PRESS COVERAGE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DAILYTRUST AND VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS.

PRESS COVERAGE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DAILYTRUST AND VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS.

Abstract:

This study was conducted to assess how newspapers covered political parties in the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria, by comparing the quantity of report between Daily Trust and Vanguard newspapers, to find out the political party with the highest attention and most prominence and then the most common theme of coverage. The study adopted Agenda setting and political economy theory as the theoretical framework and content analysis as the research design.A census of all the 264 editions of the newspapers published within the five months period of election campaign—November, 2014 to March, 2015 was done.Data were collected with the aid of code sheet as the instrument of data collection. Afterward,the data from these newspapers were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that Vanguard newspaper gave more attention to the political parties during the 2015 presidential general election than the Daily Trust newspaper. Similarly, out of the 14 political parties that participated at the 2015 presidential election, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had the highest attention on the selected papers with Vanguard newspaper according more frequency than Daily Trust newspaper. In addition, more prominence was given to All Progressives Congress party throughout the period of the election by selected newspaper with Daily Trust newspaper conferringthan the Vanguard newspaper. Likewise, it was also found that, policy had the most common theme of coverage during the period of the presidential election on Daily Trust than the Vanguard newspaper. Based on the findings, it is recommended that Nigerian newspapers should endeavor to give equal preference to all political parties during and after election as enshrined in the constitution

PRESS COVERAGE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DAILYTRUST AND VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS.