CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

The contemporary government arrangement especially in democratic dispensation such as Nigeria, Australia, India, United States of America and South Africa among others, there exist three arms of government namely; the executive, the legislature and the judiciary with the media being the fourth as it is an institution that checkmates the excesses of the other three arms.

Perhaps, this is why Anegbode (2003) with particular reference to Nigeria, contended that the press remains the fourth estate of the realm, the watchdog and the conscience of the nation. It is the organ that informs the public about the activities of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

The media as a watchdog is an indication of its watchful role in any government. Interestingly, the media do not only serve as a watchdog but guides the government towards change. Information is the basis of effecting change as well as trickling the consequences of change. The information needed to run an open successful government is to a large extent provided by the media. The information dissemination role of this “estate” is a veritable tool for change.

Adeyemi (2006) says that “throughout the history of mankind, the press has always occupied the fore front of democratic changes”. From the foregoing, we can safely say that the media’s role in the running of the affairs of the government is that which cannot be relegated. Thomas Jefferson a former President of the United States of America once said in one of his many speeches on the importance of the media that if he were to choose between government without the press or a press without government, he would not hesitate to choose the later (Quoted in Tell Magazine editorial. July 15 2005). Within this context, this project examines the role the media play in entrenching democratic governance in Nigeria.

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The need to find out if the media has been fulfilling her responsibilities in entrenching democratic governance in Nigeria is the basic background for this study.

Nigeria today, has numerous print and electronic media, through which the voice of the masses could be heard. Both the public and private owned media organisations abound in the country. Some of these include: This Day, Daily Times and The Vanguard among many others. This study is on Independent Monitor newspaper.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The present state of the role of the media is that we have not yet arrived at producing specific democratic governance in Nigeria. The media provide warring groups mechanism for mediation, representation and voice as they can settle their differences peacefully unfortunately the mass have sometimes fanned the flame of discord by taking sides, reinforcing and prejudices, muddling the facts and peddling half truths. The media can play a positive role in democracy only if there is any enabling environment that allows it do so.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study is to examine the role of the media in entrenching democratic governance in Nigeria (A study of Independent Monitor Newspaper, Port-Harcourt). The idea of the media, the aspiration of man at this jet age, is aided not only by the internet, but also seriously by other types of media. Thus, man, through the media, can get what language form, falcon, music, etc. that are in vogue.

In later or no time through listening to the radio set or watching the television set, one could get to do what others are doing. The media therefore, become a fast means through which one could get anything promoted.

The contributions of the media to the developmental stage the country at present finds herself, is traceable to the media. Development in this study covers a number of concepts which range from education, social cultural to the media.

For this study, the researcher examined the study of a newspaper house from inception to date. One saw how this origination have consciously or otherwise promoted or checked the media and consequently politics through their publications.

1.4     THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

There is no doubt that the media is the moulder and purveyor of public opinion. According to Machinor W. “public opinion is a sentiment expressed on any given subject by the best informed, most intelligent and mist rational person in a given community, which is gradually spread and adopted by nearly all persons in a civilized society. Also there is a communication theory called “Agenda Setting Theory” the concept of this theory was derived from the work of Walter Lippmann and its major idea is that, the media decides what the public should think about.

The media can create a powerful effect on the young people by educating them on how to exercise their democratic right within the context of the law.

The media should scrutinize every electoral process so as to ascertain and evaluate its fairness, credibility probity and effectiveness.

Various media should emphasize more on strong institution as well as teaching the operators of such institution how to be independent.

The media should equally come to aid of any operator of any institution who may be victimized by any higher power for maintaining its insubordination should be thoroughly investigated to know or ascertain what it actually connotes in practical term with all these social responsibility at work, our democracy will contently be one of the best and referenced democracies’ in the world.

1.5     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is your role during election?
2. How do you examine government policies?
3. What is the circulation coverage of your newspaper?
4. What is the history of this organisation?

          HYPOTHESIS:

1. They need the requisite skills for the kind of in-depth reporting that a new democracy requires.
2. There should also be mechanism to ensure they are held accountable to the public and that ethical and professional standards are upheld.

iii.     Media independence is guaranteed if media organisations are financially viable, free from intervention of media owners and state and operate in a competitive environment

1. The media should also be accessible to as wide a segment of society as possible.

1.7  SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The general aim of this study, was to keep the project within a manageable limited and in view of the limited time resources available, the researcher has restricted the study of the role of the media in entrenching democratic governance in NIGERIA to Independence Monitor Newspaper.

1.8     LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The study was limited to examine the role of the media in

Entrenching democratic governance in Nigeria, (A study of Independent Monitor Newspaper).

The following are the limitations which impeded in carrying out the study as already planned.

1. Finance: In carrying out a study like this, a huge amount

Of money is needed for photocopying vital materials and other things required for this study.

1. Management: Non availability of adequate information as some department was not willing to disclose their financial and strategic information as a matter of policy.
2. Time: The time limit set for this work was not enough as some of the resource persons could not respond.

1.9     OPERATIONAL DEFINITION  OF TERMS

In this section, I defined some key terms found in the paper the terms include:

1. The Nigeria Media: this means the various mass media that are used to persuade, entertain, enlighten, mobilize and inform the citizenry.
2. The Media: the media is the multitudes of ways for the public to gain access to political news, analysis and commentary.
3. Democracy: Democracy requires the active participation of citizenry.

Ideally, the media should keep citizens engaged in the business of governance by informing educating and mobilizing the public. In many new democracies radio has become the medium of choice, as it is less expensive and more accessible. FM and community radio have been effective instruments for promoting grassroots democracy by airing local issues, providing an alternative of information to official channels, and reflecting ethnic and linguistic diversity.

1. Governance: Governance can be defined as the process that is employed to achieve the noble and of the state.

Thus, governance simply implies the art of governing a people within a given territory or a state. It consists of two essential elements of the legislative, judicial and those of the executive and administrative bodies at all the tiers of government. In one word, governance remains a state in action.

Governance as is the control of an activity by some means such that a range of desires outcomes is attained. Thus governance in a political sense is a more complex activity. Secondly, political governance is service oriented. Governance is better conceived from lass well tradition definition of politics as who gets what, when and how and perhaps how much.

Thus, governance has a lot to do with the allocation of values in the society, which to a large extent is political in nature.

In this regard, the word bank views governance as, “the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development (Odunga, 2003). The bank further identified the following three key aspects of governance: the form of a political regime; the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a country’s social and economic resources and the capacity of governance to design formulate and implement policies and discharge functions.