{"id":11474,"date":"2026-06-02T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnti.org\/cnti-news\/\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T09:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:10:11","slug":"distribution-platforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnti.org\/reports\/south-africa-indie-info-providers\/distribution-platforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Distribution platforms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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South Africa is a mobile-first market, with studies finding 67% of surveyed English-speaking news consumers<\/a> accessing news via smartphones and 98.2% of surveyed internet users<\/a> active on social media. The most-used platforms<\/a> are TikTok and the Meta platforms (WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Messenger), with LinkedIn and X also reaching at least half of internet users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These platforms all make it possible for indie info providers to reach large audiences even without institutional backing. At the same time, social media platforms act as gatekeepers, restricting access to audience data and controlling content visibility<\/a>. Like legacy journalism outlets, indie info providers rely on global distribution platforms to share their content. Indie info providers are tied to, and often financially dependent<\/a> on, platforms operating with opaque algorithms. The unpredictability of these systems makes it difficult for indie info providers to build a stable, reliable income. Moreover, studies show that content moderation frequently disproportionately impacts<\/a> Global Majority<\/span> countries, especially when content is not in English or addresses sensitive political topics. While these concerns are not unique to indie info providers or to South Africa, interviewees said that these dynamics impact their work directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How and why we did this<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Note on terminology<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There is no consensus on terminology, even among our interviewees. We primarily use the term “indie info provider” and sometimes “creator-journalist,” which was the term used in our survey and interviews. Both terms appear throughout the report to refer to the same group: \u201cpeople who are working to provide verified factual information with a personality- or voice-driven brand that leverages the creator economy.\u201d <\/em>That definition encompasses a tremendous amount of variation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why we did this<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This is the second report in a two-country series about indie info providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to our research<\/a>, about one in four people in South Africa get news from individuals rather than organizations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the South African media environment is undergoing a profound transformation<\/a>. Media crises<\/a> in recent decades have led to \u201can increasingly constrained business environment<\/em><\/a>,\u201d forcing outlets to rely on freelance journalists<\/a> and short-term contracts to stay afloat and leaving many journalists without stable employment. This shift has coincided with a massive migration in audience habits: recent surveys find that about 7 in 10 surveyed (online, English-speaking) South Africans<\/a> get their news from social media, especially on their smartphones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, research<\/a> on this trend has largely focused on the broader landscape of content creators, including entertainers, politicians and other creators who do not necessarily focus on informing their audiences. And most research to date has focused on content sourcing and linking strategies. To enable a future for a plurality of fact-based sources that readers and viewers find relevant, our project sheds light on who indie info providers are and how they approach their role in the broader news landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How we did this<\/strong> <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In partnership with Code for Africa<\/a>, CNTI recruited 43 content producers in South Africa to take a screening survey, 42 of whom met the eligibility criteria, and chose 18 of them for a 60- to 90-minute virtual interview. (The one who did not meet the criteria was neither South African-based nor working for a primarily South African audience.)   CNTI selected interviewees to represent a range of professional backgrounds, such as project management and the military, beyond legacy journalism. This report is based primarily on insights from the interviews, with data from the survey as a secondary source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In interviews, we asked participants about their backgrounds and motivations, audience engagement, their relationships with other indie info providers and legacy news outlets, platforms, and algorithms, revenue and business strategies, and their view of success and satisfaction with their own work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We developed codes using a bottom-up iterative approach as themes emerged from the analysis. Code categories largely reflected the range of interview topics, as well as the addition of the broader theme \u201capartheid and historical context.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These methods provide richness and depth; however, it\u2019s not possible to generalize about the frequency of behaviors from these interactions, so we limit our use of quantitative terms to our interviewees throughout this report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNTI research and professional staff prepared this report. This project was made possible by the financial support of the Lenfest Institute and a second anonymous donor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See \u201cAbout this study<\/span><\/a>\u201d for more details.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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South African indie info providers predominantly use mobile-friendly platforms, reflecting the country\u2019s high smartphone adoption and social media use.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Interviewees reported they use YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn the most. This distribution largely mirrors the most popular social media platforms<\/a> in South Africa more broadly. Newsletter platforms such as Substack and Beehiiv, often designed with computer users in mind, were only mentioned by three interviewees. (In contrast, nearly all U.S. interviewees<\/a> use at least one of these platforms.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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