Practices of Broadcast Media Usage in The Age of New Media: Evidence From Uganda

Abstract

The impact of new media is felt everywhere in the world and it has resulted to radical changes in the broadcast media in - dustry. The usage of new media has improved globally and African countries in particular have witnessed too the impact of new media. This study investigated practices of broadcast media usage in the age of convergent new media technologies and the impact of these patterns among the Ugandan youths. We employed both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. A total N=16 was interviewed and N=486 questionnaires were analyzed. All participants in this study were university students enrolled for the academic year 2019/2020 at two campuses, of the Islamic University in Uganda. Results show that mobile telephone is the most used tool of communication with an overall of 52.7% of the respondents spending more than 7 hours on telephone in a day. Yet 47.9% spent 1 to 3 hours watching TV daily. Radio was the least used media platforms as they spent less than one hour listening to radio. The study further exposed that 92.8% of the sample population possessed mobile pho - nes and listened to radio through it. The second most accessed and possessed device used in the reception of radio and TV was smartphones with 80.7% whereas TV sets were accessed by 70% of the informants and 69.1% revealed that they owned a radio set at their residence. The least accessed device were laptops and desktop where by only 47.7% accessed them. Pos - session of media devices was strongly correlated with the monthly income of the respondents, both at value P= .004 and P= .000 respectively. The study concluded that there is a paradigm shift in the usage of radio and TV from traditional reception to new media reception.