CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Before we delve into the main theme of the topic it will be worthwhile to get acquainted with the key word of the topic, which is communication. After knowing what communication is, we then can get further to know the meaning of the mass attached to it ie mass communication. There is no of communication though is as old as life itself; still remain one of the most important activities of man since the earliest days. Life and willing are premised on man’s ability to communicate. Thus there is no particular laid down definition of mass communication. Several authors have attempted their own definition through different perspectives but generally have arrived at virtually the same meaning.

Communication evolved as a result of the persistent natural human love to promote unity some time and at other times conflict, from this arises the traditional definition of communication as a process or art of transmitting information, ideas and attitudes from the a source to a destination (age etal-1988). The concept of communication has its basic idea transfer transmission or exchange it something from one person to another.

Chinyere Okunna is her book, introduction to mass communication (1994) stated that to communicate, basically means to share ideal information, opinion’s feeling or experience between people, that means communication allows message from flow with way and results to sharing of experience!

More recently Jayawara (1971) defined communication as an interaction process through which persons or group relate to each other and share information, experience, and culture. From the above definition it could be seen that communication is important in the development of any country since it deals with the sharing of information, experiences and culture, which are the basic for development.

In other hand mass means many are involved at the same time of the sharing.

Now let us attempt a definition of mass communication, its brief history and the communication processes.

John Bitner in his mass communication. An introduction second edition saw mass communication “as deadline of the investigative journalist, the creative artistry of documentaries, the bustle of a network newsroom, the whir or computer the hit record capturing the imagination of millions the radio disc jockey setting the pace of morning show, and the advertising executive planning a campaign. It is radio, research, recordings resonators and ratings. It is television, talent, telephone and tabloids. It is satellites, story boards system and segues. It is all these and more but not new and dynamic”3

According to Eric Rothenbuhier mass communication is a term use in a variety of way, which depute potential for confusion are usually clear from the context. These include

1)           Reference to the activities to mass media as a group

2)           The use of criteria of a concept, massiveness to distinguish among media and their activities and

3)           The construction of questions about communication as applied to the activities of the mass media significantly only the third or these uses does not take the actual process of communication for granted. Mass communication is often used loosely to refer to the distribution of entertainment arts, information and messages by television, radio, newspapers, magazines movies, recorded music and associated media.

For clearer perception of what mass communication is let us see through the definition Chinyere Stella Okunna, in her introduction to mass communication. She said “A basic way to define mass communication is to say that it is the processes of transmitting information ideas and attitudes to many people usually through machine. It is the scientific study of mass media, the message they produce, (Information, ideas, attitudes), and the audience responses (people) they transmit these message to. In mass communication the source may be one person, but most time it’s a group of people.

Actually we are not new to mass communication, in view of that, we shall skip the channels of mass communication and delve right into the course of research which attempts to discover the relationship of these mass communication components for sharing of information, ideas and attitudes to a developing country like Nigeria. Let us know a little about the country under review-Nigeria.

Nigeria as we all know is a third world country of Africa. It is one of the largest countries in west Africa and as is the case with developing countries, it has diverse ethic and tribal problems.

From the afore stated definition and what was derived from them, the need for mass communication in the development of a developing nation like Nigeria cannot be over emphasized.

Basically if not for any other thing we need it to reform our society, to share experiences, information, and diversify and unify our cultural values and attitudes.

Another significant of mass communication is a developing country, is that; it helps in all sectors of the economy. It is as well as educating and informing the masses or populace on these areas. Among the basic roles of mass communication or rather mass media in a developing country as will as seen later in the book are

1)           Servicing the political system by providing information

2)           Enlightening the public so as to make it capable of self-government.

3)           Providing entertainment.

4)           Safeguarding the rights of individuals by serving as a watch dog against government.

Conclusively, the best objective, aim and role of mass communication to a developing country like Nigeria can best be achieved through ruralization of the media and mass communication processes. Education of the rural ties can equally help in the realization of these objectives.

Furthermore, there should be fewer restrictions on the mass communication practitioners and mass communication itself. A strong body should be organized to regulate the activities of mass communication.

