The Impacts of Governments Ownership on Media Objectivity
CHAPTER ONE
Objective Of The Study
Based on this seemingly observation, the objective of this study includes:
- To find out how objective the BCOS (radio) discharges its duty in the light of government ownership and control.
- To determine whether BCOS (radio) is involved in sycophantic reporting.
- To find out how government influence on the station affect people’s patronage.
- To determine the pattern of recruitment of journalist into the organization.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE OF REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
This chapter review related literature on media ownership and control of mass media on media objectivity. And it was discuss under the following sub-headings:
The Concept and Dimensions of Media Ownership
Media ownership has variously been defined by scholars and other media stakeholders. According to Eze, (2009:11) “media ownership refers to the person, group of persons or corporate bodies or government who own, manage and control a medium or media and make policies on its or their administration”
Gambo, (2006:163) sees media ownership simply as investing in, financing and or controlling any medium for the dissemination of information, views, opinions and ideas within the confines of the laws of Nigeria”. The
Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defines ownership as “the fact of owing something”.
The concept of media ownership can equally be examined in the sphere of Marxist theory of class system in the society. According to Murdock and Golding (1977) “the class that has the means of material production has control at the same time over the means of mental production so that generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it” Marxist theory according to McQuail (2005) has a direct link between economic ownership and the dissemination of messages. In the light of the above Marxist position, the owners of the media (the bourgeoisie) dish out information to the masses usually to suit the interest of the media owners.
Ownership has always been a thing of great importance to the media stakeholders both in Nigeria and other parts of the world. In recognition of this importance, Edeani, (1990:120) posits that “ownership of the mass media in Nigeria is an issue which has generated a great deal of public attention and heated debate, and that factor is likely to be important in determining the extent and the kind of coverage the country’s mass media are able to give”
In an introduction to a book “Issues in Media Practice”, a renowned communication scholar, Professor N. Udoakah gave an insight into the overwhelming importance of media ownership. He told an intriguing story set in the United States of America. The Chief character according to him is Edward Armstead. Edward’s father Ezra Armstead, was a renowned business man and owner of an influential newspaper “The New York Record” The only newspaper which could rival the New York Record was the New York Times
Edward’s father had placed a condition in his will – that Edward could take over and own the New York Record if he was able to exceed the daily circulation figure of their rival New York Times. Otherwise the ownership of New York Record was to be transferred to the publisher and owner of the New York Times, Paul Eldrige. This clause in the father’s will about the ownership of the popular newspaper started off Edward’s journey to deadly terrorism and inevitable self destruction.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODS
Introduction
The method by which this study was conducted is described in this chapter under the following sub-themes:
Area of the Study
Research Design
Population of the Study
Sample and Sampling Technique
Research Instrument
Validation of the Research Instrument
Reliability of the Instrument
Administration of the instrument
Statistical treatment of the data.
Area of the Study
Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State (BCOS)
The radio arm of the corporation was founded about thirty-six years ago in 1976 while the television arm was founded about thirty years in 1982. There are currently about 4499 members of staff. The BCOS educates enlightens, entertains and disseminates information to occupants of the state and beyond
Research Design
The research design for this study was a survey design. This study was descriptive in nature with a systematic description of the variables by employing the use of questionnaire to obtain information on the independent variable.
Population of the Study
The population of this study consisted of all the staff of BCOS in OYO state
Sample and sampling Technique
The Sample size of 50 was used for the study. The sample size was statistically determined using the sample fraction.
Research Instrument
The research instrument used for the study was the questionnaire adopted from the works of Teseema and Socters, (2006), and Allen and Meyers, (1990). The questionnaire was used to obtain data on the independent and dependent variables presented in both sections A and B of the questionnaire. While section A measured the demographic data of the respondents such as name, gender, age, educational qualification and marital status, section B measured the independent variables. Likert (1932) scale was used in the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Table 3 shows that nine (9) respondents representing 18% of the sample population were between the age bracket of 20 – 25 years, twelve (12) respondents each representing 24% were between the age bracket of 26 – 30 years, ten (10) representing 20% were 31 – 35 years respectively, also nine (9) respondents representing 18% of the population were between the age limit of 36 – 40 years and ten (10) respondents representing 20% were within the age limit of 41 and above years.
Table 4 above shows that sixteen (16) respondents representing 32% of the sample population were single, fifteen (15) respondents representing 30% of the population were married, only ten (10) respondents representing 20% of the population were divorced as well as nine (9) respondents representing 18% of the population were either widows or widowers.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY
This research work is conducted to examine the influence of media ownership on professionalism in journalism. In order to carry out this study, four specified research objectives were drawn from which four research questions were formulated and used for the study. This was accomplished by employing past research works, academic journals and textbooks. Survey research design was adopted in the study due to the nature of the research. A sample size of 50 respondents of which 50 copies of the questionnaire were filled and returned for statistical analysis. The data collected from them were analyze using percentage analysis and the results of the analysis were all significant.
Recommendation
Given the findings of the study, the followings can be recommended.
Based on the findings and conclusions of this study the following recommendations were made:
- The media should be free from government control so that the media will be able to objectively inform, educate and entertain the audience adequately.
- BCOS management should recruit its programme in order to find out those that are sycophantic in nature and application and do something about them for a balanced and unbiased content .
- Journalists working in state government owned media station should realize that they are serving the public and not the state chief executives alone and so must pay adequate attention to social responsibility principle of the press.
- On staff recruitment, merit should be allowed to play prominent role in order to recruit qualified personnel that can take the media house to a greater height and to another level.
References
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