Special Journal Edition: Media, Politics and Democratic culture in Nigeria and Zimbabwe

The International Journal of Social and Management Sciences (IJOSAMS) devoted its latest edition (Volume 3, No 1, 2010) to Media, Politics and Democratic culture in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Contributions were made from the two countries and the United States. Click here for the table of contents and list of contributors. Click here for abstracts of the papers. The Volume was edited by Anthony Olorunnisola, PhD, Department of Film/Video and Media Studies, College of Communications, The Pennsylvania State University, US.

Nigeria at 50 Conference

Click here for the Call for Paper and other pieces of information.

Invitation to my seminar

Nigerian Guerrilla Pressmen Ten Years after the Struggle

I am about concluding my stay at the Afrika-StudieCentrum (ASC), University of Leiden. I will be giving a seminar on my work here on Tuesday March 23. In the last few weeks, I have tried to do a paper on the current conditions and perceptions of the guerrilla journalists in Nigeria. By this term I mean those journalists who confronted the military and were brutalised and driven underground. I have sought to know what their take is on the current democratic dispensation. I had interviewed some of them and examined some of their writings. The result is a thirty-page paper which I reduced to two pages for this blog. You can read that two-page summary here.

A scientific meeting and my anger

I just returned from a 90-minute scientific brainstorming session of my host centre, the Afrikan-StudieCentrum (ASC), Universiteit Leiden. The fulcrum of the discussion was an invited presentation by Professor Arie Rip, a philospher of science. I will skip the details--they are mostly in-house issues of research focus, team sizes and so on. One of the most contentious issues discussed was the tendency for politics and policies to want to interfere with research content and focus. Those at the meeting--we were just about ten--were passionately opposed to this kind of interference and decry the growing tendency. Rather than cooperate with research centres, they allege, ministries are trying to influence the focus of these centres and even the content of their research. They spoke with amazing vehemence and passion, with the kind of concern of someone whose territory, nay, life, is being encroached. For a while, I mentally left the venue and took a (mental) trip to Nigeria. Each time we hold meetings in my Department back home, we are preoccupied with a set of concerns completely different from those of these scientists at ASC. We talk about funding, electricity, salaries, a sick student, approaching strikes and ASUU meetings, deadlines, deadlines and more deadlines from the office of the Vice Chancellor--deadlines about results, deadlines about a report going to the NUC, deadlines about admission meetings, deadlines about a list to be sent to the NYSC, deadlines that you heard of only after they had expired. Deadlines often require typsetting and printing and you have to do all of that without electricity. I cannot remember that we ever discussed research focus or agenda inmy Department! The mundane matters of mere existence consume all our passion and energy. ASC scientists--do they know they are lucky that policy makers and politicians are trying to influence them? In Nigeria, policy makers and politicians don't even know we exist. We don't count. They don't need us. Our research counts for nothing. And that is why no professor of communication has been invited by the National Assembly (NA) to enlighten it about the Freedom of Information bill; no professor of law has been invited to the NA to help it out of the quagmire created by Yar'Adua's situation. Before the 2007 elections, no professor of medicine was asked to render his/her opinion on whether or not Yar'Adua's condition could prevent him from ruling. No wonder, even we do our research in Nigeria just to lengthen our list of publications and get promoted as and when (un)due. Nigeria--the most annoying thing is not that we are not there; it is that we aint even moving forward.

JCLA Special Edition on Media and Democracy in Africa

The Journal of Communication & Language Arts (JCLA) just released a special edition on 'Media and Democracy in Africa'. Guest-edited by Dr Anthony Olorunnisola, Head, Department of Film/Video and Media Studies, the Pennsylvania State University, US, the edition contains contributions from Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and the United States. Click here for the Table of Contents. Click here for abstracts of the articles. Click here for more information about JCLA including guidelines for submission of articles. A copy of the special edition costs $10 including postage. For your copy, send a mail to ayo.ojebode@gmail.com

ACCE Conference: Ghana 2009

The African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) is the only continent-wide academic body for African researchers in media and communication--that is if you consider Trans-African Council for Communication Education (TRACCE) as the diaporic version of ACCE. ACCE, publishers of the famed African Media Review, has been in coma for several years but is poised to come round with a Conference. Under the theme Communication education and practice in Africa: a social contract for the 21st Century, the Conference will hold in the School of Communication Studies, University of Ghana, from 4-8 August 2009.

