group one

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION

AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA

COURSE TITLE AND CODE

ONLINE JOURNALISM (MCOM 414)

GROUP ONE (1)

NATURE OF ASSIGNMENT

TRACE THE GLOBAL EVOLUTION OF ONLINE JOURNALISM, THROUGH TO ITS DEBUT IN NIGERIAN MEDIA INDUSTRY. WHAT ARE ITS CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL? WHERE DO YOU, STUDENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION FIT INTO THE EQUATION.

LECTURER: MALLAM MUHAMMAD HASHIM SULEIMAN

      GROUP ONE MEMBERS

            NAME                                                   REGISTRATION NUMBER

IDRIS AISHA                                               U14MM2037

MUHAMMAD FAUZIYYA U14MM2038

MUHAMMAD AISHA BAFFA   U14MM2039

HASSAN FARIDA U14MM2040

DENNIS OJONUGWA                                          U13MM1155

YILLA JISSICA KUSUMA   U13MM1112

ABIGAIL ABUBAKAR                                        U13MM1174

USMAN YUSHAU                 U13MM1020

JINAIDU HABIBA SALMAN U13MM1012

AHMED SHUKURAH                                       U13MM1005

IBRAHIM HALIMA MUSA U13MM1028

BABAGANA ZARA U13MM1001

ADAMU MARYAM FIKA U13MM1071

SANI AUWAL                                                   U13MM1002

JORO MERCY                                                  U13MM1093

OYENIYI KEHINDE AMINAT.                        U13MM1113

YUSUF HAFSAT NABATURE.                       U13MM1095

DIKKO AISHA                                                   U13MM1105

MAMMAN SUMMAIYA U13MM1217

DZUKOGI ZAINAB UMMI U13MM1081

MAGANA AISHA MUHAMMAD                    U13MM1067             

REUBEN  SYLVIA  ATIYONG.                         U13MM1064

ATTAJIRI HAJARA USMAN U13MM 1211

 

TRACE THE GLOBAL EVOLUTION OF ONLINE JOURNALISM, THROUGH ITS DEBUT IN NIGERIAN MEDIA INDUSTRY. WHAT ARE ITS CHALLENGES AND POTENTIALS, WHERE DO YOU AS MASS COMMUNICATION STUDENT STAND IN THE EQUATION?

Introduction 

No one can deny the fact we now live in the digital age where everything is changing and we must adapt and move with the trend if we must remain on top of our game. Globalization like a wave has swept the whole in its tide; therefore no profession can afforded to be left behind nor can ignore the importance of the internet.

 The Nigerian media industry has undoubtedly taken a progressive turn in achieving its role  of informing, educating, entertaining its audience through its online activities, to transfer from mainstream media to online environment which has paved way for online journalism in the industry. Online journalism though a relatively new phenomenon is gradually taking the media industry to the next level of journalism practices thereby creating a more interactive platform and creating a digital audience. However with all its benefit and potentials, this is not to say that there are no challenges of online journalism in Nigerian media industry. Hence, this assignment will trace the global evolution of online journalism, through its debut in Nigerian media industry, its potentials and challenges as well as our stand as a mass communication student in the equation.

                                  

          

GLOBAL EVOLUTION OF ONLINE JOURNALISM  

 The word evolution is used to denote the ways in which some aspects of journalism were inherited through a kind of “natural selection” and some sub-species of journalism have become or may be about to become extinct, while others may be thought of as genetic mutations. But all these contribute to the dynamism and eventual survival of journalism. 

  A couple of months in 1993, after the launch of the first web browser, Mosaic, the university of Florida’s journalism department launched what is generally considered to be the first online journalism web site. It was a very basic, static web site, with a picture of the red-bricked wall of the journalism department. It was updated only occasionally, at nights and weekends, when the machine was not in use by others, running on a 486–25 processor with 4 megabytes of random access memory (RAM). About a year later, in November 1994, the UK’s daily telegraph launched the electronic telegraph , which was a similarly static page, with articles  one on top of the other. The online publication followed the rhythm of print publishing, posting online contents once a day. In a 2001 article, Derek Bishton detailed the electronic telegraph remit: to explore the new medium, it’s technological and commercial possibilities, as well as the scope for the launch of the telegraph as an online brand (Bishton, 2001).  

