INFLUENCE OF NEW MEDIA ON INFORMATION ACQUISITION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES

Abstract

In this era of Information and communication technology, social media especially blog, YouTube, facebook, Whatsapp, twitter, BBM and 2go and many others have revolutionalised and redefined monopoly of news and information by mass media (radio, television, newspaper and magazine industries) as it enhanced citizen participation in news gathering and dissemination. The research investigated the influence of new media on information acquisition by undergraduates in Lead City University. New media has in the recent time turn the citizen not only as information consumers but also as information distributor which is now known as “Citizen Journalism”. Most citizens own their own blog, group and room on new media sites where they publish news stories and acquire more information. Others do get their stories from video tubes such as YouTube. Survey research method was adopted while questionnaire was developed as a research tool used to elicit data from the selected respondents. From the responses gathered, it was observed that majority of the students are having access to the new media or social media.  Students logged in regularly to WhatsApp, BBM and Facebook than on other social media. And as a result of this, the degree of new media usage among Lead City University students is high. Most of the users of new or social media spend 6-10 hour on a daily basis. In order to make online messages more accurate and credible government should make sure that owners of website and blogs within the country abide by the laws of defamation, obscenity, and invasion of privacy and this can be done by setting up a body whose sole responsibility is to monitor the manifest content of internet materials.