Media Stakeholders’ Perspectives and Policy Integrity

Objectivity in media practice is the journalist’s ability to give every segment of the audience an equal right to be heard and seen, to read or to react. Disappointingly, that objectivity does not extend to the policies that regulate that practice. This concern is demonstrated in the incoherence and lack of judgment that exist in media policy domains where journalism is confined to a deal between only the journalist and his or her audience. This linear process conspicuously excludes those crucial stakeholders whose interests tremendously affect the destiny of journalists and their audience. The development has adversely affected policy rationality in some developing countries as media policies lack interactive planning, robust policy discourses and stakeholder dialogue, thereby undermining policy integrity. This paper attempts to argue that for a media policy to be truly in public interest, formulators have to expand their horizon beyond government, journalists and their audience to other stakeholders. Newsmakers, who fall into a category of such stakeholders, can make the journalist’s pen run dry if they go on strike! Others include media users, media owners and media scholars. The paper recommends the process of harnessing the perspectives of these stakeholders in a manner that can make analysts consider drafting a fresh all-encompassing media policy for developing countries, especially those of Africa. Keywords: audience, media policy, media stakeholders, policy integrit

From Two- to Three-Dimensional Reporting

This chapter urges editors to start demanding that their reporters practice Three-Dimensional (3-D) journalism. Unlike the Two-Dimensional (2-D)reporting of the 4W’s +H orientation, which is “cropped and partial” (Baker 1994, p.287), it asserts and proves that the 3-D method elicits the multidimensional facets of each of these five parameters

Mobile Telephony Underlings? Women Airtime Hawking in South-South Nigeria

The Nigerian telecommunication sector operates a patriarchate. Women constitute less than 20 percent of the regulatory authority’s staff and own less than 25 percent of telecom clients’ equity. This study investigates a surprising dimension that makes women the most visible operators at the subaltern end of the telecom distribution chain but accords them the slightest recognition as industry contributors. The operating conditions and income profile of 497 women airtime sellers in the south-south region of Nigeria are investigated. Findings show that most of the respondents are women of 20 years of age or less, with secondary education, and unmarried. The majority make $1.50 a day and will never make airtime hawking their career unless they receive support. A regression analysis of the predisposing factors and their engagement in the business shows that they sell airtime primarily because it requires little or no formal sales technique. They also hawk airtime because they were not gainfully employed and since it requires a little startup capital. These findings are helpful for researchers and multilateral agencies, especially the United Nations, which needs data for the Sustainable Development Goal (5) to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls

Using Symbols and Shapes for Analysis in Small Focus Group Research

Substantial literature exists to support the growing importance of focus group research, having been around for decades. Its ubiquity under the scholarship radar is not in doubt while the analyses of findings commonly seen are scholarly and significantly sophisticated. However, these analyses have been found to be limited in scope for fresh adopters of the focus group method, non-literate beneficiaries of research findings and business people who are critically averse to lengthy textual statements about outcomes. This article introduces the use of symbols as a means of analyzing responses from small focus group discussions. It attempts to demonstrate that using symbols can substantially assist in the prima facie determination of perceptions from a focus group membership, its patterns of agreement and disagreement, as well as the sequence of its discussions

An Assessment of the One Lecture-One Test Learning Model by Journalism Teachers

This article analyzes transcripts from a knowledgeable group that discoursed at length the one lecture - one test (OLOT) learning model – a system that requires students to write a short test for 10 to 20 minutes after every lecture, for a score that counts toward the overall grade.  This model contrasts with the traditional system in higher institutions that set two or three tests and give one or a few assignments in a semester. Investigation of OLOT started with a one-year survey and three-year longitudinal assessment. It proceeds with this work and shows via a color graphic analysis that, though OLOT appears capable of promoting students' attendance, concentration, interest, and participation during lectures, this may not necessarily translate to better grades. Data from the transcripts show, however, that, absence of better grades notwithstanding, the learning system should be given the benefit of the doubt given the significant showing of the four parameters

Outdoor Advertising: House Numbering Visuals as Marketing Communication and Community Potentials

An image stimulus sometimes approximates visual communication, appearing as information that carries some identified meaning with it. The sequence involves mental visualization – a familiar phrase in cognition research. Despite this viewpoint's popularity, the scholarship radar is yet to fully capture the socio-economic ends of such meanings and the attendant communitarian upshots. This paper is making three propositions, using house numbering visuals as the basis for investigation. First, these visuals offer a viable platform to examine how visual communication elicits meaning in marketing communication (Folayan et al., 2018; Morah & Omojola, 2018). Second, the perceiver's semiotic literacy and the socio-economic purpose that the visual stimuli serve could determine mental representation's strength in a cognitive process. Third, a communitarian level of cooperation is possible from that meaning. The ramifications of these propositions provide some insight into the marketing and community potentials of house numbering images

Some Yoruba Belief Systems as Antithesis Of Science and Technology

It is a usual practice to articulate the challenges of human development in Nigeria within the folder of socio-political, economic and cultural inadequacies. In the cultural context, ethnicity, inhuman practices like female circumcision, voodoo, gender discrimination among others, have been advanced as reasons responsible for the low level of development in Nigeria. Much of these claims are coming from monotheistic religions, especially Christianity, which in many respects, is equated with scientific and technological advancement by its adherents. Great inventors and discoverers such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Faraday, Samuel Morse, Albert Boyle, Johann Kepler among many others are frequently mentioned as devout Christians who impacted people’s lives immensely. This paper explores the cultural perspective further. It zeroes in on deities in the Yoruba section of Nigeria to find out if these gods, their oracles and priests perform communication functions that are at variance with the elements of contemporary development especially in the areas of science and technology. Study has shown that while these gods and oracles have been said to communicate ways to overcome diseases, spells, and generally bring about wholeness, there is no cause to suggest that they offer any roadmap that can make Nigeria develop scientifically or technologically. The claim that this should not be blamed on the gods notwithstanding. This paper concludes from the findings that when you worship a deity that does not offer any appreciable solution to the modern development needs, looking elsewhere may be an idea worth considering

Audience Mindset and Influence on Personal Political Branding

In most researches that touch on consumer behaviour, the bus stops have always been consumer satisfaction and intentions. The intentions of a consumer will normally drive his behaviour on a particular product or service. This will ultimately lead to his satisfaction or dissatisfaction as the case may be. But the question is: if an intention is what you plan or purpose to do, what are those things that drive that plan or purpose? It is the job of this paper to make us understand that a successful branding or brand management does not emerge except the mindsets of the target audience are analyzed and acted upon. These mindsets form the force that propels the intention of a customer to buy or not to buy. This message becomes clearer when we transpose into personal branding, and more specifically, personal political branding

The National House Numbering System (Copyright Registration only, Patent pending) LW 1098.

Please contact The Nigerian Copyright Commission, Abuja, Nigeria for details

An Assessment of the One Lecture-One Test Learning Model by Journalism Teachers

This article analyzes transcripts from a knowledgeable group that discoursed at length the one lecture - one test (OLOT) learning model – a system that requires students to write a short test for 10 to 20 minutes after every lecture, for a score that counts toward the overall grade.  This model contrasts with the traditional system in higher institutions that set two or three tests and give one or a few assignments in a semester. Investigation of OLOT started with a one-year survey and three-year longitudinal assessment. It proceeds with this work and shows via a color graphic analysis that, though OLOT appears capable of promoting students' attendance, concentration, interest, and participation during lectures, this may not necessarily translate to better grades. Data from the transcripts show, however, that, absence of better grades notwithstanding, the learning system should be given the benefit of the doubt given the significant showing of the four parameters