AUDIENCE PERCEPTION OF RIVERS STATE RADIO LOCAL NEWS PROGRAMME AS A TOOL FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

AUDIENCE PERCEPTION OF RIVERS STATE RADIO LOCAL NEWS PROGRAMME AS A TOOL FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The primary aim of the research was to examine audience perception of Rivers State radio local news programme on Gokana local government. People as a communication being always anxious to get date news on local, state, national and international.  In fact, news is the reason why many buy radio or listen to radio activities just because everyone wants to be informed, educated and enlightened which can easily be achieved via news programme. Survey research method was adopted and 400 copies of questionnaires were printed and distributed to 400 respondents selected through Taro Yemane sampling method formula and 374 copies were returned for analysis. Also, the research use frequency and percentage method coupled with tables. In other words, it is highly necessary for radio station to carry out a critical research on its audience which will enable them to know the type of programmes its audience will prefer and enjoy particularly the news types. Also, more local news stations should be established to take care of rural needs and gratifications in terms of news and other current affairs.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The term broadcasting is amenable to equivocations and ambiguities. For purposes of clarity, broadcasting has been operationalised in this text from three all encompassing perspectives. From the communication perspective, as contained in the communication Act of 1934, broadcasting means “the dissemination of radio and television signals intended to be received simultaneously by the public directly or by an intermediary such as relay stations”. On the other hand, it could also be defined from an engineering perspective as the encoding of information into a given channel of communication system in the electromagnetic spectrum by modulating the energy either through AM or FM. It could also be seen as the super imposition of audio/video electrical energy on to the side bands of much high frequency radio carrier waves.

Commonsensically, broadcasting means approximately the physical scattering of information or messages intended to be received by an audience. An analysis of the mass media messages and the audience will show that there are social interactions and functions which occurred among them in a nexus of mediating factor, Klapper (1978) mass communication changes within the