Genres of science news in the Nigerian press
The decade 2001 to 2009 was one of contrasting scientific achievements in Nigeria: while the public responded positively to technology with telephone penetration increasing from less than 900 000 telephone landlines and a teledensity of 0.73 in 2001 to 111 million Global System for Mobile Telephony (GSM) lines and a teledensity of 63.1 in 2010 the use of the oral polio vaccine was banned in some parts of the country following a revolt premised on a conspiracy against Muslims. The revolt, which resulted in about 5000 new cases, spread the disease to hitherto free neighbouring countries and created an image of a country that is pro religion and anti science. This commentary is about the place of science in Nigerian newspapers as a proxy for public opinion. Newspapers are a functional part of the public sphere: a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. The idea of a public sphere is that of a body of private persons assembled to discuss matters of public concern or common interest and newspapers, radio, television, the Internet, etc. are the media required for transmitting information and influencing those who receive it. The media's role in transmitting information, argues McQuail, makes it an instrument of social power. Being an instrument of social power does not, however, make the media our only source of social reality, but it plays a central role in the thinking society dynamic. The definition of social reality, of facts, norms, values and expectations,6 is, however, contextual; and as journalists are themselves part of society, how they practise their profession will be largely influenced by their culture, value systems and corporate practices. Livingstone, however, argues that audiences are heterogeneous in their interpretation and, at times, even resistant to the dominant meanings encoded in news.