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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

One central tendency of journalism is to disseminate accurate and timely information

from the news gatherer, news writers, and publishers to the consumers. Since the end of
journalism is to inform, educate and entertain the public, there is a new thinking that both
citizens and journalists can participate and how the media can be used to develop society.

However, the emergence of new information and communication technologies has taken
the world by a storm leading to nothing less than a revolution. Today we live in an information
age where economic, social, political and cultural changes are critically dependent on and
revolve around information. With this, the force of the media and how journalism is practiced
today has changed dramatically and it is technology – driven. Citing Kovack and Rosentiel
(2001), Adelabu (2008) areas that new technology along with globalization and conglomeration
of the media is causing a shift away from journalism that is connected to citizen building, and
one that supports a healthy democracy.

With the advent of blogs and practice of citizen journalism, mainstream media do not
serve as the only source of news. Citizen journalism is rapidly evolving form of journalism,
which has enabled ordinary people to report news worthy situations around them. As noted by
Belari Gougnon and Anderson (nd), citizen journalism practices have historical antecedents.
They explained

Citizens have participated in news production since the start of modern journalism, long
before the emergence of the internet and web 2.0. The popular radical press in England in the
late eighteenth century and mid-nineteenth century included elements of citizen media through
its activist stances and use of audience reporters.

They further note that likewise in the United States in 1740s, citizen journalism existed,
as citizens distributed political pamphlets in New York, Philadelphia and Boston. In this regard,
it is apparent that the practice of journalism has never been restricted to the trained professionals.
With the emergence of the internet and its associated multimedia technology such as cell phones,
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Ipods, digital, still, and video cameras have expanded the frontiers of journalism practices to
include practically everybody that has access to these technologies. As observed by Adelabu
(2008), the mass media audiences are no longer contended in being just consumers; they have
become content creators and disseminators.

Blogging is not about the replacement of traditional journalism. It is an audition, a development,

a progression. Quoting Schwartz, Walker (2005) wrote:

Citizens often know more about certain beats than reporters. Citizen
journalism is about embracing this fact. It is about drawing on the
knowledge of these expert citizens to broaden the dialogue on certain topic
of discussion. It helps both journalists and readers determine the “truth”
because more expert opinions are being considered. If a journalist makes a
mistake, then a knowledgeable reader can correct him and this mistake can
be cleared up instantly.
Furthermore, Shwartz uses the notion of neutrality to argue against citizen journalists present a
slanted position on a topic, whereas journalists do not. According to Sibanda (2019), citizen
journalism is done by people who are not professional journalists but People who are seeing
events through their own eyes and experiences. Smart phones and social media are
revolutionizing the understanding of journalism. The participants postulated that the fact that
anyone can be a journalist through upholding the new forms of communication poses a threat to
the practice and profession of journalism where ethics and legal issues are questionnaire, for
example they cited a story of a child was being eaten by a vulture, the photographer chose to take
a photograph instead of helping the child hence there is compassion fatigue among citizen
journalists, people tend to ignore the medium and only, pay attention to content.

The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training
can use the tools of modern technology and global distribution of the internet to create,
argument, or check facts via the media on their own or in collaboration with other.

However, in an age when anyone can publish content online and call it news and so much
bias exists in the media no matter which way you lean, it can be difficult for adults to decipher
what is fact and what is fiction.
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In journalism, the responsibility or the function of a journalist to capture or reflect social

reality by disseminating accurate, fair, truthful and objective information, is an ethical and social
responsibility onus that directly falls on the journalist.

Be that as it may, mobilizing and manipulating information, according to UNESCO

(2018) was a feature of history, long before modern journalism established standards which
define news a genre based on particular rules of integrity. An early record dates back to ancient
Rome, when Anthony met Cleopatra and hi political enemy Octavian launched slogans written
upon cows in the style of ancient tweets”. The perpetrator became the first Roman Emperor and
“fake news had allowed Octavian to hack the republican system once and for all”.

A major concern remain that fake or misleading news can spread like wildfire on social
networks because of confrontation bias the use of likes and sharing with friends.

This exploits an element of human psychology that makes us more likely to accept
information that conforms to our existing world views.

As noted by Webwise (nd) fake news is not new as it has become a hot topic in 2017.
Traditionally we got our news from trusted sources, journalists and media outlets that required
following strict codes of practices. However, the internet has enabled a whole new way to
publish, share and consume information and news with very little regulation or editorial
standards.

Many people now get news from social media sites and networks and often it can be
difficult to tell whether stones are credible or not. Information overloaded and a general lack of
understanding about how the internet works by people according to Webwise (nd) has also
contributed to an increase in fake news or hoax stories. Social media sites can play a big part in
increasing the reach of these types of stories.

In view of the above, it apparent that journalism social responsibility seems to brings
danger in the face of fake news and aided by the emergence of citizen journalism.

Beyond the general social responsibilities that any citizen has, the principal social
responsibilities is for he/she not to lie or deliberately distort the truth and it is expected of the
journalist to contribute to a greater understanding of the world.
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While there are many more available channels for transmission of information and
entertainment than the past, there are fewer controllers of those channels. As noted by Idahosa
(2008), media practitioners are duty bound and should ensure that information they convey
inputs from the environment and outputs from the system should be devoid of distortions and
tendentious assertions. In most cases, the ordinary citizen believes that what is published in the
newspaper or announced over the radio and television is the unassailable truth. Therefore, it
believes media practitioners to be mindful of the sensibilities and gullibility of some segments of
the society in their transmission of information.

In Nigeria there is some form of resistance from professional journalist to adopt blogging.
According to Idumange (2019), bloggers or citizen journalists differ in their modus operandi
from gatekeepers model of mainstream journalism in that it entails linking audiences, feedback
and conversation, citizen journalism not just about information but communication and that
enriches journalism. So citizen journalism is good for pluralism, diversity, which are basic
ingredients of democracy. Citizen journalism is the fifth estate watching the fourth; but there are
strong linkages between the fourth and the fifth.

There is now decreasing interest of media houses in their readers and viewers; this has
already affected the revenue of newspapers daily. There is declining social responsibility of the
mainstream media accompanied by diminishing credibility. The reality is that whereas
mainstream media affects a huge range of things; political; economic; and social sector, social
media are not able to exert enormous influence to this level. But the role and influence of social
media is ahead at the current place. It could be possible that citizen journalism. Which has no
censorship, will dominate the mainstream media in the nearest future.

In a social media regime, citizens are no longer passive consumers but active consumers
and producers as well. With the advent of citizen journalism, there is a shift in social
relationships between individuals, groups and government. The erosion of the gatekeepers’ role
selecting writing, editing, positioning, scheduling and massaging information to become news
has been relegated to the background (shoemaker, Eichhol and Wriggle, 2001)

In citizen journalism, there is a place for investigative reporting. Even in the mainstream,
many news organizations have cut back on investigative reporting because of low return on
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investment. Investigation and verification appear to be the hardest functions of citizen journalism
because of journalists lack resources to conduct in-depth investigations. This challenge is
applicable to with the mainstream and citizen.

With this, the mass media is expected to avoid sensationalism and playing to the gallery,
as their credibility may be seriously eroded if they attain a notoriety of being economical with
the truth, or manipulating information for selfish interest.

1.2 Statement of the Research Problem

In journalism, the onus that directly falls on the journalist is for him to be socially
responsible, by being truthful, at accurate and objective in the reportage of events. But with the
emergence of citizen journalism and social media fake news, it is always assumed that most of
the news we consumed online are fake with misinformation or disinformation intent.

The digitization of news has challenged traditional definitions of news. Online platforms
provide space for non-journalists to reach a mass audience. The rise of citizen journalism
challenged the link between news and journalists, non-journalists began to engage in journalist
activities to produce journalist, outputs, including news (Robinson and Deshano, 2011). Citizen
journalists were initially confined to blogging. Eventually, social media offered a wider platform
for non-journalists to engage in journalism (Wall, 2015).

However, citizen journalism has taken the public by storm and opened up new channels
of communication connecting organizations to individual donors in the digital environment.
Judging by the popularity and the consuming wave accessibility of people, it does appear that
citizen journalism has come to story. It may not supplant the mainstream but their roles will be
complementary.

Tine, Chile and Iyorkyaa (2019) observe that the world is engrossed with fake news
myth, people are more concerned with hot news reporting and this has shown less integrity on
media practice with the proliferation of social media has paved the way for constant fake news
on issues which definitely have concerns for integrity and development. People generally believe
and also act on what they read, watch or hear. In these circumstances, fake news myth gains
more acceptance, but equally destroys the society.
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However, citizen journalism and social media platforms seems to have been overtaken by
fake news syndrome as they have become avenues for unsolicited news, thereby eroding media
credibility and journalism social responsibility.

In view of the above, the question is, what sort of implication does the dissemination of
fake news have on journalism social responsibility? And how has citizen journalism contributed
to the dissemination of fake news?

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The main objectives of this study are:

1. To know how effective is the use of blogs and eyewitness report for news reportage.

2. To find out the extent blogs and eyewitness reports serves as a credible source of
news.

3. To ascertain how bloggers and eyewitness reports adhere to journalistic ethics in their
reportage of events. .

4. To know the extent to which blogging and eyewitness reports affect the traditional
media in disseminating information.

