A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF RURAL/URBAN PROBLEMS IN IMO STATE A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF DAILY CHAMPION, THE SUN AND VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS.

Over the years, successive governments in the underdeveloped countries have regrettably adopted a lackadaisical, impractical, apathetic and lip service attitude towards the transformation of their rural communities whose inhabitants constitute in some places more than 70% of their respective populations. In Nigeria for instance, the situation has reached an alarming stage, more so when one considers the outright abandonment of the rural populations to their fate, as manifested in the various indices of under development that prevail across the length and breadth of the country, despite the vast human and natural resources it is endowed with. Granted that some administrations in the past, had one time or another annunciated policies and programme seemingly aimed at rural development but has any of such projects ever been successfully executed in any of such rural communities? The fact remains obvious that such projects only serve as a conduit pipe to siphon funds into private pockets. Zeroing in on the situation in Imo state which incidentally is the subject of this study, the situation there is quite akin to what obtains elsewhere in the country, as most developmental projects are concentrated in the city, to the exclusion of the rural areas.

BY FIDELIS OKWUCHUKWU DIM, A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION, FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY, AWKA, ANAMBRA STATE. IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF SCIENCE DEGREE (M.SC) IN MASS COMMUNICATION