Assessment of Mass Media Availability and Level of Usage in the Teaching and Learning

Assessment of Mass Media Availability and Level of Usage in the Teaching and Learning

ABSTRACT

This research was carried out to assess mass media availability and level of usage in the teaching and learning of Government in Lagos State schools. The research design for this study was a descriptive survey. It employed the use of two questionnaires: Teachers Questionnaire on Availability and Level of Usage of Mass Media (TQALMM) and Students’ Questionnaire on Availability and Level of Usage of Mass Media (SQALMM) to collect data from a population sample of five teachers and seventy-five students, making a total of eighty respondents. Ten research questions were raised for the purpose of this study, while four hypotheses were stated and tested in the study using a t-test. The following findings emerged from the study: there was a significant relationship between the availability and level of usage of mass media in teaching and learning Government as a subject. However, there was a significant difference among teachers in their perception of the challenges faced in using mass media to teach Government as a subject. There was also a significant difference in the perception of students about challenges faced in learning Government. It was also discovered that there was an overreliance on the print media, especially the use of the textbook in teaching and learning Government, to the detriment of other types of mass media, especially the electronic media, in which the radio was unavailable for teaching and learning Government. Some Government textbooks were outdated and did not reflect current trends like the digital media. The following recommendations were made to improve the use of mass media in teaching and learning. Government: school authorities should take advantage of the radio and work closely with radio stations to develop programs for teaching and learning government in schools. School authorities should also ensure that their teachers and students are computer literate and can assess the internet and social networks for fruitful academic endeavors. A monitoring checkup system can also be set up, e.g., blocking nonacademic sites on the internet, selecting social networks that can suit academic pursuits, etc. There should also be an ICT department in every school to help teachers and students alike to make the best use of ICT equipment. The government should subsidize internet subscriptions to schools and even provide hardware equipment to schools that cannot afford it. More corporate organizations should be encouraged to establish ICT labs in schools as a social responsibility.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of study

According to Wikipedia, education is facilitating learning or acquiring knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. According to John Dewey (1916), it is a social process –a process of living and not a preparation for future living. Education is from three Latin words:

1. Educatum meaning the act of teaching or training

2. Educare meaning to bring up or to raise.

3. Educere meaning to lead forth or to come out

Education nourishes the good qualities in man and draws out the best in every individual. Education is often confused with schooling, famously called banking by Paulo Freire (1973), i.e., to make deposits of knowledge on learners like objects acted on rather than individuals to be related to. Individuals should be given time to discover truth and possibility. Education means developing a person morally (effectively), physically (psychomotor), and mentally (cognitive). It is the foundation of the society and the best investment for the people. The main purpose of education is to prepare and qualify people for work in society and to socialize them, preparing the young for adulthood. Education enables a person to understand his/her cultural identity. Education provides a forum to evaluate and find solutions to problems in a society. Education teaches learners to maintain social order. Education and mass media have, over time, enjoyed a sweet-sour relationship. On the one hand, TV and newspapers have provided extensive useful educational content and acted as watchdogs of public activities; however, their role has been compromised these days by the battle for survival in the media industry. Education experts look up to the media to do more than act as a watchdog and help build an efficient education system by bridging the communication gap between the government and educational policymakers. The media plays a significant role in designing, manipulating, and sustaining international diplomacy and body politics. For the adolescent, the media has become a socializing agent. Adolescence is a time of self-identification. Therefore, family influence decreases while peer influence increases. Media is the means and channel through which information and news reach individuals that constitute the local, national, regional, Continental, and or international audience. In recent times, media has become a political tool of the dominant paradigm in national, continental, and international politics. In Africa and nearly most other third-world countries, national governments use the potential of media information and language to manipulate the masses and influence public opinion. The media is used to maintain and retain the status quo. But with media power, all those who have vested interests in its control make the ordinary citizen a mere puppet. Subjective reporting is the selection of content and media coverage for some diplomatic and political motive. Through subjective reporting, global media initiates, instigates, fuels, and aggravates crises and conflicts that later degenerate into terrorism (transnational and international). According to social responsibility media theory, duties of the media include:

1. To serve the political system by making information, discussion, and consideration of public affairs generally accessible.

