TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page———————————————————————————————-
Declaration Page————————————————————————————-
Certification page———————————————————————————–
Acknowledgements ———————————————————————————
Dedication——————————————————————————————–
Table of contents————————————————————————————-
List of Tables—————————————————————————————–
Abbreviations —————————————————————————————-
Abstract———————————————————————————————–
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Study——————————————————————-
1.2 Statement of Research Problem———————————————————–
6 1.3 Aim and Objectives———————————————————————–
1.4 Research Questions————————————————————————-
1.5 Significance of Study————————————————————————
1.6 Scope—————————————————————————————–
1.7 Limitations of Study————————————————————————
1.8 Definition of Terms————————————————————————-
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction———————————————————————————-
2.2 Conceptual Review————————————————————————-
2.2.1 Perception———————————————————————————–
2.2.2 Development Communication————————————————————
x 2.2 DEVCOMM and Women Development ———————————————
2.3 Women in the Media: Empirical Review———————————————–
2.3.1 Factors Affecting Awareness of Women Development Programmes ————–
2.3.2 Relevance of Women Programmes in Satisfying their Information Needs ——–
2.3 .4 Strengths and Weaknesses of Women Development programmes —————-
2.5 Theoretical Review————————————————————————-
2.5.1 Perception Theories and Approaches —————————————————
2.5.2 Development Theories——————————————————————–
2.6 Theoretical framework———————————————————————
2.6.1 Selective Processes Model—————————————————————–
2.6.2 Diffusion of Innovation Theory ——————————————————–
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction——————————————————————————–
3.2 Research Method—————————————————————————
3.3 Study Areas——————————————————————————–
3.4 Population———————————————————————————-
3.5 Sample Size ——————————————————————————
3.6 Sample Technique————————————————————————–
3.7 Method of Data Collection—————————————————————–
3.8 Validity and Reliability of Research Instrument—————————————
3.9 Definition of Variables——————————————————————-
3.9.1 Independent Variables—————————————————————–
.9.2 Dependent Variables———————————————————————-
3.10 Method of Data Presentation and Analysis——————————————-
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.1 Introduction———————————————————————————–
4.2 Data Presentation and Analysis———————————————————–
4.3 Discussion of Findings———————————————————————
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Introduction———————————————————————————
5.2 Summary————————————————————————————
5.3 Conclusion——————————————————————————–
5.4 Recommendations————————————————————————-
5.5 Suggestions for Further Studies———————————————————-
REFERENCES————————————————————————————–
APPENDICES———————————————————————————–
LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Socio-Demographic Variables of the Respondents———————————
Table 2: Respondents Distribution on Level of Awareness of Programmes—————-
Table 3: Respondents Channel of Knowing the Programmes ——————————–
Table 4: Distribution of Respondents on Frequency of Viewership————————-
Table 5: Distribution of Respondents on Duration of Viewership—————————-
Table 6: Respondents Level of Understanding Broadcast Language————————
Table 7: Respondents Rating of Programme Content——————————————
Table 8: Respondents Level of Satisfaction for Programme Duration———————-
Table 9: Respondents Satisfaction for Time Schedule of Programmes———————
Table 10: Respondents Satisfaction to Day of Transmission of Programmes————-
Table 11: Respondents Satisfaction on Clarity of Programmes——————————- Table 12: Respondents Opinions on Relevance of Guests to Issues Discussed———–
Table 13: Respondents Opinions on Discussants Expertise in Responding Questions —-
Table 14: Respondents Opinion on Level of Women Health Issues Discussed in the Programmes—————————————————————————-
Table 15: Respondents Opinions on Women Learning Preventive and Curative Measures of Diseases on the Programmesfor their Development————————-
Table 16: Respondents Opinion on Programmers’ Platform in Highlighting Education as an Empowerment for Women—————————————————–
Table 17: Respondents Opinions of Programmes Platform Information on WhereWomen can Access Micro Credit Facilities———————————————-
Table 18: Respondents Opinion on Programmes Meeting Women Information Needs on Interventions on Skills Acquisition, Professional Trainings, Business Ideas etc for Development———————————————————————————–
Table 19: Relevance of Recommendations on the Programmes in Addressing Development Needs of Women—————————————————————–
Table 20: Respondents Rating of Programmesas Good Platform in Meeting Women Information Needs Required for their Development———————-
Table 21: Respondents Rating of Programmes Relev– 74
Table 22: Respondents Suggestions on ways to improve the Programme——————–
