Resultados de la estimación a nivel regional.

As the effects of media convergence have become more and more pronounced in journalism, communication theorists have come to realise the need to reflect this situation in the theoretical frameworks that drive new digital technologies adoption. This section, therefore, focuses on such combined influence as it presents what constitute the metatheories that address technology adoption situation.

In the past, mass communication and interpersonal communication have developed in silos, with each having its own theories and defined research traditions. However, due to the emergence and proliferation of new digital interactive technologies, these independent research walls need to be reconstructed in order for theories and research to keep pace with changes in user behaviour in the converged media environment. Extrapolating this situation to the media convergence taking place in Nigeria, one would but realise that radio has “transmutated” from one-way unidirectional mass mediated communication to a two-way medium. The linear model of top-down information flow from broadcasters to heterogeneous audience within a defined geographic space has been replaced by the granular digital interactivity of new media. This situation makes for radio audience to be active contributors in radio content production.

A number of studies have focused on the concept of interactivity which underpins radio’s transmutation in the digital era. For instance, Alabi (2014) explores this aspect given radio and television’s perception as traditional unidirectional media in Nigeria. Findings show radio and television stations in Lagos part of Nigeria have become active users of new digital technologies for feedback purpose. Based on the findings, there exists a clear difference in the way private stations and public broadcast stations engage the “feedback channels” with more use coming from public broadcast stations. Apart from the fact that this study has not explored what could possibly be the cause of this disparity in use, partly because of its focus. The two

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theories of uses and gratifications and democratic participant theories deployed in the study as framework have not been adequately articulated to guide the study’s analysis. The study restricts itself to an exploration of technological artifacts without situating their use in the socio-political context informed by the democratic participant theories. For adequate theoretical representation, framework of technology adoption research and theory, should reflect these new realities in the converged media environment.

Exploring the converged media environment in Nigeria further shows there is a shifting media landscape attributed to technological convergence. Observation of technology adoption and/or its appropriation across the three tiers of Nigerian broadcasting (private, public and “community”) has revealed that new media technologies are transforming broadcasting and thus making it at least in principle to be more accessible to the public through such affordances like mobility and multiplatform deliveries. Radio broadcasting has shifted from its old “monomodal” production involving audio only to “multimodal” environment where a combination of text, graphics, pictures and videos are being used to enhance production (Moyo, 2013a). This creative use informs a reconsideration of radio’s local name in the southwest Yoruba speaking part of Nigeria as “ero asoromagbesi” [a device lacking in feedback].

Jenkins (2001) highlights as a part of five processes of convergence, the concept of global convergence. This refers to the cultural hybridity that results from international circulation of media content. This exemplifies the use of social media by Nigerian radio station to stream their flagship programmes on social network sites like Facebook. As part of their convergence efforts, some Nigerian radio stations stream their flagship programmes on social network sites like Facebook and promote same on Twitter. The approach helps international audiences to link up with a local station in real-time. Sometimes the programme are made available to be viewed and listened to at audiences’ convenience, a redefinition of what used to be radio audience. How technological convergence of this nature connects to institutional forms of media ownership and their modes of power remains an interesting perspective to explore in the digital era.

With technological convergence in Nigeria, radio has become fluid, an attribute which promotes its flexibility as well as reinvigoration. Lin (2000) introduces the theory of technology fluidity to explain how the transmutability of a medium influences the audience’s technology adoption. The theory posit that, “when the technical attributes of a medium possess a greater capability to transmogrify between or simultaneously operate in multiple communication modalities or task platforms, the technology is a more fluid communication medium” (Lin, 2003, p. 355). A more fluid communication technology provides not only

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multitasking functions, but a greater degree of presence of and virtual verbal/nonverbal interactions between communicators. The fluidity of a medium may also directly influence audience perceptions of media richness, as the medium’s ability to concurrently deliver the communication content in multiple textual and audiovisual modes should enhance the audience perception of “information richness.” The concept of technology fluidity reflects the reality of continuing media and information technology convergence that is creating an array of hybrid multipurpose-multimedia products. Radio’s transmutability has since become more visible with the Internet. Lin (2000) empirical study provides the initial assessment of technology fluidity theory with findings that the audiences who consider the Internet a more highly fluid medium are also more likely to adopt online broadcasting service via video-streaming technology. Further examples of fluid technologies include a desktop video-conferencing system that can provide audio, video, text, and computational displays and exchanges, or a digital personal communication system that can serve as a wireless phone and an offer a range of other functionalities.

