NEWSPAPER AND WIDER READERS SCOPE A CASE STUDY OF UYO CITY POLYTECHNIC, UYO

CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

1.1     Introduction

On daily basis whether orchestrated by human beings or by natural phenomenon, events unfold in separate parts of the world that must be brought to the knowledge of the general world. In the performance of the duty the role of newspaper, which is a medium of mass communication that uses printing, technology to disseminate information, cannot be over looked. However, far from what obtains in the day of Iwe-Irohin, which was printed as plain news without segmentation in contents, sophisticated that has crept into news publishing industry has revolutionized events and broken conventions. Apparently this could be seen to have exemplified in this segmentation, which inadequately has given rise for choice making in respect of their contents among readers in passing newspaper.

Contents refer to message in the newspaper that are identified by a given name “contents of all newspaper are mostly identical an universal except for few that carry distinct adjectives contents of newspaper come from a variety of sources, most of it originated from sources other than newspaper staff.

Contents that are predominantly universal and regular imprint media are straight news, news analysis, investigation reporting, features, editorial columns, letter of the editor, cartoon, advertisement, memoriam/obituaries, announcements, supplements sidebars vibration interview, games and puzzle, photographs (Adisa 2003). In discussing the issue of choice in relation to newspapers contents among newspaper readers, the relevance of economic theory of choice cannot be rooted in the fact that the dissimilarities in the mentalities with which people are gifted equally express themselves in peoples taste and wants. The simple import of the foregoing is that newspaper reader’s choice of newspaper contents differ from one person to another. The reason for this may be found in that majority of them either do not have interest in certain areas of the details or do not have the time to go through the entire pages of the newspaper, this a newspaper reader who is impeded by the later factor would rather prefer to spend his limited time on his choice areas in the dalliers. This indeed may have been the driving force behind the healthy competition among  properties which majority manifest in their strives to sustaining the interpretation of their readers choice, their interest in certain topics  or events or field of human endeavour may inform their patronage on those areas in the newspaper where news relating to their interests are presented, for example those who craves are  for information to topical  national issues and have seen editorial pages of newspaper as authoritative and credible channels of estimating and judging going on in the society, many take delight in adding just the editorial page in dailies.

Also some read principally because dailies is applicable to their lives, likewise others interest are linked on sports just to read the sports columns and they will be satisfied. Something goes for the hinged on the advertisement column of newspaper. The list can be in exhaustible as it covers all those separate areas in the dailies as listed by  Adisa (Ibid) where human interest are taken care of.

The above assertion’s notwithstanding there are also people who read virtually every part of the dailies they lay their hands upon. From the fact alongside the other turn made so far, it can further be asserted that people read newspaper for different purpose which is in line with the new Mc Quail (2000) that “individual use media for relative purpose such as personal guidance, relaxation, information and identify information”. However, limiting the scope of newspaper readers to student, it is unlikely that their motives of reading newspaper would not be different from one individual student to another. This is to say why it is possible that the age-long discovery that frequent and general audience performance may have been the motivating factor behind the patronage of some other interest in newspaper reading may be formed by their preference for interest in certain segment of newspaper contents. The interest of their research in conducting a solving classification.

1.2     Research Problem

As newspaper has been noted to have different contents so also has it been noted that people’s preference for those contents differs from persons to persons. The problems are to determine individual student’s choice of or preference for contents while reading newspaper.

1.3     Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to solve the problem of the subject matter, which is the survey of the opinion of student on their preference for newspaper contents.

1.4     Objectives of the Study

The objectives of this research study include;

1. To find out if students read newspaper
2. To ascertain if students read all newspaper contents or just contents.

• To discover which of the various newspaper contents they prefer reading or read most.

1. To assess if their choice of these content is influenced by any factor.

1.5     Research Question/Hypothesis

The following were the research questions of the study

1. Do students read newspaper?
2. Do they read all newspaper contents or just contents?

• Which of the various newspaper contents do they prefer reading or read most?

1. Is their choice of these contents influenced by any factor?
2. If yes, what are those factors?

1.6     Significance of the Study

The study is significant in two aspects. One, it will enable us to know the most preferred newspaper contents among students and also, which is the aspect of newspaper contents student read most.

1.7     Delimitation/Scope of the Study

The scope of the study covers only the students of Uyo City Polytechnic, which is my area of concentration. This study attempted only to identify the extent on which students read newspaper contents and their choices.

1.8     Limitations of the Study

Just like any other research work, this study was faced with a number of limitations and these include:

1. Lack of enough materials like books and reference materials and information centers are virtually nonexistent with the few libraries lacking the needed books.
2. The researcher’s limited resources, inadequacies of time and financial restrictions also constituted problems.

1.9     Definition of Terms

1. Operation Definition

Newspaper Readership: Refer to the total population of students in Uyo city Polytechnic.

2. No-operational Definition

Survey: According to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, it refers to the behaviour opinion etc of a group of people p. 1204.