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Communication for development is a tool for social transformation which deploys the methods and instruments of interpersonal communication, community media and modern information to share ideas, innovations and information leading to improvement in the quality of lives of communities and vulnerable groups (Jenatsch & Bauer, 2016). In order to fast-track development, the use of communication for development was conceived to play a vital role in prioritizing communication systems and processes to improve the quality of lives of people especially identified vulnerable groups (Waisbord, 2001). Waisbord (2001) further explains that the primary objective of Development Communication (DEVCOM) as a discipline is to empower people as well as lay emphasis on issues related to human-centered development for the purpose of fostering empowerment process in order to achieve target goals in developed nations. In view of the above assertion, DEVCOM becomes an important vehicle to bring about positive change in a variety of ways and through diverse channels. Isah (2010) asserts that information on steps to be taken to enhance appropriate action on developmental needs is facilitated through communication. This entails that stakeholders are engaged in intensive discourses and debates to address various social and development issues. These measures, to a large extent, create awareness among the general public or specific groups of people about significant issues of public concern and existing social services. Furthermore, it has been observed to empower people by influencing them to take actions through the use of various media to inform and persuade peoples in disadvantaged communities for social change .
People need to be informed on the possibilities for improving their lives; Dominick (2011) explained that how to effect such necessary change to improve lives is facilitated by – 2 – the media as agent of development. The media as agents of development discharge this role through communication, according to Gupta (2015), development partners understand the role communication can play in empowering people to influence the decisions that affect their quality of lives and so adopt it in their campaigns and interventions. Identified marginalized and vulnerable groups have been recognized to have special development needs which can be addressed through communicating them in the media for appropriate action. According to a report by UNDP in 2015, women, one of the most vulnerable groups worldwide are the poorest especially in developing countries because they do not have adequate access to education, quality health service delivery, political representation and economic ventures (UNDP, 2015). The report stated that almost two-thirds of women in the developing world work in the informal sector and girls account for the majority of children out of school. This plight of women have hindered their self development and can be addressed through the media’s role of creating awareness on the need to address their challenges, sensitize the public on their plight, provide information to address that and engage policy makers and other stakeholders for discussion to facilitate appropriate action .
The struggle for women development has been the concern of women groups, development workers and the local and international communities. According to a report by the UN Women Watch (2010), despite the key role women play in supporting their households and communities in achieving food and nutrition, security, generating income and improving rural livelihoods, every day around the world, rural women and girls face persistent structural constraints that prevent them from fully enjoying their human rights (UN Women Watch Report, 2010). The report stated that this has hampered their efforts to improve their lives as well as others around them. Women globally have challenges in accessing quality – 3 – healthcare, education, political relevance and economic empowerment. In Nigeria also, women face similar developmental challenges. In Nigeria, the history of women has been one that is associated with abject poverty as in other parts of the world. The culture has been the grim responsibility of women, like other members of the underprivileged and downtrodden class, to feed, serve, work, fight and even die for the privileged class (Usman, 2015:122) This plight of women in Nigeria indicates the importance of producing media programmes specially designed to engage critical stakeholders for appropriate action in order to fast track their development. According to Fapohunda (2012), many Nigerian women largely live in poverty, lacking access to basic education, decent nutrition, adequate health and social services which the development process is supposed to provide. Thus, the participation of women also in politics and governance is very low which may impair them in roles such as policy making to improve on their lives, Fapohunda (2012) noted that even though there has been considerable progress in developing the capabilities of women, their participation in economic and political decision making remains very limited. According to Badamasiuy (2012), cultural prejudices could be the hindrance for such roles. This therefore implies that they require special attention for their needs to be addressed. Communicating their needs to policy makers, development workers, and donor agencies through the media for appropriate action is necessary to fast track social transformation thus their development, while also providing them with information for their self development .
