= ISSN 1821-6544 22

African African

Communication

22 Communication Research

African Communication Research (ISSN 1821 - 6544) is Communicating Innovations in Africa t o R u r a l F a r m e r s I n M b a i s e C o m m u n i t i e s published once a year, in December, as a service of the Nwachukwu Faustinus Ginikanwa University of Harcouty Nigeria Faculty of Social Sciences and Communications at St. Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza, Tanzania for Media Economics and Nigeria’s Democracy Communication Researchers of Africa. Victor Jatula University of Utah Asia Campus

Resea Social media use Among Journalists in Zambia and Tanzania: Examining Prospects and Challenges

r All correspondence should be directed ch Judith Wanda St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT)

Gregory Gondwe to: Albert Tibaijuka (Ph.D) Colorado University Coordinating Editor

P.O Box 307 Mwanza, V Adolescent Girls Communicating About Their Menstrual

Tanzania OL Experiences in Kabera Slums of Kenya

Email: Stella Jerp Chebii [email protected] 9, University of Eldoret Kenya

No

Roundtable Dialogue and its Inherent Complexities: Learning from the

1

Accounts of the Less Influential Dialoguers in Geita Tanzania

Albert Tibaijuka St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT)

Public Meetings and Citizen Participation in Rural Development Programs in

Decemb Ethiopia

Hagos Nigussie University of Makelle Ethiopia

e

To obtain a subscription and arrange a suitable form of payment or r

, Cultural Elements in a Selected Reality Television Program in Nigeria

establish an exchange of journals, send an email to 2020 Alex Eloho Umuerri [email protected] Benson Dahosa Nigeria

VOL 9, No 1 DECEMBER 2020

African Communication Research

A peer-reviewed journal

published by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communications at St. Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza, Tanzania as a service to communication research in Africa.

Listed in the accrediting indices of The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences Cambridge, England

Managing Editor - Prof. Costa Ricky Mahalu, Vice Chancellor, SAUT

Chief Editor - Carolyn Cummings Osmond, Southampton Solent University

Coordinating Editor - Albert Tibaijuka, SAUT

Editorial Assistance – Emily Smith

Proof Readers - Weronica Walerosca, - Sean Johnson, - Molly Ann Hopkins

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International Editorial Advisory Board

Prof. Robert A. White, Tangaza University, Nairobi Ayobami Ojebode, University of Ibadan Nigeria Monica Chibita, University of Makerere, Kampala, Uganda Cees Hamelink, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands and University of Aruba Audrey Gadzekpo, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana Winston Mano, Westminster University, London, United Kingdom Peter Mhagama, University of Malawi, Malawi Francis Nyamnjoh, Cape town University, Cape town, South Africa Isaac Phiri, Dept. of Mass Communication, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia Terje S. Skjerdal, Faculty of Journalism and communication, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia Kenyan Tomaselli, Professor, Culture, Communication and Media Studies, University of Johannesburg, South Africa Desmond Wilson, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria Eric Kwame Adae, University of Oregon Gregory Gondwe, University of Colorado, Boulder

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African Communication Research

Table of Contents

Volume 9, No. 1 December 2020

Communicating Innovations in Africa to Rural farmers in Mbaise communities Nwachukwu Faustinus Ginikanwa University of Harcouty Nigeria 1

Media Economics and Nigeria’s Democracy Victor Jatula University of Utah Asia Campus 11

Social media use Among Journalists in Zambia and Tanzania: Examining Prospects and Challenges Judith Wanda St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT) Gregory Gondwe Colorado University Boulder 27

Adolescent Girls Communicating About Their Menstrual Experiences in Kabera Slums of Kenya Stella Jerp Chebii University of Eldoret Kenya 38

Roundtable Dialogue and its Inherent Complexities: Learning from the Accounts of the Less Influential Dialoguers in Geita Tanzania Albert Tibaijuka St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT) 49

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Public Meetings and Citizen Participation in Rural Development Programs in Ethiopia Hagos Nigussie University of Makelle Ethiopia 65

Cultural Elements in a Selected Reality Television Program in Nigeria Alex Eloho Umuerri University of Benson Dahosa Nigeria 80

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Communicating Innovations in Agriculture to Rural Farmers in Mbaise Communities

Nwachukwu, Faustinus Ginikanwa

Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate the challenges of communicating the adoption and application of scientific agricultural inputs to rural farmers in Mbaise using the KingHumus organic supplement as the test case. This is in view of the level of education of most rural community farmer and the fact that KingHumus is an imported organic fertilizer/farm supplement which may involve some scientific explanation process to communicate its application and benefits to farmers who may not have had practical experience of its effectiveness. The research relied on the diffusion of innovation and development communication theories. The method adopted was the descriptive survey and the outcomes were presented quantitatively. It was observed that the communication approach adopted for communicating issues concerning KingHumus to rural farmers in Mbaise is interpersonal using the traditional communication system/channels available in the communities. These channels include the opinion leaders, Aladinma (Village gatherings), churches, age grades, markets, etc. However, in view of the challenges faced in communicating and convincing rural farmer in Mbaise to adopt this organic fertilizer rather than chemical fertilizers which the farmers were used to, the study recommends among others that the government through their change agents should assist the promoters of agricultural innovations with appropriate communication apparatus that would ease and quicken the adoption of these innovations in farming since the benefits of organic fertilizers far outweigh that of using chemical fertilizers in promoting good health among the local populace.

Keywords: Agricultural innovations, KingHumus fertilizers, interpersonal communication, farm inputs, rural farmers, Mbaise communities.

Ginikanwa Nwachukwu Dr. Nwachukwu is a Senior Lecturer in the Communication Studies Department of Port Harcourt University Nigeria and has been teaching Communication courses both at the undergraduate and graduate levels since April 2008. His research interests include communication research, public relations, advertising and journalism. Dr. Nwachukwu has over 25 publications in both international and local journals.

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Introduction/Problem Developing countries of the world (including Nigeria) are suffering from hunger, malnutrition, starvation, famine and squalor, coupled with an exponential growth in population. The causes are the devastating effects of drought, desertification and the continued use of old and primitive farming methods, which result in decline in food production. This has necessitated the introduction of farming innovations aimed at turning the fortunes of these nations in food production around. The population needs to be introduced and persuaded to adopt these innovations.

Communication is imperative if new ideas or developments are to be adopted by the target audience. Effective adoption of innovations in health, business, technology as well as breakthroughs in farming and Agriculture generally depend on how well the issues are communicated to the stakeholders. The effective management of the communication apparatus included the use of language, communication channels and media which are necessities for plausible achievement of objectives in change communication. Today, knowledge has increased and developments of innovations are creeping in on an alarming speed. How to use communication in propagating these new ideas, pose great challenge to change agents, individually and collectively particularly when these new developments are science oriented and the target audiences have low level of understanding of scientific issues. It is in view of this that this study seeks to qualitatively evaluate the communication approaches and challenges encountered by agricultural officers/promoters in encouraging farmers in rural Mbaise to adopt, use and apply KingHumus organic supplements imported from Philippines. KingHumus is an all-natural organic supplement containing chelated essential minerals and trace elements to enhance the health and improve performance of soil, crops, poultry and livestock. Promoters of this agricultural method have been moving from one community to the next in Mbaise trying to get farmers to adopt these new products instead of the chemical fertilizers they are used to.

Objectives The objectives of the study include; 1. To find out the communication strategies and channels used in communicating issues on KingHumus fertilizer to rural farmers in Mbaise.

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2. To establish the communication models used in ensuring the adoption and circulation of KingHumus organic fertilizers among rural farmers in Mbaise communities.

3. To investigate the challenges faced by promoters of KingHumus organic fertilizers in ensuring the adoption and use of the products by rural farmers in Mbaise.

4. To assess the level of adoption of KingHumus products by rural farmers in Mbaise communities.

Theoretical framework The study is anchored on the diffusion of innovation and development communication theories. Diffusion is a process through which new ideas otherwise called innovations are spread or communicated following certain channels over time to members of the community or social system. The diffusion of innovation theory, proposed by Bernard Berelson and Paul Lazarsfield in 1944 aimed to explain the processes through which new ideas are diffused among members of a certain social system. The innovation could be a new idea, a new product, a new way of doing something or a new concept.

The theory discusses the communication processes leading to the adoption of new ideas or technologies among a given community. New ideas are understandably difficult to accept by the recipients, but when such ideas are communicated using certain communication channels, the ideas are gradually absorbed and eventually adopted. However, studies have shown that among a given group being engaged in an innovation are those referred to as early adopters and late adopters and research has also shown that a lot of factors are responsible for these. These factors include education, age, income, social status, pattern of exposure to media etc. Implicitly, the adoption of the innovation of change from the use of chemical fertilizers to organic fertilizers (Kinghumus) among rural farmers in Mbaise may have been influenced by these factors.

The development communication theory is premised on the use of communication to spread messages aimed at development. Its aim is to use communication to facilitate the propagation and facilitation of the government development messages among the populace. According to Nwachukwu, Asadu and Asak (2012) development communication represents the autonomy and cultural identity of a particular national society and for participatory communication models which favour democratic grassroots involvement. The theory favours the government use of the media to propagate development efforts and policies to ensure positive change in society. It is believed that communication should be central in developing nation’s effort in ensure quick dissemination and adoption of communication aimed at change. The theory posits that while government allow everyone to participate in communication, it should also ensure effective control of the media to initiate and instigate positive change especially in areas of national development thus “the media should accept and carry out positive development in line with nationally established policy” (McQuail 1989). Furthermore, communication is invaluable in propagating development issues to people especially those in rural areas. More so, when it has to do with such important issue as innovations geared towards increasing crop yield in rural communities.

