ABSTRACT
This
study examined the effectiveness of the broadcast media, specifically radio and
television in creating and disseminating family planning information on matters
of number and spacing of children in rural Nigeria, using Ebelle community in
Igueben Local Government Area of Edo State as a study case. To achieve the set
task, the paper employed the survey questionnaire method to gather data. Out of
the 140 questionnaires administered, 100 were retrieved and analysed, using
descriptive statistics. In the end, the study revealed that radio and
television, through certain programmes, have helped in the dissemination of
relevant information on family planning in rural settings just as they have
purportedly done in urban centres in Nigeria. Hence, the paper recommended that
the broadcast media should be massively deployed to disseminate relevant
messages on issues such as contraceptive alternatives, distended family size,
female genital mutilation, “area boys” cultism in the streets, sexually
transmitted infections, malnutrition, among others, that have the potentials of
destroying family hood. Ultimately, the redress of these challenges would redound
to the cohesion and progress of the average rural family in Nigeria.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE
PAGE - ii
DECLARATION - iii
CERTIFICATION -
DEDICATION
- v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - vi
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background to the Study
1.2
Statement of the Research Problem
1.3 Objectives of the Study
1.4 Research Questions
1.5 Significance of the Study
1.6 Scope of the Study
1.7 Limitations
of the Study
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Concept of Family Planning
2.2
Relations of Family Planning and the
Society
2.3
Factors Influencing Family Planning
2.4 Family Planning and Motherhood in the
Society
2.5
Family Planning, Awareness and
Promotion
2.6 Family Planning and the Role of Broadcast
Media
2.7 News Framming Theory of the Media
2.8
Justification of the Theory of the
Study
2.9
Summary
CHAPTER THREE: Research Methodology
3.1 Research Design
3.2 Population of the Study
3.3 Sample and Sampling Procedure
3.4 Instrument of Data Collection
3.5 Procedure for Data Collection
3.6 Techniques of Data Analysis
CHAPTER FOUR: Presentation and
Analysis of Data
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Analysis According to Demographic
Characteristic of Respondents.
4.3 Analysis According to Research Questions
4.4 Discussion of Findings
4.5
Summary of Discussion
CHAPTER FIVE: Summary, Conclusion and
Recommendations
5.1 Summary
5.2 Findings
5.3 Conclusions
5.4
Recommendations
5.5
Suggestions for Further Studies
REFERENCES
APPENDIX:
QUESTIONNAIRE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Family
planning communications campaigns have been shown to increase contraceptive
use, but it remains unclear whether exposure to message about contraception
through multiple media sources has a greater impact than exposure through one
medium.
Dated
from a nationally representative sample of 4, 225 women who participated in the
1994 Tanzania knowledge, attitude and practice survey were used to assess the
impact of mass media family planning campaigns on contraceptive behavior and
contraceptive behavior, multiple regression analysis was used to examine the
relationship between specific media campaign and contraceptive use the move
types of media that women are expose to, the move likely they are to practice
contraception. Women who recalled six media sources of family planning message
were 11 times as likely as women who recalled no media sources to be using a
modern method. Women who recalled family planning message were twice as likely
as women who recalled no media sources to be using a modern method. Women who
recalled family planning message in the media were also more likely to have
discussed family planning with their spouse and to have visited a health
facility than were women who could not remember and such intervention. After
introduction of controls for other variables, women who recalled radio messages
about family planning were 1.7 times as likely as women who reported no
exposure through radio programs to have discussed family planning with their
spouse and were 1.9 times as likely as likely to have been currently using family
planning.
Multiple
media sources of information on contraception reinforce one another and extend
the reach of a family planning campaign. Complementary message may help to
create an environment where the practice of contraception is perceived as a social
norm. various media to promote family planning and other reproductive health
issues. Research based on nationally representative surveys confirms a strong
association between exposure to family planning messages in the mass media and
contraceptive use, even after the effects of social and demographic variable
are controlled for. For example an analysis of the 1989 Kenya demographic and
Health Survey found that contraceptive prevalence was nearly 50% among women
who recalled hearing or seeing family planning messages in three media (Radio,
Print and Television) compared with recall any family planning message in the
media family planning refers to the use of modern contraception and other
methods of birth control to regulate the number timing and spacing of human
births. It allows parents particularly mothers to plan their lives without
being overly subject to sexual and social imperatives. However, family planning
is not seen by all as a humane or necessary intervention. It is an average
contestation within broader social and political conflicts involving religious
and cultural injunctions patriarchal subordination of women, social-class
formation, and global political and economic relations. Family planning and
access to contraception reduce the amount of maternal and child deaths. In
fact, according to Melinda Gate’s talk every year 100, 000 women who don’t want
to be pregnant die in child birth and about 600, 000 women who don’t want to be
pregnant give birth to a baby who dies in first month of life.
