| dc.description.abstract | The study was set out to unveil the impact of social media on hewspaper readership, with the Daily Nation being the case study. It is now common knowledge that newspaper companies around the world have a presence on social media (twitter, facebook, YouTube, web and mobile applications). This study sought to determine whether this move has changed the way audiences interact with newspapers? This study aimed to determine how users interact with content from Daily Nation
newspaper on the social media. The study was based on a Survey and Analysis of Daily Nation Online Traffic Data in the period between June 2011 and December 2011. The data under consideration was obtained from the Nation Media Online Managers specifically from Google Analytics.
The survey also entailed administering questionnaires and face-to-face interviews to generate both quantitative and qualitative data targeting Internet users in Nairobi County. The research was anchored on two theories relevant in explaining the impact and spread of new media technologies. The theories include; Uses and Gratification, and the Competition-Based Displacement Theory. The study showed that social media outlets contribute traffic (readership) to the Daily Nation Online and Facebook is the greatest contributor of such traffic followed by Twitter. Although the research and conclusions focus primarily on Kenya's Daily Nation Newspaper, they are linked to discussions about impact of the rise of social media elsewhere. The rise of global social networks is accelerating the trend towards an always-on interconnected world, where social discovery and social distribution are playing an even bigger role. In this respect, the findings in this research offer a contribution to the ongoing discussions about the implications of these changes on news paper-readership, quality of news and future of journalism. | en_US |
