By Arthur Chatora
I read with much interest the coverage of President Robert Mugabe’s visit to Zambia to attend the inauguration of President Edgar Lungu as our northern neighbour’s sixth Head of State. Much attention was raised by the “Mugabe must go” demonstration by a number of Zambians, in which they staged a demonstration at the Radisson Blu Hotel. Following this protest, news reports in Zimbabwe unsurprisingly framed the protest either as a non-event or as a newsworthy occurrence which deserved full media attention, depending of course on the political and editorial convictions of the respective publications.
The private and international media ran with the protest story with some publications arguing the demonstration was an embarrassment to Mugabe, which could possibly dent the image of the statesman. While the protest received much coverage in the private media, it unsurprisingly raised the ire of state media, which simply dismissed the event as a Zambian opposition demo by a “handful of people”. In an attempt to disparage the protest, the editorial which appeared in The Herald attacked the protest as a “display of madness by Zambians own lunatic fringe”.
The editorial went on to criticise a correspondent with Al Jazeera, Haru Mutasa (albeit not by name) for retweeting a link to the “Mugabe must go” demonstration. Mutasa also tweeted “#zambiadecides a small group of people are protesting un [sic] #lusaka. They don’t want Zimbabwe president here. They saying [sic] Mugabe must go’”. What particularly struck me was not the dichotomy of coverage between state media (The Herald) and the private media or the attack on the Al Jazeera correspondent, notwithstanding the importance of both the coverage and the criticism.
Of particular interest to me was the rather unfortunate and sweeping remarks made in The Herald editorial lambasting social media audiences who could potentially be the publication’s own readers. The remarks read the “charade…was picked by…the ubiquitous lunatic fringe that litter social media”. The remark shows a lack of an informed understanding of social media audiences, framing them as a “ubiquitous” group, without acknowledging the nuances which define how audiences understand, interpret and make meaning of news and texts.
If one is to do a thorough discourse analysis on the subject (which I am not attempting to do here), they surely would come up with interesting findings. The underlying attitude, feeling of disdain and language used in the editorial, disparaging terms such as “lunatic” undoubtedly speak to contempt of social media users who take an oppositional reading to news. Reference to social media users as a “lunatic fringe” signals at attempt to “other” and trivialise the contributions of social media users. Fringe in this instance could be understood to mean the voices which permeate social media platforms are seen as peripheral and rubbish which should not to be taken seriously as they do not reflect the preferred or mainstream discourse. This is a rather reductionistic view of social media publics, seeing them as the enclave for the “fringe lunatics”.
While the remark might not necessarily reflect the publication’s stance on social media, nor have a reflection on its social media policy, it at least gives insight into how some individuals in the state media remain deeply suspicious of, if not averse to social media users. It also reflects a worrying intolerance to difference in opinion especially on political issues and political contestations which are the makings of a healthy democracy.
The use of inflammatory language attacking social media users is surprising especially considering that user comments on The Herald website hardly reflect a passive and monolithic audience. On the contrary, the comments section reflects the diverse opinions which characterise society, with negotiated, critical and oppositional reading of their online content. This is not any different from social media users who also employ the same strategies when reading news. It begs the question, why then are social media audiences being viciously attacked for engaging with the “Mugabe must go” narrative? Does it signal an attempt to silence “subaltern counter-publics” which allow social media audiences to construct counter discourses and form alternative interpretations of news?
News is meant to inform, but beyond that is the process of meaning making, a complex and open ended one where readers negotiate and make sense of news. Indeed, readers will have their own interpretation of texts which might not necessarily be in agreement with the writer/journalist or publisher. The measure of a publication’s professionalism is respecting its audience or readers despite how the public interpret or engage with content. If anything, social media platforms proffer a plethora of opportunities for interaction and reconfigures the classical sender-receiver model that allows a multi faceted interactive process of engaging with news.
Interestingly, prior to this editorial criticism of social media users, The Herald had made commendable strides towards actively engaging and improving the relationship with its online audiences. The interaction culminated in The Herald website reframing an opinion poll which Twitter users complained was “highly problematic” and campaigned against. The poll read, “Does wearing a miniskirt make a woman a prostitute?: Yes, No, Whatever, miniskirts are obscene. Following a flurry of Tweets between concerned users and The Herald online team member, the poll was reframed to a more acceptable, “Do you approve of miniskirts: No, Yes, I don’t care-its none of my business, taking into account the Twitter users’ suggestions.
The reframing of the opinion poll shows the impact of social media audiences on the production of news considering the poll was “@deltandou meant to inform a feature article on prevailing attitudes around mini-skirts”. This fundamentally shows the transformation of the two-step classical sender-receiver model and challenges the assertion that social media is littered with a fringe lunatic but rather these audiences form part of an important cog in the communication process.
The value of social media as Habermasian sites for robust debate cannot be understated. This value should inform editorial rethinking which acknowledge the role of critical audiences. What informs the Habermasian public sphere concept is an “active and informed citizenry engaged in critical-rational debate”. This intrinsic interactive nature of social media allows divergent critical debates to flourish, a fundamental principle of a democratic society.
