ARTICULATING THE CHALLENGES OF MASS COMMUNICATION RESEARCH IN NIGERIA: EMERGING INSIGHTS

Discussed are challenges that impact social research practices in Nigerian universities ? more so, the research trends in (mass) communication departments. Focalized is the monomaniac bias towards the quantitative research method. The myopia that feeds the pathology is identified. The chief component of the myopia was discussed as the politicization and commercialization of research outcomes in the United States at the time the pioneers of communication research in Nigeria were being mentored there. Misconception of the concept of science by many Nigerian communication researchers was also discussed as a challenge. After reviewing how the essence of communication lies in meaning-construccetion as opposed to meaning-transmission, and after demonstrating how the mono-ntric embrace of the quantitative research method retards communication/social research skills in Nigerian, conclusion urged Nigerian universities to recognize the qualitative research paradigm as a paradigm where co-creation of knowledge as opposed to knowledge discovery undergirds the communication/social research enterprise.