MAC113: History of Nigerian Mass Media
Introduction
Let me first congratulate you for choosing to study mass communication. I want to state right away that MAC 113: History of Nigerian Mass Media is indispensable at this early stage. It will guide and reveal to you the events, personalities, and factors that preceded and surrounded the emergence of the press in Nigeria. In this course, you will come across popular Nigerians who laid a strong foundation for the establishment and development of the mass media in the country.
It is important to note that all the nations of the world have peculiar experiences regarding the growth of the media. For this reason, this course simply presents the history of the mass media; the Nigerian experience. The modules in this course will look at the inception and development of various newspapers from the nineteen century to the past-independence era. You will be drawn to major newspapers as well as the proprietors whose ideas shaped the policies of those media. You will also learn how some personalities sacrificed their time, money and pleasure to innovate media measures in order to fight colonialism.
At the end of this course, you should be able to:
• Define the mass media and identify the types of mass media
• Mention the newspapers in the pre-colonial and post-colonial era
• List major contributors to the development of the mass media in Nigeria
• Recognise the role played by non-Nigerians
• Discuss how nationalists and politicians used the mass media to frustrate colonialism and pursue the emergence of a new and liberated Nigeria
The aims of this course are to:
• Explain the concept of the mass media
• Discuss different types of the mass media and their interrelationships
• Present various newspapers, their achievements, challenges, constraints, and extent of circulation
• Discuss the contributions of some notable nationalists and professionals to the development of the mass media
• X-ray in detail the incidence and expansion of the broadcast media as well as the political factors that determined their establishment.