Journalism in Africa: New Trends—Guest Editor’s Note

Journalism and Media are please to publish the completed edition of the Special Issue of Journalism in Africa: New Trends. When we launched a call for submission of papers to this Special Issue in late 2022, we hoped to probe how scholars of Africa journalism are using research to shape new narratives about the direction of journalism in Africa. We mapped an ambitious agenda that sought to obtain new insight about many aspects of journalistic performance in Africa. This includes the emerging trends about press -State relations; journalistic performance and accountability; trust in journalism and journalists; audience engagement or disengagement with journalism; gender dynamics in journalistic production; and the impact of new digital media technologies on journalism.

The 9 papers published in the Journalism and Media open access journal of the special issue ‘Journalism in Africa: New Trends,’ that are re-issued in reprint edition represent a fair attempt at uncovering new scholarship on the topics we outlined. In our ‘Call for Papers.’ They may not have explored all the topics of interest. But they provide useful insights and advance the scholarship of the place of journalism and the use of creative expressions in the African context.

In reading the papers published in this Special Issue, we invite readers to use the insights gained as templates for new scholarship that may deepen our knowledge of the many faces of journalism in Africa.

The articles in this special issue could not have been published without the excellent reviews and careful vetting provided by our many peer reviewers who gave critical and thoughtful comments on the earlier drafts of the manuscripts published in here. We are grateful for their service in the peer review process. we also extend deep gratitude for the excellent assistance provided by the editorial office of Journalism and Media, for managing the peer review, manuscript preparation, and publication process. The fine scholarship in these pages would not have seen the light of day without their invaluable service.

As Special Issue Guest Editor, let me draw the attention of readers to the articles in this Special Issue. The robust attention the papers have received since their publication online, judging by the number of impressions each paper has gained, speak to the resonance of the scholarship to the wider community of scholars on Africa. Perhaps we can draw the attention of readers to some salient points about the scholarship in these published papers without undermining the excellent and insightful work of the authors of the articles. Not all who come across the Special Issue and its reprint may have the time or inclination to read all published articles. Consequently, we attempt to offer some insights in this introductory essay about the works contained in this publication. In doing so, the objective is not to undersell the excellent work of the authors in the published manuscripts. Rather, we hope this essay will whet the appetite of readers to engage more deeply with the individual articles. The published papers employ a broad suite of methods. This includes survey research, content analysis, historical research, focus groups, expert interviews, critical reviews, and discourse analysis. Furthermore, we are happy to see that the articles represent a good geographical spread with 3 of the papers about north Africa; 4 articles about west Africa and 1 each about west-central Africa and southern Africa.

Of the North Africa papers, 2 concern Egypt and 1 about Tunisia. The 2 papers on Egypt speak to related issues, using a mixed method approach of survey research, focus groups, and expert interviews to reveal important findings about audience engagement, selective attention to news, news avoidance, trust in media, and the implications of the emergent fragmented online digital information ecosphere for news consumption in an authoritarian or transitional political system like Egypt’s. In Dinana et al. (2025) ‘Trust pathways in digital journalism,’ the authors explore several factors contributing to declining trust in journalism and news media. By comparing news consumption patterns in western and non-western national Arabic news media and information channels, the study reveals a dynamic interplay of factors that lead to a more nuanced and complicated picture of how we might interpret what is happening to audience engagement or disengagement with news. Importantly, they show that strict State regulatory controls of the formal media sector compromise the trust Egyptians have in State narratives churned out by journalists working for State-aligned media. One consequence of this declining trust is the finding that Egyptian news audiences show more active selective attention behavior in the ways they consume news narratives. The robust online digital media landscape affords news audiences alternative sources of information in the fragmented media landscape.

Their study also shows what news selection and trust propensity look like in an environment where news audiences are aware of how State regulatory control of the media influences State narratives of political, economic, and cultural news. And how the absence of gatekeeping, algorithmic curation of news on social media, and trust propensity shape audience behavior in news consumption. For example, trust is high in western media platforms, and the content of journalists, and civic engagement. In the national sample, trust propensity and civic engagement are weaker but still positive.

