Cultural proximity, topic emphasis and sources of Nigerian media coverage of international news

Abstract

This study, a part of the 1995 global news flow analysis in 50 countries, focuses on Njgerian media coverage of international news. Nigeria, a top ten country by world imputation size, has Africa's largest media market and auditorium with a population of 104 million people. In this study, the Nigerian Television Authority, Radio Nigeria, the Daily Times and The Observer were content analysed. The finding that regionality or proximity in the location of news is a factor in news coverage supports earlier findings about the role of geographic and cultural proximity in news coverage in the US, Russia and other countries. One of the implications of this finding is that the Nigerian media sample is not an exception to the rule. Some other findings, such as the increase in the coverage of international trade over the coverage of international politics and the prominence of coverage of gender issues, point to different interpretations of the coverage of international news in Nigeria. The post-cold war paradigms of the 1990s appear to be reflected in the coverage of international news by Nigerian media.