Abiodun Salawu

Evaluation of Development Communication Content of Yoruba Newspapers: Communicating Development in People's Language Abiodun Salawu

This study investigated the Yoruba language newspaper, particularly, in relation to their development communication content. The study adopted, principally, the content analysis method, and as a supplement, stylistic analysis. The three newspapers content-analysed were: Gbohungbohun, Iroyin Yoruba and Isokan. Yoruba language newspapers are weeklies. A total of 125 editions of the newspaper, spanning eleven years (1986-1996) were sampled. Stylistic analysis of the newspapers was done at the following levels: the graphitic/graphological, the grammatical, the lexical and the semantic. The following are some of the findings: Development-oriented items constituted 27.4% of the entire editorial content of the newspapers analysed. Among other measures, 17.3% of these stories were placed on the front page; 16.4% the back page; and 66.3% the inside pages. The treatment given to development-oriented stories in the newspaper was considered to be fair. The newspapers disseminated their development messages mostly through the news genre. This genre constituted 66.9% of all development-oriented items content-analysed.