THE IMPACT OF NEW COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN NIGERIA BROADCAST MEDIA
ABSTRACT
This research was an attempt to find out the impact of new communication technologies in Nigeria Broadcast media, using Nigeria Television Authority of Enugu state as a case study. To do this we distributed questionnaire to a population of 200 people and sample used was 133 that could be handle effectively. Thus this work made use of the survey research method to investigate the impact of the new communication technologies on the Nigeria broadcasting media. To integrate our finding into a theoretical framework of analysis we made use of the globalization theory. Statistically table, figures and percentages was used and structured in a tabular form, together with responses. Using the framework of analysis we found out that the positive impact of the new communication technologies in Nigeria broadcast media far out weigh its negative impact. Hence, we conclude that given the myriads of advantages the new communication technologies we have in Nigeria broadcast media, the media houses should map out good plans on how to maintain these new communication technologies to enhance their performance in the dissemination of information.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The past fifteen years or more, the world has played host to a lot of technological innovations of functional value to the mass media. With these innovations came so alternations or change in the world.
Electronic communications involve the process by which message is sent across the globe through the use of computer, telephone. Unlike the fax system which allows one page of text to be transmit at a time, electronic communication facility allows several pages to be processed off line and through a single dialing, it allows these several pages of messages to be transmit to a gateway where they can be distributed to their various distributions. Furthermore, electronic communication involves any of several forms of information exchange between two or more computers through any of several methods of interconnection such as telephone line, satellite etc. This communication mode is rapidly spreading throughout the world as a fast, reliable and in most application, an in expensive form of communication. It is fast and inexpensive because it can use existing public telephone lines.
The history of communication and information technology dates back the Shakespearian “ACTA Diura,” that is the first hallmark of readable and perusable information invention successfully and very glaring society is dynamic and so is the communication world.
As society continue to grow, more and more horizons were explored and the opportunity to create something new. The present after that of the British with the primary aim of being a masters to pass out information and command to their subjects. Over the years, the broadcasting industry metamorphosed with charging western technology. The world is fast becoming a global village through the new communication, culture has been reduced into a more minute particles capable being held by our hands.
According to Uche (1989: 101) “Nigeria posses one of the world most exciting press system”. It is really the birth of information super-highways.
However, the Nigeria electronic media are under a hectic and trying situation where the simplistic perception of the mass media as facilitators of mass communication and their sophisticate function as social actors are seen as exercising great influence in the life of any society or nation.
Importantly, technology plays a vital role in the broadcast media or any mass media in Nigeria. In the light of this fact, the Nigeria broadcast media employs the use of these new communication technologies which include computer internet, satellite/cable system, electronic mail (E-mail) and fax system among others.
New communication technology, including accessible online publishing software and evolving mobile device technology means that citizens have the potential to observe and report more immediate than traditional media out lets do.
Swarms of amateur online journalists are putting this technology to use, on open publishing sites such as indymedia and on countless weblogs, adding a grassroots dimension to the media landscape. Bloggers and other amateur journalists are scoping mainstream news out lets as well as pointing out errors in mainstream articles, while people who have been made subjects of news articles are responding online, posting supplementary information to provide context and counter-points. Increasingly the public is turning to online sources for news, reflecting growing trust in alternative media.
The computer among all the other multimedia technology plays an important role of educating the audience. According to the Aibsons (1975: 215) “New methods of educating everyone to his highest ability will require increase accounts of time, date, money and skill. Only computer assistance can many of these factors be developed to better levels of time”.
The computer communication are both progressing towards a compatible and useful co-existence, perhaps that is why Oeffinger (1989) called it” computer and communication.
The broadcast media can be a source of education or information or even to all those linked to the computer network thereby employing traditional roles of impacting knowledge, informing and externalizing the audience.
Thus, the computer technology as an interactive mass medium is always available matter providing the station with new vistas and opportunity of sharing information with recovers or reaching the mass audience.
The scopes of the computer an educative medium has grown wider with the introduction of the internet. They can no longer be retracted strictly to education on the internets, website is a form of learning which broadcaster cannot fail to capitalize on the web is sonly one part of the u/internet which contains, a global facilities to document which are stored on computers connected to the internet. The web provides facilities to enable people learn, shop, conduct research, listen to news or music and also participate in live events from their computer screen.
Another resources of the internet is the electronic mail (E-mail). It is the most popular resources provided by the telecommunication equivalent of the postal services that deliver letter to the home and office through the computer. More than 80 percent of print journalists use the internet to help them do research and add depth and breath to the news stories they write, while third of all broadcast journalists download audio and video files from websites. E-mail is another technology that aids mass communication. It simple allows anyone with the type if terminal equipment used for on-line services to compose, edit, send, store, rely to, receive and file electronic messages.
Another new communication technology used to the broadcast media is the satellite. The satellite has brought to our homes, the world out there. The role of the satellite is never more evidence as the audience sit in their homes viewing events even as they unfold live. Agba (2001: 40) maintains that “For the time direct from the theater city of operation and also from the city of Baghalad (Gulf war).
The 2002 Africa nations cup which the Nigerian audience were able to view and listen to at their home at the same time matches which took place shows the tremendous impact of the satellite. Also the result concluded Olympic games held in Aterns Grecce was also another powerful impact of the satellite.
According to Akpan (2003:37) “The new communication technologies have vastly increased intercultural communication for example, people of different cultures have more information about each and are not more accessible than before. This has been made possible through such new technologies like the cable satellite system.
