Abstract

Background: The operational environment of the broadcast media in many parts of the world has been growing more digital in nature and altered the organisational structure, professional practices, and sustainability strategies. The dynamic adoption of digital technologies has added to the convergence of newsrooms, changed work processes in journalism and increased the distribution of content on multiple platforms in Nigeria. Although this has happened, it still raises questions on how an organisation in the broadcast industry is capable of digital transformation and how it can impact on professional standards, employment, and consumer interaction. This research thus analysed how digital innovation has affected the organisational structures, professionalism in journalism and sustainability outputs in the broadcast stations in Nigeria based on the theoretical approaches of technological determinism and media convergence.

Method: The research design used was the survey research design. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data by asking 154 respondents selected to fill the questionnaire and who were attracted to the broadcast stations within Nigeria. The participants were journalists, editors, producers, social media individuals, digital content managers, engineers, camera operators, and administrative staff. The data gathered were analysed with the help of descriptive statistics and chi-square inferential statistics since they were used to test the hypotheses that were formulated at a significance level of 0.05.

Results: The results indicated that the digital innovation has a huge impact on the organisational structures and practices in the broadcast stations that result in the convergence of newsroom, redefinition of roles, and workflow processes in broadcast stations. The findings also showed that there exists a positive connection between the implementation of digital technologies and the improvement of professionalism in journalism. Nevertheless, the issues of job insecurity and role substitution are still present among the media practitioners. Moreover, digital transformation was observed to be the most effective in enhancing audience interactions and organisational sustainability due to multi-platform content delivery, interactive communication medium, and data-based programming approaches. In general, the paper proves that digital transformation is not only a technical change but a structural and cultural change in broadcast organisations in Nigeria.