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Full Project – IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON TRADITIONAL MEDIA IN NIGERIA. A CASE OF DAILY TIMES NIGERIA (DTN) AND NATIONAL CONCORD NEWSPAPER

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Background of the Problem

The term social media can be defined as a range of tools and services that facilitate direct user interaction online. Social media are web based services which are otherwise called “social networking Sites” (Miller, 2016). Social media refers to a network of connections and communications among various gatherings or people (Kaplan, 2010). Stelzner (2016) defined social media as a platform that was centered on the concept of a read and write web, where the audience and users are past the passive viewing of web content and move on to actually contributing to the content. In simple terms, social media covers anything that makes use of the Internet to enable conversations and most often take the form of social networking sites, blogs, and Wikis.

All over the world, the social media and online news have become an inherent part of modern society. The presence of new media and social media in particular, has posed a challenge to the printed newspaper (NlacManus, 2008).Readership habits seem to be changing as users turn to the Internet for free news and information. The alternate source of news and information is not only free but also acts fast. The ‘instant’ feature of the social media and the online news was one of the smart options for the consumers to accept it globally. Moreover, the ample amount of information and news provided by the Internet which is updated every few minutes is never expected to be enjoyed by the newspaper that is received only once in a day (Ndaku,2015). One can get back to the same news or any piece of information without any struggle of storing the stack of newspapers on a rack which sounds very much tiring. Alternatively, the Internet could be used at anytime and anywhere without taking too long to search for a piece of information. Over a decade now, almost 90% of Daily Newspapers in US have been actively using online technologies to search for articles and most of them also create their own news websites to reach new markets (Gleason, 2010).

Furthermore, by mid of 2017 TCRA figured that 40% of Nigerians which is the same to 57 million population had internet access due to increases of smart phones access. Therefore due to availability and skills of accessing internet (social media) circulations of tradition media lowered in the street and thus affect the use of hard copy news papers (TCRA, 2017).

1.2.1 New Media and its Revolution

The print media which was always a one-way mass communication has given way for the new media to flourish which allows people to act as both the transmitters as well as the producers. The New Media in this study refers to online news social media like Facebook and Twitter. The new media seems to be giving solutions for every need possible. Right from the humble beginning to the present, the New Media has been mostly preferred for the flexible features it provides (Papoola, 2014).

The New Media is essentially an amalgamation of most media forms existing anywhere in the world today. It is a roaring example for the democratisation of publishing as well as distribution. A virtue of the New Media is in its ‘archives’ content, that can be instantly accessed by the information needy, hence giving the seeker a sense of security. Though it is old information that the seeker avails, it gives a sense to every user that the media is of his/her own time, thus asynchronous nature vanishes. The New Media is highly interactive and has the potential to be a good mediator between the governors and the governed (Chan, 2008, Cha, Benevenuto, Haddadi, & Gummadi, (2012). There are numerous instances of it being a help to better local self-governance. Nevertheless, there are limitations like the espionage, wiki-leaks, etc. But traditional newspapers also favour political biases (paid news) and its credibility is becoming low day by day, while the trust of information on the New Media is on the rise. Even government websites are on and rising (Ravi, 2011). According to Baer, & Amber (2011) Social media, 24/7 news, and a globally interconnected world have banded together like a hyperactive street gang to reduce our decision-making cycle to the point where it often wholly evaporates.

There has been tremendous increase in the number of Internet users since 1995, the so-called “Year of Internet”. Affordable personal computers, unlimited access and the high speed Internet connection combined with a strong economy in the late 1990s and early 2000s powered the Internet to phenomenal growth in the United States. The time people spent reading online news has more than doubled between 1998 and 2006 (Jankowski & Van Selm (2000). In exploring the distinctions and complementarities between the New Media and mainstream mass media, the mass media is typically highly centralised, require significant investment and resources and can be heavily influenced by governments through various mechanisms and forms of control whereas the New Media decentralised, require very low investment, provides greater interactivity and public participation and is much more difficult to control (Banerjee, 2008). The parameters of freedom and space found in the mainstream media are directly or indirectly prescribed by the government. People are now free and have the opportunity to create their own news as well as to get the other side of the story by getting news from the Internet which is seen as free from control (Rosenstiel, 2005). Sethii & Shivakumar, (2020) said anyone, anyone with a cell phone can be a videographer and anyone on Facebook, Twitter or a thousand other platforms can be a news editor, or at least a curator.

1.2.2 Traditional Media

The print media paradigm flourished in the pre-internet era where instant access to news, using Smartphone’s and online news aggregators, was not within the reach of the common person. The dynamics of information access has significantly changed over the years, with the number of Smartphone users in India alone exceeding 20 million. Trying to deliver news to the current generation of tech-savvy Indian population seems to be redundant as the press involves a lot of steps and is passive in comparison to New Media which is instant and interactive. As per the statistics by Capstone Report in the year 2011, the print circulation has been declining over the past few years.

