By Brenda Zulu
Africa Interactive, the publishers of Africa News www.africanews.com a world wide interactive multimedia platform focused on Africa are piloting a new project called “Voice of Africa” where journalists use mobile phones to send news video clips to report news.
Elles Van Gelder Editor in Chief of Africa News said at the Digital Citizen Indaba (DCI) in Grahamstown , South Africa last week that the project was launched by the Dutch who said Western media does not represent does not represent Africa and set up the project to show more balanced images of Africa.
She explained that sending video clips using the mobile phone was a new way of creating content. She said journalists who are part of the project are trained to become innovative reporters and how to use the cell phones.
Elles explained that they also looked at the technical side of doing the reporting and provided the journalists with small keyboards because the cell phone keys where too small to enable Journalists do their work fast.
She observed that the media focus was on Africa and that this was a revolution as these Journalists will be reporting live in events such as elections in Kenya.
Peter Verweij of the University of Utrecht Netherlands observed that mobile technology brings Journalists back to the streets meaning one does not need to get back to the newsroom to send a news report.With the GPS facility, editors in the newsrooms will also be in a position to supervise their reporters because they will be able to know where the reporters are and what they are doing.
Verweij said mobile phones will enhance journalists to report from anywhere for web pages and blogs. The content can range from text to Video and noted that for the first time anyone could be a reporter.
He also observed the challenges for
Africa as being the level of internet connectivity as the work of Journalists is set to improve dramatically with innovations in mobile GPS technology.
In the same vein, Ndesajo Macha a Sub Saharan Global Voices editor in delivering his key note address at the DCI said the future was mobile. He said text messaging has been delivering news.
He said SMS was also used for social networking as much of the news now is known through SMS before the mainstrem media makes the reports.
The coming of new technologies thus has led to fear of adapting to new ways of doing Journalism.
The future for Africa is Mobile as it has been embraced by more than 200 million people on the continent.Talking on convergence, Arrie Rossouw the editorial Director of Media 24 said there was need for people to stop talking about cries and insecurity and instead strive to move toward integrated newsrooms.
The discussion on convergence noted that in African news rooms remains largely unrecorded. Some newsrooms are marching forward, pod casting news items and music programmes and sending texts to cell phones, others are experimenting with video, sending sports clips and news to wireless services.
Matthew Buckland, the Mail and Guardian Online Manager told delegates attending the Highway Africa Conference 2007 that the Web 2.0 software was an important development for smaller role players.
Buckland noted that Media companies need to develop strategies for using the web 2.0 software for social networking and also to attract advertising.
He pointed out that the web 2.0 has played an important role in the improvement of technology and is also less expansive.
Web 2.0 is a term often applied to perceive ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of web sites to a full fledged computing platform servicing web application.
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