Media consumption trends in Nigeria: What implications for print and graphic arts careers? | EduCeleb
Abdulrasheed Afolabi
15th April 2019
Careers are built on job roles – either in paid work or entrepreneurship. By performing their jobs satisfactorily through meeting the needs of employers or clients, workers shape their careers in no small ways. Evidently, career success in the present digital age lies in acquiring skills and knowledge, not for the present alone, but largely for the future.
Somethree or four decades back, people had a regular pattern of media usage formeeting their information needs; they bought printed products; books,newspapers and magazines, etc, to get news and acquire new knowledge. Theseprint media, including television and radio were the major media available. Notanymore. Now, media users have a plethora of media to meet their informationneeds with the rise of digital media.
The tide of change in media consumption has seen the emergence of new media (like the internet) as a dominant feature in the media landscape, and the table seems to have turned on old media like printed books, print newspapers and magazine. Print advertising is also suffering a decline as less budgets are allocated, with the lion share going to digital media. And this is not about blinded loyalty to particular media but a strategic response to the dynamics in the media sector today.
Evidenceabound that consumers use the media that best perform the function ofsatisfying their needs and gratifications. This explains why many media usersare adopting digital media and using less and less of print media.
Amedia analyst, Raheem  Akingbolu, in a review
of the Nigerian Media Advertising Guide for 2018/2019 came off with theconclusion that digital media technology may not have totally displaced theprint media but it has become an established supplement to traditional media inNigeria. He noted that individuals spend an average of 4.05 hours daily usingthe Internet via any device, and another 3.02 hours on social media via anydevice.
Citingfrom the Nigerian Media Advertising Guide 2018/19, Akingbolu notes thatconsumer behavior has been significantly impacted by technology, leading tochange in how audiences are reached and the approach to the measurement ofmedia metrics. Of particular importance is the reported increase in the numberof active social media users with greater access to smartphones. According tothe report, active mobile social media users account for as much as 89.5%.
The print media industry, faced with the challenge of survival in a digital environment, has taken the path of digitalisation. This has brought profound changes in the production, distribution, storage and consumption of print media products. Automation of print shops has taken deep roots, prompting widespread changes that affect technologies, markets, business models, and organisational processes.
Inaddition, digitalization has blurred the boundaries between different media,thus leading to printing workers finding themselves in a multi-media workenvironment that is so much different from the press rooms that their forebearsworked in.
Thewind of change is blowing hard, transforming the printing industry from onedependent on craft and old technologies to a new print media industry. Thistransformation has also changed the nature of occupations in the industry.
Ina study on the impact of digitization and automation on job roles, the trio ofJacques Bughin, Susan Lund and Jaana Remes reported that digital technology
adoption in industries lead to the “unbundling and rebundling” of tasks.
Areportfrom the stable of the European Parliament shares the same stance that, “Digitalisationcould entail major processes of change and restructuring in all sectors andoccupations”. Theautomation of work processes results in the disappearance of old roles and theemergence of new ones.
Inthe prepress segment of printing, for example, there has been a shift frommanual to electronic stripping. For clarity, stripping is an operationinvolving colour separation and image assembly of pages to be printed. In theearly stage, this operation required intricate skills that took years to learnand master.
Today,however, this has been replaced by electronic stripping encompassing desktoppublishing systems and computer-to-plate workflows. The consequence is theunbundling of traditional printing industry roles like paste up artist,typographer, engraver, darkroom operator, scanner operator, trappingspecialist, dot etcher, film stripper, platemaker, etc.
Therebundling of these roles has taken the shape of occupations like graphic designer,prepress technician, data management specialist, digital printing technician,variable data printing specialist, media planner,  IT specialist, digital marketing specialist,user experience designer, etc. From this perspective, it is said thattechnological innovations may initially upend skills in the old printingindustry, but they ultimately bring about new skills and new occupations in thenew printing industry.
The adoption of new technologies in any industryprovides workers with higher levels of responsibility, new skills and new knowledge.It is only logical, therefore, that expectations from the labour market will bebased on demands from consumers needs.   From a socio-economic
perspective, technological innovations increase the differentiation andspecialization of workers in responding to the needs of the marketplace.
There is no doubt that the type of training thatproduced workers for the old printing industry will fail miserably in the new digitalera. Against the backdrop that technological processes free workers fromtedious, routine jobs and create the path for them to move upward into morechallenging task, there are opportunities for imbuing printing workers with newskills and knowledge in the areas of visual research, strategic planning, datamanagement, systems analysis, and so on.
Indeed, a 2014 doctoral study on graphic communications industry trends and their impacton the required competencies of personnel revealed that traditional printingcompanies are now offering ancillaryservices in such areas like variable data printing, creative design, web designand implementation, mailing and fulfillment, and interactive media.
The
study also unveiled other services like database management, Digital AssetManagement (DAM), content management, creative services, digital photography,workflow management, business and marketing consulting, web portals, broadcast,marketing campaign management, and repurposing.  Therefore, to survive in this new printingindustry, printing workers must possess such flexible and adaptable skills like;
Thecreation of the items to be printed is the first step in the print productionchain. This used to be the exclusive domain of creatives like copywriters andgraphic designers. But the emergence of computer application software hasthrown the doors open to anyone with the creative ability to write and designgood copies.
Ithas been advanced that printing firms should offer more than ink on paper bybecoming a vital part of their clients’ communications programme, offeringsolutions in marketing, public relations and advertising. This will involveplanning and executing strategies, not only for print media but for all formsof media.
Theseare all-purpose skills crucial for all workers in the present age. The abilityto communicate effectively is an important life skill, irrespective of jobroles. According to human
resources experts, the need for communication skills increases as peopleadvance higher in their careers.
These are essential competency for printers who want to distinguish themselves from competitors in an age where digital technologies drive all aspects of human activities and industrial operations.  In a 2008 study led by Frank Romano, the emeritus professor of graphic arts at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) school of print media, it was revealed that information technology has become a cornerstone of operations in the print and graphic arts industry as about a quarter of “all new hiring in the printing industry worldwide involves IT-based functions”.
As Romano puts it, “printers with up-to-date IT capabilities can combine task-specific software from multiple vendors for e-commerce to facilitate sales, transactions, and communications with customers. Printers also need IT skills to set up web catalogues and design template programs for specific customers, automate internal processes and improve management control over pricing, costs, and productivity.
More importantly, internal IT resources can be used to customise software for e-commerce or general-purpose printing functions to gain competitive advantages or set up interfaces with major customers that cannot be easily duplicated by other suppliers”
With the spate of digital transformation that promises to be unending in all spheres of life, there is need for the print media training that meets not only the present needs but that of the future. The form of training required in the print and graphic arts industry now is such that produces knowledge works, not craft workers. “Knowledge worker” is one term that has gained currency in the contemporary digital economy.
An expert, Bill Martin, explained that knowledge is core to business activities in the present age. Learning, he also averred, is a driver of change in the printing and publishing industries. Martin described knowledge workers as “those who are not easily interchangeable or replaceable owing to their special, often tacit knowledge, their innate problem-solving skills, and their creativity in finding solutions to problems”.
Tosurvive in the competitive media ecosystem, print medium has undergoneevolution by fusing seamlessly with digital media. With the rise of digitalprinting technologies, it is therefore imperative for workers in the printmedia industry to pass through a similar evolution in their training, workattitude and perception about media technology. The future is lookingcolourfully bright for those willing to toe the path of digital evolution.