The
use of contraception can significantly decrease the 75million unintended
pregnancies and 20 million unsafe abortion that occur every year world wild.
Unintended pregnancies lead to more than one in three maternal deaths and one
in four infant deaths worldwide according to Gutt Marcher Institution. Unwanted
pregnancies may lead to abortion, indeed the center for Bioethical reform
estimate that about 42 million abortions are perform each year around the would
about 83% of which are done in developing countries. Although it is less likely
for a married woman than unmarried woman to choose abortions for an unwanted
pregnancy. Following a natural or artificial family planning method, newlyweds
and young married couples have a better chance of avoiding unwanted pregnancies
and going through the painful process of abortion. With the world suffering
from environmental problems such as pollution and global warming, any way to
bring this number down will go a long way toward ensuring that whatever
resource we have can conserved for the future generations. Family planning is
one of the best ways to slow down population growth and manage resources.
Family
planning is not just about planning when to have children and how to avoid
getting pregnant using natural and artificial methods, it’s also about
practicing safe sex. Using artificial family planning methods such as
practicing safe sex, condoms and diaphragms go a long towards ensuring that you
remain healthy despite having an active sex life. Studies shows that children
who are born at least two years apart in a household are more likely to have
better lives than children born month or a year after another. In terms of
health statistics show that spacing pregnancies at least two years apart
improves infant survivals by 50%. If the couple plans to have children, during
this period of time increase chances of surviving through infancy and remaining
healthy throughout their lives. The proponents of this approach have argued
that the increasing availability of radio, television and the print media in
developing countries can be effective in creating a positive social environment
for a behavior by bringing absolute a shift in popular opinion and influencing
people’s behavior. Mass media can be powerful for stimulation people’s desiring
for more information and facilitating their efforts to apply the information to
their own behavior.
Recent
studies on the interrelation between mass media and family planning in
developing countries have found out that the media do influence behavior in
Nigeria. There had been exposure to family planning messages in the media and
contraceptive behavior. There have also been relationships between exposure to
media message on family planning and a number of indicators of reproductive
behavior. The result show that women who are exposed to such messages in the
media are more likely to use an “enter-educated” approach has become attractive
to communicate experts. This approach uses the entertainment components of mass
media, such as song and drama to drive home the intended message. The
assumption here is that people tend to adopt a behavior faster if they are
motivated by those they consider role model. The international conference on
population and development (ICPD), held in Cairo in 1994, is generally
considered to have ushered in a new approach to population and development,
upholding reproduction health and rights of women over meeting numerical goals
for reducing fertility and population growth. Departing from earlier position
and upholding voluntary choice in family size, the ICPU program of action
states that demographic goals in the form of targets and quotes for the
recruitment of clients should not be imposed on the family. Planning providers
and empresses disapproval of the use of incentives and disincentives it
acknowledge the settings to be defined in terms of needs for family planning,
information and services (United Nation, 1994) but as human right activists
concerned with continued abused in family planning program point out, there is still
a ling way o go in establishing polices and ethical standards to ensure that
the new health and women’s right objectives are achieved.
