Citizen Journalism Involvement and Perception of Security Challenges among Students in The Polytechnic Ibadan, Oyo State

Engagement in citizen journalism through the use of social media has a broad impact on thesecurity of every nation. This study reviewed citizen journalism on security challenges inNigeria among The Polytechnic Ibadan Students, and the descriptive survey research designwas adopted for the study. 403 respondents were selected using the multi-stage samplingtechnique, and a validated instrument named “citizen journalism social media questionnaire”(CiJoSoMeQ) was used for data collection, while data were analysed using descriptive andinferential statistics. Findings revealed that students’ involvement in citizen journalism wasvery high (weighted mean 1.85), and the majority of the students had a good perception of theuse of social media in discussing national security challenges (weighted mean 2.83). There wasno significant difference (r = 0.053, p<0.05; r = 0.941, p<0.05) in the level of engagement inonline discussion and perception of social media use in discussing security challenges inNigeria. Thus, the study concluded that The Polytechnic Ibadan Students’ engagement incitizen journalism does not have any influence on security challenges in Nigeria. This studyrecommends that students as well as citizens should be adequately trained on the need to filterinformation before spreading, and also, topical security updates as they affect the nation shouldbe disseminated on social media, thereby limiting the spread of wrong news regarding securitymatters.