Mountain Top University Library

This study sought to evaluate the influence of citizen journalism on public perception of journalism practice among residents of Lagos state, Nigeria. It equally sought to assess the extent to which the public can distinguish between professional and citizen journalists and how fake news has affected people’s perception of journalism. To achieve these objectives, the study adopted, the survey research method, using structured questionnaire as the data collection instrument. 160 samples were selected from the total population of 43,784 undergraduate students of the University of Lagos using the stratified sampling technique. Out of the 160 questionnaires posted, 132 responses were received, making a return rate of 82.5%.The findings showed that majority (65.9%) of the total respondents cannot differentiate between professional and citizen journalists while 78% of the total respondents believe that television, radio and newspapers are still peoples’ main sources of information. Most of the studied population (68.9%) believe that citizen journalists have not affected people’s confidence in news objectivity and truthfulness, and finally, 86.6% believe that fake news is affecting the public perception about journalism negatively. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that citizens should be educated to enable them recognize and differentiate between citizen journalists and professional journalists so as to be able to take caution when accessing and using news and other information.