Fourth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

The advent of the internet and the proliferation of social networking sites and weblogs in Nigeria have caused a paradigm shift in journalism practice. Citizens who were solely recipients of information transmitted exclusively by the mainstream media, have themselves, become active creators and disseminators of media contents. With the digital media and the mainstream media vying for attention by daily inundating the audience with limitless amount of information, there are growing concerns among Nigerians about the authenticity and reliability of these information, which begs the questions; how trustworthy is mainstream journalism and citizen journalism to Nigerians? What is the correlation, if any, among people’s exposure to both forms of media, their information preference on both forms of media and their perceived credibility about both forms of media? Although, previous studies in other parts of the world have examined the relationship between media exposure and media credibility, this study takes a different approach by investigating the relationship among three variables – media exposure pattern, information preference, and perception about mainstream and citizen journalism credibility. Analysis of data gathered from 264 Nigerian university students through survey and focus group discussions reveals that respondents rate mainstream media as more credible although they are more exposed to and prefer to access information from digital media. The study concludes that the nature of the two media platforms as well as the manner of practicing journalism on these two media platforms greatly influences how the audience perceive their credibility.