1.4 Research Questions

1. How effective is the use of blog and eyewitness reports for news reportage?

2. To what extent has blogs and eyewitness report serves as a credible source of news?

3. How has bloggers and eyewitness reports adhere to journalistic ethics in their
reportage of events?

4. To what extent have blogging and eyewitness reports affect the traditional media in
disseminating information?
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1.6 Significance of the study

This study will be beneficial to all media workers, as well as media content consumers,
especially social media content consumers and bloggers.

The findings and recommendations of this study are hoped to be of immense benefits to
both government and other policy makers.

On completion, this work will also serve as a reference material to future researchers who
will or may have interest in carrying out research in a relative area of study.

1.7 Scope and Limitation of Study

The scope of this study covers residents of Etsako West Local Government Area, Auchi
in Edo State. The research will be limited to information obtained from the local government
area, through questionnaire, with regards to citizen journalism and fake news as well as their
implications for journalism social responsibility.

However, the limitation of this study ranges from time and respondents unwillingness to
give useful information. More so, inadequate materials in the library were another cause of
setback or limitation to the researcher in the area that has to do with citizen journalism and fake
news and their implications for journalism social responsibility.

1.8 Operational Definition of Terms

- Citizen Journalists: people who report news or events with the aids of phones and other
ICT gadgets, via social media. They are also known as participant journalists without
formal journalism training.
- Fake News: misleading or unauthentic information that are circulated on news or social
media. This sort of news is mostly disseminated by bloggers or citizen journalists on
social media.
- Journalism: The act of reporting or disseminating information via the media by
journalist. These journalists could either be citizen journalists or professional journalists.
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- Social Media: internet platform through which rumours an fake news are disseminated.
It remains the main channel or medium through rumours are spread or disseminated by
citizen journalists.
- Social Responsibility: Disseminating information accurately, objectively and truthfully,
bearing in mind, the principles of self-regulation. It is an onus that directly falls on the
journalist and the mass media in general.
- Objectivity: The act of hearing from both sides before or when reporting events. It has to
do with truthful, balance and accurate reportage of events.
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CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Sources of Literature

Literature reviewed in this work was obtained from social sciences text books,
particularly the ones put together by mass communication scholars. Other information was also
obtained via library research and the internet.

The importance of citizen journalism lies on its ability to fill the void created by
traditional journalism’s neglect of community – oriented news and events for the sensational and
political news and events of the state capital or national. Similarly, citizen journalism has
democratized journalism practice. This last sentence has drawn criticism from some traditional
journalists who feel that journalism is treading the path of self-destruction by allowing every
Yukubu, Tajudeen or Emeka to be called a journalist (Adelabu, 2008).

In view of the above, Freedman (2006) avers that to treat an amateur as equally credible
as a professional, to congratulate the winnable with the title “journalist” is only further erode the
line between the raw and finished products.

Other critics also write that such initiations are shallow and middle class and group grope
(Harper, 2006) has warned against “Online collectivism” and the “hire mind” which for the most
part is stupid and boring (Lanier, 2006). Zielenziger (2006) wonders whether the atomizing of
content of which citizen journalism could be considered a part, might have an unintended effect
and actually doomed community journalism could be considered a part might have an
unintended effect and actually doomed community journalism.

As Kovack and Rosentiel (2001) note, news business is undergoing a momentous

transition. Each time there is a period of significant social, economic, and technological change,
a transformation in news occurred. This happened in the 1830-40s with the advent of telegram;
the 1880s with a drop in paper prices and a wave of immigration; the 1920s with radio and the
rise of gossip and the celebrity culture; and the 1950s with the onset of cold waves and
televisions.
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The animal of cable, followed by the internet and mobile technologies, has brought the
latest upheaval in news (Bowman and Willis, 2003) Kovach and Resentiel (2004) conclude that:

For the first time in our history the news increasingly is provided by
companies outside journalism, and this new economic organization is
important. We are facing the possibility that independent news will be
replaced by self-interested commercialism posing as news.
Evidently, the practice and business of journalism are constantly facing tremendous
changes and challenges. The advent of the internet with its multimedia capability has given
journalism opportunities and challenges to reinvent itself in terms of practice and organization.
As observed by Adelabu (2008), the internet and its associated technologies have given the
people opportunity to share information among themselves without passing through traditional
media as prevailed, trusted and informed intermediaries of news and information. Lending
credence to this, Bowman and Willis (2003) write:

The network economy and the proliferation of media are presenting a

tremendous changes for mainstream media organizations, such as newspaper,
radio and television not only will they have to adapt organizationally, but their
products overtime, will be transformed in unexpected and unforeseen ways.
However, the rise in digital journalism and ever growing opportunity it affords is great
but there are real life consequences that come with this new form of journalism. UNESCO
(2018), note that in the process of enabling everyone to be part of the news process, the social
web has restricted in the loss of centralized gatekeepers. Journalism is feeling the consequences,
but as with any technology-driven disruption, it takes time to assess measure and formulate
response. There is inevitably a period of catch-up before research and concrete best practices
emerge.

The insidious use of fake news has become a world hit en route to potentially weakening
or silencing opposing and alternatives voices. It is fast becoming a norm for someone to easily
rebuff criticism by accusing critics of telling fake news. As observed by Bloodworth (2019),
there is a fundamental difference between goings out in search of the truth to fit a set of pre-
existing ideological prescriptions. The hatred MSM may be guilty of the latter at times, but much
of what passes for activist journalism takes this as its starting point.
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In an effort to shed more light on the diverse forms of information disorder that plagues
our news ecosystem, the council of Europe distinguished in 2017 between three information
based on reality, but shared to inflict harm, often by moving it from the private to the public
sphere these types of information include mal-information, misinformation and disinformation.

According to Katsirea (2019), the finding of confirmation bias in the case of “fake news”
might actually be less of a course for a concern given that only those people would be affected
that were readily inclined to believe a particular story. Nonetheless, it is not possible to entirely
discounts the notion that consistent exposure to fake stories can negatively affect attitudes by
intensifying feelings of alienation and cynicism especially if not moderated by a certain degree
of consumption of reliable news.

The rise of Blogging and fake news: An Overview

Long are the days where an audience passively consumes content whose newsworthiness
is decided by editors in a far-off newsroom. In the old system, people had to adopt their lives to
fit in with the news media for example making sure you will be home to watch the six O’clock
news, but nowadays news media have to adapt their promises to suit consumer, behaviour and
digital trends, such as live tweeting, 360o video and the need for effective mobile content.

The rise in digital journalism and every growing opportunity it affords is great but there
are real life consequences that come with the new form of journalism.

According to Craigie-Williams (2018), social media has undoubtedly changed the face of
journalism, people on social media have the ability to shape the stories that they want to hear or
see. They can also contribute to stories through live threatening events or sharing their
eyewitness account of an event which is breaking news. When news often look to Twitter and
other social media platforms to find eyewitness accounts when is very effective in getting news
out quickly how information people put on Twitter can not be verified quickly or even at all so
sometimes “fake” news can be spread.

The biggest challenge facing citizens journalism is that it isn’t subjected to the same
meticulous scrutiny that a traditional piece of journalism would be, with traditional journalism it
was relatively safe to assume that the information we were getting was the truth, with editors
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checking and rechecking for factual accuracy. The same rules don’t apply to digital or citizen
journalism; there is no one out there maintaining, regulating and most importantly, fact checking.
People are essentially free to publish what they want to on social media even when what they
publish is not true.

The Digital Age has been described as a “golden era for journalism”. Indeed, it has
enabled access to significant data caches leading to ground-breaking investigative journalism,
new models of cross-border collaborative reporting and access to treasure troves of knowledge
and diverse sources at a mouse-click. It has also discovered unprecedented, ongoing challenges
and structural changes to the news industry. Journalism is “under fire” facing a virtual “perfect
storm” of convergent pressures that feed “information disorder”. These include:

- The rise of computational propaganda and the weaponisation of mistrust.

- The digital disruption of advertising causing the collapse of the traditional business
model for news publishing and mass unemployment.
- The failure of digital advertising to support journalism as a replacement for print
advertising (Google and Facebook are now the main beneficiaries of digital
advertising sales)
- Digital convergence transformation content-commissioning, production, publication
and distribution, significantly increasing deadline pressure and leading to additional
job losses.
- Targeted online harassment of journalists (particularly women), their sources and
their audiences
- Social media platform placing audiences at the forefront of content discovery and
distribution and making them collaborators in the production of news (which offers
many benefits but destabilizes legacy news media gatekeeping power and impacts on
verification standards)
- Audience expectations of ‘on-demand’ news, mobile delivery and real time
engagement on social media further increasing pressure on news professional facing
diminishing resources in a never-ending news cycle.
- News publishing struggling to hold onto audiences as banners to publications are
removed, empowering any person or entity to produce content, bypass traditional
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gatekeepers, and compete for attention – including powerful politicians seeking to

undermine the credibility of critical reporting.
- The limited impact and profitability of many news digital – only media start-ups
filling the voids created by the failure of newspapers.
- The erosion of trust in journalism and mainstream media organizations causing
audiences to dissipate further, diminishing remaining profits and fuelling the spread
of “information disorder”.

