Abstract: This study tend to X-ray Media role in the democratic process to appraise the present electoral process, especially now that the 2015 General Election has just been conducted, supervised and declared. The press has emerged in Nigeria in the last one and half century for the dismantling of colonial rule; slavery, slave trade, the fight for political independence in 1960 struggle for Republican Nigeria in 1963; and democratic rule. Besides, the Nigerian press has served as the major pillar against military rule, coup detat, election rigging and political thuggery and brigandage in the first, second, third and fourth republic. Upon all, the press has acted as the self-appointed monitor of official life, recorder of public events and unofficial arbiter of public behavior. This study will give a retrospect look into the role of the media in the sustenance in Nigeria during the period 1999-2007. The paper x-rays the functions of the mass media/Press against the background of the theoretical framework of the paper, which was revived from the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, the functionalist theory and the Social Responsibility Theory. The paper discuss some of the fundamental ethical principles underpinning the functions of the mass media against the background of selected incidents of government repression of the media and how the fourth estate of the realm has survived the onslaught. The thesis of this paper is that although media practitioners contribute immensely to midwife and sustain democracy, they are hardly appreciated by government in terms of policy frameworks and pragmatic actions.
Keywords: Press, Mass Media, Democracy, Nascent.
Title: The Role of the Press in Nascent Democracy
Author: Abati Mobolaji O., Bunmi Banjo (Mrs)
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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