TAIRU TAOFEEK KOLAWOLE

LAGOS STATE POLYTECHNIC

SCHOOL OF PART-TIME STUDIES, IKORODU, LAGOS

MASS COMMUNICATION

HND II
136072046

A STUDY OF MEDIA CONVERGENCE IN NIGERIA ENVIRONMENT

WHAT IS CONVERGENCE?

Convergence, simply, is how individual consumers interact with others on a social level and use various media platforms to create new experiences, new forms of media and content that connect us socially, and not just to other consumers, but to the corporate producers of media in ways that have not been as readily accessible in the past.

Convergence is a coming together of two or more distinct entities or phenomena, thereby removing entry barriers across the IT, telecoms, media and consumer electronics industries. It is increasingly common in the IT world; in this context the term refers to the combination of two or more different technologies in a single device. For instance, taking pictures with a cell phone and surfing the Web on a television are two of the most common examples of this trend, and also the recent innovation of an I-phone being used to shoot a video film in Japan.

However, as the internet changes the face of communication, journalists are beginning to have a new way of packaging and disseminating news to the public.  Though  journalists in Nigeria have access to the internet and most of them do that in their respective places of work and with personal internet access .

Moreso, journalists access internet from cyber cafes, libraries and media resource centres and most of them still use the internet to send e-mail. Beyond sending

e-mail to headquarters and receiving instructions from the same internet has created new opportunities for journalists to sell stories not only to other media houses locally but across the globe.

The internet has made the world smaller for journalists to explore. This wonderful

technology has also made research on various subject matters available via chatting and exchange of messages. This has created new markets and form of journalism where journalists specialize and work as online journalists, content managers or editors for particular websites.

The internet is pushing journalists to learn new skills on how to add content to a web site, blog and create hyper text links the coming of the internet is also leading journalists to basically know photographic skills such as how to take digital pictures and upload them to a computer or add them to a blog and website.

 Internet has made it easy for journalists to research on any subject as it is one of the biggest resources – it makes it easy to find out what acronyms stand and also research a certain subject matter. No doubt, the internet is also changing the way we write for newspapers as we now have to learn how to strictly write for online newspapers.

However, most of the online newspapers still carry the same material which was produced by the print version without creating hypertext links to help the visitor stay with the page

MEDIA CONVERGENCE

Media convergence is an economic strategy in which communications companies seek financial benefit by making the various media properties they own work together. The strategy is a product of three elements:

• corporate concentration, whereby fewer large companies own more and more media properties;
• digitization, whereby media content produced in a universal computer language can be easily adapted for use in any medium; and
• government deregulation, which has increasingly allowed media conglomerates to own different kinds of media (e.g., television and radio stations and newspapers) in the same markets, and which has permitted content carriage companies (e.g., cable TV suppliers) to own content producers (e.g., specialty TV channels).

The common ground for any process labeled as media convergence is the blurring of the limits between different media –professional skills, formats, production strategies.

THE ERA OF INTERNET JOURNAL

The internet is the fastest growing medium in history. The digitalisations, convergence of computer and telephony technologies -which are the linchpin of the internet, have greatly influenced the way news and information are produced and disseminated. Times and things have indeed changed, globalization has since become a buzz word, and has brought with it change and competition. People’s lives have been variously affected either for the better or for worse, depending on the side of the divide one finds himself.

The rapid adoption of internet by journalist is a nationwide phenomenon. The process by which computerization or digitalization impacted upon the media of the 21th Century has moved on many fronts and at different speeds. With desktop publishing and word processing packages, particularly the page maker, the production of newspapers, magazines, journals etc has become on interesting business more so with the use of video display terminals (VDTS)

Desktop publish which is the use of a computer and specialized software to combine text and graphics to create a document that can be printed on either a laser printer or a typesetting machine has lessen the burden of typesetting on the old manual typewriter. The use of computer in lay out and printing enhances accuracy, helping to control newspaper and magazine costs. Electronic editing; proofreading, formatting, spellchecking tools, calculator and other software tools now facilitate the speed and ease news gathering and dissemination. Also, the use of electronic publishing which involves the process through which print media disseminate printed messages using electronic media has closed the wide gap between print and electronic media as a result of convergence in technology.

