Nigerian Audience Views on Mainstream Media and Moulding of Public Opinion in the 21st Century

every human society. However, with the influence of web 2.0 technologies that have hugely affected journalism practice in the 21st century, this study investigated the extent at which mainstream media still mould public opinion in Nigeria. The paper was anchored on agenda-setting and media dependency theories as it investigated mass media’s ability to mould the views of people on issues of public concern. Survey research design was used where multi-stage sampling technique was adopted in selection of the samples, whereas the Australian Calculator was used to draw a sample size of (371), the questionnaire served as the instrument for data collection. The results revealed that, though social media and blogs have influenced public communication generally, the mainstream media still mould public opinion in Nigeria. This was revealed as respondents disclosed that in taking decisions, they believe and use more information obtained from mainstream media than information gotten from blogs and social media sites. Keywords: Information, journalism, mass media, masses, social media