THE USE OF MASS MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE SPREAD OF CORONA VIRUS DISEASE ( COVID 19)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

The emergence of the novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, marked the beginning of one of the most disruptive public health crises of the twenty-first century (Nwakpu, Ezema, & Ogbodo, 2020). The outbreak, initially classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, was upgraded to a full-blown pandemic on 11 March 2020 following its rapid, borderless transmission and the scale of its health, social and economic disruption. By the time the WHO formally declared an end to the global health emergency on 5 May 2023, more than 765 million confirmed cases and close to seven million confirmed deaths had been recorded worldwide, a toll the organisation's Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described as a considerable undercount of the true figure (World Health Organization, 2023). In the process, COVID-19 fundamentally altered the information-seeking behaviour of audiences across the globe, compelling individuals, communities and governments to turn to the mass media and digital platforms for guidance, reassurance and life-saving information (Uzuegbunam, 2024).

In Nigeria, the pandemic followed a broadly similar trajectory. The country recorded its index case on 27 February 2020, an Italian citizen who had travelled into Lagos State, followed by its first case of local transmission on 9 March 2020 in Ewekoro, Ogun State, after contact tracing linked a Nigerian citizen to the index patient (Nwakpu et al., 2020). Akwa Ibom State recorded its own first case in April 2020, with a second case, involving a member of the Government House Press Corps, reported the following month. As the pandemic progressed, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), working alongside the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (later renamed the Presidential Steering Committee), coordinated a nationwide public enlightenment and risk-communication campaign anchored substantially on the mass media, in an effort to curb the spread of the disease across Nigeria's thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory (Ihekweazu et al., 2022).

This reliance on the media for pandemic-related information was made possible, and indeed amplified, by Nigeria's rapidly expanding telecommunications infrastructure. According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), active mobile phone subscriptions in the country stood at over 220.7 million as of August 2023, with more than 159 million active internet subscribers and a broadband penetration rate in excess of 45 per cent (NCC, cited in Vanguard, 2023). This scale of connectivity meant that, unlike earlier disease outbreaks in the country's history, the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded simultaneously across traditional broadcast media, print and an expanding ecosystem of social media platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter (now X) and Instagram, giving millions of Nigerians unprecedented, near-instantaneous access to pandemic-related content (Obi-Ani, Anikwenze, & Isiani, 2020). The media therefore had an essential role to play in communicating health promotion messages, mobilising compliance with preventive measures and shaping public perception of government's response (John, 2023).

This dependence, however, was double-edged. Just as legitimate health information travelled swiftly on Nigeria's expansive media and digital networks, so too did rumours, conspiracy theories and outright falsehoods, a phenomenon the WHO termed an “infodemic” (Ying & Cheng, 2021). In a nationwide qualitative study involving 178 participants drawn from Nigeria's six geopolitical zones, Wonodi, Obi-Jeff, Adewumi, Keluo-Udeke, Gur-Arie, Krubiner, Jaffe, Bamiduro, Karron and Faden (2022) documented thirty-three distinct conspiracy theories circulating about COVID-19 in the country, the most prevalent being the claim that the disease had been fabricated by politicians to divert public funds. Similarly, a study of Nigerian youth conducted in the early weeks of the pandemic found that although the mass media, particularly radio and television, remained the most commonly cited sources of COVID-19 information, a considerable proportion of respondents also relied on social media, where the accuracy of content varied widely (Kolapo et al., 2021). Such findings underscore the dual capacity of the media, both mass and social, to either strengthen or undermine public health outcomes during a pandemic.

Despite these challenges, evidence gathered since the pandemic suggests that well-designed media campaigns produced measurable public health benefits in Nigeria. In a national online survey of 359 respondents, John (2023) found that 89.08 per cent of participants first heard about COVID-19 through media messages, with a statistically significant correlation between social media coverage of the pandemic and the level of public support for containment measures. In a related line of research, a series of randomised and quasi-experimental evaluations of a nationwide social media vaccination campaign implemented across Nigeria's thirty-six states between 2021 and 2022 found that exposure to pro-vaccination social media content was associated with higher COVID-19 vaccination rates and stronger pro-vaccination social norms among Nigerians (Evans et al., 2023). These findings resonate with the long-standing position within mass communication scholarship that, in times of crisis and uncertainty, audiences intensify their reliance on the media to reduce ambiguity and manage anxiety (Ball-Rokeach & DeFleur, 1976).

