POLITICS AND DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGES

RE-VISITING THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN THE NIGERIA’S FOURTH REPUBLIC

Abstract

This study articulates the state of Nigeria and the drive to addressing the pitfalls that have over the years shrunk the political space. The political system has been under serious political equations that have consistently threatened the corporate and peaceful existence of the Nigerian state. As a result of the above, it questions the essence of the media in protecting democracy in Nigeria, what constitute democratic problems and panacea to be adopted towards ameliorating these challenges. It is against this backdrop that this study seeks to explore the dynamics of political waves in Nigeria vis-a-vis promoting and protecting the interest of the masses within the polity. In holistic term, it exposes the negative application of politics as a practice and media efforts towards sensitizing the masses on the import of democracy. It adopts secondary data which were presented in textual form. Thus, descriptive and deductive logic were used as method of data analysis. To that extent, the framework of analysis that gives the study clearer explanatory stance is the elite theory. This enables us locate the fundamental influence to democratic challenges and the interest behind it. It discovers that both the old media and the new media are trapped in the web and the control of the powerful in the state. The paper therefore calls for the application of freedom of information law in other to reduce the excesses of power dominance coming from the behind the screen operators.