Nigerian Newspaper Readership’s Response to Discourses on Healthy Life Style for Disease Prevention

Abstract

This study examined how Nigerian Newspaper readership responded to discourses on healthy lifestyle for disease prevention. In line with this, five research questions were posed for investigation as follows: 1. To what extent do Nigerian Newspapers discuss healthy lifestyle for prevention of disease? 2. Who among the target audience are exposed to these messages? 3. How many of the readers are knowledgeable of the 'safe' habits necessary to maintain a healthy state? 4. What is the readers' disposition towards the health discourses in the Nigerian Newspapers? 5. To what extent do they take health action as suggested in Newspaper health discourses? The study involved triangulation. Newspaper discourses on healthy lifestyle were content analyzed to determine the extent of newspapers' discourses. The Survey data was collected from 386 civil servants drawn from three selected state secretariats in south east Nigeria. Results from analyzed data showed the presence of healthy lifestyle discourses in Nigerian newspapers in a significant manner. The data analyzed revealed that the civil servant respondents studied read the newspapers and were highly exposed to Newspaper discourses on the subject matter. The civil servants also demonstrated high knowledge of the safe habits necessary to maintain a healthy state. The respondents were also found to have good disposition towards the message but not all the civil servants took adequate action to maintain a healthy state.