Symbolic representations of the environment using texts and visuals in three environmental programs on Nigerian television stations

Television programs are not just figments of the imaginations of television producers and their presenters, they are representations of the reality that has been perceived in their environment. Visuals and texts are tools and symbolic representations of reality based on the knowledge drawn from the society around them. Using the social construction of reality as a theoretical foundation, this study tried to assess: how meaning is textually presented in selected episodes of the three environmental programs? And how do the visuals of the sign-in intro of the three environmental programs represent the environment? This was done using 4 episodes each of the three programs making a total of twelve for the thematic analysis and one episode of each of the three environmental programs. Data was obtained using thematic analysis of transcribed content from the selected episodes (frequency counts and percentages) and paired sample t-test statistics used to analyze data. Findings include the combined importance of texts and images to explain the issues of the environment being discussed. The thematic analysis indicated that people, environment and climate were the major issues identified across the twelve episodes in the word cloud, tree map and percentage frequency count. Additionally, images are also not just about the elements but also the colors and what they represent. Blue and green were predominantly used in the visual sign-in introductions of the three programs. Eco Africa used the visuals to depict the change they want to see, while the other two programs were majorly representations of the existing environmental issue and challenges. The study recommended that producers and presenters use text and images based on symbols predominant in their society to ensure that there is no disconnect with their audiences.