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The South African media environment is undergoing a profound transformation. Media crises in recent decades have led to “an increasingly constrained business environment,” forcing outlets to rely on freelance journalists and short-term contracts to stay afloat, and leaving many journalists without stable employment. This shift has coincided with a massive migration in audience habits. As a mobile-first country, about seven in 10 (online, English-speaking) South Africans get their news from social media, especially on their smartphones.
Existing research on this trend, especially studies focused on Africa, is sparse. Our project addresses this gap by examining indie info providers in South Africa and exploring how they navigate the landscape, with the aim of supporting a future defined by a plurality of relevant and fact-based news sources.
How we collected our data
In partnership with Code for Africa, CNTI recruited 43 adults in South Africa, 42 of whom met the eligibility criteria to take a screening survey, and chose 18 for a 60- to 90-minute virtual interview. CNTI selected interviewees to represent a range of professional backgrounds. This report is based primarily on insights from the interviews, with data from the survey as a secondary source.
In interviews, we asked participants about their backgrounds and motivations, audience engagement, their relationships with other indie info providers and legacy news outlets, platforms and algorithms, revenue and business strategies, and their view of success and satisfaction with their own work.
We developed codes using a bottom-up and iterative approach. These methods provide richness and depth; however it’s not possible to generalize about the frequency of behaviors from these interactions, so we have limited our use of quantitative terms to our interviewees throughout this report.
CNTI research and professional staff prepared this report. This project was made possible by the financial support of the Lenfest Institute and a second anonymous donor.
Recruitment
Using Code for Africa’s network and additional snowball sampling, CNTI invited indie info providers to participate in a screening survey focusing on baseline information, such as background, audience size, revenue and platform choice. We used this information to determine eligibility for the interview.
Beyond ensuring that interviewees were focused on providing information (by reviewing their work), we took a maximum variation approach to several variables. We attempted to capture perspectives across a broad range of audience size and revenue amount.
A maximum variation sample is not intended to be representative and cannot speak to the frequency of behaviors or beliefs; instead, it speaks to breadth and variation. We are also aware of several additional limitations of our sample, likely due to the methods: while we offered interviewees their choice of South African languages, all interviewees were English-speaking and largely located in urban areas. Less visible or less prominent indie info providers may also have been unaware of the opportunity or less interested in participating.
The full recruitment questionnaire and topline demographics of our interviewees are available here.
Interview protocol
Our research protocol included six semi-structured modules:
- Background and motivations for their indie info provider project, including prior professional experience and time spent on content creation.
- Audience engagement, including relationships with the audience and audience characteristics.
- Relationships with journalism producers, including newsrooms and other indie info providers.
- Platforms and algorithms, such as which platforms they use and why, content tailoring and performance, and issues with deletion and shadowbanning.
- Revenue and business strategies, including business plans and revenue streams.
- Success and happiness, including overall satisfaction with their indie info provider journey and project.
Researcher positionality
The researchers who designed the protocols, collected the data and analyzed the data are based in the United States. In addition to a relatively high educational attainment, our team as a whole has a strong affinity for and knowledge of journalism. These attitudes may have colored our interactions with the interviewees. All questionnaires, protocols and findings were reviewed and adapted with the support of local partners.
Transcription process
Interviews were conducted with Google Meet, and Google Gemini produced a first transcript. Researchers reviewed each transcript for major errors before coding, and a researcher reviewed all quotations that appear in this report before publication. Each transcript was anonymized before it was imported into Dedoose qualitative analysis software.
Coding and follow-up analysis
The codes were developed with a bottom-up approach as themes emerged in the data. The CNTI team’s coding schema focused on the following nine categories:
Background
In this category, codes cover how creator journalists prepared for and entered the work, including the skills they needed, their professional backgrounds and how they set themselves up to succeed. We coded for their reasons for starting, whether they identify as journalists, how prior jobs shaped their readiness and how they acquired the skills they lacked.
Audience
Codes in this section examine the indie info providers’ relationships with their audience. We coded for how they think about trust and credibility, how well they can describe who their audience is, how they interact with them and how the broader information environment shapes their content and engagement choices.
Challenges
Codes in this category cover challenges the indie info providers face throughout their projects, including financial pressures, time constraints and mental health struggles.
Technology tools
The codes in this category cover what technology tools indie info providers use to make their work easier.
Professional relationships
Codes that fall under this category cover what relationships the indie info provider had with others in this space and with legacy media. This included employees or contributors they work with on their project.
Platforms
This category examines the relationship between indie info providers and the platforms they use. Codes covered audience data ownership, content tailoring across platforms, variations in content engagement and experiences with content deletion or shadowbanning.
Revenue and business strategies
In this category, codes cover the business elements of the indie info provider’s project. This includes their business plans, their revenue streams and if they were funded through other means, such as an unrelated job, savings or spousal income.
Success and happiness
Codes in this category focus on the creator’s reflections on the project, such as their level of happiness, how they define success, and changes or different strategies they would use if they were to start the project over again.
Bottom-up themes
After the initial analysis, we added one category. We were struck by how frequently participating indie info providers discussed the lasting impact of apartheid.
After all documents were coded, we reviewed all excerpts with the same code to inductively identify further themes and patterns within each larger category.
How we protected the research data
All identifying information (including consent forms and video recordings of interviews) were saved on a password-protected, encrypted cloud drive that is only authorized to the core research team at CNTI. All interviews were conducted using our team’s video conferencing software. Google Gemini was used to create first-draft transcripts; our team uses a workspace account that does not share data or use it for training purposes. Interviewees could opt out of automated transcription, although none did.
Moreover, transcripts and screenshots were anonymized to the extent possible before export for analysis in Dedoose. Information like names and specific locations were redacted, as were photos of individual faces. We present demographic information only in the aggregate (see topline) to prevent anyone from identifying individuals who requested their participation in this project remain anonymous. All individuals acknowledged in this report gave express consent to be acknowledged.
Ethical review
Research plans were reviewed and approved by TERC Institutional Review Board.
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