DETERMINATION OF RADIO AUDIENCE PERCEPTION AMONG POLYTECHNIC UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY OF UYO CITY POLYTECHNIC

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
Communication is a phenomenon that can best be explained by the impact or the effect it creates. Communication is quite essential and important to man. Realizing the importance of communication to his survival, man had over the years developed various means of satisfying his insatiable communication needs.
The impacts and effects created by modern communication media- the press, radio, television and their importance to our society is enormous. Orewere (2006, p. 43), put it thus, “human beings do not like to live alone, they love and desire to live in a place where there are other human beings, they interact with one another in other to satisfy their needs and goals”. Thus, making mass communication to become one of the most significant and inescapable facts of modern life (Uma Narula, 2006, p. 155).
In recent time, one hardly finds a home that is not exposed to mass media. A medium like radio is widely acknowledged as a “powerful medium of our age” which shapes the audience lives, making it outstanding (Tu journal, 2014, P. 3). Radio has continued to wax stronger as a medium of the people has its flexibility in transmission as gathered a large range of audiences cutting across different classes of the society, the rich and the poor. According to Nwachukwu (2003, P. 6), he asserted that, “radio has become a common sight in both urban and rural communities regarded as it appeals to both audiences”. Radio programmes can be broadcast in the local dialect which makes it so massive and captivating for the listening audience. Ansah (1991, P. 34) agrees that “of all the mass media, generally available to Nigerians, the radio is the most widespread and accessible, in other words, it breaks the barriers of distance as its reach is widely and highly penetrating”.
The idea of establishing radio as any other mass medium is to educate, entertain, inform, and socialize the people. The emphasis largely has to do with creating awareness, surveillance of the environment, and correlation of the parts of the society in responding to its environment and the transmission of cultural heritage (McQuail, 1998). It also helps in providing individual reward, relaxation and reduction of tension, which makes it easier for people to cope with real life problems and for societies to avoid breakdown (Mendelson, 1966). That radio has had a tremendous social impact, affecting attitudes and behaviour is undeniable.