MPACT OF ICT ON JOURNALISM

Posted: December 26, 2007 in Uncategorized

18
By

Mugira

Fredrick

This assay is focused on the impact of ICT on journalism. I have

written it basing mostly on radio journalism because it is the
branch of journalism I am currently involved in.
According to the Wikipedia encyclopedia Information technology
(IT) or Information and communication(s) technology (ICT) is a
broad subject concerned with technology and other aspects of
managing

and

processing

information,

especially

in

large

organisations. This draws attention to the fact that ICT involves

technology that can be used to communicate or rather to convey
messages.
ICT has had several effects on journalism, with some of them seen
as advantages while others as disadvantages. As noted on
(http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/techmeet/smei0
0/smeir.htm#1.%20Global%20trends ), the computer and the
modem, long with many other ICT hardware and soft ware
innovations and services, have placed us at a high point of a very
significant stage of development in the history of human
communication, often called, the information society, and have
transformed the way many men and women work in the media
and entertainment industries. This points, to the fact that ICT has
brought about significant changes in the journalism.
ICT has led to the generation of more and well researched news.
With the coming of mobile phones, you can call your news
sources at anytime and get news and moreover well-balanced and

researched news. When it comes to the Internet, news and

program backgrounders are always available.
Think of any topic you are working, from health, education,
lifestyle, to environment, you cannot fail to get information to
help you enrich your story especially with those hard to get facts.
The Internet has surely transformed the newsroom to greater
heights. It is important to note that this comes as a result of
globalization and it is also a cause of globalization in one way. Ulla
Carlsson (2005:204), argues that, The development of innovative
information

technologies

and

the

ongoing

processes

of

deregulation and concentration of ownership, have spurred the

pace of globalization especially communications satellites and
digitalization-not least

the

Internet-have had an

enormous

impact.
Secondly, ICT has made reporters, editors and other news
contributors closer. It has created a network that leaves
reporters and editors in close contacts at anyone time. The editor
can at anyone time call the reporter who is situated in any place,
as long as there is telephone network there, and get a story from
him/her. Likewise, reporters file stories at any given time via the
Internet. A Zambian web development specialist Kunda Chinyanta
Mwila, while speaking in an interviews RAP 21, about the future of
ICT

and

Africa

newspapers(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mediaictrain/files/Ne
w%20technologies%20in%20news%20room.doc),

stated

that,

Mobile and satellite telephones and general improvement of

landlines, have made it possible for newspapers to get stories
from a reporter stationed any where. No matter where a reporter

is stationed, he/she is always connected and close to the

newsroom. This happens with our radio station -Radio West,
whereby we get some stories from correspondents using phones
while others e-mail stories to us.
This in turn is cheap because not much money is wasted on
transportation fares of the reporter from the field and back to his
duty station. Mwila in his interview with RAP 21, drives this point
home when he states, Once fully adopted and adapted, the ICT
will transform the newsrooms into cabled and networked centres
with all journalists discharging stories on to a network, editors
picking them before sending them to the page designers or
casters in the case of electronic media.
Think of a situation where a story that happens in far countries
say Iraq and is read on remote/ rural radio stations in Western
Uganda . How could it reach a remote-stationed media house with
in a short time? With ICT, this has been solved. You just go to
websites that offer news services and get the story. Such stories
are later used by media houses as foreign news stories. I know
situations where editors tune to transnational media companies
such as CNN, BBC radio and TV and get news for their listeners.
Such news is always called foreign news. This in the end makes a
news bulletins interesting with rich information not only based on
the local scene, but the world over.
More still, ICT has made broadcasting easy, clear and standard,
on(http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/techmeet/sme
i00/smeir.htm#1.%20Global%20trends) it is noted that , Digital
technology has been around for some time, but the new media

revolution really began in the 1990s with emergence of

compression technology, which made it possible top compress,
store, manipulated and transmit digital information in previous un
heard of quantities and qualities. ICT has helped several media
houses to move from Analogue way of broadcasting to the digital
way of broadcasting using computers. With such a system, sound
comes out clear. With the use of the computer programmes such
as that of cool edit, no sound bytes come out unclear. This draws
attention to the fact that ICT has standardized the quality of
sound being broadcast, a thing that helps media house to earn
more audience.
It is worth noting that ICT has made communication process
participatory. It is no longer only the journalist who is involved in
this field, but the audience too. The local people affected are also
part and parcel of the communication process. With ICT, diffusion,
two-step flow and extension approaches of communication no
longer hold. Communication is bottom-up. Listeners are able to
pick their phones and call in the radio stationers immediately and
in form communicators about any thing happening in their area.
Reporters later investigate on such issues.
In other words, ICT has helped to bring closer communicators and
receivers to the extent that feedback is swift. This in turn makes
communication process participatory, useful and development
focused as it centers on the audience. Servaes and Malikhao
(2005;91),

argue

that,

Participatory,

which

necessitates

reasoning and moreover trust will help reduce the social distance
between communicators and receivers, between teachers and
learners, between leaders and followers as well as facilitate a
more equitable exchange of ideals this draws attention to the

fact

that

ICT

communicators

has
and

made

exchange

receivers

easy

of

ideas

hence

between

making

the

communication process people centered.

Any machine makes work easy. I cannot forget to mention that ICT
has made the work of a journalist easier. Getting stories from
different various and distant areas is now easy, for you just call
there. It is easy to record several programmes on the computer
and store them there for future use say if a presenter wants to be
away. Live outside broadcasting has been made easy. All these
are courtesy of ICT.
Lastly, ICT as developed the journalism profession. Journalists are
able to receive training just online. What a wonderful thing to
study while you work. Journalists also listen to stories from other
stations and copy the style they are written in. This has led to a
culture of working towards excellence by journalists. Journalists
see/hear renowned journalists and copy the way they report and
hence practice such copied skills while they report in their media
houses. I know of instances where journalists copy the writing
styles for example BBC stories on the Internet.
On the other side ICT has caused unemployment in the journalism
profession, as Wilson (2005:58) says those who cannot operate
machines have been left behind. One is compelled to go for
further training or lose a job. Take an example where DJs have to
use computers while broadcasting live if he / she does not know
how to operate it automatically he/ she loses such a job. This has
led to misery rather than good living.

Lastly competition for news and programs from other media

houses has been intensified by ICT. The weak media houses have
fallen out of the system. With ICT, audience is faced with lot
alternatives and those media houses that can offer better services
are the ones with a lot of audience. This has led to collapse of
some media houses especially following the unfair competition
which involves transnational media houses situated in developed
nations.
All in all, there is no option for journalism. ICT has to be taken on
or else those that refuse will be left behind and out of the
globalised world.