Reportorial Activism and Nigerian Journalism after the Enactment of Freedom of Information Act

Investigated is how the enactment in May 2011 of Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Act has, since then, impacted Nigerian journalism. Typical documentary and spoken data were tapped, analysed and discussed. Analysis and discussion found Nigeria’s FOIA to be as properly crafted as meets international standards. Analysis and discussion also demonstrate that Nigerian journalists’ inability so far to take advantage of the FOIA to sharpen their journalistic activism results from the intimidation which job insecurity poses. In that light, conclusion hypothesizes that FOIA might not sharpen journalistic activism in countries/economies where journalists’ awareness of their shaky economic status is acute. Keywords: Reportorial Activism, Nigerian Journalism, Freedom of Information Act

RIGIDITYOF NEWS ROUTINES AND SOCIAL MEANINGCONSTRUCTION IN NIGERIA: A REIMAGINATION

The search for the best model for journalism practice has inspired debates right from the ancient European era through to the era of the Penny Press in the formative years of the United States to the present. This paper is designed to explore what journalists understand by news routine as well as to explore the link between such understanding and journalists’ identification, description, expansion and dissemination of social meaning in Nigeria. In conformity with the notion that the representativeness of a sample to the general population is of no significance in qualitative research, a theoretical sample of three Nigerian newspaper texts were interpreted in accordance with analytic procedures prescribed in Semiotics and Critical Discourse Analysis. When Focus Group data were triangulated with the representation made with the newspaper texts, the finding was that Nigerian journalists legitimize the arbitrary by embracing rigid ideologically-tainted news routines. Conclusion is that such legitimization constitutes impediment to Nigeria’s development by undermining journalists’ capacity forcapacious construction and dissemination of social meaning

Jos Crisis and the Challenge of Managing Cultural Differences

This paper is an analysis of how the Nigerian government manages cultural differences, especially the type that is causing the crisis in Jos, Nigeria. I sampled textual exemplars from Nigerian newspapers. The newspaper texts served as part of the data used for the analysis. The sampled texts are displayed on a titled text box and interpreted. Comments given by two interviewees representing opposing sides in the Jos crisis are also displayed. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis are used to interpret and discuss the newspaper texts and the comments given by the interviewees. The discussion reveals that flaws in the implementation of multicultural policy are the cause of the recurrent crisis in Jos. Discussion on multiculturalism found flaws in how Canada and other Western countries handle liberal multiculturalism. Discussion also reveals that even when a new policy is devised to solve the Jos crisis, the Nigerian government would be reluctant to accept the policy if the acceptance gets suspected of having a potential to undermine its Federal Character policy. The paper also found that government’s reluctance has not deterred other Nigerians from pushing for possible innovative ways of managing the ever-increasing cultural problems besetting Nigeria. Keywords: Jos crisis, cultural differences, settlers, indigenes, non-indigenes, multiculturalis

Association Between Physician Characteristics and Surgical Errors in U.S. Hospitals

The high incidence of medical and surgical errors in U.S. hospitals and clinics affects patients\u27 safety. Not enough is known about the relationship between physician characteristics and medical error rates. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between selected physician characteristics and surgical errors in U.S. hospitals. The ecological model was used to understand personal and systemic factors that might be related to the incidence of surgical errors. Archived data from the National Practitioner Data Bank database of physician surgical errors were analyzed using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. Independent variables included physicians\u27 home state, state of license, field of license, age group, and graduation year group. The dependent variable was surgical medical errors. Physicians\u27 field of license and state of license were significantly associated with surgical error. Findings contribute to the knowledge base regarding the relationship between physician characteristics and surgical medical errors, and findings may be used to improve patient safety and medical care

AN IMPROBABLE APHRODISIACINTHE CRISIS OF SEXUALITY:WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?

Given the rising wave of violentacts across the world, this paper is designed to investigate the improbable but emerging trend which seems to suggest that violent behavior now appears to be an incentive when dating and even marriage decisions are made. The investigation is carried out with a pool of data made up of multiple variants. After displaying the data in a textbox, subjective valuing was usedto attribute certain phenomena to segments of the data. After affirming that females consider violent traits in males as incentives in their male-partner preferences, data representation failed to establish a decisive link between fierce delinquent acts and sexual frustration

AN IMPROBABLE APHRODISIACINTHE CRISIS OF SEXUALITY:WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?

