Paper short abstract:

This paper interrogates whether or not 'alternative' media can engender the democratisation of the Nigerian media

Paper long abstract:

The 'wave of democratisation' blowing elsewhere on the African continent reached Nigeria during the 1990s when the broadcast media sector was deregulated. Although the Nigerian media has been described as one of the most vibrant in Africa, the over thirty years of military dictatorship saw the promulgation of draconian media laws and the repression of journalists. Since return to civil rule in 1999, mainstream media in Nigeria still grapples with being truly independent. According to a recent press freedom index, Nigeria ranks 126 out of 179 countries (Reporters without Borders, 2012) in spite of the signing of the Freedom of Information Act in 2011. The adoption of new information and communication technologies has made some scholars argue that journalism has come under threat. Using the 2011 Nigerian elections as an empirical example, this paper interrogates whether the incorporation of 'alternative' media sources into the mainstream's coverage of the election, for instance can engender the democratisation of Nigeria's mediasphere. In teasing out these debates, ethnography comprising semi-structured interviews with professional journalists and newsroom observations was deployed. The ethnography provided an avenue of investigating the practices mainstream journalists in Nigeria undergo in reporting events and how they source for information. This paper questions whether or not the adoption of new information and communications technologies is impacting on the institutional practices of mainstream journalists in Nigeria. With our reading of new information and communication technologies as 'alternative' media, this paper interrogates the assumption that alternative media is capable of 'opening' up Nigeria's mediasphere.