Readership of Newspapers among the University Students at the wake of Covid-19 Pandemic in Nakuru County.

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected the newspaper sector. Majority readers, especially among the students, have since opted to use social media, television, radio, and online for news updates. Most of the students avoid reading the newspaper due to fear of contracting the disease. The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods of research designs. The quantitative design helped in identifying the readership magnitude of the hardcopy, online and broadcast versions before and after the Covid-19 pandemic while; the qualitative design helped identifying the causes of variation in magnitude in hardcopy newspaper readership. The study collected data from the primary source using a questionnaire with a sample of 50 respondents picked through convenience sampling method. The findings indicate that majority age of students interviewed ranged between 18-22 years and majority were male at 68% compared to female, 32%. Also, most students, 94%, read the newspapers before the outbreak of Covid-19. 56 percent of them preferred the Daily Nation, 24% the Standard Newspaper while the rest went for the Star, the Nairobian and other versions of print media. However, after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, most students, 90%, feared reading the newspapers and instead 68% went for Facebook, 24% used twitter while 8% used other forms of social media for news update. In conclusion, the use of traditional media like television and radio is still common among the students. The study indicate that majority 58%, of students used television sets for news update, 24% used radio, 10% used online media while 8% used other forms of media.