Abstract
Government’s financial support for sport Federations in Nigeria steadily declines, even when sport all over the world is becoming more capital-intensive. In order to achieve development in the sport sector in Nigeria, mass media has to be utilized effectively.
The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived role of media on sports development in Nigeria, with reference to provision of sports facilities, sports personnel development, funding of sports, creation of sports awareness, encouraging people’s participation and attracting sports sponsorship. Description survey research design was used in the study. In pursuance of the specific objectives, six research questions were formulated with three hypotheses. The sample for the study consisted 146 respondents made up of all the 21 sports Administrators in NFA in Nigeria and the 125 Nigeria athletes who were in the camp at the time of the study. A researcher – made instrument titled Perceived Role of Media on Sports Development Questionnaire (PIMSDQ) with a reliability coefficient of .68 was used for data collection. The result of the data analysis, using criterion mean of 2.50 and t-test at .05 level of significance showed that media influence the provision of sports facilities, personnel development, funding of sports, creation of sports awareness, encouraging people’s participation and attracting sponsorship for sports competition in Nigeria. The finding further revealed that there is a significant difference between sports Administrator and Athlete’s perceptions on role of media on provision of sports facilities, sports personnel development and creation of sport awareness.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Physical activities and exercises during the primitive age were through the means of earning a livelihood or of survival. These were achieved through their search for food or seeking protection from wild animals or aggressive neighbours. Ancient Civilization witnessed a new trend in organized physical activities which required a set of rules and regulations and also competitions which authorities considered as sports. Sport is an organized competitive and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play (Dauda, Dominic, & Adesoye, 2015). The advent of modern Olympic Games sparked off the height of sports development worldwide.
Nigeria's participation in universal games dated back to pre-independence. Formal sports association began in Nigeria at around 1910 with the presentation of Empire Day competition, which were organised among schools. Nigeria's first participation in a worldwide championship was in 1934 at the Empire day competition in London, now Commonwealth Games (Yusuf & Ahmed, 2015). Her first appearance in the cutting edge Olympic Games was in 1952. With the accomplishment of autonomy in 1960, sport came under government coordinate control.
The reconciliation value of sports after the Nigeria civil war led to the upgrading of the National Sports Council in the early 1970s to the National Sports Commission with a measure of executive responsibility for sports development. Sports Associations were formed for easy administration (Aibueku, 2011). The game of basketball also enjoyed this providence.
Sports was originally a recreational activity, but with the introduction of financial and material benefits and an attendant honour to it, the number of participants, the number of events and the struggle for victory have introduced high level politics into it. Consequent upon the expected rewards, fraud, irregularities and injustices have overshadowed the system. However, a lot of people and groups are now interested in knowing about sporting events. Fixtures, dates, time and place of such events become matters of interest. They equally raise a question about past ones and even the plans for the future.
Thus, information and mass awareness become primary in solving this quest for information and knowledge. A special unit or field in the world of journalism takes it upon itself to report sporting events to the public.
The effects of these reports both in shaping the behaviour of the public and management of sports in general demand specialization and skills in sports reporting.
This research in acknowledging these facts, examines the impact of media in sport development in Nigeria. Sports were a recreational phenomenon till the early 1930’s when the first world sports fiesta was held. The processes of selection among different nations led to stronger and more competitive sports among nations and continents. Thus, competitive sports serve as an integrating force, and source of socio-political relationships. As an incentive and motivation to individuals and nations contending to the throne, financial benefits, international honours, merit awards were introduced. Sports bodies such as Federation International de Football Association (FIFA), Confederation of African Football (CAF) and National Food Authority (NFA) were established and employment opportunities created.
Consequently, various sporting activities, medals, pressure groups and interests emerged. Every day, these groups and interests press or seek to know about the processes and dynamics of these sporting activities, ostensibly with a view to preserve and/or influence certain phenomena.
The mass media fill this responsibility gap as they report these activities and provide the necessary information needed to all interested parties far and wide. Beazell W.P. observed this when he wrote, “sports news comes nearer than anything else I know of, to the common denominator of news. There is probably more universal reader interest in the sports pages than in any of the other parts of the modem Newspaper.”
This duty has great influence on the entire socio-cultural, political, and economic structure of nations. Sport commentaries originated nationalistic activities/pressures, fanaticism, and hooliganism in sports. Because of its wider reach, it has become the surest, though the costliest, means of advertising products, services and programmes. It has yielded millions for their organizers and made many analysts, and commentators international personalities/heroes.
