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Voter education by the Nigerian broadcast media: A normative appraisal of three radio stations in Port Harcourt Metropolis
Abstract
Nigeria's democracy has been marked by a paradigm shiftwhere ultimate power no longer resides on the electorates but onthe elect. The reasons are the widespread voter apathy anddisenchantment, which is argued, can be resolved throughintensive democracy education. This study aims to explorewhether Nigerian broadcast media, especially Radio, has playedits role in educating the masses on a wide range of issues. Thestudy entails content analysis of cognate programs of threebroadcast stations in Port Harcourt from January 2014 to March2014. As inferred from the findings, the stations did not devotesignificant portion of their informative and educative programsto democracy education geared towards enlightening thepopulace on the benefits of active participation in the democraticand electioneering processes as characterized by voterregistration, voter mobilization and the exercise of franchise.Findings also show that the content of broadcast stations did notcreate a platform for discourse analysis as powered by issuesdriven politics. In the face of this worrisome trend, it is thereforerecommended that there should be an increased capacity forbroadcast stations in Nigeria to devote more airtime todemocracy education geared towards strengthening eachcitizen's participation in the deliberations that govern the sociopoliticalaffairs of the society.
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