CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The power of the news media to set a nation’s agenda, to focus public attention on a few key public issues, is an immense and well-documented influence. Not only do people acquire factual information about public affairs from the news media, readers and viewers also learn how much importance to attach to a topic on the basis of the emphasis placed on it in the news (McCombs & Valenzuela, 2007).

Attitudes and behavior are usually governed by cognitions, what a person knows, thinks, and believes. Hence, the agenda-setting function of the mass media implies a potentially massive influence whose full dimensions and consequences have yet to be investigated and appreciated (Symeou, Bantimaroudis and Zyglidopoulos, 2013). To begin at the beginning, the salience of objects in the mass media is linked to the formation of opinions by the audience. With the increasing salience of public figures in the news, for example, more people move away from a neutral position and form an opinion about these persons (Symeou, Bantimaroudis and Zyglidopoulos, 2013).

Social scientists examining this agenda-setting influence of the news media on the public usually have focused on public issues. The agenda of a news organization is found in its pattern of coverage on public issues over some period of time, a week, a month, an entire year. Over this period of time, whatever it might be, a few issues are emphasized, some receive light coverage, and many are seldom or never mentioned. It should be noted that the use of term “agenda” here is purely descriptive. There is no pejorative implication that a news organization “has an agenda” that it relentlessly pursues as a premeditated goal. The media agenda presented to the public results from countless day to-day decisions by many different journalists and their supervisors about the news of the moment. When connecting to the world outside our family, neighborhood and workplace, we deal with a second-hand reality created by journalists and media organizations. However, due to time and space constraints, the mass media focus their attention on a few topics that are deemed newsworthy. Over time, those aspects of public affairs that are prominent in the media usually become prominent in public opinion. This ability to influence which issues, persons and topics are perceived as the most important of the day is called the agenda setting role of the mass media (McCombs, 2004).

Although the idea of an agenda-setting role of the press has its origins in Walter Lippmann’s 1922 book Public Opinion, which begins with a chapter titled “The world outside and the pictures in our heads,” it was only in 1968 when this idea that the press constitutes the bridge between the “world outside and the pictures in our heads” was put to empirical test. Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972), young professors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used the 1968 U.S. presidential election as a case study to find out if there was a relationship between the priority issues of the mass media and the priority issues of the public. To measure the public agenda, McCombs and Shaw relied on survey research and asked an open-ended question about the most important issues in the election. The percentage of Chapel Hill voters who nominated each issue provided a succinct summary of the public agenda because the issues could be ranked according to these percentages. The media agenda was measured by a systematic content analysis of the issues covered in nine major news sources used by Chapel Hill voters. These sources included network television news, elite and local newspapers, and news magazines.

Just as the public agenda of issues had been rank-ordered according to the percentage of voters naming an issue, these same issues were rank-ordered on the news agenda according to the percentage of news coverage on each issue. The Chapel Hill study found a nearly perfect correspondence between the two agendas. The degree of importance accorded the issues by voters closely paralleled their degree of prominence in the news during the previous month. The main idea behind cultural agenda setting theory is that the transfer of salience by the media to the public also applies to the case of cultural products or, more broadly, cultural objects such as works of art, artists and cultural organizations (Matthes, 2006). This implies that cultural objects that receive high levels of media visibility or media coverage acquire public salience as the public talks about them. Secondly, cultural agenda setting suggests that the media also influences the attributes of various cultural objects. For example, through media valence, the positive, neutral or negative tone the media adopts regarding a particular cultural object is then transferred to the public.

1.2 Statement of the Problems

The main idea behind cultural agenda setting theory is that the transfer of salience by the media to the public also applies to the case of cultural products or, more broadly, cultural objects such as works of art, artists and cultural organizations (Matthes, 2006). The agenda of a news organization is found in its pattern of coverage on public issues over some period of time, a week, a month, an entire year. However, in the enthronement of indigenous culture in Akwa Ibom State the reverse is the case. The media has not fully played its role as expected. The cultural works, arts and cultural objects of cultural organizations in Akwa Ibom State are not fully transferred to the public. From the forgoing therefore, the study seeks to examine media agenda setting function and the enthronement of indigenous culture in Akwa Ibom State using Akwa Ibom State Broadcasting Corporation as case study.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to examine media agenda setting function and the enthronement of indigenous culture in Akwa Ibom State. Other specific objectives are as follows:

1.       To examine the agenda setting role of the news media.

2.       To examine the extent to which the mass media promotes the indigenous culture in Nigeria.

3.       To examine the challenges encountered by the mass media in setting agenda.

4.       To proffer solutions to the challenges encountered by the mass media in setting agenda.

1.4 Research Questions

The study will be guided by the understated research questions.

1.       What are the agenda setting roles of the news media?

2.       To what extent has the mass media promote indigenous culture in Nigeria?

3.       What are the challenges encountered by the mass media in setting agenda?

4.       What are the solutions to the challenges encountered by the mass media in setting agenda?

1.5 Significance of the Study

The study shall provide a conceptual and theoretical framework media agenda setting function and the enthronement of indigenous culture.

The study shall be of immense value to professionals in the broadcast media.

The study shall serve as a reference point of information on media agenda setting.

The study shall contribute to literature on the subject matter as it will benefit study and add to knowledge.

1.6 Scope/Delimitation of the Study

The study is delimited under the following heading: content scope, geographical scope and unit of analysis.

Content Scope: The study is domicile in mass communication. The content scope of this study involves an investigation to ascertain the media agenda setting function and the enthronement of indigenous culture in Akwa Ibom State.

Geographical Scope: This study is delimited to Akwa Ibom State with reference to Akwa Ibom State Broadcasting Corporation.

Unit of Analysis: The unit of analysis in this research involves both senior and junior staffs of Akwa Ibom State Broadcasting Corporation at the time of the study. Hence, it is a micro level study.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

In course of carrying out this research, the researcher met with a lot of constraints. Among these constraints is: The time frame which this research was expected to be completed which was too short.

Secondly, the cost in carrying out this research work act as a barrier as we were not financially buoyant to carry out all investigation.

Finally, assembling the relevant materials needed this work was a problem. It is difficult due to the fact that some of the respondents were not willing to give the required cooperation.

1.8 Operational Definition of Terms

BROADCASTING: Transmit (a programme or some information) by radio or television.

MEDIA: The main means of mass communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the Internet) regarded collectively.

AGENDA-SETTING: It is the “ability (of the news media) to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda”.

CULTURE: The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.