New media in journalism education a stakeholder need evaluation study

Abstract

For the media consumer, the study identifies Old School and New Age consumers and their changing consumption patterns owing to the advent of New Media. The focus is to understand if their cognitive needs are satisfied with the use of this medium. It also determines consumers perception of the validity of journalism schools and industry s use of New Media, given the rise of participatory communication and user-generated content. As the study establishes associations as regards the three stakeholders, each of their perception about the other is important for its comprehensiveness. Academia s perception of industries and consumers use of New Media is important as it provides future workforce to the industry. Industry s perception of human capital from universities, and consumers use of New Media is important as it provides opportunities to these two stakeholders. Consumers perception of academia and industry s practices is significant as this stakeholder is the end-user of the product of the other two. The study utilised cross-sectional descriptive analytical research design (also understood as explanatory research) to gather secondary data, and primary data in the form of interview schedule, questionnaires, and online and offline surveys, and statistically analysed the same. The study was conducted in two stages, to collect secondary and primary data, which was later analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. In the background research segment about media industry, growth areas and trends of the industry were studied in detail. It is due to reasons such as these, the media industry is required to change drastically, also to compete with the global online marketspace with its ability to tap the consumer where he/she is. newline