The breadth of information available online and the opportunity to personalise news consumption according to individual interests, coupled with being able to get news updates several times a day pushed audiences online for their news. Furthermore, social media allows users to provide feedback, which in turn is used to enrich the user’ experience. Newspapers do deserve some credit as they do a better job in covering local interest stories, which are often neglected by the politically and nationally minded online publications. If one can get past the main section of the Star without having a seizure, one would like to read its Metro section which keeps one informed on the little things going on in the neighbourhood, city and state (Yap, 2009). The online media sources often keep going using revenues from advertisements and sponsored news articles. This lucrative business model that has proven to be more profitable than the print-based counterpart has started to affect the scale at which print media gets adopted. The main aim of this research is to investigate the effects of the social media and other online news sources on traditional print media. This research also studies the impact of print media and New Media on the population.

1.2.3 Social Media and its Effects on the Delivery of News

The social media is today’s most transparent, engaging and interactive form of public relations. It combines the true grit of real time content with the beauty of authentic peer-to-peer communication. Although, providing a detailed perspective on social media use among university students and underscoring that such use can produce both positive and negative consequences, according to a Nielsen Media Research Study, in June 2010, almost 25% of students’ time on the Internet is now spent on social networking websites (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011).

The young people are more sensitive to information posted on social media, with the impact on them being twice as high as the impact on older people. Facebook alone reports that it now has 500 million active users, 50% of whom log on every day. This could be a logical consequence of the fact that young people have embraced social media more (Oyero, 2013). It is therefore expected that information posted on social media will become increasingly important to consumers in future. This shift means that organisations will feel the need to invest more and more in the New Media in the near future but the open book, Facebook once had outraged supporters demanding for the freedom of speech and expression when a girl was kept behind the bars (Zhou, Bandari, Kong,Qian, Roychowdhury (2010).

Globally, social media platforms (such as WhatsApp) are among the most popular media services in accessing public information. The use of WhatsApp as a social medium has become widely recognised by people of all ages and geographical locations (Benton, 2014). People rely on the Internet as a source of information, and as a way of getting fast information (Jain et al., 2013). Unlike analogue technology, digital media sounds are converted (encoded) into electronic signals (represented as varied combinations of binary numbers – ones and zeros) that are then reassembled (decoded) as a precise reproduction of, say, a TV picture, a magazine article, a song, or a telephone voice. On the Internet, various images, texts, and sounds are all digitally reproduced and transmitted globally. Traditional news media today are facing new challenges, new competitors, new demands, and, new expectations and opportunities due to the advancement in information gathering, processing and dissemination technologies. Print media houses in Nigeria, which are major players in the Nigerian mass media industry, are also facing the same challenges.

Mass media technologies shape the way the society uses them to meet its communication needs (Albaran, 2009; Baran & Davis, 2006; MacQuail, 2005). At the same time, the way the society uses these media also shapes their adoption and their use. Mass media technologies have a long history and have been evolving over time with each new media threatening to phase out the previous one (DeFleur & Dennis, 2002; MacQuail, 2005; Tan, 1984).

1.2.4 Nigeria Print Media History

The history of print media popularly called press or newspaper in Nigeria can be traced to the worldwide root which began during the Renaissance in Europe when handwritten newsletters circulated privately among merchants. These newsletters were used in passing along information about everything from wars and economic conditions to social customs and “human interest” features.

The first printed forerunners of the newspaper appeared in Germany in the late 1400’s in the form of news pamphlets or broadsides, often highly sensationalized in content. Some of the most famous of these reports are the atrocities against Germans in Transylvania perpetrated by Vlad TsepesDrakul, who became the Count Dracula of later folklore.

In the English-speaking world, the newspaper was preceded by the corantos, small news pamphlets produced only when some event worthy of notice occurred. The first successively published title was The Weekly Newes of 1622. It was followed in the 1640’s and 1650’s by a plethora of different titles in the similar newsbook format. The first true newspaper in English was the London Gazette of 1666. At that time, it was the only officially sanctioned newspaper, though many periodical titles were in print by the end of that century.

The newspaper evolved into a business model in which some pages were used for advertising which enabled the producers to subsidize the cost of printing and distributing the newspapers. This led to some of the newspaper publishers at that time charging a low price while using advertising to make up the difference.

In recent years, the advertorial has also emerged. Advertorials are most commonly recognized as an opposite-editorial which third-parties pay a fee to have included in the paper. Advertorials commonly advertise new products or techniques, such as a new design for golf equipment, a new form of laser surgery, or weight-loss drugs. The tone is usually closer to that of a press release than of an objective news story.

1.2.5 Daily Times Nigeria (DTN)

The Daily Times is a newspaper with headquarters in Lagos. At its peak, in the 1970s, it was one of the most successful locally owned businesses in Africa.

The paper went into decline after it was purchased by the government in 1975. What was left was sold to a private investor in 2004. Folio Communications Limited officially assumed the ownership of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc on September 3, 2004 after a colorful handover ceremony that was televised. The company was not and is still not a consortium. It is a private limited-liability company.

The printing of the flagship title The Daily Times resumed after the assumption of ownership in earnest from 2006 until 2009, partially to satisfy the embedded requirements contingent upon the Enterprise Sale Deed while company turnaround and restructuring continued.

