INTRODUCTION The Ruth First Fellowship brings together academic research and social activism in the tradition of the pioneering journalist-activist the Fellowship honours. The Fellowship seeks research and critical thinking that will inform activism, and activists who will bring their experience to enrich the world of research. It also favours younger, emerging voices that will benefit from the exposure. Work is presented as part of the annual Ruth First Memorial Lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand. Welcoming critical investigations of social dynamics in Africa, grounded in relevant, illustrative, qualitative, evidentiary approaches, African Studies provides support and partnership for the Fellowship, which is hosted by the journalism department of the University of the Witwatersrand. The journal encourages innovative contributions from established and new scholars that reflect current conceptual thinking and draws upon Africa in order to question received theoretical and methodological paradigms. When the Ruth First committee decided to focus on the media in 2018, journalist Niren Tolsi’s proposal promised a fresh approach to tackling the challenges the South African media is facing. In the wake of recent incidents involving fire in very different communities, in the Knysna area and in informal settlements, he undertook to look into how our news media covered these events and what the contrasting treatments and responses told us about the state of our journalism and news media. He placed this in the context of changes taking place in our media, notably the growth of social media, and asked what it told us about the impact this new technology was having on our public sphere. The ‘outrage machine’ of social media responded very differently to fire in informal settlements and more privileged areas such as the scenes of the Knysna fires, he showed, reinforcing antagonistic ethnic and class consciousness. Far from the original promise of new media technologies to expose us to a multiplicity of voices, it ensures we hear only what we want to hear, reinforcing social siloes rather than breaking them down. Tolsi writes: ‘The Ruth First Fellowship allowed me to think through some of the major challenges facing South African media. These include the effects of social media disinformation on SA's political stability, concentrated toxic media ownership in SA, the neuroscientific effects of social media's unethical design on the traditional bonds that mobilised communities against the worst excesses of state and corporate power. It triggered a personal quest to find SA-specific responses to this global media crisis so as to contribute towards defining a new journalism in this digital moment. Perhaps the most uplifting aspect of the fellowship has been the numerous responses I received from journalists – especially young journalists.’

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开火：2018 年度 Ruth First 纪念讲座，金山大学

介绍 Ruth First Fellowship 将学术研究和社会行动主义结合在先驱记者活动家的传统中。该奖学金寻求为激进主义提供信息的研究和批判性思维，以及将他们的经验丰富的研究世界的激进主义者。它也有利于将受益于曝光的年轻、新兴的声音。作品是金山大学一年一度的露丝第一纪念讲座的一部分。欢迎对非洲社会动态的批判性调查，以相关的、说明性的、定性的、证据性方法为基础，非洲研究为由金山大学新闻系主办的奖学金提供支持和合作伙伴关系。该杂志鼓励新老学者的创新贡献，反映当前的概念思维并借鉴非洲以质疑公认的理论和方法论范式。当 Ruth First 委员会在 2018 年决定将重点放在媒体上时，记者 Niren Tolsi 的提议承诺采用一种全新的方法来应对南非媒体面临的挑战。在最近发生在非常不同的社区、克尼斯纳地区和非正式定居点的火灾事件之后，他着手调查我们的新闻媒体如何报道这些事件以及不同的处理和回应告诉我们关于我们的新闻和新闻媒体。他将此置于我们媒体发生变化的背景下，尤其是社交媒体的发展，并询问它告诉我们这项新技术对我们公共领域的影响。他表示，社交媒体的“愤怒机器”对非正式住区和更特权地区（例如克尼斯纳火灾现场）的火灾做出了截然不同的反应，从而增强了对立的种族和阶级意识。与新媒体技术最初承诺的让我们接触多种声音的承诺相去甚远，它确保我们只听到我们想听到的内容，从而加强而不是打破社会孤岛。托尔西写道：“露丝第一奖学金让我思考了南非媒体面临的一些主要挑战。其中包括社交媒体虚假信息对南澳政治稳定的影响、南澳集中的有毒媒体所有权、社交媒体的神经科学影响 对动员社区反对最严重的国家和公司权力过度的传统纽带的不道德设计。它引发了个人寻求找到针对这一全球媒体危机的 SA 特定反应，以便为在这个数字时代定义新的新闻做出贡献。也许这次奖学金最令人振奋的方面是我从记者那里收到的众多回应——尤其是年轻记者。