The influence of media ownership on content: a comparative study of the standard and the Daily Nation Newpapers on their coverage of former Presidential Daniel Arap Moi before (2009) and during the 2010 Kenyan constitutional referendum period

Abstract

There are various scholars who have argued that there is a consistent 'liberal', or left - leaning, bias across the news media (Sutter 200 1; Lichter et al. 1986). Here the argument often suggests that journalists (who in tum become editors) tend to be more libera1 than the public generally and that this leads to a left - leaning slant in media coverage of issues. There are different and opposing views on the actual content of news and what causes bias, if it indeed exists. However, some of these perspectives do clearly suggest that ownership plays a role in leading to a particular result in terms of content. - In order to investigate the view that media ownership influences the content produced by the print media in Kenya, this study employed content analysis methodology to collect and analyze data. Two media houses namely the Nation and Standard were used to compare their coverage of Kenya's former president before and during the referendum period. The two periods were selected since one (2010) was politically charged being a referendum period while the other (2009) was relatively calm politically. The two papers were chosen owing to their differences in ownership.

Findings of this study suggest that media ownership influences news coverage. The way Kenya's former president Daniel Arap Moi was covered during and after the referendum period revealed differences in Kenya's print media coverage of their news which can be attributed to their ownership.