In the related work by Taher and Ismail (2025) on ‘News avoidance and media trust…’ they show how news avoidance may be part of a complex adaptation behavior of news audiences to news overload of repetitive overbearing State narratives disseminated by rigidly controlled State media. Four broad findings are particularly relevant in this regard. First, news avoidance and selective attention are part of a complex adaptation behavior that do ensure news audiences are not overwhelmed and suffer cognitive dissonance from news overload in transitional authoritarian systems. Second, the low trust in State aligned media platforms and journalists is linked in important ways to the repetitive State narratives and the homogeneity of such narratives in State aligned media channels. This low trust is a major driver of the motivation of Egyptians to seek counter narratives from alternative sources on digital media and encrypted channels outside State control. This implies that news audiences are more likely to seek alternative narratives that fit with their objective realities when State-controlled narratives depart from the lived experiences of people. Selective attention, therefore, may be a more appropriate lens from which to view audience engagement with the news, and civic engagement or disengagement rather than wholesale news avoidance. Third, the study shows that important demographic, socio-technical, and cultural factors are crucial mediators in the ways Egyptians attend to, consume, and interpret news narratives. These mediating variables show that younger Egyptians may be more adept at navigating socio-technical constraints such as the impact of algorithmic news, news curation, misinformation, and disinformation. Similarly, the dynamics of family communication patterns cannot be ignored in getting a good sense of how news audiences in Egypt interpret news narratives. Fourth, the study provides empirical evidence to support our suspicion that the robust online digital media environment provides a platform for independent journalists and journalists that work for State-aligned media channels to creatively publish content outside the rigid control of authoritarian regimes. Because nationals are more invested in the public affairs of their countries, trust propensity for independent journalists who make their work available outside State controlled channels are more likely to engage news audiences when their narratives approximate the objective realities of citizens.

In ‘Political listening and podcasting: the case of Tunisia, Snoussi et al. (2024). The study highlights how online digital spaces, podcasting in this case, can be coopted by an elected leader who assumes authoritarian powers to shape the representation of political realities, thus marginalizing the voices of the political opposition. This is a content analysis study of political podcasting of Arabic news shows following Tunisian President Kais Saied’s dissolution of the legislature, assumption of full executive and legislative powers. The political maneuver was met with the outbreak of mass protests in support and opposition to the president. This work is particularly significant because Tunisia was the Ground Zero of the 2010/11 so-called Arab Spring revolution that toppled many autocrats in the middle east and promised a new era of democratization. For Tunisia, this meant multiparty elections that seated a new parliament. The new Legislature was dominated by Islamic oriented political groupings. The election also ushered in the installation of Saied. As President. Barely more than a decade on from this transition, worsening economic conditions, and the paralysis of the legislature in addressing pressing needs of the populace opened a window of vulnerability that President Saied exploited.

The study authors show how worsening political and economic conditions can be mined by opportunistic leaders with authoritarian tendencies and how they can court sizable support for their political agenda by getting the support of political podcasters with sizable audiences in the burgeoning digital media landscape. The processes observed in the Tunisian case have implications for comparative studies of political podcasting and civic engagement or disengagement with politics in both transitional and established democratic societies around the world. In the Tunisia case study, the authors document the many tactics employed by podcasters to cultivate audience engagement and both popularize and justify the president’s agenda. This includes the use and command of local Arabic and Tunisian dialects, tonality, humor, and other linguistic techniques.