Blogging versus Mainstream Journalism: An Overview

It is now clear that the advent of intent has made everybody a journalist just as Gutenberg
made everybody is a printer with the invention of printing press and Marcon, made everybody a
broadcaster by given us radio. Everybody is now a journalist citizen journalism has made it a
reality for everybody to be a media creator, owner and actor instead of passive user (Ezeibe and
Nwagwu, 2009).

As observed by Adelabu (2008, p.366) “Citizen journalism is a bottom-up, emergent

oversight or formal journalistic workflow dictating the decisions of a staff.” The difference
between traditional journalism and citizen journalism is conversation. While traditional
journalism practices have high degree of control by setting the agenda, choosing who the
participants will be, and moderating the conversation through editorial control, citizen journalism
actively encourages free conversions among participants. Citizen journalism – to encode,
distribute, and decide on information through simultaneously distributed conversations that can
either blossom or be quickly atrophied in the web’s social network.

Citizen journalism gradually debases the conventional journalism. Hence, information

role that professional journalism does dissolve into public domain. It appears that there is no
clear distinction between the roles of conventional journalism and citizen journalism
conventional journalism which is the mainstream profession of journalism requires one form of
training or the other, either through educational or on the job training for them to discharge their
social responsibility role.

However, conversation remains the mechanism that turns the tables on the traditional
roles of journalism and creates a dynamic, egalitarian give-and-take. According to Adelabu
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(2008), the fluidity of this approach puts more emphasis on the publishing of information rather
than the filtering through editorial gatekeeping. Conversations happen in the community for all
to see. In contrast traditional news organisations are set up to filter information before they
publish it. Kovach and Rosentiel (2001) further emphasize on the place of citizen journalism
thus:

In an era when anyone can be a reporter or a commentator on the web, you

move to a two-way journalism. The journalist becomes a forum leader, or a
mediator rather than simply a teacher or lecturer. The audience becomes not
consumers, but pro-summers, a hybrid of consumer and producer.
In view of the above, it is apparent that citizen journalism encourages symbiotic
relationship between traditional journalism and citizen journalism. But most often, citizen
journalism does not necessarily rely on any mediator to function. Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the
Columbia of School of Journalism, in Adelabu (2008) writes

Citizen journalists bear a heavy theoretical load. They ought to

be farming out like a great army, covering not just what
professional journalist cover, as well as or better, but also much
that they ignore. Great citizen journalism… Has to exist in order
to prove that citizens can learn about public life without the
mediation of professionals (pp. 366-36)
However, citizen journalism is usurping the role of conventional journalism. As observed
by Ezeibe and Nwagwu (2009), citizen journalism spells negative effects to the trend journalism
because most times journalists feel threatened by the increase participation in news gathering and
dissemination despite the society approval which described such as peers to participatory
democracy. They state:

With the use of internet and the involvement of citizen journalism, journalists
have tips available to them in which further investigation can be carried out.
Internet has removed the barriers of space and item on human interactions
hence information can easily be obtained at a relatively low cost (p. 66).
Nwoyinka (2003) contends that journalists in the digital age have no excuse but to make
use of online libraries to enrich their performance. It cannot be overstatement to describe the
convergence of computer and telecommunication as the material forces in the new technology of
mass communication. The internet has virtually revolutionalised the processing, publishing
distribution of products and services. Traditionally, news and information about events that are
 15

currently happening or that have happened recently, new technology now allow news to be more
current as are virtually transported to the scene of event. Rodman (2009) explains that the
presence of Google news, twitter, facebook and other social networking media are also changing
the phase of journalism. Not it is possible to build customized news report from all the articles
being read in the morning to the reader social network.

Types of Blogging/ Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism according to Idumange (2019) falls into four categories. Each category
is discussed in some detail:

1. Audience participation at mainstream news outline

Here all incorporate reader comments in their blogs either through emails or direct
posting. They also involve discussion forums such as No New Times reader from articles
written by readers, contribution in fan pages, reports, writes-up, reviews, commentaries
and debates on policy issues. Examples include: ABCnews.com: The Dallas Morning
News; The Santafe New Mexican Publisher; NIgerianworld.com etc.

2. Independence News and Information Websites:

These are privately owned but robust audience (consumer) both in government and non-
government circles. These websites sometimes depend on some amateur independent
writers (not paid salaries) to provide original interviews, research artists and reporting. In
Nigeria, such websites abound some of them include: WWW.huhuonline.com;
www.pointblank.com; thenigerianvoice.com; www.africanexaminer.com;
www.africanheraldexpress.com; www.moderghana.com; etc.

These sites primarily generate editorial digests, citizen reporting, e-media opinion polls
and commentaries

3. Full-fledged participatory websites:

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These are few in Nigeria. In South Korea there is the ohmy news; the Janjan in Japan,
and the Indy media in india. These sites contribute significant amount of materials and
citizens-reported news on economic, social and political issues.

4. Global Voices: Is another example of citizen journalist project initiated by Harvard Law
School’s Berkam Centre for Internet and security. The website aggregates accurate global
conversation and call attention to areas glossed over by the mainstream media.

Wiki also employs software as a collaborative effort at facilitating the reporting of

incidents such as the London train bombing in 2005 and the India Ocean Tsunami in 2004.
Today, wiki articles appear on every websites and such articles can be revised to further improve
their accuracy, content and quality.

Social Media, Fake News and the Ethical Questions

Lots of things we read online especially in social media feeds may appear to be true,
often are not. Fake news is disseminated to deliberately misinform or deceive readers. Usually,
these stories are created to influence people’s views, push a political agenda or cause confusion
and can often be a profitable business for online publishers. Fake news stories can deceive
people by looking like trusted websites or using similar names and web addresses to reputable
news organizations.

With regard to how fake news are published and circulated, Webwise (2019) note that
because many people now get news from social media sites and networks and often it can be
difficult to tell whether stories are credible or not. Information overload and a general lack of
understanding about how the internet in fake news or hoax stories. Social media can play big part
in interesting the reach of these types of stories.

Nevertheless, poor quality journalism sometimes allows fake news, disinformation and
misinformation to originate in or leak into the real news system. But the causes and remedies for
weak journalism are different to the case of fake news, disinformation and misinformation.

At the same time, it is evident that strong ethical journalism is needed as an alternative,
and antidote, to the contamination of the information environment and the spill-over effect of
tarnishing of news more broadly (UNESCO, 2018).
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Today, journalists are not just bystanders watching an evolving avalanche of fake news,
disinformation and misinformation. According to UNESCO (2018) they find themselves in its
pathway too. This means that:

- Journalism faces the risk of being drowned out by the cacophony;

- Journalist risk being manipulated by actors who go beyond the ethics of public relations
by attempting to mislead or corrupt journalists into spreading disinformation

- Journalists as communicators who work in the service of truth, including “inconvenient

truths”, can find themselves becoming a target of lies, rumours and hoaxes designed to
intimidate and discredit them and their journalism, especially when their work threatens
expose those who are commissioning committing disinformation.

In addition, journalists need to recognize that while the major arena of disinformation in social
media, powerful actors today are instrumentalizing “fake news” concerns to clamp down on the
genuine news media. New and stringent laws are scapegoating news institutions as if they were
the originators, or lumping them into broad new regulations which restrict all communications
platforms and activities indiscriminately. Such regulations also often have insufficient alignment
to the internal principles and requiring that limitations on expression should be demonstrably
necessary, proportional and for legitimate purpose. The effect, even if not always the intention is
to make genuine news media subject to a ministry of truth” with the power to suppress
information for purely political reasons.

However, professional standards for ethical and accountable journalism are an important
defence against misinformation and fake news. Norms and values providing guidance to people
doing journalism have evolved over the years to give journalism its distinctive mission and
modus operandi. In turn, these uphold verifiable information and informed comment shared in
the public interest. It is these factors that underpin the credibility of journalism.

Fake news has continuously cause monumental damage across the globe. During the
2016 United States Presidential election, the creation and dissemination of fake news increased
substantially (Holan & Drobnic, 2016). In Nigeria, during the build-up to the 2015 and 2019
presidential elections, fake news became the order of the day between the peoples’ Democratic
 18

party (PDP) and the All Progressive Congress (APC). Their interest was to win over electorates
with what was not real and what may only have negative impact on the voters. Politicians took
over the social media space with a high level of political propaganda and deceit for the
electorates, which led to the false acceptance of candidates without genuine manifestoes. The
political landscape was thus filled with fake news just to capture the interest of the people and
their votes. This shows that fake news undermines serious media coverage and makes it more
difficult for journalists to cover significant news stories that would have had significant impact
on the society. An analysis by Buzzfeed media found that the top 20 fake news stories about the
2016 U.S. presidential election received more engagement on Facebook than the top 20 election
stories from 19 major media outlets (Chang & Jake; Pedersen, Claire; Martz, Geoff, 2016). This
contributed to eroding media content that has facts, but it also came with gimmicks that allowed
free participation by all, causing all forms of reactions towards the particular fake news on social
media.

