By Sulaiman Jalloh
If we are to go by the magic bullet theory of the press which believes that the media is like a gun that fires messages into people’s heads and that the people in turn will react without any hesitation, it would be very safe to realize the power of the very media and to an extent make a case about its role in national development.
The media has been variously defined by scholars of mass communication among which media is referred to as a collective means of communication by which the general public or populace is kept informed about the day-to-day happenings in the society.
The media are described as performing three functions or roles information, education, and entertainment.
These are the conventional social functions the media render to the public, but which are equally applicable in a broader sense in national development pursuit. It could be said that through educating, informing, and entertaining, the media thereby makes the society, society members, or the nation as well as the leadership of the very society, aware of the importance and need to undertake certain processes or processes of national development. Also attached to these three basic roles of media is another role of persuasion, where media are seen as virile tools of applying persuasive efforts to influence people’s actions towards a particular direction.
The mass media are therefore seen for their role in furnishing the public with the necessary information to achieve development or change goals.
These roles of media in national development lie in their capacity and capability to teach, manipulate, sensitize, and mobilize people through information dissemination.
The media also chart a course for the public in line with the agenda-setting theory, thereby creating in the minds of the people, issues that should be viewed as priority issues including development programs and policies. Instances of this role being presently played by the media in Nigeria is the general millennium goal pursuit towards the year 2015, as proposed by the United Nations and incorporated as national policy by governments of member countries around the world.
Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Monday, January 22nd, 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
