| dc.description.abstract | This study examined the role played by the media in disseminating road
safety information. Literatures on how media report road safety issues plus other
materials on the same were reviewed. It focused on print media and more
specifically the nation newspaper published in the period between January 1st
2013 and June 31st 2013.
To establish which stories fall into road safety and related categories, the
researcher identified keywords that were found in the story. These were road
safety, traffic, accident, crash and road carnage. In order to understand how Nation
newspaper prime road safety information. The study looked at article placement,
frequency, article size, theme of article and article prominence. It also looked at
photos and graphics use.
The research found that the nation newspaper had most of articles on road
safety published in the inner pages leaving prime pages for other news especially
politics. Major road safety stories found their space on cover page only when
there was a major crash involving many deaths. For the articles published, many
were reduced to briefs. There were also very few photos and graphics to support
these articles.
The research also found out that advertising plays a major role in
determining the space allocated to editorial content. This has a direct impact on
the size of stories in terms of length. Many stories are edited to fit in the little
space provided, thus losing out some of the important story elements.
It was also found that much of road safety information was published in
the month of May and June. This could be attributed to hype that came with the
March 4th elections. In the period preceding the elections and after, many media
houses focused and reported on politics thus paying little attention to other
important issues such as reporting on road safety.
It was established that, NMG editorial policy plays a key role in dictating
what kind of material is published. Any material considered not aligning with
this policy is either edited to conform or discarded altogether. This could
compromise or distort the content thus failing to convey the intended message.
In conclusion, though, nation newspaper has tried to play a role in passing
road safety information to the public, a lot still needs to be done to address an
obvious gap. Print media should improve its priming of road safety information.
More space need to be allocated to road safety issues. All stakeholders should be
encouraged to share their information and opinions regarding road safety.
Information on road safety need to be published in prime pages regularly
and not only when reporting on road carnage incidents.
The study recommends further research on the role played by media in
addressing road safety information in Kenya. | en |
