THE UTILIZATION OF ONLINE NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS

Abstract

The paper is on the utilization of online Nigerian newspapers. The study employed descriptive survey. The population of the study was made up of university students,civil servants and business men and women in Abraka, Delta State Nigeria.Four hundred and twenty structured questionnaires were administered to the respondents, but only four hundred copies were found usable for the study.The analysis was done using frequency counts and percentages. The findings of the study revealed that the majority of the respondents read online newspapers on daily basis; respondents used online newspapers to acquire and update information;most of the respondents preferred online newspapers because of ease of access to news information; the major problem encountered in reading online newspapers were delay in Internet response and difficulties in detecting false stories. The following recommendations were made: publishers of online newspapers should make their publications more visible to encourage more readers; publishers of online newspapers should update their information regularly because readers have flair for current information; readers of online newspapers should be encouraged to read other national newspapers like guardian to enable them authenticate information gathered from Guardian;access to online newspapers should be made more viable than before to encourage ease of access, and bandwidth should be expanded to increase Internet speed.