Media is defined by O’Sullivan (1991) as an intermediate agency that enables communication to take place and a technological development that extends the channels and range of speed of communication. It can also mean ‘those institu-tional structures that foster the rapid transmission of standardized information to a relatively large audience through some mechanised channels or medium’ (Ike 2005). In a nutshell, the media is responsible for the dissemination of information among people, while it also takes their reactions in the form of feedback, with a view to making such feedback available. The media is the link, that is, the chan-nel of communication, that ensures a successful journey of the code from the sender to the receivers, who then decode the message and respond in the form of feedback, thus making it an information chain.
Whether or not a piece of information will make it into the public arena is al-ways a painstaking activity in the media. The volume of information available to any medium is enormous, and hence the need to prune it down to allow the most important items to see the light of day, while other items have to wait temporarily or forever. In taking this decision, there are sets of rules and regulations to be followed, including ethical considerations and the public interest. The process is
referred to as ‘gatekeeping’, and it manifests at every level of the media, that is, from the reporters in the field who decide which information should be gathered, processed, and sent to the news editor, and the editor who has the final say re-garding publication. Ekeli in Folarin (1995) summarized it thus:
Gatekeeping is nothing but self-censorship performed by the media themselves. Gatekeeping emanates from the understanding by the journalists that apart from legal restrictions on what is to be published, including photographs, journalists have a moral right to be socially responsible to their readers in whatever materials they package for them.
The essence of gatekeeping therefore is to ensure relevant, factual, and re-sponsible information is disseminated to the reading public. However, in reality, gatekeeping is far more complex. There are many factors other than the need to ensure factual, relevant, and balanced information. For instance, a one-time cor-respondent of Time magazine in China, Teddy White, was reported to have put a sign in his office: ‘Any resemblance between what is written here and what is printed in TIME magazine is purely coincidental’ (Kunczik 1988, cited in Folarin 1995). Even the editor of the magazine himself was also once quoted to have said: ‘I don’t pretend this is an objective magazine. It’s an editorial from the first page to the last and whatever comes out has to reflect my view and that’s the way it is’ (ibid.).
Without doubt, whatever is eventually published in the newspapers or broad-cast in the electronic media is largely determined by the reporters and, more im-portantly, by their editors. Speaking about editors, Bolawole (2004, cited in Arogundade 2004) said the following:
Editors are different kettles of fish. Some are bold and brave, some are adventurous and ide-alistic. Some are practical down to earth realists of the present-day Nigeria. Some are con-scious of the naira value of the seats on which they sit while some are concon-scious of their place in history.
There are other factors, however, that may act naturally as gatekeepers, be-yond the control of the reporters and their editors. These may include unforeseen circumstances such as disasters, including crashes, floods, or fire disasters, that can cause damage to the materials intended for broadcast or publication. The re-porters themselves can be victims of such mishaps. In addition, there can be technological problems in terms of communicating the gathered information to the newsroom and even the processing of the information for the public (Abodunrin 2007).
Another uncontrollable gatekeeper in this category is the consumer. Even when reporters and editors make news stories available, consumers may not lis-ten to or read them. This is referred to as selective consumption (Folarin 2005).
This may include the boycott of certain media products in protest, or the con-sumer may simply have preferences for other media outlets.
Again, the media thrive on information, which is, relatively speaking, a per-ishable item. If the media is unaware of a particular development, such a devel-opment can go unreported. Nobody can give what is not available. However, as noted by Bello (2007), the gate must be opened wide, especially for partnership.
This will allow the media not only to report disasters but also to render early warning (EW) services such as educating the public, sharing information about affected areas, and alerting government.
Methodology
Sources of data
Broadly speaking, the data for this work were derived from both primary and secondary sources. The primary sources included the administration of question-naires and interviews. Secondary sources were records from security operatives, local government authorities, and Internet resources (the study areas’ website pages).
Sampling techniques
A non-probability sampling technique was adopted for this study. Thus, both in-cidental and purposive sampling employed sourced information from people who were accessible and based on the researcher’s choice. This was as a result of the need to get accurate and official angles on the data collected. Among the people accessed were members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and selected community leaders, while security operatives were pur-posively selected. The necessity for purposive selection was as a result of the fact that, by their mode of operation, not all officers and personnel of security ser-vices were authorized to provide information. In addition, certain serser-vices tended to decline to provide information in any form, for what they always referred to as
‘security reasons’.
Thus, personal interviews were conducted with stakeholders. Four focus group discussions (FDGs) were conducted with members of the NURTW operating in Egbedore and Ifedayo LGAs. Key informant interviews (KIIs) were also con-ducted with journalists working in the state, as well as with security operatives and health workers.
Data analysis and presentation
This research aimed to answer two basic questions:
1. What types of violence are recorded in these ‘invisible’ LGAs?
2. Why are these LGAs neglected by the national press?
These and sundry other questions, such as causes of the violence recorded, are discussed using simple descriptive statistical analysis.