The Moral Dilemma in Information Dissemination in a Democratic State of Digital Media

Laleye Solomon Akinyemi

doi:10.11648/j.ijp.20210902.15

Abstract

Journalism is a profession charge with the responsibility of information dissemination. It also functions as the link between the government and the governed particularly in a democracy. The performance of these functions has been greatly enhanced across the globe by the advancement in information and communication particularly that of digitalization, convergence of computers, and telephony technologies. Unfortunately, these narrowed the wide gap that hitherto existed between citizen journalism and conventional journalism and consequently raised the bar of the moral responsibility that the profession owed the general public in a democracy. The practice of journalism generate problems such as; access to information, truth, censorship, corporate, national and public interests. All these undermined the ethics of responsibility on the part of the government and journalism profession. The article, therefore, attempts a critical look at journalistic practice with emphasis on the use of internet to produce, disseminate and receive information in a digital media environment like Nigeria. It argued that the transition from analogue to digital would better enhance access and dissemination of quality and comprehensive information if the ethics of responsibility is subscribed to by the journalists and the political leaders. The article is philosophical and it adopts the philosophical methods of critical analysis and prescriptivism.

Highlights

The emergence of internet and advancement in information and communication technologies combined to broaden the nature and scope of journalism, as well as the ethics of the profession in contemporary age
The new ways of packaging and disseminating information required among other things; access to internet facilities which could at times be problematic due to poor or unavailable network connection or other related problems journalists explore the opportunities provided by cafe, media resource centres and libraries to carry out their duties and to learn new skills on online journalism, such skills include addition of contents to the web, creation of hypertext links, learning photographic skills on how to take digital photograph and upload to computer, site or blogs
The paper noted that digital media has transformed the contents, structure and modalities of information dissemination in Nigeria

Summary

Introduction

The emergence of internet and advancement in information and communication technologies combined to broaden the nature and scope of journalism, as well as the ethics of the profession in contemporary age. The new ways of packaging and disseminating information required among other things; access to internet facilities which could at times be problematic due to poor or unavailable network connection or other related problems journalists explore the opportunities provided by cafe, media resource centres and libraries to carry out their duties and to learn new skills on online journalism, such skills include addition of contents to the web, creation of hypertext links, learning photographic skills on how to take digital photograph and upload to computer, site or blogs. One can submit in the words of Hassan, S. that, “the digitalization of the news production and the diffusion capabilities of the internet challenge the traditional journalistic professional culture.” [5] Both professional and self-proclaimed journalists used their vantage positions of access to internet and the scope of the coverage of the internet facilities to disseminate and enlighten the public on government policies. How the ethics of responsibility could be re-engineered among the stakeholders of news and information

The Emergence of Technology

Conclusion