Audience exposure to and perception of TVC news on stripping of police officers over request of money from Netherlands tourist

Abstract

The Oyo State Command of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) ordered the immediate dismissal of two of its men who were caught on camera demanding money from a Dutch female biker-tourist who was touring African countries. The story went viral after it was reported on TVC news but what the public think about that information is yet to be ascertained. This research work investigated audience exposure to, and perception of TVC news on stripping of police constables over request of money from Netherlands woman. The objectives of study are to ascertain respondents’ rate of exposure to news on stripping of the police constables reported on TVC news, evaluate audience perception of the news under study, examine respondents’ perception of the police force after exposure to the news under study, and investigate other news platforms through which the respondents got exposed to the story. The Focus Group Discussion (FGD) research method was used for the study. The purposive sampling technique was adopted to randomly select 80 residents of Awka metropolis who participated in the study. The findings revealed that Viewers in Awka were highly exposed to the TVC news on the dismissal of police constables who tried to collect money from the Netherlands woman. However, exposure to the news did not influence their perception of the police force as a corrupt institution. They also saw the news as a commendable performance of the watchdog roles by the press, and they saw the news on social media platforms apart from TVC news station as the same video was circulated in other platforms. It was recommended that investigating the possible reciprocal relationships of news exposure with active information seeking should be done as this would add to the conceptual understanding of exposure to news on television and other platforms. This is because people get exposed to certain information not by being information seekers but by being casual viewers.