Are you a media maker, innovator, or enthusiast? Then Jamfest is the essential destination for you. This inaugural festival will be hosted virtually from 19 – 25 October 2022 and will feature speakers from across Africa who will share their knowledge and experiences on current topics which are shaping the African media landscape.
Join us for exciting conversations, workshops, music performances, and virtual exhibitions which will help sharpen your media skills by learning tools and strategies which can improve your newsroom and publication or help you jumpstart your career in media.
Reserve your virtual seat here and your in-person seat here.
Below is a full list of all the sessions you can expect at Jamfest.
Virtual panel discussion: Exploring news stories inside the metaverse
Wednesday, 19 October 2022, 10:30am – 12:00pm CAT
This is a new era of immersive storytelling and interactive communications that has great implications for journalism and media practitioners. Many journalists and visual artists have already begun experimenting with immersive storytelling forms through long-form photojournalistic pieces or 3D visualisations which allow readers to interact with data or installation scenes. More mass-market examples are the use of Snapchat AR filters, cost-effective google cardboards, and soon the Apple VR glasses due to be released in 2023. As a result, the media landscape on a global scale is becoming more interactive, experiential and no longer one-directional.
The metaverse’s anticipated impact on Africa specifically requires media makers and newsrooms to prepare for the metaverse horizon as it becomes more accessible.
Virtual masterclass: Metaverse and desertification
Wednesday, 19 October 2022, 13:00pm – 13:45pm CAT
The metaverse has drawn all kinds of attention since Mark Zuckerberg’s widely lampooned renaming of Facebook to Meta, but little attention has gone to exploring the virtual world’s journalistic possibilities. The Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism has broken new ground in that area by purchasing a plot of land in the metaverse in 2021 and launching two separate investigations there since then.
Attendees will be able to explore the CCIJ’s immersive metaverse space and storytelling that contains immersive, data, and visual elements.
Virtual panel discussion: Collaboration. A buzzword or a strategy for meaningful impact?
Wednesday, 19 October 2022, 14:30pm – 15:30pm CAT
Collaboration. A buzzword or a strategy for meaningful impact? As the momentum for cross-team collaborations grows around the world, we ask: how can we equip our teams for robust partnerships to build better products and tell more impactful stories? As a collective of data and news organisations based across the continent who had never worked together before, we at the Africa Data Hub have first-hand knowledge of the success and difficulties of managing and pursuing cross-border collaborations. Join us as we take a deep dive into the lessons that we’ve learnt over the past two years. We will share not only what you can do to navigate collaboration, but also how you can prepare for the (inevitable) challenges that collaboration brings.
Virtual panel discussion: Solutions journalism in Africa
Thursday, 20 October 2022, 10:30am – 12:00pm CAT
Solutions journalism is a potentially disruptive approach to the global journalism praxis. It’s an approach that deepens news stories by expanding on the details and showing multiple perspectives on a social problem. This panel discussion promises to enrich participants’ understanding of Solutions Journalism in an African context.
Speakers will share how various African countries are employing this approach in their newsrooms, and highlight meaningful ways journalists could avoid the pitfall of overly negative reporting which results in reader disengagement and news fatigue.
Digital news funnel journeys: Revenue strategies to engage and monetise the African youth
Thursday, 20 October 2022, 14:00pm – 15:00pm CAT
African youth are largely made up of digital natives who were born into a digital world and have been found to be the most digitally mature segment compared to older digital generations. It’s a segment whose technical aptitude is not only limited to their high usage of digital tools and mobile applications, but also in terms of their willingness to spend money on content found on digital applications.
This session presents experts from digital news publishing houses and others with online platform experience to unpack some of this context. These experts also share their experiences and insights on how to move this segment along the digital news funnel journey, where the aim is to reach, attract, engage, and convert users into customers.
Fireside chat: How data-driven storytelling is transforming the newsroom
Thursday, 20 October 2022, 16:00pm – 16:45pm CAT
The art of telling a story through data and visualisation is becoming ever more popular. Data-driven communication or ‘data storytelling’ is being used by journalists to convey their topics in clear and simple ways that reach broader audiences. Hear from those disrupting the industry and reshaping the future of news.
Wairimu Macharia, a digital communications consultant and director of Fringe Graph, will host Edith Magak and Martin Siele, budding data journalists and Baraza-Fringe data storytelling fellows. They will share their experiences in using data storytelling to make their stories more meaningful and effective, and how data visualization has made their stories more accessible.
Panel discussion: Skills adaptations for journalism and media professionals in Africa
Monday, 24 October 2022, 9:30am – 10:30am CAT
Journalists and media professionals are not a monolith. In fact, many have had to re-skill and upskill themselves to adapt to marketplace demands. Rising marketplace demands require journalists to sometimes explain artificial intelligence concepts to readers, or for media professionals to create audio-visual content to better aid their storytelling. These scenarios pose a need for multi-skilled media talent. This session takes you through the career progression of multi-skilled journalists and media professionals as we explore the skills innovations taking place in Africa.
Panel discussion: Carving the future of journalism and media in Africa’s post-Covid-19 era
Monday, 24 October 2022, 11:00am – 12:30pm CAT
As tragic and disruptive as the Covid-19 pandemic was – it was also a time of accelerated digitalisation for many services and solutions in industries such as e-commerce and media. This panel will reflect on some of the panel’s observed market changes in terms of audience behaviour and journalism practices in Africa.
Panel discussion: Differentiating your media venture in an over-saturated digital media landscape
Tuesday, 25 October 2022, 11:00am – 12:30pm CAT
Ultimately, the media ventures which select the right product and creative differentiators are set to capture and retain audiences, and that goes beyond the low value of fleeting consumer attention and reach. Hear from founders of their own media ventures on how they have managed to differentiate themselves and carve a space with an engaged audience or client base – all within the context of an ‘over-saturated’ digital media landscape.
Panel discussion: Rethinking shared value between media and audiences: citizen journalism
Tuesday, 25 October 2022, 14:00pm – 15:30pm CAT
The current media environment is an ecosystem of active user communities that contribute to its content production and sustainability. Therefore, how can media producers rethink user contributions as more than news sources but as active contributors that add value to their digital platforms?
