PUBLIC SPHERE AND CIVIC JOURNALISM AS FULCRUM FOR EFFECTIVE POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Alongside education, information plays a vital role in helping the public to form an opinion on social issues. For citizens to reach an agreement among themselves, it is always imperative that they have both accessibility and freedom to receive and impart information. The most significant sort of information in reference to the concept of the public sphere is the information about state activities. Such information should provide a subject matter to be discussed, scrutinized and criticized as well as main drive for building up a rational public opinion. Political communication between the state and its citizens is therefore considered fundamental principle in developing the public sphere. Habermas was concerned with the obstacles of political communication that led the constriction and limitation of public political discourse. But Schultz (1998) argues that the public watchdog role of the media empowers them on behalf of the public, to hold the powerful accountable for their actions in the exercise of the powers and authority conferred on them by the people. Therefore, for the public service broadcasters to play this role in Nigerian electioneering and democratization, they must operate freely and independently from the state. Also, there is the need for public and private broadcasting stations to evolve into public service broadcasting to properly service the needs of the people who are daily increasingly becoming politically conscious.