Media can assist in promoting women development because of its power of influence. According to Khan and Moin (2013), the media is considered effective in creating demand for development through moulding opinions and providing relevant information for them for appropriate action. This therefore implies that the media is important and instrumental in – 4 – championing the needs and challenges of women in the society, in addition to providing relevant information to enhance improvement in their lives. 1.1.1 Overview of Women Programmes on PRTVC Various women development programmes have been conceived in PRTVC as part of the organization’s social responsibility to address challenges affecting women. These magazine programmes have been transmitting for more than ten years except the Baroness which only began transmission in January 2016. The format of all the programmes are consistent but the contents vary according to the topics of discourse. This Researcher adopted two programmes, Women in Action and Muryar Mata for this study. The programmes cover a wide scope of women developmental issues which includes new information on access to their basic necessities of education, quality health service delivery, empowerment opportunities, political participation and the campaign against cultural discrimination and gender-based violence amongst others. The programmes aim to discuss women challenges and provide relevant information on how to address them. They strive to create a demand for women development through their campaign messages by engaging key stakeholders, highlighting women challenges as setback in their development, providing new information to enhance improvement on their lives and making appropriate recommendations. The programmes were also conceived to address the structural constraints leading to the high poverty rate in the women. 1.1.2 Women in Action The programme Women in Action is one of the oldest television programmes on Plateau Radio Television Corporation (PRTVC). Broadcast of the programme dates back to when PRTVC was established in 1980s. However, the first documented episode of the programme was in 1997. It was initially created as `ladies world` before its present title Women in Action. It is 25 minutes weekly magazine programme aired 5pm on Fridays and a – 5 – repeat broadcast on Mondays by 9.30am. Unfortunately, there is no precise documentation on when the name was changed but the Director for Programmes of PRTVC explained that the change became necessary as part of the organization’s efforts to rebrand the programme to improve on its content thus attract wider audience. The programme, Women in Action, broadcast in English was conceived to publicize the activities of women in the state, their challenges and make recommendations or input appropriately. The programme is aimed to promote women development which entails providing information on their economic prowess, education, health, children and any other relevant issue that affects them and ways of improving it. The programme whose target audience is the general public especially the women, feature mostly women personalities, mentors, artisans, religious and community leaders amongst others, who are excelling in their fields- as professionals, advocates for empowerment and social change and girl-child education crusaders amongst others. Also, men are invited as professionals or as policy makers to discuss topical issues and activities which centers on women, challenges affecting them, the children, the family and other issues relevant to them and proffer concerted efforts on how to address such challenges. The programme begins with background information on the topic of discourse usually in the form of a short documentary before the discussion forum commences. Some discussions on topics with guests and episodes are not necessarily transmitted from the station’s studio, several episodes has transmitted from health centers, schools and vocational centers to give truism and vivid picture of current challenges of women and their potentials .
