FEMALE CIVIL SERVANTS PERCEPTION AND PATTERN OF USE OF NEW MEDIA IN SOUTH EAST NIGERIA

INTRODUCTION

The term “new media” refers to a class of media that are digital and interactive and hence differ from the mass media that McLuhan addressed in Understanding Media. The new media that McLuhan studied were the electronic media of mass communication and the mainframe computers, which he showed had a radically different impact compared to the mechanical media and technologies such as the printing press, the clock, the assembly line, and newspapers. Although the mainframe computers that McLuhan commented on were digital, they were not interactive in the way today’s personal computers are nor were they readily accessible to a large audience, and hence we do not include them in our definition of the “new media.” (Logan, 2010). Hence, in this study, the term “New Media” will be used interchangeably with the word “Internet” which implies the interconnection of different media through the web.

As individuals are becoming more and more professional, complex and sophisticated, and are provided with limited amount of time, they are assumed to choose between different media platforms they are surrounded with by determining which one would better satisfy their particular needs (McCombs & Nolan, 1992; Kayany & Yelsma, 2000; Dimmick, Chen, & Li, 2004). This assumption resonates in media studies concerning the emergence of the Internet as a new medium that offers a wide range of communication opportunities, synergizing and converging other media platforms in an unprecedented magnitude and drive (Ugwuanyi, 2017; Edogor, Ojo, Ezugwu and Dike, 2015). Concerns about audience media use patterns continue to trail recent studies in view of the appearance/emergence of the new media. These studies argue that individual patterns of Internet use are largely dependent on the communication needs or

desires of the user and differ among the male and female gender (Adediran and Kehinde, 2014;Akpan, Akwaowo and Senam, 2013). Scores of studies have dealt with how the male gender uses the Internet, while a few have focused on female use (Amichai-Hamburger and Hayat, 2011; Ani, 2010). Most of the studies in this area of media usage analysis have been carried out with a focus more on the youths than what other audience groups are using the new media for (Anunobi, and Mbagwu, 2009; Ani, 2010); what determines their choice and how they engage with the new media. This present study, attempts a shift to focus on Nigerian female elites, the civil servants. This group is in the majority in civil service, with job designations that warrants heavy use and high knowledge of the Internet. Based on the foregoing the study interrogates the ways the Internet is used by this group to determine pattern of usage and reasons behind the type of use. The study further, investigated their perception of the new media as an interactive medium that have radically not only changed communication patterns , but have also developed new ways of using communication technologies in  official settings.