*ISIAKA ZUBAIR ALIAGAN, Ph.D.

Abstract

The interplay of powerful forces of advertising, news sources, government and political elites has been implicated in promotion of ideology in the news. This study investigates the ideological considerations in newspaper reports in Nigeria and explores what may be responsible for the ideological stance taken by newspapers in reporting issues in society. Using the political economy and hegemony construct as its springboard, the study adopted the mixed methods of quantitative content analysis of the news content in the Daily Trust and The Punch newspapers, and in-depth interviews with 20 editors and senior journalists in the two newspapers to generate its data. Findings from the quantitative content analysis revealed that nearly half of the news reported by the two newspapers was on safe news or news considered as uncritical of the status quo. The findings in the quantitative strand of the study is corroborated by that of the in-depth interviews with more than half of the respondents believing that aside from news concentrating on the government, priority attention was given to safe news to the detriment of critical issues like poverty, food crisis and unemployment, among others. The study concludes that the challenge that newspapers are going through in Nigeria presently constitutes part of the reasons why most of them to rely on ideological forces for their news and their survival.

Key Words: Safe News, Ideology, News Content, Status Quo, Nigerian Newspapers

^JCMR Journal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 12, No. 2, October 2020, pp. 74-82

© Association of Media and Communication Researchers of Nigeria (AMCRON).

About the author

*      Isiaka Zubair Aliagan, PhD.,  is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, College of Information and Communication Technology, Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria. His research interest covers print journalism, new media, press & politics, and political economy of media.

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Article Citation

Aliagan, I. Z. (2020). Ideological orientation of news content and status quo promotion in two Nigerian newspapers. Journal of Communication and Media Research, 12 (2): 74 – 82.