The topics of discourse are selected based on challenges of women and children especially on issues that bother on health, education, cultural discrimination and empowerment. Special national and international days like the Women’s Day, International – 6 – Day of the Girl Child and Women Equality Day amongst others are specially marked by the television programme. 1.1.3 Muryar Mata Muryar Mata (the voices of women) is a Hausa programme first transmitted on PRTVC in 2006. It was conceived after the 2001 crisis in Jos with the aim of facilitating the reintegration of displaced women and children through facilitating access to information on interventions to assist women, providing information on their source of livelihood, encouraging and championing enabling environment for women participation in governance and campaigning against violence on women and children whilst engaging policy makers for appropriate action to access to health care for the affected women. The programme was created in partnership with the West African Network on Peace Building (WANEP) and is a member of the Women in Peace Building Network (WIPNET). Topics selected for discourse cuts across all human endeavors affecting women and the society in general. It is a discussion programme which host professionals, technocrats, policy makers, politicians and ethno-religious leaders. It is a 25 minutes programme transmitted weekly on Thursday 8.00 to 8.30pm, the programme is aired simultaneously on both the television and radio arm of PRTVC, however currently, the programme is currently aired only on the radio arm since 2017. 1.2 Statement of the Research Problem The media is supposed to create awareness and consensus regarding improved status in society by providing relevant information that can be adopted to improve the quality of lives for women and promote both individual and communal interests and rights. The women development programmes on PRTVC were conceived to accelerate women development through the programmes’ campaign messages, meeting their information needs, publicizing activities of women and addressing development issues affecting them. The programmes were – 7 – designed to provide information to address women’s need for self development, engaging relevant stakeholders on discussions and public debates on women challenges inhibiting their self development for appropriate action. However, even with streamlined objectives, some media programmes conceived to fast track development are said to have deviated from their objectives, Reiz (2008) asserted that the media is solely use for commercial purposes to make profits with little regard on championing the needs of the people which includes the women even when such programmes are designed to address these issues. It is in line with this, that this study was conducted to assess audience perception on whether these programmes are working in line with their objectives of providing information to promote women self development and engaging relevant stakeholders to address the challenges of women. The transmission of PRTVC’s women development programmes for more than a decade is expected to improve on the quality of lives of women in Plateau State, according to Fapohunda (2012), the status of women in Nigeria is still rated poor despite the transmission of various women development media programmes, thus the need to find out and assess audience perception of these women programmes in line with their designed objectives, according to McQuail (2005), audience research is necessary to test media products and services; improve its effectiveness; evaluate media performance from an audience perspective, uncover audience interpretations of meaning and chart audience motives for choice and use amongst others. The study was targeted at finding audience perception of the programmes in three focal areas of access to education, health service delivery and economic empowerment. According to PRTVC, there has been no assessment of these programmes since its inception .
– 8 – 1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study The aim of this study is to assess audience perception of PRTVC women development programmes in creating demand for development and addressing their information needs to facilitate development .
1.4 Objectives of the Study i. To find out the level of audience awareness on women development programmes of PRTVC .
ii. To examine audience opinions on the relevance of PRTVC women development programmes in meeting the information needs of women to facilitate their development .
iii. To examine the strengths and weaknesses of the women development programmes of PRTVC and how it can be improved? 1.5 Research Questions i. What is the level of audience awareness of the women development programmes of PRTVC? ii. What is the audience opinion of how information from the PRTVC women development programmes is addressing women’s need for their self development? iii. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the women development programmes of PRTVC and how can it be improved? 1.6 Significance of the Study Women empowerment in nation building is an integral part of social and economic development in the society as they play key roles in enhancing societal process. As suggested by World Bank in 2002, one of the criteria for measuring the progress of development should be on issues that affect women because they are one of the most vulnerable groups in the – 9 – society and are significant by their roles as vehicles of social transformation (Gibbons, Somma & Warren, 2004). Women are asserted to break the cycles of poverty if empowered, UN News Centre (2009) reported that Ban Ki-Moon, the former United Nations Secretary argued that “investing in girls and women would likely prevent inter-generational cycles of poverty and yield high economic and societal returns“. As reported by the British Council for Nigeria, women are Nigeria’s hidden resource, therefore investing in them will increase productivity; promote sustainable growth, peace and better health for the next generation (Gender in Nigeria Report, 2012). Studies such as Nimala (2015), Odurume (2015), Adekoya, Akintayo and Adegoke (2015) and Asemah, Edegoh and Olamuji (2013) were conducted on media roles towards improving women’s health, access to education and their overall well being. Nimala (2015) for instance stressed the importance of these studies in the dissemination of information for women to facilitate their economic empowerment and political emancipation. Asemah, Edegoh and Olamuji (2013) highlighted that the media has a critical role in the promotion of girl- child education while Adekoya, Akintayo and Adegoke (2015) noted the effectiveness of radio political programmes in promoting participation of women in Nigeria’s politics .
