COVERAGE OF FOREIGN NEWS BY NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF THE GUARDIAN AND VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Communication is so vital in our lives that it could be regarded as one of the characteristics of living organisms. It is a necessary condition education, socialization, understanding, co-operation and even confrontation. (Ekeanyanwu, 2007, p. 13). Communication has no doubt become a powerful instrument of peace and war, thus aiding and abatting the mutual relationship between countries of the world. And when there is a controversy in information flow among countries of the world, it degenerates to an imbalanced communication. It could be recalled that over the years, there has been a monumental disagreement between developing and western countries. The developing countries claim the western world report them in a bad light or fail to report about at all, thus the concept of news imbalance. It is in the light of the above that is that this research work was set to find out if Nigerian media are defaulters of the same offence by examining how Nigerian newspapers cover foreign news, using two national newspapers (Vanguard and The Guardian) as the case study. More importantly, to find out how frequent foreign news are reported, the nature of its presentation, type of foreign news the report e.t.c. and so many other related issue.
The concept of news, journalism and freedom of the press have for many years been a major source of disagreement between developing countries in Africa and the developed countries in the world. Developing countries often feel ill served by the western media claiming that foreign writers distort the story about African growth and development or times, fail to report it at all. The developed countries on the other hand, see the developing nations as hindering the report of news. Members of the news media in industrialize nations, that is, free press as it exists in the United State of America and Great Britain virtually unknown in Africa and other parts of the developing nations.
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