Technology fluidity is, therefore, about system multimedia modalities which afford multitasking, collaboration, and interactivity. This perfectly fits the Nigerian experience given how mobile phones and other Android mobile devices are being used by radio journalists. More often than not, radio journalists deploy mobile phones for more than voice call and text messaging. Mobile phone has become a device for interviewing news sources, functioning in the same capacity as voice recorders. Journalists browse with it for a range of work-based reasons, including sourcing for programme topics, researching the topics and looking for word meanings. Big screen Android devices are also used in the preparation of script, at least for radio journalists who still believe in scripting. The fluidity of the mobile phone comes into play when it is been used for a range of work-based activities. Also, it is important to highlight the fact that collaborative use of mobile devices are noticeable among African journalists, Nigerian radio journalists inclusive.

Some African media scholars (e.g. Nyamnjoh, 2004; Mabweazara, 2010) have observed the phenomenon of “single-owner-multiple-user” in the way some Zimbabweans use the mobile phones. Africa’s cultural values of sociality, interconnectedness, interdependence and conviviality are believed to have encouraged this reality (Mabwezara, 2010). Nyamnjoh (2004) assert that the creative appropriation of new media technologies among Africans “is not only informed by cultures amenable to conviviality, interdependence and negotiation, but also by histories of deprivation, debasement and cosmopolitanism” (Nyamnjoh, 2004, p. 54). While echoing previous research, Mabweazara (2010, p. 32) points to how African journalists

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(operating in ICT-impoverished newsrooms) yield benefit from ICTs through sharing limited resources. Citing Berger’s (2005) account of Southern African journalists, he notes that even as regards unwired computers, in many cases journalists queue to share newsroom resources rather than have personal workstations (Berger, 2005, p. 9). It is on this note that the framework of research covers for the concept of technological fluidity as it will afford researchers the opportunity to evaluating how technology adoption is invariably shaped by the socio-political environment in which they operate. Mudhai (2004, p. 320) argues that when evaluating the deployment of new technologies in Africa, “attempts should be made to take into consideration local conditions or structured contingency of the circumstances in which the technologies are deployed.”

Another underrepresented aspect of new digital technologies adoption research involves the role of functionally similar technologies. Developed from the functional perspective (e.g. Katz et al., 1974), functionally similar technologies is a concept that addresses the tendency of a new technology to displace its functionally similar counterpart. A new technology or content choice, particularly one regarded as desirable alternative, can replace its functionally similar counterpart. New digital technologies thus blur some of the traditional distinctions governing functional similarities that had so neatly separated choices based on content or channel. Atkin et al. (2015) provides instances of the kind of blurriness associated with functionally similar technology using the PC and the smartphones. Smartphones, according to the theorists, are basically palm-sized computers that incorporate communication and multimedia interface functions. This makes it possible for smartphones to reduce the need for using a PC, tablet, or camera or audio recorder as it is currently observed among Nigerian journalists. The assumption is that “considerations of displacement, supplementation, and complementation functions will influence the adoption process of the abundant choices presented by communication technologies, particularly those that encompass overlapping functions” (Atkin et al. (2015). Functionally similar technologies and shared use typically undergird technology adoption in Nigeria and in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. With the availability of smartphones, most Nigerian journalists are able to deploy the same device in multiple journalistic occasions such as newsgathering, interviewing, picture taking and note- taking. Atkin et al. (2015, p. 635) observe that despite their predictive validity, technology adoption researchers have not been incorporating this perspective into research frameworks, adding that “they are more difficult to conceive than are single innovations.” Therefore, a better understanding of an individual’s technology adoption behaviour could be achieved by

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examining the innovators who adopt several technologies, in conjunction with an analysis of interpersonal influences.

3.4 “Critical Theory of Radio Convergence:” An Overview

These technologies also mean that immediate feedback in radio broadcasting is guaranteed. Adoption of social media platforms and mobile phones for audience participation are gradually breaking technological and social barriers limiting ordinary people’s engagement in mainstream media. Radio is tapping into the independent mobile and online cultures and practices, spawning a digital radio culture of texting and the mainstreaming of public mobile cultures (Moyo L, 2013a). Radio has joined the network community of social media technology. It has become a network space, virtual space, mobile space, and while at the same time retaining its physical space identifiable by its studio format which now operates within the Habamas public sphere concept (Moyo L, 2013b, p. 214; Akinbobola, 2015).

