Reporting Violence against Women in Nigeria: A Content Analysis of Newswatch and Tell News Magazines (1995 - 2004)

Abstract

Violence against women has become an issue of major concern the world over and the Nigerian mass media have been accused of under reporting cases of such violations of human right. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the coverage of violence against women in Newswatch and Tell newsmagazines over a ten-year period in Nigeria. To carry out this study, the researcher content-analyzed data obtained from a sample of 104 issues of two popular Nigerian newsmagazines-Newswatch and Tell which were sampled through purposive sampling method. Subsequently, violence against women was analyzed based on five criteria, viz: frequency of reports, prominence accorded such reports, depth of coverage, magnitude of report and display. Six research questions were content-analyzed using simple percentages. The result of the investigation revealed that the two leading Nigerian news magazines investigated actually reported issues on violence against women and the depth of such coverage were fair enough to generate awareness, but it was found out that the incidents were not frequently reported given the seriousness of the incidents in Nigeria. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended that Nigerian journalists should be more committed to social responsibility and they should report more of cases of violence against women more frequently.

Key Words: Violence, Women, Mass Media, Print Media, Frequency/ Regularity, Prominence