By Birabwa Hellen

Giving examples, explain how the digital revolution is improving journalism and
communication.
By definition, Digital Revolution refers to the advancement of technology from analog electronic
and mechanical devices to the Digital technology available today. The era started during the
1980s and is ongoing. The Digital Revolution also marks the beginning of the information era.
Communication is defined as the process of sending and receiving information as
intended by the sender through a channel this is further termed as effective communication.
Journalism on the other hand is the art of gathering and communicating information to a
specific group of people, audience or publics through various media including TV like NTV
Uganda, NBS and Bukedde, radio, print, and the internet.
Digital revolution is improving journalism and communication in the followings ways.
The coming of the Digital revolution has offered rapid growth of Information and
Communication that has fundamentally changed the way people think, behave, communicate,
work and earn their livelihood. For example, today In Uganda we have online Managers for
different websites. Unlike before, such jobs were unheard of. This has further helped in
improving the way people respond to information and also interact. These changes have had
impacts though, some good and others bad. This therefore means that journalists and
communicators have to be aware of the all the changes to help them in complying with the
changes and be able to communicate effectively. For example how information spreads very fast
on social media. Some information goes viral yet not right. So journalists learn to make research
before relying on such information.
Digital journalism creates an opportunity for niche audiences, allowing people to have more
options as to what to view and read. They have made this simpler by providing more than one
platform to get information from. For example, if one fails to read enough or satisfactory
information from Bigey.ug, they can view more on other similar websites like
www.kasukulive.ug in Uganda for the same reliable information. Also, the interactivity and

interface provided by technological tools such as Smartphones, laptops, computers, among others
has made target audiences to embrace the revolution as a savior. They can be accessed anytime.
It also creates an opportunity for audiences to receive, read and keep references to any
information. People have opportunities to refer to the information they want at any time. The
good thing with this is that the information is ever there. No one has the mandate to erase it
unless by authorized personnel of that website or company. This is so helpful in a way that even
information that was there before us is kept safe even for the generations to come. This has been
eased by websites that stay for long unlike radio news or information that is said once and if you
miss it you have missed forever. Gadgets like phones, flash discs are used to keep information
for reference. This safety was doubted before the digital revolution.
It has also promoted citizen journalism, where every concerned and interested individual
regardless of the profession, status, among others can practice journalism. Since information is
power, citizen journalism is an enabling activity to make sure all Ugandans are informed thus
developing themselves. This is commonly practiced on social media platforms like face book and
WhatsApp where people update us on whats happening around their environments say death
occurrence, accident, parties. However, like every good initiative, people at times (citizen
journalists) break information that is not right hence stories losing credibility even when
corrected by journalists.
Digital journalism allows connection and discussion at levels that print does not offer on its own.
People can comment on articles and start discussion boards to discuss articles. Before the
Internet, spontaneous discussion between readers who had never met was impossible. This has
been made possible through creation of platforms by different media houses like NTV Uganda
and NBS television whereby the process of discussing a news item is a big portion of what
makes for digital journalism. People add to the story and connect with other people who want to
discuss the topic. Here a person is able to comment and share his or her opinion with the owner
of the content, even like the content or even share the information/discussion with his/her
friends. For example on Facebook and Twitter.

Digital journalism has opened up new ways of storytelling; through the technical components of
the new medium, digital journalists can provide a variety of media, such as audio, video, and
digital photography. This is has been made possible through the various media platforms such as
video, sound cloud, dipity, flickr, projeqt, websites provided and created using wordpress.com
among others. People have been able to tell the stories of their lives through such platforms and
in the end, journalists have been able to get it online and profile people. For example, a few or
none of the people in Uganda saw Nelson Mandela or see him grow but his information is on
You Tube and sound cloud, something that has even made the journalism profession fun.
Digital journalism represents a revolution of how news is consumed by society. Online sources
are able to provide quick, efficient, and accurate reporting of breaking news in a matter of
seconds, providing society with a synopsis of events as they occur. Throughout the development
of the event, journalists are able to feed online sources the information keeping readers up-todate in mere seconds. They have even gone a step further by Live-streaming events. For
example, when the Queen came to Uganda in 2007, even the recent swearing in ceremony of the
president, events were streaming live, something that gave an opportunity to people all over the
globe to follow through. This has lessened the burden to journalists and also given chance to the
audience receiving first-hand information. (From the Horses mouth).
Nevertheless, when we look at then internet, speed in which a story can be posted can
affect the accuracy of the reporting in a way that doesnt usually happen in print journalism or
before the digital revolution. Before the emergence of digital revolution the printing process took
much more time, allowing for the discovery and correction of errors. With the digital revolution,
one doesnt have to and print hence there is no longer time wastage.
IT has also opened up an opportunity for journalists to be flexible and adjustable to the trending
new technologies albeit new hardware or software. With such a help of the revolution, there has
been gaps bridged especially hitherto existing gender gaps. For example in Uganda, the
preponderance of women in the field such Agnes Nandutu, Faith Ariho, Doreen Komuhangi ,etc
can be attributed to the digital revolution that not only favors men but also women as well. Thus
it doesnt segregate or discriminate any gender. And this is a robust improvement as far as
journalism and communication.

However, News consumers must become Web literate and use critical thinking to evaluate the
credibility of sources. Because it is possible for anyone to write articles and post them on the
Internet, the definition of journalism is changing. Because it is becoming increasingly simple for
the average person to have an impact in the news world through tools like blogs and even
comments on news stories on reputable news websites, it becomes increasingly difficult to sift
through the massive amount of information coming in from the digital area of journalism.
There are great advantages with digital journalism and the new blogging evolution that people
are becoming accustomed to, but there are disadvantages. For instance, people are used to what
they already know and cant always catch up quickly with the new technologies in the 21st
century. The goals of print and digital journalism are the same, although different tools are
needed to function.
With the digital evolution, the interaction between the writer and consumer is new. There are
many ways to get personal thoughts on the Web. Much as this is a dangerous trend especially to a
heterogeneous audience, there is one big purpose this serves and that is the main one is about
giving factual information. Different media houses today have put up platforms to interact and
also get back feedback. It has made the marketing function easy for all. For example, someone
designs something and asks for peoples feedback to which they react. In the end, they get helped.
This has made the communication role so easy with feedback being instant.
Journalists and communicators no longer have to brainstorm like before instead they are spoonfed by the internet. The internet is a son of the digital revolution. To this extent one wonders
whether this is an improvement or a destruction of the profession. It retards profession yes but
then it helps in proving accuracy. For example, there are facts that are hardly known to
journalists yet are online hence for issues of not misleading the public, digital revolution does
not spoon-feed journalists but guides them. A situation where training is marred by copy-paste
syndrome, then quality is doubtable. Thus with the help of digital revolution that offers
opportunity for copy-paste, how can the trainees ensure quality yet the students use
technologically advanced gadgets.

In a conclusive remark, much as Journalism and mass communication are not as plentiful in
developing countries, they are nonetheless important to the economic, social, political, and
cultural lives of growing nations especially like Uganda. Different governments see journalism
and mass communication as allies to progress, ways to educate the population about life, politics,
culture, and the economy in a modern world. Still others see the media as a means of cultural
domination by the West. But thank the era of digital revolution that that has spread out across the
world. Journalists have tried to ride across all odds by using this revolution as much as possible
much as sometimes they are restricted like in Uganda recently, social media was closed by
government but still VPN was downloaded by journalists and kept on with updating the nation
hence improvement in journalism and communication. With the Digital revolution, it is hard for
one to remain uninformed.