Remediation or Replacement: Masthead Stakeholders’ Perception of News Digitalisation in Nigeria

Abstract

The global news media landscape is experiencing significant digital innovations and shifting technological paradigms. The digitalisation of news is causing varying degrees of change in the news media industry across different countries. While extensive research efforts have been made to examine changes occurring in different news media landscapes, local African contexts have remained underexplored. Thus, this study explored how news digitalisation is affecting traditional news media and what it portends for the sustainability of mainstream newspapers in Nigeria’s media landscape. Since Nigeria is highly influential in sub-Saharan Africa, occurrences in its media landscape may be used as a point of reference for the subcontinent, rather than being patterned after developed countries with different realities. This research examines within the contexts of remediation and replacement, from the broad academic debate about the implications of news digitalisation on mainstream news media platforms. To address the overarching objective of the study, perceptions of stakeholders were elicited in semi-structured interviews. Twenty Nigerian mainstream masthead stakeholders across four sub-categories (strategic partners, owners, special interest group and employees) were selected to participate in the study. Collected data were thematically analysed. Findings show that social, institutional and individual factors contribute to stakeholders’ perception of news digitalisation as complementary to traditional news systems. Hence, the news media landscape is witnessing remediation, rather than replacement. Stakeholders also largely agree that while it may be difficult to set up new print newspapers at this time, established print newspapers remain sustainable in the Nigerian news milieu, as they already possess significant social relevance. This thesis also found that digital engagement strategies of conventional mastheads are not optimal, causing them to be less relevant in the digital space. Ethical breaches, such as plagiarism and copyright violations, in the digital space further erode the relevance of conventional newspapers, threatening their sustainability. Thus, this thesis recommends that conventional mastheads should optimise their news digitalisation process to maximise their relevance in the digital space, given that the news media landscape is experiencing traditional-digital complementarity. There is also a need to strategically enhance accountability and professionalism in the digital news space. Broadly, this project contributes to the ongoing discourse about the future of mainstream newspapers and the changes occurring in the media landscape from an African perspective which has rarely been explored.