AUDIENCE PERCEPTION OF COMMUNICATING POLICY CHANGE BY THE GOVERNMENT

Abstract

This study explored the audience perception of communicating policy change by the government, using the new naira note as a case study. In a typical polity where the political actors and agencies are regularly implementing new policies or establishing new programmes, it becomes a necessity to educate the people they govern about such policies. It therefore means that there must be viable channels that enhance adequate communication and education for the people about these policies. This study therefore established its findings on certain objectives such as to determine the level of awareness among the people about the new naira note re-design and their source of information and to understand the attitudes and perceptions of the people towards government communication of policy changes, specifically the new currency re design. The researcher reviewed a number of related works to gain clarity on the subject matter while the survey method was employed to gather information from the study respondents. Findings revealed that larger percentage of the respondents were aware about the new note re-design which was quite fair. However, only 38% of the respondents are aware of the reasons for naira note re design while other respondents are either aware or not sure of the reasons for re design. The implication of this finding is that there has been lack of adequate communication or awareness from the central bank or government regarding the reasons for the redesign of the new naira note.