OPINION: Legacy media has gone digital but left audiences behind as mobile becomes the preferred channel

By Dinnah Ondari,

As the digital wave sweeps through the media sector, one thing is clear: consumption of content has gone mobile. This means that if you are an independent content creator or a media enterprise, you have to ensure that your audience can access your product on their mobile phones seamlessly.

At the heart of the access is the user experience, or in technological lingo, UX. This has everything to do with a customer’s interaction with a company, its services and products and how effectively they can access it. This boils down to whether the journey will be enjoyable or bumpy, and this can make all the difference in turning a click on a link into revenue. It is not enough, for instance, to set up an app for an e-paper or put a promo on social media to attract consumers if they have to endure multiple layers of log-ins and cumbersome steps to access the content.

Many legacy newspapers have digital apps through which their audience can access e-papers once they have subscribed. This, coupled with other digital platforms like websites and social media pages ensure that audiences can interact with content from their mobile phones. Should be easy, no? Not quite.

As a practitioner in the media space who consumes media content as part of day-to-day professional work and loves to update myself on current affairs, you would expect me to visit the my e-paper app first thing in the morning. However, despite installing my e-paper apps and paying for a subscription, I find it hard to navigate most e-paper apps due to the cumbersome nature of accessing the content.

Most outlets use social media to prop up content on their digital platforms. Once I see an interesting story and I am emotionally hooked, I will naturally click on it and expect to be redirected to the website, which should be quite straightforward. However, I get disappointed when I get redirected to a page only to find the story locked up in a paywall.

Paywalls are not the problem; the issue is that even when I have paid subscription for the product, I cannot access the content unless I log in through a rigid process that does not allow user interface flexibility. This brings in the question of interoperability of media houses' digital platforms. It should be easy for clients to move from one platform to another as long as they are subscribed.

In short, there is no seamless transition from social media to the website/e-paper where I can access  content. Even if I have to log in, it is not possible to tell the date of publication of the story, so that I open the right edition of the newspaper. I am left to peruse acres of pages to try and guess the date of the publication since it is not indicated on the social media promo. If I have this type of experience on a daily basis , it is likely that  I  will shift to another platform where I can engage more directly with content without hurdles.   

This is just one of the examples of how media enterprises have gone digital, but have failed to appreciate user experience and habits.

A new survey by the Media Council of Kenya concludes: “There is a strong shift towards digital and mobile-first media consumption in Kenya, with social media emerging as the dominant source of news and entertainment, primarily accessed via smartphones.”

The majority of respondents in the survey reported using smartphones (91.1%), followed by smart TVs (4.4%), laptops (2.5%), radios (0.8%), desktop computers (0.8%) and tablets (0.3%). “The overwhelming use of smartphones to access digital media indicates a strong mobile-first consumption pattern among consumers,” the survey says.

On the digital platforms used to access news or entertainment content, 51.3% use digital media (Facebook, Twitter, X and Instagram), 23.8% use streaming platforms (Netflix, Showmax, Spotify and YouTube), 13.6% use news websites, while 0.5% use radio and 0.2%television.

The reasons given for respondents’ choice of platform used in accessing news, entertainment and other content include accessibility (49%), real-time updates (32%), personalized recommendation (7.4%), credibility of sources (6%), user-generated content (3%), access to Citizen TV (1%) and business-related content (1%).

“Platform choice is mainly driven by accessibility and real-time updates, underscoring the importance of convenience and timely content. Media players must therefore invest more in professional and high-quality content, as well as prioritise specialised niche content,” the study says.

This survey mirrors the findings of Prof George Nyabuga of Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications and Catherine Gicheru, the director of African Women Journalism Project. They found that the smartphone is by far the leading devices for media consumption at 92% of their respondents.

“The resilience of Kenya’s media industry is being tested on multiple fronts. The increasing use of social media, particularly X, WhatsApp, and TikTok, as primary sources of information challenges the role of traditional news outlets,” Nyabuga and Gicheru write.

The MCK survey reflects global trends. The Reuters Institute’s Digital Media Report 2025 says engagement with traditional media sources such as TV, print, and news websites continues to fall, while dependence on social media, video platforms, and online aggregators grows.

“An accelerating shift towards consumption via social media and video platforms is further diminishing the influence of ‘institutional journalism’ and supercharging a fragmented alternative media environment containing an array of podcasters, YouTubers, and TikTokers,”the report notes

News is increasingly synonymous with online news, the American media watcher, FAIR, reports. “Over half the US public (56%) say that they “often” get news through their digital devices—compared to less than 1 in 3 (32%) who often get news from TV, 1 in 9 from radio and only 1 in 14 from print publications like newspapers or magazines.

The implications of this shift to the smartphone as the primary device for media consumption are enormous. The MCK survey offers evidence-based recommendations to media houses and other content creators. They should aim to optimise content for mobile platforms by prioritising mobile-first design, ensuring fast loading speeds, responsive layouts, and user-friendly navigation to enhance engagement.

In addition, media houses should enhance accessibility and real-time updates, improve content quality and personalisation, diversify monetisation strategies, promote entertainment and educational content, encourage user trust and credibility, foster awareness of paid content benefits, and leverage social media for engagement and monetisation.