Conference subthemes (quite a list) include:
Communication, Language and Culture
Communication and Gender
Communication and Democracy
Communication and Globalization
Communication and Cross-cutting Development Challenges, including health communication; communication and the environment etc.
(This list of subthemes is not exhaustive)

Abstracts are to be submitted as mail attachments to:
Mrs. Alexina Arthur, aarthur@ug.edu.gh; alexinaarthur@yahoo.com
Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, agadzekpo@ug.edu.gh; audreygadzekpo@gmail.com

Deadline for receipt of abstracts : 31 January 2009
Notice of acceptance of abstracts : 28 February 2009
Deadline for receipt of full papers : 31 May 2009

Indigenous communication: Pamela Wilson versus Des Wilson

Des Wilson took a PhD in African indigenous communication from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 1988. Des’s thesis was on the indigenous communication media and channels of the Ibibio people in South-South Nigeria. Des defined indigenous media as those media of communication that had been in use before the modern mass media and are still in use today. Adopting some of his terms from music, he categorised these media into several groups including membranophones, ideophones, aerophones, symbolographic displays, extramundane communication and music. Examples of such media included talking drums, wooden drums, rattles, folk tales, tattoos, symbolic writing and codes. A little unwieldy, you might think. Yet, to many of us, Wilson’s work was not only an important improvement on the complicated work of Doob (1960) but also a take-off point and launch-pad for enquiry into African indigenous communication media and systems. And this has led to a number of graduate theses. Years after, Mundy and Compton (1991); Mundy and Lloyd-Laney (1992); Millar and Aniah (2005) and several others continue to map the territory of indigenous media a la Des, that is, as that which was there pre-colonially and is still being used today. With the probable exception of the chapter by Louise Bourgault, this line of thought runs through the book edited by Ghana’s Ansu-Kyeremeh, Indigenous communication in Africa (2005). Newspapers, radio and television are described as exogenous or foreign media; the exact opposite of indigenous media. Points of intersection and interaction between these exogenous and indigenous media are explored but as points of distinctly intersecting entities.

But the recent very brilliant book edited by Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart, Global indigenous media, defines indigenous media completely differently. Acknowledging the internal tension in the phrase “global indigenous”, the editors and contributors consider indigenous media as any media used by the indigenous peoples, defined by Manuel and Posluns as “people who have special nontechnical, nonmodern, exploitative relations to the land in which they still inhabit and who are disenfranchised by the nations they live”. Among such media are radio, television, cinema, and even the internet. "The stone rejected by the builders..." you might think. (“Interestingly”, Pamela Wilson’s book, which has fifteen chapters focusing on different peoples, has nothing to say about any of the peoples of Africa. Never mind that the title reads “Global...”. Contributors were drawn from across the globe: that is, from America and Europe!).

Whereas Des Wilson and others focus on the origin of a medium in classifying it as indigenous, Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart and others focus on the users of the media (the indigenous people). Does that say something about the difference between a media scholar and an anthropologist? This difference can take fundamental dimensions especially when mapping out research focus is the issue. And the difference will certainly persist especially since there is little or no interaction among the two groups of scholars symbolised by these two Wilsons. Maybe there should be a journal of indigenous communication studies to engender such interaction.

Students who don't do assignments get A's

USA Today published an article which summarizes a nationwide survey of college students in the US. The study involved nearly 380,000 students from 722 four-year colleges. The study showed that about 20% of seniors and 25% of freshmen reported frequently going to class without completing the required readings or assignments. Yet, of these students who did not do their assignments, 29% of freshmen and 36% of seniors got mostly A's. Of what use, then, is going through the professor's readings? Read the article here.

