The Role of Mass Media in Propagating Against Gender-based Violence.
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
The general objective is to examine the role of mass media in propagating against gender-based violence. The specific objectives are:
- To investigate the role of non-printing media in propagating against gender-based violence
- To investigate the role of printing media in propagating against gender based violence
- To assess the combined effect media in propagating against gender-based violence
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015
On May 25th 2015, the immediate past President of Nigeria, Dr Goodluck Jonathan recorded a milestone when he signed into law the Violence against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act, 2015. This Act, aims to eliminate violence in private and public life, prohibit all forms of violence, including physical, sexual, psychological, domestic, harmful traditional practices; discrimination against persons and to provide maximum protection and effective remedies for victims and punishment of offenders.
This Act commendably covers most of the prevalent forms of violence that could be categorized into: Physical violence; psychological violence; sexual violence; harmful traditional practices; and socio-economic violence.
The following are offences punishable under the Act: Rape, inflicting physical injury on a person, female circumcision or genital mutilation, forceful ejection from home, depriving a person of his/her liberty, forced financial dependence or economic abuse, forced isolation or separation from family and friends, emotional verbal and psychological abuse, harmful widowhood practices, abandonment of spouse, children and another dependent without sustenance, spousal/partner battery, indecent exposure, harmful traditional practices, political violence, and violence by state actors. Other innovations in this Act includes the prohibition and punishment for stalking, substance attack, criminalizing incestuous conducts, protection order for victims and persons under threat of violence, and compensation for victims of violence. It provided for a register for convicted sexual offenders, which shall be maintained and accessible to the public.
Under the VAPP Act, rape, spousal battery, forceful ejection from home, forced financial dependence or economic abuse, harmful widowhood practices, female circumcision or genital mutilation, abandonment of children, harmful traditional practices, harmful substance attacks, such as acid baths, political violence, forced isolation and separation from family and friends, depriving persons of their liberty, incest, indecent exposure and violence by state actors (especially government security forces) among others are punishable offences. Cultural factors that influences the perpetration of female domestic violence in Nigeria varies across cultures and societies due to the cultural perception of Domestic violence behaviour (Austin 2014). Female domestic violence has been perceived by so many scholars to have a cultural origin. Variants (2017) commented that violence against women in our society is an insidious problem deeply rooted in our culture.
Violence against women in Nigeria is almost accepted as a fact of life in some cultures that perceive women as the property of their husbands. The Guardian Editorial of 10th February 2017 notes that “The prevention of domestic violence, first and foremost, requires challenging cultural and social norms that tolerate or excuse violence especially against women”. The Nigerian traditional cultural practices embrace the belief of superiority of males over females. The customs of marriage in this society give men proprietary rights over women and girls. It also encourages polygamy. Hence, the gender prejudice of preference of a male to the female child within the family structure pervades through various ethnic groups in Nigeria. This results in girls being given less educational privilege and other opportunities as compared to boys (Bakare, et al 2010)
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
This chapter covers the research methods which comprise research design, population of the study, sample size and sampling techniques, instrumentation and method of data collection.
Research Design
This study employs descriptive survey research and Kothari (2003) holds that the main objective of descriptive research is to describe or ascertain the existed or current status of events, situation or a thing as it exists. It can be said in crystal clear that resolution of conflicts and promoting of peace is the main issue of the day. It affected every walk of life, locally, nationally, and internationally. As Farooq (2001) is of the opinion that questionnaire is the most suitable and extensively utilised tool by the investigator for the collecting of data or information about past, present, and future proceedings. The study adopted a survey research design to investigate the gender
Population of the Study
The study population is the total number of populations working within the organizations under study, although it will be very difficult to get the exact numbers of the population under study of gender discrimination in Nigeria. The total population of adults in the ikeja local government area is 233,843 (Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, 2017). Lagos State was chosen as study location because of its heterogeneous stands- industrial areas, different residential homes, hotel, market zones, natural resources, manpower. The study focuses on gender discrimination and rural development.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
This chapter covers the analysis of results which includes the descriptive statistics and the inferential statistics. The chapter also includes interpretation of results.
