| dc.description.abstract | This study set to investigate the utilization of new Information and Communication Technologies (lCTs) in communication among journalism students at the University of Nairobi. Data was collected using self administered questionnaires from 94 respondents comprising of both undergraduate and postgraduate students pursuing Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies and Master of Arts in Communication Studies respectively. The data was analyzed by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 17.0. Majority of the respondents were undergraduate students most of whom were female. A big proportion of the students were aged between 18-25 years and in the parallel mode of study. The students' main purpose for communication was established as to maintain relationships with family and friends. All the students were using mobile phones with Safaricom being the highest subscribed to mobile phone service provider. Voice calls and text messaging emerged as the commonly used services. Majority of the students were also using the internet to communicate. Cyber cafes, mobile phones and university computer labs were identified as the common internet access points by the respondents. The commonly used internet communication services were e-mail, online social networks and instant messaging with Yahoo, Facebook and Yahoo messenger service providers showing the highest subscription respectively. The students agreed on three motivation categories from the study for use of the new ICTs; convenience, social utility and interpersonal communication. On the connectivity motivation, the respondents strongly agreed on the mobile phone and agreed for the internet services revealing a strong need for the service providers to tailor their services towards meeting these motivations. Challenges in use of the new ICTs were cited as poor network connectivity, high tariffs, theft and high cost of handsets for the mobile phones and slow connectivity, high cost of access, and lack of personal computers for the internet. The researcher recommends for the university to enhance internet accessibility to the students to avoid incurring high costs from commercial places. With the young generation being the majority in the Kenyan population, the researcher also recommends that mobile phone service providers introduce student friendly tariffs while the government urgently addresses the high interconnectivity charges among the mobile service providers and issues of slow internet connectivity. | en |
