| dc.description.abstract | This study set out to investigate the extent to which radio journalists use social media to gather news content. It focused on the contexts under which social media are preferred or are used in addition to traditional methods of gathering news. It also examined which social media sites radio journalists use and for what purpose when gathering news content. The study was done at two commercial radio stations belonging to two big multimedia organisations in Kenya; Easy FM (Nation Media Group) and Radio Maisha. Using a mixed method design (combining quantitative and qualitative) the research reveals that a majority of radio journalists uses social media to gather news content. This they do through research, contacting sources, sending information from the field to the office and verification of information among other uses. The microblogging site twitter is the most used social medium for gathering news content by radio journalists.
The study also found out that journalists employ social media in situations where a potential news story is very far from their locality. In such instances they depend on eyewitnesses or someone they can believe to relay the information to them until one of them around that particular area gets the story. Social media are also used when the story is considered not big enough to warrant follow up for subsequent bulletins, for instance, to get traffic updates. Social media are used for gathering both soft and hard news in equal measure. Among the concerns that journalists have as a result of using social media in gathering news is that they are breeding a clique of lazy journalists. That some in the profession are no longer doing their own effort to verify information, instead, they rely on social media updates from those who have decided to take the extra mile to ascertain any story. | en_US |
