa Presented at Workshop on Unesco J-School Centres of Excellence in Africa Polytechnic of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia May 2009 Jude Mathurine [email_address]

Objectives
What’s the fuss about new media?
What are some trends will drive new media in Africa?
Why should I think about mainstreaming new media?

Changing context Africa constitutes about 3% of world’s Internet users 10% of South Africans have Internet access 5% in Nigeria 5% in Namibia 0,5% in Madagascar 8% in Kenya 2,4% in Uganda

Changing context
In Africa, the cost of basic broadband per month was $366 in 2006. In Europe the average cost was estimated at $40
Bandwidth costs WILL come down
WACS
Seacom
Eassy
03B – Google low orbiting satellite
Digital migration – various forms of Set Top Boxes permit enhanced services such as limited Internet surfing
Africa must migrate by 2015
Could we see interactive TV for e-governance, education and news and information

Rise of the mobile native
Mobile web will be to Africa what fixed line internet was to the developed world
2002 to 2008: global fixed line subscriptions grew from 1 billion to 1.27 billion.
2002 to 2008: mobile subscriptions grew from 1 billion to 4.1 billion
Africa 2007: 28,5m landlines vs 198m mobiles and counting
China: 30% of citizens access the Internet on their mobile phone.
Jamaica: Mobile web surpassed fixed line Internet
Mobile leapfrogs infrastructure and distribution limitations of fixed line Internet through GSM, 3G and WiMax

Changing context
Most African media are in a growth phase but this is no reason to be complacent
Consider the digital natives esp. the youth who make up the majority of our population and people in high LSMs
How do 33m Africans in global diaspora who contribute about $20 billion in remittances annually (2006) get news and information?
Crisis in economic model
The high LSMs are what advertisers are interested in (your top 5 or 10% of your population)

Why teach digital media?
A range of new literacies and competences are expected of today’s undergraduates
This exacerbates pressures already experienced by educators to offer basic skills in undergraduate programme
Can culminate in more informed perspectives and local research

Top Websites in your country
MADAGASCAR
Yahoo
Google.mg
Google.fr
Google
Facebook
Moov.mg
Sobika
Windows Live
Free
MSN
KENYA
Yahoo
Google.ke
Google
Facebook
Windows Live
MSN
Youtube
Blogger
Wikipedia
Tagged
ZA
Google.co.za
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Youtube
Wikipedia
News24
Blogger
Gumtree
MSN
NIGERIA
Yahoo
Facebook
Google.com
Google.com.ng
Windows Live
Youtube
MSN
Wikipedia
Blogger
Vmn.net
If the future of the world’s media is digital, then Africa has to make up ground. Western search engines, aggregators, social media and social networks dominate audience and online advertising spend.

As media consumption patterns change, these transformations have profound implications for identity formation, and democratic consolidation/fragmentation and empowerment
Traditional media will come under increasing threat from migrating audiences and advertising to more convenient, interactive, mobile, customisable, always-on, always available media
New media does not immediately supplant traditional media but disrupts and offers opportunities and challenges to traditional media’s future

New media needs to be taught alongside traditional media like radio, television, and newspaper journalism
Centres of Excellence have to prepare students based on present and future scenarios and challenges
Empowered graduates could help African media learn from lessons of media companies in the North to survive and thrive
Proof: NML 12 years old – its alumni are leaders and thinkers in this sector

NML emphasises PRAXIS …and not just Practice underpinned by fundamental skills in journalism production and creative, critical and entrepreneurial thinking Type Text Photo Audio Video Graphic Motion Graphic Animation

African journalists don’t know what they don’t know
Google is not the Internet
Abuse of intellectual property rights *
Email is primary communication tool but seldom used for research *
Comprehensive education or Africans will be forced to continue to use other people’s (even about themselves) and not as producers of own content in own languages
African issues still continue to be mediated mainly through Western lens
Data security leaves newsrooms vulnerable to virus and data hacking
* Berger, G (ed). 2005. Doing Digital Journalism – How Southern African Newsgatherers are using ICT. School of Journalism and Media Studies. Rhodes University.

New Media
New media cannot afford to be either a specialisation OR mainstreamed, it has to be BOTH
Each modality has a digital trajectory where the nuances of new platforms for the modality are learnt within a context of multimedia storytelling for different genres eg. News, documentary etc
Radio (Audio) Print (Text) TV (audio visual) Photography (visual) Audio Visual TV DTTV DVD ONLINE VIDEO STREAMING VIDEO MOBILE VIDEO

Why teach/mainstream Digital Journalism?
Media companies evolve from single platform media publishers to digital news publishers exploiting multiple modalities, local and global audiences.
Easiest way to encourage informed academic research on new media is to begin grappling with topics in your own teaching courses
Mainstreaming offers organisational efficiencies within human resource and technology constraints
Materiel in the online/multimedia course overlaps with Report writing and editing, Broadcast Writing and Reporting, Media & Society, Media Law and Media Ethics courses

What skills, attitudes, socio-cultural, legal and ethical understanding and knowledge of the world are needed by local 'journalists' in the 21st century as result of globalisation and convergence?

Reporting & Writing
Writing for the web
Promotion of online content through SMO and SEO
Analysing web metrics
Repurposing and re-editing for web and mobile
Newsroom structures e.g. hub and spoke, collaborative reporting (pro-am models)
Online genres and hybrid news formats
Agenda setting and gatekeeping to gatewatching
Netiquette
Computer assisted research and reporting
Statistical analysis
Data security

Broadcast reporting & writing
Broadcast models > narrowcasting models
Multimedia storytelling
Digital photography > audio slideshows, visual galleries
Radio journalism > podcasting, layering audio for multimedia packaging, audio streaming
online video, interactive video on demand, vlogging, mobile video, video streaming
Electronic Communications laws
Digital migration policy

Media & Society
Globalisation, convergence, new media
Historical development and political economy of local and global Internet /s
The Information Society debates
Digital Divides
Public journalism > citizen journalism, ‘open’ journalisms
Social networks, virtual communities and digital identity construction
New media’s multiple impact on the ‘public sphere’
Passive audience > Active audience > Cultural production thesis

Media law
Laws and policies introduce new rights and responsibilities but can also be accompanied by state censorship and control
ICT and telco laws increasingly impact on media development and media freedom
Electronic intellectual property, freedom of expression, online privacy
Policy development for digital media e.g Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Content licensing

Media management
Business models for traditional media have changed. Most African media still healthy. How to keep it that way?
Google Adsense and Adwords
Online revenue models
Change management in newsrooms
Search engine optimisation
Social media optimisation

Learning by doing
Cross platform collaboration encourages understanding of how convergence environments work
Praxis based assignments incorporating review of literature, desktop research, interviews with media leaders, surveys of new media users etc.
Industry internships/projects

“ This is a time …for new pedagogical experiments to see what works and what doesn’t in the new millennium…But we should also resist the hype, maintain a critical attitude and pedagogy and continue to combine print literacy and classical materials with new literacies and materials.” (Douglas Kellner 2002)

Questions? Imibuzo? Maswali? Enkosi! Thank you! Asante Sana! Merci! http://nml.ru.ac.za

Teach New Media in Africa

by Jude Mathurine on Sep 08, 2009

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