 And in this rather slow, uneventful manner began the history of online journalism, and the creation of a new kind of journalism that has changed the face of journalism forever. 

The first type of online journalism, called teletext was invented in the UK in 1970. Teletext is a system allowing viewers to choose which stories they wish to read and see it immediately. After the invention of teletext was the invention of videotext which pestle was the world's first system, launching commercially in 1979 with various British newspapers such as the financial times lining up to deliver newspaper stories online through it. Videotex closed down in 1986 due to failing to meet end-user demand. 

American newspaper companies took notice of the new technology and created their own videotex systems, the largest and most ambitious being viewtron, a service of knight-ridder launched in 1981. Others were keycom in Chicago and gateway in Los Angeles. All of them had closed by 1986.

Next came the computer bulletin board systems. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several smaller newspapers started online news services using bbs software and telephone modems. The first of these was the Albuquerque tribune in 1989.Computer gaming world in September 1992 broke the news of electronic arts' acquisition of origin systems on prodigy, before its next issue went to press.

Online news websites began to proliferate in the 1990s. An early adopter was the news & observer in Raleigh, North Carolina which offered online news as Nandi. Steve Yelvington wrote on the Poynter institute website about Nando, owned by the N&O, by saying "Nando evolved into the first serious, professional site on the world wide web. It originated in the early 1990s as "Nando land". It is believed that a major increase in digital online journalism occurred around this time when the first commercial web browsers, Netscape navigator (1994), and internet explorer (1995). By 1996, most news outlets had an online presence. Although journalistic content was repurposed from original text/video/audio sources without change in substance, it could be consumed in different ways because of its online form through toolbars, topically grouped content, and intertextuality links. 

In 2008, for the first time, more Americans reported getting their national and international news from the internet, rather than newspapers. Young people aged 18 to 29 now primarily get their news via the internet, according to a pew research center report audiences to news sites continued to grow due to the launch of new news sites, continued investment in news online by conventional news organizations, and the continued growth in internet audiences overall sixty-five percent of youth now primarily access the news online.

THE HISTORY OF NIGERIAN ONLINE JOURNALISM
Two momentous developments have defined the Nigerian journalistic landscape in the last ten years. The first is the migration of all major Nigerian newspapers to the internet (while actively sustaining their print editions) in hopes of reaching the highly educated Nigerian migratory elite in the Diaspora (Youngstedt 2004; Reynolds and Younstedt 2004; Reynolds 2002; stroller 1999). The second development is the robust growth and flowering of transnational, Diasporas citizen online news media that have vigorously sought and captured the attention of Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora (kperogi 2011; kperogi 2008).

The defunct post express, under the direction of the late Dr. Stanley Macebuh, is widely acknowledged as the first Nigerian newspaper to migrate its content to the internet in 1996 (kperogi 2011). Like many newspapers at the time, the post express merely recycled its print content to the web. By the close of the 1990s, a few other newspapers, notably the (Nigerian) guardian, punch, vanguard, and this day, had websites where they episodically republished selected contents from their print editions. By the early 2000s, almost all the legacy newspapers in Nigeria had some web presence, aided in part by the aggregation and distribution of their content, along with those of other African newspapers, by the allafrica.com, the Washington dc-based multimedia content service provider widely recognized as the world’s largest Africa centered site. The site signed content agreements with over 130 African news organizations, which “generate steady revenues for the content partners and give them, in turn, access to the prize-winning reporting of the allafrica team” (all africa.c.com, accessed May 14, 2011, http://allafrica.com/whoweare.html) by the mid 2000s, newspapers without their own websites became the exception rather than the rule. It was precisely the period during which the web presence of Nigerian newspapers became entrenched and normalized that citizen online news sites owned and operated by Nigerians living in the Diaspora sprouted and grew rapidly. The most notable of these online Diaspora newspapers are Elendu reports, Sahara reporters, the times of Nigeria, the Nigerian village square, huhu online, and pointblank news. There are many others, such as empowered newswire (which operates like a wire service agency), usafricaonline.com (which prides itself on being the “first African-owned us-based professional newspaper to be published on the internet”) and ireports-ng.com9 but, in the main, their influence in the Nigerian domestic public sphere has been peripheral at best and nonexistent at worst. 

