ABSTRACT
Like most mainstream traditional newspapers in Nigeria and across the world, the traditional newspapers in northern Nigeria have faced and continue to face a significant impact of the Internet on their day-to-day news production practices. Newsroom cultures, roles and physical structures continue to be configured and reconfigured in order to adapt to these new phenomena. However, even as the Internet and its associated digital technologies continue to be an integral part of the profession, and forms of online journalism continue to thrive on the continent, there is still a scarcity of knowledge when it comes to how news organisations and journalists are adapting to the changes. This chapter aims to discuss, first, how new media are used by mainstream Northern Nigerian print journalists in day-to-day news-making; second, how the local news culture, perceived audience expectations and the wider lived circumstances in which journalists operate influence the nature, form and extent of their interaction with new media; and third, how the use of news websites, blogs and social media impacts, or challenges, traditional newsroom organisation standards, values and practices. Applying Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of field in journalism, this study utilises the concepts of field, habitus and legitimacy to conduct a non-reductionist analysis of the data. It finds, firstly, that there is no shortage of connectivity or usage of the Internet in the examined newsrooms. Journalists were observed to have been using the Internet qualitatively in their day-to-day news practices, even though their organisations as a whole appeared to be ambivalent towards the use of the Internet for news work. Secondly, the study finds that journalists in these newsrooms have developed new ways of practice in order to safeguard their legitimacy in the face of fake news phenomena. And thirdly, through a non-reductionist analysis of the interviews and results from observations, this thesis highlights the importance of approaching the impact of the Internet through a non-techno-determinist approach.
