The world is full of confrontations between people, groups, and nations who think, feel, and act differently. At the same time these people, groups and nations are exposed to common problems which demand cooperation for their solution.
Life and deaths are realities of these groups which calls for planning and ceremony despite the fact that one is joyous and the other is sad depending on what culture they are emulate. However a concerning factor is there is a chosen way to live and die.
The following is a brief description of a Jewish burial ceremony which I attended, it also includes accounts of what used to be traditional attainable am not sure if modernization has taken its course on the way the ceremony is been heard now.
The goal of this discussion is to share my cultural sock and the relativity of my mental programming.
Blu Greenberg in her book, How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household (Fireside, 1983) says that just as there is a way to live as a Jew, there is also a "way to die and be buried as a Jew”. Jewish burials take place as quickly as possible, in line with their principle of honoring the dead (k'vod hamet). Burials are postponed for a day only; if immediate relatives cannot arrive in time from abroad or not enough time for burial before the Shabbat or a holiday, anything less is considered a "humiliation of the dead," says Greenberg.
In accordance to Jewish Law, the body of the deceased is washed thoroughly, Men prepare men and women prepare women. They wash the body with warm water from head to foot and; although they may turn the body as necessary to clean it’s entirely, including all it’s orifices, they never place the body face down. However, a person who suffered an injury and blood soaked into his or her clothing, ritual washing is not completed; because the blood of a person is considered as holy as his life and deserves proper burial.
The deceased is buried in a simple pine coffin because coffins, creation or embalming are forbidden by Jewish law (halacha). However, many Reform rabbis will officiate at funerals which involve cremation and embalming, in accordance with the Reform Rabbi Steven Chester.
The deceased is buried wearing a simple white shroud (tachrichim), which is purposely kept simple to avoid distinguishing between rich or poor. Men are buried with their prayer shawls (tallits), which are rendered ineffective by cutting off one of the fringes.
The body is guarded or watched from the moment of death until after burial. This practice, called guarding/watching (shemira), is also based on the principle of honoring the dead. A family member, or someone arranged by the funeral parlor passes the time by reciting psalms (Tehillim) as this person watches over the deceased.
Just before a funeral begins, the immediate relatives of the deceased tear their garments or the rabbi does this to them or hands them torn black ribbons to pin on their clothes to symbolize their loss.
After the burial, it is customary for the family to sit Shiva (in mourning). This was traditionally done for seven days, although many Reform and other Jews now sit Shiva for three days, and some for just a day.
Burials are universal ceremonies though it’s celebrated with some difference in my culture. For me it was culturally puzzling that the deceased is buried in a simple pine coffin, wearing a simple white shroud, and the body is guarded or watched from the moment of death until after the burial. In my culture we almost value the death than the living, death people are brailed in very expensive coffins, and are dressed very elegantly. In most cases the burial ceremony depicts the status and affluences of the family.
At the begin of the ceremony it was quick awaking for me, I felt very lost with all the chanting and recitations going on, I also felt embarrassed because I felt I was over dressed. But as the ceremony progressed; my friend whom I went with explained the various part of the ceremony to me I began to felt more comfortable and even came to appreciate their customs and believe. This new insight made me question the extravagant nature of burial ceremony in my custom, and wishing my people would take some part of the Jewish traditions of simplicity and provide for the death persons family as opposite to trashing every thing in a dead grave.
An important conclusion I draw from my participation in the Jewish burial ceremony is the recognition that I carry particular mental software because of the way I was brought up, and that others brought up in a different environment carry different mental software for equally good reason. Without this awareness, I have traveled around the world feeling superior and remaining deaf and blind to all clues about the relativity of my mental programming.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Media, Gender and Conflict: the Problem of eradicating female Stereotyping of in Nigeria
Introduction:
The myth that our human world is a “men’s world” is founded upon the practical reality of the complete over-riding and dominant influence of the male over the female gender in all facets of our public life. Modern education together with the advancement in science and technology, which processes have accelerated in tandem especially in the last century, have tremendously increased the skill acquisitions and enhanced the productive efficiencies and capabilities of women as much as men. Armed with these two, women have expanded their roles from procreation and social care-giving within the family to major and significant contributions to development in all fields of human concern and endeavors. Yet in spite of their significant contributions in modern society, women have continued to be regarded and treated as a second fiddle and un-equal partners in the modern human development process.
The structure of inequality pitched against the female gender has become an issue of grave concern in human development discourses. One of the big challenges facing the world today is therefore how to eliminate the gender disparity and gap between men and women and allow equal opportunities to all human persons without recourse to gender bias. At the global level, the United Nations has taken the major step by highlighting the achievement of gender equality in our world as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
At the level of individual nations, the global awareness campaign for the cause of women is yielding just very little results. This is especially the case with countries in Africa. The little change seems to be mainly in the area of politics, where the strong fight by the women has produced the first female President in Liberia today in the Person of Her Excellency, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. In other public walks of life such as in the professions and specialized fields of work, women in Africa particularly have still remained marginalized and excluded especially from the commanding heights or echelon of leadership and control of the decision making and policy formulation processes.
Nigeria, like most African countries, is still faced with the big challenge of achieving a better status for the women gender in the public life of the nation. The Nigerian society generally seems to be very slow in accepting the change evolving in the roles of women in the modern world. The perception, attitude and recognition is still very low, with the result that women have continued to be marginalized and denied leadership positions in all walks of life. Leadership in noble professions like Medicine, Architecture, and Journalism among others is still the exclusive reserve of the men folk which is denied to women even when they qualify and excel in the professional practice. This is more or less a cultural thing.
The Journalism profession is particularly one of the crucial areas in which the marginalization and exclusion of women has played out most saliently in the modern Nigerian society. The representation of women in the media in Nigeria has long been an issue of major concern and one of the main areas of focus for research in mass media studies. These inquiries have focused on the way women are seen, faired and perceived by those who set media agenda in Nigeria. The issue is borne out of the subordination of women by those who control the mass media. As the problem still persists, the discourse can never cease to be carried on, hence the needs for more studies until the final solutions are found. This proposed research is yet another effort in that direction.
Background:
In Nigeria, the business of writing and reposting the news has been an exclusively male dominated industry. Though few women have ventured into the industry, the percentage of women in the journalism professional in Nigeria is exceptionally low. Those in decision-making capacity are nothing to be proud of. It is appalling to note that with all the national newspapers in Nigeria 57 of them (onlinenigeria,com) only one actually has a woman as the editor. However, some women do serve as line editors. Judging by the population of Nigeria as of 2003 of well over 90 million people, women and men are almost equal in number (63, 2491.88 male & 62,911.036 female) (httt://www.population.gov.nf/factandfigure.htm), Yet the number of women represented in the media is less than five percent. Moreover, the few that have been given the opportunity to become part of this exclusive club have had to put up with great resistance. The women have had to fight for respect, equal opportunity and credibility. The hegemony of the male gender has been accentuated by their continued dominance of the media establishment. The ability to maintain their grip on the industry has allowed them to continue to set the limits and the extent to which women are involved in decision making process in the profession.
With the total lack of representation in the industry, the image of the Nigerian women that has continued to be projected in the society generally and in the Media circles in particular, has remained negative, and continued to undermine and berate or derogate the status and substance of the modern Nigerian woman. There is no appreciation for women’s role in media. The discourse and overall agenda is set such that women are viewed as pretty faces that are suitable mainly for entertainment purposes. The structure of the media content in Nigeria has continued to promote the notion that women in the media should be reserved for roles of sexuality and trivialities. This subjective representation of women in the Media industry of Nigeria is a major source of concern for many reasons. It undermines the rights of women and denies them equal opportunities of advancement. Issues of relevance to women in the agenda of human development are never initiated or fully featured in the Media content. It also denies the Nigerian society the benefit of maximizing the full potentials and human resources of the women in the national development process.
The present era in our human development is rightly referred to as the “Information Age”. This is a factual reference to the determinant role information plays in enabling as well as enhancing development in modern human society. The Media industry is therefore a portent tool in shaping as well as the vehicle for driving the development process in every nation. It not only plays these roles through dissemination and propagation of ideas that increase knowledge and enable change, but also by raising the right issues to shape the discourse and agenda of development. Adequate representation of all the social strata of the human population of the country is the main guarantee that the Media content and agenda will reflect issues and interests of all members of the society. This essential requirement is lacking in the Media practice in Nigeria as the women who make up such a substantial percentage of the population are excluded and marginalized. The issue of lack of adequate women participation in all sectors of the Nigerian society especially in the Media seems therefore to have a direct implication for the continued failure of development in the country. More studies are therefore necessary to search for appropriate solutions to this grave challenge to development in Nigeria.
Any history of gender and media needs to recognize gender stereotypes; their existence has significant consequences. Media establishment history in Nigeria clearly reveals that women have virtually no influence in determining how they are represented. Thus, media images are fashioned through the eyes of men and decision makers. Women are equally aware of the discriminatory hiring practices in the Nigeria media industry for a long time. It must be noted that officials pay little attention to this cancerous problem that continues to eat through the fabric of the society. The fact remains that the Nigerian media do not reflect gender demographics of the nation. Another problem with reiterating conception of masculinity and feminity that associate a fixed set of qualities with each gender is that they conceal the importance of social characteristics other than gender. Even among persons of the same gender, experiences with media often depend on ones race, nationality or class, therefore perceptions of the media and it’s content are gendered.
Majority of Nigerian women seem to be satisfied with their roles as wives, mother, and housekeepers, which are the images portrayed on television. Each media organization has formal policies that govern the content of its products, sexism rarely arise in these policies. It is imperative to counterbalance the impaired presentation of women in the media at large and to cover events and issues of concern to women.
Inequality exists in media employment, in editorial and advertising decisions. Social values, often hidden from analysis, are the bedrock of inequality. Women have very few female role models in journalism. Therefore, it is difficult for female students to imagine themselves as successful professionals and for male students to interact with professional women. With faculties composed largely of men, female students must seek counseling from men. Media content is monotonously stereotypic in portrayals of women and men, Women are portrayed as passive, while men as aggressive and independent. Men control Media organizations that produce these stereotypic portrayals. Very few of the hundreds of media publishers, producers, editors, etc., are women.
The vernacular newspaper, Iwe Irohin, was the first Nigerian newspaper to be established since 1859. Thus the Nigerian media now has a history of well over 140 years. Since the inception of television in the western part of the country in 1959, there are about 127 television and radio stations in Nigeria. In spite of this long history and the array of media establishments in Nigeria, women have been excluded from the mainstream for all these years. The situation was not helped by countless regulations promulgated by different military administrations in terms of media control, which did not do anything to address the disparities between men and women in the media industry.
Stereotypes of Nigerian Women
In Nigeria like any other countries, television, radio and print media influence, shape and direct the public thinking. Since women in politics are a novel thing in the country, one would have thought that the Nigerian media would portray women in a more palatable way than stereotyping. The rationale for trivialization of women is expressed in article written by Holtzman (1978). He wrote:
In Nigeria situation, a lot of historical, social research (sic) conducted, indicated that the (sic) women’s place is in the home. Right from childhood, children (male and female) are taught to keep the roles associated with their sexes. For example, a boy cannot be taught how to cook in the kitchen except after his seem day (sic) education he may be interested in catering studies as a profession.
To drive this point home he adds,
The Nigeria constitution is the only document, which would have declared nil (sic), and void the role of women as mothers in our homes only provides for equality in terms of voting and contesting elections.
What Bitros means here is that Nigerian women should be relieved from their child bearing and domestic duties that society assigned to them. Concurrently Ezeani points out: “it does not occur to see the constitution (which provides for full citizenship rights as regards voting and office holding) as a new model of thinking or a new code of society.” Ezeani, 1994, p. 193-194) It should be added that Nigerian Media are evident of this conservative and traditional stance (ibid.)
Given the wide spread belief as expressed by Bitros and endorsed by the general population, when such occurs, less powerful group such as women are at risk of being devalued and stereotyped by the news outlets. As Ayseli (2000) points out, when a group is construed negatively, it is easier to rally against such group. “Such a label makes it psychologically easier to discriminate against the members of the group.”
Endorsing this viewpoint, Anyanwu writes:
A content analysis of mainstream media in Nigeria reveals one dominant orientation. Women are largely seen and not heard. Their faces adorn newspapers. However, on important national and international issues, they fade out. Even when the news is about them, the story only gains real prominence if there is a male authority figure or newsmaker on the scene, (Anyanwu, 2002, p. 68)
Gender and Politics:
Staudt observed and cited in Robertson et al. (1986:206), that “contemporary women’s group enter political fray with reason related to gender, they meet with limited success” For example, men create hostile climate for women in their demands. We are too familiar with slogans and warnings by male politicians of the dire consequences of women’s equality such as soaring divorce rate, a rise in illegitimacy and the loss of African customs. This creates siege mentally and had disallowed women from participating in politics (ibid). Ambition is a plus for men but a liability for women. Women are often stigmatized by the system. Over the years, women have become victims of irresponsible policy, sexual inequality within the system as well as lack of representation that continue to allow their interest to be underrepresented. In addition, according to Ifeyinwa Udezuku (1999) and cited in the book Feminization of Development Process in Africa, the woman is proletariat, and man the elite.
Women were also extremely scarce in news department decision-making positions. It is an irony that there is no employment data to corroborate this deficiency, since there is no accountability of any form that adequately pinpoints this acute shortage of women in the industry. The debate of whether women are less qualified or victims of sexism has not been confirmed in the Nigerian media, nevertheless the fact remains that women are on the short end of the stick.