Descriptive Analysis
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY CONCLUSION AND RECOMMEDATIONS
SUMMARY
This research work probes the role of mass media propagation against gender-based violence. The researcher tried to examine the extent and manner of coverage of stories relating to female domestic violence in Nigeria. Questionnaire was used in coding the data in terms of data presentation and analysis. The unit of analysis was the straight News stories, editorial and feature news stories on domestic violence. The content categories were based on frequency, direction, language, and how placement or prominence of news stories. Tables were used to present the data in its simple percentage form and simple mathematical tools such as bar chart and pie chart were also used to present the data. From the findings it is deduced that most of the media coverage of domestic violence stories are on intimate partner homicide. News stories on sexual assault and rape are rarely reported. Majority of the stories on domestic violence against women in the samples newspaper were placed on the inside pages which means that the level of prominence accorded to female domestic violence stories are low.
While we see the majority of news stories under favourable tone, a good number of a report on domestic violence, are unfavourable because reporters depend highly on police account of what happened and showed reasons given by the perpetrators for blaming their victims for what happened to them. The length of most stories on against women depicts that most of these stories lack depth investigation of what happened because most of this stories are not given in-depth analysis that was why few stories were coded for feature stories. In conclusion, it seems that women are discriminated against in every sphere of life. The high prevalence and intensity of violence against the female folk most times arise from local customs, traditional beliefs and value systems. Here comes then the responsibility for the media. The media is recognized all over the world as an agent of socialization, which moulds the morals views and opinions of society. It, therefore, needs to step in and begin the education process towards preventing and ending violence and abuse in our society. The education should target various age groups and other strata of the society and enable them to understand the root causes of violence in their communities, to educate and involve communities to prevent such violence and to learn about where to access support when the need arises.
Conclusion
This paper has investigated whether there is any link between greater exposure to media over time and women’s attitudes towards domestic violence in Nigeria. The study proposes two channels through which media access could have an impact on acceptance of violence: accessing media could positively influence general norms about women’s status and reduce acceptance of violence, or it may lead to substitution away from household duties, which may increase the probability of experiencing and accepting violence. Using household-level data on media use and acceptance of violence by women, I find evidence that switching into regularly accessing television and radio over time has a small but statistically significant association with reduction in the probability of women accepting violence. This association holds only when women access both media regularly, indicating a complementary effect of accessing television and radio in reducing acceptance of violence. We also find that the complementarity holds for women in both rural and urban areas, as well as for differences in women’s education. Unfortunately, due to lack of adequate data, it is unclear which mechanism is driving the association between media access and reduction in acceptance of violence. Better data on women’s status and patterns of media access would enable further study of these channels.
The results of this study suggest that policymakers who wish to address the concern of domestic violence by empowering women could look beyond traditional policies, such as improving access to girls’ education or providing economic opportunities to women, which need a large number of state resources and can be as difficult to implement as the problems they attempt to solve.1These policies can exploit the potential of media to bring about their desired objective. In particular, they should take advantage of the complementarity that this paper finds between television and radio by subsidizing and encouraging their use together, especially in states where discrimination against women is greatest. Such policies, coupled with the considerable increase in media access that Nigeria has experienced, could lead to greater reductions in the acceptance and incidence of domestic violence, and further the cause of women’s empowerment.
Recommendations
This study, therefore, recommends that there is need for the media to channel their news report of domestic violence against women towards educating the mass and bringing this discourse into the political agenda. There is a need for a more representative way of reporting domestic violence against women as this can be part of the solution to eradicate domestic violence in our society. Also, Newspapers should give a more in-depth analysis of news bordering on domestic violence against women and not to see it as less important news. Again there is need for the media to accord more prominence to news stories on domestic violence against women because this will go a long way to set the agenda to the crusade of eradicating this ugly trend of domestic violence in our society.
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