The Nigerian Higher Education Foundation symposium at New York

On Thursday, 13 November 2008, my colleague and I attended a symposium organised by the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF) at Columbia University, New York. In attendance were several distinguished US-based Nigerians in academia holding down important positions in their fields and publishing cutting-edge research. Participants also included people from business and representatives of some higher institutions in Nigeria, including the University of Ibadan. In attendance was the Obi of Onitsha, an alumnus of Columbia University for forty years. (I stand with the Obi in the photo above)

The symposium was on the role of partnerships in African sustainable development. Participating organisations included the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Among the speakers at the symposium--and there were very many of them--were the distinguished Professor of Development Economics, Jeffrey Sachs; the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Achebe; Anthony Olorunnisola (Penn State University); Ibrahim Gambari (United Nations); Wole Soboyejo (Princeton University); Bola Omoniyi (the Earth Institute); Funmi Olopade (University of Chicago); G.O.S Ekhaguere (University of Ibadan, Nigeria), and Sam Ofodile (UNIPORT, Nigeria). Some presenters shared their research breakthroughs (Prof Ofodile and his team had perfected a method of injecting a substantial quantity of protein into garri!) while others presented the activities of their organisations (Bola Omoniyi talked about the Millennium Villages Project in countries including Nigeria). Everyone stressed how their research or organisations could help, or had been helping, Nigeria especially with regard to attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Presenters however shared their frustrations with the situation in Nigeria: the difficulty in collaborating with Nigerian universities caused by lack of follow up; the daunting problem of bureaucracy in Nigerian universities; and cold reception or even outright opposition from colleagues back home! The problem of infrastructure and

corruption in the nation as a whole also received substantial coverage. (To your left is a discussion panel at the symposium. I stand with Dr Olorunnisola in the photograph below)

This symposium was my first real encounter with brain drain at work. The presenters were first-rate academics, distinguished in every sense of the word, who had left Nigeria years ago out of sheer frustration--unemployment, militarism, poverty, insecurity, corruption--or in search of education. Nigeria's loss is America's gain. It also exposed me to the reality of media bias and stereotypes: in the media we hardly hear of this category of Nigerians in the US; but all the time we hear of a different kind of Nigerians in America: those who defraud others. The symposium also exposed me to a different kind of patriotism. These people left Nigeria years ago but their hearts never left Nigeria. Everyone was driven by one question: "how can we help Nigeria?" In fact, that was the question that led to the birth of NHEF in 2004.

It appears to me that Nigeria has immense resources and an inexhaustible reservoir of goodwill from Nigerians in diaspora--resources which our leaders and administrators have ignored. Will Nigerian academic adminstrators and political leaders respond to the NHEF and diasporic beckon? I am frightened by the obvious answer to this question.

PS: Jeffrey Sachs's wisecrack at the symposium: Each time people complain about corruption in developing countries, I ask, 'Really? You mean there are corrupt people outside of Washington?'

Elendu's arrest and the safety of online journalism

Nigeria has added another to its string of firsts with the arrest of the popular writer of elendureports.com, Mr Jonathan Elendu, by the State Security Service (SSS). As reported by the PM News, Mr Elendu was picked up on Saturday, October 19, at the Nnamdi Azikwe International airport, Abuja, on his arrival from the United States. He is being held by the SSS for his alleged connection with saharareporters.com. Saharareporters.com is known for publishing top-secret stories and photographs of the gross misdeeds of Nigerian government officials including those of the president’s family members. Elendureports.com is far less aggressive and biting than sharareporters.com. There are rumours that the SSS is desperately inventing a web of accusations, including money laundering and sedition, to squeeze round Mr Elendu's neck. (Above is Mr Elendu's picture which I copied from bbc.co.uk)

