CHILD RIGHTS COVERAGE IN NIGERIAN AND GHANAIAN NEWSPAPERS (1999-2003)

News coverage can have a strong influence on how the public and policy makers interpret and respond to social issues like child rights. This work helps with the understanding of what the news environment has been about the rights of children both in Nigeria and Ghana. It reveals how the newspapers have been responding to the challenges posed by the Oslo Challenge and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It also reveals that children and their rights are under-represented in the newspapers' coverage and in fact the coverage lacks strong newsworthiness.Besides it shows that government-owned media are more responsive to child rights issues than privately-owned newspapers.It further brings to the fore the connection among public agenda, policy agenda and media agenda. This work will therefore be a good treasure to change agents,policy makers and media practioners, as well as students working on child issues in their planning and engagement of the media on child issues as the findings revealed the news environment in which child rights is portrayed.

Autorentext

Dr Olusola Oyero obtained his B.A. and M.A. degrees from University of Ibadan and Ph. D. from Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria where he teaches in the Department of Mass Communication. His research interests cut across media and children, development communication and indigenous language media where he has published articles in learned journals.