From the Editor-in-Chief
It gives me great pleasure to present this newly revamped, improved, updated and reinvigorated institutional journal, the Babcock Journal of the Social Sciences (BJSS). Previously published as the Babcock Journal of Management and Social Sciences, under a productive partnership with the School of Management Sciences at Babcock University, this progression to a uniquely Social Science journal allows our greatly expanded School of Social Sciences to focus its intellectual lens on the subjects that animate our various disciplines. One of the oldest journals at Babcock University, this journal has a high reputation for quality, consistency and dynamism. I am happy to present this latest edition to our academic and other publics as a product of the Veronica Adeleke School of Social Sciences (VASSS), consisting of the departments of Economics, Mass Communication, Political Science and Public Administration, and Social Work. Under a new editorial team, and a newly constituted international editorial board of highly reputable scholars, the BJSS is set to break new grounds and advance new frontiers of knowledge and global significance.
One of the innovations that we are taking on board right from the start of this leg of our journey is to make the BJSS fully open access, published online. While in the past we have attracted submissions from a broad national catchment area, we are looking to expand this internationally and even globally, and to equally disseminate the research here to a much wider audience.
This edition is unique in yet another way as most of the submissions emanated from our School of Social Sciences Seminar Series. Conceived as a way to bring to the table some of the most pressing and important debates of the day in an interdisciplinary and accessible, yet rigorous social science format, the seminar series has been topical, engaging and pertinent, the series has been moderated by a committee of scholars whose dedication has ensured its continuity and vibrancy. In this volume of the BJSS, articles engaging empirical and challenge orthodoxies and propose alternative approaches on issues ranging from medical conditions to peace in the Niger Delta, media commercialization, democratization and political communication.