If the Tunisia case study reveals how media content producers, including journalists can be coopted by the political agenda of authoritarian leaders, the Zimbabwe case study by Maodza (2025) on ‘The independent press and the fall of Robert Mugabe…’ shows that the analog press and their digital offerings are no less immune from manipulative tactics by powerful politicians who seek to use the press to achieve political ends. This study combines field interviews with framing analysis of political content published in 2 private Zimbabwe newspapers to uncover journalistic practices that expose the shortcomings of the political press in the coverage of the succession battle by politicians within the ruling political party, ZANU-PF, of Zimbabwe. The study of The Daily News and Newsday, 2 privately-owned newspapers show that journalistic norms and professionalism can be undermined by practice of corruption, low pay of journalists, competitive jealousies, and paranoia within newsrooms. This study confirms that absent strong institutional controls and oversight, micro factors such as personal characteristics, and the agenda setting influences of powerful politicians are far more insidious in shaping the reportage of the political press. These influences may be more important than the macro (political, regulatory, ownership factors), and meso (organizational routines, training, and newsroom socialization that press theory literature cites as major influences of press performance in developing countries.

The issue of press performance, journalistic norms, and the dangers of unbridled journalism in a multiethnic society where identity politics can destabilize a country is explored in the study on the Cameroon by Abondo Ndo (2024), in ‘Digital shifts and ethno-political dynamics: exploring actor -event designation in the coverage of the Boko Haram terrorism conflict….’ In this study, the author uses the methods of critical reviews, media sociology, discourse, and framing analysis to examine the production of both online digital and print newspaper content in the coverage of the Boko Haram terrorism conflict in Cameroon. Abondo grounds this study in Cameroon’s history, showing how the transformation of both politics and the media landscape over the last 40+ years shape the competing narratives observed in the Cameroonian press. Whereas Cameroon’s politics have been dominated by a single political party and the leadership of President Paul Biya despite attempts at political reforms, this study shows that the emergence of online digital journalism has made it difficult for ruling party and State narratives to dominate online digital spaces. In the absence of gatekeeping and strict regulatory controls of media content, the coverage of both online digital media and print sites are colored by identity politics.

Using the Boko Haram terrorism issue as a prism to understand how media narratives and public affairs commentators seek to influence opinion about the conflict, Abondo finds that discussions in the online space is far more robust, unrestrained, and likely to imbue ethno-political hatred. Unlike the online space, the study finds that print media coverage of the conflict is far more restrained and modulated, perhaps because state regulatory measures and the fear of sanctions ensure that journalists abide by standards that political authorities might find tolerable. For example, he finds that the choice of language that is deployed in the print press is often a means of political signaling that affirms loyalty to President Biya, the ruling party, and attack the political opposition. The coverage also tends to portray the political opposition of different ethnic groups as either terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. The counter narrative offered by citizen journalists in the online digital space is no less restrained, virulent, and fractious, thus heightening ethno-political tensions.

The study has some implications for press performance and journalistic production in multi-ethnic societies where unrestrained and unregulated media coverage of political and cultural conflicts can potentially lead to the unravelling of fragile politics. Are there alternatives for press freedom and journalistic practice short of outright press censorship? And is tightening citizen access to online digital media spaces an appropriate policy response to modulating the intensity of ethno-political tensions observed online?

If the Cameroon study exposes the dark side of the impact of journalistic production on politics, the paper by Tawiah (2025) offers a much brighter hope for using online digital media for citizen engagement with politics. In his study on ‘social media and campaign strategies, a case study of political issue framing by 2024 presidential candidates in Ghana,’ the author examines how the 2 major candidates in the presidential election deployed social media to hone their campaign strategies for citizen engagement in 3 core issue areas: education, economy, and jobs. The paper finds that platform specific affordances were crucial for citizen engagement and for more effective messaging that might have made a difference in the outcome of the election. The paper argues for campaign strategists to be more thoughtful and creative about how they deploy campaign messages for both audience engagement and persuasion. The findings are in line with other conclusions about the youth demographics and their reliance on social media and other online digital media spaces such as Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and encrypted messaging channels like WhatsApp.

Although the study is inconclusive about whether social media use for political campaigns lead to electoral success, the paper offers a template for future research in this direction.