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Conceptual review Communication and the adoption of innovation New idea, concepts and beliefs which are essential for the growth and development in society needs to be adopted and used by all expected beneficiaries. In doing this communication becomes imperative. However, it has been found that no matter the effectiveness of the communication apparatus and or model used these new ideas are never diffused evenly among the populace. The adoption of these ideas takes time and demands the use of various communication media, channels and models. According to Roger (1962) adoption of innovation occurs through a series of communication channels over a period of time among the members of a similar social system. Innovations can hardly be adopted if the appropriate communication apparatus are not devolved to meet the communication requirements of the various components of the society.

Thus the four main components of the diffusion of innovation process according to Asemah (2011) are “innovation, communication channels, time and social system” (p.163). We found that many factors affect an individual’s adoption or use of innovation. These include the social norms, age, educational qualifications, income, and the pattern and channels of communication the individual is exposed to.

Asemah (2011) adds that in terms of communication, diffusion of innovation takes both interpersonal and mass communication channels which allow people to get information about an innovation and perceive its usefulness. Rogers cited above says the steps involved in adoption of innovation are knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation. The need for diffusion of innovation is to communicate a discovery or findings based on research to members of a social system. Therefore, Communication is central to the adoption and application of new ideas or discoveries by those who are expected beneficiaries of the new findings.

Communicating agricultural innovations Communicating innovations in the agricultural sector of the economy is a necessity for national development. Not only is agriculture one of the strongholds of national economics, it also provides and ensures food security which is one of the basic needs of man. The sector also provides raw materials to the industries. Agriculture is an essential part of human existence. In relation to this, Whitaker and Dyer (2000) cited in Nwabueze (2009) state that from the stearic acid in the tires of automobiles, insulin for diabetics, milk for new born babies, sugar in lollipops, to advances in genetic engineering all are by-product of agriculture. When these vital contributions of Agriculture to national development, are considered, it is clear that the sector requires serious attention. It may be the reason why governments especially the Nigerian government has over the years initiated policies and programmes aimed at improving agriculture; - directing the people’s attention, building interest and concern about the sector. Some of these policy programmes include “Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), Green Revolution, National Directorate for Food and Rural Infrastructure, Back-to-land. These are all efforts made by government to increase food and other agricultural production in the country.

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It must also be mentioned here that the Agricultural sector provides employment for over 60 percent of the population and consequently provides labour for many Nigerians. This may be the reason government is making every effort to return the agricultural sector to its place of pride in the country before the era of oil exploration in Nigeria. Before this period, the agricultural sector used to be the main stay of the Nigerian economy providing about 80 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). To return the Country’s agriculture to what it was requires the effort and attention of all, but most important, is the need to communicate agricultural innovations to farms. Innovations in agriculture include discoveries and ideas about new farming methods, the development of better yielding varieties and adoption and application of improved agricultural inputs. Though innovations may be communicated and of course are being communicated but studies have shown that the adoption of innovations in agriculture is affected by many factors. According to Emeyeonu (1987), many scholars have conducted studies on factors affecting diffusion of innovations in agriculture in Nigeria. Emenyeonu says there is a preponderance of studies on the relationship between variables such as education, social status, age, income, use of the media, farm size and adoption. Some of the studies he reviewed indicated that education played a significant role in adoption of innovations among some farmers in Northern Nigeria. This was similar to the findings among farmers in Imo and Anambra states where it was found there is a positive correlation between level of education and response to innovation campaigns. In a study conducted by Osuji (1980) on the infrastructural facilities affecting the adoption of new farming practices among famers in Imo State, some farmer’s adoption patterns in some farm communities in Anambra State indicated that literacy, education, income and frequency of contact with extension agents had a positive correlation with adoption of agricultural innovations. Other factors presented by Emenyeonu’s review are the use of mass media, size of farm and socio-economic status of farmers.

The KingHumus plants and livestock supplements: nature, benefits and prospects.

KingHumus is an all-natural organic supplement containing chelated essential minerals and trace elements to enhance the health and improve performance of soil, crops, poultry and livestock. The vision of the promoters of KingHumus fertilizers is to raise the fundamentals of agriculture and to repair and restore agriculture with the new invention of organic fertilizer. The mission is to elevate the agricultural wellbeing of the country by the farmer through a clear definiteness of purpose in a bid to tackle poverty through agriculture. The idea is to make calculated effort to create an enabling and standard agricultural environment among farmers and engineering them to understand the application of KingHumus to upgrade the rural farmer to a greater height in agriculture. The plan of the use kingHumus is to advance agriculture and the business of the organic fertilizer application as is being promote globally. This is because KingHumus is a natural growth stimulant, anti- bacteria, anti-mold and anti-inflammatory. The KingHumus range of organic fertilizers provides the following benefits to animals: stabilizes intestinal flora, provides a protective film

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on the mucosa cells of small intestine, Fixes micro-organisms, toxins and harmful Substances in animals, stimulate immune system, improve food intake, metabolism and growth and increase the output of production and quality of milk, meat and egg. For plants it provides the benefit of strengthening the root vitality, promotes quick seed germination, better resistance to stress, stimulates existing soil bacteria, enhances production and crop appearance, reduces soil completion, enhances uptakes and increase organic matters in the soil. Method The study was a survey research. The instruments for data collection were the questionnaire and interview schedule. The questionnaire was used to generate data from farmers in 10 communities purposively selected from the 3 local government areas of Mbaise clan. The communities include Okpofe, Eziudo, Ezegbogu and Itu representing Ezinihitte Mbaise local government area, Nguru, Okwuato and Lagwa representing Aboh Mbaise and Obohia, Ogbe and nnarambia representing Ahiazu Mbaise. These communities were purposively selected because they are communities where the innovation of KingHumus fertilizers has been introduced and promoted. A total of 100 farmers were sampled, 10 from each community. This represents 10% of the estimated number of farmers (1000) in these communities. The interview was conducted with the head of the KingHumus promotion team in Mbaise. The result of the research was descriptively presented.

Data Presentation and analysis First the study sought to find out the communication strategies and channels used in communicating issues on kingHumus fertilizers to rural farmers in Mbaise.

It was found that the communication strategies employed in communicating issues about KingHumus fertilizers to rural farmers in Mbaise was to use consistent contact with the farmers and to use every available local communication channels to reach the farmers with messages on the adoption and use of KingHumus fertilizers as a better alternative to the chemical fertilizers the farmers were used to. The language of communication was indigenous in this case in Igbo language. There was also the use of opinion leaders such as community school teachers, who helped to take the message to the grassroots. This is as shown in Tables 1 below.

Table 1: Respondent’s contact points with promoters of kingHumus S/N Contact Point No of Respondents Percentage 1 Seminar/Meetings/workshops 100 100 2 Mass media - 3 Social Media - Total 100 100

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The result of the interview indicates that the communication strategic plans were to be realized through organizing workshops, seminars in town halls, schools and village square. Majority of the respondents collaborated this by saying that the major channels through which they got information on issues related to the use of KingHumus was through interpersonal channels. See Table 2.

Table 2: Channels of communication employed S/N Channels No of Respondents Percentage 1 Radio - - 2 Television - - 3 Newspapers - - 4 Interpersonal (churches, markets, 89 89 village gatherings (Aladinma), age grade meetings, schools etc.)

5 Social media 11 11 Total 100 100

The second objective of the study is to establish the communication models used in ensuring the adoption and circulation of KingHumus organic fertilizers among rural farmers in Mbaise communities.

Data generated from the research shows that the communication models used in ensuring the adoption and circulation of KingHumus organic fertilizers among rural farmers in Mbaise communities is the multi-step flow and the ACADA communication models. UNICEF expound that the ACADA communication-planning framework involves situation Analysis, Communication analysis, Design and Action. The ACADA model according to Omego and Nwachukwu (2014) suggests that for communication aimed at achieving a change in attitude and behaviour to succeed, there must be effective planning. They add that ACADA advocates programme evaluation to assess impact against set objectives. The head of the promotion team in the interview said the process of communicating the adoption of KingHumus products involves a series of communication channels over a period of time among the target audience. The message goes through a series of community opinion leaders who adopts the products first and in turn takes the message to other farmers within their community. This finding agrees with Roger (1962) “…it occurs through a series of communication channels over a period of time among members of a similar social system” (p.79). Similarly, Asemah (2011) says innovations are first sent to opinion leaders and then the early adopters; the local people get the information from opinion leaders and the early adopters.

The third objective is to investigate the challenges faced by promoters of KingHumus organic fertilizers in ensuring the adoption and use of the products by rural farmers in Mbaise.

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It was found through the interview that the major challenges faced by the KingHumus promotion team were that due to the fact that the products were new, it was extremely time consuming, capital intensive to convince the rural farmers to change to the use of organic fertilizers from the chemical fertilizer, which they were used to. This situation is typical of the diffusion of innovations in every social system. The law of inertia suggests that change is not easy and that people tend to feel more relaxed with what they know and re used to. Rogers (1962) had informed that diffusion of innovation takes the stages of “awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption which were later changed to [sic]; knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation. These processes of course take time. The head of the promotion team said however, these difficulties were overcome by providing testimonies from those who have ventured to try the products on their plants and livestock. Finally, the study sought to assess the level of adoption of KingHumus products by farmers in Mbaise Communities. Findings from the study indicated that the level of adoption of KingHumus products in Mbaise communities is very high. The information on this is shown on table 3 below.

