Values – work/life

Mobile media technology is another new media technology used in news production that is globally prevalent, today. The emergence of mobile phones was as a result of the need to devise a means

through which one can engage in a point to point communication comfortably without the use of wires. An Ofcom 2016 media report found that:

There is an increasing preference for mobile phones above more traditional media devices.

From 2005 - 2014, adults were most likely to say they would miss their TV set the most.

Now mobile phones are the most-missed media device. The smartphone is also the device mostly used for social media and is the preferred device for the majority of online activities (p.6).

This is evident in the increasing use of mobile phones for immediate communication. The beginning of the third millennium notably came with a technological revolution with the digital sphere immersed in the everyday life of society. "In 2015 there are more than 7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, up from less than 1 billion in 2000" pinpoints Brahima Sanou, director of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Telecommunication Development Bureau in his recent assessment report on ICT Facts and figures 2015 (www.itu.int). Indeed, this revolution is progressing at an accelerating speed and penetrating every facet of human development as shown in the ITU report on 15 years of global ICT growth.

Over time, multimedia handsets have been developed which are equipped with different applications that enable one to achieve audio or video recording. With these qualities, journalists can easily cover stories as well as reaffirm their authenticity with the recorded materials. They are also used by the journalists in news reporting from far distances through email, SMS, and MMS. The development of mobile internet also enables journalists to send in reports in the form of emails or through social media like BBM, Whatsapp, and Facebook. Reporters also use the mobile phone to voice- over their reports from the scene of the event. One significant thing about the use of mobile phones is that it does not require an additional training by users. Agu (2011) notes that mobile telephony has actually altered the broadcast media modus operandi, in terms of its portability and ease of use.

The smartphone, which is a recent development in mobile technology, has been in existence for more than a decade in the forms of PDAs, Blackberry devices and iPhone, unveiled by Apple in 2007.

Smartphones are specially designed for camera functions and social photography sites which makes it apt as a journalistic tool. In Nigeria, the revolution in mobile technology began in 2001 with the introduction of the Global System for Mobile (GSM) services as stated earlier. Prior to this date, Nigeria had only 450,000 telephone lines that served the then estimated 120 million population; and was thus ranked third on the list of countries with the lowest teledensity in the world. From about 0.73 percent in 2001, Nigeria's teledensity increased to 68.13 percent in November 2011(ITU, 2011) and doubled to 110.9% in 2017(Okonji, 2017).

Latest statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) indicated that the number of fixed and mobile telephone subscribers in the country increased to over 107.36 million as of 30 September 2012 from 102.36 million three months earlier and 95.88 million at the end of 2011. GSM mobile operators accounted for 96.54 percent, or 103.65 million, of Nigeria's total telephony user base at the end of the third quarter of 2012 (up from 90.56 million users nine months earlier); followed by CDMA mobile networks with 3.02 percent or 3.24 million, (down from 4.6 million); while fixed and fixed-wireless operators claimed just 0.44 percent, or 474,345, of the total, compared to 719,406 users at end-2011. Meanwhile, the largest mobile operator by subscribers remains South Africa-based MTN, with around 45.64 million users on its GSM network at the end of September 2012, up 5.7% quarter-on-quarter and accounting for 42.7 percent of Nigeria's total wireless subscribers (www.itu.int/ITU.../CategoryView,, category, Africa.aspx). Today, more than 154 million Nigerians have a mobile phone (Okonji, 2017). This implies that most Nigerians use mobile devices which might induce them to access the news on their phones. So, broadcast media should tap the mobile technology potentials for efficiency and good delivery

In essence, the mobile phone is one of the fastest-spreading new media technologies in recent times.

Over the past two decades, technology devices have become mobile, portable and networked to the point that they have become pervasive in everyday life. The use of mobile devices became common among a wide range of age groups due to affordability and availability (Newhouse, Williams, &

Pearson, 2006). Beyond regular phone calls and short message service (SMS) exchanges, the smartphone is now a personal multimedia device (Westlund, 2008). Cameron and Sturt (2009) also argue that the new form of convergence based on wireless networking, mobile telephony and digital photography sustains mobile journalism. This implies that mobile technology has generated new forms of convergence which is greatly affecting the spread of information. Bosomworth (Drulă, 2014, p.48) assert that increasingly, more people use their mobile phone or other mobile devices to access sites and to read the news, as shown in an analysis of the mobile market for 2013. This technology makes it easier and quicker for news to reach users (Drulă, 2014). This entails that the ubiquity of smartphones and the popularity of the new media technologies are signifiers of a new social order in which anyone and almost everyone can make their presence known, by sending messages, photos, audio and videos that potentially can be accessed by a huge number of people. This had the effect of breaking the monopoly on sending messages in the mass media that was held by traditional media such as radio and television.

