SOCIAL AND MEDIA CONTROL IN NIGERIA

NAME:- OYEYEMI FRANCIS OLUSANJO

DEPARTMENT:- LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCES

FACULTY:- COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

TITLE:- SOCIAL AND MEDIAL CONTROL IN NIGERIA

COURSE:- MAC 322

  INTRODUCTION

This paper deals with the social and media control in Nigeria. It firstly look at meaning of social and at the same time look at the meaning of social control, it also examine mechanism use the mechanisms or methods of social control in Nigeria.

      Furthermore, this paper also looks at the meaning of media in Nigeria and also looks at some pattern of media ownership in Nigeria and examines the methods o f controlling media in Nigeria.

At the end of the discussion, the paper later concludes that social and media control in Nigeria has recorded enviable leaps in Nigeria.

SOCIAL CONTROL

a.     Meaning of Social

In the absence of agreement about its meaning, the term “social” is used in many different senses and regarded as a fuzzy concept, therefore social refers to:- Attitudes, orientations, or behaviours which take the interests, intentions, or needs of other people into account. In other word the term “social” refers to a characteristic of living organisms as applied to population of humans.

b.     Social Control

Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group.

Methods of Social Control in Nigeria

Many mechanisms are used for social control in other to prevent the establishment of chaos or anomie in Nigeria. Some theorists, such as Emily Durkheim (1997), refer mechanisms of social control as rule and regulation that guide individual’s behaviour.

Sociologist Simon (1971) identify two basic mechanisms use for social control

1.     Internal control:- Internal control is the internalization of norms and values by a process known as socialization. He defined Socialization as “the process by which an individual, born with behavioural potentialities of enormously wide range and led to develop actual behavior which is confined to the narrower range of what is acceptable for him by the group standards or norms.

2.     External control: - External control is the external sanctions which can be either positive (reward) or negative (punishment). These sanctions come from either formal or informal control.

While the concept of social control has been around since the formation of organized sociology, the meaning has been altered over time. Originally the concept simply referred to society’s ability to regulate itself. The means to enforce social control can be either formal or informal.