RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ON LITERATURE REVIEW ON WOMEN LIBERATION STEREOTYPED COVERAGE AND REPORTING IN NIGERIA: A STUDY OF THE NATION AND VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1     RESEARCH DESIGN

          The study adopted the content analysis method. Content analysis has been defined as a systematic, replicable technique for compressing many words or text into fewer content categories based on explicit rules of coding (Krippendorff, 1980).

          It is any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages (Holstic, 1969). Content analysis enables researchers to shift through large volumes of data with relative ease in a systematic fashion.

          According to Ohaja (2003), content analysis refers to the examination of the manifest content of communication to discover the patters existing therein. Such manifest content could be advertisements, news stories, features, opinion, articles, editorial, letters-to-the editor, cartoons, photographs and other illustrations in a newspaper or magazine.

3.2     POPULATION OF STUDY

          The population of this study comprises the whole 25 national newspapers published in Nigeria, both private and government owned.

3.3     SAMPLE SIZE

          From the population, the size for this study was narrowed down to two editions of the Vanguard and  the nation newspapers for each week. This give a total of four editions of the newspapers per month. This gave a total size of 60 editions for the period of seven month. This gave a total size of 60 editions for the period of seven month of the study, 30 editions each from both newspapers.

s/no	Publication	Number of editions
1	Vanguard	30
2	Nation	30
Total	2	60

 

3.4     SAMPLING TECHNIQUE

          Technique sample means the method employed to select the sample size. For the purpose of this work, purposive sampling technique was used to select two editions of the Vanguard and the Nation newspapers. From this, the researcher used a simple random sampling balloting to pick Wednesday editions of the Vanguard and the Nation newspapers for the period of six months. This gave a total of 30 editions each.

3.5     METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

          This study required the use of code sheets in the collection of data.

          Frequency distribution tables were used to analyze and present data. In this case, the unit of analysis and the coding terms were presented together with frequency of occurrence and their percentages.

          Statistically, to get the frequency, the number of times a certain element occurred in the newspaper divided by the sum total of the frequency and multiply by 100 that is:

F=     n        x  100

          f                  1

         

          Where “n” was the unit of occurrence, ‘f’ was the sum total of each sample size and ‘F’ was the percentage.

Media:        Newspapers that were analyzed and coded.

A (01)         Vanguard

A (02)         The Nation

Story Genre: This category classified the contents into:

B (01)-        News stories: These were straight news stories reported                            as the occurred.

B (02) -       Editorials: These were stories that represents the opinion                of the newspaper on women liberation and stereotype                     activities Nigeria.

B (03)-        Articles/Features: These were stories of personal opinion                          on women liberation, stereotype  activities in Nigeria;                          usually written by a staff of the newspaper on an event or           outsider.

B (04)-        Letters to the editors: These were reactions from the                        readers on the topic.

Story direction:    This is concerned with the news slant of the units of analysis. For instance, news on women liberation, stereotyped coverage may be positive, negative or neutral.

C (01)-        Favourable

C (02)-        Unfavourable

C (03)-        Neutral

Story length:        This is concerned with the length of story of the unit of analysis. For instance news on women liberation activities may take a page, half page, quarter page or one-eight of a page.

D (01)-  1page

D (02)- ½ page

D(03)- ¼ page

D (04)- ¹/₈ page

Story placement: Print media have some strategic positions and any news placed on those pages was considered to have prominence. In this case we considered the stories in terms of front page, center or back page.

E (01)-        Front page

E (02)-        Inside page

E (03)-        Back page

Topic: These took care of the content under which the subject matter appeared during the period under review.

F (01)-        Politics

F (02)-        Business

F (03)-        Education

F (04)-        Health

F (05)-        Sports