International Journal of Communication and Public Relation

Data Sourcing and the Exposition of Fake Financial News at Kenya’s Standard Newspaper

Mark Kwemoi — 2023-09-15

Purpose: This study investigated the sway that data sourcing has on the exposition of fake financial news at Standard Newspaper, Kenya’s oldest print media.

Methods: The research, which was of concurrent mixed design, was conducted between October 2022 and December 2022. It involved financial news editors, reporters and graphic designers drawn from The Standard, The Saturday Standard and The Sunday Standard. Participants were enlisted through criterion-i purposeful sampling in the research whose structured and semi-structured data were gathered concurrently through face-to-face, telephone and electronic mail. Responses were organised systematically informed by the objective of the research. Thereafter, the quantitative and qualitative data were analysed separately before the pair of data were compared and integrated, and later interpreted.

Findings: The study established that data sourcing has a huge sway in the generation of fake financial news at the Standard Newspaper.

Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: This study showed that how the media arranges, structures and packages and delivers content has a sway on the public, hence validating the Framing Theory. The outcome will guide media actors to pay for more focus on content sourcing for it informs the final output of the media.

Discourse Strategies and Portrayal of Women in the Choice of Cosmetic Products in Lagos Nigeria

Adebola Michael — 2023-11-27

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of discourse strategies and portrayal of women in the choice of cosmetic products in Lagos Nigeria.

Methodology: A mixed method design was adopted for this study using purposive sampling because this study was only to investigate cosmetic product advertisements for women. The data were collected from company websites, YouTube and outdoor ads of popularly used cosmetic products ads which were transcribed for the qualitative analysis and analyzed based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) while for the quantitative aspect data was collected using a questionnaire based on Likert-type scale questions to capture the different variables. They were then analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.

Findings: The study findings show that there is a statistically significant relationship between discourse strategies and portrayal of women in choice of cosmetic products in Lagos. It noted that advertisers utilise strategies such as Informing strategy, Skin Inadequacies, scientific evidences and Celebrities to influence people to choose their products. Findings affirm the direct positive of discourse strategies as R²=0.935 depicts that the model explains 93.5% of the variance thereby supporting the hypothesis that there is a significant relationship between the discourse strategies and portrayal of women in the choice of cosmetic products as the ideology of a woman wanting to look better is preyed upon by advertisers.

Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study was guided by CDA and theory of Imitative Desire. It reveals that there is a statistically significant relationship between discourse strategies and portrayal of women and using CDA - a kind of social practice it notes that advertisers influence the view of beauty by creating a new beauty ideology and standard derived from the Ads. Therefore, women bodies should engage in campaigns for women to value themselves, reject manipulation and advocate that adverts only reflect socially acceptable portrayals.

Effect of Flow of Information on Student Engagement in Public Universities in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Cecilia Maina — 2023-10-02

Purpose: The aim of the study was to examine the effect of flow of information on student engagement in public universities in Kenya

Methodology: The study used a mixed research design with both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The target population was all the students in the public universities within Nairobi City County. A sample of 384 students was drawn from the five public chartered universities’ main campuses, using a combination of various probability sampling techniques including stratified, simple random sampling and systematic sampling. The academic registrar in each of the university was sampled for interviews using purposive sampling. The research instruments for this study were self-administered questionnaires for students and semi-structured interviews for the registrars. Quantitative data was analyzed using the SPSS software and the inferential statistics used were descriptive, correlation, regression and ANOVA analysis. Qualitative data was analyzed for themes, and triangulation of both quantitative and qualitative data done.

Findings: Lateral communication (student-student) is well established in public universities and students easily share information with one another. Downward (management-student) and upward (student-management) communication was however wanting with students feeling that they are not consulted enough even on issues that directly affect them. This is despite having representation by their student representatives at various levels of the decision-making processes in the university. Students also stated that they could not freely communicate their opinions to the management despite being provided with channels to do so.

Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study was guided by the Organizational Information Theory (OIT). The study therefore recommended that better ways of engaging students directly, such as meetings could also be considered instead of relying on student leadership representation alone. Public universities should establish clear and comprehensive communication policies that outline the channels, frequency, and modes of communication between the institution, faculty, and students.

Doctor Patient Nonverbal Communication and Tuberculosis Treatment Adherence in Kibera Informal Settlement in Nairobi County, Kenya

Beatrice Koech — 2023-10-31

Purpose: To establish the effect of nonverbal communication on tuberculosis treatment adherence in an informal settlement in Nairobi County, Kenya.

Methodology: This was by a descriptive qualitative research design. The sample size was 67 and comprised 10 healthcare workers and 57 TB patients. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample the participants. The study conducted 37 unstructured in-depth interviews and 3 focus group discussions. Data analysis was conducted by first translating the data, then transcribing the verbatim of the in-depth unstructured interviews and focus group discussions. The transcribed data was later analyzed using thematic analysis.

Findings: The findings of the study reported that less than half of the patients in the in-depth interviews reported that some healthcare workers avoided eye contact with them when they are in the consultation room and kept writing down notes. About a half of the patients indicated that majority of the healthcare workers expressed positive non-verbal cues which motivated them to adhere to treatment. The findings further showed that non-verbal communication by the healthcare workers in terms of body language could determine a TB patient’s adherence to treatment. This nonverbal communication entailed factors like rate of speech, volume of speech, facial expressions and gestures. A higher adherence rate by the patients when healthcare workers exhibited positive non-verbal communication was also reported.

Unique Contribution to Theory and Practice and Policy: The constructs of the theories informed the study in terms of treatment adherence by emphasizing the benefits of seeking healthcare early. On practice, healthcare workers needed to be aware of their non-verbal cues when interacting with their patients as they are likely to affect their patients’ adherence to treatment. In addition, policy laws on doctor-patient communication nonverbal communication should guide when dealing with patients. The laws should anchor the aspect of non-verbal cues during the healthcare workers’ interaction with patients.