Table 3: Level of adoption of KingHumus in Mbaise S/N Level No of Respondents Percentage 1 Very high 76 76 2 High 21 21 3 Low 3 3 4 Very low - - Total 100 100

Data on the table above indicates that majority of the respondents say the level of adoption of KingHumus products by farmers in Mbaise communities is very high. This is because as can be seen on the table above a cumulative of 76% of the respondents supported the above conclusion. This was supported by the outcome of the interview. The interview respondent observed that despite the challenges involved in the adoption of innovations and the peculiar challenges of the area under study, the level of adoption of the products in Mbaise is on the high side. Findings It was found that the communication strategies employed in communicating issues about KingHumus fertilizers to rural farmers in Mbaise is mostly interpersonal. The major channels employed were churches, markets, village gatherings (the Aladinma), age grade meetings, schools etc. It was also found that the communication models used in ensuring the adoption and circulation of KingHumus organic fertilizers among rural farmers in Mbaise communities is the multi-step flow and the ACADA communication models. The study further found that the major challenges faced by the KingHumus promotion team were that due to the fact that the products were new, it was extremely time- consuming and capital intensive to convince the rural farmers which is typical diffusion of innovations in a similar social system. Finally, it was revealed from the study that the level of adoption of KingHumus products in Mbaise communities is very high.

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Conclusion Developing countries of Africa is experiencing exponential population growth resulting in stress on the available but stagnant infrastructures in these countries. Nigeria is among the countries in Africa experiencing infrastructural decadence in many aspects of its national life. Among these, food security is one area seeking for serious national attention. The country is experiencing food shortages because of the poor socio-economic conditions in the country. Initiating moves aimed at increasing food production in the country is imperative. Therefore, it becomes necessary to seek for ways of doing this through introduction of better farming methods, improved crop varieties, high yield varieties, genetic engineering of crops, and organic fertilization of crops, poultry and livestock. These are innovations, which need to be promoted among the people. Adopting these innovations would go a long way in assisting the nation in its quest for food security for its growing population. It is in the spirit of this, that such agricultural inputs such as KingHumus organic fertilizers are being promoted. Studies have shown that communication is central in the whole process of the adoption of innovations. Studies have also shown that the adoption of innovations takes time and requires specific steps and communication channels. This study has shown that effective communication of innovations in rural communities essentially requires consistent communication contacts with the target audience through interpersonal modes of communication. In such rural communities such as Mbaise, traditional communication channels seem to be more effective than mass media channels.

Recommendations The study recommends that the government through their change agents should collaborate with the promoters of agricultural innovations to assist with communication strategies and logistics to quicken adoption of these innovations in farming particularly because of the levels of food insecurity in Nigeria presently.

Incentives and funding assistance should be provided for researchers and promoters of these organic fertilizers whose benefits of health for the individual and the environment. This will help to encourage promoters in their invaluable effort in promoting this innovation.

The media should assist in the communication of this innovation. This will ensure a wider spread of information on KingHumus and other organic supplements, which would help increase crops, yield.

Government can also assist by providing free samples of these products to rural farmers to encourage them to experience the immense benefits of organic fertilizers in terms of crops yield.

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References

Asemah, S.E. (2011). Selected mass media themes. Jos: Matkol press.

Berelson, B., & Lazarsfeld, P. (1944). The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. Colombia: Colombia UOP.

Emenyeonu, B. N. (1987). Communication and adoption of agricultural innovations: - Quantifications and notes towards a conceptual model. African media review, 1(2), 105 – 119.

McQuail, D. (1994). Mass communication: An introduction. 3rd edition, New Delhi: Sage publications.

Nwabueze, C. (2009). Reporting: principle, approaches, and special beats. Owerri: Top Shelve Publishers.

Nwachukwu, F.G., Asak, O. M. and Asadu, C. A. (2012). Communication theories, modelsand hypothesis. Port Harcourt: Accuracy prints.

Omego, C. U. and Nwachukwu, F. G. (2013). Foundations of mass communication. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt press.

Osuji, O.L., (1980) "Infrastructural facilities affecting the adoption of new farm practices among farmers in Imo State." Oxford Agrarian Studies, vol 9, pp. 169 - 172. 33. Ugboaja, F. (1979). Developing Indegenous Communication in Nigeria, In Journal of Communication, Autuum, Vol. 29; No. 4. Pp. 40-45.

Uzo, S. (2001). Public relations Strategies: Panacea for regaining Nigeria’s Lost Glory in agriculture for sustainable economic growth and development. Journal of public relations Management. 1 (4), March.

Wilson, D. (1997). Communication and Social Action, Port Harcourt: Footstep Publications

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Media Economics and Nigeria’s Democracy

Victor Jatula

Abstract

In Western democracies, the news media is constitutionally free, liberal and independent. As watchdogs, mediators and mediums of idea exchange, they provide information that facilitates transparency, accountable governance and public participation. In authoritarian regimes, information is state controlled. In emerging democracies with a history of authoritarian rule, what is the nature of the press and do they contribute to democratic consolidation? Using political economy of communication as its framework of analysis, this paper investigated the nature and influence, if any, of mainstream news media in Nigeria on the democratic process. Findings indicate that since democratization in 1999, news outlets have transformed into capitalist, neoliberal, ad-driven industrial complex. Although, small portions of the media still embody nationalist sentiments, are adversarial, alternative and politically non–aligned; in general, the media is shaped by market forces to the extent that substantial deficits in investigating corruption, critical reporting and exposing elite privilege have become widespread. While the press provides a platform for broad and robust political discussion as well as a medium for public opinion to fester, they do not adequately survey the political terrain nor act as watchdogs. As a consequence, democracy in Nigeria will continue to lack openness, inclusiveness and transparency.

Keywords: Nigeria, journalism, neoliberalism, political economy of communication, democracy

Victor Jatula Victor Jatula is a lecturer in communication (journalism sequence) at the University of Utah (Asia Campus) in South Korea. Specifically, he teaches news and feature writing, digital journalism and public speaking. His research focuses on political communication and the role of the press in democratic societies with a particular emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. His current research focuses on political culture in post-colonial societies and its impact on democracy.

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Introduction An investigation of media/democracy nexus in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular is essential to understanding democratic deficits and development shortcomings in the Third World. The picture emerging across the Global South suggests that democracy, or versions of it in newly democratized developing nations are an essential ingredient of political change but not necessarily required for economic and social development. Across Africa, faith in democracy as a political means to economic ends is increasingly questioned with deep–seated political corruption, rising income inequality, infrastructural shortfalls and disappointing economic performance on one hand. On the other hand, the rise of China– a non-democratic, centralized state with limited media freedom; yet, with startling economic outcomes fuels discontent with democracy. Although, democracy has significantly reduced political violence in Africa since 1990, we argue that democracy has more to offer under right conditions. Can the free press in Nigeria and elsewhere across the continent create conditions necessary for democracy to transform, not just politics but also deliver socio– economic dividends? Can the Fourth Estate of the realm investigate and expose corruption, adequately analyse state policies, provide a platform for alternative views, facilitate free and fair elections and promote transparent governance; ultimately leading to national development? This paper evaluated the contributions of Nigeria’s mainstream news media to democratic consolidation from the lenses of political economy of communication.

After three decades of post-independent military regimes, Nigeria democratized in 1999. Media liberalization, a core component of Nigeria’s new governmental structure was intended to open the political space for civil society and the news media to freely and critically influence good governance and development (Ette, 2013). In two pragmatic ways – freedom of expression and ideas exchange through any media regardless of frontier on one hand and on the other hand, right to vote on the basis of a thorough understanding of contestants, their political records and party manifesto, a free press is a means to broad political ends that includes free and fair elections (World Press Freedom Day, 2019). It was believed, and rightly so, that openness and public participation in politics will translate into national consensus, stability and economic development. It was hoped that the availability of detailed, balanced, open and critical media content, will provide Nigerians with vital information required to make sense of the democratic process, understand important election issues and portrayal of political players and what they symbolize. These were particularly significant in the context of Nigeria’s ethnic, religious and political history.

Political and media freedoms therefore heralded a new dawn for Nigeria in general and the press in particular. Democracy and its accompanying quintessential — rule of law, multi–party elections, separation of powers, independent judiciary and a free press opened the door to new voices and fresh ideas. The media landscape, once plagued with decrees, censorship and restrictive laws gave way to a wider–ranging and liberal space in which the media became free and enabled to pursue their statutory roles. For example, the obnoxious Decree 4 of 1984 (Protection Against False Accusation) was not only repealed but in 2011, the Freedom of Information Act established a legislative framework that granted media professionals access to state–held information. Importantly, constitutionally–

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guaranteed protection was put in place to shield journalists from physical attacks, blacklisting and the use of security and extra–legal means to suppress the press. These measures emboldened Nigeria’s news media to perform as watchdogs – critical of politicians, champion citizens’ rights against the abuse of state power and provide a platform for debate.

Two decades after democratization, what has been the input, if any, of the press to the political process in Nigeria? Is the Nigerian news media resilient to, or incapacitated by, arbitrary government intervention, arrests and pressure? Have regional and geopolitical imperatives impacted negatively or otherwise on news content? Does proprietorial control and commercial affiliations limit or boost the capacity of the press to perform its core responsibilities? Has the press in Nigeria upheld its reputation as the most vibrant and resilient in Africa with a tradition of agitation and antagonism against power, or have they become part of the capitalist, industrial complex? Is the Nigerian press mired in regional politics and as a consequence become docile or has the press demonstrated commitment to and vigor in holding politicians at all levels accountable to the electorate? Or have they become biased, sectional agents of regional disunity? These sub–questions are tackled in this paper. As its main finding, market–driven practices within the media through a series of filters – ownership, advertising, corporate affiliations and political alignments shape news content to the advantage of the power elite. These filters limit the potency of the media to the extent that hopes raised in 1999 during democratization and consequent liberalization have faded considerably. Although, the press has been impressive in providing a platform through which broad discussions have festered and have remained a forum for galvanizing public opinion; they are yet to and are operationally incapable of effectively surveying the political landscape as well as serve as investigative watchdogs of the ruling class. Evidence from semi–structured interview participants indicates that Nigeria's pro–market media worldview restricts the news media from investigating, challenging, barking at and ‘biting’ corruption! Although, democracy is consolidating; democratic dividends — human rights, rule of law and development lags significantly behind. Press freedom is yet to translate into an open, accountable and transparent political space as media dictate media outcomes. In the absence of a more critical press, Nigeria’s version of democracy, if not reformed, corruption will deepen, bad policies will go unchallenged, serious journalism will shrink and the quest for development unrealized.

