Interrogating citizen journalism practices: a case study of Rhodes University?s Lindaba Ziyafika Project

Several scholars have noted that citizen journalism in the West is essentially an online phenomenon, driven by the affordability of Internet technologies. In Africa, projects such as Ushahidi in Kenya have been enabled by platforms such as cell phones and social networks. Voices of Africa, based in southern Africa, publishes on the web only. Publishing on the Internet presumes a citizenry which is relatively well educated; has familiarity with, and access to, new media as a form of social communication; and is confident in their right to participate in newly developed public spheres ? particularly those online. In Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, the citizen journalists recruited to work for the Iindaba Ziyafika (?the news is coming?) project attached to the community newspaper Grocott?s Mail, came from a community in which there is 70 per cent unemployment, poor schooling and a lack of basic facilities such as running water, indoor sanitation and electricity. In the interests of understanding whether citizen journalism could work in such an impoverished context with little access to the Internet, and what form it would take, this project was selected to investigate the working practices of these journalists. This research is useful given that the social situation of Grahamstown might produce a different kind of practice than that exhibited by other citizen journalists in different parts of the world.