Mass Media and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: An Overview

Abstract

The mass media are no doubt a political resource. In a plural and deeply divided society like Nigeria, its role is even more imperative in achieving national cohesion, integration, and stability. The snag however in Nigeria is that the mass media -both publicly and privately owned -are more or less ethnic jingoist. This research note takes a cursory look at the mass media and ethnicity in Nigerian politics, and infers that in the interest of the polity, media practitioners need to imbibe the ethics of their profession. * Emmanuel O. Ojo, Ph.D., received all of his degrees in political science from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and former head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. Dr. Ojo has published widely on federalism, democratization, civil-military relations, and political communication.

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“…In another development, taking into account the media environment in Nigeria, which is a mixture of both public and private media outfits. The study of Ojo (2013) confirm that, the Nigerian media during the two elections was a mixture of both government-owned and privatelyowned media outlets, with government dominating the broadcast industry. He maintained that, both federal and state governments dominated and controlled 130 out of 144 terrestrial television stations in the country.…”

Media ownership and market structures: banes of news media sustainability in Nigeria?

“…From its inception, the Nigerian Tribune ideologically positioned itself as the voice of Yoruba ethnic group in Nigerian political terrains. 3 This ideologically positioning not only helped the Nigerian Tribune to maintain a core ideological savvy readership base in the southwestern region of Nigeria; it also made the Nigerian Tribune ‘a dominant force in Yoruba politics’ and highly partisan ethno-centric newspaper in the Nigerian politics (Ojo, 2013: 432). While the Nigerian Tribune is successful in political adaptation and cooptation, it is as financially unstable as other Nigerian private media outlets due to the combination of the factors that would be discussed in the next section.…”