Political economy of communication: A theoretical framework Political economy of communication is an alternative approach to understanding the media industry, news production, media proprietorship and media effect on society. It emphasizes class conflict and social upheavals within the liberal-capitalist order and focuses on media ownership and control, convergence and consolidation of media industries with other industries. It rejects the notion that in a constitutional democracy, the press acts in the capacity of a watchdog by monitoring the activities of the state. Rather, it argues that the press is a capitalist enterprise, owned and controlled by members of the political class and is designed to serve the ruling elite (Mosco, 2009).

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Political economy in general focuses on power relations within society and the struggles between labor and capital. In media studies, it is holistic in its approach to understanding the media and studies the historical, political, economic, organizational, technological, personal and professional factors that impinge on the media production process. Political economy of communication studies the media with other institutions – social, economic and political, and within the wider social context (nationally and internationally). It deals with communication as a social process, having forward and backward linkages with emphasis placed on capitalist news organizations, concentration of ownership, government policy, regulation and control, institutional structures within media organizations, globalization, media imperialism and the flow of information from the Global North and beyond; and neoliberalism and its impact on journalism, organizations and across nations (McQuail, 2005). From the early 1970s, the emergence of a critical research approach has challenged the supremacy of earlier, mainly positivist research approaches that conceptualize the liberal press as independent and central to democracy. This basic assumption of the press as a force for public interest was re-examined within the context of propaganda studies and media agenda-setting research. Studies show that the interlocking relationship between media owners, politicians and corporate elite causes the news media to self-censor alternative voices that question elite agenda. From 1970 onwards, political economy of communication shifted its focus on international communication at a time when much of the work in this particular field was addressed to the modernizing potential of the media in developing countries with little or no reference to questions of media ownership, control, nor even to content, and still less to broader issues of dominance and dependency, tied aid, super power conflict, and media commercialization. Questions on the link between the different indices of modernization, including industrialization and urbanization and other broader social questions, about who was setting the research agenda, to whose benefit, informed by which ideologies and discourses became the focus of critical research. The political economy of the mass media acknowledges that the media are commercial, industrial, ideological organizations who function as means to an end and not ends in themselves. The political economy approach also draws attention to the dynamics of change in media industries, with particular reference to processes of concentration in the control of media by a few large organizations (Boyd-Barrett, 1998). Political economy in the 1990s continues to chart the extent to which cultural production is controlled or influenced by large corporations. Mosco (2009) argues that there are four key trends in world communication: digitalization, consolidation, deregulation, and globalization. A relatively new feature of political economy of communication is its concern to understand the causes and implications of privatization, which is to say the processes by which governments since the early 1980s have sought to reduce support for publicly-owned media and at the same time to dismantle and reformulate the regulatory frameworks governing private control of media, processes which were further accelerated by the collapse of the communist bloc in the later 1980s. In the 2000s, Chomsky and Herman (1988) and McChesney (2008) have focused more on the threat of media ownership and its real and potential dangers to democracy and freedom. They argue that concentration of media ownership in a few hands to the extent that what the public see, hear and read is controlled by six global, ad-driven conglomerates will ultimately create a media loyal to advertisers, privilege and politicians with access to vast resources.

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Transformations in Nigeria’s Press/Politics Nexus

British trade influence and later colonial rule over the River Niger area in West Africa brought together diverse peoples and cultures into a single political and geographical entity known today as Nigeria. However, demand for racial equality and political inclusion in a handful of Lagos-based newspapers around 1914 transformed the press in Nigeria from its missionary roots into an awakening force and a platform for national consensus (Omu, 1978). Amalgamation of northern and southern protectorates in 1914 according to Campbell (2013) not only enlarged Britain’s administrative control over Nigeria’s vast territory, it also expanded the scope of local newspapers and laid the foundation for Nigerian nationalism. Newspaper agitation inspired constitutionalism in 1922 that introduced local elections in Lagos and Calabar. By the 1940s, nationalism in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, championed by the press along with discontent intellectuals and civil rights groups snowballed into decolonization after World War II (1939-45) and eventual independence in 1960. Strong nationalist sentiments that pitched the press against colonialism changed from agitation into cooperation with Nigeria’s newly-elected government. The euphoria of independence and the media’s developmental agenda was, however, brief. Constitutional strains, regional rivalry between the north and south, and power politics created conditions that allowed military intervention in 1965. As indicated by Oso (2011), after five short years of parliamentary democracy, despotic military rulers forcefully hijacked the political process through coups and counter-coups. Military rule in Nigeria was characterized by power centralization, dissolution of political parties, suspension of parliament, and press censorship. The press again recalibrated its nationalist, adversarial force to demand for political reform, freedom, multiparty elections and the return to civil rule. By early 1990, portions of the news media were forced underground amidst military repression; but, collectively, the press remained resilient and served as platforms through which radicalism and resistance to authoritarian rule festered. They also provided a window, an alternative view through which the international community understood political and social development within Nigeria. Together with civil society, Nigeria’s dogged and unrelenting news media exerted pressure on the military until 1999 when democratic politics was reintroduced (Siollun, 2013).

Existing literature on the nature of the press since democratization is twofold. Media ownership and control, except in a handful of new starts-ups and online platforms, is the exclusive preserve of well-connected politicians who see the press as means to political and economic end. Owners use their titles principally to back certain political parties, drum up support for particular political candidates and antagonize or criticize opposing groups and interests. They control their organizations through staff micromanagement, news content censorship and recruitment of editorial staff that comply with the owner’s worldview. Although media ownership in Nigeria is unlike the corporate ownership structure in the West, they share similar capitalist motivations. Consequent upon the above, the quest for financial success and profit maximization now plays a more open and influential role in the operational dynamics of major news organizations. Editorial independence, critical reporting and nationalistic sentiments are sacrificed for advertising revenue and commercial success (Adesoji, 2010). "The market has become the decisive moderating force for mainstream press outfits, location, ethnicity or political affinity notwithstanding" (Oso, 2011: 21).

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By implication, Graber (2013) notes that a commercial press is principally accountable to its capital, owners and shareholders, not the public. Press freedom is not only threatened under these circumstances; it is radically endangered as it becomes increasingly difficult for media professionals to act independently in public interest (Oso, 2011). Economic and political power are not mutually exclusive. They are ends for which the press has become means. In the section below, I lay out a systemic method of examining Nigeria’s dynamic mainstream news media.

Methodology To investigate the nature and influence of Nigeria’s news media to the democratic process since 1999, the study measured press performance against public expectations – provide a forum for public discussion of diverse, often competing ideas; give voice to public opinion; serve as citizen's eyes and ears to survey the political scene and the performance of politicians; and act as a public watchdog that barks loudly when it encounters misbehavior, corruption and abuse of power in the government (Graber, 2003). Four critical questions were used: 1. Does the Nigerian press provide a forum for public debate and discussion? 2. Do they give expression to public opinion? 3. Do they survey the political process to scrutinize the performance of elected officials and finally; 4. Do they engage in watchdog, expose journalism? Focused group discussions and semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the perspectives of a cross-section of Nigerians who participated in the study. The use of qualitative method was justified by its potential to gather broad and wide-ranging perspectives that addressed the study’s research questions. The underlying methodological objective was twofold: one, it is believed that different types of opinions can be gained using different methods. This makes it therefore possible to fully understand the Nigerian press if it is studied from multiple approaches. Two, when research is not bound to a single method and the researcher is at liberty to combine methods, it is believed that using more than one method should help get a clearer picture of the phenomenon under study to make for more adequate explanations. In sum, the mixed methods approach increases the propensity to get at the truth. Focused group discussions were conducted in Lagos, Nigeria in 2019. As suggested by Kitzinger (2004) of the Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG), much emphasis was placed on interpersonal familiarity among group participants on one hand while on the other hand, familiarity with the subject matter was both relevant and quintessential. In total, three focus group discussions were conducted with six news reporters in Group One; five university students (University of Lagos and Lagos State University) in Group Two, and six social media bloggers in Group Three. The mixed composition of the groups as well as their interest in Nigerian politics generated varying standpoints and views that proved relevant to the study. To further explore individual views intimately, 12 semi-structured interviews with news reporters were conducted in Lagos. Participants were purposefully selected based on their willingness to voluntarily participate in the study and their work in political reporting in national newspapers located in the Lagos/Ibadan press axis in Southern Nigeria. These semi- structured interviews also generated useful views deemed relevant for the study. Importantly, the participants at focused group discussions and semi-structured interviews represented an urban, educated, middle-income, politically-conscious class that lived in Lagos – Nigeria’s

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former capital and cosmopolitan mega-city. The age bracket of selected participants ranged from 22 to 50. Gender balance and academic diversity was also ensured to the extent that participants included students, professionals, reporters and bloggers with varying educational qualifications and socioeconomic status. This, according to Silverman (2016), increases the credibility and believability of a qualitative research enterprise. Subsequent data analysis followed a rigorous process – transcription, familiarity with content and development of salient issues into broader thematic categories that best reflected the data.

Researchers initially familiarized themselves with the content of the transcripts before individually coding sections of text in to meaning units. These were then discussed by the research team and developed into broader thematic categories which best reflected the data. A single member of the team checked the final analysis for category integrity and fit with the data”

Discussion and analysis

Do Nigeria’s news media serve as a marketplace of ideas? The concept of a marketplace of idea is premised on the belief that in democracies – new and old – the liberal press is expected to function as a platform for wide, conflicting debates, discussions and ideas in the belief that when varying and conflicting ideas are given broad and robust coverage and analysis in the media, the truth in political dialogue will prevail, capable of guiding public opinion and policy. According to Gordon (1997), ideas will succeed or fail on their own merits when subjected to media and public scrutiny. This notion of providing a platform for open, political discussion and inclusive public debate is strengthened by concepts such as media neutrality, objectivity, and impartiality. The marketplace idea is meant to stock public spaces with a diversity of perspectives and broad-ranging opinions, essential for public information and enlightenment.

