ABSTRACT
The growth of online mass media in Malawi is closely linked to the political, economic, cultural and technological factors that exist in the country. The relationship between politics and the media define the limits and opportunities for the practice of online journalism. What may be called online journalism emerged at the same time as Malawi was redefining the role of the media in politics from that of political cheerleaders in the authoritarian single party political regime to that of watchdog in a neo-authoritarian multi-party political regime; the normative role of online journalism in Malawi is inclined more towards the watchdog role of journalism than praise-singing (Chikunkhuzeni 2011).
Simultaneously, the nature of technological infrastructure available to journalists and users at large constrained and facilitated the nature of transition from traditional media journalism to online journalism. While advances in technology played a crucial role, it is important to realise that technologies on their own do not change practice. Journalism culture also played a role in determining the levels of change made possible by availability of new forms of technology. The development of online journalism can be traced back to the 1980s when digital technologies started appearing in the country. The proto-online media took the form of electronic mail stories mainly from international news agencies, for example, Africa Information Afrique in Harare. News sent by telephone or cables was digitised and distributed via email to subscribers. Online mass media in Malawi emerged at the time of major political change and was viewed as an alternative to the mainstream media. Today there are stand-alone online publications, broadcasting stations and newspaper companies that have online presence.
While there is a wealth of information on the relationship between the mass media and internet technologies generally (e.g. Alves and Weiss 2004; Carvajal 2008; Deuze 2001, 2004; Domingo and Paterson 2008; Thurman and Hermida 2011), studies on online mass media in Malawi are still not common. Nonetheless, there is some extant literature on the subject focused on Malawi. These include Kaonga’s (2008) analysis of ways in which radio journalists use the internet as a tool for journalism practice, Kamanga’s (2009) comparative analysis of the roles of online and print journalism for fostering and upholding ideals of democracy and Chikunkhuzeni’s (2011) study of challenges and prospects for online media. However, none of these studies paid any particular attention to the existence of an African language online mass media in the country. When they talk about mass media, the question of what language is used does not arise because the assumption being made is that its medium is English. The present study seeks to establish the existence of an online African language mass media in Malawi. It explores a number of questions; for example, does Malawi have an African language online media? If so, how did it emerge? Who practises it and how it is practised? How different is it from traditional media? What are the prevailing challenges? And finally what are its future prospects?