Online journalism has been considered the safest form of journalism, the least susceptible to state clampdown. It has negotiated for itself a clear space in the public sphere for citizens’ engagement of government, its actions and policies. This form of journalism is understandably attractive to Nigerians given the experiences of orthodox journalists in the hands of the Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha—Nigerian military dictators who hounded and pounded journalists for nearly fourteen years. (See, for instance, Sunday Dare's Guerrila Journalism)

Media scholars and political scientists who support the idea of a free press find in online journalism an avenue for unfettered freedom of expression. Not only this, online journalism has led them to announce and in fact celebrate the death of gate-keeping and censorship. [See, for instance, Williams and Carpini’s (2000) “Unchained reaction: the collapse of media gate-keeping…”, Journalism (1) 1:61-85]. Jonathan Elendu’s arrest by the government of Nigeria should lead theorists to cut short this celebration and rethink the universality of their conclusions. This is the same way the recent invasion of Channels TV by the SSS calls for a rethink of press freedom in the Nigerian democracy. And those who call President Yar'Adua "Go Slow" should have a rethink: he can be very swift if the issue matters to him--his men did not allow Mr Elendu to even spend a second in Nigeria before arresting him. Nigeria!

There is some worry about the silence of most Nigerian papers on the arrest of Mr Jonathan Elendu. We do not know for sure why most papers, unlike bloggers, have been quiet on this. Even the BBC has done a report on the arrest. Do orthodox Nigerian journalists consider their online colleagues comrades or rivals? Maybe this is a good question for empirical investigation. However this goes, in my view, Nigeria is the first sub-Saharan African country and the second country in the world (after China) to attempt a clampdown on online journalism.

NB: I have edited this post slightly since after receiving Loomnie's comment.

That RAN Conference

On September 16, 2008, I announced on this blog that the Reading Association of Nigeria (RAN) was planning a national conference to be held in University of Uyo, Nigeria. The Conference took place from October 6 to 9. The first day was devoted to an up-skilling workshop for primary and high school teachers to acquaint them with current trends in teaching reading. The workshop was free for teachers of government schools; those from private schools had to pay. This was commendable social service by RAN.

There was a keynote address which focused on literacy structures for educational advancement and manpower development. The speaker stressed the strong challenges before RAN in its efforts to promote reading in Nigeria. One of the most interesting papers presented at the Conference was the one with the title: "Literacy skills in the language of medicine: the layman’s survival strategy".

Edidiong Umana presented the paper she and I prepared. (That is her picture to your left). Our paper carried the title: “Nigerian newspapers as sources of sickle cell education: what is there to read?” Our content analysis of Nigerian newspapers showed that despite the high prevalence of sickle cell disorder in Nigeria, the print media give it only minute attention—unlike HIV/AIDS. AIDS campaigns get international sponsorship and so attract media attention. We argued that the current greatest criterion for news selection is not found on the pages of journalism textbooks. That criterion is profit. Click here for the abstract. For the full version of the paper, send an email to Edidiong (ediumana@gmail.com).

Contrary to what I predicted in my September 16 announcement of the Conference, not many presenters made recommendations to government. (But the joint communique issued at the end of the Conference did). Does this suggest that individual Nigerian scholars are losing faith in government? Are they asking: of what use have been the recommendations made to government over the ages? Is this doubt, disaffection or cynicism? Whatever the answer might be, it is important to know that I am not a reliable prophet.

"This ethnic group...we are not important to the media..."

In a small-scale study sponsored by the Centre for Research in Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) University of Oxford, I engaged members of some very small Nigerian ethnic groups in focus group discussions. I intended to learn what they thought about the width and nature of coverage they received in the Nigerian media. This followed my discovery, through content analysis, that the 390-something ethnic groups outside the three mega groups in Nigeria occupy just about 23% of the media space devoted to ethnic issues in Nigeria. Minority ethnic group members felt that their identity was marginalized by the media. In their words: “We do not matter. We are not important. If we are, the media will talk about us, about our festivals, about our problems”. There is a covert link between group size, media attention and political-economic influence in Nigeria.

You can download a summary of the work here.

Literacy and human development…Will they listen to RAN?

