Who's who

BA, BA(Hons), MA, PhD

Dr Mabweazara joined University College Falmouth from Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland where he completed his Doctoral Studies in Journalism with a study of the new media and mainstream journalism practice in Africa. Prior to coming to the UK he taught Journalism and Media Studies in Zimbabwe at the National University of Science and Technology and at the Zimbabwe Open University.

The principal focus of his research interests lie in the field of the new digital media and journalism practice in Africa and the wider global South. He has studied how broader social circumstances (and immediate conditions of practice) set conditions for distinctive forms of new digital technology use, as well as how new digital technologies impact on traditional journalistic standards, values, and practices. Dr Mabweazara has recently been awarded a competitive research grant by The Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation to carry out a cross-cultural examination of newsmaking practices in Scottish and Zimbabwean newsrooms with respect to how journalists in the two countries use new information and communication technologies (ICTs). He is also currently co-editing (with Professor Chris Atton) a special issue of Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism on New Media and Journalism Practice in Africa.

His other research interests focus on the reception of media texts across cultures. He is currently studying the reception of digital ‘pirate' radio and its role in the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe with the support of a research grant awarded by the Centre for Media and Transitional Societies (CMTS) at Carleton University, Canada in collaboration with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

Dr Mabweazara is a member of the Southern African Communication Association (SACCOM); the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) as well as the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA).

Recent publications and conference papers

Book chapters

• (Forthcoming, 2011) Zimbabwe's Mainstream Press in the ‘Online Age': Trends, Practices and Emerging Cultures. In Domingo, D. & Paterson, C. (Eds.) Making Online News: Newsroom Ethnography in the Second Decade of Internet Journalism. New York: Peter Lang. (2nd edition)
• (Forthcoming, 2011) ‘Wiring' African Newsrooms: The Internet and Mainstream Print Journalism Practice in Zimbabwe. In Wachanga, D. D. (Ed.) Cultural Identity and New Communication Technologies: Political, Ethnic and Ideological Implications. Pennsylvania: IGI Global.
• (2010) ‘New' Technologies and Journalism Practice in Africa: Towards a Critical Sociological Approach. In Hyde-Clarke, N (Ed.) The Citizen in Communication: Re-visiting Traditional, New and Community Media Practices in South Africa, Capetown: Juta & Co. pp.11-30.
• (2005) Revisiting Journalism's Self Understanding of its Social Practice in Zimbabwe: Some Critical Reflections for African Journalism. In Conradie, D.P, Fourie, W. E, Wasserman, H. & Muir, C. Communication Science in South Africa: Contemporary Issues: Proceedings of the 2005 Annual Conference of the South African Communication Association. Cape Town: Juta. pp. 24-35.
• (2005) Chapter on Zimbabwe. In Berger, G. Doing Digital Journalism: How Southern African news gatherers are using ICTs. High Way Africa: Grahamstown. pp. 91-106.

Journal articles

• (2011) Newsmaking Practices and Professionalism in the Zimbabwean Press. Journalism Practice, 5 (1), pp. 100-117.
• (Forthcoming, 2011) Between the Newsroom and the Pub: The Mobile Phone in the Dynamics of Everyday Mainstream Journalism Practice in Zimbabwe. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 12 (3)
• (Forthcoming, 2011) When your ‘take-home' can hardly take you home: Moonlighting and the Quest for Economic Survival in the Zimbabwean Press. African Communication Review, 3/2010.
• (2010) Researching the Use of New Technologies (ICTs) in Zimbabwean Newsrooms: An Ethnographic Approach. Qualitative Research, 10 (6), pp.569-677.
• (2009) Investigating the Popularity of the Zimbabwean Tabloid Newspaper, uMthunywa: A Reception Study of Bulawayo Readers. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 30 (2), pp. 113-133. (co-authored with Prof Larry Strelitz).
• (2009) Regional Identity and the Politics of Belonging in the Consumption of Zimbabwe's Vernacular Tabloid Newspaper, uMthunywa in Bulawayo. Journal of African Media Studies (JAMS) 1 (3), pp. 449-460.

Book reviews, reports and shorter articles

• (2010) Review of Making Online News: The Ethnography of New Media Production. Paterson, C. & Domingo, D. New York: Peter Lang. 2008. pp. 236. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 31 (1), pp.125-127.
• (2008) Creative Futures: Building the Creative Economy through Universities. Project Report. Million+: London (co-authored with Prof Chris Atton; Prof McCleery & Simon Ward).
• (2007) ‘It's Our Paper': The Bulawayo Tabloid uMthunywa. Rhodes Journalism Review, (27): pp. 54-55.
• (2005) Taking the Gap: The Tabloid Press in Zimbabwe. Rhodes Journalism Review. (25): pp. 32.

Conference papers

• Emerging ‘Counter-Hegemonic' Newsmaking Practices in Zimbabwe's Mainstream Press: Assessing the Impact of the Mobile Phone, Presented at the ‘ICT: Africa's Revolutionary Tools for the 21st Century?', Centre for African Studies, University of Edinburgh, 4-5 May 2010.
• Between the Newsroom and The Pub': The Mobile Phone and Mainstream Journalism Practice in Zimbabwe, Presented at the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) Conference, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics, 6-8 January 2010.
• Examining the ‘Shifting' Epistemological Imperatives of Mainstream Journalism Practice in Zimbabwe, Presented at the World Journalism Education Congress Africa-Regional Preparatory Colloquium, School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University, 9 September 2009.
• Ethnography as Negotiated Lived Experience: Understanding the Deployment of New Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by Zimbabwean Journalists ‘from the inside,' Presented at the Living Cultures: Contemporary Ethnographies of Culture Conference, Institute of Communications Studies (ICS), University of Leeds, 30-31 March 2009.
• Primary Research: Learning from Experience, Presented at the Creative Cultures: A Research Symposium, School of Arts and Creative Industries, Edinburgh Napier University, 5 March 2009.
• Transcending the Global Digital Divide? Investigating the Uses of New Information and Communication Technologies by Zimbabwean Journalists, Presented at the Southern African Communication Association (SACOMM) Conference, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa, September 2008.
• Theorising Newswork: Framing a Methodology for Understanding how Journalists use ‘New' ICTs in Zimbabwe, Presented at the Postgraduate Research Conference, Edinburgh Napier University, May 2007.