MEDIA LANDSCAPE

 

Media operations, that is, gathering news, editing and presenting to the audience, has grown over the years. Traditionally gathering and dissemination of news was done manually. This was due to the lack of modern technology which we see today and journalists used to work hard to meet deadline despite the challenges of poor technological access.

With technology in media we mean, digital broadcasting which entails digital gathering of information, digital editing and digital transmission of news and any other media content and the existence of new media which is online journalism that has incorporated broad diversity of news gathering editing and dissemination. This has also encouraged citizen journalism where members of the society are involved in gathering news and disseminating.

When we look at traditional media that is mainstream media, journalists used to be so recognized and journalism work was done by professionals. This is the time when there was serious journalism practice. Credibility, accuracy and impartiality was very much acknowledged. This is the time when journalists would be sued for defamation or mispresentation  of information where even the media house would be closed.

There is a case study of KTN which was closed for a while during the reign of retired President Mwai Kibaki where KTN was accused of wrong presentation of information. There was destruction of property and taking some reporters to the custody.

Today due to existence of new media, credibility and seriousness in journalism has been overshadowed. There are many people involved involved in journalism practice most of whom have not been trained and know nothing about journalism ethics and codes of practice.

However there are positive results of having technology in journalism practice. The first one is that journalists are able to collect news and disseminate them on location. This is whereby a journalist goes to the field with an electronic gadget like mobile phone or a tablet, gathers news with both visual and audio, edits using the same gadget and disseminate online. This has helped to increase speed in news presentation where the audience can receive any breaking story very fast and easily by the use of internet.

In print media there is the use of quark software which has revolutionized newspaper work. There is increase in speed of editing texts in newspaper work, editing pictures and making use of different graphics and colors to make the newspaper presentable to the readers. Also it has made it easy to meet deadline since newspaper production is done daily and requires a lot of hard work so as not to publish a blank copy.

In TV and radio, there is use of digital tools. Digital recorder has easened gathering of news in radio where actualities are taken using this gadget. It assures proper audio signal for use in news presentation.

 

Use of digital cameras in TV there is use of digital cameras which have improved the use of pictures and videos. This is because the professional digital cameras enable users to zoom and focus the subject clearly thus producing good crispier images.

Digital editing also has enabled editors to use image manipulation, use of graphics and animation thus producing good presentable material to the audience.

Journalists are able to interact with the audience by developing a topic of discussion where audience can contribute. Social media is the major tool in this which entails facebook pages and rwitter handles where audience’s comments and contributions can be read on air in mainstream media thus gratifying the audience’s needs.

Digital transmission has also contributed to improvement of media practice where quality pictures are disseminated. It has also encouraged many media stations to be opened creating enough room for job vacancy