Given
the massive increase in population in the south hemisphere countries since
world II, much of global family planning efforts have been directed toward
those poor countries of the so called third world. The followers of Maithus,
the Neo Malth-Usians, have extended his thinking blaming global poverty,
political insecurity and environment degradation on the “population explosion”
and calling for population control as the primary solution to this problems
their efforts have helped turn family planning into a vast establishment of
governmental and non- governmental organizations with financial, technological
and ideological power emanating from the capitals in the North towards the
remote corners of the south within countries in the south. The hierarchical
family planning model spreads from professional elite in the cities to the
poorest men and women in the village in India alone, there are an estimate
250,000 family planning workers every year vast amounts of money are spread to
promote to promote “contraceptive acceptance” among the poor populations in the
world contraceptive use in the developing world has increase from less than 10
percent to couples to reproductive age in the 1960’s to 50 % (42% excluding
India) in 1990’s the rapidly falling birth rates. In the third world are
generally attributed to the family planning revolution represented by expanding
use of modern contraceptives. Poverty and adverse social conditions including
lack of information and access to other methods of birth control, threats of
discontinued social benefits and economic incentives/disincentives have define
the operation of many third family planning directed at poor communities of
color in the United States. in the early 2000’s a nonprofit organization known
as C.R.A.C.K (Children requiring a caring community) satirized or where using a
long term birth control method such as Norplant, Depo-Provera, or an IUD
(American Public Health Association) role of mass media in the national task of
promoting family planning and fertility decline the question here is that does
the Nigeria demographic and health survey show the strong positive relationship
between mass media and reproductive behavior found in other DHS countries with
similar data e.g. Ghana and Kenya in sub-Saharan African.
1.2 Statement of the Research Problem
The
incessant warning and report about population explosion in Nigeria have been
timed as more fallacy. Nevertheless the national council for population and
environment activities (NCPEA) has continuously warned against increasing
population growth. Culminating to population explosion and environment hazards,
the incidence of those population explosion and environment hazards, on the
economy, in essence, it becomes necessary to identify the information
efficiency of these campaigns, their acceptance and references to the people
hence the thrust of this study.
1.3 Objectives
of the Study
The
objectives of the study are as follows;
i.
To assess the impact of broadcast media of family planning
campaign in Nigeria.
ii.
To ascertain the extent to which the campaign message have
been accepted and the principle adopted by the intended targets.
iii.
To find out how effective the broadcast media has been
influencing attitude and behavioral change on the part of Nigeria parents
towards family planning.
1.4 Research
Questions
The
research questions formulated for the study are listed below;
1.
Does exposure to broadcast media campaign message on family planning enhance
good health family environment?
2.
Does the acceptance of broadcast media message on fam8ily planning campaign
tend to promote the greater awareness towards positive constitution to the
economic and educational well-being of the society?
3.
To what extent has the acceptance of broadcast media campaign messages on
family planning been able to control population growth?
1.5 Significance
of the Study
It
has been observed in every part of the country that population growth has out
grown the available resources. It has been statistically proved that the
current population has gone beyond the available resources can contend with.
There
are increasing rates of unemployment, environmental hazards, poor child health
and increased incidence of material mortality is the country on a daily basis.
It becomes imperative therefore, to alert Nigerian parents on the dangers
inherent in overpopulation and its attendant problems to family and the nation.
It
is equally important to reveal the extent of havoc it as caused in the economic
growth and development of the nation and more importantly on the child’s
welfare more so to proffer solutions avert further increase in the population
growth for the future well being of our society.
1.6 Scope
of the Study
This
study is to find out the effectiveness of mass media as a tool for promoting
family planning campaign in Sapele.
Sapele
is a city in Delta State, Nigeria and it coordinates 5054.N 5040.E
/ 5.9000N 5.6670E. By the mid-19th century,
Sapele was established as a trading village, occasionally visited by Europeans.
In 1891, the British government established a vice-consulate at Sapele. The
population grew to 33,638 by 1952, including people from many Nigerian tribes.
Today
the city has one of Nigeria’s major ports. Its industries include the
processing of timber, rubber, and palm oil, as well as furniture, tamarind balm
and footwear manufacturing. As of 1995, its population was 135,800. And as of
2005 to date, the population of this advancing city is 145, 652.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
Due to
inadequate to embark on more extensive study, there was a logistics problem of
having to meet with the media practitioners.
Additionally,
respondents were unwilling to provide information for fear that the information
was sensitive.
Besides,
these respondents considered certain information as classified and
confidential, and were unwilling to share the information.
The
researcher, therefore, took the necessary steps and measures to ensure that
proper communication was made on the purpose of the study and assured the
respondents of confidentiality of information provided.
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