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In the context of Nigeria, findings indicate that the increase in the number of newspapers is a reflection of a more tolerant political and legal environment that accommodates open discussion, political communication and media entrepreneurship. These press outfits are mainly clustered in urban centers – Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, Kano, Benin City, Port Harcourt and Enugu– where access to government sources, a growing readership, trained manpower and secure internet connectivity are available. A Punch newspaper reporter noted that “the plethora of news platforms across Nigeria is tantamount to diversity of opinions and representative of the many facets of society.” Accordingly, these platforms have opened new and inclusive windows through which Nigerians and outsiders understand national politics.”

A ThisDay newspaper reporter added that mainstream newspapers have had to adapt to the changing mediascape, especially influenced by social media’s flexibility, immediacy and vibrancy. Participants commended traditional newspapers, especially The Guardian, Vanguard, ThisDay, Daily Trust, The Sun, Tribune and The Nation who regularly publish a letters-to–the-editor section, columns and editorials that highlight social discontent and infrastructural deficiencies in the system.

These views, if true, challenged the notion that mainstream newspapers located in Lagos/Ibadan newspaper axis are mainly controlled by Yoruba political elites who use these outlets as propaganda machinery to further their political, regional and economic agenda. Commenting on the historic rivalry between newspapers in Lagos (South) and Abuja (North) and the conflictual editorials and coverage of news, almost entirely unique to Nigeria, a Vanguard reporter participant said “all sides of every narrative – north and south, east and west – enrich public understand and discourse to the extent that multiple viewpoints offer a more complete view of Nigeria's society.” Her comment, if accurate, suggests a robust public space in which multiple opinions fester. Some argue that multiple opinions with competing interpretations of facts and perspectives polarize and fragment media audiences, but an online blogger participant commented that “freedom of expression as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution is specifically for that purpose – diversity of ideas. It is better to have many voices than a few, gatekeeper-controlled dominant views.” A student of University of Lagos added that “all voices – rational, irrational, professional, raw or bias, fresh or old contribute to the general commonwealth of ideas available within society. I particularly look out for Ruben Abati’s articles in The Guardian newspaper.” Evidence from participants suggests that Nigeria’s news media embody a wide range of ideas from various political, economic, academic, regional, religious and diaspora interests that represent divergence. Although each publication may vary slightly as is the case elsewhere, put together, these multiple elements enrich press content. Evidence therefore indicates a marketplace of ideas that offer alternative perspectives.

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Do Nigerian news media give expression to public opinion? Conceptualized as the complex collection of perspectives from different people and the sum of all their views (Boyd-Barrett, 1995), the liberal press should function to crystallize and articulate the collective and prevalent thoughts and views in society, whether political or otherwise. Through their mediatory roles, the press should moderate and reconcile the dialogue between the public and the political class to allow meaningful interaction. This enables government to know both public opinion and minority views on one hand and on the other, media mediation should allow the electorate to understand the government policies and direction. This dual role should help cement the media’s relevance as a quintessential democratic institution, required for modern participatory politics (Moy, P & Bosch, B., 2013).

To ascertain if Nigerian newspapers represent public opinion, reporters who participated in the focus group discussion stated that, to a reasonable percentage, the opinion of the public is well represented in the news media. They asserted that Nigeria’s news media is fair in granting access to many viewpoints, particularly views that criticize the state and its political elite. A Guardian reporter added that, “In so doing, we enhance participatory democracy by providing the public with access through which various opinions are expressed on several national issues.” A news blogger observed that, “all newspapers in Lagos have lively online comment sections but the attention they command is minimal compared to the traffic on blogs and social media. Examples include Lindaikeji blog and Tundeednut on Instagram. These platforms see thousands of comments from the public.” The suggestion here is that the press, particularly online, is a no-holds-barred medium through which the views of the public are heard – though it is often the case that these lively online commentaries are the exclusive preserve of an educated, urban middle class.

Student participants, however, accused editors of national newspapers of being too selective in the opinions they publish offline, to the extent that they (the students) believe these papers often restrict alternative views. According to a political science student at the University of Lagos, “Sadly, since 2003, Nigeria media has gradually left the public for the elite. They express more of elite views. They have now become a vehicle for the elite to push talking points.” Another student added that in most newspapers, “it is difficult to get an article published except you know someone on the inside!” It is difficult to quantify the extent to which this latter comment is accurate, but the general consensus during the student- populated focus group discussion is that newspapers are overtly political in their coverage, not radical enough in giving voice to the views of youths and students, and are too preoccupied with the actions and inactions of political actors. Reacting to the above, a Guardian newspaper journalist noted that “editors select and publish articles that are well written, clearly thought-through and very current. Articles that do not embody these qualities are dropped.”

A former ThisDay newspaper reporter observed that “In 2006, The News Magazine sold pages of its publication to politicians to help ‘showcase their accomplishments.’ ThisDay newspaper adopted the same concept and has become very notorious for publishing as news,

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politician-sponsored content.” Other participants indicated that it has now become the norm for journalists to accept ‘brown envelopes’ in exchange for positive media coverage. “The media you read determine what you know. It is no coincidence that some Lagos papers are commercial entities and politicians are their main customers. It is therefore untrue that Nigerian newspapers and their online counterparts always and often represent public opinion,” noted a blogger participant. These comments open up the link between certain news media and their commercial interest on one hand, while on the other hand, they suggest that social media and online news are more open to accommodating public comments and diverging views. It is believed that while all newspapers claim to adhere to strict professional ethics – independence, balanced and objectivity – in practice, each medium defines its own rules and framework. In sum, while Nigeria’s newspapers may not have done enough to accommodate the views of college students or the likely consequences of various types of political decision, online news platforms serve as a forum for expanding discussion of conflicting elite and/or popular views about numerous political issues. They also publish diverse opinions that are deemed radical and divergent. As democracy consolidates in Nigeria, more and more news media now subscribe to non-partisanship and editorial independence, though with varying degree and depth.

How effective is the Nigerian press in performing its surveillance functions?

The press is expected to survey the political landscape and advance the course of democracy (Graber, 2003). Effectiveness and efficiency in public office is critically related to transparency and accountability. The media is expected to serve as eyes and ears for citizens, and monitor the soundness of policies as well as oversee the performance of politicians and senior civil servants. Although the media might not always have the resources and sophistication to closely scrutinize politicians, the evaluator role of the press rests with in their ability to insightfully and constructively appraise government actions and policies. Media criticism is largely geared towards reform and performance, though it makes uncomfortable reading and may attract elite disapproval. In dispensing this responsibility, most blogger participants expressed confidence in the media’s potential to scrutinize and critique the actions and inactions of government – federal, state and local. Participant cited several examples of media’s surveillance including but not limited to: uncovering plots to illegally alter the Nigerian Constitution by Olusegun Obasanjo – Nigeria’s president between 1999-2007; and exposing the excesses of political office holders who embezzled state resources – former state governors such as James Ibori (Delta), Murtala Iyanko (Adamawa), Martin Elechi (Eboyin) and Sule Lamido (Jigawa). Other investigative work according to a reporter included “exposing legislators with fake degrees, institutional decay, abuse of power and deep-seated corruption by politicians”. Reporters and bloggers at focus group discussion generally agreed that the current and somewhat open political space is a product of press agitation and sacrifice. The comments suggest a political environment and its inherent media surveillance has remarkably helped civil society engage more meaningfully with politics, with the collective goal of cementing enduring democratic principles. According to a political blogger in Yaba, Lagos,

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“Despite several attempts to suppress and control the press, our resilience as journalists in Nigeria has become our identifying character. We do as much as the political framework allows” – however, a Punch newspaper reporter said, “I am not sure we still have that [serious journalism] in the Nigerian media anymore. The only media that do this is the Premium Times and Channels TV.” A blogger argued that “this aspect of news reporting is both disappearing and, in most cases, almost non-existent in Nigeria”. In probing the phrase “as much as the political framework allows” during focus group discussion, both news reporters and bloggers commented that Nigerian journalists must conform to written and unwritten rules. They asserted that the former is defined by the state, Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the media organization you work in. These include issues of national security, ethnically sensitive discourse between north and south, anything that tampers with religion – especially Islam – and political affiliations. The more important rules they believe are unwritten! These, they say, are in layers. For example, a Punch newspaper reporter commented that “most organizations are not keen about exposing corruption and abuse of power, especially when it involves an incumbent president, governor, legislator, senior officer, corporate sponsor or a political ally.” He added that “When you attack the corrupt; they attack you back.” A reporter noted during focus group discussions that the now defunct Next newspaper is a case in point of if you attack corruption, it attacks you back. Next newspaper was radical and investigative. Within a few years after it hit the newsstand, it became the go-to publication for exposé journalism. However, corruption fought back. First, journalists working with Next were blacklisted and barred from attending press briefings and related events. Second, Next newspaper experienced ad-drought. This depleted the publisher’s ability to meet its operational cost. Finally, covert and overt surveillance by officers of the state security service made reporters nervous and uncomfortable. This is more so worrying in a country with a long history of state impunity and police brutality against media professionals. In sum, the paper seized publication not because the content was not in demand but because it is difficult to fight power!

A blogger, commenting on the unwritten rule added that “the rule can be the difference between life and death. I know of a few colleagues who were arrested, put behind bars without trial for several weeks due to an article or report posted on their blogs.” Bloggers are in a more precarious situation, she continued, because “we lack the institutional, legal and financial resource of news reporters working in established media organizations.” Another blogger noted that “Nigeria’s poor ranking on Transparency International’s corruption perception index is an indication of deeply embedded corruption within the system but corruption is rarely investigated in traditional media. Even within Nigeria’s blogosphere, authorities monitor everything to silence radicals.” These comments, born out of frustration and anger, indicated a willingness on the part of the press to investigate the polity; but, in reality, the system is littered with restrictions visible and invisible, legal and otherwise imposed from the top to hinder openness, accountability and transparency.

