THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN CONSOLIDATING DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA: A CASE OF GOMBE MEDIA CORPORATION

Abstract

In any country, the media plays the role of entrenching democracy and cooperation between the leaders and the citizenry. However, the efficacy of the mass media in Nigeria in promoting democracy has been limited from the onset by several factors, for this reason, it is germane to note that, Nigeria’s democracy has remained grossly unstable since the return to this popular form of governance in 1999. It is against this background, that this research seeks to examine the role of the mass media in democratic consolidation in Nigeria using Gombe Media Corporation as case study. The research design was basically a survey research and data were generated from both primary and secondary sources with questionnaires as the instruments for generating the primary data. The populations of the study were the 225 staff of Gombe Media Corporation and 69 people were purposely selected and interviewed from members of the public mostly were those in Gombe metropolis. Random sampling was adopted in sampling the respondents from the staff categories while accidental/convenience sampling techniques was used on members of the public. Data gathered were presented in frequency tables. At the end of the analysis, it was discovered that the Gombe Media Corporation has been contributing to educate the people about political activities in the state; however Gombe media corporation is owned by the state government and as such controlled by politicians with political biases and leanings, therefore, to effectively perform their roles, it was recommended that Gombe Media Corporation should be independent and be given a free hand to perform within the ethics of their profession.