Assessment of Online News Consumption Patterns Among University Students in Enugu State

This study assesses the online news consumption patterns, source preferences, and credibility evaluation practices of university students in Enugu State, South East Nigeria. The shift from print and broadcast news consumption to digital platforms has been particularly pronounced among young educated Nigerians, with implications for how public affairs information is sourced, processed, and shared. This study adopts a descriptive survey design, sampling 320 students from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, and Godfrey Okoye University through purposive and random sampling. A structured questionnaire assesses digital news platforms used, frequency of access, topic preferences, source credibility judgements, and news sharing behaviour. Descriptive statistics and chi-square tests are applied. Findings reveal that 91 percent of respondents access news primarily through social media platforms, with WhatsApp as the dominant source. Online news aggregators and institutional websites of legacy newspapers are accessed by fewer than 28 percent. Political news is the most consumed category, followed by entertainment and economic news. Credibility evaluation practices are generally weak, with fewer than 35 percent of students consistently verifying news before sharing. The proliferation of unverified social media news is identified as a major concern by 72 percent of respondents. The study concludes that online news consumption among Enugu State students is high but insufficiently critical. It recommends integration of media literacy and fact-checking skills into university mass communication curricula across the South East.

Keywords: online news consumption, university students, Enugu State, digital media, source credibility.