Beware of drowning in the media ocean

GLOBALLY, the importance of the mass media in political communication is not in contention. The mass media are the platforms for information, mobilisers of people for political participation, definers of social reality and the framework through which many people interpret and understand the world. In addition, the mass media educate, entertain the citizens, and enhance governance and accountability. Essentially, in this regard, they are supposed to be the watchdogs of the democratic process and of the actors involved. To achieve the above functions, political campaign messages are communicated through the social media, television, radio, newspapers, billboards,posters,handbills and magazines, among others. The introduction of the internet has really expanded the scope,speed and reach of the mass media for the 21st century political communication. As Nigeria prepares for another election year, media houses are busy gathering, processing and disseminating political campaign messages because it is another season of lucrative business for the politricksians, the media and ‘stomach-infrastructure-voters.’ Truth be told, it is difficult to avoid the flood of stories that stares one in the face everywhere.

Paradoxically, as impressive as the positive roles of the media may appear, the limitations for the voter who is not media literate can be scary! Research findings have shown that politics actually colours a lot of paid media reporting and messages in Nigeria, thereby making decision making difficult for the electorate (Adamolekun,2012).’The Guardian’ of Thursday 12th January,2015 in a piece entitled ‘Electioneering Campaign Adverts’ observed as follows: ‘A keen observer of electioneering campaign communications in recent times cannot but feel worried by the pedestrian, combative, provocative and insensitive messages, language and style of several of the campaign communications which portend grave danger for Nigeria’s democratic process and national security.” The recent and current verbal war among political gladiators at campaign venues as reported by the media shows that most Nigerian politicians have forgotten nothing and have learnt nothing.

At this juncture, we need to ask: Who needs to be wiser? I guess you will agree it is the consumer of the media messages or the voter who is always at the receiving end who needs to remember the implications and learn some lessons. She/he needs to know that much of the information received at a time like this may be biased, incomplete, misleading and downright false. And any decision based on such information may turn out to be a personal and national disaster! So we must learn to decipher and refute the inaccurate and partisan messages received, especially during this season. Opinions differ as to the extent and type of influence the mass media have on the audience. While some scholars believe that the audience members have an independent mind of their own, others are of the view that political messages affect the thinking, belief and behaviour of individuals.

However, it is noteworthy that for the sake of prevention, the following warnings from literature can guidethe voting audience. One is the political messages are aimed at influencing individual’s actions (Gaines &Macmillan, 2010). Two, the mass media are getting more sophisticated in the art of persuasion (Paul &Elder,2006) to penetrate the audience’s emotional sphere (Nwanne,2013).Three, many politicians exploit voters (Idiong, 2010)as some mass media contribute to civic illiteracy (Graber,1998) while some work against the democratic cause they ought to champion (Hottmann,2002) with messages aimed at deceiving, instead of helping the civic society to vote correctly during elections(Soola,2007). But where are the gatekeepers? Yes, there are gatekeepers whose duty it is to check the media organisations but how effective they are (in the face of limiting factors) is another issue.Let me add that the internet and the social media lack the gatekeeping mechanism for editing, and control is minimal. It is the consumer who must determine the limits for herself/himself and the children, especially.

Given this scenario, what life jacket can the average citizen or voter in this mass media ocean deploy to prevent drowning? This puzzle was/is the focus of my doctoral thesis (Media Literacy and audience response to political campaign messages in Nigeria). My study revealed a generally low level of media literacy among voters in the 2011 election in Nigeria. In the short term, every consumer of political campaign messages should deploy the following strategies: Always get alternative media points of view on any issue; subject every message to questioning(Who produced it? Why was it created that way? Who is the audience? Whose interest is it serving? Answers will provide better information for decision making, including voting. In the long term, media literacy should be added to the civic education curriculum. Media literacy should be incorporated into the communication policy of Nigeria. This is the practice in the UK, the USA and Canada.

In conclusion, it is suffice to describe media literacy as the ability to access, explain and judgemass media and this is central to active democratic citizenship, especially as Nigeria is in another election period. Voters who are media literate will understand both the surface and deeper meanings of messages; they will have greater freedom to access, analyse, evaluate and produce media messages. Our children must be trained to understand the process of mass communication, media contents and be aware of media impact and the manipulations to become critical consumers of the media. That is their life jacket in a mass media ocean.

• Olalere, PhD, ex-Principal of Oritamefa Baptist Model School, Total Garden, Ibadan, writes in via tideola@yahoo.com