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This article explores artificial intelligence (AI) uptake in selected South African mainstream newsrooms. It seeks to determine the extent to which AI has been adopted and how journalists and editors perceive its appropriation in newsmaking practices. To address these two broad aims, the study used in-depth interviews with journalists and editors. Our findings suggest a slow, varied but methodical uptake of AI practices in South Africa's mainstream newsrooms. We deduced three uses of AI in these newsrooms. The first is what we call the holistic appropriation of AI. The second one is the exclusively technological appropriation of AI, and the last one is the task-specific appropriation of AI. This varied uptake of AI is taking place against a deep-seated skepticism with this technology. The skepticism is driven by fear of job losses, the costs of adopting AI, limited training, ethical issues around AI and its efficacy in the democratic process. On this last point, South African journalists question whether AI can be beneficial to the sustenance of a post-apartheid democratic society. Our argument, therefore, is that the optimism about AI in newsrooms that some researchers find in Europe and US newsrooms cannot be transferred to newsrooms in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Les mouvements sociaux en Afrique du Sud, comme ailleurs, combinent les méthodes de mobilisation traditionnelles avec l'utilisation des nouvelles technologies pour mobiliser et créer des réseaux pour la justice sociale. Peu de recherches ont été menées sur les luttes discursives qui se posent à ces mouvements dans leurs stratégies de mobilisation. Cet article examine les pratiques discursives d'un tel mouvement - la campagne Western Cape Anti-Expulsion, un mouvement social axé sur la collectivité formé en 2000 pour répondre à la crise du logement dans les zones urbaines du Cap occidental et le manque de prestation de services dans les domaines de l'eau et de l'électricité. À travers la lentille de la démocratie radicale et des théories de participation critiques, cet article fait valoir que les sites web, les plates-formes de médias sociaux et les projets de la presse écrite ne manifestent pas des principes démocratiques radicaux ni une véritable participation. Ces luttes et tensions discursives mettent en évidence l'importance de reconnaître la dynamique du pouvoir dans les pratiques médiatiques des mouvements sociaux dans le pays. Social movements in South Africa, as elsewhere, are combining traditional mobilisation methods with use of new media technologies to mobilize, create networks and lobby for social justice. While there exists some research that analyses how these social movements are using new media technologies, less sustained analysis has been made of the discursive struggles that confront these movements in their mobilisation strategies. This paper examines discursive practices of one such movement – the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, a community-driven social movement formed in 2000 to respond to housing crisis in urban Western Cape and lack of service delivery in the areas of water and electricity. Through the lens of radical democracy and critical participation theories, the paper argues that while the material on the websites, social media platforms and print media project counter-hegemonic ideologies, the discursive and institutional practices of the social movements do not manifest radical democratic principles and genuine participation. These discursive struggles and tensions highlight the importance of recognising power dynamics within media practices of social movements in the country. The paper ends by outlining for discursive opportunities and possibilities of subversion by social movements in South Africa.