A good example of this is being demonstrated the way The Nation Newspaper in Nigeria typesets in Lagos but prints its hardcopy simultaneously in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja; no doubt a new era in the history of media technology is here with us. Electronic editions of newspapers have also been delivered to various homes through this system.

Another landmark in the era of internet journalism has been the ability of the media to harness the potentials of World Wide Web (www) among other services provided by the net. The www which is a system for accessing, manipulating, and downloading a very large set of hypertext-linked documents and other files located on computers connected through the internet has afforded both the source and receiver to send and receive messages as well as advertise goods and services.

MEDIA CONVERGENCE IN NIGERIA ENVIROMENT

Following the proposition of the major dimensions that cover Media Convergence, having examined the Nigerian Media system, Nigeria media organization fall totally into these dimensions.

In the first dimension which has to do with Integrated Production, the most relevant signs of convergence are to be found in the reformation of newsrooms which is also linked to the redefinition of professional roles, technical innovation and the development of innovative news formats and languages.

In Nigeria today, most reporters, photojournalist, video-journalism, editors, etc submit their stories, photos or videos through the internet or their mobile phone. Unlike in the last decade when editors and reporters work from personal offices/ independent newsrooms which sometimes delay the production of news-stories. They collaborate more and develop forms of integration of all the journalists into one newsroom, in which at the end of the day produces the content for different outlets at the same time.

Digitization of the production processes has been the technological innovation that has supported newsroom integration in most media houses across the nation.

Using the convergence of the multi-skilled professionals to examine the Nigerian media, it can be observed that Nigerian journalist are not only trained to report news stories but also to report the audios, photos and videos of the event using their mobile phones or devices. Various workshops have been organized to train journalist to be skilled and professionally inclined with today’s technology.

The ideal Multi-skilled journalist, as some authors have suggested to label them would be able to produce news for any medium using any technological tool needed in every step of the process. This strategy allows companies to reduce labour, administrative and material costs, to use the same media content across several media outlets, to attract increased advertising by providing advertisers with package deals and one-stop shopping for a number of media platforms, and to increase brand recognition and brand loyalty among audiences through cross-promotion and cross-selling.

Multi-Platform Delivery of content has been the dimension of convergence that more visibly has developed in recent years, even though journalism research has seldom paid attention to the implications of this trend. The maturity of the Internet and mobile communications, as well as the data-enabled digital television systems have broaden the range of options for the citizens to access the news.

Moreso, Broadcasting has increasingly been replaced by the Internet, enabling consumers all over the world the freedom to access their preferred media content more easily and at a more available rate than ever before. Many Nigerians can now access news information from their mobile phones, or internet, especially with the advent of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn abd blog sites such as Naira land. It has been observed that newspaper organisations have adopted the means of internet to publish their stories. Examples like The Punch (www.punchng.com), The Guardian (www.ngrguardiannews.com), The Sun News (www.sunnewsonline.com), Thisday (www.thisdaylive.com), The Nation (www.thenationliveng.net), etc.

Even radio stations like Radio Nigerian (), Freedom Radio (www.freedomradionig.com), Radio Lagos(www.radiolagosekofm.net), Classic FM (www.classic97.net), Brilla FM (www.brilafm.net), etc cannot but allow their presence to be felt worldwide prior to media convergence in Nigeria and Digitization.

Current media trends do not only seem to blur the differences among the media, but also the distance between producers and audiences. Digital distribution technologies allow for the customization of content and ease the production of news that is highly targeted to specific niche audience, But it is active participation what may have a greater influence in the redefinition of professional journalism.

For the Nigerian journalist, the mobile phone keeps him in close contact with news sources. Besides, most journalists now have in their possession multimedia devices that enable them to take instant photographs, record interviews and keeps them connected to the internet. Other professionals also have leveraged on the importance of mobile phone

Blogs, wikis and other self-publishing tools have eased the ability of the denizens to produce their own content and potentially reach a global audience. Nowadays, everyone is a journalist due to the fact that there are forums in which the right thinking members of the society (non-journalist) can contribute to the comment/issues facing the society. In print publications, the citizens are given a separate page to publish their opinions about issues that affect them in their immediate society. The Broadcast media also has audience participation programs like One-on-One (NTA), Moments with MO, Inside out with Agatha, Tom- Tom road show on Inspiration FM, etc.

