Building Media-Literate Audiences in Enugu State: Challenges and Opportunities for Traditional Media Outlets

This study examined the challenges and opportunities traditional media outlets in Enugu state faces to when building media-literate audiences in the state. The study used descriptive survey research design. With the population of entire 4,690,100 estimated population of Enugu state and the sample size of 385, determined through an online sample size calculator, this study used multi-stage sampling technique to select the its participants across Enugu state. The study made use of 5 - points Likert scale, mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage tables to present data. It also made use of Pimentel (2010) model of mean interpretation to analyse the respondents mean responses. The findings of the study showed that media audiences cannot detect false information in the media and do not see traditional media as promoters of media literacy in Enugu state because, in the face of the opportunities available to traditional media for the enhancement of media literacy in the state, poor funding, unrestricted online media activities and more value for online media contents poses a challenge to the efforts of traditional media platforms at media literacy. It was therefore, recommended that traditional media outlets in Enugu should initiate periodic media literacy campaign, bring in fact-checking programmes in their daily activities, partner with schools and NGOs and leverage their higher credibility status in promoting media literacy in Enugu state.