A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE USE OF MEDIA IN THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE SPREAD OF CORONA VIRUS DISEASE

Background to the study: The Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria is part of the worldwide plague of coronavirus illness 2019 caused by SARS coronavirus (SARS Covid-19). Coronavirus was found for the first time in December of 2019 in Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified coronavirus as an epidemic at first, but due to its worldwide expansion and lethality, WHO elevated the virus to a pandemic in 2020. On the African continent, almost 200,000 COVID 19 cases have been verified, with over 5,600 deaths. As of July 26, there were 16,432,110 coronavirus cases worldwide, with 10,056,554 recoveries and 652,437 fatalities (worldometers.info 2021). Coronavirus has created significant alarm and concern. COVID-19 also altered the way viewers look for information in the twenty-first century. The WHO labeled the coronavirus epidemic a Global Public Health Emergency on January 30. (Quattrin, Filiputt, and Brusaferro 2015).

The coronavirus was first detected in Nigeria on February 27, 2020, when an Italian resident in Lagos state tested positive for the virus. The second incidence was recorded in Ewekoro, Ogun state, on March 9, 2020, through contact tracing of a Nigerian person who had communication with the Italian citizen. The first coronavirus incidence in Akwa Ibom state was reported in April 2020, with another case reported in May 2020, when a member of the Government House Press Corps apparently tested positive for the dangerous Covid-19 illness (http:///allafrica.com). According to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), the overall number of confirmed cases in Nigeria as of July 25th, 2020 is 40,532, with 17,374 people recovering and 858 people declared deceased. According to the NCDC, the overall number of confirmed cases in Akwa Ibom state as of July 25, 2020 is 208, with 121 people believed to be recovered and 7 people declared deceased. (wikipedia.com).

Daily global updates on coronavirus pandemic information are extremely popular, being aired on radio stations, scrolled on television screens, and shared on social media. Furthermore, with the deregulation of Nigeria's telecommunications sector, which resulted in over 139 million active mobile phone users and an installed capacity of over 180 million lines (Monye, 2015), Nigerians' media reliance level expanded dramatically during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The media plays an important role in conveying health promotion. According to Asogba (2019), citing Quattrin, Filliputt, and Brusaferro (2015), public health programs that employ mass media to promote beneficial health behaviors may benefit.

Interestingly, when Akarika (2019) proposed the Media System Dependency theory, they had no knowledge of the growth of social media. The main premise of the Media System Dependency hypothesis is that in times of crisis or uncertainty, people would rely on the media to receive information in order to alleviate uncertainty and anxiety. More specifically, during health emergency scenarios, such as the coronavirus pandemic, the more individuals rely on the media to meet their health demands, the more essential the role that the media will play in such people's lives, resulting in more media influence on such people. As a result, this study looks into the use of mass media and social media in the fight against the spread of Corona Virus disease.