Abstract:
The Nairobi engineering Jua Kali artisans struggle with finding information for
innovation in the digital television platform. Information is a resource. It has value and it
lets people do things that they could not do otherwise. It is apparent that knowledge is not
distributed equally throughout society. People who are in financial poverty, such as Jua
kali engineering artisans are also often information poor. An unexpected and undesired
possibility is that mass communication content produced by media producers might
actually have the effect of increasing the difference or gap in knowledge between
members of different social classes (Severin and Tankard, 2001).Therefore the researcher
sought to find out how digital television innovation content can be of use to nurture
innovation among engineering Jua Kali artisans. The study objectives were: - To
determine how engineering content shown in the Kenya digital platform inspires
creativity for innovation among Jua Kali artisans. Further, to examine the challenges in
place to produce edutainment content for engineering Jua Kali artisan; To assess whether
digital television innovation content can be easily accessed by engineering Jua Kali
artisans. The study took on a mixed approach involving qualitative and quantitative
designs. It also employed a multiple case study method. A total sample size of 65
respondents was selected: 53 Jua Kali artisans were sampled for the quantitative aspect of
the study through multistage sampling. An additional 5 Jua Kali artisan were sampled
through snowballing and lastly7 media producers were purposively sampled for the
interview process, which is the qualitative aspect of the study. The analysis of data was an
interactive process along themes created from both quantitative and qualitative data. The
findings showed that the majority (0ver 75%) of Jua Kali artisans had access to digital
television platform gadgets. However Jua kali artisans (70.2%) found it difficult to locate
work related content for from digital television platform. Media producers reported that
there was low funding, poor policy structures and a rigid media industry inflexible to the
audience needs. It is hoped that this finding will sensitize the digital television platform
practitioners in Kenya and the rest of Africa on adopting strategies and developing
policies that can encourage the production of innovative content for Jua Kali artisans.
