AN ASSESSMENT OF MASS MEDIA'S ROLE IN SUPPORTING WOMEN EMPLOYMENT CAMPAIGN IN NIGERIA

AN ASSESSMENT OF MASS MEDIA'S ROLE IN SUPPORTING WOMEN EMPLOYMENT CAMPAIGN IN NIGERIA
 
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The mass media have played a vital role supporting women employment campaign in Nigeria. This it achieves using it’s channels which include: the radio, the television, newspaper and magazines, books journals and so on. In addition to supporting women empowerment campaign, they also performs the functions of socialization, information, education, communication by carrying out enlightenment programmes. They create forum for information and motivation. The fundamental function of the mass media is mainly to expose, provide and enhance incidental learning. They have the capacity to reflect and shape opinion thus playing active role in public attitude formation. It is a very effective body of communication with good and wide availability which makes it more convincing that a large number of people are more likely to be influenced. Therefore, the mass media aims at converting, re –enforcing, charging or persuading the activities of people in a given society. A unique between the mass media and other agents of socialization and techniques by which specialized groups employ technological device “press, radio, films etc. to disseminate symbolic content to a large public.
In assessing the role of the mass media in supporting women employment campaign in Nigeria therefore, one takes into cognizance those roles both the radio, television, newspaper, magazines, books and journals etc. have played by improving and ensuring the welfare of the women in our society. Abiola Akiyode Afolabi – a Lawyer and the Executive Director of women advocates research and documentation centre, WARDC emphasized the need for women to clamour for their rights and make the states to be more sensitive to their issues. In Nigeria, women constitute 497 percent of our population, based on the 1991 census. They therefore argue that in as much as they are almost equal to the population of men, they don’t know why the government can continue to rule without being sensitive to the rights of women. They therefore suggest that government should take issues of women as priority.