{"title":"What is News? A Young Peoples’ Perspective in Kenya","authors":"E. Tallam","doi":"10.1080/23743670.2021.2011760","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\n This study investigates emerging news consumption patterns among a contingent of young people drawn from two public universities in Kenya. Guided by the relatively new concept of scalable sociality and emerging third wave of non-normative audience studies in sub-Saharan Africa, this study maps emerging news exposure avenues among young people in Kenya. Through a mixed approach, it specifically explores how young people access and consume news through internet-enabled mobile devices. It also probes how young people define news and draws a nexus between the rise of news technologies, particularly mobile phones and the shifting definition(s) of news. Findings support the conclusion that internet-enabled mobile devices continue to cause unprecedented disruption in Kenya. This has profoundly altered the understanding of news. News was mainly understood as a node that connects young people to themselves and to the social world. However, the ambivalence evident in young people’s conceptualization of news is reflective of the dynamic society within which the internet and mobile devices are critical catalysts in accessing and consuming news. News consumption thus becomes a complex, multilayered process enmeshed in a web of technical and social networks online and offline.","PeriodicalId":54049,"journal":{"name":"African Journalism Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"65 - 81"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"African Journalism Studies","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23743670.2021.2011760","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT
This study investigates emerging news consumption patterns among a contingent of young people drawn from two public universities in Kenya. Guided by the relatively new concept of scalable sociality and emerging third wave of non-normative audience studies in sub-Saharan Africa, this study maps emerging news exposure avenues among young people in Kenya. Through a mixed approach, it specifically explores how young people access and consume news through internet-enabled mobile devices. It also probes how young people define news and draws a nexus between the rise of news technologies, particularly mobile phones and the shifting definition(s) of news. Findings support the conclusion that internet-enabled mobile devices continue to cause unprecedented disruption in Kenya. This has profoundly altered the understanding of news. News was mainly understood as a node that connects young people to themselves and to the social world. However, the ambivalence evident in young people’s conceptualization of news is reflective of the dynamic society within which the internet and mobile devices are critical catalysts in accessing and consuming news. News consumption thus becomes a complex, multilayered process enmeshed in a web of technical and social networks online and offline.
期刊介绍:
Accredited by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training for university research purposes African Journalism Studies subscribes to the Code of Best Practice for Peer Reviewed Scholarly Journals of the Academy of Science of South Africa. African Journalism Studies ( AJS) aims to contribute to the ongoing extension of the theories, methodologies and empirical data to under-researched areas of knowledge production, through its emphasis on African journalism studies within a broader, comparative perspective of the Global South. AJS strives for theoretical diversity and methodological inclusivity, by developing theoretical approaches and making critical interventions in global scholarly debates. The journal''s comparative and interdisciplinary approach is informed by the related fields of cultural and media studies, communication studies, African studies, politics, and sociology. The field of journalism studies is understood broadly, as including the practices, norms, value systems, frameworks of representation, audiences, platforms, industries, theories and power relations that relate to the production, consumption and study of journalism. A wide definition of journalism is used, which extends beyond news and current affairs to include digital and social media, documentary film and narrative non-fiction.