COVERAGE OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT NEWS BY THE PRINT MEDIA; CONTENT ANALYSIS OF THE GUARDIAN AND PUNCH NEWSPAPERS

ABSTRACT

Information dissemination plays a key role in the development of every society, especially in an underdeveloped country like Nigerian. Thus, frequency of coverage and prominence, given to a specific issue or an area plays a crucial role in determining which issues or areas that call for special attention in the society. This study examines the coverage of rural development news by the print media: a content analysis of the Guardian and Punch newspapers. This study also tries to find out the level of coverage and treatment given to rural news by the print media. It sought to determine the frequency of coverage, level of prominence given to rural news, format (genre) used in reporting as well as the angle of rural development news framed. Content analysis was used as the research design, while the population covered a period of four months, from January to April 2019, which gave to 150 editions studied. The sample of the study for each of the two selected newspapers was 75 editions. The findings reveal that rural development news was covered by the Guardian and Punch newspapers, but the majority of the publications were negative happenings in the rural areas with low prominence given to them in terms of placement, the genre of stories and allotted space. The researcher recommends, among other things, that Nigerian national dailies should give more attention to issues of development and economic activities in the rural areas than crime and ethnic crises in their reportage. Thus, reporters of the selected newspapers and other media organisations are enjoined to endavour to focus more on the coverage of issues of development and economic activities in the rural areas to sensitize the public about the need for rural development and development activities going on in the rural areas.