AUDIENCE PERCEPTION OF THE USE OF RADIO AS A TOOL FOR PUBLIC ENLIGHTENMENT ON ENVIRONMENTAL STANITATION

In this study, the perception of radio by the audience as an agent of enlightening the people about issues of environmental sanitation was also assessed with the focus on the population of Offa in Kwara State. The basis of this study was necessity to be able to measure the effectiveness of radio casts in creating awareness and behavior change as applied to environmental hygiene and community health.Specifically, the study tested the level of awareness of the audience on the issue of environmental sanitation discussed through radio, the perceived effectiveness of such messages on attitude formation, factors that determine whether a viewer listens to these shows or not and the limitations that hamper the success of enlightenment.The survey research design was adopted and a questionnaire of structured questionnaire was the main tool of data collection. Officially, 300 respondents who form part of the community were used as a random sample.Statistical procedures of description such as frequency distributions, percentages, means and standard deviations were conducted using the Statistical packages of Social Sciences (S.P.S.S.). The results were that there was a large proportion of the population who were aware of the issue of environmental sanitation as presented through radio programming of interest most of all in the case of Okin FM by the Clean-Up Kwara, in the Royal 95.1 FM. The respondents perceived such messages to be informative, educative and effective in instilling positive attitudes towards maintenance of environment. Further, the policy makers and communication strategists should increase the resources that should be used in helping the community based radio initiatives in order to maintain the awareness of the people and also to encourage good judgment in the practice of environmental sanitation.