It is this proposition, on the changing texture of audience dependency on media during health emergencies, that anchors the theoretical foundation of the present study. When Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin DeFleur first postulated the Media System Dependency (MSD) theory in 1976, they could scarcely have anticipated the emergence of social media, smartphones and the scale of digital connectivity that now characterises information ecosystems in countries such as Nigeria. Yet the theory's central assumption, that the more an individual depends on the media to satisfy an information need, the more central that medium becomes in the individual's life and, consequently, the greater its influence on the individual's beliefs, attitudes and behaviour, has proven remarkably durable and continues to be validated in contemporary pandemic-era scholarship (Uzuegbunam, 2024). A cross-cultural study of media use during COVID-19 spanning the United States, Thailand and Croatia similarly confirmed that dependence on media intensified during the uncertainty of the pandemic, and that this dependence was directly associated with stronger media effects on participants' attitudes and wellbeing (Sheldon, Antony, Charoensap-Kelly, Morgan, & Weldon, 2021). During a health emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, the more Nigerians relied on the media to have their pandemic-related information needs met, the more central a role the media, both mass and social, played in shaping public understanding of, and response to, the disease. It is against this background that the present study investigates the use of mass media and social media in the campaign against the spread of Coronavirus disease, using Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State, as its focal area of study (Ikon, 2020).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

COVID-19 primarily affects the respiratory system, with symptoms ranging from fever, cough and mild shortness of breath to severe oxygen desaturation and respiratory failure. Beyond the lungs, the disease has also been associated with thromboembolic complications, myocardial injury, pulmonary embolism and, in some patients, kidney failure (John, 2023). Transmission occurs primarily through respiratory droplets and close contact, although evidence also points to airborne and, to a lesser extent, faeco-oral spread, with the virus remaining viable on some surfaces for hours or, under certain conditions, days. This heterogeneous clinical and epidemiological profile has continued to complicate public health messaging around the disease and has made accurate, timely media coverage all the more critical.

These uncertainties naturally heightened public anxiety and pushed Nigerians toward whatever information sources were most accessible to them, chiefly the traditional mass media (radio, television and newspapers) and, increasingly, social media platforms. Controlling the spread of a novel disease such as COVID-19 requires early recognition of symptoms, prompt diagnosis, effective home and hospital management, and appropriate preventive action, all of which depend on the coordinated efforts of government, the healthcare system, the media and the public (Ihekweazu et al., 2022). Whenever a new infectious disease emerges, its trajectory typically moves from localised transmission through amplification to eventual containment, and at every stage of this chain, from anticipation and early detection to containment, mitigation and control, the media plays a critical role in shaping how the public perceives risk and responds to official guidance (Warigon, 2025).

The manner in which the media frames disease outbreaks has long been shown to influence public attitudes and behaviour. During the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, for instance, media coverage in several countries was found to simultaneously raise public awareness of protective measures and, in some cases, fuel the stigmatisation of infected persons following sensationalised reporting, illustrating the two-directional relationship between media coverage and disease control efforts (Nwakpu et al., 2020). This pattern re-emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, Nigeria-based studies have shown that media exposure was strongly associated with public awareness of preventive measures and with support for government containment strategies (John, 2023). On the other hand, the same media ecosystem, particularly the unregulated segments of social media, has been implicated in the rapid spread of conspiracy theories, vaccine misinformation and pandemic denialism, undermining compliance with public health directives in various parts of the country (Wonodi et al., 2022; Uzuegbunam, 2024).

While a growing body of scholarship has examined the mediatisation of COVID-19 coverage in Nigeria at the national level, considerably less attention has been paid to how residents of specific sub-national urban centres, such as Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State, depended on the mass media and social media for pandemic-related information, which media platforms they trusted and preferred, and how they perceived the media's overall performance in the campaign against the spread of the disease (Ikon, 2020). This gap is significant because information behaviour, media access and media trust vary considerably across Nigeria's diverse regions, and health communication strategies that succeed in Lagos or Abuja cannot simply be assumed to translate to the South-South geopolitical zone. It is this gap that the present study seeks to fill by investigating the use of mass media and social media in the campaign against the spread of Coronavirus disease among residents of Uyo metropolis.