It is appropriate to note the many names given to women in the media in Nigeria including one that portrays women as the weaker sex rather than looking at them as the most important asset in society. The communication of women issues in the media is hopelessly ridiculous since there is a lack of gender sensitive media policy that takes into account the appalling record of crime and negative reportage of women issues as well as overt sexism in the mainstream broadcast / print media. Unless women become adequately represented in the Nigeria media to effectively play active role in promoting gender sensitivity, women will always be marginalized
Many women organizations in Nigeria continue to maintain apolitical stance because of the dangers inherent in entering political fray. They are aware that they will not be successful. Rather than using their resources effectively in the political mainstream, most Nigerian women enter politics on the terms set by male elites, who use them for their own stakes.
During the nationalist period in Nigeria, competing national parties bided for the support of this large group of women. In spite of their numbers and organization, they merely served as vehicle to be tapped by the major political parties than to stand as active group to be recognized. (Cited in Robertson, et al: 1986:208). In some instances, they were co-opted into the major political parties to strengthen the party’s political base. In one instance, the party founded by the late Mrs. Ransome Kuti was co-opted into the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC) later changed to the (National Council of Nigerian Citizens). As a result, the strength of her party was watered down or became ineffective in galvanizing women to seek political positions. During the elections, these women organizations were nothing but toothless bulldogs. (Ibid).
Gender and Conflict:
The fact remains that the ratio of women to men in Nigeria media is comparatively small. Many of the social conflict issues raised directly affect women; female genital mutilation, polygamy, property succession rights, as well as the more violent issues such as displacement, loss of loved ones and livelihoods, family disintegration, rape, and other forms of abuse of women and girls.
Notably the involvement of women in the media in Nigeria is a recent, post- independence development. The advent of modernization coupled with creation of states as well as more radio and television broadcasting after the civil war brought some women into the all-male dominated media industry, even though the percentage of women in media remains comparatively low. Women in the media in Nigeria continue to come into conflict with this male-dominating media culture that continues to discriminate against women.
The media society looks at independent-minded women journalists as threats to authority at home or rather sexual prey to the all powerful men they happen to come in contact with during the course of their profession. Social attitudes also suggest that the media ignore prominent women’s views as journalists go about looking for authoritative comment. The consensus is that women issues are used to titillate and sell media products, while serious gender issues are neglected. It is a common practice in Liberia for women to buy spaces in the country’s newspaper to ensure that their views are heard. Meanwhile, women journalists have to fight hard to start a women’s column and ensure that it survives.
Newsroom prejudices and realities that moved women towards handling only women issues rather than politics, economics and sports, include training, opportunities, aptitude, and exposure. It is common to see women journalists in Nigeria working in areas they are not suited for as they are not encouraged to move into the male dominated editorial and management areas. Chris Anyanwu who spent time in prison under the military regime for what was said to have been her part in a coup plot is an exception to the rule having demonstrated her entrepreneurial and professional credentials in founding her own newspaper.
There are disparities between males and females journalists as they exercise their professional duties. These disparities are borne out in conflict situations as women are perceived and regarded as liabilities and not bold enough to withstand the rigors of reporting from the field. Making such comments about women covering conflict situations as, women cannot run, they are frivolous, wear make up and long nails, even in a country like Nigeria where not many women are into the entire so called idiosyncrasy.
It is an accepted norm in journalism to respect professionalism regardless of whether the journalist is a male or female. It is such an irony that Nigeria institutionalizes the media to form a barrier for women. Given the fact that men have the competitive edge in the selection processes, women are thought of as intruders in the gentlemen’s club of media. Most of the media establishments in Nigeria are reluctant to employ women to a high profile position as editors. Significantly, women lack the “old boy’s” network to empower them into the elite positions.
The media play a very important role in contributing to the socio-economic development of countries like Nigeria and in the transmission of societal values and norms. The media tend to ignore the fact that women are also intellectually capable, great decision makers, business-minded individuals capable of contributing immensely to media development. Perhaps this is why women continue to suffer the indignation of restricting stereotypes only to find their bodies marketed to sell everything from alcohol to cigarettes to cars.
Thus, a country like Nigeria embraced western development models with structure of nearly all her institutions, a regrettable reflection of westernization. The media in Nigeria is, for example, not living up to expectation, as the establishment of management is acutely a bias to women. That prompted Frank Ugboaja (1980) to say,
Nigeria’s media objectives were thus from the start based not on the cultural needs and values of Nigeria societies, but on its experiences and biases of culturally distant colonial experts; the media system was designed to be grafted onto Africans communities (P.16)
Men dominated the media then, they still dominate the media today.
Women and Change:
The wind of change that blew through Europe and Africa in the 1980s brought some much-needed change to the comity of African countries as well as other developing countries as they began to look at issues of concern to women and began to act appropriately to combat the disparities in gender development. Signs of progress for female journalists are mitigated by setbacks. Women are becoming better organized with professional associations and other bodies to promote women agendas. Although, it must be noted that in spite of the fact that women had made head ways in the media establishment and are becoming more and more prominent, they still lag behind in managerial positions.
In 1985, Kenya began to recognize the contribution of women to development and began to implement policies and programs that will ensure equitable share of benefits from development, hence eliminate gender biases. The Kenyan government increased the number of women in decision-making capacities in both traditional and non-traditional sectors. More and more women are seen in the media establishment writing and reporting the news. Mexico declared a decade for women and increased the role of women participation in planning and implementation of UN Development and population programs.
Prior to the changes, that swept the world in the 1980s; women in Nigeria and other parts of Africa had been seen as a major force in nation building and economic development. The United Nations report that women account for 1-to 2 percent of the senior management positions in the economic sector, and that it will take more than a century of tremendous hard work coupled with serious planning for women to be fully integrated in the system (UN, 1995), is a fair and accurate notation of how much work that is needed to be done to close this reprehensible gap. In all women-out number men by a margin of more than 2 to 1 ratio. The United Nations reported that less than one-third of women are in the work force. They are still being paid less than men for equal work and own less of the world’s wealth.
The Need for Change:
The world can no longer sit idly and not lend itself to gender issues, taking into account the role women had played and continue to play in ensuring peace and prosperity at home and abroad, economic prosperity in the work place, as well as peace and harmony in the political front.
As the world progresses in the 21st century, the need for change cannot be more apparent. Moreover, it is now more apparent that gender disparities should be outdated. Change and development initiative and efforts be made to decentralize the status quo and open the media institution as well as leadership areas to all to create a positive atmosphere of economic and social inclusion. Nigeria must take interest in promoting gender equality, encourage and facilitate social changes that are fundamental to the mobilization of gender equality and issues of concern to women.
Karl Deutsch (1963) defined social mobilization as the process in which major cluster of old, social, economic, and psychological commitments are eroded or broken, and people have acquired new patterns of socialization and behavior. Nigeria needs serious house cleaning and should work toward gender integration and reach out to women from all spheres of life.
Thus, as the media industry begins to recognize gender reforms and development, effective and successful planning should to be made to have women in strategic and recognizable positions within the industry. After all, the need for a multi-channeled information flow will be the underlying factor created to foster gender mix. Nothing will be accomplished without the participation of women if men continue their status quo. The media industry must attune to the voices of dissent, even as new generation of educated, progressive and dedicated women are emerging from all sectors and quickly becoming part of the mainstream.
Among the many reasons often given as an excuse to exclude women from leadership positions in the Nigerian media is the idea that women lack the necessary skills to effectively manage media outlets. Contrary to that opinion, women are known to exhibit good management qualities and have not been accorded the right to physically shoulder the responsibilities of managerial skills nonetheless to make decisions. One of the most obvious questions about leadership is also the most elusive. According to Richard Nixon (1982) who enumerated the traits of successful leadership, he proclaimed that high intelligence, courage, and hard work, tenacity, judgment, dedication to a great cause and a certain measure of charm as the key ingredients. (p.131). Nothing can be more accurate and assertive as prescription for the leadership in the media industry. Now is the opportune time to reach out to the disenfranchised women, the grassroots women and increase the number of women in key managerial and decision-making positions.
Situational Constraints:
Some writers and analysts stress the impact of situational constraints, most especially motherhood. The most enduring obstacle for women entering the media industry is responsibility for children at home. The unpredictability of daily schedule of women for their children continues to be an obstacle for their nontraditional participation in the profession. In addition to this, men believe that the rigors of reporting the news, the timeliness and immediacy may be too much of an activity to women as it is more conducive for men to travel from place to place without hindrance.
Many writers and researchers according to Cantor (1992) stress socialization as the main reason for gender inequality in the media industry. Males grow up in competitive environment. They are taught from early age to be team players. They are accustomed to winning and losing. Sports prepare men for these structured groups, even with people they do not particularly; as In contrast, Randall (1987) observed that,
“Women are traditionally socialized in small play groups that emphasize cooperation rather than competition.” “The problems confronting women in politics have been attributed chiefly to the tensions between ascribed and achieved status by female socialization.” P. 123).
Women have not been able to break through the male-dominated institution in droves because women are still being treated as a second sex. While these facts serve as an obstacle to gender equality, many women themselves continue to think that their place is in the home. Added to this, Nigerian women are divided between their support and loyalty.
Sexism is one important factor that inhibits women from gender equality. Nigerian women are no exception. A large segment of the women population in Nigeria do not feel comfortable when they choose positions that society considers unusual as their assigned sex roles. Many men will feel comfortable as long as a woman is seen as an appendage to men. In addition, the Nigerian society denigrates women in power. This is similar to the Biblical story of Delilah. Look at all the power Delilah had; yet her power was considered as very sexual. To many analysts, it is really not power; it is plain sexism. This kind of generalization puts down aggressiveness, outspokenness and ambition for women seeking higher and prominent roles in the media.
It should be noted that the education of women in African history is nothing to boast about because it does not serve to empower women. Male bias is one of the many factors that have inhibited women from taking active roles in the media industry. This is reinforced in many instances by colonial policy in Africa, the Caribbean, in the Middle East and even in Latin America that favored the education of males as opposed to females. This operated to cut off women from occupying managerial posts. The same bias is evident in postcolonial era. (Stratton; 1984: 80) Ayesha Iman clearly keynoted this at the Third Annual Conference of Women in Nigeria. She stated that:
Not only are there more boys than girls in schools, but also there are more school places for boys. (cited in Stratton)
She went on to say that 76 percent of families “would rather educate their sons than their daughters, if finances were limited” (Ibid) this has generated social prejudice that limits females from reaching their potentials and for not involving themselves with a war they thought they couldn’t win.
Parents in Nigeria contribute significantly to female’s inability to shatter the “ceiling glass” syndrome. Most parents believe that educating girls would amount to nothing, since they will eventually get married and leave home; the boys, on the other hand, will carry on the father’s legacy. As a result, women do not meet the necessary requirement for taking their rightful place within media elite. This reluctance to train women during colonial and postcolonial periods delayed women appearances in the educational scene, and has hence affected their economic and political participation.
Other constraint that continues to hamper women’s emancipation into the mainstream is the marginalization of the majority of women in the rural areas through what can be said to be the process of production and distribution. According to Ogbomo (1993), this has hampered the mobilization of women towards getting invited in political parties.
It must be noted that today the media industry in Nigeria is viewed by the leaders as the instrument to further their aims of nation building and modernization and for supporting the government in power (William Hatchen, 1971) they do not consider women as part of those that will shape the establishment. And they have been able to achieve this exclusion by tightening their control over the industry and in spite of the fact that the media industry is a conglomerate of newspapers, magazines and technological development, women still lack the necessary voice to shape the industry.
Nigerian women generally lack the financial capability to establish media outlets this constraint places full-fledged ownership in the corridors of men. In addition to this self- centered and self-serving pattern of ownership, men dominate the profession. This is evident from the phrase “Gentlemen of the Press”, often used to address journalists by public figures in Nigeria and thus underlies the assumption that there are no women in the media. The effect of this has been that men dominate the whole news media both in numbers and in key positions. For example, the Independent Journalism Center in Lagos, in a recent survey found that women are underrepresented in all aspects of the media. It is estimated that the percentage of women in the media profession is nothing to be proud of.
The domination of the news media by men and the predominance of male perspectives in news reporting have created a situation were there is lack of focus on the participation of women in all other areas of influence within Nigeria. Gender issues are not given adequate coverage in the media and where they are covered, they are perceived from a male point of view.
Conclusion:
The need for gender equality today cannot be over emphasized especially in this age of technological advancement. The need has not been more urgent to provide management programs in the media industry to propel women in economic, political and social development in the 21st century. It is believed that injustices directed at women in the media establishment over the years necessitated the need for change in attitude about sustainable development that will help to alleviate gender disparities. Every agenda, every initiative and every effort should be made to train and educate more women in management and other aspects of the media industry by keeping them abreast of changes in technology.
In an era when development is the subject of intense government concern, the need to recognize that the ultimate impact of modernization policies on women must be determined largely by how much power and influence women have. Development does not happen in a vacuum; it is subject to innumerable political and administrative influences. Individuals have argued the fact that women voices are seldom heard at any level within the media hierarchy. The historical trend of declining female power is not irreversible, as the experiences of societies in Western Europe and North America Have dictated. The expansion of political participation offers women the same opportunities it formerly offered property-less or uneducated men.
Balancing this relatively optimistic scenario is the grim reality of increasing militarization of politics throughout Nigeria. Although Nigeria is said to have a civilian regimes the regimes are only revised in the sense that the military come back to be chef executives in civilian clothing’s. Over and over, women have pointed out their under-representation in all media institutions including editorial decision making, advertising, the picture is hardly better for the future of women’s concerns. Although, it is recognized that some women in powerful positions identify themselves with men and not with women, the absence of women in these positions is still unhealthy. The late Margaret Mead argued for a greater internationalization of female roles to counteract the increasing dehumanization of the world.
In her book on discrimination against women in the Third World, Barbara Rogers (1980) focused on the dominance of male planners and a male bias in planning, and she notes that women planners do not automatically reverse preexisting discrimination against women in development projects. Since 1970, a debate has been underway concerning the effects of change in developing nations on the well being of women. In the study that marked the turning point in the thinking about women in Third World countries, Ester Boserup (1970) argued that single technological changes in farming could entail a “radical shift in sex roles in agriculture.” The exclusion of women from extra familial activities was not particularly important in the traditional society that was not concerned with progress, but it is an anachronism in a society that professes to wish to change and is actually investing both capital and effort in bringing about change and development. To confine women to the family structure is to keep them at subsistence level at a time when entire sectors of the economy are moving toward a money base. (p.5)
The theoretical justification for gender equality derives from the fact that women continue to contribute enormously into the political, social and economic prosperity of the country at large; they are yet to be far from sexual discrimination, job discrimination and exclusion. Thus effective media planning and agenda that recognizes the potentials of gender equality ought to be shining armor for all. Also an adequate flow of information is required for knowledge to be shared with those who have more and those who have less on gender issues.
It is a foregone conclusion that no nation can thrive in an atmosphere of gender inequality and exclusion. Therefore, for Nigeria to achieve greatness in this age of information, concerted efforts must be made towards gender equality and social empowerment for women. Every effort must be made to combat gender disparity, and provide initiatives that will further enhance and bring women to their rightful places within the industry. Women understand and can better explain issues of concern about women to women and the society at large. And according to slain civil right leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his letter from Birmingham city jail in Alabama;
“human progress never rolls on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through
the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with
God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces
of social stagnation.” (P.296)
He went on to say that people must use time creatively and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time for the media conglomerate in Nigeria to improve on gender equality. Finally, it will be the ideal and right thing for men to desist from dominating the media industry and give the much needed chance to allow equitable order in the way business is done so that women too can have a measure of success.
The ongoing revolution in global communications coupled with the introduction of new information technologies is a sign of change that is slowly creating the avenue for the Nigerian media to change the course of history and advance the cause of women. There must be an end to the negative projection and degrading images of women. Efforts must be made to grant equal access to women so that they can partake in the new information technology that will further widen their horizons and become contributors to the continue development of the media infrastructure in Nigeria.
It must be noted here that unless alternative and more challenging views on women should are portrayed in a positive light in the mainstream media if not given real access, these problems will continue to be the bone of contention for journalistic minded women whom have all the right qualification, but deprived of the profession they strive to be a part of. Kenneth Boulding (1973) said it an eloquent passage that, “the meaning of a message is the change it produces in the image.” (p.7) let us hope that the change will occur in the Nigerian Media.
References:
Achola, Pala (1976). Definitions of Women and Development: An African Perspectives in Wellesley Editorial Committee, ed., Women and National development. Pp 9-13
Boulding, Kenneth (1973) The Image. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. (9th printing)
Boserup, Ester (1989) Women’s Role in Economic Development. New York; St. Martin’s Press.
Buechler, Steven M. (1990) Women’s Movement in the United States: Women suffrage. Equal Rights and Beyond. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Cantor, Dorothy and Tony Bernay (1992) Women in Power. Boston, Houghton Miffin Publishers.
Deutsch, Karl (1963) The Nerves of Government. New York: Press of Glencoe
Ezeani, O. (1998) “Gender and Political Participation in Nigeria,” International Journal of Studies in the Humanities, Nsukka
Hatchen, W.A. (1971) Muffled Drums: The News Media in Africa. Ames, Iowa: The Iowa University Press.
Holtzman, E. (1987) “Women in Political World: Observations” Daedalus Vol. 116
Mead, Margaret (1977). “Women in International World.” Journal of international Affairs. 30 (fall/Winter): 151-160
Nixon, Richard M. (1982) Leaders. Warner Books, Inc., New York, New York.
Ogbomo, O.W. (1993) Assertion and Reaction: A definitive View of Women and Politics in Nigeria. Iroro-JASS (June, 1: 59-71
Rogers, Barbara (1980) The Domestication of Women: Discrimination in Developing Societies. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Usluuta, Ayseli (2000), “The Women of the Media,” Cumhuriyet Newspaper, (14 May)
Stratton, Florence (1994) African Literature and the Politics of Gender. London and New York: Routledge.
Stuadt, Kathleen (1989) “Class and Sex in Politics of Women Farmer.” Journal of Politics, 41:428-01
Udezulu, Ifeyinwa E.U. (1999) The State and Integration of Women in Ibo: Patriarchy and Gender advancement in the Feminization of Development Processes in Africa: Edited by Valentine Udoh James and James, S. Etim
Ugboaja, Frank O. (1980) Communication policies in Nigeria. UNESCO
The myth that our human world is a “men’s world” is founded upon the practical reality of the complete over-riding and dominant influence of the male over the female gender in all facets of our public life. Modern education together with the advancement in science and technology, which processes have accelerated in tandem especially in the last century, have tremendously increased the skill acquisitions and enhanced the productive efficiencies and capabilities of women as much as men. Armed with these two, women have expanded their roles from procreation and social care-giving within the family to major and significant contributions to development in all fields of human concern and endeavors. Yet in spite of their significant contributions in modern society, women have continued to be regarded and treated as a second fiddle and un-equal partners in the modern human development process.
The structure of inequality pitched against the female gender has become an issue of grave concern in human development discourses. One of the big challenges facing the world today is therefore how to eliminate the gender disparity and gap between men and women and allow equal opportunities to all human persons without recourse to gender bias. At the global level, the United Nations has taken the major step by highlighting the achievement of gender equality in our world as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
At the level of individual nations, the global awareness campaign for the cause of women is yielding just very little results. This is especially the case with countries in Africa. The little change seems to be mainly in the area of politics, where the strong fight by the women has produced the first female President in Liberia today in the Person of Her Excellency, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. In other public walks of life such as in the professions and specialized fields of work, women in Africa particularly have still remained marginalized and excluded especially from the commanding heights or echelon of leadership and control of the decision making and policy formulation processes.
Nigeria, like most African countries, is still faced with the big challenge of achieving a better status for the women gender in the public life of the nation. The Nigerian society generally seems to be very slow in accepting the change evolving in the roles of women in the modern world. The perception, attitude and recognition is still very low, with the result that women have continued to be marginalized and denied leadership positions in all walks of life. Leadership in noble professions like Medicine, Architecture, and Journalism among others is still the exclusive reserve of the men folk which is denied to women even when they qualify and excel in the professional practice. This is more or less a cultural thing.
The Journalism profession is particularly one of the crucial areas in which the marginalization and exclusion of women has played out most saliently in the modern Nigerian society. The representation of women in the media in Nigeria has long been an issue of major concern and one of the main areas of focus for research in mass media studies. These inquiries have focused on the way women are seen, faired and perceived by those who set media agenda in Nigeria. The issue is borne out of the subordination of women by those who control the mass media. As the problem still persists, the discourse can never cease to be carried on, hence the needs for more studies until the final solutions are found. This proposed research is yet another effort in that direction.
Background:
In Nigeria, the business of writing and reposting the news has been an exclusively male dominated industry. Though few women have ventured into the industry, the percentage of women in the journalism professional in Nigeria is exceptionally low. Those in decision-making capacity are nothing to be proud of. It is appalling to note that with all the national newspapers in Nigeria 57 of them (onlinenigeria,com) only one actually has a woman as the editor. However, some women do serve as line editors. Judging by the population of Nigeria as of 2003 of well over 90 million people, women and men are almost equal in number (63, 2491.88 male & 62,911.036 female) (httt://www.population.gov.nf/factandfigure.htm), Yet the number of women represented in the media is less than five percent. Moreover, the few that have been given the opportunity to become part of this exclusive club have had to put up with great resistance. The women have had to fight for respect, equal opportunity and credibility. The hegemony of the male gender has been accentuated by their continued dominance of the media establishment. The ability to maintain their grip on the industry has allowed them to continue to set the limits and the extent to which women are involved in decision making process in the profession.
With the total lack of representation in the industry, the image of the Nigerian women that has continued to be projected in the society generally and in the Media circles in particular, has remained negative, and continued to undermine and berate or derogate the status and substance of the modern Nigerian woman. There is no appreciation for women’s role in media. The discourse and overall agenda is set such that women are viewed as pretty faces that are suitable mainly for entertainment purposes. The structure of the media content in Nigeria has continued to promote the notion that women in the media should be reserved for roles of sexuality and trivialities. This subjective representation of women in the Media industry of Nigeria is a major source of concern for many reasons. It undermines the rights of women and denies them equal opportunities of advancement. Issues of relevance to women in the agenda of human development are never initiated or fully featured in the Media content. It also denies the Nigerian society the benefit of maximizing the full potentials and human resources of the women in the national development process.
The present era in our human development is rightly referred to as the “Information Age”. This is a factual reference to the determinant role information plays in enabling as well as enhancing development in modern human society. The Media industry is therefore a portent tool in shaping as well as the vehicle for driving the development process in every nation. It not only plays these roles through dissemination and propagation of ideas that increase knowledge and enable change, but also by raising the right issues to shape the discourse and agenda of development. Adequate representation of all the social strata of the human population of the country is the main guarantee that the Media content and agenda will reflect issues and interests of all members of the society. This essential requirement is lacking in the Media practice in Nigeria as the women who make up such a substantial percentage of the population are excluded and marginalized. The issue of lack of adequate women participation in all sectors of the Nigerian society especially in the Media seems therefore to have a direct implication for the continued failure of development in the country. More studies are therefore necessary to search for appropriate solutions to this grave challenge to development in Nigeria.
Any history of gender and media needs to recognize gender stereotypes; their existence has significant consequences. Media establishment history in Nigeria clearly reveals that women have virtually no influence in determining how they are represented. Thus, media images are fashioned through the eyes of men and decision makers. Women are equally aware of the discriminatory hiring practices in the Nigeria media industry for a long time. It must be noted that officials pay little attention to this cancerous problem that continues to eat through the fabric of the society. The fact remains that the Nigerian media do not reflect gender demographics of the nation. Another problem with reiterating conception of masculinity and feminity that associate a fixed set of qualities with each gender is that they conceal the importance of social characteristics other than gender. Even among persons of the same gender, experiences with media often depend on ones race, nationality or class, therefore perceptions of the media and it’s content are gendered.
Majority of Nigerian women seem to be satisfied with their roles as wives, mother, and housekeepers, which are the images portrayed on television. Each media organization has formal policies that govern the content of its products, sexism rarely arise in these policies. It is imperative to counterbalance the impaired presentation of women in the media at large and to cover events and issues of concern to women.
Inequality exists in media employment, in editorial and advertising decisions. Social values, often hidden from analysis, are the bedrock of inequality. Women have very few female role models in journalism. Therefore, it is difficult for female students to imagine themselves as successful professionals and for male students to interact with professional women. With faculties composed largely of men, female students must seek counseling from men. Media content is monotonously stereotypic in portrayals of women and men, Women are portrayed as passive, while men as aggressive and independent. Men control Media organizations that produce these stereotypic portrayals. Very few of the hundreds of media publishers, producers, editors, etc., are women.
The vernacular newspaper, Iwe Irohin, was the first Nigerian newspaper to be established since 1859. Thus the Nigerian media now has a history of well over 140 years. Since the inception of television in the western part of the country in 1959, there are about 127 television and radio stations in Nigeria. In spite of this long history and the array of media establishments in Nigeria, women have been excluded from the mainstream for all these years. The situation was not helped by countless regulations promulgated by different military administrations in terms of media control, which did not do anything to address the disparities between men and women in the media industry.
Stereotypes of Nigerian Women
In Nigeria like any other countries, television, radio and print media influence, shape and direct the public thinking. Since women in politics are a novel thing in the country, one would have thought that the Nigerian media would portray women in a more palatable way than stereotyping. The rationale for trivialization of women is expressed in article written by Holtzman (1978). He wrote:
In Nigeria situation, a lot of historical, social research (sic) conducted, indicated that the (sic) women’s place is in the home. Right from childhood, children (male and female) are taught to keep the roles associated with their sexes. For example, a boy cannot be taught how to cook in the kitchen except after his seem day (sic) education he may be interested in catering studies as a profession.
To drive this point home he adds,
The Nigeria constitution is the only document, which would have declared nil (sic), and void the role of women as mothers in our homes only provides for equality in terms of voting and contesting elections.
What Bitros means here is that Nigerian women should be relieved from their child bearing and domestic duties that society assigned to them. Concurrently Ezeani points out: “it does not occur to see the constitution (which provides for full citizenship rights as regards voting and office holding) as a new model of thinking or a new code of society.” Ezeani, 1994, p. 193-194) It should be added that Nigerian Media are evident of this conservative and traditional stance (ibid.)
Given the wide spread belief as expressed by Bitros and endorsed by the general population, when such occurs, less powerful group such as women are at risk of being devalued and stereotyped by the news outlets. As Ayseli (2000) points out, when a group is construed negatively, it is easier to rally against such group. “Such a label makes it psychologically easier to discriminate against the members of the group.”
Endorsing this viewpoint, Anyanwu writes:
A content analysis of mainstream media in Nigeria reveals one dominant orientation. Women are largely seen and not heard. Their faces adorn newspapers. However, on important national and international issues, they fade out. Even when the news is about them, the story only gains real prominence if there is a male authority figure or newsmaker on the scene, (Anyanwu, 2002, p. 68)
Gender and Politics:
Staudt observed and cited in Robertson et al. (1986:206), that “contemporary women’s group enter political fray with reason related to gender, they meet with limited success” For example, men create hostile climate for women in their demands. We are too familiar with slogans and warnings by male politicians of the dire consequences of women’s equality such as soaring divorce rate, a rise in illegitimacy and the loss of African customs. This creates siege mentally and had disallowed women from participating in politics (ibid). Ambition is a plus for men but a liability for women. Women are often stigmatized by the system. Over the years, women have become victims of irresponsible policy, sexual inequality within the system as well as lack of representation that continue to allow their interest to be underrepresented. In addition, according to Ifeyinwa Udezuku (1999) and cited in the book Feminization of Development Process in Africa, the woman is proletariat, and man the elite.
Women were also extremely scarce in news department decision-making positions. It is an irony that there is no employment data to corroborate this deficiency, since there is no accountability of any form that adequately pinpoints this acute shortage of women in the industry. The debate of whether women are less qualified or victims of sexism has not been confirmed in the Nigerian media, nevertheless the fact remains that women are on the short end of the stick.
It is appropriate to note the many names given to women in the media in Nigeria including one that portrays women as the weaker sex rather than looking at them as the most important asset in society. The communication of women issues in the media is hopelessly ridiculous since there is a lack of gender sensitive media policy that takes into account the appalling record of crime and negative reportage of women issues as well as overt sexism in the mainstream broadcast / print media. Unless women become adequately represented in the Nigeria media to effectively play active role in promoting gender sensitivity, women will always be marginalized
Many women organizations in Nigeria continue to maintain apolitical stance because of the dangers inherent in entering political fray. They are aware that they will not be successful. Rather than using their resources effectively in the political mainstream, most Nigerian women enter politics on the terms set by male elites, who use them for their own stakes.
During the nationalist period in Nigeria, competing national parties bided for the support of this large group of women. In spite of their numbers and organization, they merely served as vehicle to be tapped by the major political parties than to stand as active group to be recognized. (Cited in Robertson, et al: 1986:208). In some instances, they were co-opted into the major political parties to strengthen the party’s political base. In one instance, the party founded by the late Mrs. Ransome Kuti was co-opted into the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC) later changed to the (National Council of Nigerian Citizens). As a result, the strength of her party was watered down or became ineffective in galvanizing women to seek political positions. During the elections, these women organizations were nothing but toothless bulldogs. (Ibid).
Gender and Conflict:
The fact remains that the ratio of women to men in Nigeria media is comparatively small. Many of the social conflict issues raised directly affect women; female genital mutilation, polygamy, property succession rights, as well as the more violent issues such as displacement, loss of loved ones and livelihoods, family disintegration, rape, and other forms of abuse of women and girls.
Notably the involvement of women in the media in Nigeria is a recent, post- independence development. The advent of modernization coupled with creation of states as well as more radio and television broadcasting after the civil war brought some women into the all-male dominated media industry, even though the percentage of women in media remains comparatively low. Women in the media in Nigeria continue to come into conflict with this male-dominating media culture that continues to discriminate against women.
The media society looks at independent-minded women journalists as threats to authority at home or rather sexual prey to the all powerful men they happen to come in contact with during the course of their profession. Social attitudes also suggest that the media ignore prominent women’s views as journalists go about looking for authoritative comment. The consensus is that women issues are used to titillate and sell media products, while serious gender issues are neglected. It is a common practice in Liberia for women to buy spaces in the country’s newspaper to ensure that their views are heard. Meanwhile, women journalists have to fight hard to start a women’s column and ensure that it survives.
Newsroom prejudices and realities that moved women towards handling only women issues rather than politics, economics and sports, include training, opportunities, aptitude, and exposure. It is common to see women journalists in Nigeria working in areas they are not suited for as they are not encouraged to move into the male dominated editorial and management areas. Chris Anyanwu who spent time in prison under the military regime for what was said to have been her part in a coup plot is an exception to the rule having demonstrated her entrepreneurial and professional credentials in founding her own newspaper.
There are disparities between males and females journalists as they exercise their professional duties. These disparities are borne out in conflict situations as women are perceived and regarded as liabilities and not bold enough to withstand the rigors of reporting from the field. Making such comments about women covering conflict situations as, women cannot run, they are frivolous, wear make up and long nails, even in a country like Nigeria where not many women are into the entire so called idiosyncrasy.
It is an accepted norm in journalism to respect professionalism regardless of whether the journalist is a male or female. It is such an irony that Nigeria institutionalizes the media to form a barrier for women. Given the fact that men have the competitive edge in the selection processes, women are thought of as intruders in the gentlemen’s club of media. Most of the media establishments in Nigeria are reluctant to employ women to a high profile position as editors. Significantly, women lack the “old boy’s” network to empower them into the elite positions.
The media play a very important role in contributing to the socio-economic development of countries like Nigeria and in the transmission of societal values and norms. The media tend to ignore the fact that women are also intellectually capable, great decision makers, business-minded individuals capable of contributing immensely to media development. Perhaps this is why women continue to suffer the indignation of restricting stereotypes only to find their bodies marketed to sell everything from alcohol to cigarettes to cars.
Thus, a country like Nigeria embraced western development models with structure of nearly all her institutions, a regrettable reflection of westernization. The media in Nigeria is, for example, not living up to expectation, as the establishment of management is acutely a bias to women. That prompted Frank Ugboaja (1980) to say,
Nigeria’s media objectives were thus from the start based not on the cultural needs and values of Nigeria societies, but on its experiences and biases of culturally distant colonial experts; the media system was designed to be grafted onto Africans communities (P.16)
Men dominated the media then, they still dominate the media today.
Women and Change:
The wind of change that blew through Europe and Africa in the 1980s brought some much-needed change to the comity of African countries as well as other developing countries as they began to look at issues of concern to women and began to act appropriately to combat the disparities in gender development. Signs of progress for female journalists are mitigated by setbacks. Women are becoming better organized with professional associations and other bodies to promote women agendas. Although, it must be noted that in spite of the fact that women had made head ways in the media establishment and are becoming more and more prominent, they still lag behind in managerial positions.
In 1985, Kenya began to recognize the contribution of women to development and began to implement policies and programs that will ensure equitable share of benefits from development, hence eliminate gender biases. The Kenyan government increased the number of women in decision-making capacities in both traditional and non-traditional sectors. More and more women are seen in the media establishment writing and reporting the news. Mexico declared a decade for women and increased the role of women participation in planning and implementation of UN Development and population programs.
Prior to the changes, that swept the world in the 1980s; women in Nigeria and other parts of Africa had been seen as a major force in nation building and economic development. The United Nations report that women account for 1-to 2 percent of the senior management positions in the economic sector, and that it will take more than a century of tremendous hard work coupled with serious planning for women to be fully integrated in the system (UN, 1995), is a fair and accurate notation of how much work that is needed to be done to close this reprehensible gap. In all women-out number men by a margin of more than 2 to 1 ratio. The United Nations reported that less than one-third of women are in the work force. They are still being paid less than men for equal work and own less of the world’s wealth.
The Need for Change:
The world can no longer sit idly and not lend itself to gender issues, taking into account the role women had played and continue to play in ensuring peace and prosperity at home and abroad, economic prosperity in the work place, as well as peace and harmony in the political front.
As the world progresses in the 21st century, the need for change cannot be more apparent. Moreover, it is now more apparent that gender disparities should be outdated. Change and development initiative and efforts be made to decentralize the status quo and open the media institution as well as leadership areas to all to create a positive atmosphere of economic and social inclusion. Nigeria must take interest in promoting gender equality, encourage and facilitate social changes that are fundamental to the mobilization of gender equality and issues of concern to women.
Karl Deutsch (1963) defined social mobilization as the process in which major cluster of old, social, economic, and psychological commitments are eroded or broken, and people have acquired new patterns of socialization and behavior. Nigeria needs serious house cleaning and should work toward gender integration and reach out to women from all spheres of life.
Thus, as the media industry begins to recognize gender reforms and development, effective and successful planning should to be made to have women in strategic and recognizable positions within the industry. After all, the need for a multi-channeled information flow will be the underlying factor created to foster gender mix. Nothing will be accomplished without the participation of women if men continue their status quo. The media industry must attune to the voices of dissent, even as new generation of educated, progressive and dedicated women are emerging from all sectors and quickly becoming part of the mainstream.
Among the many reasons often given as an excuse to exclude women from leadership positions in the Nigerian media is the idea that women lack the necessary skills to effectively manage media outlets. Contrary to that opinion, women are known to exhibit good management qualities and have not been accorded the right to physically shoulder the responsibilities of managerial skills nonetheless to make decisions. One of the most obvious questions about leadership is also the most elusive. According to Richard Nixon (1982) who enumerated the traits of successful leadership, he proclaimed that high intelligence, courage, and hard work, tenacity, judgment, dedication to a great cause and a certain measure of charm as the key ingredients. (p.131). Nothing can be more accurate and assertive as prescription for the leadership in the media industry. Now is the opportune time to reach out to the disenfranchised women, the grassroots women and increase the number of women in key managerial and decision-making positions.
Situational Constraints:
Some writers and analysts stress the impact of situational constraints, most especially motherhood. The most enduring obstacle for women entering the media industry is responsibility for children at home. The unpredictability of daily schedule of women for their children continues to be an obstacle for their nontraditional participation in the profession. In addition to this, men believe that the rigors of reporting the news, the timeliness and immediacy may be too much of an activity to women as it is more conducive for men to travel from place to place without hindrance.
Many writers and researchers according to Cantor (1992) stress socialization as the main reason for gender inequality in the media industry. Males grow up in competitive environment. They are taught from early age to be team players. They are accustomed to winning and losing. Sports prepare men for these structured groups, even with people they do not particularly; as In contrast, Randall (1987) observed that,
“Women are traditionally socialized in small play groups that emphasize cooperation rather than competition.” “The problems confronting women in politics have been attributed chiefly to the tensions between ascribed and achieved status by female socialization.” P. 123).
Women have not been able to break through the male-dominated institution in droves because women are still being treated as a second sex. While these facts serve as an obstacle to gender equality, many women themselves continue to think that their place is in the home. Added to this, Nigerian women are divided between their support and loyalty.
Sexism is one important factor that inhibits women from gender equality. Nigerian women are no exception. A large segment of the women population in Nigeria do not feel comfortable when they choose positions that society considers unusual as their assigned sex roles. Many men will feel comfortable as long as a woman is seen as an appendage to men. In addition, the Nigerian society denigrates women in power. This is similar to the Biblical story of Delilah. Look at all the power Delilah had; yet her power was considered as very sexual. To many analysts, it is really not power; it is plain sexism. This kind of generalization puts down aggressiveness, outspokenness and ambition for women seeking higher and prominent roles in the media.
It should be noted that the education of women in African history is nothing to boast about because it does not serve to empower women. Male bias is one of the many factors that have inhibited women from taking active roles in the media industry. This is reinforced in many instances by colonial policy in Africa, the Caribbean, in the Middle East and even in Latin America that favored the education of males as opposed to females. This operated to cut off women from occupying managerial posts. The same bias is evident in postcolonial era. (Stratton; 1984: 80) Ayesha Iman clearly keynoted this at the Third Annual Conference of Women in Nigeria. She stated that:
Not only are there more boys than girls in schools, but also there are more school places for boys. (cited in Stratton)
She went on to say that 76 percent of families “would rather educate their sons than their daughters, if finances were limited” (Ibid) this has generated social prejudice that limits females from reaching their potentials and for not involving themselves with a war they thought they couldn’t win.
Parents in Nigeria contribute significantly to female’s inability to shatter the “ceiling glass” syndrome. Most parents believe that educating girls would amount to nothing, since they will eventually get married and leave home; the boys, on the other hand, will carry on the father’s legacy. As a result, women do not meet the necessary requirement for taking their rightful place within media elite. This reluctance to train women during colonial and postcolonial periods delayed women appearances in the educational scene, and has hence affected their economic and political participation.
Other constraint that continues to hamper women’s emancipation into the mainstream is the marginalization of the majority of women in the rural areas through what can be said to be the process of production and distribution. According to Ogbomo (1993), this has hampered the mobilization of women towards getting invited in political parties.
It must be noted that today the media industry in Nigeria is viewed by the leaders as the instrument to further their aims of nation building and modernization and for supporting the government in power (William Hatchen, 1971) they do not consider women as part of those that will shape the establishment. And they have been able to achieve this exclusion by tightening their control over the industry and in spite of the fact that the media industry is a conglomerate of newspapers, magazines and technological development, women still lack the necessary voice to shape the industry.
Nigerian women generally lack the financial capability to establish media outlets this constraint places full-fledged ownership in the corridors of men. In addition to this self- centered and self-serving pattern of ownership, men dominate the profession. This is evident from the phrase “Gentlemen of the Press”, often used to address journalists by public figures in Nigeria and thus underlies the assumption that there are no women in the media. The effect of this has been that men dominate the whole news media both in numbers and in key positions. For example, the Independent Journalism Center in Lagos, in a recent survey found that women are underrepresented in all aspects of the media. It is estimated that the percentage of women in the media profession is nothing to be proud of.
The domination of the news media by men and the predominance of male perspectives in news reporting have created a situation were there is lack of focus on the participation of women in all other areas of influence within Nigeria. Gender issues are not given adequate coverage in the media and where they are covered, they are perceived from a male point of view.
Conclusion:
The need for gender equality today cannot be over emphasized especially in this age of technological advancement. The need has not been more urgent to provide management programs in the media industry to propel women in economic, political and social development in the 21st century. It is believed that injustices directed at women in the media establishment over the years necessitated the need for change in attitude about sustainable development that will help to alleviate gender disparities. Every agenda, every initiative and every effort should be made to train and educate more women in management and other aspects of the media industry by keeping them abreast of changes in technology.
In an era when development is the subject of intense government concern, the need to recognize that the ultimate impact of modernization policies on women must be determined largely by how much power and influence women have. Development does not happen in a vacuum; it is subject to innumerable political and administrative influences. Individuals have argued the fact that women voices are seldom heard at any level within the media hierarchy. The historical trend of declining female power is not irreversible, as the experiences of societies in Western Europe and North America Have dictated. The expansion of political participation offers women the same opportunities it formerly offered property-less or uneducated men.