By far the most influential Nigerian Diaspora electronic newspapers are the first six identified above. Since their emergence in 2005, they have continued to break sensitive news stories that have radically altered the journalistic practices and politics of Nigeria (kperogi 2011; kperogi 2008).  Elendureports.com, the first notable diaspora citizen news site which came on board in 2003, is published from Lansing, Michigan, and is associated with Jonathan Elendu, a former newspaper journalist with the Nigerian daily times, who is a legal permanent resident in the United States. Saharareporters.com is owned and edited by Swore Omoyele, a new York based activist and permanent U.S Resident who had no previous mainstream journalistic training or experience. 

The site, which broke away from elendureports.com in 2006, is far and away the most popular Nigeria-centred citizen media site. The timesofnigeria.com was started in 2005 by a Maryland-based Nigerian journalist called sunny ofili, who is a former reporter with the defunct African guardian. He immigrated to the United States in 1993. The nigeriavilagesqaure.com was founded in 2003 by a group of immigrant Nigerians based in the 447 United States. The main person associated with it is Philip Adekunle, a Chicago-based computer information systems specialist. Pointblanknews.com was launched on January 20, 2007 by a Nigerian immigrant in the United States by the name of Jackson ude.  Other people associated with the site, which is published in New York, are Oladimeji Abitogun and Churchill Umoren, who are also legal permanent residents in the United States.  

These Diaspora news outlets have gone beyond being instruments for the construction of subjectivities in the migratory settings of their owners and consumers to being active participants in the domestic and international politics of the homeland. They not only compete with but vigorously undermine the credibility of homeland newspapers, and have been growing in popularity and acceptance by leaps and bounds (kperogi 2011). Their popularity is a consequence of the originality of their news reporting (although they also offer platforms for critical commentary on news published in the homeland news media), their detachment from and non-affiliation with political parties and politicians (unlike many homeland newspapers), and the willingness of whistle blowers to trust them with sensitive, and sometimes classified, government information. 

Diaspora citizen journalists also take advantage of the freedom of information act in the United States to access the records of Nigeria’s elite who have investments in the country.

 CHALLENGES OF ONLINE JOURNALISM IN NIGERIAN MEDIA INDUSTRY

With the introduction of online journalism, the media industries now have to worry about their level of professionalism and skill in the digital age. The challenges of online journalism on Nigerian media industry cannot be overemphasized. One of the major challenges is globalization which gave birth to more challenges in the media industry. Journalism today finds itself at a rare moment in history where, for the first time, its hegemony as gatekeeper of the news is threatened by not just new technology and competitors but potentially, by the audience it serves. Armed with easy-to-use web publishing tools, always-on connections and increasingly powerful mobile devices, the online audience has the means to become an active participant in the creation and dissemination of news and information; and it’s doing just that on the internet. The internet as a medium for news, is maturing with every major news event, online media evolve. While news sites have become more responsive and better, able to handle the growing demands of readers a reason in democratic society and freedom of the press won’t see any reason to look at citizen journalism and dismiss it because it is the most democratic system of publishing ever.

Viewers, online communities and personal news and information sites are particularly in an increasingly diverse and playing important role that, until recently, has operated without significant notice from mainstream media. A very good thing about internet journalism is that it introduces fresh voices into national discourse on.

Furthermore, financial difficulties can be said to be one of the challenge of online journalism in Nigerian media industry which is also caused by globalization. This is because no profession wants to be left behind and for any organization to be up to date; it requires a lot of funds. Funds not only necessary for achieving the level of development but also to maintain it. For any media industry to be at the top of their game with online journalism, there has to be availability of sufficient funds as well as expertise which is mostly absent in most cases. 

Most journalists lack security knowledge of the online environment thereby, exposing them to different cyber crime in the process of discharging their duties. Cyber knowledge as a challenge is mostly found especially in developing countries like Nigerian as such, even with the needed technological advancements, there will be a case of lack of technical know-how. There is lack of expertise and deterioration in trained personnel on online environment. 

