UNIVERSITY of Cape Town professor Wallace Chuma yesterday said a study he conducted showed that journalists were unable to work to their full capacity during the transition to the new dispensation led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.<\/p>\n
Speaking during the launch of the report Mediating the \u201cMilitary-assisted\u201d Transition in Zimbabwe: Journalists and Civil Society in Harare, Chuma said he carried out interviews with 25 journalists, most of whom were of the view that the new dispensation was a continuation of the previous regime of Robert Mugabe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn interviews, journalists were invited to reflect on their experiences of the post-Mugabe dispensation from a professional standpoint. The overwhelming majority felt that the new dispensation was largely a continuation of the previous regime and others felt that it was a worse version of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chuma said during the transition, most journalists were working in a restricted environment, which infringed on their profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found that journalists were operating in a very vulnerable and restricted environment, where the flow of information was carefully curated and controlled and also many journalists
\nwere embedded in Zanu PF factions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The report also showed that social media platform, Twitter, had provided Zimbabweans, locally and abroad, with a platform to express their views freely.<\/p>\n
\u201cA finding from the Twitter analysis was that the social media platform, Twitter, provided a space for citizens in Zimbabwe and outside Zimbabwe to vent their sentiments\/emotions of endorsement, encouragement and discouragement, pertaining to the ousting of Robert Mugabe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Takura Zhangazha, a civil society activist, said it was important to look into how Twitter aided the new dispensation and whether or not it was used as a manipulation tool during the
\ntransition period.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important to start analysing the impact social media has on the citizens of Zimbabwe. We need to understand how social media can undermine or expand a situation. As seen during the transition into the new dispensation, social media became a tool that possibly confirmed a pre-determined bias, therefore, it becomes a manipulative tool,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNIVERSITY of Cape Town professor Wallace Chuma yesterday said a study he conducted showed that journalists were unable to work to their full capacity during the transition to the new dispensation led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Speaking during the launch of the report Mediating the \u201cMilitary-assisted\u201d Transition in Zimbabwe: Journalists and Civil Society in Harare, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":8315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[38,610,553,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-8308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-policy","9":"tag-zanu-pf","10":"tag-analysis","11":"tag-journalist","12":"tag-parties"},"yoast_head":"\n