Balancing this relatively optimistic scenario is the grim reality of increasing militarization of politics throughout Nigeria. Although Nigeria is said to have a civilian regimes the regimes are only revised in the sense that the military come back to be chef executives in civilian clothing’s. Over and over, women have pointed out their under-representation in all media institutions including editorial decision making, advertising, the picture is hardly better for the future of women’s concerns. Although, it is recognized that some women in powerful positions identify themselves with men and not with women, the absence of women in these positions is still unhealthy. The late Margaret Mead argued for a greater internationalization of female roles to counteract the increasing dehumanization of the world.
In her book on discrimination against women in the Third World, Barbara Rogers (1980) focused on the dominance of male planners and a male bias in planning, and she notes that women planners do not automatically reverse preexisting discrimination against women in development projects. Since 1970, a debate has been underway concerning the effects of change in developing nations on the well being of women. In the study that marked the turning point in the thinking about women in Third World countries, Ester Boserup (1970) argued that single technological changes in farming could entail a “radical shift in sex roles in agriculture.” The exclusion of women from extra familial activities was not particularly important in the traditional society that was not concerned with progress, but it is an anachronism in a society that professes to wish to change and is actually investing both capital and effort in bringing about change and development. To confine women to the family structure is to keep them at subsistence level at a time when entire sectors of the economy are moving toward a money base. (p.5)
The theoretical justification for gender equality derives from the fact that women continue to contribute enormously into the political, social and economic prosperity of the country at large; they are yet to be far from sexual discrimination, job discrimination and exclusion. Thus effective media planning and agenda that recognizes the potentials of gender equality ought to be shining armor for all. Also an adequate flow of information is required for knowledge to be shared with those who have more and those who have less on gender issues.
It is a foregone conclusion that no nation can thrive in an atmosphere of gender inequality and exclusion. Therefore, for Nigeria to achieve greatness in this age of information, concerted efforts must be made towards gender equality and social empowerment for women. Every effort must be made to combat gender disparity, and provide initiatives that will further enhance and bring women to their rightful places within the industry. Women understand and can better explain issues of concern about women to women and the society at large. And according to slain civil right leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his letter from Birmingham city jail in Alabama;
“human progress never rolls on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through
the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with
God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces
of social stagnation.” (P.296)
He went on to say that people must use time creatively and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time for the media conglomerate in Nigeria to improve on gender equality. Finally, it will be the ideal and right thing for men to desist from dominating the media industry and give the much needed chance to allow equitable order in the way business is done so that women too can have a measure of success.
The ongoing revolution in global communications coupled with the introduction of new information technologies is a sign of change that is slowly creating the avenue for the Nigerian media to change the course of history and advance the cause of women. There must be an end to the negative projection and degrading images of women. Efforts must be made to grant equal access to women so that they can partake in the new information technology that will further widen their horizons and become contributors to the continue development of the media infrastructure in Nigeria.
It must be noted here that unless alternative and more challenging views on women should are portrayed in a positive light in the mainstream media if not given real access, these problems will continue to be the bone of contention for journalistic minded women whom have all the right qualification, but deprived of the profession they strive to be a part of. Kenneth Boulding (1973) said it an eloquent passage that, “the meaning of a message is the change it produces in the image.” (p.7) let us hope that the change will occur in the Nigerian Media.
References:
Achola, Pala (1976). Definitions of Women and Development: An African Perspectives in Wellesley Editorial Committee, ed., Women and National development. Pp 9-13
Boulding, Kenneth (1973) The Image. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. (9th printing)
Boserup, Ester (1989) Women’s Role in Economic Development. New York; St. Martin’s Press.
Buechler, Steven M. (1990) Women’s Movement in the United States: Women suffrage. Equal Rights and Beyond. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Cantor, Dorothy and Tony Bernay (1992) Women in Power. Boston, Houghton Miffin Publishers.
Deutsch, Karl (1963) The Nerves of Government. New York: Press of Glencoe
Ezeani, O. (1998) “Gender and Political Participation in Nigeria,” International Journal of Studies in the Humanities, Nsukka
Hatchen, W.A. (1971) Muffled Drums: The News Media in Africa. Ames, Iowa: The Iowa University Press.
Holtzman, E. (1987) “Women in Political World: Observations” Daedalus Vol. 116
Mead, Margaret (1977). “Women in International World.” Journal of international Affairs. 30 (fall/Winter): 151-160
Nixon, Richard M. (1982) Leaders. Warner Books, Inc., New York, New York.
Ogbomo, O.W. (1993) Assertion and Reaction: A definitive View of Women and Politics in Nigeria. Iroro-JASS (June, 1: 59-71
Rogers, Barbara (1980) The Domestication of Women: Discrimination in Developing Societies. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Usluuta, Ayseli (2000), “The Women of the Media,” Cumhuriyet Newspaper, (14 May)
Stratton, Florence (1994) African Literature and the Politics of Gender. London and New York: Routledge.
Stuadt, Kathleen (1989) “Class and Sex in Politics of Women Farmer.” Journal of Politics, 41:428-01
Udezulu, Ifeyinwa E.U. (1999) The State and Integration of Women in Ibo: Patriarchy and Gender advancement in the Feminization of Development Processes in Africa: Edited by Valentine Udoh James and James, S. Etim
Ugboaja, Frank O. (1980) Communication policies in Nigeria. UNESCO
Broadcasting Liberalization in Nigeria: The Influence of New Media Technology
Introduction
Nigeria has often been referred to as the "sleeping giant" in terms of the African Information Technology market. Nigeria possesses the continent's largest population 123 million people. It is easy to see that there is a massive potential consumer market and labor market within Nigeria. The reason Nigeria has yet to "wake up" is that the country was under strict military rule since gaining independence from the United Kingdom. Only recently has a civilian government been installed as the leadership.
The current civilian government has formulated an Information Technology plan and has been seeking and implementing needed financial aid to "kick start" its surge into the IT age. Nigeria is at the very early stages of IT development, but appears to be headed in the right direction. If the current civilian administration can remain a stable and effective political entity, their plan should work.
Two remarkable developments of the 1990s had immense implications for media liberalization in Nigeria. These are the deregulation of the broadcast media by the Federal government in 1992 and the annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election. The deregulation of the broadcast media brought to an end government’s monopoly of the broadcast media and the emergence of independent broadcasting stations. The annulment led to greater political awareness and the presence of a committed courageous press.
To be independent, the mass media needs to be free from state interference. Since the 1990s Nigeria television has entered a period of tremendous and continuous change, following the developments in television technology and implementing public policies favoring the liberalization of broadcasting systems, i.e., the introduction of commercial competition into the broadcasting sector, previously defined as public service or natural monopoly.
The liberalization of broadcasting is frequently identified with the liberalization and privatization of television and radio systems. With liberalization we refer to a policy that abolishes the monopoly of public service broadcasters in the field, liberalization also refer to the changes in the regulatory environment, and privatization refers to the entry of private broadcasters to the field, or even the privatization of a public owned broadcaster to a private owner. By and large, with liberalization we describe a period, which was associated with changes in broadcasting policy as well as a series of technological developments, which, either directly or indirectly, had an influence on policy choices towards broadcasting.
This paper article examines the interaction of these events, and focuses especially on the role of new media technology in the facilitation of media liberalization in Nigeria.
The regime of government censorship
The history of the information and communication media in Nigeria is closely related to Nigeria’s political history. Until very recently the Nigeria mass media operated under the authoritarian theory of mass communication. Foreign authoritarian (colonial) rule lasted for about a century. From 1861, following the cession of Lagos Island and its environs by Oba Dosunmu to the British Crown till 1960 when Nigeria was granted independence by Britain.
All three types of government (colonial, civilian and military) that have functioned in Nigeria have implemented policies that have actually restrained freedom of the press. Journalists have been harassed, detained, jailed, and repressive laws and decrees enacted. Comparatively, the British colonial administration may appear to have done the least harm, but it set in motion the kinds of repressive press laws existing in Nigeria today.
These pernicious laws and decrees against the media gave government officials legal backing to persecute, fine, detain and imprison journalists, and to proscribe media houses. For instance, the Offensive Publications (Proscription) Decree 35 1993, made it possible for the government to clamp down on six media houses across the nation. Even government owned media were not spared. This kind of suppression also took place after the 22 April 1990 failed coup d’état when over seven media houses were closed down.
Aside from government control of the media through laws, decrees and the courts, other means of control exist and obstruct freedom of expression. One such is what Uche (1989, p. 139) calls 'coopting': The government uses certain preferential treatments to 'buy' the most influential journalists in the country... appointing these influential critics in the media to top posts within the government. 'Coopting' of journalists ensures that they are reduced to being mere stooges of government officials.
Other measures of government control include denying journalists access to places and persons for information, refusing to give government advertisements and dubious labeling of documents containing valuable information.
The influence of the government is seen in the unflinching support government media organizations give the government of the day. Government officials do not hesitate to remove anyone in charge who fails to offer unquestioned support. An 'erring' official risks being sacked with 'immediate effect' or faces other punishments for such 'heinous' acts. For instance, within one year of the elected civilian government assuming office in 1990, no less than ten chief executive officers of state-owned broadcasting stations were sacked (Uche, 1989). Those who kept their jobs got the message - toe the line.
However, the story has not always been the same for other journalists especially as the government can easily enact laws and decrees. These laws and decrees can be made retroactive to give government officials legal backing to deal adversely with journalists. The Buhari regime did exactly this in 1984, with the famous Decree 4, which tested the resilience of Nigerian journalists. The decree was promulgated to protect public officers from publications that might be a source of embarrassment. The commencement of this decree was made retroactive by the Buhari government, which enabled it to send two Guardian journalists to jail for writing a story about ambassadorial postings.
They were very remarkable and unprecedented changes in the broadcast media. Events started to unfold in 1979. With impending civil rule, the Federal Government decreed the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN). This decentralized radio broadcasting and restructured the nation’s broadcasting industry. The decree was however violated by the Civilian Government that came into power as it set up several stations in different states of the federation. The broadcast media became an active political tool which Uche (1989) described as 'The affinity between broadcasting and politics is like the birth of Siamese twins'.
In addition, the process of massive economic restructuring that was inevitable in the 1980s produced the policies of deregulation. These policies had far reaching effects on the broadcast media in the years to follow. In 1992, the National Broadcasting Commission was established thereby deregulating the broadcast media and bringing to an end government monopoly of the broadcast media. The NBC is empowered to issue, renew or revoke broadcast licenses, among other functions. By 1997, NBC had licensed nine independent private television stations, two private radio stations, two direct broadcast satellite and 40 re-transmission stations.
It is correct to say that in Nigeria today there is no other opposition against government in power other than the independent media. Each government drafts and influences the manifestos of political parties; these political parties therefore cannot constitute genuine opposition to government. Moreover, the government can ban any political aspirant or party at will. The emergences and success of Independent media in forming a formidable pressure to the government has largely been associated with political and technological social changes.
The role of technology and politics
Different technologies such as satellites, cable and telecommunications systems can no longer be seen as separate technologies, but rather as different parts of an increasingly complex and converging whole. The growing convergence of technologies had implications that extended beyond technology.
First, new technologies necessitated the formulation of policies to manage and exploit them. Secondly, it became obvious that regulatory changes in one sector had a ripple effect on the other sectors: policies towards cable impacted on policies towards, and the structures of, terrestrial broadcasting. For example, cable and satellite services could replace terrestrial broadcasting systems and, if nothing else, this meant that the scarcity of terrestrial television could no longer be used as an obsolete justification for maintaining strict state regulation of broadcasting. Thirdly, pressures to liberate television (directly or indirectly through the liberalization of new media) ultimately led to the creation of a global market in television.
Under a liberalized regime, television companies are free to pursue the dictates of the market both domestically and internationally and they too become tradable commodities in themselves. This can often lead to a greater concentration of media power, which, in turn, requires the attention of domestic and international regulators. In the broadcasting sector in Nigeria, the most obvious manifestation of that change was the transformation of the monopolistic Nigeria broadcasting corporations (NBC) from being sole broadcasters to being only one amongst many in a more competitive broadcasting market.
In hard contrast to the approach of US broadcasting, which had been developed within a competitive framework with private, commercially funded companies running the broadcasting services; Nigeria like most other African Countries mostly favored some form of state control over broadcasting. This not only helped them in avoiding the chaos in the airwaves that was characteristic of an unregulated system, but also answered the concerns of most African Government administrations relating to the power of broadcasting.
However, in reality, there is no simple explanation for the complex processes of change; each and every country dealt with the issues and the pressures for change in different ways. What united them was the sense that the issues and pressures were common to all. These included: uncertainty over the direction of future technological change in respect of the ‘new media’; the spiraling costs of program production and administration at a time of pressure on license fees; the emerging demand for the liberalization of previous monopolies, particularly in the field of telecommunications; growing political and economic pressure for the re-conceptualization of broadcasting as a marketplace rather than as a cultural entity; and concern over the effect of inward and outward investment on broadcasting and communications systems (Dyson and Humphreys 1986; McQuail and Siune 1986; De Bens and Knoche 1987; Noam 1991; Thompson 1995; Tunstall and Machin1999; Papathanassopoulos 2002).
Liberalization of broadcasting or ‘regulatory reform’ (Wheeler 1997: 193) suggests the relaxation of the rules governing the state-controlled broadcasting monopoly system. But liberalization is more than the simple removal or relaxation of certain rules and regulations. It is central to the broader neo-liberal strategy for modernizing the economy by privatization and engendering an ‘enterprise culture’ around the globe. It is also seen as a device to reduce alleged bureaucratic inefficiency and financial profligacy in public enterprises (such as public broadcasting organizations).