1.3 Objective of the Study

The main objective of the study is to investigate the use of mass media and social media in the campaign against the spread of Coronavirus disease. Specifically, the study aims to:

1. Determine the extent to which Uyo residents depended on the media for information during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

2. Identify the most preferred media for information during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

3. Determine Uyo residents' perception of the role of each medium in information dissemination during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

1.4 Significance of the Study

This study will enable relevant agencies concerned with public health communication in Akwa Ibom State and Nigeria more broadly to appraise the existing media framework for possible modification or modernisation, particularly as the country continues to build long-term systems for the management of COVID-19 and future disease outbreaks under WHO's 2023–2025 strategic preparedness plan (World Health Organization, 2023). By documenting how the media covered the outbreak of the novel virus, the study offers empirical evidence that can guide health communicators, media practitioners and policymakers in designing more effective, culturally appropriate risk-communication strategies for future public health emergencies (Ihekweazu et al., 2022).

The study also exposes residents' perception of the media as an institution concerned with public welfare, and, from there, highlights the potency of the media as an instrument of mass education and mobilisation with implications for public policy in the state. Given the demonstrated capacity of well-targeted social media campaigns to increase vaccine uptake and strengthen pro-health social norms in Nigeria (Evans et al., 2023), the findings of this study will be useful to government agencies, non-governmental organisations and international health bodies seeking evidence-based guidance on how to deploy mass media and social media more effectively in subsequent health campaigns. Finally, the study will be of value to scholars and students of mass communication, public health and development communication who wish to build on its findings in future research.

1.5 Research Questions

The following research questions were formulated in order to achieve the research objectives:

1. What is the extent to which Uyo residents depended on the media for information during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria?

2. What is the most preferred media for information during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria?

3. What is Uyo residents' perception of the role of each medium in information dissemination during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria?

1.6 Scope/Limitation of the Study

The study on the use of mass media and social media in the campaign against the spread of Coronavirus disease was carried out in Uyo, the state capital of Akwa Ibom State, in the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria. It covers the whole of Uyo metropolis, which, for the purposes of this study, is divided into six clusters: Abak Road, Ikot Ekpene Road, Nwaniba Road, Oron Road, Aka Road and Wellington Bassey Way.

The study is limited in a number of respects. First, because data collection relies on respondents' self-reported recollection of their media use during the pandemic, the findings are subject to the ordinary limitations of retrospective self-report, including recall bias (Kolapo et al., 2021). Second, given that the study is restricted to Uyo metropolis, its findings, while useful for understanding media dependency patterns in urban Akwa Ibom State, may not be fully generalisable to rural communities within the state or to other parts of Nigeria with different levels of media access and digital connectivity (NCC, cited in Vanguard, 2023). Third, the rapidly evolving nature of Nigeria's media and telecommunications landscape means that patterns of media use identified in this study reflect the specific period of the COVID-19 pandemic and may shift as internet penetration, platform popularity and regulatory conditions continue to change (Warigon, 2025). These limitations notwithstanding, the study provides a useful empirical snapshot of media dependency and information-seeking behaviour among Uyo residents during a defining public health emergency.

1.7 Operational Definition of Terms

Mass Media: Institutionalised channels of communication, such as radio, television and newspapers, that disseminate information to large, heterogeneous and geographically dispersed audiences simultaneously.

Social Media: Internet-based and mobile applications, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter (X) and Instagram, that allow users to create, share and exchange user-generated content and to interact with one another in real time.

Media Dependency: The degree to which an individual relies on a particular medium or media system to satisfy an information, orientation or social need, particularly during periods of uncertainty or crisis (Ball-Rokeach & DeFleur, 1976).

COVID-19 Pandemic: The global outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019, caused by SARS-CoV-2, declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation on 11 March 2020 and formally ended as a global public health emergency on 5 May 2023 (World Health Organization, 2023).

Infodemic: An overabundance of information, both accurate and inaccurate, that spreads alongside a disease outbreak and makes it difficult for the public to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance (Ying & Cheng, 2021).

Information-Seeking Behaviour: The purposive and active process by which individuals identify a need for information and search for, evaluate and use content that satisfies that need.

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