THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON MODERN JOURNALISM PRACTICE

1.1 Background of Study

A hundred and fifty years ago, communication between countries involved people being present. Then, reporters had to run as fast as possible back to the newsroom after interviewing and tried to beat the competition to print. With the arrival of the digital age, the role of the journalist changed. The arrival of information communication technology such as the internet has made it possible to find out about events without actually being there. Journalists can report news across the world over the internet.

Throughout history, developments in technology and communication have gone hand-in-hand, and the latest technological developments such as the internet have resulted in the advancement of the science of communication to a new level. The process of human communication has evolved over the years, with many path-breaking inventions and discoveries heralding revolutions. The invention of pictographs or the first written communication in the ancient world brought about written communication. These writings were on stone, and remained immobile. The invention of paper, papyrus and wax, culminating in the invention of the printing press in the 15th century made possible transfer of documents from one place to another, allowing for uniformity of languages over long distances. The latest revolution is the widespread application of electronic technology such as electronic waves and signals to communication, manifesting in the electronic creation and transfer of documents over the World Wide Web (Wikipedia, 2021).

Social media which are a form of electronic communication have become the highest activity on the internet. They refer to social networking websites developed to specifically help people share their views and stay in touch with friends, relatives and well-wishers. According to Wikipedia, social media represents a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information content which brought about democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media are also internet sites where people interact freely, sharing and discussing information about each other and their lives, using a multi-media mix of personal words, pictures, videos and audio (Bruce and Douglas; 2008, p.27). In order to broaden our knowledge on the topic of study, a brief history of social media will be discussed below (Wikipedia, 2021).

In the early 1990s, chat rooms and bulletin boards were forms of social media; in that they helped people connect with others and share interests. A little later, dating sites hooked together those looking for partners, and Classmate.com. let people connect with people they had known in high school and college. In the early 2000s, a site called Friendster was set up where people invited their friends to join and in turn, those friends invited other friends. The site was popular for a while but suffered from technical difficulties and fake profiles and began losing members. Some of those members went to My Space, which had actually started in 1999 but became better known in 2003. Its roots are a little muddy because it received financial and logistical support from another company called universe, and most of the early users were universe employees but Tom Anderson and Chris De Wolfe are given credit for much of the innovations and success of the site which built up to 115 million users worldwide. Members post bios, photos, blogs, videos, and other things that strike their fancy, and some TV programmes to air on My Space. In 2005, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (parent of Fox Broadcasting) bought My Space for 580 million dollars.

A competitor to My Space, Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg while he was a student at Harvard University; it grew up rapidly about 2007. At first Facebook was solely for college and high school students, but Zuckerberg opened it to everyone and like MySpace, it encourages all types of member postings (Lynne Gross, 2010). Apart from the above mentioned social media tools, there are also others. These include; Twitter, Youtube, BlackBerry Messenger, Flickr, Wordpress, Blogger, Badoo, Live Journal, Wikipedia, type Pad, Second Life, Lulu, and many others. All these social media appear in many forms including blogs and microblogs, forums and message boards, social networks, wikis, virtual works, social bookmarking, tagging and news, writing communities, digital storytelling and scrapbooking, data, content, image, video sharing, podcast portals, and collective intelligence.

Journalism on the other hand is the deliberate and conscious efforts to gather information, collating and analyzing data for the purpose of informing, educating and entertaining the people with a view of making an appropriate decision ( Qasim Akinreti;2007). Journalism is also an investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a large audience. Though there are many variation of journalism, the ideal is to inform intended audience, about topics ranging from governments and business organizations to cultural aspects of society such as arts and entertainment. The field of journalism include; editing, photojournalism and documentary (www.wikipedia.org).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The influence of social media in today’s world of communication, especially journalism cannot be over-looked. Since its arrival social media have certainly changed the way journalists work, how stories are developed and disseminated. Social media have had positive influences, without doubt, but there are also concerns about their influence on productivity and the disruption it could have on journalists “working patterns. Social media have created a dependency among those working in the media and many are unable to do without them.

While journalists are growing more sophisticated in their use of social media, and are for instance, using a great variety of tools to source for news, some journalists are less positive about some of the ways social media affect their journalistic activities, their engagement with their audience, their productivity and the quality of their work. Based on these contrasting views, the question this research seeks to answer is; how have social media affected the journalists in Enugu Metropolis with regards to their journalistic duties?

1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to examine the Influence of Social Media on Modern Journalism Practice. In achieving this aim, the following objectives were set out as follows;

1. To find out the type of social media tools journalists in Enugu metropolis prefer;
2. To know if the journalists in Enugu metropolis are exposed to social media networking tools; and
3. To determine whether social media have enhanced the productivity of journalists in Enugu metropolis.

1.4 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• To what extent are journalists in Enugu metropolis exposed to social media networking tools?
• What type of social media tool do journalists in Enugu metropolis prefer?
• How have social media enhanced the productivity of journalists in Enugu metropolis?

1.6 Research Hypotheses

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: There are no significant difference between journalists in Enugu metropolis who use social media networking tools and those who do not.
• H1: There are significant difference between journalists in Enugu metropolis who use social media networking tools and those who do not.

1.7 Significance of the Study

This study will be of immeasurable importance to journalists, media organizations, news agencies, editors, lecturers and students in the field of journalism and mass communication as well as other researchers who would want to embark on same study as this. The study will help journalists to source useful information using social media networking tools as well as provide them with guide on how to write online stories. It will also help journalists to interact with their audience and identify their information needs. The study will also help journalists to have rarely embraced social media to do so in order to increase their productivity

1.8 Scope of the Study

This scope of this research is focused on journalists in Enugu metropolis and necessarily conclusive for journalists in other parts of Nigeria. Since journalists share common characteristics and skills, data generated from this study and the result obtained thereof, can be applied to all journalists.

1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

1.10 Research Methods

A research method is a systematic plan for conducting research. Journalist draw on a variety of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, including experiments, survey research, participant observation, and secondary data. Quantitative methods aim to classify features, count them, and create statistical models to test hypotheses and explain observations. Qualitative methods aim for a complete, detailed description of observations, including the context of events and circumstances.

1.11 Definitions of Terms

1. Social media: the term social media refers to the internet-based social networking website developed to specifically help people share their views and stay in touch with their friend, relatives and well wishers.
2. Journalism: this is the practice of writing, editing and disseminating of information to the public.
3. Modern Journalism: it is a term used to describe the new era in journalism where internet and computers are use in almost every journalistic activity.
4. Media: media in this study are Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other social media networking tools which journalists use to disseminate information to a large heterogeneous audience.