New Media and Journalism: How Citizens Complicate Nigeria’s Unmarketable Identity

Abstract

New media journalism involves individuals gathering, processing and circulating information using computer technology platforms including websites and blogs, social and online communities. The aim of this study is to examine how new media, specifically citizen journalism compounds Nigeria’s identity problems. The study, inclined to the qualitative approach, adopts in- depth interview as a method to elicit data from respondents. Stratified sampling technique has been used and ten (10) senior academic staff have been selected from Nigerian universities and interviewed online via the WhatsApp platform. Key questions bother on new media and how citizen journalists’ practices complicate Nigeria’s unmarketable identity. Findings show that the practice of reporting fake news and photo-shopped pictures that ridicule the integrity of Nigerians at home and abroad by Nigerians using the new media, especially on the social media, is a major factor compounding Nigeria’s already battered image. The study concludes that apart from significantly compounding Nigeria’s unmarketable identity, these practices partly deprive the country’s citizens’ quest to invest abroad. It therefore recommends periodic national orientation as a strategy that would enhance Nigerians’ attitudinal change both at home and abroad.  

Key Words: , ,, Nigeria and Unmarketable
Identity.