It should also be recalled that the revolutions in 2011 in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya were facilitated by youth using cell phones and the Internet. The smartphone represents the current pinnacle of mobile phone development, coupling phone capabilities with the additional functionalities of a personal

digital assistant (PDA). The smartphone’s evolution of the mobile phone influences how users tend to think of these devices, as reflected in the handset design. The connection between mobile technology and the media industry has generated mobile news and mobile media. Studies by Westlund (2013) and Quinn (2009) cited in Drulă (2014, p.50) show that in recent years, mobile media and news has gained more popularity, and journalistic practices constantly use this technology for news publishing or for gathering information. Erjavec and Polar Kovacic (2009) in Drulă (2014, p. 53) also show that audiences have a participatory role in news production for mobile devices; that journalists create the structure and the content of the mobile news, but audience produces mobile news items as a

‘denunciatory participatory practice’. This means that audience is more preoccupied to browse news, and then, to react in a denunciative way.

Still, another benefit of using mobile devices is the development of third-party applications (or apps).

Mobile phone applications are one area of technological innovation, which is an enhancing factor in the use of mobile for broadcast communication. Prentice & Dobson (2014, p. 282) note that apps are mobile device software applications that allow users to access the app's information from their smartphone, tablet, or personal computing device. Today, there is a proliferation of apps for a wide variety of purposes, including education, entertainment, personal health, coaching, and much more (p.

282).

News organizations, including NTA 24, Naija news, Tell magazine, BBC, AP, Reuters, AIT, Channels Television, and Sahara TV have their apps on Google Store for use by mobile subscribers globally.

This increase online visibility as well as enhance audience expansion for a media station making the smartphone a must-have for today's journalists. On the other hand, smartphone technology helps the editorial staff speed up on mobile journalism aptly termed "smart journalism". It helps reporters extend the capabilities of editing, note-taking, and live-streaming. The most common mobile operating systems (OS) used by modern smartphones include Apple's iOS, Google's Android, Microsoft's Windows Phone, Nokia's Symbian, RIM's BlackBerry OS, and embedded Linux distributions such as Maemo and MeeGo. These operating systems can be installed on different phone models, and typically each device can receive multiple OS software updates over its lifetime. Therefore, as smartphones enable easy access to the internet, it makes the journalist adapt quickly to the changing globalizing world (Wikipedia).

The advancement in mobile technology, smartphones, in particular, has changed our sense of time in relation to the news. The old media practice of waiting 24 hours for a news update now seems like an eternity. Even social media platforms commonly assessed on smartphones have also given users more control over time. Smartphones enable place shifting and enable users to access media content

anywhere as well as any time. It also enhances media convergence and multimedia (Drula, 2014).

Basically, the mobile Internet provides various information about the world easily and when combined with the apps, a journalist can report from anywhere in the world. If you want to get work done there are all kinds of available apps to do that. Apps transformed mobile phones into highly productive work and entertainment devices. Apparently, with smartphones, journalism practices are interesting and faster and even the Ofcom 2016 report confirms the pervasiveness of smartphone adoption in the UK:

Smartphones are replacing computers for internet use. Two-thirds (65%) of all adults use a smartphone to go online; up by four percentage points since 2014. Of those who only use devices other than computers to go online, 78% use a smartphone, while 6% of all adults only use a smartphone, and no other device, to go online (up by three percentage points since 2014). Smartphones are the only device used to go online, at home and elsewhere, by a majority of adults (p.8).

The Ofcom report holds firm support as many people use smartphones the way PC were used many years ago. For instance, a Smartphone that can double as (or at least control) a set-top box, or a tablet that can perform many of the functions of a laptop or PC, are both instances of different technologies converging in a single form factor. Given their origins, smartphones clearly support human interaction and intensify the communication flow. In a pervasive environment, phones exist in a social setting where the focus is communication, not computation. Therefore, like personal computers, smartphones perform computations, store information, support other typically computing-related tasks, and do other things aimed at augmenting communication. Considering its functions, smartphones are apparently veritable tools for effective journalism, but the question is: how are journalists adopting new media technologies in newsrooms.