ASSESSMENT OF AUDIENCE AWARENESS, ACCESSIBILITY AND PATRONAGE OF ONLINE NEWS

Background of the study: The Internet continues to evolve into a major news source. The internet which is the worldwide system of interconnected computers makes use of telecommunication resources. It is defined by Aina (2003), Hanson (2005) as a network made up of large number of computers throughout the whole world. The computers in the network communicate and share data with one another. The internet with all its capabilities have changed the way we live, learn and work. It permits us to communicate more with people around the world, regardless of location and distance, thus making it a global village. Anyone who has followed the Internet industry over the last decade might have seen an amazing series of events. The transformation brought about by the internet in the area of the mass media is enormous. One of those areas is the newspaper industry. The internet has completely changed the face of the printing industry and newspapers have taken the lead. Today, people do not have to wait for 24 hours for newspapers to update them of happenings around the world as newspapers now have ‘breaking news’ which was an exclusive of the broadcast industry. People do not have to wait until the vendor(s) deliver the newsprint before knowing what is happening in the dailies. On a typical day, more than 50 million Americans obtain news from the Web (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2006). The Newspaper Association of American (NAA, 2006) reports that 112 million people visited online news sites during the first quarter of 2006. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of Americans say the Internet is their main source of news, while 44% obtain news from online sources at least once a week (Pew Research Center, 2005). This no doubt signifies a tremendous change and transformation in the newspaper readership by the internet courtesy of computers interconnectivity. In spite of the seeming successes of the internet as a news medium, questions have been raised about the credibility of online news (Lasica, 1998 and Online News Association, 2002). These concerns are significant in that journalism is built on the principles of credibility. The public is likely not to pay attention to a medium that they do not trust because trust is a factor in news reporting. Johnson and Kaye (1998) cautions that lack of trust in information obtained from the Internet could keep it from becoming an even more important and influential news source. In what seem to be a global diffusion of innovation and social change, the newspaper industry in Nigeria has also joined the world trend of publishing daily newspapers on the internet. There is no gainsaying the fact that majority of Nigerian newspapers are on the internet presently. The issue which many online newspaper readers have had to grapple with is that of the credibility of the news sources and the identification of the reporters or authors of the internet stories. The internet has not only come to revolutionize the dissemination of information by the mass media but also seriously altered the traditional processes of news gathering and processing. Nigerian newspapers may have gone to the internet partly as a means of reaching out to the outside world and partly as a way of not being left out of the information advantages which the internet has brought to the print industry globally and most importantly as a result of the threats from the broadcast industry. According to Baran (2004, p.121)   The marriage between the newspaper industry and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has made many, if not all, national newspapers in Nigeria to have online versions (Mbachu, 2003). It is believed that their readership is high as Adedina, Adeniyi and Bolaji (2008) aver that more people read online versions of a newspaper than its hard copy in Nigeria. What these indicate is that online newspapers are viable sources of information in our present day Nigeria. The dictum: “Information is power” suggests that information enhances human development. Human development, according to Anorue, Obayi, and Onyebuchi (2012), is a state of human wellbeing that enables people to gain control of their environments. They point out that the sharing of information among humans through communication is a crucial component of the relationship with the human environment for development purposes. Readership of online newspapers is an information sourcing and sharing activity. The phenomenon of online newspapers is believed to have greatly enhanced information sourcing and sharing activities in several ways. A number of benefits accrue to online newspapers in their information sharing efforts. Online newspapers provide easy, widespread, and timely access to information; allow for interactivity among information users; and enable users to store, share and retrieve their content quickly and easily (Ijeh, 2008; McQuail, 2007).

Experts in the nation‘s media and marketing communication industries at a forum organized by the Advertising Agencies‘ Association of Nigeria, (AAAN), in 2010 in Lagos, raised alarm on the future of newspaper in Nigeria. Majority of the participants concluded that unless the print media braced up to the challenges posed by the new media, it might go extinct in the nearest future. This apprehension was no doubt a fall-out of the report which portrayed an alarming slide in the patronage of newspaper. According to the 2010 study carried out by the Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) across the country, the daily sales figure of all the newspapers was less that 300,000, meaning that only one in every 470 Nigerians buy newspapers daily (Ekeng, 2010). Putting this reality in proper perspective, Popoola (2010) said that all the newspapers in Nigeria today have combined circulation figure that is far less than 500,000 copies per day when compared to 1980 when the population of Nigeria was about half of what it is today. Presently the stockpile of unsold copies of newspapers and magazines in the circulation departments of most print media organizations is a vivid sign of this challenge. Ekeng (2010), disclosed that The Punch as the number one selling national daily only circulates 34, 264 copies, The Sun was ranked third with 25, 632 unit sales. Vanguard got 25, 241, while Guardian and Thisday came 5th and 6th xii respectively, with 25, 222 and 21, 703 daily sales. Daily Trust, the most popular newspaper up North has 11, 672 daily unit sales. Tribune, the oldest surviving newspaper in Nigeria, was another surprise, managing only 8, 314 daily sales. The above mentioned dailies constitute what is known as the top 8 in the standing. The others combined, including Compass, Daily Independent, Leadership, National Life, New Nigerian, Mirror and Westerner, could barely rake up 1,600 daily sales. The question then should be, why the alarming slide in the patronage of newspaper? This is very important as a wrong diagnosis will invariably lead to an inappropriate treatment. Ekeng (2010) noted that circulation decline is a global phenomenon as the newspaper industry in America, Europe and even Asia are also affected. This, he said, is primarily due to the impact of the Internet, which guarantees quick news for free. Topping the list of all the causes is the crashing local economy, which has greatly reduced the purchasing power of most Nigerians. Of recent, fast developing technology has been fuelling an information revolution. The new media, digital broadcasting and the internet are sweeping away the limitations of the analogue world and weakening the grip of government-owned platforms. The nature of the relationship between the broadcaster and its audience is changing. New media in this information age provides an immediate, informative, intelligent, interactive platform for discussion and debate. New media is essentially a cyber-culture with modern computer technology, digital data controlled by software and the latest fast developing communication technology. Most technologies described as “new media” are digital, and often have characteristics of being networkable, dense, compressible, interactive and impartial. Examples are the internet, websites, computer multimedia, games, CD-ROMs and DVDs. Young people are attracted to the easy means of getting information with internet based terminals or hand phones which provide them information of their choice anytime, anywhere. They need not have to wait for any broadcasting schedule to be connected to get the information. Internet blogs, news portals and online news, Facebook, You Tube, podcast and webcast, and even the short messaging system (SMS), are all new media.