The intent and purpose of fake news is important. In some cases, what appears to be fake
news may be news satire, which uses exaggeration and introduces non-factual elements that are
intended to amuse or make a point, rather than to deceive. Propaganda can also fake news (Hunt,
2016). Researchers have highlighted that “fake news” may be distinguished not just by the falsity
of its content, but also the “character of fake news online circulation and reception” (Bounegru,
Gray, Venturini & Mauri, 2018). The social media, according to Kietzmann & Kristopher (2011,
p. 241) are “interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of
information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and
networks”. investigate journalism, according to McChesney (2004) is a form of journalism in
which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political
corruption or corporate wrongdoing. An investigate journalist may spend months or years
researching and preparing a report. Practitioners sometimes use the terms “watchdog reporting”
or “accountability”. Hugo de Burgh (2000) also says an investigate journalist is a man or woman
whose profession is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be
available. Currently, investigate journalism seems to have been relegated to the background,
while social media is on the front burner with all forms of information. The most devastating
aspect of the situation is that the social media has become a place for a god number of Nigerians
who take advantage of it peddle fake information.
 19

The spread of false information become a topic of wide public concern during the U.S.
election season. However, Allcott & Gentzkow (2017) aver that propaganda, misinformation and
disinformation have been used throughout history to influence public opinion. The shift of news
consumption to online and social media platforms according to Baum & Groeling (2009) has
disrupted traditional business models of journalism, causing many news outlets to shrink or
close, while others struggle to adapt to new market realities. Longstanding media institutions
have been weakened. Meanwhile, new channels of distribution have been developing faster that
our abilities to understand or stabilize them. According to Silverman (2016), a growing body of
research provides evidence that fake news was prevalent in the political discourse leading up to
the 2016 U.S. election. He further avers that initial reports suggests that some of the most widely
shared stories on social media were fake and other findings showed that the total volume of news
shared by Americans from incredible and dubious sources is comparable in volume to news
coming from individual mainstream sources.

To Lazer, Baum, Grinberg, Friedlan, Joseph, Hobbs & Mattson (2017), the present social
media system is positioned as a fertile ground for spreading misinformation that is dangerous for
democratic society’s political debate. They further aver that apart from providing megaphones to
those who can attract followership, it also empowers those with the technical, social or political
knowhow to disseminate quantum volumes of disinformation or “fake news”, stressing that an
abundance of sources and echo chambers make misinformation on the social media dangerous,
which has also made ascertaining the credibility of social media information difficult. The
moment nothing concrete to counter this misinformation is available, truth is denied exposure,
with the tendency of dividing the society.

Zaller, cited in Benedictis-kessner, Baum, Berinsky & Yamamoto (2017) opines that the
role of social media in misinformation, especially Facebook, is its broad reach to a large
politically less attentive and engaged group that is less equipped to resist “messages that conflict
with their patisan predispositions and more susceptible to persuasion from ideology slanted
news.” Sadiku, Eze & Musa (2018) posit that misinformation given vent by the new
technological means is a great threat to open societies worldwide. The further agree with
Benedictis-Kessner et al (2017) that facebook users paly a major role in feeding into
 20

misinformation. In essence, pieces of information that looks like campaigns are overtly aimed at
influencing people for the benefit of the originators of such information.

In the 21st century, the impact of fake news became widespread as well as the usage of
the term (Leonhardt, David, Thompson & Stuart, 2017), it has attained unimaginable heights
with tons of information coming in all the time; thus, becoming a host for plenty of unwanted,
untruthful and misleading information that can be made by anyone. Besides referring to made-up
stories designed to deceive readers into clicking on links, maximizing traffic and profit, the term
has also referred to satirical news, whose purpose is not to mislead, but rather to inform viewers
and share humorous commentary about real news and the mainstream media (stewart, 2015).

There is much ambiguity concerning the precise distinctions between fake news on the
one hand and ideologically slanted news, disinformation, misinformation and propaganda on the
other (Mele, 2017). Fake news has become a catch-all phrase to refer to everything from news
articles that are factually incorrect to rumours, internet hoaxes, conspiracy theories and political
parodies.

In some cases, overly broad usage of the term has bordered on abuse and exploitation,
particularly when it is used to label information that is true but disliked by an individual or a
group (Marwick & Lewis, 2017). Fake news spreads from sources to consumers, through a
complex ecosystem of websites, social media and bots. Features that make social media
engaging, including the ease of sharing and rewiring social connections, facilitate their
manipulation by highly active and partisan individuals (and bots) that become powerful sources
of misinformation (Menczer, 2016). The polarized and segregated structure observed in social
media (Conover, 2011) is inevitable given two basic mechanisms of online sharing: social
influence and unfriending. Even if individuals prefer to share high-quality information, limited
individual attention and information overload prevent social networks from discriminating
between messages on the basis of quality at the system level, allowing low-quality information to
spread as virally as high-quality information (Qiu, 2017). This helps to explain the high exposure
of social media users to fake news online.

On twitter, fake news shared by real people is concentrated in a small set of websites and
high active “cyborg” users (Lazer, Grinberg, Friedland, Joseph, Hobbs & Mattsson, 2016). These
 21

users automatically share news from a set of sources (with or without reading them). Unlike
traditional elites, these individuals sometimes wield limited socio-political capital but rather
leverage their knowledge of platform affordances to grow a following around polarized and
misinformative content. These individuals can, however, attempt to get the attention of political
elites with the aid of social bots. For example, Donald Trump received hundreds of tweets,
mostly from bots, with links to the fake news story that three million illegal immigrants voted in
the election. This demonstrates how the power of dynamics on social media can, in some cases,
be reversed, leading misinformation to flow from lower status individuals to elites (Lazer et al,
2016). Contrary to popular intuition, both fake and real information, including news, is not often
“viral” in the implied sense of spreading through long information cascades (Goel, Ashton, Jake,
Duncan & Watts, 2015). That is, the vast majority of shared content does not spread in long
cascades among average people. It is often messages from celebrities and media sources
accounts with high numbers of followers that reach the most and do so via very shallow diffusion
chains. Thus, traditional elites may not be the largest sharers of fake news content, but may be
the most important node capable of stemming its spread (Goel, et al 2015).

Most people who share fake news, whether it gains popularity or not, share lots of news
in general. Volume of political activity is by far the strongest predictor of whether an individual
will share a fake news story or not. The fact that misinformation is mixed with other content and
that many stories get little attention from people means that traditional measures of quality
cannot distinguish misinformation from truth (Metzger, Flanagin & Medders, 2010). Beyond
this, certain characteristics of people are associated with greater likelihood of sharing fake news:
older people and individuals on the extreme fringes of the political spectrum appear to share fake
news more than others (Lazer, Grinberg, Friedland, Joseph, Hobbs & Mattsson, 2016).

In this context, it is worth citing what professor Charlie Beckett from the London School
of Economics sum up as the potential value of the “fake news” crisis for journalism:

…fake news is the best thing that has happened for decades. It gives
mainstream quality journalism the opportunity to show that it has value based
on expertise, ethics, engagement and experience. It is a wake-up call to be
more transparent, relevant, and to add value to people’s lives. It can develop a
new business model of fact-checking, myth-busting and generally getting its
act together as a better alternative to fakery.
 22

Be that as it may, it is very important to consider the question of ethics in information

disseminated on social media and in the course of practicing citizen journalism, as an open
source of journalism and also put into cognizance the need to regulate the activities of the great
army of participants, just to ensure the health of the society.

In this regard, Okpowa (2015) avers that not all contributions from citizen journalist
adhered to ethical standards and eventually reducing the significance of professionalism. He
states:

The situation whereby certain citizen journalists are anonymous could make
them not responsible to the information they disseminate. They tend to spread
rumours, calumny, detraction and information that are not authentic… The
idea behind citizen is that people without professional or formal training in
journalism have opportunity to use the tool of modern technology and almost
limitless reach of the internet in order to create content that would otherwise
not be revealed, as this kind of journalism goes far beyond the reach of
professional journalism (p.4)
However, so many, factors influences journalism. Though, the magnitude of effect
depends on the environment where the professional calling is carried out cum the background of
the sources involved (the reporter). Surlin (1987) in his study of values of journalism
practitioners before and after undergoing various courses and trainings in media ethics courses
has a noticeable and ethically positive effect upon the student value system. All forms of
balancing a story an reporting without prejudice which traditional journalist consider as ethical
may not be followed in today’s era of internet as journalists compete to hit the airwave first.

Ethical journalism that values transparent practice and accountability is a vital piece of
the armory in the battle to defend facts and truth in an era of ‘information disorder’. News
journalists must be independent voices. This means not acting, formally or informally, on behalf
of special interests. It also means acknowledging and publicly declaring anything that might
constitute a conflict of interest – in the interests of transparency. As Professor Emily Bell of the
Tow Center Digital Journalism at Columbia University has explained, core profession journalism
values are about:

Making sure news is accurate, being accountable for it if is not accurate, being
transparent about the source of stories and information, standing up to governments, pressure
 23

groups, commercial interest, the police, if they intimidate, threaten or censor you. Protecting
your sources against arrest and disclosure. Knowing when you have a strong enough public
interest defence to break the lair and being prepared to go to jail to defend your story and
sources. Knowing when it is unethical to publish something. Balancing individual rights to
privacy with the broader right of the public interest (UNESCO, 2018).

