Media Ownership and Its Influence On Content A Case Study of Citizen Television Kenya

ABSTRACT Media has in the recent past continued to shape audience opinion on political, social and economic matters in the society. The media, especially television influence its viewers on many decisions they make in day to day. Ay operations. Behind this media decisions are media owners’ influence on the content produced and disseminated. This being the case, this research was conducted to find out what extent media owners did influence the kind content produced by their media outlets. The study emphasized on the role of television owners’ influence on content produced and how external forces like advertisers and government also affected content. The study also aimed at finding out if profit maximization motives of media did affect quality of media content and if this did wield an impact on the audiences that consumed it. Having employed both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection, where 220 respondents (200 at starehe, nairobi and 20 from citizen tv) participated, it was found out that media owners and external forces did have a huge influence on the content produced. It was also established that profit maximization was not the top priority of media organizations rather it was informing audiences that came top but as a means to maximizing profits and media content did have an impact on audiences. Following the findings, it was recommended that laws be put in place by the government to reduce and control all forms of cross and chain media ownership. It was further recommended that professionalism in media industry be improved by discouraging non-media professionals from venturing into the industry and the media council of kenya and kuj ensuring codes of ethics were followed by journalists and media owners. Finally, foreign content disseminated by the local media be regulated and encourage local content to preserve Kenyan cultural diversity.