INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The tendency, most of the time especially in the developing countries, is for media practitioners to package their media contents well. In doing this, they do not take into consideration their supposedly diverse audience. This may be as a result of professional ignorance or perhaps taking the audience for granted. But taking the viewer, listener or reader for granted today is ver costly on the part of the communicator.
In same vein, may be the level of our development still makes the media operators in each of the sectors not to care very much about the programme requirements of the various audience for example, the programmes contents of some of our television stations do not take care of the heterogeneous viewing public. This implies that each audience has specific reason (s) for tuning into a particular programme in fact their media expectations seem to be diverse as their demographic and psychographic variables.
To attain the ultimate goal of communication which has to do with meeting audience needs, ensuring their continuous patronage and profitability, the satisfaction of the audience must be guaranteed through result- oriented, popular, diverse and professional packaged programme contents. To achieve this, the true nature eof the audience must be known. This possible through audience segmentation- that is the dissection into specific needs and their characteristics. This is a must for communicators whether in advertising, public relation, broadcasting etc it is very imperative as the availability of information is one thing ad its effect another.
With the society becoming more complex every day, different need are bound to exist with people from different backgrounds- education social, culture, economic, ethnic language political and religious different, media needs must prevail. No one can meet such needs through mere guesses or trial. Agee, etal (1985) put it this way “Unsystematic, informal, intuitive method is not longer adequate for the modern communicator for so many reason”
It is also in the interest of media operators to consider this. The stiff competitive environment the media are involved today means the media operators must be professionally ethically and profitably minded. To attain this, the practitioners must embrace audience research in order to clearly understand the desires of the audience.
“In some studies researchers are seeking to determine the motivations for media use in others the goal is to determine the gratification people derive from suing the media”, said Agee etal (1985).
Okunna (1994 supports this :
Through use and gratification research, communication scholars have shown that everywhere, people selectively expose themselves to mass media contents, choosing only these media message that would serve the functions of satisfying or gratifying their needs”
This is the situation at a time, information and communication have assumed new dimension in globals scheme of things. It is today almost the fourth essential need of man, after food, shelter and security.
Communication, whether through radio, television, newspaper, magazine or internet is today central to the survival of man for man’s optimal, functionality, he requires daily dosages of information, irrespective of his area of profession.
When man’s goals of media patronage are met, he reciprocates, by aiding the funding of media contents through advertisement and sponsorship. In turn the media make profit reinvest and thereby boost the economy. The present poor performance of the Nigerian foundation s manifested in over – centralized location, poor funding, inefficient personnel, besides the poor quality programmes coming from them. This has resulted in gross imbalance and pardon of the actual needs of the audience, which of course is a sight.
So, what are the present situation needs of the television viewership in Enugu, efforts of the local and international stations to meet them, and translate the viewer desires into profit.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE II
APPROVAL PAGEIII
DEDICATION IV
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT V
ABSTRACT VI
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE OF CONTENTS VII
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY1
STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM4
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY5
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 6
RESEARCH QUESTIONS 6
RESEARCH HYPOTHESES 7
DEFINITION OF TERMS 7
SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY 9
REFERENCES 10
CHAPTER TWO : LITERATURE REVIEW
TELEVISION AS A MEDIUM 11
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 20
CULTIVATION THEORY 20
SPIRAL OF SILENCE 21
REFERENCE
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 22
RESEARCH METHOD 22
RESEARCH DESIGN/INSTRUMENT 23
RESEARCH POPULATION AND SAMPLE24
DATA COLLECTION 24
METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS25
MEASURING USED TO ENSURE VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
INSTRUMENT FOR GATHERING DATA25
REFERENCE27
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH INTERPRETATION 28
TESTING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS 44
DISCUSSION AND RESULT47
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS,
RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION 51
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 51
RECOMMENDATIONS52
CONCLUSIONS 53
BIBLIOGRAPHY 56
APPENDICES 59