STUDENT PERCEPTION ON THE INTERNET AS A NEWS CHANNEL AUCHI POLYTECHNIC AS A CASE STUDY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0       Background of the Study

            New technologies have transformed journalistic practice in many ways around the world. Newspapers in particular are under pressure in many developed countries to adapt to technological changes as revenue dwindles and new online business models are being explored. As a result, the internet has become an immensely significant source of news for many developed countries.

Not surprising, there has been a surge in scholarly attention to how news is delivered online, as well as who is producing it and who is reading it. However, while numbers of studies have investigated how established journalists are dealing with using new technologies, very little attention has been paid to how the journalists of tomorrow view and use the interest as a news medium.

Splichal and Sparks (1994) seminal study of first year journalism students in 22 countries around the world was conducted many years ago, long before the internet became a mainstream news sources for many people, they saw it coming in fact, in the developed world, the internet has become an integral part of students’ lives to the extent that theses “digital native” have been teaching their lectures a thing or two above the internet. Beyond students’ use of the internet as a news source, a number of studies also examined student’s use of the internet in general. For example Aderson (2011) examined how internet use had impacted on the social or academic lives of university students. Kandell (1998) analyzed internet addiction among students similarly; Kubey et al (2001:366) noted the increasing use of the internet by university and polytechnic students while Jones et al (2009) reports that students are “heavy users” of the internet.

Yet, as pointed out previously, there exist limited studies of exclusively journalism students’ use of the internet as news source. Considering that vast majority of journalist in the world now have some tertiary education in communication or your nations field, the group is imperfect to examine in order for us to understand how the journalist of the future will be engaging the internet and other new technologies. In this context, this project reports the result of a survey that examined the ways and means by which mass communication students of Auchi Polytechnic receive their news, including their perceptions and the use of the internet as a news channel. The study serves as a foundation for a proposed much larger (global) study of journalism students’ use of internet as a news channel.

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