Similarly, lack of adequate knowledge of online environment by the journalist is now a barer for journalist to operate in an online environment thereby causing setback for some media industry in the c country.

In addition, a lot of emerging online journalist and news organization donor have adequate journalistic training, therefore some are quick to break stories in order to solidify their market positioning, and increase popularity but do not always pay attention to the accuracy and editorial procedure. 

POSITIVE IMPACT AND POTENTIALS OF ONLINE JOURNALISM IN NIGERIAN MEDIA INDUSTRY

The rapid adoption of internet by journalist is a nationwide phenomenon. The process by which computerization or digitalization impacted upon the media of the 21th century has moved on many fronts and at different speeds. Agba (2001, p.83) notes that “ with desktop publishing and word processing packages, particularly the page maker, the production of newspapers, magazines, etc has become an interesting business”. Also, according to Ufuophu biri and Shoki (2008:197)" the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has made newspaper publishing easier and more effective. ICTs play pivotal role in mass media operations generally and in newspaper publishing particularly".

The fact that online journalism has it negative impact on the Nigerian media so also it has positive impact especially in producing, disseminating and receiving of information which have made all easy and more advanced. , The advancement of  technology have make the use of online journalism possible for more information to be disseminated  with credibility due to the fact that video clips and series of online pictures are used to back up stories. It also provides quick, efficient and accurate reporting of breaking news in a matter of seconds. As the internet has changed the face of communication, it has created new opportunities for journalist/ media industries to sell stories not only to other local media but across the globe. This has made the world smaller for journalist to explore. 

Another positive impact of online journalism is the ability of media to make use of World Wide Web (www) which has makes it possible for both source and the receiver to come together to the extent that feedback is swift. Lievtous and Livingstone (2006) posit that interactivity is a switching pivotal that allow mass audience more selectivity in their choice of information sources and interactions with other people this thereby make communication  process participatory, useful and development as focused on the audience. Online journalism has eased the work of journalists by not consuming much time and energy. With online journalism, journalist can send stories to station while in the field through cables or internet without rushing back to station which may consume time and energy. 

More so, online journalism has made it possible for people to comment on articles and start discussions with people you may not have met before. It also made it possible for audience to have more option as what to view and read.

 Furthermore, online journalism has also provided Nigerian journalists with international exposure. They can easily create a story from the remotest area in Nigeria and post online which can reach a far distance without travelling to the place. This then exposes their journalistic and writing style internationally.

Online journalism has eased the work of journalist in many ways. With regard to the publication of newspaper, manual typewriter which seems to be a burden have been replaced by the use of computer which makes the work faster and more accurate. Electronic editing; like proofreading, formatting, spell checking tools, calculator and other software  tools now facilitate the speed and ease of news collation and dissemination.

OUR STAND IN THE EQUATION AS COMMUNICATION STUDENTS

 Andrew keen in his book cult of the amateur opined that in today's self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. This is to say that as a mass communication student we have better chances of utilizing the internet to our advantage since content are produced now not only by us the professionals but also by amateurs (the infinite monkeys).

We as mass communication students who are taught the dangers and security issues in the online environment which makes us different from every other amateur, therefore with the various web platform, we can engage in online journalism better than every other person.  It also an avenue for us to be become an online entrepreneur such as bloggers, freelancers for media organization, online content producers, online marketers, public relation officers and other numerous opportunity to explore from the online environment.

Moving with the trend of digital and interactive audience, as a mass communication student, we stand a better chance of giving first hand information which makes us different from citizen journalist. 

CONCLUSION

With the evolution of internet and the web, the face of communication has also evolve which has brought about a more interactive and digital audience and participation thereby creating a platform for online journalism, with a more advance professional journalist with lots of tools to explore and use to their advantage for easy collation, processing and dissemination all in one platform.

 As mass communication student the internet has provide with so much resources and tools to distinguish us from citizen journalist, we stand a chance to be more advance, more opportunity to carry out our assignment. It further gives us the advantage of being an entrepreu online journalist.

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