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NAME: ADEGOKE OMOBOLANLE DAMILOLA

MATRIC: 134072072
DEPT.: MASS COMMUNICATION HND 1
COURSE: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION & WORLD PRESS MAC 342
PROLIFERATION OF CABLE TV IN NIGERIA AS AN INDICATION THAT
NIGERIANS ARE MORE EXPOSED TO NEWS ACROSS THE BORDERS AND ITS
SUBSEQUENT EFFECTS. DISCUSS

INTRODUCTION
The use of cable today, however, stands in stark contrast to this potential. Its service consists
almost entirely of rebroadcasting local television broadcast signals, plus carrying signals from
several distant broadcasting stations and, more recently, offering special pay television channels
for movies and sports. Although numerous cable systems do cover local public affairs (mostly
talk shows), local sports events such as high school football, and other activities of community
interest, it is fair to say that the overall social impact of cable has been nil. We are indeed
witnessing a television of abundance, but the abundance is almost entirely composed of more of
the same movies, more sports, and more of other mass entertainment. Cable remains almost
entirely dependent on the broadcasting industry for programs; consequently, what it has to offer
is essentially a mirror image, but with more mirrors, of what television stations already provide.
To hook up a television to CATV service, a coaxial cable must typically be plugged into the TV.
The same type of cable is used to connect a cable modem to Internet service. These cables use a
standard "F" style connector often called a CATV connector, although these are same connectors
that were commonly used with analog TV setups over the past few decades.
Cable television is a system of broadcasting television programming to paying subscribers via
radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables or light pulses through fiber-
optic cables. This contrasts with traditional terrestrial television, in which the television signal is
transmitted over the air by radio waves and received by a television antenna attached to the
television. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephone service, and similar non-
television services may also be provided through these cables. The abbreviation CATV is often
used for cable television. It originally stood for Community Access Television or Community
Antenna Television, from cable television's origins in 1948: in areas where over-the-air reception
was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large "community antennas"
were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. The origins of cable
broadcasting are even older as radio programming was distributed by cable in some European
cities as far back as 1924.

EFFECTS OF NEWS EXPOSURE
For most Nigerians multi-channel TV is a big dream. Apart from Nigerians living in Lagos,
Abuja, and may be Port Harcourt, most Nigerians have access to less than five free terrestrial TV
channels. This means that most Nigerians rely on terrestrial, satellite, or cable Direct-to-Home
DTH TV for multi-channel TV.
A number of companies offer cheap DTH Pay TV services in Nigeria. The major players in this
regard are Multichoice with DSTV Access on their satellite TV service, GOtv also from
Multichoice, and Star TV network with StarTimes. Although there are others like MyTV,
Daarsat, and free to air satellite TV channels, our focus in this post will be on the big three Pay
TV services, namely DSTV, GOtv, and StarTimes.
In the strictest sense of the word, Nigeria has very few cable TV networks and most have local
coverage. This is due to lack of infrastructure i.e. copper or fibre optics. Most Direct-to-Home
TV services in Nigeria are over the air instead of cable, although we still call all of them cable
TV. Two Pay TV technologies are popular in Nigeria: Satellite TV and DVB-T (Terrestrial) TV,
with most networks choosing satellite TV, because of ease of deployment. Startimes and GOtv
are pay TV networks using DVB-T, which requires no dish, making equipment cost cheaper for
subscribers.
Weve known for a very long time that the emotional content of films and television programs
can affect your psychological health. It can do this by directly affecting your mood, and your
mood can then affect many aspects of your thinking and behaviour. If the TV program generates
negative mood experiences (e.g. anxiety, sadness, anger, disgust), then these experiences will
affect how you interpret events in your own life, what types of memories you recall, and how
much you will worry about events in your own life.
Well, there is good reason to believe that the negative sensationalism in news has been gradually
increasing over the past 20-30 years. So first, well have a look at what negative news is, well
then examine the reasons why the broadcasting of negative news has become so prevalent. Then
finally, well look at some of the ways in which viewing perpetual negative news might affect
your mood, and particularly your tendency to worry about your own specific problems.
There are a lot of bad things that happen in the world, and it is probably right that people should
know about these things through their reporting in news bulletins. These bad things include
crime, famine, war, violence, political unrest, and injustice, to name but a few. But there is also
an increasing tendency for news broadcasters to emotionalize their news and to do so by
emphasizing any potential negative outcomes of a story no matter how low the risks of those
negative outcomes might be. This is basically scaremongering at every available opportunity in
order to sensationalize and emotionalize the impact of a news story. Because we now have 24-
hour news coverage, gone are the days when a correspondent or journalists role was simply to
impartially describe what was happening in the world because of satellite TV we have an
almost immediate visual record of what is happening throughout the world. So the journalists
job then becomes one of evaluating the news story and it is only a small step from evaluating
a story to sensationalizing it. As professor of journalism studies Bob Franklin wrote some years
ago:
Entertainment has superseded the provision of information; human interest has supplanted the
public interest; measured judgement has succumbed to sensationalism. Franklin, B, Newszak
and News Media, 1997, 4.


CONCLUSION
Indeed, the record is not particularly bright for televisions educational performance. Studies
have shown that people typically do not retain much of the televised information they receive,
yet they keep watchingperhaps because TV does an excellent job of making one feel informed
(Buckingham, 1999). But the past is prelude. Televisions future will be what we make of it, and
research does indicate that viewers can learn from television when they are actually paying
attention (Chaffee and Franks, 1996). In addition, citizen opinions of what is important have
been shown to be affected by television news (Kinder, 2003).
As Gitlin observes, media critics who rail against the evils of television and television news often
fail to take into account how pleasurable the experience of watching television can be (Gitlin,
2002). If television is to continue to serve as a source of inspiration for community dialogue, its
entertaining qualities must be preserved. However, in preserving and promoting televisions
education and entertainment functions, there is a danger that we may conflate the two to the
point of indistinguishability. It is not such a problem if we do not learn from television, but it is a
major problem if we think we are learning from television when we actually are not, which
research suggests happens quite often (Hollander, 1995).
Truth be told, however, education and entertainment were never wholly separate to begin with.
Before education can take place, curiosity must be stimulated, and this typically requires some
degree of entertaining performance or utterance (Wurman, 2001). The problem arises when we
are being thoroughly entertained but inadequately informed and yet think we are getting our fill
of the latter, for this can lead to a colossal errormistaking ignorance for knowledge. As
Postman notes, Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be
knowledge? (Postman, 1985: 107-8).

REFERENCES
Eisenmann, T. R. (2000), "Cable TV: From Community Antennas to Wired Cities", Harvard
Business School Weekly Newsletter, July 10, 2000
Moss, M. L. (1981); Payne, Frances, "Can Cable Keep Its Promise?", New York Affairs,
Volume 6, Number 4. New York University. 1981
Smith, R. L. (1970), "The Wired Nation", The Nation magazine, May 18, 1970
Smith, R. L (1972), The Wired Nation; Cable TV: the electronic communications highway. New
York, Harper & Row, 1972. ISBN 0-06-090243-4
Herrick, D. F. (2012), "Media Management in the Age of Giants, Business Dynamics of
Journalism", University of New Mexico Press.

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