It is equally worthwhile to include in this concluding part of the introduction that political elites have a very vital role to play in any of this developmental stages especially when it is related to the society in which it operates as well as the type of government in control of the press and the theories the press monarchical feudalism, capitalism, totalitarian, social responsibility theories.

1.2      OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

This set of objective was to guide us in the conduct of this research and to limit us to the scope of the objective and these objectives are enumerated below.

1)           First to identify the possible roles or mass communication in developing countries especially Nigeria.

2)           The second objective is to know how effective these roles are towards development of the developing countries.

3)           Our third objective is to use Nigeria as our case study because it is a typical example of a developing country. With the result we get from Nigeria. We then can generalize it to other countries of the third world.

4)           We believed that there must be some factors that would help role of mass communication to be achieved. To identify these factors was one of our set goals.

5)           Equally we believed that there could be some problem inherent in Nigeria mass communication practice. Therefore we made it our objective to identify these problems of limitation.

1.3      RESEARCH QUESTION

1)           Has mass communication been playing their role in Nigeria?

2)           Has mass communication helped Nigeria to achieve any development?

3)           If yes in question above then in what ways

4)           What are the effects of mass communication in the rural area?

5)           Has mass communication failed in its development roles?

6)           Does mass communication face limitation in Nigeria.

7)           What aspect of mass communication has been playing its roles?

8)           Can you compare mass communication in developing countries with mass communication in developed countries?

9)           What is your view of mass communication in Nigeria by the year 2007?

1.4      HYPOTHESIS

H1:   The mass communication been playing their role in Nigeria

H0:   The mass communication has not been playing their role in Nigeria.

H2:   The mass communication helped Nigeria to achieve any development.

H0:   The mass communication do not helped Nigeria to achieve any development.

H3:   The effects of mass communication in the rural area, does it exist?

H0:   Mass communication do not has effect in the rural area.

H4:   Mass communication failed in its development roles.

H0:   Mass communication do not failed in its development roles.

H5:   Mass communication does face limitation in Nigeria.

H0:   Mass communication does not face limitation in Nigeria.

H6:   The aspect of mass communication has been playing its roles.

H0:   The aspect of mass communication has not been playing its roles.

H7:   Compare mass communication in the developing countries with mass communication in the developed countries.

H0:   Mass communication in the developing countries does not with mass communication in the developed countries.

H8:   The view of mass communication in Nigeria by the year 2004.

1.5      CONCEPTUAL AND OPERATIONAL DEFINITION

üLimitation- Apart from usual definition of limitation as the problem of a particular country. It also enable in this research work to ascertain the limitation. Investigation also has different characteristics to Nigeria media to uncover hidden facts to broaden knowledge.

üLimitation- it talks about the problems encountered during this process. These problems may slightly effect dependability of the result of the project.

üDevelopment- this is a country or society’s development in area of machines and equipment that help in the easy procession of thing that were done crudely before.

üDevelopment- because of dialetic/linquistic heterogeneity and language different hidden a lot.

üSurvey- this sampling or poling of people to obtain information through questionnaire.

üSurvey- we encountered problem of getting the view of an entire population and that was why our sampling was done randomly.

üScope- The scope of this study range from the roles mass communication play in these developing countries to the problem associated with this concept.

üBy scope- we mean areas that the book covers, the people it was made and for what reason.

üDesign- For convenience and time we used the people in the Enugu metropolis, most of who were student, in our research.

üDesign- By design we mean, the area within which we were able to sample to represent the entire population.

1.6      ASSUMPTIONS

It is assumed that federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria carries news and features that stimulate social changes. It is also assumed that the media possess a similarity of psychological as well as other disposition with the rest of the print media that operate in the country. It is also assumed that they have equal roles to society both moral and otherwise.

1.7      LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This research topic “the role of mass communication in a developing countries, the Nigeria case is expect to get finding from most of the third world countries which are referred to as developing countries by the Western allies.

It was expected to elicit data more from Nigeria as a whole, which is the case study, but due to cost, time and physical incapability among other reasons we could not cover this area. In view of this, we selected some media set-ups around our vicinity (Enugu metropolis to represent the entire nation.

 

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