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- Description:
- This paper questions the popular view that Western media negate the image of the Third World through unprofessionally acquired reports that concentrate on negative activities while ignoring the positive ones. The paper claims that there is no empirical validation of the view that there is an imbalance in news coverage between the West and the Third World. By content-analysing a sample of Nigerian papers, the author arrives at the conclusion that these papers not only do not have a better balance than the Western ones in reporting world news, but they do not even give more prominence to Third World news.
- Date Issued:
- 1987-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This study assesses the extent to which national Nigerian newspapers (5 of them government-owned and 4 privately-owned) are covering a government programme, Mass Mobilization for Self-Reliance, Social Justice and Economic Recovery, MAMSER, as a benchmark for determining the value orientation of these categories of newspaper ownership types and of Nigerian newspapers in general. It finds that newspaper ownership is an important factor influencing the performance of the press; government-owned newspapers are more inclined than than private ones to highlight cases of perceived 'success' of the MAMSER programme. But they are also less willing to report evidence of problems of the programme. It concludes that government press, more than private one, chooses to serve the limited interest of the government at the expense of the greater and long-range interests of the nations as a whole.
- Date Issued:
- 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- Against the backdrop of the familiar yet peculiar African political scene, where, from country to country, military dictatorships struggle (without real success), at wearing smiling faces; or where democracies strap of such full armour as to brook no opposition, this article discusses objectivity in the media. Objectivity is the state or quality of not being influenced by personal bias, prejudice, feelings and opinions. Objective news-reporting Is that which is devoid of inferences. Judgement and slanting. Yet modern journalism is not altogether a professional practice in which the operators become, simply, automatons - unthinking, unfeeling and without emotion. Objectivity is thus a relative term - relative to the system that exists. The position adopted by this article is that objectivity in news presentation is not a myth, nor a mere philosophical abstraction, but an attainable media goal which the journalist must strive for, even in the face of opposing realities. Six factors which the journalist and the media must grapple with, if objectivity is to be meaningful and a worthwhile journalistic pursuit, are presented.
- Date Issued:
- 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- Despite the prevalence of mass media institutions and 'paraphernalia' in Nigeria, the Nigerian masses still remain marginalized and denied their right to communicate through the conventional mass media. This is due to the structure of mass media ownership and distribution which reflects pro-urban concentration and bias. This article argues that given this reality, one cannot legitimately and accurately talk of 'mass' communication in Nigeria since the media of mass communication is used mainly to talk to the masses rather than with the masses; neither are they used by the masses themselves to talk with each other. To this extent, therefore, there is a state of 'mass incommunication' in Nigeria, a state which calls for urgent change through democratization of the mass media.
- Date Issued:
- 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This paper examines mass media bias in Nigerian political communications. It argues that ownership of the mass media in Nigeria tends to determine how they are used for political communications in the country. Other factors, such as ethnicity, religion, literacy, language of communication, legal limitations, political and socio-economic conditions, are also considered. The paper maintains, however, that the fact of ownership is not only the key which determines how the mass media are used for moulding the citizen's perception of political reality in the country, but that it is also a more precise means of understanding and investigating the role of the press in political stability or instability, national integration or disintegration. It concludes that as Nigeria approaches a third attempt at democratic rule in socio-economic conditions which are less propitious than in the past, there is a need for the Nigerian mass media to operate in a way which contributes to national integration. It suggests the need to restructure the media ownership pattern and to establish a Nigerian Media Advisory Council.
- Date Issued:
- 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review