Liberalization is a response to the imperatives of increasing international competition and the globalization of television markets as well as a political prescription motivated by partisan and commercial interests (Dyson and Humphreys 1990: 231–3). One source of the critique for regulatory change came from the academic world (Burgelman 1986; Curran 1986). Another came from the business world, whose favored solution was to reduce or eliminate regulatory activity and simply let the marketplace dictate the level and the nature of services (Veljanovski 1990; Humphreys1996: 161–4). The idea to reduce or eliminate regulatory activity came from the USA (Tunstall 1986), but proponents of a neo-liberal ideology in Western Europe also articulated such a view. They also pointed out forcefully that consumers would be protected only if they were allowed to make their own choices, according to their needs and requirements, rather than have their choices dictated to them by regulations. In this respect, the attraction of the USA as a point of reference became quite important; it was a model to be copied in the development of new policies (Tunstall and Palmer 1991) and particularly in respect of ‘new’ media such as cable television (Negrine 1985). By and large, as Wheeler (1997: 192) notes, there was
A general consensus between politicians, policy makers and the media industry that liberalization would benefit both the national and the international economy... [While] the technological revolution meant that major transformations within the distribution of communications were available for business and domestic use.’
Waves of TV liberalization: impact of new media technology
In these changing circumstances, new commercial broadcasters came into existence. For example, in 2000 the number of channels in Nigeria exceeded 150 compared to 40 in 1994 and less than 5 in 1989. Moreover, all most all of the 150 channels were private. Some took advantage of the new technologies by broadcasting through satellite or cable. Others took advantage of a more liberal approach to broadcasting, which allowed for the development of terrestrial television systems.
But all, one way or another, took advantage of the more liberal set of rules that were now governing the audio-visual landscape: rules, for example, that allowed commercial broadcasters to carry just entertainment or merely to broadcast large quantities of imported material. And so what had initially been a fairly closed, state-controlled system characterized by a small number of public broadcasters now became a large competitive environment, and this had a knock-on effect on the nature of the public broad-casters, on funding systems, on cultures, and so on.
Technology does not have a life of its own, but accumulates new users and new uses that are always mediated through contexts, which impart additional meanings and significances to it. Against the technological optimism that drives many global interpretations today should be set the actual historical experience of previous technological innovations -- from print to railroads to the telegraph and radio -- that more properly may be seen to have altered balances and acquired social forms and relations that were "new" primarily in relation to the technology. In the industrialization of the West, these altered balances included the rise of managerial classes, the relocation and separation of processing goods and processing services, realignments of boundaries between home and work, all of which were quite uneven in their "impacts" and developments (Knopt, 1995). Technology has a social life because it enters social life and alters the balances of values and practices built into technology in ways that at any one time are mixed, even paradoxical.
This revolution is, indeed, paradoxical. It features broad convergences of different types of data in to a single (ultimately digital) type, of messages into a single stream, of work and leisure into a communication activities that also foster increasing divergence and diversity of interests depending on information that is made or allowed to flow (Ithiel da Sola, 1990). Facilitating the flow of financial information, transactions, and tracking that add up to "electronic commerce" also facilitates the flow of cultural (including political) content around barriers previously erected. Media are "acculturated" both by new uses and by censoring external and monopolizing, or at least restricting, internal communication. In terms of media, some of these conundrum resolve as a major shift of communications regimes in the country from mass to post-mass media, from cultural and social forms favored by single-sender communication regimes to cultural and social forms facilitated by multiple senders and choosy receivers. The technological-media shift is between models of communication and the sorts of communications those models favor.
An appraisal of information technology revolution in Nigeria
The media scene into which Nigeria is are maturing is changing. If the signature communicative relationship of the mass media revolution in the Nigeria was reception, under a regime of one-to-many senders to receivers or mass audiences for state monopoly broadcasters, the counterpart of post-mass media is more interactive communication in which the senders multiply and the social distance between senders and receivers diminishes by a confluence of an increasingly up-market populace with down-market technologies. New media -- including the availability of telephones, multi-channel television and the Internet -- share a general characteristic, they level the communication playing field between sender/producer and recipient/consumer of messages. Convergence is happening on the street and in homes. Moreover, messages cross boundaries between media and thereby find new audiences, new circulation to additional social networks. The sharing of digital signals trust and complicity, not so much in the content of the messages, which are incomplete in themselves, but in circulating them even before individual consumption of their contents.
Technology for producing and sending messages has become as available to consumers as technologies for receiving at the same time those capacities to produce are rising with education. Consequently, technology enables participation, and technologies that reduce the social and cognitive distance between sending and receiving -- as do telephones, cassette recorders, the Internet -- increase the number of senders, producers, selectors, and brokers of cultural "content". The pattern already set in motion in the practices and habits developed to level the asymmetrical relations of mass media and make consuming them more reciprocal is extended with the advent of multi-channel satellite TV.
On the receiving end, there is now choice where there was little before, a change that foregrounds choice itself as part of media consumption. On the sending end, there are pressures and opportunities to create or to broker others’ creation of content and to open the field both to international standard broadcasting.
The participation in interpretation that previously occurred in coffee houses and reception rooms now extends to what is broadcast, directly in the form of call-in shows that can interact with viewers and, perhaps more importantly (because it is part of the draw) indirectly in loosening of formats to include live, on-air discussion and debate in which something other than the solemnities of state and religion can be witnessed. In other words, media that used to feature ritual representations of authority now feature both practices and representations of interaction that are familiar, that have been honed through a generation of television and radio consumption in more ordinary social settings, that actively feature participation, and that represent (show) it.
A current trend is the Television on the Internet model, which features seeking over reception, levels senders and receivers, circumvents authority or is self-authorizing, and interactive in practice.
The uniqueness of the convergence between the TV and the Internet model is the choice and participation, which it brings to the field. On the level of underlying technology, convergence between electronic media - telephone, broadcasting, cable, and data - is already well underway worldwide and actively pursued by companies in these separate businesses expanding into others. In Nigeria, for instance, private stations not only offer television but also Internet service (the downlink portion only, for the moment); telephone companies are getting into the cable business, and there are similar convergences of mobile phone companies with satellite broadcasting and Internet services.
Beyond technological convergence in the carriers, is a more sociological convergence of senders and receivers into an interactive community. With more communicative models toward the Internet standard that is interactive, decentralized, and puts up very little more barrier to send than to receive.
The importance of media liberalization in this respect is, first, to provide creative outlets and, second, to provide opportunities to see alternative selves. This underlies a real break with tradition that did not come with censorship; censorship reduced rather than enhanced occasions and possibilities of communication. The social-structural significance of censorship, or of anxieties over "cultural pollution," is to cast boundaries and rights to adjudicate them as distinctions of self and other. Against such measures, the down-market trend in communications technologies to become more accessible and the up-market trend in the spread of mass education to a rising population intersect in the growth of creative outlets and expanding opportunities to see, and vicariously to try. The realistic possibility of imagining alternatives to the relatively few tracks and fateful choices that mark traditional societies breaks down in fostering possibilities to imagine alternative futures that include alternatives not just at home but also alternatives to home.
This is not to suggest, for instance, that Nigerian society shrinks in an era of globalization. The example of Diasporas suggests how Nigeria or any other African society can expand overseas in limited, selective ways. Modern communications of all sorts -- jet travel, satellite television, international telephoning -- widen the range of selection and of alternative selves from the settler migrants characteristic of the industrial period to the less conclusive labor migration and looser possibilities of the still-emerging post-industrial world dominated by service economies and information services in which jobs are mobile, too.
The significance of the Internet as a model for New Media is to bring new people into a public sphere ("on-line”), which builds values and experiences of those who build this space. This is a space of new identities, some made newly public through the medium, some newly empowered through the skills that construct and use it, some experimented with outside traditional confines. In this context, Internet "chat" is said to be extremely popular, with its opportunities for role-playing as well as for communication that is otherwise restricted, such as by gender differences, in "real life." More consequentially, a range of potential political successors is emerging with savvy in and commitment to new media models, such as for industrial development.
Current Realities, Future Promises
If liberalization has been the force that weakened public broadcasters, it is also the force that will ensure that commercial channels of the future will have to contend with more competitors. Since the late 1990s, Nigeria television has entered a new wave of changes, again led by technological developments. The advent of digital television has brought a second wave of liberalization of the already restructured television environment, regardless of the side effects of the first wave in the 1980s. In fact, the number of television channels in Nigeria doubled every three years and this trend has not ended yet, because of the arrival of digital transmission. Not only have new channels entered the Nigerian television universe, with a number of new channels preparing their launch; television consumption is also expected to increase. Although the growth of digital television appears be lower in 2002 than previously expected due to the problems faced by most digital satellite platforms, especially in Nigeria, the long-term picture remains largely unaffected, with at least half of the Nigerian TV households expected to be watching digital TV by 2010. However, the result of this new liberalization is that television is putting aside its free character and is moving into a medium where its viewers will be classified according to their purchasing power.
The process of public users coming on-line has barely begun in the Nigeria. Barriers to access are high in practical terms. Predominance of English on the Internet and costs of telecommunications, as well as political censorship or exclusion of the Internet, make it expensive, elitist, and underlie some of the lowest rates of Internet use in the world (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The on-line world in Sept 1998 (Data: World Bank Indicators)
With Less than one percent of the world that is on-line in the Africa, Nigeria makes up about 60% of the 1%. Elitism is part of its significance in three ways. First, Internet use in Nigeria is currently concentrated in the big cities. The crucial variable is not cultural policy but infrastructure investment in telecommunications.
Second, the numbers are growing rapidly, suggesting a "submerged" elite coming to light as Internet users. Projections from limited data currently available show the same divergence in rates of growth as in overall numbers, and the dependence on a mix of the physical and social availability of access to the Internet.
Third, as already indicated, Internet use is concentrated within the provider community, and among those most like it socially and educationally. Put differently, it is a medium that puts their values and views into action, the values and views of a professional bourgeoisie with transnational capabilities and local roots, commitments to both, and capable of moving between them.
If the Internet is the leading edge, then television, which has more than a generation head start, is the lagging one. It is by far the most ubiquitous medium here, as elsewhere, and continues its role as a training ground for the skills of mediated communication. As television evolves through multi-channel formats with more diverse local and regional content mixed with international content toward the even more participatory and interactive model of the Internet, the significance of television and of other media is likely to be as a pre-adaptation for post-mass media technologies generally. Current technology ties the Internet more closely to telecommunications and to print and to new technologies than to broadcasting.
As the technologies are converging the larger social significance of these technologies and media is to have created a context and fostered habits that transfer quickly to post-mass media. The Internet may be something new, and a public sphere of new people, but it is drawn into pre-understandings already developed through experience with other media and in other social relations of media consumption. In this sense, television and newspapers create the context and telecommunications provides the channel for the model technology toward which convergence is bringing them.
Contrary media trends and cultural affects reflecting newer roles for conceptions of citizens and demonstrate this broader convergence. Technology and its adepts thus undermine an information regime of privileged arbiters of public discourse, and did so with cultural skill as well.
Conclusion: a fateful conjuncture
The media future that can be adduced begins with more channels and alternative channels for messages, more variety and wider participation, more interactive as opposed to receptive formats, more exposure of and to differences within the country, more opportunities to envision and vicariously to experience alternative selves. The point of departure between censorship and liberalization is a broad transfer of interpretive habits and practices forged on mass media into constructive practices of new, post-mass media. The television revolution has arguably predated a population, made up-market through a generation-long rise in mass education, with sets of skills and dispositions to rebalance the asymmetries of the mass media regime through down-market technologies of new media.
The first results are a startling increase in agency for those positioned in this frame. They include journalists, particularly in the transnational media, purveyors of the technology, Diaspora professionals, and particularly the creativity in each of these sectors and in government. Citizenship, in the sense of acting in the public sphere, becomes more active in these contexts of expanding and expanding access to mediated communication that rebalance sender-receiver relationships into something more like the reciprocities of everyday communication.
A base, there is a fateful convergence that is technological, as different types of data (still and moving pictures, music, voice, numbers) converge into a single (digital) type independent of channel and designed to find its own paths. It is also social, as activities particularly of identity mongering are absorbed into communication. The trend in decentralized communication and "distributed" (as opposed to centralized) responsibility intersects a two-generation rise in mass education that is breaking traditional monopolies on access to information and, more importantly, on rights to interpret.
Enabling these cultural changes are structural changes in communications regimes that follow from the communication and information technology moving down-market at the same time that regional populations are moving up-market. This conjunction frames the passage of more and more indigenous forms of regional culture into mediated communication. This, in turn, opens up possibilities for exploring alternative selves that, in some ways, is already a trend of the times. That is, the larger problem of culture in this equation is to shift from replication of uniformities to organization of diversity. This may be the major challenge of the next generation.
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Nigeria has often been referred to as the "sleeping giant" in terms of the African Information Technology market. Nigeria possesses the continent's largest population 123 million people. It is easy to see that there is a massive potential consumer market and labor market within Nigeria. The reason Nigeria has yet to "wake up" is that the country was under strict military rule since gaining independence from the United Kingdom. Only recently has a civilian government been installed as the leadership.
The current civilian government has formulated an Information Technology plan and has been seeking and implementing needed financial aid to "kick start" its surge into the IT age. Nigeria is at the very early stages of IT development, but appears to be headed in the right direction. If the current civilian administration can remain a stable and effective political entity, their plan should work.
Two remarkable developments of the 1990s had immense implications for media liberalization in Nigeria. These are the deregulation of the broadcast media by the Federal government in 1992 and the annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election. The deregulation of the broadcast media brought to an end government’s monopoly of the broadcast media and the emergence of independent broadcasting stations. The annulment led to greater political awareness and the presence of a committed courageous press.
