The influence of mobile digital technology on news production

Abstract

Mobile digital technology continues to provide news organizations with tools that have disrupted the newsroom structure. It has transfigured the newsroom through continuous innovation and created fresh challenges and possibilities for journalists in terms of packaging and delivery of news. This thesis explores the influence impact of mobile digital technology on news production in Uganda. Using the qualitative research approach and the case study design, this thesis draws from Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation framework to describe how innovations are adopted and implemented at NTV Uganda. The researcher focused on the rate of adoption and use of mobile apps in news production. In-depth interviews with news staff indicated changes in the production and delivery of news at NTV Uganda. For this study, 10 journalists were interviewed who included the news reporters, news anchors, and editors as well as producers. The news staff qualified the idea that innovations in new media technology are of intrinsic value to newsgathering, production, and delivery in the present era, without which the audience is likely to disengage with the media organization. Mobile digital technology has informed the news audiences’ quest to be participants other than passive consumers. The findings further revealed that new media technologies do not only influence how news is gathered and processed, but also how the technology has made it easy to produce and disseminate news. The most visible influence created by the new media technologies is the speed of news production and its delivery. However, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. The findings also revealed that new media technologies in the newsroom created unsettling problems of accuracy and credibility which challenged the professional standards of the media house.