New communication technology, including accessible online publishing
software and evolving mobile device technology, means that citizens
have the potential to observe and report more immediately than
traditional media outlets do. Swarms of amateur online journalists are
putting this technology to use, on open publishing sites such as In the
media and on countless weblogs, adding a grassroots dimension to the
media landscape. Bloggers and other amateur journalists are scooping
mainstream news outlets as well as pointing out errors in mainstream
articles, while people who’ve been made subjects of news articles are
responding online, posting supplementary information to provide context
and counterpoints. Increasingly, the public is turning to online
sources for news, reflecting growing trust in alternative media.
While some traditional news outlets are reacting with fear and
uncertainty, many are adopting open publishing features to their own
online versions. The Guardian and other mainstream media outlets have
added blogs to their sites. The BBC’s web site posts reader’s photos,
and other sites solicit and use reader-contributed content. Mainstream
news outlets
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are increasingly scanning blogs and other online
sources for leads on news items, and some are hiring journalists from
the blogging ranks. Journalists are blogging live from courtrooms, from
Baghdad, and elsewhere, allowing them to post frequent updates in near
real-time.
As the public turns toward participatory forms of
online journalism, and as mainstream news outlets adopt more of those
interactive features in their online versions, the media environment is
shifting, slowly and incrementally, away from the broadcast model
where the few communicate to the many, toward a more inclusive model in
which publics and audiences also have voices.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
A first step has to be made in terms of the
developments on the technological front and the ways in which these
developments are making inroads into our understanding of newspaper
production. Computerization in all sectors of society has taken place
in particularly Western capitalist democracies - with effects on the way
the economy and society operates. Practically all media companies have
switched to computer network systems, electronic communication traffic
and the ‘paperless office’ are topics of debate in management circles
and the convergence of media as well as the fact that the television
set, video player and personal computer have found their way into an
increasing number of West-European, North-American and Australasian
households are signs of the high impact of technology on all aspects of
life.
The Internet as it can be considered to be affecting
newspaper production in general and the professional ideology of
newspaper production in particular will be discussed here in two ways:
how it has made inroads
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into newsrooms and desktops of journalists working for
all media types in terms of Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR); and how
it has created a new type of newspaper production: online newspaper.
Although it must be said that every country or region
has its own specific issues regarding news media developments and
newspaper production, the author assumes that some of the more general
points made here can be extrapolated to the developments in more or
less similar areas in the world such as North America, Australia,
Western Europe and Japan.
1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The central questions which have been addressed to some extent in these publications can be summarized as:
- What kind of business model works for newspaper production with the aid of internet (i.e. where can we make profit)?
- Will traditional newspaper or even traditional news values disappear because of the Internet?
- Should there be newspaper production at all online?
- If the answer to question 3 is "Yes", what kind
of newspaper production should it be and what kind of skills is
required of journalists working for and with the Internet?
- PURPOSE OF STUDY
This paper aims to offer some thoughts on how to
answer this question in three steps. First a brief sketch of the two
key developments in newspaper production and news media technologies in
the last decade or so addresses the state of the art in e-newspaper
production: as it impacts upon all newspaper journalists through
Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR) and
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upon a specific 'group' of media professionals through the establishment of online newspaper production.
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This research focuses on the impact of internet on
paper production. For purpose of this study the scope is limited to the
Nigeria news media industry. However the findings of this research
work may be applicable to other countries of the world especially
within and outside Africa.
- OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The level of impact of internet on Nigeria newspaper
production seems rising very fast but not fully focused by the most
concerned party. The purpose of this study is to identify the impact
and significance of the internet on newspaper production.
Therefore, this study is intended to inquire into the
factors hindering the effective use of internet in the Nigeria
newspaper production suggest, in the concluding area, the possible
prospect to aid the operation of newspaper production in this era of
internet.
- SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
It is expected that this study would be immense
benefit to the government, the news media, newspaper publishers and the
people of this country. This study will highlight the importance of the
internet as a vehicle for promoting news reporting and production.
Through the mass media, especially the radio and television Nigeria might have a chance of having a viable internet culture.
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- THEORETICAL FRAME WORK
The entire study of mass communication is based on the
premises that there are effects from the media, yet it seems to be the
issue on which there is certainly.
- DEFINITION OF TERMS
- MASS MEDIA: Existing channel through which government
and its citizens communication to each other or means through which
greater number of people are reached spontaneously with information.
- NEWSPAPER: A newspaper is a regularly scheduled
publication containing news of current events, informative articles,
diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively
inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint.
- THE INTERNET: The Internet is a global system of
interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet
Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a
network of networks that consists of millions of private, public,
academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope,
that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical
networking technologies.
- PRODUCTION: Production is the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)