Bahaushe Mai Ban Haushi!: Migration To The Digital Media

Migration To The Digital Media; The Problems, The Prospects

It is salient and expedient to critically examine the major talking points in Ibrahim Sheme’s Migration to the Digital Media. Ibrahim Sheme, a writer of unquestionable objectivity, outlined some of the problems plaguing migration to the digital media in the developing countries. These problems, according to him, are poverty, poor reading culture and lack of vision. However, the challenges are not limited to these three hurdles. Traditional media practitioners in developing countries are bedeviled with other problems, among which are – but not restricted to – high level of illiteracy among the heterogeneous and diversified audiences, low level of technological development and the nonchalant (I don’t care) attitude of the masses.

At the same time, traditional media practitioners in developing countries are also plagued with what Wilbur Schramm termed ‘Fraction of Selection’. Schramm, in explaining or answering the fundamental question of what determines the media or media content an individual pays attention to, postulated the assertion that people tends to divide their ‘expectation of reward’ from the media or media content by the ‘effort required’ to acquire such media or media content. This fraction works against the traditional media practitioners in their quest to migrate to the digital media as most people still consider the traditional media easier to access than the new digital and ‘sophisticated’ media.

However, these problems notwithstanding, traditional media practitioners in developing countries (Nigeria in mind) are advice to move along with the trend. According to Sheme, one of the secrets to succeeding in this different and lustrous terrain is to be ‘proactive’ – creating or controlling the trend rather than just responding to it. Nigeria traditional media practitioners need to create a new and different strategy in introducing their audiences to this digital media, bearing in mind the heterogeneity of the audiences.

In addition, Nigeria media practitioners must be able to diversify their digital products in order to make themselves attractive to the ‘web-generation’. Another successful formula traditional media practitioners in Nigeria can employ according to Sheme is to start early. As he put it, “many of the media companies enjoying the goodies of the new genre in Europe are those that took the all-important step a long time ago...” For Nigeria media practitioners, the time is ‘now’ and not a long time ago; if they can plunge into this awesome world of disseminating news, information and entertaining ‘now’, it is evidential that they will reap the dividends of their ‘risky’ commitment in no time.

For the media practitioners that may perceive this apt migration as a potential and looming disaster (an eventual loss of employment) should change their perspective. Instead of prophesying doom, they should grasp this opportunity for a more rewarding career. As Sheme put it, “... you do not have to be a newspaper owner or big operator of an existing media house to be able to go into the digital media business...” Henry Ford said “whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right”.

Finally, the existing media companies; that have already migrated or that are migrating to the digital media, can attract more patronage to their online content by not only updating the information constantly but by probing for more ways they can gratify their audiences. They can also garner more audiences for their digital media through self-ads on their own traditional media. Ultimately, with time, traditional media practitioners in Nigeria will not only successfully migrate to the digital media but at the same time preserve the traditional media, considering the fact that people are dynamic and their preferences greatly differs.