According to Gupta (2014), the quality and kind of messages are often studied in terms of their comprehensibility, interest arousal and attention, value and the final impact. Studies on audience perception are important to ensure the aim of communication produces the intended effect on receivers. As further explained by Gupta (2014), the audience characteristics- its size, composition, geographical distribution, interests, attitudes, opinions and behaviors have been the focus of communication studies such as Hoag, Grant and Carpenter (2017) and Sajjacholapunt and Ball (2014) to find out respondents’ perception on products advertisement and choice of courses in colleges. The studies give insight on reasons – 10 – for their choice and provide recommendations for other choices in line with their needs. Scholars such as Akhter and Naheed (2014) and Meti (2014) appraised the significance of media through its programming in exposing the challenges of women and creating awareness on policies on development but gave less emphasis on audience perception of these programmes which was conceived specially for them. This should be assessed over a period of time, thus, further studies on factors that affect audience perception of media messages would further guide media managers on reception of its contents across various demographics and ensure objectives are achieved. This study is premised on the need to add more literature on audience perception of programmes designed to meet specific needs, factors that may affect its reception and ways to strengthen them amongst others. The study is expected to contribute to the body of knowledge on assessing the effectiveness of development strategies adopted by media organizations in promoting women development by its audience. The success of a media programmes is determined by the use of appropriate content, this study will highlight such importance. It will serve as a guide to public or private owned media on how the issues of women development can be championed to attract conviction by women and the general public to improve their quality of lives. The study can also be adopted as a needs assessment to development workers, donor agencies and women intervention programmes on areas that need utmost attention regarding women development and possible partnership with the Plateau Government to address that. It can serve as a blue print to encourage more commitment to the women struggle and proffer ways of strengthening the programmes Women in Action and Muryar Mata. 1.7 Scope of the Study This study is simply focused on assessing audience perception of the role of PRTVC’s women development programmes in accelerating women development in Plateau State. The study was conducted in Jos-South, Jos-North and Bassa LGAs. The Local Government Areas – 11 – were selected because of their cosmopolitan nature consisting residents of different occupation and ethno religious groups. The study covered a period of 10 years, from 2006 to 2016 , this is because one of the programmes Muryar Mata started transmission in 2006. The period of coverage was also selected because it is easier to get access to information from that period .
1.8 Limitations of the Study The Survey research method adopted limits the generalization of this study. According to Asika (2009), a survey research can be considered for generalization if the strict rules of random sampling are applied, however in this study, probability and non-probability sampling techniques were adopted to administer copies of the questionnaire. The research team was compelled to administer copies of the questionnaire to wards that are semi urban with access to public power supply since the women development programmes are being aired on both the television and the radio arm of the PRTVC. In some parts of the study areas, cluster sampling was adopted to administer copies of questionnaire because of the fear of security challenges in some communities. The researcher was challenged with limited time and resources to select major streets in all the selected wards, so administered the copies of questionnaire in markets and the local government secretariats where people from different wards converge for different engagements. Even though the study hinged on the television arm, some respondents in some rural areas submitted their responses based on their listenership on radio. The researcher also adopted 80 % as its confidence level in calculating the study’s sample size and had limited resources so could not engage research assistants in all the selected wards, thus not all the selected wards were covered .
– 12 – 1.9 Definition of Operational Terms i. Women development: Empowerment of women through access to education, quality health service delivery and sources of livelihood .
ii. Women development programmes: Women in Action and Muryar Mata .
iii. Perception: Audience opinion of the selected women development programmes .
iv. Audience: Residents of the selected study areas who watch or listen to either or both the programmes, Women in Action and Muryar Mata .
v. Awareness: Knowledge of the programme by the audience .
vi. Innovation: knowledge, information .
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