From October 6 to 11, 2008, the Reading Association of Nigeria (RAN) will hold its 11th biennial conference in Uyo, Capital of Akwa Ibom State, South South Nigeria. Conferees will discuss the intersection between literacy and human development. Keynote speakers are Professor Steve Layne from Chicago, Professor Thelma Oboh from Minnesota and Prof Ralph Omojuwa from Nigeria. Conferees will discuss how literacy can contribute to alleviating human development problems in Nigeria. They are expected to make suggestions to government and NGOS on what to do to increase literacy rate from the abysmal 67% (adult literacy) (See IRA, 2007).

Ms Edidiong Umana, a graduate student of mine, and I will co-present a paper on “The Nigerian newspapers as sources of education on SCD: what is there to read?” We believe the media have done a lot of informing and educating on HIV/AIDS, cancer etc . We are not certain if they have done enough about sickle cell disease (SCD) education. Yet 100 million people worldwide and about 40 million Nigerians carry the sickle cell trait (Ohaeri & Sokunbi, 2001). If the SCD problem is that severe, the Nigerian media should prime it based on the demands of social responsibility and the news selection criteria of magnitude and prominence. We plan to do a content analysis of the health pages of two leading Nigerian papers to see what about SCD is on them. Many SCD carriers are young; they need education in order to make marital choices and so break the chain of pain, woes and misery. Poor or scant media content as well as illiteracy will deny them this much-needed education. These are therefore anti-human development. Ms Umana will make the presentation on our behalf.

It is commendable that RAN has chosen to focus on human development and how literacy can influence it. The literacy rate in Nigeria is low and human development is poor. From this conference will come suggestions on how to tackle the problems. By these, maybe RAN will save some from ignorance, poverty and disease that illiteracy promotes.

But will concerned government agencies take RAN seriously? Does the Nigerian government think the academia have anything to offer? Recently a government official said Nigerian academics had failed Nigerian. I thought the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) would take him up. But it did not. Maybe ASUU felt the right response was silence. Ms Umana and I envisaged that as usual, government and its agencies would not listen to the RAN conferees. Therefore, we might back up our presentation with media advocacy and SCD activism after the conference.

References:

Ohaeri, J. U. and Shokunbi, W. A. (2001) “Attitudes and Beliefs of Relatives of patients with
Sickle cell disease” The East African Medical Journal. Vol. 78, No 4 pp180- 186

IRA: International Reading Association (2007) Nigeria: 67% adult literacy not acceptable. http://blog.reading.org/archives/002474.html

List of some of my publications--2006 and older

Ojebode, A (2006) “Nigerian Mass Media Representation of Women in Agriculture and Agribusiness: A Case of Status Misconferral” Journal of Communication Studies Vol. 5, No 1-2, pp 1-14. Click here for abstract.

Ojebode, A. (2005) “Tested, Trusted, Yet Frustrating: An Investigation into the Effectiveness of Environmental Radio Jingles in Oyo State Nigeria” Applied Environmental Communication and Education Volume 4; pp. 173-180. Click here for abstract.

Ojebode, A. & Sola Sonibare (2004) “A Little More than a strong Urge: An Investigation into the Influence of Radio Reading Programmes on Listeners’ Practice of reading” West African Journal of Education Vol. xxiv, Number 1; pp. 79-89. Click here for abstract.

Ojebode, A. (2004) “Media Globalisation and the responses of the Nigerian Broadcast Media: Implications for Democracy and Development” International Review of Politics and Development Vol. 2, No 2; pp. 40-53. Click here for abstract.

Ojebode, A. (2004) “Empathising in Cyberspace: A Study of Empathy among Members of an Internet Group” Multidisciplinary Journal of Research Development Vol. 3, No 1; pp. 87-95. Click here for abstract.

Akinleye, L. & Ojebode, A. (2004) “World Information Imbalance: the Domestic Dimension” Topical Issues in Communication Arts & Sciences Vol. 2 pp. 15-24. Click here for abstract.