One of the contradictions about studying the role of journalism and the new digital media in Africa is that we lack studies on the linkage between the use of indigenous languages and journalism, media content, audience attention to media fare, and the political environment. For example, it might be quite enlightening to replicate the type of study published in this special issue by Tawiah that examines social media campaign strategies for indigenous language messaging in digital and print media. This conundrum is underscored by the paper by Fosu (2024) on ‘Language choice and the problematics of ideology in the pre and post independent Ghanaian press.’ This is a historical research and meta-analysis of secondary literature to show that whereas the pre and post independent press were key platforms for mobilizing and rallying Ghanaians for nationalism and independence, the political elite that utilized these platforms belonged to a narrow socio-cultural class that was literate in the use of the English language. Fosu argues that this condition had built-in structural advantages for the emergence of a political and cultural elite that was literate in the command and use of the English language. The paper argues that the dominance of the English language press in the pre- and post-independence eras were nevertheless a limiting factor for the development of a local language, indigenous press. And because the use of the English language had a dominant and hegemonic relationship with elite access to power in the post independent State, the paper bemoans the missed opportunity of using a local language, indigenous press to broaden political participation and mobilize non-English speakers in the discourse of national development. Fosu reminds us that ‘If Ghanaians, and Africans for that matter, want their languages to develop, they must promote the use of their languages in their press and other social contexts.’ The observation is a crucial one given the debate in the development literature about the role of language in forging innovation and sustainable development.

The last 2 papers in this reprint are case studies on Nigeria. They concern journalistic practice in the use of a law on freedom of information to improve journalistic performance. And the other article provides insight into the use of artivism or creative expressions as forms of counter narratives to State propaganda, and resistance by demonstrators, most of them youths, against repressive and violent police tactics.

In the study of the ‘Knowledge and use of the Freedom of Information Act in Nigeria,’ Eze (2024) found that knowledge and use of the Freedom of Information Act, (FOIA), passed into law in 2011 was very high amongst Nigerian journalists. The study uses survey research to reveal that journalists with high knowledge are more likely to use the provisions of the law to obtain information about data, policies, and other issues that government officials may want to keep from public knowledge. Journalists with FOIA skills are also likely to use the provisions of the law to deepen their investigative reporting. Despite the law, however, government officials are usually obstinate in attempts to block release of information being sought by journalists.

The study also provides an important insight into how journalists in developing media systems can best utilize open access laws like the FOIA to improve press reportage. In the Nigeria case, the author notes that journalists and their professional associations were main actors in lobbying for passage of the freedom of information law. Once passed, Unions of journalists partnered with non -government civil liberty groups, to offer specialized training on the provisions of the legislation and teach journalists on using the law to improve their reporting, for democratic accountability.

Finally, in Afolabi and Gabriel (2025), ‘Soro Soka: A framing analysis of creative resistance during Nigeria’s “NSARS” Movement in 2020,’ the authors use framing and discourse analysis to show how art was deployed as forms of creative resistance to dismantle State narratives by youth-led protesters. The demonstrations were against the violent tactics of a special anti-robbery police squad that was accused of indiscriminate extra judicial killings. The squad was also implicated in many acts of unlawful detentions, as well as violent tactics against youths.

The study provides how different art forms such as paintings and visual art, songs, totemic imagery, dramatic sketches and skits were deployed in both physical spaces and online digital media to highlight grievances against the reviled police squad. The demonstrators also used their creative expressions to counter State propaganda that attempted to delegitimize the protesters.

The study is subsumed in the global social movements that have leveraged the affordances of digital media technologies to deploy creative forms of expressions to mobilize the street in protests against social injustice, oppose oppression and dramatize grievances against the State.

Other examples cited include the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement in the USA; the Umbrella Protesters in Hong Kong, (China); and the Polish Women’s protests. These cases illustrate the power of artivism as forms of creative expressions to amplify the voices of protesters, counter State narratives, publicize grievances, and draw global attention to social injustice. In these struggles, art becomes a platform for those who are excluded from elite privileges.

We hope this collection provides another layer to the cumulative scholarship on journalism in Africa, with eyes on the new trends of journalism that deserve further explorations.