Functionality of Pictures in Selected Nigerian Newspapers
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Department of Mass Communicntion. University of Lagos. Lagos. Nigeria
Abstract
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Pictures are a major part of our lives because we are surrounded
by them wherever we turn. They have uses rangingfimn social to official.
Almost eve1y printed material has pictures displayed on it in one form or
the othe1; and newspapers are no exceptions. In fact, the newspaper
indust1y is one of the largest users of still pictures. Nevertheless,
considering that the newspaper has been plagued Ji'mn inception with
inability to effectively sustain readers' attention, it becomes necessmy to
examine the increasing trend in the use of pictures. While some are ofthe
opinion that pictures aid readership, others consider them irrelevant. This
study, therefore, set out to newspapers' use of pictures and people's
perception oft he fimctions ofthese pictures. The theoretica I foundation of
this work was laid on agenda-setting and uses and gratification theories.
Both content analysis and survey were used to generate data for this study.
For the content analysis, the Punch, the Guardian, Vanguard and This Day
newspapers were used and a total of 208 respondents participated in the
survey. Ourfindings revealed that most of the pictures analysed focused on
economic issues, personalities and politics. We also discovered that
majority ofthe respondents were ofthe opinion that pictures alone are not
adequate as news contents
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General)