Constitutional Law

New Citizen Journalism Newsroom Launched in South Africa

By Harry Dugmore

During the massive Highway Africa conference, two Knight Foundation funded projects, the Iindaba Ziyafika ('the news is coming') Citizen Journalism newsroom and the Nika content management system, were launched.

The Iindaba Ziyafika newsroom has 10 computers and the ability to download photos and content from any cellphone (both wirelessly and through the most amazing collection of cables!). This means anyone can walk in, write a story, download a photo and get it published on the Grocott's website, or in the twice weekly print edition of Grocott's Mail.

You can watch this great SoundSlide show which captures the vibe and importance of the launch. Even the local mayor attended and cut a ribbon!

The newsroom is being used to provide ordinary South Africans with computer, cellphone and journalism skills. About 2,000 people will be trained over three years, and a third group of 40 teenagers from a local school have just completed a six-module, 10-hour course. For many of these students, this was their first time on a computer. Being able to send an SMS story (almost everyone has a cellphone) and see it show up on a website was an amazing experience.

First time on a computer, first email address

Most of these initial learners have had no prior access to computers or even email, and opening up their first email account and getting an email address was a big deal for them. If you can remember the thrill of sending your first email -- do you remember? -- you'll probably recall that something in your head told to you 'this is important and cool.' That's exactly what happened for the young people who completed the first course. They were thrilled to have a Gmail account and to be able to use it!

Check out this little video that some journalism students at Rhodes made about this first group of young citizen journalists. It's amazing to see how such a short course can open up so many possibilities.

Many of these students will be working on creating school newsletters and a school yearbook or annual magazine. All the well-resourced schools in Grahamstown produce these items, but none of the poorer schools can afford them. We're also hoping to receive more photos from their cellphones as well as stories and story tips. We are working on creating a new half-hour weekly show on community radio, "What's Up Grahamstown," that will launch next year and be filled entirely with citizen journalism content.

The Nika content management system

The launch of Nika content management system was also very successful. We have an online version of this very powerful CMS, which is build on Drupal. Nika is a citizen journalism platform that incorporates SMS and other forms of mobile messaging. In order to explain what it does, below I have included the text of the invite we sent out to all the attendees at Highway Africa. It covers all of Nika's new features and explains a bit about our decision to launch first with an online version and only supply the stand-alone LAMP based system to newspapers who want it later on. The text:

FOR DELEGATES WHO WORK ON NEWSPAPERS, OR ARE INVOLVED IN MEDIA DEVELOPMENT

At this year's Highway Africa conference we will be running two workshops on Nika where we will demonstrate how to use the system. Each workshop participant will be given a CD containing the installation software for the online version, as well as a user manual and installation guide. The costs for this are being met by our funder, and the software and documentation will be made available under a Creative Commons licence.

I'll blog more about Nika soon, but we've received a lot of great feedback, and we're looking forward to helping South African and African community newspapers get going with this powerful CMS.

Full post as published by MediaShift Idea Lab on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).