International Journal of Advanced Engineering and Technology

Authors
Maku BS, Rasheed AA

Abstract
A field survey entitled influence of online media on newspaper readership among Nigerians with a focus on Abeokuta North and South Local Governments in Ogun State, Nigeria was studied in 2016. The study adopted a survey research method to generate data from respondents, using a simple random sampling technique in selecting the respondents. The area of the study was limited to Abeokuta North and South Local Governments in Ogun State, Nigeria. Findings revealed that a very high percentage (74.1%) of the respondents from the two local governments use online media to access daily news and other sundry information. Of this percentage, another 66.3% of the respondents frequently visit online newspaper sites on a daily basis. This underscores the fact that online media wield a great deal of influence over the hitherto newspaper readership pattern of the respondents. However, it is worthy of note that despite this high influence, a significant number of the respondents (71.2%) still use both the newspapers and online contents to complement each other; an indication that printed newspapers are yet to be relegated to the background or forced into extinction. Based on the findings, the study recommended that the print industry must creatively exploit and holistically embrace the features and benefits of online media to make it work in their favour and not against them. Moreover, with the incessant publication of unverified media contents that are now prevalent on online media landscape, especially social media platforms, it is suggested that further studies be carried out on the extent to which information received from online media is perceived to be credible.