Amolo emmanuel N
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| 1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In Nigeria, the educational sector on one hand has over the years, come under serious scrutiny as her younger generation who ought to be the most exposed to sound education for the betterment and development of the state, are increasingly influenced by alternative non-curricula activities, that attention to education development activities have dropped tremendously. Students are rarely interested in reading for knowledge, pleasure or enjoyment; instead they read only to pass examination. The declining interest in reading culture among our children (especially those in primary and secondary schools) is a cause for alarm and a challenge to all; and something need to be done to alleviate this yawning problem. Improving access to relevant information and promoting a reading culture are prerequisites for strengthening literacy skills, widening education and learning opportunities, and helping people to address the causes of poverty (Makotsi, 2005). The general feeling that reading printed documents have dwindled among the young population in Nigeria is getting out of control is very terrifying and infuriating. Children used to be encouraged to develop their vocabulary by reading newspapers. But significantly noticed, advanced vocabulary can also make children lose concentration, complicate comprehension, and even make reading boring. Following the antecedents of the individual differences theory, children seem to want to use alternative (and interactive) means to gain knowledge and access information, rather than read through voluminous pages of printed materials (like books, newspapers, journals, et al), confirming a paradigm shift from traditional to new media forms due to preferences. Reading can be a subject and can be taught separately as most other subjects in the curriculum. It is in every other subject and regarded as a tool facilitating many other types of learning. However, nowadays, due to the rat race syndrome, parents pay little or no attention to their children's reading ability, most parents themselves lack the skill and the culture of reading, such that some do not even read to their kids (Igbokwe & Obidike, 2012). Olukemi (2010) also lamented that lack of reading culture among youths nowadays has greatly affected quality of graduates being produced by the nation's higher institutions. It is against this background that this study tries to investigate the reading habits of children in homes and schools. On the other hand, the decline of newspapers has been widely debated, as the industry has faced down soaring newsprint prices, slumping advertising sales, and drops in circulation. In recent years, the number of newspapers slated for closure, bankruptcy or severe cutback has risen. The imminent death of newspapers has been widely reported; the question then is: What niche does print journalism occupy for the younger generation destined to preside over this supposed demise? With these severe challenges, competition from the internet and new media has further squeezed older print publishers. Revenue has plunged and print media no longer depend on sales of their newspapers, but on advertising. One issue is whether (or how much) of new technology has rendered newspapers obsolete in their traditional format, since the increasing use of the internet and other digital media has changed the habits of readers. Critics of the newspaper as a medium also argue that while today’s newspapers may appear visually different from their predecessors a century ago, in many respects they have changed little and have failed to keep pace with changes in society. Clearly, all is not well in the newspaper publishing business. An industry that for decades did not see much need for changing its management or marketing structure, has today been confronted with the demand to change. Publishers realize that if they don’t wake up to the changing nature of their cities, news consumers and advertisers, they may find their products have become dinosaurs in an electronic world populated by consumers and clients with needs of immediacy, intimacy, specialized reporting, deep market penetration, and target circulations (Willis, 1988). An associate professor of Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin – USA, Dr. Iris Chyi, in one of her works noted that most newspaper managers do not really understand the economic value of their products. When they believe the narrative that traditional news format of print is “dying”, resources allotted for print products will dwindle, resulting in further declines in circulation figures and advertising revenue, which serves as further evidence that the print format is dying. Chyi believes that to stop this vicious cycle, newspaper managers must rethink their multiplatform product and its value from readers’ perspective. Meaning that they must create their products based on users’ needs and wants, as opposed to wishful thinking. This implies that if newspaper publishers hope to remain relevant to today’s readers, they must tailor news and information dissemination to suit the preferences of their audiences. These alternative avenues may take hold on the digital alternatives now available, but how can the printed document be made to still remain viable? Is there a way to remodel them to suit audiences? There exist the norm in Nigeria (after carefully studying newspaper content) where publishers focus more on making profit from their business and ignoring the younger generation in terms of educating and informing them; with focus on them only when they are involved in anything untoward. There are also few and almost insignificant available local documents that could aid a researcher who attempts to study the relationship between children and newspapers. This further implies that foreign entities and documents would have to be consulted (if they exist) and superimposed with this clime for succinct and exact results. Another important variable is as noted by Esme Kettle (2014), a teacher who noted that she could no longer continue as a teacher without understanding how her students learn. She pointed out that it was no longer germane to heap the problem of poor grades on the fact that the children do not learn or do not read. She believed that many people could fit the role of “teacher” in everyday exchanges, but to be described as a professional teacher required a deep understanding of the concepts involved – and most significantly – an ability to pass these understandings to the students in easy-to-follow processes. The Government’s effort to improve the falling standard of education is not solely in providing textbooks and teachers to children who would be taught with the same methods which had been in existence since the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. Why are studies not carried out to find better alternatives to help children learn? One of the fundamentals of Development Communication is allowing the recipient become participants in the creation, development, and operationalization of a new idea. Asking children how they want to be taught and which method they prefer may help improve their learning capacities and aid them in making better choices. This study, therefore, investigated how much interest children pay to reading newspapers; how relevant they find reading newspapers, and being the future newspaper audience, how they would continue to read newspapers when they are designed to their preference and have easy access to them. It also explored what information children in Lagos preferred from newspapers and what factors affected their decisions. Download 261.2 Kb. Share with your friends:
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