1992 0-7734-9555-X This study, a blend of theoretical and empirical scholarship, gives insight not only into Nigeria's recent political history but also into state/society relations, politics of press law, press history, and the sectional dimensions of press communication flow. A descriptive account of the Nigerian newspaper press as theatre and actor in the struggle for legitimated power in state and society from independence in 1960 to the fall of the Second Republic in 1983. Special emphasis is placed on the largely unreported and subterranean dimensions of press communication.