Newspaper response to national mobilization efforts

In an attempt to redeem the imbalance in the quality of life between the rural and urban areas, Nigeria's Federal Military Government set up the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) in February 1986 to provide the much needed infrastructural base for the development of rural areas. In the same vein, the mass media have been urged to join in this battle to uplift the quality of life in the rural areas. This study examined the two years (1984 and 1985) before the setting up of DFRRI, and 1986 and 1987 when the directorate had operated with a view to finding out if there were qualitative and quantitative differences in Nigerian newspapers' coverage of the rural areas between these two periods. Some were noticed while, in the main, there were little qualitative differences between the two periods.