Three concepts can be deduced from the transformative impact of new media technologies on radio: First is the “digital turn”, described by Moyo L. (2013a) as a form of seismic shift from analogue to digital forms of representation. This represents the computerisation of production and transmission routines. A situation which foreground technical and/or computer skills for programme production and presentation and the eventual digitisation of radio signal transmission and reception beyond the traditional means. Upskilling and multiskilling of journalists are synchronized with new affordances of digital transmission and reception via telecommunications.

The second concept, which is termed “radio convergence”, is also occasioned by digitisation. Radio convergence has seen radio been transformed from a bland beat box to a robust multivocal medium (Kalodzy, 2006 cited in Moyo L, 2013b). Apart from technological convergence which describes the merging of platforms at technological level, convergence has opened radio up to other multiple forms of convergences, such as content convergence and a form of audience convergence, which according to Moyo L (2013a) is described as “a trend towards cooperative partnership.” Radio in Africa is witnessing reinventing with the fusion of broadcasting, computing and telecommunications. The implications of this that radio journalists and their audiences have to learn how to absorb the shock of convergence and learn what it is to interact with radio.

Theoretically, the merging of telecommunications, broadcasting, and computing means that radio journalists and their audiences have to rethink what it means to communicate through radio. Converged radio means the emergence of new modes of using radio (Moyo L, 2013b:

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216). With radio content becoming malleable, its flow of content on multiple platforms is guaranteed. Broadcasters, like their counterparts in newspaper, are now operating audio blogging by having their concluded programmes uploaded onto a website. Radio audience in diaspora and the mobile community of listeners now have access to experience or re-experience new listening culture through web listening or mobile Apps. The implication of this is that radio has emerged as a multimedia technology which is no more restricted by geography. The spontaneity syndrome which underscores its previous irreversibility is gone (Moyo L, 2013b, p. 215). The geographic limitation placed on terrestrial broadcast band such FM by the regulatory agency (Nigerian Broadcasting Commission) has been removed through the Internet. Theoretically, radio is no more restricted to terrestrial transmission using frequency waves.

And finally are the radical changes in cultures and practices, which according to Moyo (2013), describe the re-modification of routines, skills and values that formed and informed radio news production, distribution and consumption habit prior to digitization. Media scholars have observed the “routinisation logic” which defines certain established norms and practices in newswork (e.g. Tuchman, 1978). This routinisation logic sheds light on the noticeable difference in journalistic rituals along institutional and organizational settings. Routinisation logic explains the idea of radio as “sites of production” (Tuchman, 1978), a cauldron of mixed interests where journalistic roles are performed under tele-guided situation as informed by strict organisational values and institutional regulatory control. Invariably, this culture also describes how journalists’ actions and that of the general public relate together and become influential within the concept of participatory news programming (Bivens, 2008, p. 113).

In spite of these, the transformation going on in today’s radio cannot be totally attributed to changes in radio technology leading to converged radio. Moyo (2013a) explains the transformation of radio as a product of a dialectical process which sees radio constantly negotiating its existence with telecommunications and new audience practices. Two things can be deduced from this dialectical process going by Moyo’s (2013a) conceptual interpretation of the impact of technology in radio journalism. On the one hand are the changing cultures and practices in relation to radio programme production and dissemination. On the other hand is the changing audience role and new empowerment of the once passive audience facilitated by new communication technologies. Audiences have become more mobile and participatory, using the digital technology to listen as well as contribute to radio programming. This leads to the establishment of an informal production spaces for audiences and also the merging of mainstream and citizen journalism on radio (Moyo L, 2013a).

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Moyo (2013a) also makes a claim for a hybridised theory which serves to unlock the complex structures and processes within which radio convergence takes place and how it is negotiated to produce new radio cultures and practices that in turn impact those spaces. By emphasising the important role of agency and structure in technology adoption, the critical theory of radio convergence argues for a “social shaping” thesis (see Paschal, 2001) in individual and institutional uses of digital media technologies.