The internet is fast becoming the world’s primary source of information as well as a chief platform for interaction and discussion. And South Africa’s online media industry – a free, robust and flourishing industry with a diversity of print and broadcast media – is putting in all efforts to keep up with this ever growing phenomenon. All the major media operators in the country, and plenty of smaller ones besides, have a healthy presence in cyberspace.
Nonetheless, compared to other newspapers in developed countries, South African news sites are still lacking behind in being interactive. The country is slowly seeing an increase in multimedia integration and news companies are offering their readers more dynamic and interactive experiences, but in contrast to international media the user offering on many of these sites seem to be developing too slowly. This can be attributed to a number of reasons that include at the forefront South Africa’s problems with access to internet services.
In terms of technical proficiency though, young South African online experts are revolutionizing South Africa’s media landscape – developing world-class online applications, services, platforms, blogs, blog aggregators and social networking websites that can appeal to a wide variety of people and that have received international recognition
The Mail & Guardian Online was the first internet-based news publications in Africa and has received numerous accolades and awards its quality content. Today, it is a fast-growing site, taking its place as one of country’s top three biggest news sites. M&G Online is owned by M&G Media, which publishes the M&G newspaper. The M&G Online works closely with the newspaper, but has its own dedicated editorial staff to produce breaking news on a daily basis to complement the analytical, in-depth feature articles from the newspaper. Main website (www.mg.co.za)
News24 is probably South Africa’s most popular online source of current news. The site is the most prominent of a family of web sites run by Naspers, the largest media group in Africa. Other sister sites of News24 include Women24, Sport24, Careers24, Health24, Food24 and Wheels24 to name only a few. Main website (www.news24.com).
Die Kwêvoël is a very small community newspaper in a small town called Thabazimbi, in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. They are so small in fact that they run their online news site on Word Press. Yet, even they are trying to keep up with modern online media trends by using multimedia and new media functionalities to compliment their written content. They offer extensive photo galleries; unique multimedia clips produced for the web site; content recommendations through most popular, most commented and latest article listings. Main website (www.kwevoel.co.za)