More evidence from interview participants indicated that the news coverage of corruption, limited as it is, is not an outcome of in-house investigations but obtained from secondary sources including court proceedings, insiders, whistle-blowers and anti-corruption

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agencies (Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and Public Complaint Commission). A Punch reporter noted that “while it is common practice for the media to gather information from these sources, the inability to conduct in-house investigation is the sign of our times. Publishers are not interested in rocking the boat. They have too much to lose; and very few to gain.” Students believe the news media can and should do more to survey Nigeria’s political space. According to a Lagos State University student, “the disappointingly low coverage on corruption in the press does not suggest that corruption is not widespread. In fact, it is deeply ingrained and antithetical to development. What it shows is that the system and news reporters are conditioned to stay away from any form of news content that expose the rich and powerful.” While most journalists who participated at interview contended that the press can do more to expose corruption, they identified three obstacles: first, the press cannot do it alone due to limited resources. They do not have the capacity and finance to effectively monitor the activities of public office holders at all levels. Second, a significant section of the press is also entrenched in corruption, necessitated by poor conditions of service, unpaid salaries and, more prominently, external pressure from politicians and corporate organizations. Lastly, the subtle use of security operatives and legal tools to clamp down on journalists deemed critical of government is a deterrent. A ThisDay journalist added that “according to reports by Campaign to Protect Journalist (CPJ), Nigeria is second only to Somalia in terms of Africa's worst record on unpunished journalist murders. Routine censorship and harassment by state security personnel have made Nigeria a dangerous place to be a journalist.”

In sum, the press is yet to live up to the expectations in terms of surveying the political landscape.

Does the press hold public office holders accountable to the Nigerian public? The press is expected to perform watchdog functions (de Burgh & Lashmar, 2008). In line with Section 21 of the Nigerian Constitution, the press, including radio, television, and other agencies of the mass media, should hold elected office holders responsible and accountable to the people. Investigative journalism is therefore predicated on the media’s ability to supply citizens with deliberately hidden information the public must have to prevent or stop the abuse of power. Accordingly, the press must expose the abuse of power and warn society about those doing harm by keeping the public informed to the extent that they (the public) can meaningfully engage in politics.

An overwhelming majority of participants (bloggers and reporters) during focus group discussions agreed that the press have not fully performed its watchdog function since 1999, particularly in investigating the system. A Punch-based journalist noted that “it is obvious that the political scene has changed; the role of the press is no less important in keeping politicians on their toes. What is shocking is that today’s press is less interested in critical work." According to her, critical work includes detailed, time-consuming investigative work that examines policies and their consequences on the public, political actors and their actions, as well as examining public institutions and their performance. A blogger added that “we thought the media will retain its role against the military and put the present civilian

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government on edge, but what we have is complacency." Another participant added that "the press in Nigeria is now part of the Establishment, equally participating in the sharing of the national cake.”

Reporters believe that two factors hold the media in Nigeria back from functioning as watchdogs. First is revenue. The state is the biggest spender in the media market through advertisements and public service announcements. Political parties and their candidates are also heavy spenders, especially during election seasons. Corporate advertisers and sponsors with access to enormous resources also feature in the mix. To attract advertisements required to function on one hand, and make up for declining revenue from circulation on the other, media organizations increasingly depend on the state, political parties and corporate elites. A reporter said: “It is therefore difficult, if not somewhat impossible for journalists to scrutinize, bark and bite the fingers that feed (advertise with) them”. According to another reporter, “most news media outlets are like diaries of political actors in and out of power. If you don’t know what the politicians are up to or what the next big thing is, just pick up a few copies of daily newspapers, you will get a complete itinerary and list of their activities”. Second is the power of elite and state intervention in the media. Contrary to the principle of free enterprise and market economy enshrined in the constitution, state intervention, censorship and control is not only apparent but also inhibiting. A ThisDay reporter said “although freedom of expression is guaranteed by Section 39 of the Constitution, since 2015 when President Buhari got into office, the administration has systematically tightened the noose on non-compliant reporters.” Other reporters and bloggers mentioned several cases of arrest without trial and detention without charge: Jones Abiri, editor of Weekly Source; Segun Ogundipe and Evlyn Okakwu of Premium Times, and two police invasions of the Daily Trust newspaper office in Abuja. A Guardian reporter noted that “President Buhari is a converted democrat who is yet to live up to his promise that journalists will be safe under his democratic administration.” Participants also contended that many bloggers are undergoing prosecution across the country by elected politicians who attack press freedom and free speech using normal state apparatus: denial of advertisements, spying on journalists, and sometimes outright attack. Reporters also mentioned that “the state uses accusation of terrorism or aiding and abetting. These, according to them, are ways to arm twist the press in dancing to their tunes.”

In sum, these commentaries suggest that the news media are for-profit enterprises, interested in boosting their resources. While it is not uncommon for news organizations to focus on revenue, it appears that in the Nigerian context, the bottom-line has become the end of which journalism is merely a means. The views of participants, in the absence of counterevidence suggests that the media in general and newspapers in particular are not sufficiently engaging in surveillance or adequately performing their watchdog role. A few participants also added that the absence of investigative reporting indicates that most media houses are not devoting the required resources into and giving serious reporting the attention it deserves. Simply relying on secondhand information may not allow the press to dig as deep as is required.

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Conclusion

This paper is located in the broad field of media and democracy in Africa. Specifically, it examined the symbiotic relationship between press and politics in an emerging democracy – Nigeria. This paper investigated the nature and contributions of Nigeria’s news media to the current democratic process to determine if the press have helped or hindered political progression since democratization in 1999. As its framework of analysis, the study focused on four key questions: has the press in Nigeria provided a platform for broad and robust discussion? A forum for public opinion? Do they adequately survey the political terrain? And, have they acted as watchdogs? Using a blend of focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, evidence indicates a mixed picture. On one hand, Nigerian papers are especially likely to represent the views and beliefs of a wide cross-section of society. Most newspapers still embody a long-standing Nigerian tradition of being politically affiliated or ethnically connected, and as such, they articulate a range of political opinion, united without a doubt by adherence to shared elite norms, but differing in partisan concerns and loyalties. Partisan political diversity is an especially recognized characteristic of the press in Lagos and here, too, there seems to be more editorial effort than elsewhere to solicit public opinion through the letters-to-the-editor page and reproduced views that challenge authority. Nigeria’s news media remain willing to carry criticism of the shortcomings of the government, albeit in a regionally-biased fashion. On the other hand, the media fall short of expectations in surveillance and watchdog functions. They have become capitalist, neoliberal and ad-driven.

The implications of this study are multifaceted. Findings suggest that hopes of a transparent and efficient democratic process facilitated by an independent and free news media may remain elusive due to economics. In Nigeria and possibly across the Global South, versions of democracy in practice across the Third World may remain nothing more than periodic elections, occasional change of party in power and a means to political power; not a political means to socioeconomic, people-cantered and developmental ends. In the context of market-driven media, critical roles such as watchdogs and platforms for open and liberal discussion are compromised in the interest of power.

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Social Media Use among Journalists in Zambia and Tanzania: Examining Prospects and Challenges

Judith Wanda and Gregory Gondwe

Abstract

This study set out to quantify the value of social media usage among journalists in Zambia and Tanzania. Using surveys conducted among journalists in both Zambia and Tanzania, findings suggest that most reporters from the two countries place more value on Facebook than any other social platform such as WhatsApp and Twitter as it relates to professional practice. Individual journalists’ value perception suggests that unlike Facebook, the value of other social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Twitter were respectively tied to their usage in querying friends and sharing ‘fake news’ for entertainment purposes. While Facebook was also used for querying friends, most journalists significantly tied its value to activities associated to journalistic practices, such as contacting sources and performing research for a story.

Keywords: journalism practice in Africa, social media, new media, reporting, Zambia, Tanzania

Judith Wanda

Judith Wanda is an Assistant Lecturer as St. Augustine University of Tanzania, serving the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communications. She is currently pursuing PhD in Mass Communication at the University of Dar es Salaam.

Gregory Gondwe

Gregory Gondwe ([email protected]) is an affiliate of the Department of Journalism at the University of Colorado –Boulder where he teaches media-related courses. His research explores the concepts of persuasive messages and their effects on the news with a particular interest in Sub-Saharan Africa, he examined how individuals and groups choose to assimilate and accept news content as either true or false.

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Introduction

The use of social media by journalists throughout the world has become the standard for professional journalism. The idea that a journalist could exist without social media today is almost a terra incognita. Many scholars have argued that social media has lessened the burden that most journalists faced in the recent past years (Kerunga, et. al. 2020; Lemke & Chala, 2016; Mabweazara, et. al, 2014). Many journalists have resorted to employing social media for activities such as crowdsourcing, contacting sources, and even for story beats. Others have also used social media as platforms from for reporting and reaching out to a bigger audience. In short, most media, including mainstream media have resorted to the use of social media platforms as a way of reaching to a larger audience that they could not reach through the traditional approaches.

Against this backdrop is the problem of media trust and the authenticity of the news story beats from both the journalists and the audience’s perspective (Gondwe, 2018). Several studies have shown that social media trust in Africa has been dwindling. This is because social media is perceived as a platform for gossip, (Wasserman, 2020; Ndlela, 2020; Wahutu, 2019; Mutsvairo & Bebawi, 2019); and entertainment (Wasserman et. al., 2019; Meyer, 2019; McIntyre & Sobel, 2019). The idea of it being a reliable source of information is yet to be absorbed by audiences in sub-Saharan Africa. Ironically, from the above recent studies it shows that social media are the most used platforms, especially in Africa where more than 22.9 million users are recorded, and with more than one million new subscribers every day. Zambia and Tanzania alone stand at more than 7 million users every year for the past three years (napoleaonCat.com). Given the incessant nature of social media usage, questions about whether a change in usage and perception among journalists and their audiences continue to emerge.

