A nivel regional.

journalism are conducted and theories re-assessed in view of the dynamic nature of new media technologies and how they are adopted and appropriated in non-Western contexts.

Following the initial literature review, several micro-concepts have been identified in relation to how new digital technologies are shaping journalists professional norms and which also hold the possibility of influencing intention and actual use of these technologies. These micro-concepts are in relation to media convergence and its associated blurriness of boundaries, technology fluidity, functionally similar technologies/technological cluster, media logic and modes of ownership power. Embedding these important concepts into the framework of study would assist in this chapter to, (1) explicate the dynamism of the integrated framework of technology adoption (see Figure 2.4), and (2), extrapolate the concepts to the African/Nigerian (broadcast) journalists’ technology adoption scenarios. Ultimately, the approach in this chapter affords a proper comprehension of technological attributes, individual characteristics, social influence, organisational and system factors that shape broadcast journalists’ behavioural intention and actual use of new media technologies in a non-western context.

3.2 Towards New Theoretical Ground in Digital Technologies Adoption and (African) Journalism

The proliferation of new digital technologies has heralded discourses about the changing media landscape occasioned by adoption and use of new digital technologies. The impacts of these digital technologies on the speed at which information disseminates have created a shift in the balance of power and blurring of boundaries between journalists and “the people formerly known as the audience” (Rosen, 2006). Not only has the disruptive nature of new digital technologies on journalism in general, and African journalism to be specific, brought about epistemological rethinking, it has also spurred a new call for theoretical reconsideration of communication theories and frameworks of research. Chaffe and Metzger (2001), for instance notes, that the meaning of “mass communication” has come under criticism as new communication technologies have blurred communication boundaries. Atkin et al. (2015, p. 633) echo Rogers and Chaffe’s (1993) prediction that the study of new media technology will require new paradigms to study the media, that “Scholars are going to have to shift toward models that accommodate the interactivity of most new communication technologies.”

A number of research from Western perspective have responded to the shifting epistemological ground consequent on the impacts of new digital technologies on journalism.

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For instance, some researchers have explored how the rise of the Internet has ushered in a melding of mass and interpersonal channels (e.g. Caplan, Perse, & Gennaria, 2007; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000). New theoretical orientations have emerged to predict changing communication and adoption behaviour occasioned by new digital technologies (e.g. Lin, 2003; Atkin et al. 2015).

From the African perspective, a growing body of research has also reported how new information and communication technologies have influenced cultural norms and practices of African journalists (e.g. Atton & Mabweazara, 2011; Berger, 2005; Nyamnjoh, 2005; Mabweazara, 2010; Mabweazara, Mudhai & Whittaker, 2014; Obijiofor, 2015; Paterson, 2013). The initial scholarly conjectures had been that as a result of “digital divide,” that is, the uneven access to information and technological resources between the developed North and poor South, African journalists are “in deficit as regards the emerging global information order” (Berger, 2005, p. 1). Although there is dire need for catch-up in Africa in terms of technological innovations, this, however, does not portray a picture of backwardness but of setbacks associated with the realities of “access” to digital technologies and the complexities and contradictions connected to the “localised” diffusion and permeation of these technological innovations in African newsrooms (Mabweazara, 2015, p. 3).

The last two decades have revealed the cataclysmic impact of new digital technologies on the practice of journalism on the continent. There are clear indications of functioning new technological facilities and dimensions of internal newsroom creative adaptations to the digital era. This scenario is readily observable via the upsurge in the number of published articles devoted to “digital technologies and the evolving African newsroom” (Mabewazara, 2015a) as well as the availability of a slew of peer-reviewed academic journals published as special issues on new digital technologies adoption in Africa.

While efforts at evaluating the changes ushered in by the influence of new digital technologies on African journalism are “evolving”, researchers are somewhat in a state of epistemological dilemma, not knowing whether to dump the Afrocentric and “deterministic” approaches to the study of African journalism or break a new theoretical ground in the digital media environment. Mabweazara, (2015b, p. 107) notes that there were “calls by a number of African media academics to reject Western theoretical paradigms and concepts by foregrounding ‘home-grown’ approaches derived from African cultural belief systems and experiences” (Ngomba, 2012; Tomaselli, 2003). Mabweazara (2015b), however, warned that such “ethnocentric stances are not always necessarily valuable.” “De-Westernising” African journalism studies just because of “patently germane features of African cultural experiences

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that have implications for the practice of journalism” Mabweazara (2015b) is to calve out an epistemological island where African cultural experiences are extricated from the universal body of knowledge. It is an attempt to “reify” and “essentialise” African experiences by blindly locking ourselves in the specificities of local as to lose sight of essential insights from outside intellectual traditions and experiences (Mabweazara, 2015b, p. 107). Such radical approaches, Mabweazara (2015b) submits, fail to reckon with the fact that journalism is an institutional practice with history rooted in Western scholarship. According to de Beer (2010, p. 213), West is where international paradigms and research trends are set. It is where African journalists seek examples of “best practices”, training and education. This “knowledge colonialism” have defining implications for journalism theory and research” (de Beer, 2010, p. 213).

Thus, while Africa has its own unique experience of digital technologies, there is no denying the fact that it has borrowed extensively the bulk of its institutionalised communication practices, including journalism, from the West. Therefore, in deploying established Western theoretical insights, as this research contends, it is important to critically situate, adapt and possibly modify the theories of interest to suit African realities. The big questions to ask would be that: what exactly are African realities? Should we study African digital technologies use behaviour differently? I move on to explore the literature in order to find answers to these questions.

African realities, for what they are, can be seen in the ways African journalists operate under the unique influences of social, political and economic forces. Some of these influences are “universal” to the African contexts, while a number of them are uniquely country-specific. For instance, Paterson (2014, p.259), notes that African journalists operate in multifaceted conditions “where news production is sometimes strikingly similar to what might be seen in any global news hub … and, conversely, sometimes distant from Northern norms in terms of its goals and methods.” African journalists deploy the Internet to access international newsrooms and roles as foreign correspondents. But locally, they function in conditions starkly differing from those in the West. African journalists work with fewer resources which they usually procured by themselves. African journalists share technological resources as personal as the mobile phones, and connectivity for one is usually connectivity for all. Apart from these, African journalists are badly remunerated and rarely incentivised. They contend with job instability; legal and regulatory challenges; complex political contexts; and poor telecommunications infrastructure, all of which coalesce to shape and constrain their adoption and appropriation of new digital technologies (Kperogi, 2012; Obijiofor & Hanusch, 2011).

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In order to adequately capture these unique nuances and defining characteristics, Mabweazara (2015b, p. 108) strongly suggests that African journalism research should “emphasise sensitivity to context – using established Western theories with close attention to the uniqueness of the conditions in which African journalists operate.” Given this background, this study presents a conceptual framework that reflects the realities of new technologies adoption in an African context. The framework departs from “hard” technological determinism (Mabweazara, 2010) which underlies several extant theories on technology adoption. Technological determinists argue that particular technical developments, communication technologies or media are the sole or prime causes of changes in society (Flew, 2002; Lievrouw, 2002). The current framework draws on social constructivist approaches to technology and the sociology of journalism, including an array of theoretical insights from Western media scholarship.

3.3 Exploring Social Constructivists and Sociology of Journalism in Digital