INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Media have effects. People may disagree about what those effects might be but media do have effects. Advertisers would not spent billions of Naira a year to place their message in the media if they did not have effects, nor would our constitution, in the form for First Amendment, seek to protect the freedom of the media if the media did not have important consequences.
In spite of the numerous effects mass communication has been playing on the Nigerian Society, certain snags seem to influence mass communication negatively.
First, a good number of psychologists believe that viewing violent and immoral TV or video programs, increase interpersonal aggression and unethical demeanors especially among young people.
Second, exposure to mass media programs (TV or radio drama can lead to acculturation, which is detrimental to nurturing and sustenance of African culture. A closer look at how our educated ladies dress these days is a clear example of adulteration of African culture, which mass communication have imported. And this seems to be one of the imperialistic weapons the western nations are using now in their neo imperialistic tendencies to enslave us directly.
According to Ewrudjakpor (1989), the acculturation of African countries is mainly through aggressive importation of mass communication products through satellite television. These mass communication channels expose individuals, social systems and the government to various programs alien to our society. Good examples include the idea of gender inequality, influence on our dressing, education and even the eating habit. All these lend themselves to influencing on beliefs, attitudes and behaviours either negatively or positively. For instance, the television drama on female circumcision is one effective persuasive way of stopping female genital mutilation in Cross River State, thus getting rid of strongly imbedded traditional beliefs in certain parts of Nigeria.
Again, one of the greatest challenges facing developing nations is the ability to use the mass media effectively, especially in societies where rural development has become the focus of attention. Indeed, documented evidence ( UNESCO 1965; 1988) has show that Radio Farm Forum which was first developed in Canada, was later explored as UNESCO pilot project in India as a means of communicating rural development information to especially the rural people.
Some years later, Radio Farm Forums were considered as significant experiment. Today, they have proved their value and are being applied on massive scale in many regions of the world. Examples include Mail, Senegal, Togo, Gabon and Tanzania. Similarly, television documentaries, newspapers and magazine columns have been harnessed to provide developmental information is these countries.
Communication with rural people is a complex process involving a combination of traditional and mass media. In particularly, mass media have been known worldwide to posses certain qualities that make their uses imperative if the communication is aimed at a wider and heterogeneous audience.
In this study, “Mass Communication” and “Mass Media” are terms which are used interchangeably. McQuail(1969:1) states; Both expressions are abbreviations for Mass Media Communications” and refers to public television and radio, the large-circulation press, the cinema and under some circumstances to gramophone records. Normally, the term Mass Media indicates the entire system within which messages are produced, selected, transmitted, received and responded to.
O’Sullivan et al, (1983;130) also define mass communication as; the practice and the product of providing leisure entertainment and information to an unknown audience by means of corporately financed, industrially produced, state regulate, high technology, privately consumed commodities in the modern print, screen, audio and broadcast media.
Thus, mass communication in the real sense signifies mass production of messages and mass reception of messaged, Dembleby and Burton, (1985).
The main feature, when mass communication is compared with other categories of communication is that it does operate on such a large scale. In other words, it is a matter of penetration.
The sheer scale of the operation that the researcher is describing means that it is bound to have some effect on the things which everyone thinks are important – relationship with others, what people believe in, how people describe and understand the world around them. Mass Communication is also a part of the world.
According to Yahaya(2003), “the Mass Communication represent the system of communication that involves the use of various mass mediated channels of communication”. By mass media, it connotes the various specialized organs or means of sending messages to a large group of people at a time. The Mass Communication channels commonly used in Nigeria are radio, television and print media.
Radio has been recognized for its outstanding qualities in Mass Communication. Apart from being an excellent media for mobilization, motivation and its capacity to sensitize people about the advent of new ideas technologies and altering people or providing topical reminders or timely information of immediate values of people to take prompt action, it also has wide coverage and it is relatively available to both rural and urban populace.
There are over 30 Federal Radio Stations in Nigeria while each of the 36 states including Abuja (the Federal Capital Territory) has a broadcasting station, while a few private radio stations abound in the country, in addition to ongoing 32FM Federal stations and numerous other states owned FM stations all over the country.
In other words of William Sweeney “radio is still the most potent communication innovation apart from the print media. It has large audience than that of any other Mass Medium. The large scale manufacture and distribution of inexpensive, battery-operated transistor radios have brought much of the world’s population into an international communication network”.
Therefore, radio is much more realistic in terms of affordability and content relevance to the need and socio-economic and demographic characteristics of Nigeria rural populace.
Radio ownership is universal phenomenon, since it enjoys widespread use throughout the world. A third and a quarter of all the inhabitants of developing countries have access to radio broadcast. Therefore, consistency in programs can provide information, promote economic and social activities, educate and elicit feedback in participatory process. In fact, radio lends support to attitudinal and opinion changes and apart from sensitizing and persuading actively on community development programs or project; hence, it is a potent tool for national development.
There are basically two types of television media that are available for teaching and entertaining purposes. The first and most familiar is the broadcast television, in which programs are aired over a large geographical area. The second is sometimes closed circuit television or instructional or educational television (ITV/ETV). This ETV can be used for individual learning by public servants on active service or other interested individuals who tend to further their education after working hours or when it is more convenient for them.
Broadcast television offers exciting messages to farmers through extension staff who normally discusses and demonstrate how certain farming practice can be carried out using a variety of usual aids such as chalk boards, flip charts, flannel board and even live object to enhance their teaching effectiveness on television. Besides, medical person can alert the public of certain endemic or pandemic disease such as HIV/AIDS through broadcast television. Such enlightenment programs are capable of bringing about attitudinal change which is sine qua non for prevention against deleterious disease. Similarly, home economist can use the medium (TV) to educate the public about nutrition with a view to preventing malnutrition snags in the country.
Despite some limitations associated with television, it has a significant advantage over radio and the print media in information dissemination process. Not only can the animator be seen and heard while using the TV but his demonstration can be followed progressively. Thus, television is characterized by the presence to motion pictures. Messages and pictures are produced and transmitted at the transmission stations while individual viewers could see such transmitted programs through their person television monitors.
One limitation is that most of the rural areas in Nigeria is not electrified.
In Nigeria, print journalism stated in 1846, with the establishment of a printing press in Calabar by the Presbyterian Mission. The Missionary era witnessed the establishment of the Iwe Iroyin in Abeokuta between 1854 and 1867. The emergence of indigenous newspapers started in 1914 with many of such newspaper like the African Messenger, which collapsed five year “after” the establishment of Nigeria Daily Times which brought some dynamism and a new orientation to the Nigerian Newspaper Industry, even though the colonial administration made id a subsidiary of the Lond Mirror in 1948 so as to serve British interest properly.
This trend is a clear manifestation of the enormous potentials of the print media as surveyors of information and vehicles for change. They can elicit support and empathy for development programs in Nigeria s obtained I other countries. Other print materials besides newspaper include magazine, posters, handbills, bulletins, extension guides, leaflets, pamphlet, manuals and textbooks. Print media are limited by the literacy level of our rural farmers and the fact that these print media are conspicuous not available in rural areas. The cover price of most of those now is too expensive that majority of Nigerians cannot afford to buy.
Thus, the effects of Mass Communication are prevalent to the development and underdevelopment, to the making of a society especially a Nigerian Society using Port Harcourt city Local Government Area as case study. Hence, the need for attention to the activities of mass communication media.