THE MEDIA AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT — AN APPRAISAL OF THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN RAISING NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND PROMOTING NATIONAL UNITY.

Abstract

There has been in our country, glaring misunderstanding existing between the media and the practitioners on one hand; the government and the society at large on the other hand. This is more often than not, as a result of the out-puts of the media while fulfilling their traditional role of informing, educating and entertaining. It is not even surprising that sometimes, the practitioners disagree among themselves on their own out-puts through different media of mass communications, with each side analysing media content on a given situation based on own perspective and concept. These trends have culminated in the incessant arrests, detention and prosecution of the practitioners. The trends have also resulted in the closures and proscriptions of some media, seizure of publications, civil and criminal litigations. The choice of this subject therefore, is to examine and articulate media role in promoting oneness in our plural and secular society and complimenting the efforts of the governments at all levels in their development consciousness. The five-chapter essay will in the first Chapter define and categorise different media of mass communication in the past, and present day Nigeria; actors in the process of mass communication and organisations in the media. The second Chapter will deal with the evolution of the Nigerian media, development problems and prospects, laws on the establishment of the media, ownership structure and laws guiding media practice. Chapter Three will discuss the media and National Development using Nigeria as a case study. In the Chapter, deliberate attempts would be made to state in context, what the media have or have not achieved. It will put in focus the impact of the Nigerian media on the citizenry. Strategy for media usage to achieve national unity and cohesion will be discussed in Chapter Four. Definitely, the expectations of the masses would be examined as well as ways and means of resolving the present conflict of confidence existing among the actors in communication process. The essay will finally in Chapter Five offer some suggestions and recommendations for lasting and enduring amity between the governor, the governed and the media. It is hoped that at the end of this discourse, the reader will find it not only useful but would have been exposed to the available role of the media in the Nigerian polity. The essay will constitute partly, recollections from experiences while the rest will embody data collections from text books, lecture texts, seminars and symposia papers, newspapers, magazines and other periodicals.