Mass Media Contribution in Resilience Capacity Building Before, During and After Disaster in The Niger Delta Region, Nigeria

The paper examines the contribution of mass media in resilience capacity building before, during, and after disasters in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. It explores the concept of mass media, objectives and impacts of risk communication, the cost of oil spills, and capacity building required to achieve community resilience to Oil spills-related disasters in the study area. Quantitative data collection methods were used to elicit information from respondents selected for the study, while descriptive and inferential statistics like the ANOVA and Multiple Regression analysis were employed for data presentation and analysis. Findings revealed that only 32.7% of the sampled respondents agreed that mass media adequately informs them about the available resources and support system for affected communities and that it effectively communicates environmental risk and hazards associated with oil spills with 38.8% agreed, while 84.6% agreed that media informs better after a disaster had occurred, 62.5% during, and just 26.7% before it occurs. It stressed the need for media communicators to acquire increased capacity in terms of risk knowledge (84%) and existing local adaptation and coping measures 68.1%. It recommends improved knowledge capacity by the media to enable them to inform the community at risk promptly and correctly, invest in and utilize modern ICT platforms for their reportage, improved response in line with global best practice of media role in disaster management, while government should organize workshops to create more awareness on mass media usage towards enhanced community participation for resilience capacity building of oil spilled communities in the Niger Delta.