THE TYPE OF MEDIA CONVERGENCE IN NIGERIA ENVIRONMENT.

THE BROADCAST  MEDIA IN NIGERIA

	Radio Stations	Television Stations	Online Radio	Satellite	Others	Social Networks
Silverbird Group	Rhythm FM	Silverbird Television	STV online	Silverbird Television	Mall and Cinema	Twitter, Facebook
DAAR Communications	Raypower	AIT	AIT online	DaarSat and AIT (DSTV)		Twitter, Facebook
Continent	Radio Continental	Television  Continental	TVC online	Nil	Nil	Twitter, Facebook
Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation	Radio Nigeria	Nigerian  Television Authority	NTA online	NTA 1		Twitter, Facebook
Lagos state Broadcasting Corporation	Radio Lagos (Yoruba) and Eko FM (English)	Lagos Television (LTV)	Radio online , Eko89.75fm online and LTV online	LTV		Twitter, Facebook
Channels	Nil	Channels TV	Channels (audio and Video)	Channels TV	Mobile	Twitter, Facebook
Brila Broadcasting Services	Brila FM	Nil	Brila FM online	Nil		Twitter, Facebook
DBN Limited	Nil	DBN TV		Nil		Twitter, Facebook
Galaxy			Galaxy TV online	Nil		Twitter, Facebook
MITV				MITV		Twitter, Facebook

THE PRINT MEDIA IN NIGERIA

	Print Publications	Online Publications	Mobile Publications
Punch	Present	Present	Present
P.M News	P.M News	Present
The Nation	The Nation	Present	Present
Sun	Sun	Present
Thisday	Thisday	Present
Vanguard	Vanguard	Present	Present
Nigerian Tribune	Nigerian Tribune	Tribune online
Genevieve Magazine	Genevieve Magazine	Genevieve magazine online
News watch	News watch	Present
Tell Magazine	Tell Magazine	Present
Financial Standard	Financial Standard	Present
Business Day	Business Day	Present
Guardian	Guardian	Guardian
Daily Trust	Daily Trust	Daily Trust online

CONCLUSION

An online version of any media in Nigeria is developed to provide more information and in some cases provide video clips and a series of pictures unlike the print version which has limited pages. The internet is much more interesting as it provides journalists with multimedia platform where journalism can provides data, video and voice.

 Online newspaper is meant to capture wider audience internationally. As technology advances more change will continue to occur. The internet is not only or even mainly concerned with the production and distribution of messages. It is at least equally concerned with processing exchange and storage of information. The internet is as much as institution of private as well as of public communication. The operation is not typically professional of bureaucratically organized in the same degree as mass media.

However, the lack of political will among the national leaders should be addressed. Most governments in developing countries do not help matters as they show lackadaisical attitudes towards investing on their media to make them functional towards serving the people hence, the media audience turn to the internet to get the best they think is better for them. Popular belief has it that news coming from official, mainstream channels is superior in quality and readability than news reported by a blogger or someone with a shaky camcorder. Traditional media keep on being preached as the source of truth, but what they lack is exactly the essence of truth -validation. Through the internet journalism on the contrary, finds its strength in the continuous, ongoing validation process operated by large community. Anybody can easily share his/her opinion; agree or disagree with what is being said by taking the advantages of new technologies and the web.

The kind of high-technology interaction journalism is a resemblance of real life conversation again, much like the original journalism occurring in the public houses and coffee houses four hundred years ago. Seen in this light, journalism’s function is not fundamentally changed by the digital age. The techniques may be different, but the underlying principles are the same.

What is emerging is a new media ecosystem where online communities discuss and extend the stories created by mainstream media. These communities also produce participatory journalism, grassroots reporting, annotative reporting, commentary and fact-checking which the mainstream media feed upon, develop as pool of tips, sources and story ideas.