ABSTRACT

The focus of this study was to examine the content of newspapers in Nigeria based on how they contribute to development and to establish the extent to which the media are working to create awareness in agricultural and health sector so that it can mobilize both the government and the governed towards achieving a developed agricultural sector and a healthy state. The frequency of reportage, space occupied and prominence given to agriculture and health related issues on the editorial and front pages was also examined. The study adopted content analysis as its research design. The population of the study was all editions/issues of the Guardian, Vanguard and Thisday newspapers published from June 2014 to May 2015(12 months), using purposive sampling techniques. Findings from this study revealed that the most emphasized issues in agriculture was on agricultural input information (40%), while that of health was on diseases related issues like, ebola (36%), HIV/AIDS (26%) and malaria (18%), this could be attributed to the fact that there was ebola disease outbreak during the period under the study. With regards to space, agricultural related issues were more on quarter pages (53%) while Health related issues were more on a Full page (33%) of the Nigerian newspapers. It further revealed that agriculture were more on the Inside pages and none was found on the other pages While Health issues were mostly on the Inside pages (76%) of the newspapers though some were found on the front pages (19%) and few on the editorial pages (2%). Findings from this study also showed that Guardian newspaper reported agriculture and health related issues more than Vanguard and Thisday newspapers throughout the period under this study. Furthermore, the results of the Z-test for two sets of hypotheses tested showed significant differences in both frequencies of reportage as well as prominence given to agriculture and health related issues by newspapers. Therefore, the two hypotheses were rejected. Similarly, the results of ANOVA tests on two other hypotheses showed that there was no significant difference in the prominence given that agricultural-related issues among the three newspapers while there was a significant difference in the prominence given to health-related issues by the three selected newspapers in Nigeria. The study concluded that information on health related issues were given more reportage, prominence and space than agricultural related issues. This study recommends that agricultural-related information should be given more attention because as the country shifts its attention to improve local food production, farmers need up-to-date information on government programs. And the attention given to health-related issues should not be on diseases alone, it should as well include other areas in the health sector. Finally, daily newspapers reporting only agricultural and health issues should be established.