Social media has undoubtedly changed the face of journalism, people on social media
have the ability to shape the stores that they want to hear or see. They can also contribute to
stories through live tweeting events or sharing their eyewitness account of an event which is
breaking news. When a news outlet has no correspondents in that area they will often look to
twitter and other social media platforms to find eyewitness accounts which is very effective in
getting news out quickly, however, the information people put on twitter cannot be verified
quickly or even at all so sometimes “fake” news can be spread (Bloodworth, 2018).

To this end, it is now paramount that journalist give the society what the society is
interested in. obscurity was once a time a taboo in journalism and the society does not see it as
evil anymore. Even if the media refuse to carry such publications, podcast will readily project it.
Hence, the society influences the media while in turn after the media discover the taste of those
in their environment they better amplify it to the society. Therefore, what constitutes ethical
discourse in the era of internet journalism is subject to debate.

HOW TO SPOT FAKE NEWS

While the concept isn’t new-false information and mistruths have been circulating for as
long as stones have been told- smartphones, the internet and social media (especially Whatsapp)
have given it a new lease of life and a new high speed distribution mechanism. Back in 2013, the
World Economic Forums Global Risks Report warned that misinformation could spark “digital
wildfires” in our hyper-connected world.

According to Fernandes (2019), fake news can be as slippery to define as it is to pin

down. Stories may be factually inaccurate and deliberately published to underscore a certain
viewpoint or drive lots of visitors to a website, or they could be partially true but exaggerated or
not fully fact- checked before publication.
 24

WHY FAKE NEWS GOES VIRAL

While articles like this have existed for centuries, modern technology according to
Fernandes (2019) enables them to spread like wildfire, jumping from pocket to pocket and being
consumed, digested and shared before anyone’s stopped to consider their accuracy. Sometimes
they want you to upset people for political reasons. There is a range of fake news: from crazy
stories which people easily recognize to more subtle types of misinformation. The following are
tips to stop fake news from being circulated as enunciated by Fernandes (2019).

1. Check the Source:

Look at the website where the story comes from. Does it look real? Is the text well
written? Are there a variety of other stories or is it just one story? Fake news and look for a clear
description of the organization.

2. Look for Fake Photos

Many fake news stories use images that are photo-shopped or taken from an unrelated
site. Sometimes, if you just look closely at an image, you can see if it has been changed. Or use a
tool like Google. Reverse image search. It will show you if the same image has been used in
other contexts

3. Check if the Story is in Other Places

Look to see if the story you are reading is in other news sites, then at probably isn’t fake
as many big news organizations try to check their sources before they publish a story.

4. Look for Other Signs

These include using ALL CAPS and lots of ads that pop up when you click on a link.
Also, think about how the story makes you feel. If the news story makes you angry, it’s probably
designed to make you angry. If you find a news story that you know is fake, the most important
advice is: don’t share it.
 25

Fake News and Journalism Social Responsibility

Journalists have a number of roles and responsibility that they must consider throughout
the course of their career. As observed by Ekeanyanwu (2008), one of the major functions of the
media is to inform the people of major events and happenings around them, no matter how
unpleasant and undesirable. Such events or happenings may be. However, it is not entirely out of
place for the media to report those unpleasant events objectively and factually; and at the same
time present sentiments that will make the people understand that peace is always better than
war.

In gathering and reporting news, the journalist confront moral and professional dilemma
in determining what to report. As agent of change and social transformation, according to
Nwachukwu (2010), the mass media owe great social responsibility to the society at different
level and strata of our society but this great responsibility can only be achieved if the media
whether government or private owned are able to uphold the ethical code of journalism
profession.

He added:

They must rise up to the challenge and play their role as a

watchdog of the society at all cost. They should not allow
themselves to be manipulated and converted to personal
instrument in the hands of the power elite. The people have a
great trust in th media as advocates of a just and egalitarian
society and not as instrument of perpetuating corrupt practices
by government officials (p. 98).
The mass media cannot be effective in meeting its obligations to both the public and the
government if it is not consistent, persistent and investigative in carrying out its duties. The
private media are perhaps established to provide the necessary checks and competition, while the
government needs to improve performance. However, mass media by their very nature are easily
politicized, partisan and dominated by bias reporting (Asekome, 2008).

As observed by Onukaba (2005), the public mass media have suffered due to
inefficiency, mismanagement and corrupt practices. They have also suffered by deviating from
the cardinal objective of a free press in many occasions. Often, like the Daily Times,
government-owned newspapers have become organs of the party in power and refuse to operate
 26

in the interest of the public. Hence, many great dailies have ended up on the heap of failed public
enterprises. The unenviable list of failed daily newspapers includes the Observer, The Triumph,
Daily Sketch, the Tide, The Nigerian Herald etc. These papers are now comatose due largely to
their mismanagement by various public officials and their governments.

By and large, the greatest sources of information in any nation are the mass media, which
includes the press, the electronic and the internet. It is through these media that objectives and
unhindered information are expected to be disseminated.

In view of the above, Agbese (1996) avers that the journalist is essentially an observer
and a chronicler of events. He is neither part of the event nor the dramatis personae. It is his to
report the news. Oso (1996) in this instance, put forward the ideas that journalist and the news
media are detached observers, neutral from social reality they report. This view which sees the
media as the “mirror of social events is commonly held by journalists. It implies that news media
are value free and that if journalists stick to their professional ethics, they can give us the public
the true picture of the world out there. Explaining further, Oso (1996) wrote:

It is in the ability of news media to capture or reflect social reality that the
concept of objectivity becomes problematic and falls flat on its face as many
scholars have shown, social reality is not just out there pre-given but it is
socially constructed (p. 61).
He states further that every event has a social milieu guiding it. News production studies
too have shown that other factors affect the way the news media portray events beside the
occurrences themselves. Such structuring is affected by organizational, bureaucratic, cultural and
professional factors. It is mutually contradictory process of selecting and rejecting with the
process pre-ordained.

However, whilst reporting the news, journalists should take into consideration the
audience and prospective publication, their editor and importantly, their own personal interests
(for example, any legal obligations). According to press complaints commission editor’s code of
practice (2009), the following should be the duties and responsibilities of the media when
reporting events:

Accuracy: A journalist has a service to the media prescribing public to make sure that the news
they report is accurate. This is enforced by self-regulating bodies and media laws such as libel
 27

and deformation. Other laws are in place to make sure those journalists do not impose upon court
trials, such as contempt of court.

Unbiased: Further to accuracy, journalists should ensure that their news writing is unbiased and
presents the basic facts for their audience to determine their own set of judgment. Any opinions
should be in the form of attributed quotes and a good journalist will show both sides of the story.

Apolitical: Journalists as watchdogs of the society are not supposed to be members of a

particular party so that they would have the freedom to criticize whatever government policy that
is at violence with the yearnings and aspiration of the people. According to Duyile (2005):

Although we cannot rule out the dictum that says everybody is a political
animal, but no journalist is expected to be a card carrying member of any
political party. This should not affect their news judgment (p. 90).
In the same vein, Sobowale (1986) note that the political climate of a nation seriously
affects the way reporters in that country perform their functions. He further explained that hardly
can one find a person who does not take a position on an issue that affects his country. Our
position on issues necessarily influence the way we perceive those issues.

Plain English: To help with the readability and accessibility of their news stories, journalists
should ensure that their writing meets the style of their specific publication and editors. Further
to this, writing should be in plain English and without jargon. This is especially important in
writing stories from court cases, council meetings and police statements.

Public interest: Above the ethical responsibilities journalists are encouraged to write interesting
news as that is what really sells newspapers. Public interest is the Holy Grail for journalist and
ideally all stories we write would draw a large of it. Public interest can also be used as a defence
for when journalists go a little too far out of their way to obtain a story.

However, beyond the general social responsibility that any citizen has, the principal
social responsibilities of a journalist are; to not lie or deliberately distort the truth and to
contribute to greater understanding of the world.

In the age of internet, publishing has become faster and easier than ever. What once
required a degree and weeks of editing and revising can now be sent to millions with the press of
 28

a blue “send” button. While the internet has made global borders permeable and allowed the
democratic spread of ideas, it has jeopardized traditional conceptions of news and journalist.
Fact-checked, truthful news look identical to fake news on social media now (Axelrod, 2019).

According to Walker (2005), standard of objectivity and neutrality are mechanisms that
traditional journalists use to inspire trust in readers. There is always going to be a place for these
standards in traditional news. However, one must remember that at best reporters can only ever
aspire to be neutral or objective. It is almost impossible for someone to truly escape their own
bias.

Fake news is presented on social media from a different angle due to the centralized
gatekeeping discourse by certain influential or popular online users.

