Social Media and Community Radio Journalism in South Africa

Digital Gumshoes

“…Avery, Lariscy, and Sweetser (2010, 201) posit that journalists of all stripes turn to social media for "inspiration, assistance, and information in doing their jobs." Journalists often use social media to interact with the public, generate story ideas, and to assist in story production (Arceneaux and Weiss 2010;Bosch 2014;Broersma and Graham 2013;González de Bustamante and Relly 2014;Mare 2014;McClure and Middleberg 2009;Schultz and Sheffer 2012;Sheffer and Schultz 2010;Van Leuven, Deprez, and Raeymaeckers 2014). Tanya says engaging with other individuals and organizations via social media enables journalists to find and strengthen professional connections, to crowdsource ideas, and to gauge impact.…”

“…Ninety percent of journalists surveyed by McClure and Middleberg (2009) believed that new media technologies were enhancing journalism, although Gulyas (2013) found that European journalists were mostly ambivalent about whether social media improved their credibility. In recent studies of print and broadcast news outlets in the United States and across the world, Mare (2014), Bosch (2014), González de Bustamante and Relly (2014), Parmelee (2014), and Broersma and Graham (2013), among others, have shown that social media have become a crucial part of the newsgathering process.…”

“…Some similar social media newsgathering methods have been described as a form of agenda building (Bosch 2014;Jacobson 2013;Johnson 2009;Sheffer and Schultz 2010), a process in which sources send "information subsidies" to journalists to influence news coverage (Parmelee 2013, 293). Information subsidies sent through social media to investigative reporters, such as news tips or eyewitness accounts, certainly have the capacity to influence a television station's news agenda.…”

Assessing the Social Media Maturity of a Community Radio Station: The Case of Rhodes Music Radio in South Africa

“…For example, Rooke and Odame (2013) found that community radio hosts in Canada were using blogs primarily to generate a larger audience base and to interact and connect with listeners. In community radio in South Africa, there has been an increasing but uneven use of social network sites, and even a negative correlation between the number of listeners and the number of followers on social media (Bosch, 2014). This anomaly is partly explained by the economic inequalities of South African society, with some of the larger radio stations targeting poorer communities that are unable to afford internet connectivity (Bosch, 2014).…”

“…In community radio in South Africa, there has been an increasing but uneven use of social network sites, and even a negative correlation between the number of listeners and the number of followers on social media (Bosch, 2014). This anomaly is partly explained by the economic inequalities of South African society, with some of the larger radio stations targeting poorer communities that are unable to afford internet connectivity (Bosch, 2014). Nevertheless, social media provides an added dimension to the relationship that a radio station has with its local community, as it represents an additional tool with which to build these relationships through the two-way communication that it enables.…”