National Newspapers Coverage of the Corona Virus Pandemic in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the study
The main objective of this study is to examine thee National newspapers coverage of the corona virus pandemic in Nigeria
- To assess the degree of visibility and sensitization of COVID-19 reportage by the newspapers
- To assess the prominence of the story format as it relates to COVID-19 reportage in Nigeria.
- To determine the number of stories reported by the six newspapers from the point of the first index case to the status attained by 31st May 2020.
- To assess generally the Nigerian media impact of reportage and coverage of COVID-19 on the citizenry.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
GLOBAL PANDEMIC OF NOVEL CORONA (COVID 19)
Tourism is a reason for most of the human mobility in the modern world. According to the World Tourism Organization (2020), the international tourism has indicated continues growth for the tenth consecutive year reporting 1.5 billion international tourist arrivals in 2019 and estimated 1.8 billion of international tourist arrivals by 2030 )people are forecasted to be (UN News, 2017). Reporting the COVID 19 or the Corona outbreak started from Hubei province, Wuhan City in China in November, 2019 and spread all over the world by March, 2020 has been remarkable in world history as the most challenging tragedy occurred in the world after decades may be the World War II. The major disruptions on the global economy from the transmission of this virus especially to the retail sector, food, consumer goods, healthcare delivery and a potential curtailing of travel and tourism as major drivers of the most of the countries in the world is in immeasurable and severe than expected by many. The situation should be strategically addressed with suitable proactive and reactive measures considering the current situation and to overcome future threats to ensure the socio economic wellbeing of all humans keeping space for increased travel and tourism.
However, the decisions on limiting the movements of people and commodity mainly affected to the industries like tourism, because, tourism include air transportation, sea transportation, food handling, accommodation sector, entertainment and recreation etc. Considering the impact of Covid 19 pandemic on Nigeria tourism, it can be noticed that Nigeria earns better reputation than the other countries in the world in controlling Covid 19 pandemic; arrangement of quarantine facilities and medical facilities even for foreigners while other developed countries announce nonresidents to leave the country, appliance of personal protective equipment in handling airline/sea line passengers at the respective ports, continuation of supply of basic human needs, extension of visas for foreigners securing them with available facilities etc. Hence, this situation would be favorable in flourishing Nigeria Tourism in the future even though it earns losses today.
Being a country with very less experiences on global health epidemics during the last few decades, Nigeria did not have a clear predetermined technical agenda for such a worse tragedy. However, with this limited experience, Nigeria reported to be the first country which has taken the mitigation and necessary controlling actions for COVID 19 after China. Even China has taken the action as the cases started to be reported from the country with deaths. Nigerian government started with quarantining and some specific health measures and preparedness at airport with thermal scanners before the first case found from the country. The first case of Corona infected patients (a Chinese tourist) reported from Nigeria on February, 18 of 2020 and after a short silence, the second patient was reported.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
In this chapter, we would describe how the study was carried out.
Research design
This study adopted a quantitative approach. Content analysis was used to analyze how Nigeria newspaper framed/depicted coronavirus. While questionnaire was employed to further determine how the frame patterns shape audience responses to the outbreak.
Content analysis
Content analysis is ‘‘a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication.’’25 It is a ‘‘technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages.’’26 The use of content analysis enables us to evaluate the dominant news frames used in reporting COVID-19 in Nigeria. By being systematic, content analysis shows consistency and suppresses bias. This is to ensure replicability of the approach when another researcher applies this approach on the same subject matter.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION/ANALYSIS
For the analysis of data collected using coding sheet, a total of 14,585 media publication on coronavirus outbreak were identified across the selected national newspapers and analyzed using SPSS version 20.
Table 1 gives a summary of six newspaper publications on COVID-19 in Nigeria from January to May 2020. There were 16 news format that were common amongst the six newspapers with a section in which was titled others. This section included other areas of reporting such as Business, Energy, Entertainment, ICT clinic/Guardian Tech, Money, Politics, Ramadan/ Sallah celebration, Show Biz/ Blast, Sunday parade/Special, Travel and Tourism, issues etc. News reports on COVID-19 was the majority with 55.3%, followed by Front page news of 6.1%. The number and percentage of publication on COVID-19 by the six newspaper from January to March showed that The Punch newspapers had the majority accounting for 25% of the total publication, followed by The Tribune (21%) and lastly, The Nation with 9% (Figure 1).
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDING, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Summary of findings
A summary of the six national newspapers on COVID-19 publication showed that the most common story format of reportage was news (55.3%) and this has been consistent with outbreak reportage of cases such as those reported by Smith and Smith (2016), news reportage of Ebola was the most common with 69.4%, Smith et al, (2017), news reportage of Lassa fever (LF) was highest with 57.1%. The story format for the Ebola and LF was just grouped into 5 and 12 respectively, that of our study on COVID-19 had a total of 16 that are common with the six newspapers, with other story format such as Business, Energy, Entertainment, ICT clinic, Money, Politics also making prominence and these consisted of up to 15% of the story format.
Conclusion
The media has played a great role in the reportage of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria with 14,585 publications, the highest so far reported in a disease outbreak. The awareness of COVID-19 particularly started early enough in January with few publications before the index case in February. This shows the interest of the Nigerian mass media in creating awareness of COVID-19 in Nigerian populace. It has reported preventive measures for COVID-19, but these are insufficient. It is however advised that more attention should be paid to interviews of professionals and front line health workers on COVID-19 for appropriate prevention steps and education of the Nigerian populace.
Limitations of the Study
This study focused only on the print media reportage of COVID-19 from January to May 2020, without the involvement of electronic media. A total of six newspapers, the highest so far were reported but the limitations was that in three of the newspapers, the month of May was not assessed, due to some limitations faced with working on hard copy newspapers. In addition, three newspapers were also not reviewed for death rate cases, precautions taken, risks taken when treating COVID-19, type of drug and cure for COVID- 19 patients and economic shut down.
References
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- Anaeto, S. G., Onabajo, O. S. & Osifeso, J. B. (2008). Models and Theories of Communications, In: African Renaissance Books, Incorporated 13918 Heatberstone Drivy, (pp. 20720) Bowie, Maryland, USA.
- APA (2020). COVID-19 coverage: survey reveals poor attention to safety of Nigerian journalists. www.apanews.net. [Accessed 20 May 2020].
- Borah, P. (2015). Media Effects Theory. The International Encyclopedia of Political Communications
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- Collinson, S., Khan, K. & Heffernan, J. M. (2015). The Effects of Media Reports on Disease Spread and Important Public Health Measurements. PLoS ONE 10(11), e0141423.
- Ebenso, B. & Out, A. (2020). Can Nigeria contain the Covid-19 outbreak using lessons learnt from recent epidemics? The Lancet https://doi.org/10.1016/ S2214-109X(20)30101-7
- Economictimes (2020). COVID pandemic ‘far from over’ not the time to take foot off the pedal: WHO.
- Economictimes www.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news. [Accessed 10 June 2020].