Given the rising wave of violentacts across the world, this paper is designed to investigate the improbable but emerging trend which seems to suggest that violent behavior now appears to be an incentive when dating and even marriage decisions are made. The investigation is carried out with a pool of data made up of multiple variants. After displaying the data in a textbox, subjective valuing was usedto attribute certain phenomena to segments of the data. After affirming that females consider violent traits in males as incentives in their male-partner preferences, data representation failed to establish a decisive link between fierce delinquent acts and sexual frustration

RIGIDITYOF NEWS ROUTINES AND SOCIAL MEANINGCONSTRUCTION IN NIGERIA: A REIMAGINATION

The search for the best model for journalism practice has inspired debates right from the ancient European era through to the era of the Penny Press in the formative years of the United States to the present. This paper is designed to explore what journalists understand by news routine as well as to explore the link between such understanding and journalists’ identification, description, expansion and dissemination of social meaning in Nigeria. In conformity with the notion that the representativeness of a sample to the general population is of no significance in qualitative research, a theoretical sample of three Nigerian newspaper texts were interpreted in accordance with analytic procedures prescribed in Semiotics and Critical Discourse Analysis. When Focus Group data were triangulated with the representation made with the newspaper texts, the finding was that Nigerian journalists legitimize the arbitrary by embracing rigid ideologically-tainted news routines. Conclusion is that such legitimization constitutes impediment to Nigeria’s development by undermining journalists’ capacity forcapacious construction and dissemination of social meaning

Online Activism and Connective Mourning:An Examination of the #EndSARSMemorial Protests in Nigeria

This study explores how Nigerians used social media platforms to mourn and memorialize protesters who were killed during the 2020 EndSARS protests in Nigeria. Data for this study are from tweets (N = 67,678) that were scraped from the hashtags, “#EndSARSMemorial2” and “LekkiMassacre” and online semi-structured interviews (N = 30) with digital activists in Nigeria. Results show that the most frequently tweeted words were “rest in peace,” “heroes,” “who gave the order,” and “#EndSARSMemorial2.” Five themes emerged from the interview data, and they include anger and sympathy, mourning and remembering, connecting in the shared humanity of the deceased, and pledges to be better humans and citizens. The paper shows that high centrality, high density of reciprocity, and low modularity illustrate online mourners’ ability to stimulate commonality through decentralized and loose networks that allow for solidarity building during mourning and the personalization of mourning. Evoking some aspects of crisis network effects theory, this study concludes that when collective mourning occurs, individuals have more reciprocal relationships on a dyadic level and that the network has low modularity as such a network effect occurs when there is a shock that creates uncertainty in the system.</p

Positioning cost overrun research in the philosophical debate: a case for critical realism.

Construction management research, as a form of social research is confronted with the fundamental paradigmic dilemma of determining a core philosophical orientation, to be considered adequate and best suited to enquiry about construction phenomena. The underpinning argument being that, the differences in world views, will yield marked differences in the type of knowledge generated. An empirical profiling of cost overrun research reveals the predominance of mono-method studies based on questionnaire survey methods, correlative analysis and archival data modelling techniques, all of which are underlain by positivism. Such positivist philosophies, although methodologically valid, cannot adequately explain and provide in-depth understanding of the contextual drivers in construction organisations that trigger the more tangible technical constructs leading to the phenomena of cost growth in projects. Joining in the chorus call for methodological pluralism in construction industry research, this study makes a case for critical realism specifically in the context of cost overrun research

LMIC facility-lighting limitation in Nigeria fully resolved by a novel frugal polite-light-bank technology

Epileptic grid electricity and frequent power blackouts in the night at LMIC neonatal centres hide behind frontline morbidities but contribute significantly to poor treatment outcomes at these centres. Power blackouts make it hard for clinicians and nurses to see clearly when attending to patients in the dark. Hence, many patients have lost their lives during the mistake-prone poor visual setting. This situation gets worse for centres located at more remote regions of LMICs, where power outages could last for many days. A recently published article on “neonatal-rescue-scheme” concept proposed the reversal in neonatal traffic, by taking the interventions to rural places where more needy neonates are to save them. Therefore, it becomes imperative to develop a reliable system of independent and sustainable technology that can guarantee dusk-to-dawn facility lighting based on solar energy at such remote location that may not have grid electricity. This was achieved by technology morphing of existing market products, recreating these to fit the LMICs’ peculiar environmental and cultural settings. The resulting construct, polite-light-bank (PLB), passed all rigorous testing of structural integrity under the weather and functionality stability under strenuous usage. For over a period of four years, the new construct provided over 95% reliability and nearly 100% satisfaction ratings from the initial five centres that used it and have continued to use this to date. This is a golden piece of work that any LMIC or similar settings must not ignore