Types of Fake News

There are differing opinions when it comes to identifying types of fake news. However,
when it comes to evaluating content online there are various types of fake news we need to be
aware of these according to Webwise (nd) include:

1. Clickbait: these are stories that are deliberately fabricated to gain more website visitors and
increase advertising revenue for website. Clickbait stories use sensationalist headline to grab
attention and drive click-through to the publisher website, normally at the expense of truth or
accuracy.

2. Propaganda: stories that are created to deliberately mislead audiences, promote a biased
point of view or particular political cause or agenda.

3. Satire/Parody: lots of websites and social media account publish fake news stories for
entertainment and parody.

4. Sloppy Journalism: sometimes reporters or journalists may publish a story with reliable
information or without checking out of the facts which can mislead audience.

5. Misleading Headings: stories that are not completely false can be distorted using misleading
or sensationalist headlines. These types of news can spread quickly on social media sites
 29

where only headlines and small snippets of the full article are displayed on audience
newsfeeds.

6. Biased/Slanted News: Many people are drawn to new or stories that confirm their own
beliefs or biases and fake news can prey on these biases. Social media newsfeeds tend to
display news and articles that they think we will like based on our personalised searches.

Journalism has been about producing finished products by designated individuals and
teams based on expertise, intelligence, and operating in a shared physical space. However,
technological advances shows that changes that are taking place have change norms, contentions
and ability of the audience to syndicate reports, photographs, videos and text messages which
undermine the monopoly journalists enjoyed traditionally under the new regime of citizen
journalism, anyone can do the out of journalism.

Citizen journalism (participatory, civil, we journalism, etc) is meant to describe the

content and the intent of online communication that often occurs in a collaborative and social
media (Adelabu, 2008) Bowman and Willis (2003) cited in Adelabu (2008) define citizen
journalism thus:

The out of citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of
collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The
intent of this participation is to provide independent, and relevant information
that democracy requires (pp. 365-366).
Corroborating, Idumange (2019) note that citizen journalism also called internet
journalism, is an act of citizens playing the role of collecting, analyzing and disseminating news
and information that a decent democracy requires.

Kolodzy (2006), provides a working definition of citizen journalism, when he note that it
can encompass blogs that serve as a community news postings. It can involves a wiki, in which a
new item or commentary is posted. Anyone can adds to or edit it. It can be a podcast reviewing
favourite groups on a local music scene. It can be a collaborative effort between a reporter and
expert to write and report a story, or it can entail a niche group of people, such as office workers
of homeless activists, who published news, information and insight about the world.
 30

On the other hand, the catch phrase fake news has taken the world by storm. It entails a
form of news consisting of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional news media
or online social media. According to wikipedia (2019), fake news is written and published
usually with the intent to mislead in order to damage an agency, entity, or person, and / or gain
financially or politically, often using sensationalist, dishonest, or outright fabricated headlines to
increase readership.

However, the question of fake news brings up the question of how to think about the
nature of real news. News has been defined in a number of ways, ranging from being an account
of recent, interesting, and significant event (kershner, 2005), an account of events that
significantly affect people (Richardson, 2007), to a dramatic account of something novel or
deviant (Jamieson and Campbell, 1997). News is often seen as an output of journalism, a field
expected to provide “independent, reliable, accurate and information” (Kovach and Rosenstiel,
2007, p.11). Since the primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information
they need to be free and self-governing”, journalism is expected to report, above all things, the
truth. A central element in the professional definition of journalism is adherence to particular
standards, such as being objective and accurate. Along with the responsibility of the profession
comes power. Thus, journalist have occupied an influential position in society, namely one that
can amplify and confer legitimacy to what it reports (Schudson, 2003).

So what makes fake news fake? If news refers to an account of a real event (Kershner,
2005), what does fake news means? News is supposedly- and normatively- based on truth, which
makes the term “fake news” an oxymoron. The word “fake” is often used interchangeably with
words such as copy, forgery, counterfeit, and inauthentic (Andrea, 2016). A study about fake
online review also specified the role of intention in defining what is fake. The study defined fake
reviews “as deceptive reviews provided with an intention to mislead consumers in their purchase
decision making, often by reviewers with little or no actual experience with the products or
services being reviewed” (Zhang, Zhou, Kehoe and Kilic, 2016).

Others situate fake news within the larger context of misinformation and disinformation’,
(Wardle, 2017). While misinformation refers to “ the inadvertent sharing of false information”,
disinformation refers to “the deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false”
( Wardle, 2017, para. 1). The term “fake news” has entered not just scholarly discourse but daily
 31

conversations, involved not only in efforts to paint out false information but also in effort to
demonize traditional news organizations.

As noted by Katsirea (2019), fake news is but one permutation of many different types of
potentially misleading content in our information ecosystem. Clare Wardle of first draft, a non
trust online, drafted a typology of seven forms of mis- and disinformation. Among them feature
satire or parody with no intention to cause harm but having the potential to fool; misleading use
of information to frame an issue or individuals; imposter content that impersonates genuine
sources; fabricated content is 100% false and is designed to deceive and do harm; false context
when false content is shared with false contextual.

Defining and determining what constitutes fake new belongs to complex and contested
terrain. One way to detect fake new is to focus on the motivation, which Tandoc, Lim and
Richard (2018) believe is financial and ideological. Poor reporting skills or unwillingness by a
reporter to observe some standards of journalism does not necessary make the entire new
environment fake. Some stories that are poorly verified “sit on the border” but are not
exclusively fake. However, one way of identifying fake news is by looking at credibility and
believability of the source.

2.3 Theoretical framework

This study utilizes the social responsibility and technological determinism theories which
the researcher believe that are relevant or have close concern on the issues discussed in this
study.

This paper is framed on Source Credibility theory and Information Society theory. The Source
credibility theory was propounded by Hovland and Weiss in 1951. This theory according to
Wikipedia (2022), source credibility is a term commonly used to assume a communicator’s
positive behaviour that hinder the receiver’s acceptance of message. Asemah (2011), states that
the credibility of the originator determines how the receiver will react to the message. That is the
attitude of the message receivers when they receive a message depends to a great extent on how
they see the source and how they perceive the source to be.
The source credibility theory exists between attitude change and the source of a message.
When the right source is used to transmit a message, it boosts the chances of having an effective
 32

message. But when the wrong channel is used, the response will be poor. Anaeto and Anaeto
(2010), note that the source credibility is categorised into three models. These are the factor
model, the functional model according to Anaeto and and Anaetor helps to determine the extent
to which the receiver judge the source as credible, the functional model views credibility as the
degree to which a source satisfies a receiver’s individual needs. There are different media
organisations in our society. The journalist should use the right media to disseminate information
to the audience.

A journalist has a service to the media prescribing public to make sure that the news they
report is accurate. This is enforced by self-regulating bodies and media laws such as libel and
defamation. Other laws are in place to make sure that journalists do not impose upon court trials,
such as contempt of court. However, Sibanda (2019) observed that citizen journalism is done by
people who are not professional journalists. People who are seeing events through their own eyes
and experiences. Smart phone and social media are revolutionizing the understanding of
journalism. The participants postulated that the fact that anyone can be a journalist through
upholding the new forms of communication poses a threat to the practice and profession of
journalism where ethics and legal issues are questionable, for example they cited of a child who
was being eaten by a vulture, the photographer chose to take a photograph instead of helping the
child hence there is compassion fatigue among citizen journalists, people tend to ignore the
medium and only pay attention to the content.

However, this chapter and review x-rays diverse views and standpoints of scholars on
citizen journalism, fake news and implications for journalism social responsibility. In doing the
review, an overview of citizen journalism and conventional journalism was done.

Types of citizen journalism and fake news were analysed while the ethical questions and
fake news on social media were also reviewed. The place of journalism social responsibility in
the fake of fake news were also underscored as empirical review was also done while the social
responsibility and technological determinism theories were employed as the theoretical
frameworks.
 33

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Method

In this study, the survey research method was adopted as the scientific approach in the
study. Survey was found to be the most appropriate for this particular study.

3.2 Research Design / Technique

The survey research design was adopted as the scientific approach. A survey according to
Asemah, Gujbawu, Ekhaerafo and Okpanachi (2012) is an empirical study that uses
questionnaires or interviews to discover descriptive characteristics of a phenomenon. In the
study, survey was found to be the most appropriate for this particular study. Survey as a research
technique I use to obtain data either by interviewing the respondents or providing them with self-
administered questionnaires.

3.3 Research Population

The population of this study is 197, 609 residents of Etsako West Local Government
Area, Auchi in Edo State gotten from the 2006 census.

3.4 Sampling and Sampling Technique

A representative sample of 400 respondents were drawn from the entire population using
the sample random sampling techniques.

3.5 Sampling Size

The sample size for this study is 400. Out of 197, 609 population, a sample size of 400
was gotten from the Taro Yameni formular which is:

N
2
1+ ( N ) (E)

Where N = population

E = level of error (0.05)

 34

197,609

n = 1 + 197,609 (0.0025)

197,609
n=
495.0225

n = 399.19

n = 400

3.6 Method of Data Collection

The primary and secondary method of data collection were employed in collecting data
for this study.

However, the questionnaire was employed as an instrument of primary data collection.