2. Inform the public to enable them to take self-determined actions.

3. To protect the rights of the individual by acting as a watchdog over the government.

However, mass media has harmful effects. Firstly, teachers only use media to get attention to the subject matter, to reward good behavior, and to keep kids quiet and under control. Media content can sensationalize violent behavior, exposure to subtle or explicit sexual content, promotion of poor health habits, and exposure to advertising targeting children. Moreover, the majority of programs for children and youth in developing countries are imported. Unfortunately, most of the content contains character messages that are not relevant to local culture. Youth programming has been reduced in the face of funding cuts and growing competition from private channels. As rich in content as television is in instructional, educational programming, and news reportage, students and teachers are not abreast of socio-political issues. This is because TV news reportage and programming are beyond students’ comprehension of extracting and analyzing information. TV programming and news reporting are politically inclined and biased. Major TV networks in Nigeria chase for airtime. Money dictates what is shown on Nigerian TV screens. This ultimately means that people who have the funds, e.g., the government, rich politicians, private investors, multicorporations, etc, determine what is broadcast on TV. Corporations and private investors are profit-oriented and will push any media content that will reach their target audience to make enough profit, while the government and politicians are after promoting a good image through propaganda, especially during the electoral process. Therefore, teachers and students are left with media content that is devoid of socio-political significance or tainted with cheap propaganda. Media content has generally been commercialized.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The challenges of the availability of media are enormous: propaganda and brown envelope journalism, the foreign nature of media content, the bombardment of advertisements, reluctance to encourage youth programs, regional and sectional interests, power outages, accessibility of the internet, and inadequate ICT equipment. The cost of airing TV programs is very high, so producers sacrifice educational programs for entertainment, which is readily sponsored by corporate bodies because it is profitable. The radio appeals to different audiences and ethnic and religious differences (segmentation). This makes its usage very selective, as students might find it difficult to tune in to a station for information. Internet penetration in Nigeria is very high now, and so is its subscription. Students might not be able to afford subscription fees and might not have access to ICT equipment, e.g., laptops, personal computers, phones, hand-held devices, etc, to download E-books. The digital divide between teachers and students is quite alarming. Most teachers do not know how to handle ICT equipment and find it difficult to keep abreast with current trends. This affects their usage level, and they retort to old media for information instead of complementing both sources of information.

The shelf life of newspapers is very low, and this causes both students and teachers to assess magazines because of their attractiveness and shelf life. The challenges of using the media include poor reading skills.Due to technological development, reading habits are changing. Students now lack the skill of reading. Instead, they spend more hours on electronic media. The acquisition of reading skills has a beneficial effect on all school subjects, including social science, math, and so on. Unfortunately, reading is not taught or included in the school curriculum. Only a few schools have good libraries, while the majority have limited dog-eared books locked up in a few cupboards. There is an unprecedented rise in the price of books while DVDS are becoming more affordable. The vast world’s information is not digitized. Rather, it is in print form, mostly in books. Aina (2011).Children with poor reading habits have a higher chance of anti-social behavior. Today’s populace between the age bracket 18-34 are increasingly using the web as their medium of choice for news consumption. Local TV remains the most accessed source of the news, and the internet is quickly becoming the favorite of young consumers. About 44% of these age brackets use the Internet for news, and about 19% use printed newspapers. Moral degeneration and decadence, gross obsession and abuse of social networking, and inadequate knowledge by teachers are other challenges of using the media.Unfortunately, the endemic power outages in the country pose a limiting factor to the extent to which the radio can be used to effectively broadcast educational programs. The problem with television is whether a separate channel will be assigned educational programs or to establish separate TV houses for education. There is also the problem of incessant power outages. The influence of electronic media in educating students is not socially progressive. It has resulted in frustration on the part of many teachers who do not have adequate knowledge of electronic media technologies like computer internet, education software, etc. Also, it is time-consuming and skill-demanding for teachers. Users of electronic media, for example, students, can be vulnerable to unintended misuse of electronic media, e.g., social media. Social networks grab the total attention and concentration of the students and divert them towards noneducational, unethical, and inappropriate actions such as useless chatting, time killing by random searching, and not doing their jobs. Inadequate infrastructure, including computer hardware, software, and bandwidth, is a major challenge in using digital media. Agbamuche, (2015).

1.3 PURPOSE OF STUDY

The purpose of this study is to:

1. Find out the availability of mass media to Government teachers in secondary schools.

2. Determine the availability of mass media to Government students in secondary schools.

3. Assess the challenges in the availability of mass media to Government teachers in secondary schools.

4. Assess the challenges in the availability of mass media to Government students in secondary schools.

5. Evaluate the level of mass media usage by government teachers in secondary schools.

6. Assess the level of mass media usage by government students in secondary schools.

7. Analyse the challenges of government teachers using mass media in secondary schools.

8. Assess the challenges of government students using mass media in secondary schools.

9. Appraising mass media’s availability in teaching and learning Government in secondary schools.

10. Appraising the level of mass media usage in teaching and learning Government in secondary schools.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. To what extent is mass media available to Government teachers in secondary schools?

2. To what extent is mass media available to Government teachers in secondary schools?

3. What are the factors that affect the availability of mass media to Government teachers in secondary schools?

4. What are the factors that affect the availability of mass media to Government students in secondary schools?

5. How often do Government teachers use the mass media?

6. How often do Government students use the mass media?

7. What challenges do government teachers face when using mass media?

8. What challenges do government students face when using mass media?

9. What is the most preferred mass medium used by Government teachers in secondary schools?

10. What is the most preferred mass medium used by government students in secondary schools

1.5 NULL HYPOTHESIS

1. There is no significant relationship between the availability and level of usage of mass media in teaching Government as a subject.

2. There is no significant relationship between the availability and level of usage of mass media in learning Government as a subject.

3. There is no significant difference in the perception of teachers about challenges using the media

4. There is no significant difference in the perception of students about challenges using the media

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

This study will help Government teachers and students use the best practices and most effective mass media usage to reduce the negative influences of the media that hinder fruitful academic learning. It will also help create awareness of the best form of mass media that is effective for teaching and learning the subject.

1.7 SCOPE OF STUDY

This study assesses mass media availability and usage level in government teaching and learning in Lagos state schools. However, the scope of this study will be limited to Government teachers and students in Pedro, Shomolu Local Government, Lagos State.