Mass Media Ethical Orientation and the Quest for Professionalism in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are;
- Ascertain the level of knowledge of Nigerian journalists of the various mass media laws and ethics
- Determine whether the knowledge of Nigerian journalists of the various mass media laws and ethics influences journalism practice in the country
- To ascertain the relationship between mass media ethical orientation and professionalism
- Examine the extent to which Nigerian journalists adhere to the applicable mass media laws and ethics in their practice.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
JOURNALISM ETHICS
Ethics means morality or study of morality, ethics is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct, often addressing disputes of moral mixture. In other word, Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies human actions in terms of being right or wrong, licit or illicit (Pate, 2013) According to Washington Ethical Society, ethics defines the elements essential to human wellbeing and proposes principles to be used as guidelines for generating an ethical culture. Ethics also refers to the specific values, standards, rules, and agreements people adopt for conducting their lives (WES, 2012). Linda Thornton (2012) defined ethics as fundamentally about acting beyond our own self-interests. Another definition says that ethics are rules of conduct or principles of morality that point us towards the right or best way to act in a situation (Dominick, 1998). Ethics may be seen as being concerned with that which holds society together or provide the stability and security essential to the living of human life (Brown, 2011: 9). Ethics is the analysis, evaluation and promotionof what constitutes correct conduct and virtuous character in light of the best available principles (Ward, 2013).The term „ethics comes from the Greek word „ethos‟ which means „character‟ or what a right-thinking person is or does in order to have a good character. It deals with choosing among the good or bad options that individual faces. It may see as being concerned with that which holds society or a profession together or provides stability and security essential to social or professional cohesion. It involves thinking about morality, moral problems and moral judgements. It deals with what obligation we owe or to responsibilities we have toward our brothers, and what we should do make the world better place than we find it (Black and Roberts, 2011: 2-5). In line with the above mentioned definition of ethics, some key ideas were deducted to shade more light about the concept of ethics. These ideas are: values, rights, duties, rules, and morality. Starting with values, values is an important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person‟s behaviour and attitude and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Values has four influential sources; parents, peer groups, role models and societal institutions. Rights are conforming with or conformable to justice, law, or morality. Duties; are obligation to take specific actions. Rules; are guidelines upon which an individual acts and provide resolutions in the face of ethical dilemmas. Relationship; are connections of one individuals to another in a web of mutuality. While morality; is a beliefs or ideas about what is right and wrong and about how people should behave. All these aspect – values, rights, duties, rules, relationship and morality has interconnection and when talking about ethics, these aspects are in front line.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to mass media ethical orientation and the quest for professionalism in Nigeria
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information the mass media ethical orientation and the quest for professionalism in Nigeria. 200 members of NUJ, Lagos state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected from the respondents were analyzed in tabular form with simple percentage for easy understanding.
A total of 133(one hundred and thirty three) questionnaires were distributed and 133 questionnaires were returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain mass media ethical orientation and the quest for professionalism in Nigeria.
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of mass media ethical orientation and the quest for professionalism in Nigeria
Summary
This study was on mass media ethical orientation and the quest for professionalism in Nigeria. Four objectives were raised which included: Ascertain the level of knowledge of Nigerian journalists of the various mass media laws and ethics, determine whether the knowledge of Nigerian journalists of the various mass media laws and ethics influences journalism practice in the country, to ascertain the relationship between mass media ethical orientation and professionalism, examine the extent to which Nigerian journalists adhere to the applicable mass media laws and ethics in their practice . In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 members of NUJ, Lagos state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up chairmen, secretaries, old members and new members were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Based on the findings of this paper, it was concluded that there is an inseparable relationship between ethics and journalism practice in Nigeria. It also concluded that it is difficult to talk of professionalism or the discharge of social responsibility by journalists without first looking at the relevance of the code of ethics. This paper has shown that the journalism profession in Nigeria would thrive more in the country when media practitioners are guided by the applicable code of ethics. The paper also noted that despite how important ethics are in the journalistic practice, most media establishments in Nigeria do not have disciplinary committees; neither do they expose their staff to workshops or in-house training on the code of ethics. This makes them to sometimes go against ethics when faced with serious ethical challenges. Again, some of the journalists whether you like it or not must disobey the code of ethics. This set of media professionals are those giving journalism a bad image in Nigeria as well as contravening the social responsibility role of the media.
Recommendation
The following recommendations were made.
(1) Media establishments should liaise with the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the state to ensure that only formally trained journalists work as journalists in their organisations.
(2) Media organizations should make it a matter of priority to organize yearly refresher courses on ethics for their staff.
(3) Journalism training institutions such as the International Institute of Journalism IIJ should increase the number of ethics-based courses in their curricula in order to make the codes of ethics part of journalists. This will in turn increase the level of adherence to the ethics.
(4) The NUJ as a matter of urgency should institute a standing disciplinary committee like the National Judicial Council (NJC) that can sanction erring journalist both at the state and national level.
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