The questionnaires were used because it has advantage of being administered to a large number
of people at the same time. It requires less skills to administrator and respondents have greater
confidence in their anonymity.

3.7 Method of Data Analysis

The method employed by the researcher to analyse data that were collected from the
respondents was the simple percentages and statistical tables.

The data collected were tabulated and itemized according to responses received. It was
done this way:

Number of Respsondents x 100

Total Number of Respondents 1

3.8 Validity of Research Instrument

Questionnaire was the valid instrument for the study. The survey questionnaire was
rightly structured to measure the independent and dependent variables identified in this research.
Questionnaires were brief and direct for easy responses allowing roughly thirty (30) seconds for
each question.
 35

3.9 Reliability of Research Instrument

For the purpose of this study, the pretest and the test methods were used to test reliability
of data collectively. This entails giving same questions to the same respondent after an interval
of one or two weeks. Respondents were identified in this instance and the same set of
questionnaires were served to the again. The first set of the questionnaire were marked “Y”,
while the second “X”. The correction between these two answers were determined by using
person co-efficient correlation to arrive at the degree of reliability of two sets of answers from
the selections.
 36

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 PREAMBLE

In this study, the statistical data from the respondents were collected, classified and
presented in table form, frequencies and percentages. This was done in line with the research
questions raised in this study. The demographic data of the respondents were presented first. This
was followed by psychographic data.

Out of the 400 copies distributed 381 representing 95 percent were dully completed and
returned while 19 copies representing 4.8 percent were not returned.

4.2 Analysis of Respondents’ Bio-data

Table 1: Sex of respondent

Variable Frequency Percentage (%)

Male 180 47.2

Female 201 52.8

Total 381 100

Field survey, 2024

From table 1 above, it was observed that 180 respondents representing 47.2% of the total
sample are male, while 201 respondents or 52.8% of the total sample are female.
 37

Table 2: Marital Status of respondents

Variable Frequency Percentage (%)

Single 202 53%

Married 68 17.8%

Separated 4 1.4%

Divorced 5 1.3%

Widowed 2 0.5%

Total 381 100%

Field survey, 2024

Information from table 2 above shows that 202 respondents or 53% of the total sample
are single, as 68 respondent or 17.8% are married while the separated, divorced and widowed
respondents represented 1.4%,1.3% and 5% respectively. This shows that the number of single
respondents outnumbered other groups.

Table 3: Occupation of respondents

Variable Frequency Percentage(%)

Civil servant 45 11.8%

Businessman/woman 90 23.6%

Student 236 61.9%

Retired 10 2.6%

Total 381 100%

Field survey, 2024

The above table shows that 45 respondents representing 11.8% of the sample are civil
servants, as 90 respondents or 23.6% of the total sample are businessmen and women while 236
respondents representing 61.9% are students and 10 respondents or 2.6% of the total sample
 38

retired. These figures show that majority of the respondents are students followed by
businessmen and women.

Table 4: Educational Qualification of respondents

Variable Frequency Percentage (%)

No formal education 25 6.6%

SSCE 144 37.8%

Diploma/NCE 62 16.2%

B.Sc./HND 120 31.5%

M.Sc and above 30 7.9%

Total 381 100%

Field survey, 2024

25 respondents representing 6.6% of the total sample had no formal education, as 144
respondents or 37.8% of the total sample has SSCE, as 62 respondents or 16.2% of the total
sample has ND/NCE, while 120 respondents representing 31.5% have first degree and 30
respondents or 7.9% of the sample has M.Sc. This implies that majority of the respondents are
students and working class.

Table 5: Age of Respondents

 39

Variable Frequency Percentage (%)

15-25 217 56.9%

26-36 102 26.8%

37-47 40 10.5%

48 and above 22 5.8%

Total 381 100%

Field survey, 2024

Table 5 above shows that 217 respondents representing 56.9% of the total sample falls
within the age bracket of 15-25 years, as 102 respondents or 26.8% of the total sample falls
within the age of 26-36 years, while 40 respondents representing 10.5% of the total sample are
within the age of 37-47 and 22 respondents or 5.8% of the total sample fall within 48 years and
above.

Table 6: Responses on accessibility to computers/android phones

Variable Frequency Percentage

Yes 381 100%

No - -

Total 381 100%

Field survey, 2024

The above table shows that 381 respondents representing 100% of the total samples said
that they have access to computers and android phones.

Table 7: Response on consumption of online information posted by Bloggers

 40

Variable Frequency Percentage

Yes 301 79%

No 67 17.6%

I don’t know 13 3.4%

Total 381 100%

Field survey, 2024

The above table shows that 301 respondents representing 79% of the total sample said
that they consume online information posted by bloggers, as 67 respondents or 17.6% of the total
sample said that they don’t consume online information posted by bloggers, while 13
respondents representing 3.4% of the total sample said that they don’t know if they consume
online information posted by bloggers or not

Table 8: Responses on how often online information posted by bloggers and citizen
journalists are consumed

Variable Frequency Percentage

Daily 242 63.5%

Weekly 108 28.3%

Monthly 31 8.2%

Total 381 100%

Field survey, 2022

The above table shows that 242 respondents representing 63.5% of the total sample said
that they consume online information posted by citizen journalists daily, as 108 respondents or
28.3% of the total sample said they consume online information posted by citizen journalist
weekly, while 31 respondents representing 8.2% of the total sample said that they consume
online information posted by citizen journalists monthly.
 41

Table 9: Responses on whether on blogging is effective for news reportage

Variables Frequency Percentage

Yes 381 100%

No - -

Total 381 100%

Field survey, 2022

The above table shows that 381 respondents representing 100% of the total sample said
that social media is a major channel of fake news dissemination.

Table 10: Response on how effective is the use of blogs for news reportage

Variable Frequency Percentage

Authentic 350 91.9%

Fake 20 5.2%

I don’t know 11 2.9%

Total 381 100%

Field Survey, 2024

The above table shows that 350 respondents representing 91.9% of the total sample have
the perception that information posted online by bloggers are authentic, as 20 respondents or
5.2% of the total sample said that information posted online are fake while 11 respondents
representing 2.9% of the total sample said that they don’t have any perception of the information
posted online by citizen journalists.

Table 11: Responses on whether blogs serves as a credible source of news

Variable Frequency Percentage

 42

Yes 305 80%

No 76 20%

Total 381 100%

Field Survey, 2024

The above table shows that 305 respondents representing 80% of the total sample said
that citizen journalism has implications on journalism social responsibility, while 76 respondents
or 20% of the total sample said that community journalism doesn’t have any implication on
journalism social responsibility.

Table 12: Responses on the extent to which blog and citizen journalism serves a credible
source of news

Variable Frequency Percentage

Positive 82 21.5%

Negative 299 78.5%

Total 381 100%

Field Survey, 2024

The above table shows that 82 respondents representing 21.5% of the total sample said
that citizen journalism has positive implications on journalism social responsibility as 299
respondents or 78.5% of the total sample said that citizen journalism have negative implications
on journalism social responsibility.

Table 13: Responses on whether bloggers and citizen journalist adhere to ethics of
journalism
 43

Variable Frequency Percentage

To some extent 80 20.10%

To a great extent 205 53.8%

I don’t know 96 25.2%

Total 381 100%

Field Survey, 2024

The above table shows that 80 respondents representing 20.10% of the total sample said
that fake news affects journalism social responsibility to some extent, as 205 respondents or
53.8% of the total sample said that fake news affects journalism to a great extent, while 96
respondents or 25.2% of the total sample said that they don’t know the extent to which fake news
affect journalism social responsibility.

Table 14: responses on whether journalism social responsibility is effective in the face of
fake news

Variable Frequency Percentage

Yes 56 14.7%

No 325 85.3%

Total 381 100%

Field Survey, 2022

The above table shows that 56 respondents representing 14.7% of the total sample said
that journalism social responsibility is effective in the face of fake news, as 325 respondents or
85.3% of the total sample said that journalism social responsibility is not effective in the face of
fake news.

Table 15: Responses on how effective is journalism social responsibility in the face of face
of fake news.
 44

Variable Frequency Percentage

Not effective 342 89.8%

Effective 20 5.2%

Very effective 9 2.4%

I don’t know 10 2.6%

Total 381 100%

Field Survey, 2020

The above table shows that 342 respondents representing 89.8% of the total sample said
that journalism social responsibility is not effective in the face of fake news, as 20 respondents or
5.3% of the total sample said that journalism social responsibility is effective in the face of fake
news, while 9 respondents representing 2.4% of the total sample said that journalism social
responsibility is very effective in the face of fake news and 10 respondents or 2.6% of the total
sample said that they don’t know how effective is journalism social responsibility in the face of
fake news.

Table 15: Responses of ethical implications of fake news on news reportage

Variable Frequency Percentage

Objectivity - -

Subjectivity 359 94.2%

I don’t know 22 5.8%

Total 381 100%

Field Survey, 2020

The above table shows that 359 respondents representing 94.2% of the total sample said
that the ethical implications of fake news on news reportage is subjectivity, while 22 respondents
 45

or 5.8% of the total sample said that they don’t know if the ethical implications of fake news on
news reportage is objectivity or subjectivity.