To be independent, the mass media needs to be free from state interference. Since the 1990s Nigeria television has entered a period of tremendous and continuous change, following the developments in television technology and implementing public policies favoring the liberalization of broadcasting systems, i.e., the introduction of commercial competition into the broadcasting sector, previously defined as public service or natural monopoly.
The liberalization of broadcasting is frequently identified with the liberalization and privatization of television and radio systems. With liberalization we refer to a policy that abolishes the monopoly of public service broadcasters in the field, liberalization also refer to the changes in the regulatory environment, and privatization refers to the entry of private broadcasters to the field, or even the privatization of a public owned broadcaster to a private owner. By and large, with liberalization we describe a period, which was associated with changes in broadcasting policy as well as a series of technological developments, which, either directly or indirectly, had an influence on policy choices towards broadcasting.
This paper article examines the interaction of these events, and focuses especially on the role of new media technology in the facilitation of media liberalization in Nigeria.
The regime of government censorship
The history of the information and communication media in Nigeria is closely related to Nigeria’s political history. Until very recently the Nigeria mass media operated under the authoritarian theory of mass communication. Foreign authoritarian (colonial) rule lasted for about a century. From 1861, following the cession of Lagos Island and its environs by Oba Dosunmu to the British Crown till 1960 when Nigeria was granted independence by Britain.
All three types of government (colonial, civilian and military) that have functioned in Nigeria have implemented policies that have actually restrained freedom of the press. Journalists have been harassed, detained, jailed, and repressive laws and decrees enacted. Comparatively, the British colonial administration may appear to have done the least harm, but it set in motion the kinds of repressive press laws existing in Nigeria today.
These pernicious laws and decrees against the media gave government officials legal backing to persecute, fine, detain and imprison journalists, and to proscribe media houses. For instance, the Offensive Publications (Proscription) Decree 35 1993, made it possible for the government to clamp down on six media houses across the nation. Even government owned media were not spared. This kind of suppression also took place after the 22 April 1990 failed coup d’état when over seven media houses were closed down.
Aside from government control of the media through laws, decrees and the courts, other means of control exist and obstruct freedom of expression. One such is what Uche (1989, p. 139) calls 'coopting': The government uses certain preferential treatments to 'buy' the most influential journalists in the country... appointing these influential critics in the media to top posts within the government. 'Coopting' of journalists ensures that they are reduced to being mere stooges of government officials.
Other measures of government control include denying journalists access to places and persons for information, refusing to give government advertisements and dubious labeling of documents containing valuable information.
The influence of the government is seen in the unflinching support government media organizations give the government of the day. Government officials do not hesitate to remove anyone in charge who fails to offer unquestioned support. An 'erring' official risks being sacked with 'immediate effect' or faces other punishments for such 'heinous' acts. For instance, within one year of the elected civilian government assuming office in 1990, no less than ten chief executive officers of state-owned broadcasting stations were sacked (Uche, 1989). Those who kept their jobs got the message - toe the line.
However, the story has not always been the same for other journalists especially as the government can easily enact laws and decrees. These laws and decrees can be made retroactive to give government officials legal backing to deal adversely with journalists. The Buhari regime did exactly this in 1984, with the famous Decree 4, which tested the resilience of Nigerian journalists. The decree was promulgated to protect public officers from publications that might be a source of embarrassment. The commencement of this decree was made retroactive by the Buhari government, which enabled it to send two Guardian journalists to jail for writing a story about ambassadorial postings.
They were very remarkable and unprecedented changes in the broadcast media. Events started to unfold in 1979. With impending civil rule, the Federal Government decreed the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN). This decentralized radio broadcasting and restructured the nation’s broadcasting industry. The decree was however violated by the Civilian Government that came into power as it set up several stations in different states of the federation. The broadcast media became an active political tool which Uche (1989) described as 'The affinity between broadcasting and politics is like the birth of Siamese twins'.
In addition, the process of massive economic restructuring that was inevitable in the 1980s produced the policies of deregulation. These policies had far reaching effects on the broadcast media in the years to follow. In 1992, the National Broadcasting Commission was established thereby deregulating the broadcast media and bringing to an end government monopoly of the broadcast media. The NBC is empowered to issue, renew or revoke broadcast licenses, among other functions. By 1997, NBC had licensed nine independent private television stations, two private radio stations, two direct broadcast satellite and 40 re-transmission stations.
It is correct to say that in Nigeria today there is no other opposition against government in power other than the independent media. Each government drafts and influences the manifestos of political parties; these political parties therefore cannot constitute genuine opposition to government. Moreover, the government can ban any political aspirant or party at will. The emergences and success of Independent media in forming a formidable pressure to the government has largely been associated with political and technological social changes.
The role of technology and politics
Different technologies such as satellites, cable and telecommunications systems can no longer be seen as separate technologies, but rather as different parts of an increasingly complex and converging whole. The growing convergence of technologies had implications that extended beyond technology.
First, new technologies necessitated the formulation of policies to manage and exploit them. Secondly, it became obvious that regulatory changes in one sector had a ripple effect on the other sectors: policies towards cable impacted on policies towards, and the structures of, terrestrial broadcasting. For example, cable and satellite services could replace terrestrial broadcasting systems and, if nothing else, this meant that the scarcity of terrestrial television could no longer be used as an obsolete justification for maintaining strict state regulation of broadcasting. Thirdly, pressures to liberate television (directly or indirectly through the liberalization of new media) ultimately led to the creation of a global market in television.
Under a liberalized regime, television companies are free to pursue the dictates of the market both domestically and internationally and they too become tradable commodities in themselves. This can often lead to a greater concentration of media power, which, in turn, requires the attention of domestic and international regulators. In the broadcasting sector in Nigeria, the most obvious manifestation of that change was the transformation of the monopolistic Nigeria broadcasting corporations (NBC) from being sole broadcasters to being only one amongst many in a more competitive broadcasting market.
In hard contrast to the approach of US broadcasting, which had been developed within a competitive framework with private, commercially funded companies running the broadcasting services; Nigeria like most other African Countries mostly favored some form of state control over broadcasting. This not only helped them in avoiding the chaos in the airwaves that was characteristic of an unregulated system, but also answered the concerns of most African Government administrations relating to the power of broadcasting.
However, in reality, there is no simple explanation for the complex processes of change; each and every country dealt with the issues and the pressures for change in different ways. What united them was the sense that the issues and pressures were common to all. These included: uncertainty over the direction of future technological change in respect of the ‘new media’; the spiraling costs of program production and administration at a time of pressure on license fees; the emerging demand for the liberalization of previous monopolies, particularly in the field of telecommunications; growing political and economic pressure for the re-conceptualization of broadcasting as a marketplace rather than as a cultural entity; and concern over the effect of inward and outward investment on broadcasting and communications systems (Dyson and Humphreys 1986; McQuail and Siune 1986; De Bens and Knoche 1987; Noam 1991; Thompson 1995; Tunstall and Machin1999; Papathanassopoulos 2002).
Liberalization of broadcasting or ‘regulatory reform’ (Wheeler 1997: 193) suggests the relaxation of the rules governing the state-controlled broadcasting monopoly system. But liberalization is more than the simple removal or relaxation of certain rules and regulations. It is central to the broader neo-liberal strategy for modernizing the economy by privatization and engendering an ‘enterprise culture’ around the globe. It is also seen as a device to reduce alleged bureaucratic inefficiency and financial profligacy in public enterprises (such as public broadcasting organizations).
Liberalization is a response to the imperatives of increasing international competition and the globalization of television markets as well as a political prescription motivated by partisan and commercial interests (Dyson and Humphreys 1990: 231–3). One source of the critique for regulatory change came from the academic world (Burgelman 1986; Curran 1986). Another came from the business world, whose favored solution was to reduce or eliminate regulatory activity and simply let the marketplace dictate the level and the nature of services (Veljanovski 1990; Humphreys1996: 161–4). The idea to reduce or eliminate regulatory activity came from the USA (Tunstall 1986), but proponents of a neo-liberal ideology in Western Europe also articulated such a view. They also pointed out forcefully that consumers would be protected only if they were allowed to make their own choices, according to their needs and requirements, rather than have their choices dictated to them by regulations. In this respect, the attraction of the USA as a point of reference became quite important; it was a model to be copied in the development of new policies (Tunstall and Palmer 1991) and particularly in respect of ‘new’ media such as cable television (Negrine 1985). By and large, as Wheeler (1997: 192) notes, there was
A general consensus between politicians, policy makers and the media industry that liberalization would benefit both the national and the international economy... [While] the technological revolution meant that major transformations within the distribution of communications were available for business and domestic use.’
Waves of TV liberalization: impact of new media technology
In these changing circumstances, new commercial broadcasters came into existence. For example, in 2000 the number of channels in Nigeria exceeded 150 compared to 40 in 1994 and less than 5 in 1989. Moreover, all most all of the 150 channels were private. Some took advantage of the new technologies by broadcasting through satellite or cable. Others took advantage of a more liberal approach to broadcasting, which allowed for the development of terrestrial television systems.
But all, one way or another, took advantage of the more liberal set of rules that were now governing the audio-visual landscape: rules, for example, that allowed commercial broadcasters to carry just entertainment or merely to broadcast large quantities of imported material. And so what had initially been a fairly closed, state-controlled system characterized by a small number of public broadcasters now became a large competitive environment, and this had a knock-on effect on the nature of the public broad-casters, on funding systems, on cultures, and so on.
Technology does not have a life of its own, but accumulates new users and new uses that are always mediated through contexts, which impart additional meanings and significances to it. Against the technological optimism that drives many global interpretations today should be set the actual historical experience of previous technological innovations -- from print to railroads to the telegraph and radio -- that more properly may be seen to have altered balances and acquired social forms and relations that were "new" primarily in relation to the technology. In the industrialization of the West, these altered balances included the rise of managerial classes, the relocation and separation of processing goods and processing services, realignments of boundaries between home and work, all of which were quite uneven in their "impacts" and developments (Knopt, 1995). Technology has a social life because it enters social life and alters the balances of values and practices built into technology in ways that at any one time are mixed, even paradoxical.
This revolution is, indeed, paradoxical. It features broad convergences of different types of data in to a single (ultimately digital) type, of messages into a single stream, of work and leisure into a communication activities that also foster increasing divergence and diversity of interests depending on information that is made or allowed to flow (Ithiel da Sola, 1990). Facilitating the flow of financial information, transactions, and tracking that add up to "electronic commerce" also facilitates the flow of cultural (including political) content around barriers previously erected. Media are "acculturated" both by new uses and by censoring external and monopolizing, or at least restricting, internal communication. In terms of media, some of these conundrum resolve as a major shift of communications regimes in the country from mass to post-mass media, from cultural and social forms favored by single-sender communication regimes to cultural and social forms facilitated by multiple senders and choosy receivers. The technological-media shift is between models of communication and the sorts of communications those models favor.
An appraisal of information technology revolution in Nigeria
The media scene into which Nigeria is are maturing is changing. If the signature communicative relationship of the mass media revolution in the Nigeria was reception, under a regime of one-to-many senders to receivers or mass audiences for state monopoly broadcasters, the counterpart of post-mass media is more interactive communication in which the senders multiply and the social distance between senders and receivers diminishes by a confluence of an increasingly up-market populace with down-market technologies. New media -- including the availability of telephones, multi-channel television and the Internet -- share a general characteristic, they level the communication playing field between sender/producer and recipient/consumer of messages. Convergence is happening on the street and in homes. Moreover, messages cross boundaries between media and thereby find new audiences, new circulation to additional social networks. The sharing of digital signals trust and complicity, not so much in the content of the messages, which are incomplete in themselves, but in circulating them even before individual consumption of their contents.
Technology for producing and sending messages has become as available to consumers as technologies for receiving at the same time those capacities to produce are rising with education. Consequently, technology enables participation, and technologies that reduce the social and cognitive distance between sending and receiving -- as do telephones, cassette recorders, the Internet -- increase the number of senders, producers, selectors, and brokers of cultural "content". The pattern already set in motion in the practices and habits developed to level the asymmetrical relations of mass media and make consuming them more reciprocal is extended with the advent of multi-channel satellite TV.
On the receiving end, there is now choice where there was little before, a change that foregrounds choice itself as part of media consumption. On the sending end, there are pressures and opportunities to create or to broker others’ creation of content and to open the field both to international standard broadcasting.
The participation in interpretation that previously occurred in coffee houses and reception rooms now extends to what is broadcast, directly in the form of call-in shows that can interact with viewers and, perhaps more importantly (because it is part of the draw) indirectly in loosening of formats to include live, on-air discussion and debate in which something other than the solemnities of state and religion can be witnessed. In other words, media that used to feature ritual representations of authority now feature both practices and representations of interaction that are familiar, that have been honed through a generation of television and radio consumption in more ordinary social settings, that actively feature participation, and that represent (show) it.
A current trend is the Television on the Internet model, which features seeking over reception, levels senders and receivers, circumvents authority or is self-authorizing, and interactive in practice.
The uniqueness of the convergence between the TV and the Internet model is the choice and participation, which it brings to the field. On the level of underlying technology, convergence between electronic media - telephone, broadcasting, cable, and data - is already well underway worldwide and actively pursued by companies in these separate businesses expanding into others. In Nigeria, for instance, private stations not only offer television but also Internet service (the downlink portion only, for the moment); telephone companies are getting into the cable business, and there are similar convergences of mobile phone companies with satellite broadcasting and Internet services.
Beyond technological convergence in the carriers, is a more sociological convergence of senders and receivers into an interactive community. With more communicative models toward the Internet standard that is interactive, decentralized, and puts up very little more barrier to send than to receive.
