THE EFFECT OF NEWS COMMERCIALIZATION ON NEWS CREDIBILITY IN THE BROADCAST MEDIA
ABSTRACT
This prefect work tends to assess the effect of news commercialization on news credibility in the broadcast media, with particular reference to Federal Radio corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) National Station Enugu and the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) channel 8 Enugu, using them as a case study. The study intends to find out whether the commercialization of news affects its credibility and objectivity and equally to know if it encourages the “Brown envelope syndrome, accuracy, balance, fairness etc. whether those who cannot afford to pay the media the opportunity and chances to broadcast their events on air via Mass media of communication, such as the electronic or broadcast media. This study, will also enable the researcher to known if the news managers, News editors and Reporters (journalists) persistently carryout their gate – keeping roles and at the same time still carryout their watchdog roles. In other words, whether they still maintain the ethics and laws of the profession or not or they are being influenced by the news sponsors and their money. The study will also endeavour to Findus if the audience / publics have it in mind that the news they listen and watch in these broadcast media are owned and are pared for by the sponsors since they are not normally mentioned during news broadcasting and information dissemination. The work will be divided in to five chapters. The first chapter starts with the introduction and background of the study, (the research problems and research questions, hypotheses and definition of terms, objectives, significance, limitations and assumptions of the study). Chapter two will look into the literature review. This means that the researcher will consult the works of different authors in the course of this study. Whereas, the third chapter will focus on the research methodology making use of survey method and designs. Chapter four will analyze data collection and interpretation, the findings and results finally, chapter five will deal on the summery of the study and recommendations for further studies.