This study is aimed at understanding how journalists in Zambia and Tanzania use social media as part of their professional routine in the context of questions concerning the credibility and trust of the mediums. While some studies consider social media usage, there is still a gap in the literature regarding what platforms journalists believe have value for collecting reliable sources and story beats. Little or no research has been done in Zambia and Tanzania to measure the association of social media usage in journalism practice. Studies tend to focus on audience research, highlighting usage by either citizen journalists and the audience as a whole in promoting democratic changes, particularly in countries with limited press freedom. Further, several studies have shown that Twitter platforms are more reliable than the others (Santana and Hopp, 2016), yet the use of Twitter in Africa is not as robust as in the West. The reasons for this are the word limit requirements of Twitter and the elitism attached to it. Therefore, questions about whether Facebook can be considered as a value platform by journalists are still unanswered. Moreover, this study contributes to the development of future research in Journalism and Mass Communication regarding reporter-source relationship, information access among journalists, and privacy concerns when collecting personal data of sources Africa.

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While these topics seem to have been exhaustively studied in most Western literature, a number of gaps in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as other developing nations, could be identified. Although some intervening and confounding variables are attributed, this study does not focus on them.

This study is significant in the sense that it joins others in affirming assumptions about the willingness of journalists to incorporate the use of social media in their routine newsgathering techniques. Most importantly, the study offers contributions to the understanding of the theories of gatekeeping, gatewatching, and the art of crowdsourcing in Africa. By using and/or understanding how journalists use social media in sub-Saharan Africa, scholars are able to reassert the contested gatekeeping powers of information control in the digital age. A distinctive contribution of this research lies in the argument that despite the debates and discourses on social media perceptions as a platform for fake news, social media is moving towards an institutionalized body of the traditional media in Zambia and Tanzania. Just 10 years after the Arab uprisings, social media platforms have become indispensable parts of professional journalistic routines, with various ways to save various purposes. As the field seeks to move towards data journalism and artificial intelligence, there is an equal need to embrace and institutionalize social media usage among journalists.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Social Media Use and Journalism Practice Social media use among journalists is now so globally accepted that it is becoming institutionalized (Santana and Hopp, 2016). Many argue that this process of institutionalization has come about as a result of the 2010 Arab Spring series of anti- government protests and uprisings that were mostly instigated and propelled by social media (Lynch, et. al, 2016). In other words, the 2010 Arab uprisings gave power to social media such that the audience as well as journalists began to consider it as a tool for democratic change and practice in the field of journalism (Dwyer & Molony, 2019; Masanja, 2019). The acceptance of social media in the field of journalism is invariably accompanied by journalistic routines. As Shoemaker and Reese (1996) ascertained, journalism practice is governed by the “patterned, routinized, and repeated practices and forms that media workers use to do their jobs” (p. 105). These factors, although shared by the entire field of journalism, hinge on different influences that impede journalists from practicing in “total freedom” (Jatula, 2019; Masanja, 2019; Skjerdal, 2018; Mfumbusa, 2010; Kasoma, 2010). As Santana and Hopp (2016) argued, “Standardized, recurring patterns of news content result in large part from routinized practices” (p. 386), which subsequently end up forming a cohesive set of rules and become integral parts of what it means to be a media professional.

Lasorsa, et. al. (2012) explored whether social media reshaped the traditional normative standards of journalism as a whole. Their findings suggested that journalists “normalize” social media to suit existing routines while adjusting these norms to the evolving norms of technology. These findings were consistent with Shelton’s (2009) findings that expressed distrust of social media, using social media added one more layer to

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an already-busy day of competing demands. Regardless, this digital divide does not rule out the reliance of social media in Zambia and Tanzania as part of a routine practice. As pointed out by several scholars, journalists’ use of social media is important because it can highlight the emergence of new journalistic conventions, with a focus on established journalistic norms alone may fail to identify (Santana & Hopp, 2016; Vis, 2013). In reality, the adaptation and institutionalization of new technologies is not a new phenomenon in journalism. Media history scholars contend that journalists have a long history of adopting technologies to accommodate the emergence of nuanced needs and wants. For example, the introduction of telephone services (Wanda, et. al. 2018; Callahan, 2002) was well accepted and adjusted to fit the requirements of journalism practice. This trend transformed and became embedded in the newsgathering routine.

Social media use among journalists in Zambia and Tanzania Although the practice of social media usage spans more than a decade in the Zambian and Tanzanian media, literature on the topic is still incomplete. The literature that does exist discusses the challenges faced by the African media as a whole, while focusing on the complexities and contradictions with respect to the diffusion and permeation of new digital technologies (Mabweazara, et. al., 2014), and the distrust that most journalists exhibit towards social media as a source for story beats (Gondwe, et. al. 2021; Paterson, 2013). A study conducted in Zambia, for example, suggested that journalists, though adequately reliant on social media for reporting, rated online information tools as less credible than the use of traditional practices to source news (Gondwe, p. 68). These findings were consistent with those by Singer (2005) who found that journalists were more in favor of traditional practices, even when they were slowly abandoning them for the new ones. This is because most journalists considered news as professional, especially if it involved official or expert sources, and particularly men (Artwick, 2013), even when the central thrust of a story was about the locals on grassroots. For example, journalists would have an official talk about the lifestyles of people living in a place they barely knew, about on grassroots. This approach is mostly driven by the notion that ‘big names make news’, a particular phrase emphasized in journalism education in sub-Saharan Africa (Mfumbusa, 2010). However, such a perspective ignores the whole purpose of journalism, and especially issue-based journalism (Djokotoe, 2004) while privileging politics at the expense of public interest.

Given the fact that social media usage in journalism has become inevitable, a few devices have been introduced to counteract the challenges that hamper issues of news trust and source verification. In recent years there has been a rise in the development of tools that allow journalists to filter and assess the trustworthiness of sources found on social media. This development has come as a result identifying common trends among reporters who consider first-hand eyewitness accounts in news events and location of sources as a hallmark for credibility (Dakopoulos et al. 2012; Kasoma, 2010). These values have less regard for how official a source is. Thus, most journalists who seek to advance issue-based reporting, particularly community media reporters, have found solace in monitoring social media platforms as a part of their daily newsgathering routines. Above all, such journalists find social media as a tool for connections; a vital part of the routinized newsroom norms and practices that have always been advanced by traditional journalism. Therefore, tools like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and many other social media platforms appear to be integrating into Zambian and Tanzanian journalists’ reportorial norms in so much as they

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help fulfill some of the most fundamental duties of a journalist, like crowdsourcing and sourcing for story beats. Given the nature of social media usage, there is still a gap in literature about how journalists use personal data in their routines, therefore raising hypothetical notions as:

H1: Facebook (1), WhatsApp (2), and Twitter (3), as a professional platform for journalistic routines will be positively correlated with platform use (in this regard, querying friends for story-relevant information, drawing upon one’s network, and generating story beats. Nonetheless, the three platforms diffuse at different levels among journalists. Most studies show that journalists at all levels use the three platforms differently (Gondwe, and Some, 2020), and valued them differently. To address the possible valuation differences, the following question was posed: RQ1: In what way do the strength of the relationships identified in the above hypothesis (H1) differ on the basis of whether a platform is Facebook, WhatsApp, or Twitter?

METHOD AND MATERIALS

Data Collection This study replicated Santana and Hopp’s (2016) methodology through which it employed a stratified random and snowball sampling method. Professional journalists were stratified and randomly contacted with little regard for what media they worked for. They were then asked to recommend other journalists. The goal and criteria for selecting a respondent was based on whether they were newsroom staffers listed as columnists, editors, bloggers, freelancers, or general field reporters. These staffers were contacted via an online invitation that included a link to an online survey. After four months (April 2020 -July 2020), a total of 240 complete responses were acquired from both Zambian and Tanzanian journalists.

Measures Facebook and WhatsApp as professional journalistic tools were measured on a four-itemed standard, estimating the frequency that the two platforms were used to perform the roles of querying friends for story-relevant information, networking, and generating story beats. These items were measured on a 7-point scale where 1 = never, 2 = less than once a month, 3 = once a month, 4 = 2 to 3 times a month, 5, = more than 3 times a month, 6 = daily, 7 = multiple times a day. Questions were asked, such as: o How often do you use social to query for friends in regard to pursuing a story beat? o How often do you use social media as a source of your news story? and o How often journalists use social media for story research, such as finding background information on someone.

The value of Facebook and WhatsApp as professional tools for journalistic practice were measured on a single item that was placed on a 5-point Likert scale where 1 = unimportant and 5 = very important. The wording for this item was: Overall, how important do you consider Facebook as a tool for the collection and dissemination of the news you produce?

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Similarly, four items were used to measure Twitter as a professional tool for journalistic practice. These items were especially used to assess the estimated frequency that journalists used to perform both sourcing and research related duties. The measuring process involved placing the items on a 5-point, Likert-type scale, where 1 = unimportant and 5 = very important. A questions such as, “how important do you consider Twitter as a tool for the collection and dissemination of the news you produce?”, was asked. Table 1 below presents the means and standard deviations (SD)of the three aforementioned variables.