The importance of media liberalization in this respect is, first, to provide creative outlets and, second, to provide opportunities to see alternative selves. This underlies a real break with tradition that did not come with censorship; censorship reduced rather than enhanced occasions and possibilities of communication. The social-structural significance of censorship, or of anxieties over "cultural pollution," is to cast boundaries and rights to adjudicate them as distinctions of self and other. Against such measures, the down-market trend in communications technologies to become more accessible and the up-market trend in the spread of mass education to a rising population intersect in the growth of creative outlets and expanding opportunities to see, and vicariously to try. The realistic possibility of imagining alternatives to the relatively few tracks and fateful choices that mark traditional societies breaks down in fostering possibilities to imagine alternative futures that include alternatives not just at home but also alternatives to home.
This is not to suggest, for instance, that Nigerian society shrinks in an era of globalization. The example of Diasporas suggests how Nigeria or any other African society can expand overseas in limited, selective ways. Modern communications of all sorts -- jet travel, satellite television, international telephoning -- widen the range of selection and of alternative selves from the settler migrants characteristic of the industrial period to the less conclusive labor migration and looser possibilities of the still-emerging post-industrial world dominated by service economies and information services in which jobs are mobile, too.
The significance of the Internet as a model for New Media is to bring new people into a public sphere ("on-line”), which builds values and experiences of those who build this space. This is a space of new identities, some made newly public through the medium, some newly empowered through the skills that construct and use it, some experimented with outside traditional confines. In this context, Internet "chat" is said to be extremely popular, with its opportunities for role-playing as well as for communication that is otherwise restricted, such as by gender differences, in "real life." More consequentially, a range of potential political successors is emerging with savvy in and commitment to new media models, such as for industrial development.
Current Realities, Future Promises
If liberalization has been the force that weakened public broadcasters, it is also the force that will ensure that commercial channels of the future will have to contend with more competitors. Since the late 1990s, Nigeria television has entered a new wave of changes, again led by technological developments. The advent of digital television has brought a second wave of liberalization of the already restructured television environment, regardless of the side effects of the first wave in the 1980s. In fact, the number of television channels in Nigeria doubled every three years and this trend has not ended yet, because of the arrival of digital transmission. Not only have new channels entered the Nigerian television universe, with a number of new channels preparing their launch; television consumption is also expected to increase. Although the growth of digital television appears be lower in 2002 than previously expected due to the problems faced by most digital satellite platforms, especially in Nigeria, the long-term picture remains largely unaffected, with at least half of the Nigerian TV households expected to be watching digital TV by 2010. However, the result of this new liberalization is that television is putting aside its free character and is moving into a medium where its viewers will be classified according to their purchasing power.
The process of public users coming on-line has barely begun in the Nigeria. Barriers to access are high in practical terms. Predominance of English on the Internet and costs of telecommunications, as well as political censorship or exclusion of the Internet, make it expensive, elitist, and underlie some of the lowest rates of Internet use in the world (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The on-line world in Sept 1998 (Data: World Bank Indicators)
With Less than one percent of the world that is on-line in the Africa, Nigeria makes up about 60% of the 1%. Elitism is part of its significance in three ways. First, Internet use in Nigeria is currently concentrated in the big cities. The crucial variable is not cultural policy but infrastructure investment in telecommunications.
Second, the numbers are growing rapidly, suggesting a "submerged" elite coming to light as Internet users. Projections from limited data currently available show the same divergence in rates of growth as in overall numbers, and the dependence on a mix of the physical and social availability of access to the Internet.
Third, as already indicated, Internet use is concentrated within the provider community, and among those most like it socially and educationally. Put differently, it is a medium that puts their values and views into action, the values and views of a professional bourgeoisie with transnational capabilities and local roots, commitments to both, and capable of moving between them.
If the Internet is the leading edge, then television, which has more than a generation head start, is the lagging one. It is by far the most ubiquitous medium here, as elsewhere, and continues its role as a training ground for the skills of mediated communication. As television evolves through multi-channel formats with more diverse local and regional content mixed with international content toward the even more participatory and interactive model of the Internet, the significance of television and of other media is likely to be as a pre-adaptation for post-mass media technologies generally. Current technology ties the Internet more closely to telecommunications and to print and to new technologies than to broadcasting.
As the technologies are converging the larger social significance of these technologies and media is to have created a context and fostered habits that transfer quickly to post-mass media. The Internet may be something new, and a public sphere of new people, but it is drawn into pre-understandings already developed through experience with other media and in other social relations of media consumption. In this sense, television and newspapers create the context and telecommunications provides the channel for the model technology toward which convergence is bringing them.
Contrary media trends and cultural affects reflecting newer roles for conceptions of citizens and demonstrate this broader convergence. Technology and its adepts thus undermine an information regime of privileged arbiters of public discourse, and did so with cultural skill as well.
Conclusion: a fateful conjuncture
The media future that can be adduced begins with more channels and alternative channels for messages, more variety and wider participation, more interactive as opposed to receptive formats, more exposure of and to differences within the country, more opportunities to envision and vicariously to experience alternative selves. The point of departure between censorship and liberalization is a broad transfer of interpretive habits and practices forged on mass media into constructive practices of new, post-mass media. The television revolution has arguably predated a population, made up-market through a generation-long rise in mass education, with sets of skills and dispositions to rebalance the asymmetries of the mass media regime through down-market technologies of new media.
The first results are a startling increase in agency for those positioned in this frame. They include journalists, particularly in the transnational media, purveyors of the technology, Diaspora professionals, and particularly the creativity in each of these sectors and in government. Citizenship, in the sense of acting in the public sphere, becomes more active in these contexts of expanding and expanding access to mediated communication that rebalance sender-receiver relationships into something more like the reciprocities of everyday communication.
A base, there is a fateful convergence that is technological, as different types of data (still and moving pictures, music, voice, numbers) converge into a single (digital) type independent of channel and designed to find its own paths. It is also social, as activities particularly of identity mongering are absorbed into communication. The trend in decentralized communication and "distributed" (as opposed to centralized) responsibility intersects a two-generation rise in mass education that is breaking traditional monopolies on access to information and, more importantly, on rights to interpret.
Enabling these cultural changes are structural changes in communications regimes that follow from the communication and information technology moving down-market at the same time that regional populations are moving up-market. This conjunction frames the passage of more and more indigenous forms of regional culture into mediated communication. This, in turn, opens up possibilities for exploring alternative selves that, in some ways, is already a trend of the times. That is, the larger problem of culture in this equation is to shift from replication of uniformities to organization of diversity. This may be the major challenge of the next generation.
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Contending issues of Media Liberalization in Nigeria
The contending issue in media liberalization in Nigeria is rooted in a protracted debate that questions whether a free market or a regulated broadcasting system advantages media and its audience. In my opinion, the former protects the media from government interference, but may damage the quality of media output and replace government with corporate power.
A possible solution could be a normative approach which seeks to redress possible government and corporate influence, to help discommodity the media by bestowing upon audience/ civil society more power. Thus; I propose the media in Nigeria should extend its watch dog role by both reflecting (prescriptive meaning: carry the opinion of the political and social elites, because their sponsor the media) and reforming (descriptive meaning :) society.
This solution conforms to Kean’s “general principal”:
Communication media should not be at the whim of ‘market forces’ but rather placed within a political and legal framework which specifies and enforces tough minimum safeguards in matters of ownership structures, regional scheduling, programme content and decision making procedures.
1) In an analysis of the relationship between democracy and the media in Nigeria, it can be concluded that the media help to weaken authority rule and encouraged the consolidation of democracy.
2) Democratization in Nigeria was essentially an elite-driven process (elites in power and in opposition); in turn, Nigerian elites, political and intellectual – rather than a more broad based civil society – were the agents behind the development of private broadcasting, reinforcing the paternal characteristic of the
These elites were engaged in seemingly endless negotiations on media labialization and its relationship with the political process, an indication of their mounting commitment to pluralist behavior; but they also focused on how they might preserve their bases of commercial and social power in a liberalized media environment.
It can be further observed that a close alliance between the media on one hand, and government and/ or business on the other hand limits the role of media agents of political transformation.
3) Therefore the idea that there should be a public television station that is free from political interference and commercial competition is significant for the further development of civil society movement. Such provision is viewed as a fundamental requirement for democratic citizenship, dialogue and the formation of national identities.
4) Public television should provided a legitimate institutional structure through which this emerging civil society may attempt to influence government, scrutinize and challenge its decisions, demonstrate the authority of the democratic culture and thus facilitate the consolidation of democracy.
Some precedents for public service television exist for assuming such responsibilities. In Western Europe, for example, the belief in public service broadcasting is most mature. John Keane’s research describes how in Western Europe, public service broadcasting is a device:
For protecting citizens against the twin threats of totalitarian propaganda and the crass commercialism of the market-driven programming and thus, as devices essential to a system of representative government in which reasonable, informed public opinion plays a central mediating role between citizens and state institutions.
Nevertheless, the realization of the ideal media liberalization in Nigeria has been traumatic
5) In fact evidence mounted to suggest that the new media had merely complicated Nigeria’s media environment an encouraged grater, rather than less political envelopment and excessive commercial competition for rating. For example, it is possible to argue that cable television challenges the belief that a media system supposedly open to all regardless of income facilitates democratic citizenship. Where commercial and cable television deliver programs only to the most profitable geographic areas, or those areas willing and able to pay for such provision, the public service ideal is designed to provide national programming.
6) There is the need to develop a genuine public television institution that might empower viewers and allow them determine their own agenda, instead of depending on politicians and media producers to set it for them. Political and social elites are routinely asked to comment on the news, whereas private individuals stumble into the news because of a unique experience they may have had.
Together with particular formats, such as the staged political debates, this kind of agenda setting affirms “the power of the opinions of public persons and the powerlessness of the opinion of the private persons”.
The illusion of popular participation is seen most clearly in the Presidential Brief, a call in television program on NTA. Which gives viewers a few seconds to ask the president questions or deliver their opinion on the preceding discussion, in most cases the calls a screened and the presidents is always quick to back down opinions that are in contracts to his.
This is neither the foundation of genuine debate nor the basis for authentic popular empowerment, but does demonstrate the power of political and social elites to dominate discussions.
7) Ideally, public service broadcasting should perform at least three functions:
i) Be a source of “quality” culturally programming;
ii) Promote pluralism and diversity;
iii) Act as society’s “fourth estate”.
A possible solution could be a normative approach which seeks to redress possible government and corporate influence, to help discommodity the media by bestowing upon audience/ civil society more power. Thus; I propose the media in Nigeria should extend its watch dog role by both reflecting (prescriptive meaning: carry the opinion of the political and social elites, because their sponsor the media) and reforming (descriptive meaning :) society.
This solution conforms to Kean’s “general principal”:
Communication media should not be at the whim of ‘market forces’ but rather placed within a political and legal framework which specifies and enforces tough minimum safeguards in matters of ownership structures, regional scheduling, programme content and decision making procedures.
1) In an analysis of the relationship between democracy and the media in Nigeria, it can be concluded that the media help to weaken authority rule and encouraged the consolidation of democracy.
2) Democratization in Nigeria was essentially an elite-driven process (elites in power and in opposition); in turn, Nigerian elites, political and intellectual – rather than a more broad based civil society – were the agents behind the development of private broadcasting, reinforcing the paternal characteristic of the
These elites were engaged in seemingly endless negotiations on media labialization and its relationship with the political process, an indication of their mounting commitment to pluralist behavior; but they also focused on how they might preserve their bases of commercial and social power in a liberalized media environment.
It can be further observed that a close alliance between the media on one hand, and government and/ or business on the other hand limits the role of media agents of political transformation.
3) Therefore the idea that there should be a public television station that is free from political interference and commercial competition is significant for the further development of civil society movement. Such provision is viewed as a fundamental requirement for democratic citizenship, dialogue and the formation of national identities.
4) Public television should provided a legitimate institutional structure through which this emerging civil society may attempt to influence government, scrutinize and challenge its decisions, demonstrate the authority of the democratic culture and thus facilitate the consolidation of democracy.
Some precedents for public service television exist for assuming such responsibilities. In Western Europe, for example, the belief in public service broadcasting is most mature. John Keane’s research describes how in Western Europe, public service broadcasting is a device:
For protecting citizens against the twin threats of totalitarian propaganda and the crass commercialism of the market-driven programming and thus, as devices essential to a system of representative government in which reasonable, informed public opinion plays a central mediating role between citizens and state institutions.
Nevertheless, the realization of the ideal media liberalization in Nigeria has been traumatic
5) In fact evidence mounted to suggest that the new media had merely complicated Nigeria’s media environment an encouraged grater, rather than less political envelopment and excessive commercial competition for rating. For example, it is possible to argue that cable television challenges the belief that a media system supposedly open to all regardless of income facilitates democratic citizenship. Where commercial and cable television deliver programs only to the most profitable geographic areas, or those areas willing and able to pay for such provision, the public service ideal is designed to provide national programming.
6) There is the need to develop a genuine public television institution that might empower viewers and allow them determine their own agenda, instead of depending on politicians and media producers to set it for them. Political and social elites are routinely asked to comment on the news, whereas private individuals stumble into the news because of a unique experience they may have had.
Together with particular formats, such as the staged political debates, this kind of agenda setting affirms “the power of the opinions of public persons and the powerlessness of the opinion of the private persons”.
The illusion of popular participation is seen most clearly in the Presidential Brief, a call in television program on NTA. Which gives viewers a few seconds to ask the president questions or deliver their opinion on the preceding discussion, in most cases the calls a screened and the presidents is always quick to back down opinions that are in contracts to his.
This is neither the foundation of genuine debate nor the basis for authentic popular empowerment, but does demonstrate the power of political and social elites to dominate discussions.
7) Ideally, public service broadcasting should perform at least three functions:
i) Be a source of “quality” culturally programming;
ii) Promote pluralism and diversity;
iii) Act as society’s “fourth estate”.
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