Development information content in the African mass media

The specific role of mass communication and the mass media in the development dynamics is still quite controvertible. So is the status of development communication as a theoretical construct, as the multiplicity of its definitions suggests. These issues have become more critical in the light of recent world-wide political changes and of the many instances of debilitating ethnic conflicts. It is in this context that this paper investigated the incidence of development-oriented content in two Nigerian dailies, hypothesizing that, despite the claims that Nigerian newspapers have been excessively political, their contents are significantly more development-oriented than not and that this orientation is topically diversified and consistent over time. The results of the content-analysis study showed that the papers were more nondevelopmental in their orientation than developmental. Other aspects of the findings suggest, however, that sustained development requires a communication and governance system that accounts for both human rights and human needs.