Historical context

The impact of historic and persistent forces of marginalization in the South African media environment came up repeatedly in interviews. South Africa’s media industry remains deeply influenced by the legacies of colonization and apartheid. These historical injustices impact current coverage gaps, reinforce negative stereotypes and reflect imbalances in social power between segments of society. Further, some Africans have raised concerns that the reliance of African news outlets on Western news agencies and the influence of Chinese and Russian media outlets can overshadow local accounts. In response to these concerns, many of the South African indie info providers aim to provide nuanced and localized storytelling. 

For South African indie info providers, social privilege and power shape how stories are told and who is seen as entitled to tell them.

For many interviewees, their social identities and the larger geopolitical context are inherently linked to their work. For example, one person was quick to situate themself as “a white European male working in southern Africa, most of the time working with communities that historically are marginalized,” where people are skeptical due to “a several-hundred-year tradition of people like me coming in, taking what they want and leaving.” In this vein, several interviewees spoke openly about the history of apartheid and its legacy of racism and social segregation. In their view, these conditions continue to impact both individual careers and the larger information environment.

Many interviewees also reject the notion that “objectivity” is possible to attain, or even valuable to strive for. As one trained journalist reflected, “No journalism is completely neutral or independent or objective. Everyone has a slant. It’s about being honest about what your slant is.” For example, choosing whether to use the word “genocide” to describe conditions in Gaza or whether business journalism should be reflexively pro-capitalist reflects the journalists’ stances and identity. Another interviewee with a journalism background linked their unease about this notion to South Africa’s place in the world, saying, “One of my issues with the way journalism is traditionally done is these established ethics that we work under. As an African woman, they’ve never felt instinctively correct — the ways that we appeal to authority, which is usually Western authority and things like that.” The interviewees’ acknowledgment that objectivity is impossible is consistent with the framing of South Africa’s Press Council.

South African indie info providers see themselves as decolonizing local media by promoting positive perspectives over negative Western narratives.

It was fairly common for interviewees to position themselves in contrast to mainstream media, which they described as “negative” and “alarmist.” The larger media environment feels like “the same people complaining about the same stuff” who “never talk about things that are motivating and encouraging civilians or citizens in a good way.” One interviewee even said that South African journalism “often tarnishes the reputation of the country.” In response to this overall trend, these indie info providers see themselves as filling an important gap by providing “a solutions mindset” and the ability to report on positive developments that might give their audience hope. 

Several interviewees discussed fighting these pervasive negative narratives in South African media with their content. One interviewee said their indie info projects “[try] to present a kind of more positive story, but one that’s not a feel-good story. It’s one that’s factually based.” Another interviewee, whose project focuses on the fashion industry, said, “I think one of the big problems of African fashion, as an ecosystem, we tend to talk about ourselves like a charity, especially in South Africa, and not like a business.” They want the content in their newsletter to move beyond the creative — even negative — focus typically found in fashion coverage to be more actionable for their audience. 

Many interviewees described their work as addressing gaps in a media landscape. One described working against entrenched media narratives shaped by colonization: “The African continent, specifically South Africa, has been colonized for the longest time … we also have a challenge when it comes to articulating our own culture, articulating our own language. So now I’m trying to decolonize all of this.” 

In this way, interviewees’ attempts to challenge limiting portrayals can be understood as part of a broader pushback against entrenched media narratives. Historically, Western-informed news has cast the Global Majority as an “entity of struggle,” prioritizing the unusual, tragic, or bizarre, and creating narratives centered on famine, conflict and despair. 

Interviewees fill a gap left by the influence of foreign media by providing nuanced, locally-driven storytelling.

One interviewee, who had previously worked with international outlets, started their indie brand to shift from writing about South Africa for international audiences to writing about South Africa for South Africans. As they explained it, “there’s a dominance of the international publications that could afford to pay correspondents and things … and I know from working with international publications that that kind of coverage doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty.” They added, “I wanted to make that shift to just be part of the local news ecosystem so that I can write about things to more of a granular level.”

Another interviewee focuses their work on stories that mainstream media is not covering, and said, “These stories are about people who are invisible in the public discourse. They are people that are ignored, whose suffering is ignored by rich, wealthy people whose comfort comes at the expense of those who are suffering the most.” In the view of these interviewees, a reliance on foreign media narratives limits the number of nuanced African stories. Many interviewees see themselves as providing an important alternative.

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