STAKEHOLDERS’OPINIONS ON ENFORCEMENT OF THE REGULATIONS OF INTERNET-BASED MEDIA IN NIGERIA

This study, ―Stakeholders’ Opinions on the Enforcement of the Regulations of Internet-based Media in Nigeria,‖ revealed the challenges of regulating the media that can be accessed only with internet connectivity, the defects of existing legislations used for the regulations, the adequacy of the legislations, the level of self-regulation and professionalism. The study was considered apt considering the debate about the emergence of internet-based media, and its regulation in Nigeria, which has become a challenging situation now.The availability of multiple media outlets online and the fact that many of the contents of these internet-based media are created by non-journalists mean that credibility and believability are now more of a problem than they were before the advent of the internet. Nineteen years after the Nigerian National Policy for Information Technology specifically provided that stakeholders should frame appropriate legislation to regulate media convergence, there is no such legislation in existence. Four theories provided direction for the study: The Cognitive Theory, the Public Interest Theory of Regulation, Public Choice Theory of Regulation and Social Responsibility Theory. The study used Survey and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to generate data to answer the research questions. Findings of the study showed weak enforcement as the major challenge of regulating internet-based media in Nigeria. The study found that existing legislations for internet-based media regulation in Nigeria are inadequate and self-regulation insufficient for internet-based media content creators as they do not have the competence and skill expected of professional media practice. These findings provide a view of Nigeria’s internet-based media landscape: a widely unregulated media space, where anyone can be a content creator; a space without a defined regulatory body and framework; a virtual entity that the government is making efforts to regulate with little or no result, except for few laws meant to gag operators and a space that is in dire need of regulation— whether self-regulation, which this study has found to be insufficient, or statutory regulation, which this study has found to be weak. The study recommended among others the merger of the responsibility of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the Nigeria Press Council (NPC) to birth a new agency to regulate media convergence in Nigeria.