Political Economy of Public Broadcasting in Nigeria: A Review on Influence of Deregulation and Commercialisation in Public Access and Participation

Abstract

In Nigeria, the public broadcast media system was originally designed to be in the forefront of promoting human development, democracy, peaceful coexistence, transparency, rule of law and serving as mediators of the public sphere. However, the public broadcast media in the country have not been successful in playing these roles fully when compared to the print media, for example. Apart from being in predominantly urban areas, public broadcast media in Nigeria are largely elitist and heavily commercialised in their programming and content. Hence, factors such as deregulation, liberalisation and commercialisation of the broadcast media industry have impacted negatively on how public broadcast media are perceived by the audience and other players in the industry. This paper seeks to analyse the effect of deregulation and commercialisation of the broadcast media in Nigeria since 1992 on public broadcast media’s accessibility and public participation for a broad range of segments in society, the rich, the poor, marginalised groups and women. Using critical discourse analysis approach, extant literature was critically reviewed, and a theoretical framework was conceptualised for adoption in future research. Recommendation for future research is given at the end of the paper. Keywords: Commercialisation, Deregulation, Nigerian broadcast media, Political economy of communication, Political economy of public broadcasting DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/84-01 Publication date:October 31st 201