Role of New Media in Responsible Journalism in Kenya: A Case Study of Kenyan Bloggers. Vincent Mukangayi Achando- Kisii University
Journal Title: Africa International Journal of Management Education and Governance - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 3
Abstract
The advent of new media has completely revolutionalised journalism in the world and particularly in Kenya, with regard to sourcing dissemination and consumption of information is concerned. This is pegged on the advancement in technology through the internet that enables journalist and bloggers to publish, share news and events as well as receive feedback from the public. This scenario has changed the media landscape in Kenya in the recent years. The emergence of citizen media has been enabled by technologies such as mobile phones, blogs, micro-bloggers and video sharing platforms. Blogs have become authoritative channel through which people share ideas, news, advice and analyses on different happenings in the society. The practice has recently turned out to be journalistic, with a good number of bloggers running authoritative and influential blogs, where thousands of people flock for information. Kenya has the highest number of active bloggers in Africa and in the world. This study aims to establish roles of bloggers in responsible journalism in Kenya. The study was guided by the following questions: (i) Are bloggers journalists? (ii) What roles do bloggers play in journalism? (iii) Are bloggers aware of journalistic ethics? (iv) What roles do bloggers play in responsible journalism? The paper used descriptive survey design. Data was collected through in-depth individual interviews and focused group discussion interviews with selected mainstream journalist and bloggers, as well as a review of existing body of knowledge. The paper sampled 30 journalists from two national media houses in Kenya, namely Standard Group and media max group. 30 bloggers were also using snow ball sampling techniques. The findings reveal that few journalists were bloggers while many bloggers who were amateurs. Further, results show that amateur journalists who were bloggers did not know the journalistic code of ethics mostly because they lacked journalistic training. The findings were used to make recommendations to the government to regulate bloggers, to the bloggers they need journalistic training and need to form a regulating body, and to the field of academics to come up with proper programmes for training bloggers.
Authors and Affiliations
Vincent Mukangayi Achando Mukangayi Achando
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