4.3 Discussion of Findings

The outcome of the findings will be discussed in line with how they answered the
research questions.

Research question one: Does Citizen Journalism and fake have any implication on journalism
social responsibility?

From the findings, it is apparent that citizen journalism has implications on journalism
social responsibility. This means that some of the information disseminated by citizen journalists
are fake.

However, it is further seen from the findings that the sort of implication that citizen
journalism has on journalism responsibility is negative, this was contained on table 12 where 82
respondents representing 21.5% of the total sample said that citizen journalism and fake news
have positive implication on journalism social responsibility, while 299 respondents or 78.5% of
the total sample said that citizen journalism and fake news have negative implication on
journalism social responsibility.

The above has upheld the views of the following school of thoughts and guidelines of a
socially responsible mass media/press.

Overtime scholars have carried out researches to find out the extent or degree to which
citizen journalism and fake news affects journalism social responsibility. After much research
and criticisms, results show that not every contributions or news from citizen journalism adhere
to ethical standard and responsible to responsive journalism as Okpowa (2015) states that in a
situation whereby certain journalists are anonymous could make them not responsible to the
information they disseminate. They tend to spread rumours, calumny, detraction and information
that are not authentic. Furthermore, Oso (1996) note that every event has a social media guiding
it. News production studies to have shown that other factors affect the way the news media
portrays events beside the occurrences themselves. Such structuring is affected by
organizational, bureaucratic, cultural and professional factors.
 46

Research question two: What sort of implications does citizen journalism and fake news
have on journalism social responsibility?

The question was asked with the aim of ascertaining the sort of implication citizen
journalism has on journalism social responsibility. Findings shows that though, citizen
journalism contributes a lot to information that media content consumers consumed but it did not
have direct implications on journalism social responsibility. This is evident on table 12 which
shows that 299 of the respondents or 78.5% of the total sample said that citizen journalism social
responsibility while 82 respondents or 21.5% said that citizen journalism and fake news have
negative implications on journalism social responsibility.

The above is a further confirmation of a survey by the chartered institute of marketing –

(CIM) – (http//:www.CIM.co.uk). the survey found that alongside the growing fake news, there
is declining confidence in social media content. Back in 2014, the CIM found that 62 percent of
people trusted content on social media. Now this has fallen to 34 percent.

Research Question Three: How has citizen journalism contributed to the dissemination
of fake news. This is apparent in table 13 which shows that 205 respondents representing 53.8%
of the total sample said t hat fake news has positively affected journalism social responsibility to
a great extent, as 80 respondents or 20.10% said it has contributed to some extent, while 96
respondents representing 25.2% said that they don’t know the extent to which citizen journalism
has contributed to the dissemination of fake news.

In view of this, Dani Madrid – Morales, assistant professor of journalism at the UH Jack
J. Valenti School of Communication and Herman Wasserman at the university of Cape Town,
found that in sub-Saharan Africa – where disinformation campaigns have been used recently to
influence electoral campaigns – perceived exposure to disinformation is high and trust in
national and social media is low.

The researchers polled nearly 1,900 people in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa who are
highly educated, live in urban, middle class areas and have access to social media.

As many as 90% of Kenyans, 90% of Nigerians and 76% of south Africans believe they
are exposed to false news about politics on a fairly regular basis. In a 2016 Pew Research Center
 47

study which sampled just over 1,000 Americans, 71% of respondents say they often or sometime
fake political news. They however found that people in sub-Saharan Africa particularly distrust
information on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp because that’s where they
find “fake news” most often.

Research Question Four: How effective is journalism social responsibility in the face of
citizen journalism and fake news?

This question was asked to find out the viability of journalism social responsibility in an
environment in which citizen journalism and fake news seems to be thriving.

Findings underscores that 325 respondents representing 85.3% effectively thrive in the
face of citizen journalism social responsibility effectively thrive in the face of citizen journalism
and fake news, while 56 respondents or 14.7% of the total sample said that journalism social
responsibility doesn’t thrive effectively in the face of citizen journalism and fake news.

In corroboration with this Reuter Digital Report in 2017 provided new insights about
digital news consumption based on a Yougov survey of over 70,800 online news consumers in
36 countries, including the USA and UK. This report focused on the issues of trust in the era of
fake news, changing business models and the role of news platforms, especially the role of new
social media. This report indicated that the role of new social media. This report indicated that
only a quarter (24%) of respondents that the social media does a good job in separating fact from
fiction, compared to 40% for vouching for the traditional news media.

CHAPTER FIVE
 48

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 SUMMARY

This study was undertaken c. In order to achieve this aim, relevant literature were
reviewed, as research questions were formulated in line with the objectives.

The study employed social responsibility, technological determinism and source

credibility theories as the theoretical framework and scaffold for the study. The survey
methodology was adopted while the questionnaire was used as the instrument of data collection.
The simple percentage method and statistical tables were used to analyse and present data
collected.

The population of the study is 400 residents of Auchi in Etsako West Local Government
Area in Edo State. A total of 400 questionnaires were administered, out of which 381 were
returned valid and found useable.

From the findings of this study, it was discovered that citizen journalism has contributed
positively to the dissemination of fake news, through with positive implications on journalism
social responsibility. However, conclusion was drawn from data obtained from the respondents.

5.2 CONCLUSION

While blogs and eyewitness reports can offer unique perspectives and insights, it is
essential for mainstream media in Nigeria to critically evaluate and corroborate information from
these sources to uphold journalistic integrity and credibility. By incorporating a rigorous fact-
checking process and ensuring transparency in reporting. Mainstream media can effectively
leverage blogs and eyewitness reports to enrich their news coverage while maintaining
credibility among their audience.

5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS
 49

Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made:

1. Journalists should always ensure that they practice responsive journalism even in the face
of bloggers and eyewitnesses and also remember that the public have the right to know,
and they owe the public the responsibility of telling them the truth and nothing but the
truth.
2. The traditional or conventional media workers, vis-à-vis; bloggers, journalists, reporters,
photojournalists, editors etc. should ensure that they are ethically-cum-socially
responsible in their reportage of events as against the unethical reportage that
characterized fake news and the practice of citizen journalism.
3. Even with their inadequate training and lack of knowledge of the ethics of journalism,
citizen journalists should be discretionally cautious in their reportage of news by being
objective, truthful and balance to avoid subjectivity and fake news.
4. Journalists should ensure that they adhere to the principles of the journalistic social
responsibility theory and geared their reportage towards objectivity that will create a
clear-cut distinction between fact and fake news.

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 50

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Appendix 1

Department of Mass Communication

Auchi polytechnic.
PMB 13’
Auchi,
Edo State’

Dear Respondents,

REQUEST FOR COMPLETION OF QUESTIONNAIRE

I am an undergraduate of the department mass communication, Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi

, Edo state. Am conducting a research to analyse the use of blogs and eyewitness reports by
mainstream media in Nigeria as a credible source of news The research is an academic study in
fulfillment of the requirements for the award of HND in mass communication.

I shall be grateful if you can complete the attached questionnaire for me. Your anonymity
is guaranteed as the information will be treated in utmost secrecy.

Thanks in anticipation for your cooperation and understanding.

Yours faithfully,
 54

Appendix II

Please tick the appropriate boxes. Please do not tick more than a box as a response to a single
question.

1. What is your sex?

(a) Male [ ] (b) female [ ]
2. What is your marital status?
(a) Single [ ]
(b) Married [ ]
(c) Divorced [ ]
(d) Separated [ ]
3. What is your occupation?
(a) Civil servant [ ]
(b) Business man/woman [ ]
(c) Student [ ]
(d) Retired [ ]
4. What is your highest educational qualification?
(a) No formal education [ ]
(b) SSCE [ ]
(c) Diploma/NCE [ ]
(d) B.Sc/HND [ ]
(e) M.Sc and above [ ]
5. What is your age bracket?
(a) 15-25 [ ]
(b) 26-36 [ ]
(c) 37-47 [ ]
(d) 48 and above [ ]
6. Do you have access to a computer/android phone?
(a) Yes [ ] (b) No [ ]
7. Do you consume online information posted by citizen journalists?
(a) Yes [ ] (b) No [ ]
 55

8. How often do you consume information posted online by bloggers?

(a) Daily [ ] (b) Weekly [ ] (c) Monthly [ ]
9. Can social media be adjudged as a major channel of fake news dissemination?
(a) Yes [ ] (b) No [ ]
10. What is your perception about information posted online by blogger?
11. Do you perceive citizen journalism having any implications on journalism social
responsibility?
(a) Yes [ ] (b) No [ ]
12. What sort of implications does citizen journalism and fake news have on social
responsibility?
(a) Positive [ ] (b) Negative [ ] (c) I don’t know [ ]
13. To what extent do fake news affect journalism social responsibility
14. Is journalism social responsibility effective in the face of fake news?
(a) Yes [ ] (b) No [ ]
15. What exactly is the ethical implication of fake news on news reportage?
16. How effective is journalism social responsibility in the face of fake news?
(a) Effective [ ] (b) very effective [ ] (c) I don’t know