Although the flagship Daily Times returned to the streets in December 2014, further efforts have been made towards the return of the other viable titles, especially the Sunday Times, the Weekend Times and the Lagos Weekend, to the streets.

1.2.6 National Concord Newspaper

Concord Group was the business name of a group of companies that included Concord group of Newspapers and Concord Airlines. It was founded by Moshood Abiola. Other ventures within the group include Summit Oil, Abiola Farms and Wonder Bakeries. National Concord was founded in 1980 and by the end of 1983, it had become the most read newspaper in Nigeria.

The first issue of National Concord was printed on March 1, 1980, this was followed by a Sunday Concord, the next day. The objectives of the newspaper as stated by the Concord Group was to rid of the nation the triple issues of corruption, tribalism and indiscipline.. At onset, the company attracted talent from Daily Times such as Dele Giwa who was appointed editor of Sunday Concord, Henry Odukomaiya, a previous editor at Daily Times, Ray Ekpu, a member of the editorial board and later co-founder of Newswatch and Doyin Aboaba also of the Times. When the new paper made its debut, the publisher, Abiola was a member of the National Party of Nigeria and the daily supported some actions of the ruling party while Abiola was opposed to the writings of the Nigerian Tribune owned by Awolowo. Investigative writers of the paper soon revealed alleged ownership of over 300 plots of land owned by the opposition leader, Awolowo, who was an advocate of democratic socialism. This revelation briefly impacted Awolowo politically. However, after the exit of Abiola from NPN, it began to receive favorable reception in the Southwestern states dominated by the opposition, this disposition increased when arsonist burnt down a warehouse holding newsprints of the Concord.

Within two years of publication, the National Concord reached a circulation of 131,000. The group later launched a Business Concord and African Concord then followed by publications in Hausa and Igbo languages. In 1988, it purchased African Economic Digest. At its height, the group published fourteen newspapers and magazines. It’s editorial also caught the attention of two military regimes who went on to proscribe it three times. In 1992, Ibrahim Babangida’s reaction to African Concord’s front cover’s headline ”Has IBB Given Up” was to lock up the premises of the company for six months and after Abiola declared himself the duly elected president of Nigeria in June 1994, the group’s publications were banned.

1.3 Statement of Research Problem

In the 21^st century news media professionals are facing a myriad of challenges. They are not only expected to adhere to the traditional journalistic standards of accuracy and fairness but also deal with the rapidly advancing technology and a more sceptical public that wants many things done, ethically and with fast speed. The impact of social media on traditional mass media touches on technologies of mass communication and the people who utilise them. Mass communication technologies change in various ways.

Social media, which also known as the ‘New Media’, have become an integral part of modern society. The presence of such New Media, social media in particular, has threatened the existence of printed newspapers. Despite the adoption of new technologies in Nigeria, only a few studies have investigated how Nigeria’s print media is affected by social media. This study was therefore contributes to this body of work, by investigating the impact of social media on traditional print media in Nigeria, particularly, Daily Times Nigeria (DTN) and National Concord Newspaper.

1.3 Specific Objectives.

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the impact of social media on traditional media in Nigeria . The specific objectives were:

To examine how DTN and National Concord Newspaper incorporate social media into traditional media.
To examine the strategy used by DTN and National Concord Newspaper to merge social media into traditional media production.

To explore the impact of social media on DTN and National Concord Newspaper traditional media production.

To investigate readers’ perception on the impact of social media on traditional media in DTN and National Concord Newspaper.

1.4 Research Questions

How DTN and National Concord Newspaper incorporate social media into traditional media?
What are the strategies used by DTN and National Concord Newspaper to merge social media into traditional media production?

What is the impact of social media on DTN and National Concord Newspaper traditional media production?

What are readers’ perception on the impact of social media on traditional media in DTN and National Concord Newspaper?

1.5 Significance of the Study.

The findings of this study might help media owners to appreciate the impact of social media on traditional media and make the necessary efforts employ social media traditional media in Nigeria. The findings of this study might contribute significantly in media studies. Furthermore, the data generated could be used by other researchers as a resource for further study on related topics. The study also provides information to stakeholders, particularly media practitioners, about effects of new media on traditional media.

1.6 Scope of the Study.

The research involved Daily Times Nigeria (DTN) and National Concord Newspaper, which are based in Lagos Nigeria. This study assessed the impact of New Media (social Media) on traditional media focusing on sports newspapers and mainstream newspapers produced by both media houses. The research assessed 10 years (2008 up to 2018) of development of social media and its impact on traditional media.

1.7 Organization of the Study

This study is organised under the following six chapters: The first chapter deals with general introduction which consists of the background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, objectives, research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study, and organisation of the study. Chapter two comprises theoretical framework, conceptual framework and review of related literature. Chapter three focused on the methodology of the study, research design, target population, sampling procedure and sample size, research instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis techniques. While chapter four deals data presentation and analysis, chapter five is concerned with discussion of the findings. The last chapter, chapter six, gives the summary, conclusion and recommendations of the study.

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