Abstract

Editorials are opinions usually meant to indicate the position of editors or owners of news organizations on burning issues as well as serve as advocacy tools for changing attitudes and behavior toward desired ends. Similarly, films serve as purveyors of filmmakers’ articulated opinions about issues, fictional or real. Filmmakers use the medium of film to tell stories about society and in so doing, inject their positions on issues. These films represent various thematic aspects of social life, including education, health and politics and are often imbued with lessons and moral messages. However, people’s reception and interpretation of these messages may differ from those intended by the filmmaker. This study analyzes six selected Nollywood films with political thematic content, to determine the extent to which the encoder or filmmaker’s “preferred readings” conform to the audiences’ interpretations. Through Content Analysis and Focus Group Discussion, congruity was established between the filmmaker and the audience. Consequently, we can confirm that the filmmakers consciously survey society and translate issues of interest into thematic plot in their films. The resonance of these thematic issues with the viewers implies that both sender and receiver co-create the social communicative realities in which they exist and this becomes a framework for inducing social change.

Key Words: Nigerian Films, Political editorials, Encoding, Preferred Reading, Content Reception, Content Interpretation.

^JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 6, No. 2, October 2014, 31 – 44 

©Delmas Communications Ltd.

About the authors

Dr. Daniel Awodiya, Ph.D., is a Professor of Communication, Suffolk County Community College, Brentwood New York, United States of America.

**Dr. Ifeoma Theresa Amobi, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication,                                          University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria.

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