The struggle for heteronomy among nations has equally been extended to sports. Considering the role of sports reporting, necessary reporting materials and Concrete facts are needed for quality and objective reporting.
They are interested in the means and methods of data gathering. Generally, they obtain the data through personal observation, press association, publications and mass media.
With the introduction of financial and material benefits and an attendant honour to sport, the number of participants, the number of events and the struggle for victory has introduced high level politics into it. Consequent upon the expected rewards, fraud, irregularities and injustices have overshadowed the system. However, a lot of people and groups are now interested in knowing about sporting events. Fixtures, dates, time and place of such events become matters of interest. They equally raise a question about past ones and even the plans for the future.
The sports reporters gather, process, interpret and publish relevant news items needed by interested parties. This responsibility puts them on the move all the time, hunting for facts that will be of immense value to the public. This paper, therefore, x-rays organization Structures of sports reporting, responsibility of sports reporters and technical for effective sports reporting.
1.2 Statement Of The Problem
This research is investigating on the role of media in sport development in Nigeria, it is a know fact that sport has become part and parcel of youth’s life especially male who spend lots of their valuable time in watching sport activities on television. While, later in another day converge at the various newspapers stands scanning, reading and buying sport papers. Despite both fact that yesterday news is said to be a stale news in journalism sphere but refers is the case when it come into sport.
Since the turnout of readers is impressive, the paper exanimate complete sport being able to promote sport development through this high readership.
Interest in sport activities among the Nigeria youth as resulted to the emergency of various newspapers which focuses on sport activities such as: complete sport, soccer, e. t. c and various foreign sport class newspapers such as: Man U, Chelsea. e. t. c
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to determine perceived role of media on sports development in Nigeria. Specifically, the study was to determine perceived role of media on;
1. provision of sports facilities in Nigeria.
2. sports Personnel development in Nigeria.
3. funding of sports in Nigeria
4. creation of sports awareness in Nigeria.
5. encouraging people’s participation in sporting activities in Nigeria.
6. attracting sponsorship for sports competition in Nigeria.
1.4 Research Questions
1. What is the perceived role of media on provision of sports facilities in Nigeria?
2. What is the perceived role of media on personnel development in Nigeria?
3. What is the perceived role of media on funding of sports in Nigeria?
4. What is the perceived role of media on creation of sports awareness in Nigeria?
5. What is the perceived role of media on encouraging people’s participation in sporting activities in Nigeria?
6. What is the perceived role of media in attracting sponsorship for sports competition in Nigeria?
1.5 Significance Of The Study
There is no doubt about the fact that work like this will be beneficiary to some set of people and entity. Meanwhile, this work on the role of media in sport development will benefit the following people, journalists, media owners, sport fans, government and future researchers.
Journalists: Sport writers and sport editors will at the end of this work realize the importance of their work in entertaining the people this will make them do more.
Media Owners: The research findings will enable media owners to earmark reasonable amount of money, equipment and other logistics to support their sport desk.
Government: government at all levels will see reasons for developing local sport so that local sport will be given more priority than the foreign ones. While government should make available some important gadget for sport reporting.
Future Researcher: Researchers who will be exploring on this or related Research will find the work interesting and as a reference point.
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of the study is limited to the role of the media in sports development in Nigeria within the context of electronic media. Although, the basic objective of the project is to examine the impact of media in sport development in Nigeria, this cannot be effectively studied without considering the contribution complete electronic media has made to the development of sport in Nigeria.
1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The study concentrates mostly on role of media ownership on the professionalism especially programmes and contents credibility and objectivity of electronic media football sites. These factors will be linked up with the absolute power the owner of tunes media has on journalists and news editors, because he who pay the pipers dictate the tunes.
Time: Time constraint has posed a lot of limitations to this work as it took me a lot of time to gather enough literature materials while it was stressful to travel to different places.
Finance: Inadequate finance for this project is another hindrance: there was no enough money to browse extensively for the needed materials.
Materials: at present there was little literature materials available for this work as researchers were not really focus on this aspect.
However, despite the difficulties facing in course of this research, positive result was achieved.
For more Mass Communication Projects Click here
===================================================================Item Type: Project Material | Size: 54 pages | Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word | Delivery: Within 30Mins.
===================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.