Print Media Management and Ethical Advertising Under Recession: A Content Analysis of Advertising in Two Daily Newspapers in Nigeria

Introduction

In 2016, a report by MediaResearch OMD showed that operating costs of Nigerian newspapers had increased tremendously (Idris, 2020). It also indicated that the low purchasing power of the reading public discouraged many brands from advertising of products and service.

A similar report in 2017 showed that newspaper advertising yielded less than 20% of total advertising revenue in Nigeria (Ekwujuru, 2017). Writing on media management and advertising revenue in Nigeria, Guttmann (2021) states that between 2018 and 2020, a reasonable chunk of advertising funds came from television and video promotions rather than from newspapers and magazines.

Given this, newspaper publishers and editors in Nigeria became inclined to look for several sources to fund operations. This has led to deviations in media management by the acceptance of indecent advertising and advertorials on pages of newspapers and magazines. Erubani (2020) says that media organizations survive largely on advertising revenues, irrespective of sizes and scopes. He adds that advertising revenue is critical to the wellbeing and profitability of news organizations.

Generally, the advertising market has remained highly competitive. The complexities of advertising market have caused newspaper publishers to engage less trained advertising agents while most of the newspapers without special advertising agents woo correspondents to combine the search for news and advertising(Angulucci& Cage, 2016).In attempts to generate funds, many editorial staffs often stray from the ethics of advertising and the principles of the journalism profession.

In order to break from sharp decline of funds and evade bankruptcy, newspaper publishers and editorial staff are forced to accept the publication of any adverts or advertorial no matter the content in words or pictures. Deceptive media management models of generating revenue have been introduced and many unethical advertising titles and images are also permitted to fill pages of newspapers.

The current unethical advertising models leave publishers in a vulnerable position that threaten global ethical media management styles, the editorial independence, the trust of entrepreneurs and worsen the financial security of newspapers. Again, Idris (2020) mentions that many newspaper publishers have been slow in developing practical media management models of securing advertising to support a large part of revenue.

The objectives of this study are three-fold:

• 1.

  To discuss that economic decline has affected the volume of advertising to newspapers, and that the attendant effect on revenue has affected the quality of advertising in print media institutions;

• 2.

  To examine the many forms of advertising published in two newspapers case studies to unveil ethical practices in advertising;

• 3.

  To make recommendations to media management research and practice which can be survival strategies for newspapers in an ever-changing and ever more aggressive market.

The purpose of this study is to answer the following research questions:

• RQ₁: What is the frequency and volume of advertising attracted by Nigerian newspapers?

• RQ₂: Which of the economic sector feature advertising most frequent in Nigerian newspapers?

• RQ₃: What type of advertising usually appeared in Nigerian newspapers?

• RQ₄: What has been the outstanding pattern of dressing by advertising promoters in Nigerian newspapers?