Abstract
Nigeria’s democracy has been marked by a paradigm shift
where ultimate power no longer resides on the electorates but on
the elect. The reasons are the widespread voter apathy and
disenchantment, which is argued, can be resolved through
intensive democracy education. This study aims to explore
whether Nigerian broadcast media, especially Radio, has played
its role in educating the masses on a wide range of issues. The
study entails content analysis of cognate programs of three
broadcast stations in Port Harcourt from January 2014 to March
2014. As inferred from the findings, the stations did not devote
significant portion of their informative and educative programs
to democracy education geared towards enlightening the
populace on the benefits of active participation in the democratic
and electioneering processes as characterized by voter
registration, voter mobilization and the exercise of franchise.
Findings also show that the content of broadcast stations did not
create a platform for discourse analysis as powered by issues
driven politics. In the face of this worrisome trend, it is therefore
recommended that there should be an increased capacity for
broadcast stations in Nigeria to devote more airtime to
democracy education geared towards strengthening each
citizen’s participation in the deliberations that govern the sociopolitical affairs of the society.
Godwin B. Okon. (2013) Voter education by the Nigerian broadcast media: A normative appraisal of three radio stations in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Journal of Media Studies, Volume 28, Issue 1.
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