A Probe Into The Origin Of Early Newspapers In Nigeria

Nigeria is often called the "Giant of Africa" because of its large population and rapid economic development,and its modern journalism is also developing rapidly,which is inseparable from the solid foundation laid by the development of its early newspapers.At present,the domestic research on the early Nigerian newspapers is less,and this paper has supplementary value.This paper mainly studied the birth and development of early Nigerian newspapers and their impacts on the development of Nigerian society from the theoretical perspectives of British colonialism and Nigerian nationalism and the research method of situational analysis.Early Nigerian newspapers were born and developed during the early period of British colonial rule and Nigerian nationalist movement,and they were inevitably influenced by the dual role of the latter and influenced the social development.On the basis of reading and analyzing relevant literature,the author put the research in the background of the era and social development,and took British colonialism and Nigerian nationalism as the key clues to expatiate separately the early newspapers and newspaper people according to the chronological order,and then discussed their important role of public opinion in the specific social development process as a whole,to present the overall and dynamic development process of early Nigerian newspapers.The study found that British colonial rule played an important role in promoting the birth of early Nigerian newspapers.It introduced newspapers into Nigeria and created economic and cultural objective conditions for the development of the early newspapers.However,the colonial authorities prevented the further development of the newspapers by enacting press laws.The early Nigerian nationalist movement against colonial rule was the main impetus for the development of the early newspapers,which also laid a solid foundation of public opinion for the independence of Nigeria.Therefore,the internal factor that really promoted the sustainable development of early Nigerian newspapers was the growing nationalism under the anti-colonial speech of the newspapers.Early Nigerian newspapers and nationalism promoted and complemented each other.Early Nigerian newspapers were born in the mid-19th century under the background of the colonial expansion of European empires and the infiltration of European missionaries into the interior of Africa.In the 1880s,indigenous Nigerian newspapers emerged,and the newspaper nationalism sprouted,and developed rapidly in the early 20th century.From the cultural nationalist movement in the late 19th century to the political nationalist movement in the early 20th century,early Nigerian newspapers played an irreplaceable role in public opinion as important initiators and participants.Although most of early Nigerian newspaper nationalist movement failed,they gained the support of the indigenous people and awakened and stimulated their nationalist consciousness.In the late 19th century,the nationalist speech of Nigerian newspapers did not break through the British colonial system,and inadvertently accelerated the British invasion into the Yorubaland.But the cultural nationalist movement initiated by the press resisted the invasion of European culture and protected the traditional African culture to some extent.In the early 20th century,Nigerian newspapers increasingly fought against British colonial rule,which began a series of nationalist movements against British colonial rule under the leadership of the Lagos Weekly Record and the Lagos Standard.The colonial authorities successively promulgated the press laws to control newspaper speech,such as the Newspaper Ordinance and the Sedition Offence Ordinance,which restricted the increase of the number of newspapers,but did not weaken the resistance voice of the press.In the 1920s,with the promulgation of the Clifford Constitution and the economic and cultural revival after World War I,the Nigerian press entered the pluralistic stage of the common development of different newspapers,which was also a short period of the decline of nationalist newspapers.