Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino
Zimpapers Politics Hub
In an era of Artificial Intelligence and algorithmic technologies, one big question being asked is whether African or Zimbabwean media or journalism is capable of independently telling its narrative without the influence of China and the United States?
It should be taken into consideration that AI is fast becoming the latest frontier in the China-United States competition in Africa defining who has access to what, when and how. Beyond what people see, this is a power game.
The China-United States dimension is important in attempting to answer this question because these are the two great powers through whose innovations have facilitated the disruptions being experienced today.
AI is reshaping the world. It is multibillion dollar industry. Leading countries in the AI race, China and the United States, have invested over $140 billion between then, with China aiming to become the global leader in AI by 2030, and an industry worth over $150 billion.
There is neck-breaking competition between the two states and while trade tensions between them have eased, for now, the technology race continues to accelerate.
Against this background, Zimbabwean media academics recently convened a summit on AI and journalism to understand how local media is catching up with the disruptions that have been made by AI technologies in the media industry.
They convened the summit when Africa is also accelerating its participation in the global AI race, with the market expected to reach $16 billion by 2030.
Apart from that, the summit also made recommendations of what they believed locals should do to respond to the AI wave.
The major recommendation, among many, was for Zimbabweans to rethink innovation, develop their own platforms and own the technologies into the future, slowly but surely.
Expensive innovations
However, without money, brilliant ideas die a natural death. In journalism, AI technologies are credited for bringing efficiency to journalism work, helping with fact checking and content generation among many other benefits.
On the contrary, AI technology is shooting the messenger by impersonating professional journalists to gain credibility for false narratives.
AI is being disruptive because those behind it invested money. While the majority view the disruption as a “progressive entanglement”, very few have provided methodologies and systems on how local media organisations can disentangle from the new commercial trap that the world faces.
AI technologies are affecting all industries and sectors, and their landing in the media and journalism field has created new commercial appetites for the owners of technologies and those who want to use the technologies.
The disruptions in the media and journalism industry are commercially driven. This is a new form of capitalism or recreation of capitalism which has moved beyond its known traditional format into a state of techno-feudalism, where users and businesses act as digital serfs paying rent to platform lords.
This is meant to force journalists and media organisations to change their business models and ensure they incorporate ways that embrace AI technologies.
For big organisations, these technologies require that they buy licensed versions at quite expensive rate, and “pay rent to the platform landlords”.
Power game
This alone requires media organisations, academics and journalism practitioners to expand their knowledge of the power dynamics at play in the digital age and their consequences for relations, not only in their professional realm, but also among nations.
At the centre or top of the AI race are two great powers, China and the United States.
Upon close observation, China has embraced a state-led approach, rapidly increasing its AI capacity while the United States leads in private sector-driven invention.
China as a socialist state, it is open to giving access to AI technologies and open the space for everyone, while in the US the proprietors at Silicon Valley are looking up to make profits from it.
This means that the United States AI industry is in particular interested in the end-to-end control of its ecosystem for profit, while China has focused on spreading its technology quickly, at very cheap and lower investments compared to its counterpart.
What this means is media and journalism practice in Zimbabwe, among many other sectors, is operating in between two giants that are global technological heavyweights who are racing to own and control the future.
Besides ethical dilemmas that are being experienced in the journalism as a result of AI technologies, the unfolding disruptions are also in part driven to make the local journalism industry choose the path to follow in this global-tech power game.
This game is being played out in a chronologically coherent fashion. Imperial dependencies should be avoided where local journalists, audiences and media proprietors think what are considered journalistic standards involve getting “authentic and credible” news from the Cable News Network (CNN), FOX News, and Aljazeera among other external channels.
Zimbabwean paradigm
Amid this, the Zimbabwean journalist and media proprietor should think hard on the ability to tell the local and regional story. This means there is need to have a Zimbabwean journalistic paradigm within a broader framework of what it means to constructively report local news and about Africa.
Despite the existing overwhelming challenges that are seen to exist in the context of AI and journalism, it is possible for Zimbabwean media organisations and journalists to tell the local story with an indigenously influenced narrative if there is a serious interrogation of the media and journalism education system.
If journalism and media schools in Zimbabwe remain tap-rooted in the colonial standards and legacies imposed to define what journalism is, it will remain difficult and challenging innovate and disrupt-in-reverse the humongous AI being countenanced.
Additionally, there is need to focus on in-depth reporting as opposed to efficiency and convenience as well as having the ability to value Zimbabwean epistemologies and localise its content. If this does not happen, the burdens and ‘opportunities’ of AI will pursue the local journalism and media sector, as it plays into the hands of great powers behind disruptive technologies.
