Journal of Global Communication

The citizens’ ability to access a broad range of diverse political, economic and cultural views depend largely on the pluralistic state of the media in a country. Media pluralism is therefore considered as the cornerstone of any functional democracy. Consequently, media pluralism becomes a central media policy which dominates debates in the political and media spheres of developed and developing countries alike. Many scholars have argued that a pluralistic media will help address the issue of media concentration and create platforms that will facilitate diverse media ownership and viewpoints which are essential in the consolidation of democracy.

Nigeria, a new democracy which started its re-democratization process in 1999 embraced media reforms that will help build institutions to overturn the ‘authoritarian enclaves’ built during the long military era. The 1999 Constitution and the National Telecommunication Policy 2000 called for diversity in ownership structure as a way of increasing diversity of media content and facilitating the attainment of the marketplace of ideas for all Nigerians. As a result, there has been a proliferation of media houses across the country and it is now believed that the media landscape has changed from a once government dominated media to a liberalized media where diversity of views is encouraged.

Using policy analysis and interviews, it was revealed in this study, that although there have been significant changes in terms of the media ownership structure, media pluralism is still limited, as there are still socio-political and cultural factors within the Nigerian state that hinder media pluralism. It was also, revealed that ownership structure following the media reforms have only replaced government monopoly with private monopoly as the media have not risen above the primordial level of ownership interest. These findings therefore calls for a rethink of media pluralism debate in the Nigerian media environment.