This information is sourced from WhatsApp groups that are solely dedicated to this purpose. Most critical is that all these emergent social groups or societal structures have information needs and media consumption habits that suit their immediate livelihood needs. Therefore, as Zimbabwe’s famed industrial base expanded, so did the attendant media structures, needs and consumption habits. The global pandemic, COVID-19 in 2020 added a layer of intrigue to the changes noted above, its prominence within Zimbabwe’s media landscape exacerbated changes already in motion. Much of the changes seen in the media landscape have primarily been drawn from the reconfigured political economy rather than the emergence of the pandemic and its effects. For the greater part, COVID-19 came at a time when the media had already seen seismic changes in media consumption habits, most notable being the shift in the importance of the 4 print and broadcasting media, which has slowly but surely been replaced by the new online media space, riding on internet-based information and telecommunication (ICT) structures. This has seen many media players either shifting or integrating the internet into their business models to aid the dissemination of information and news. Admittedly, the abrupt and topdown, largely state-led reactions to the pandemic ensured that players in the media fraternity had to fast-track some changes to how they operated. In most instances, the changes were externally rather than internally generated. For example, Business Times stopped publishing the physical version of their newspaper. Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) introduced online publications, which have affected hard copy sales of the newspaper. The Daily News introduced a paywall for accessing its online newspaper. The period saw the emergence and growth of wholly online news platforms such as the NewsHawks and ZimLive. A composite analysis of the differential effects of the changes in the political economy and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is suggestive that the latter did not initiate the changes in the media landscape, but rather hastened both the effects and the adaptation by various media stakeholders. The changes noted in the political economy show that the economy was already the hardest hit by these changes, resulting in a myriad of changes in how citizens access information and the types of information they prioritise. Linked to this were the changes in how media operators have responded to the compounding effect of challenges to the economy; where the responses to the economy had previously been slow and gradual, COVID-19 provided the push for abrupt shifts in how they operate.