The audiences` perceptions of Northern Nigerian Muslims: a cultivation effects study on the Nigerian news media

Abstract

This study is necessitated by nonexistence of research works in media influence on audiences’ social reality beliefs about Muslims from the Northern Nigeria on the basis of interreligious conflicts that have pervaded the Nigerian scene. Specifically, no research works on the conflicts have been conducted within the cultivation theoretical context of mass communication research. Neither has there been a research report confirming the moderator effects of third variables on such perceived reality beliefs. Earlier studies have however discussed the impacts of media coverage patterns of such conflicts on audiences, but without sophisticated quantitative findings. This study fills the gap. Structured within the purview of cultivation effect research, this study tries to resolves the controversy as whether global exposure is redundant in the presence of the content specific exposure. It has also examined the separate effects of television and newspapers. Survey is the method used to collect data from 450 respondents comprising of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicate the vibrancy of the across-the-board exposure. That is, amount of time audience spent viewing TV and reading newspaper cannot be ruled out in constructing social reality beliefs about the world. The results also show the non-selective exposure as being moderated by real life experience of the nefarious events in cultivating the negative perception. This implies the validity of the resonance proposition. In line with the hypotheses, findings reveal that religious affiliation, income level, and nationalistic sentiment moderate the relationship between exposure to news stories on the religious conflicts and audience perceptions of the Northern Muslims. The findings imply that: the Christians are more affected by the religious conflict related news than the Muslims; effects of media exposure are more telling on the heavy viewers and readers within the low income earners; and sense of patriotism, to some extent, can override effects of media exposure on the people’s perception as the Muslims from other parts of Nigeria might not see their Northern brethrens from the prism of media reports.