Table 1: Means and Standard Deviations for Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter Measure Mean Standard Deviation

WhatsApp Professional value 4.39 2.54 WhatsApp for querying friends 4.11 1.87 WhatsApp for sources 3.12 1.63 WhatsApp for story beats 4.46 2.81

Facebook’s professional value 5.21 2.72 Facebook for querying friends 4.86 2.33 Facebook for sources 5.03 2.85 Facebook for story beats 5.11 2.77

Twitter’s professional value 2.39 0.68 Twitter for querying friends 2.23 0.16 Twitter for sources 3.14 0.99 Twitter for story beats 3.62 1.81

Further, organizational influences such as policies that shape the professional use of social media were controlled. In relation to this, responding journalists were asked to indicate whether their employers had formal policies relative to the professional use of (a) Facebook, (b) WhatsApp, and (c) Twitter. In each case, the variables such that 0 = they do not have the policies and 1 = they do have formal policies were dummy-coded. A measure of whether the respondents’ employer restricted the use of the three variables was taken and they were dummy-coded such that 0 = does not restrict and 1 = has restrictions in place. Finally, journalists were asked to estimate their audience size. This variable was also dummy coded such that 0 = 50,000 to 100,000 and 1 = greater than 100,000. Further, the demographic factors were controlled by measuring the respondent sex (0 = male, 1 = female), age (in years), and years of professional journalistic experience (1 = less than 1 year, 2 = 1-5 years, 3 = 5-10 years, 4 = 10-20 years, and 5 = 20 or more years).

Sample Characteristics The sample characteristics of 240 respondents provided researchers with a demography of 56.7% female participants and 43.3% male participants for both Zambia and Tanzania. The sample average was 27.16 years (SD =12.06 years, range = 19.00-49.00 years). 0.8% reported to professional experience of less than three years while the rest had more than five years of experience. Regarding audience size, 39.4% reported an estimated

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audience circulation between 50,000 and 100,000, while 61.6% reached at least a total population greater than 100,000. Further, 69.1% of the sample reported that their organization had a formal policy for use of Facebook whereas 21.9% of the sample reported that their organization actively restricts their use of Facebook for professional purposes. Similarly, 60.8% of the sample reported that their organization has a formal policy for use of social media, whereas 30.2% reported that their organization restricts their use of social media in their professional journalistic practices.

FINDINGS Descriptive Statistics Our general descriptive results indicated that 67% of the sample thought that Facebook was either important or very important as a professional tool for journalistic practice in both Zambia and Tanzania. WhatsApp was also considered as either important or very important (51.2%) but only in events where it was used for entertainment and story ideas. WhatsApp as a source was statistically insignificant. Finally, Twitter only recorded 39.7% of the respondents, indicating that it was either important or very important as a tool for professional journalistic practice and most of the respondents indicated that they used Twitter for story beats and ideas.

Hypotheses Findings Hypothesis 1 (H1) sought to examine the relationship of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter as professional tools with the perception and usage by journalists in Zambia and Tanzania. The hypothesis was tested using various series of ordinary least square regression models. In all accounts, the models were nested such that one contained control variables, whereas the other contained the control factors and the independent variables in question. Given the fact that there were no major statistically significant differences between Facebook and WhatsApp, the focus of the attention was on Facebook and Twitter. Overall, the results indicated a significant association between Facebook’s perceived value as a journalistic tool and its usage for crowdsourcing, querying followers for story beats (b = 0.06, β = .21, p < .01), network for sources (b = 0.13, β = .23, p < .01), and as a source for story beats (b = 0.17, β = .28, p < .01). However, there was no observed significant relationship between Facebook’s perceived value as a journalistic tool and its use as the main source for a news story (b = 0.04, β = .06, p > .61). On the other hand, findings on Twitter as a journalistic tool for professional practice were mostly predicted by its use for querying friends (b = 0.08, β = .12, p < .01) and for sourcing story beats (b = 0.21, β = .39, p < .01). Nonetheless, there was no significant associations between Twitter’s value as a tool for professional journalistic practice and its use for either drawing upon one’s network for sources (b = 0.01, β = .03, p > .67) or for generating story ideas (b = 0.02, β = .10, p > .08).

Research Question Findings The research question for this study was aimed at examining the degree to which the overall platform value was tied to the activities mentioned in the first hypothesis. To test this, a structural equation model was generated and used equality constraints and subsequent nested model tests to examine the degree to which the regression paths of interest varied from one another. Second, the variables representing platform value on both the independent variables in question and the control variables were regressed. In the current model, the error

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variances value was allowed to co-vary. The baseline model indicates a good fit, χ2 = 17.19, df = 14, p > .19; confirmatory fit index (CFI) > .87; root mean square error approximation (RMSEA) = .03, 93% CI = [.00, .06]; and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = .01. Significant associations between the criterion variable and platform use for querying friends (b = 0.16, β = .24, p < .01) and conducting research (b = 0.14, β = .29, p < .01) and non-significant relationships for using sources from one’s network (b = 0.06, β = .06, p > .29) and generating story beats and ideas (b = 0.03, β = .09, p > .18) were also identified. Similarly, significant associations for Facebook in querying followers (b = 0.10, β = .19, p < .01), network for sources (b = 0.13, β = .18, p < .01), conducting research (b = 0.11, β = .21, p < .01), and a non-significant relationship for generating story ideas (b = 0.04, β = .08, p > .14) were observed. After establishing the baseline model, the paths between the overall platform value and each of the aforementioned journalistic professional variables were systematically constrained. In order to determine whether imposing these equality restraints resulted in significant deterioration of model fit, the constrained models were compared to the baseline. Based on the relationships observed in the freely estimated (baseline) model, the findings were able to demonstrate that the value of Facebook and Twitter as professional journalistic tools was found to be comparatively more strongly tied to performing research-related duties, such as crowdsourcing for story beats and ideas, while Twitter was found to be comparatively strongly tied to using one’s network for elite and official sources.

Results on Media Policies and Restrictions Regarding media policy influence and restrictions, overall findings tend to suggest that the existence of media policies and restrictions on the use of social media, influenced the degree to which journalists used social media for their journalistic purposes. As expected, journalists in media houses that restricted their use of social media were significantly less likely to use social media for journalistic purposes. The restriction, for the most part was based on the idea of credibility concerns raised by their organizations. This conclusion was arrived at after performing a series of exploratory tests that were aimed at understanding the degree to which the existence of media policies influence journalists’ routinized use of social media. Nonetheless, there was less, or no influence observed emanating from media policies that seemed to shape journalists’ use of social media for either source or research-related activities.

Discussion and Conclusion This cross-national study employed survey methods among journalists in Zambia and Tanzania with the purpose of understanding their use of social media in their daily journalistic routines. The overall findings suggest that journalists in Zambia and Tanzania regard social media as a necessity to their journalistic professional practice even if they disagree with that argument on face value. This is especially true with regard to how much they use Facebook (67%) and WhatsApp (51.2%) in their day-to-day journalistic practices. About 40% of Twitter usage is equally worth noting, though insignificant when compared to Facebook and WhatsApp usage. This is because of the number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa (or Tanzania and Zambia) that are subscribed to Twitter and the frequency of usage. Building on a valuable wealth of research in the area, it could be concluded that journalists in Zambia and Tanzania place more value on Facebook than WhatsApp and Twitter in their

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day-to-day professional practice. These findings are inconsistent with other findings conducted in the United States (US) such as those by Santana and Hopp (2016), and Willnat and Weaver (2014). As revealed in the literature, similar studies conducted in the US and other developed nations place more value on Twitter than Facebook, which is the exact opposite of the Sub-Saharan context.

A number of variables could explain these variations. First, the truth is that the value of a tool is given by the user. Studies suggest that Facebook in Western countries is used differently than in developing nations (Gondwe, 2020). In the US for example, most users – usually high school and college students – use Facebook for connecting with their families and showing a positive face value. This implies that they only post material that reflects them in a positive light in the eyes of family members. For example, they would not post pictures that show them participating in activities such as partying. Such things, according to studies are exhibited on social media networks like Instagram or Tik-Tok that most parents have yet to learn. Twitter, on the other hand, is used for elite purposes. This is because of the structural requirements. By contrast, most people in sub-Saharan Africa use Facebook, and now WhatsApp for various purposes – as catharsis (Gondwe & Some, 2020); for entertainment purposes (Ndlela, 2020; Wahutu, 2019; Mutsvairo & Bebawi, 2019), and as a tool for sourcing relevant information (Mabweazara, et. al., 2014). Twitter, though more reliable is rarely used because of the conditional requirements. Most Africans are story tellers, therefore a platform such as Twitter, which limits the number of words that can be included in a Tweet, also results in its limited usage in Africa. These variations justify the reasons why most journalists in Zambia and Tanzania seem to place more professional value on Facebook and WhatsApp than on Twitter.

In terms of usage, findings suggest that journalists in Zambia and Tanzania’s value perception of Facebook and WhatsApp is not necessarily determined by credibility of the platform, but the ability to access sources, query friends and conduct research. Findings suggest that journalists have the ability to separate true information from the mis- and -dis- information circulating on the two platforms. While they perceived Twitter as more credible than WhatsApp and Facebook, their value perception as it relates to usage, is not as robust as the other two. This perception is rooted in access and how many people they can reach on the three platforms. The significant associations between audience size and Facebook and WhatsApp were evaluated. In fact, media networks are nested on Facebook platforms, therefore, reaching out to more numbers than they would if they manually circulated their news, further compounding suggestions that the application of media restrictions also has a significant influence towards the degree to which journalists use social media for professional routines. As indicated above in the findings, restrictions provided a negative association with the value perception that journalists placed on social media usage. The mere existence of media policies restricting the use or reliance on social media affected journalistic routines, even though the effects were not statistically significant.

In summary, this study is significant in the sense that it joins others in affirming assumptions about the willingness of journalists to incorporate the use of social media in their routine newsgathering techniques. Most importantly, the study provides major contributions to the understanding of the theories of gatekeeping, gate-watching, and the art of crowdsourcing in Africa. By using and/or understanding how journalists use social media

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in sub-Saharan Africa, scholars are able to reassert the contested gatekeeping powers of information control in the digital age. A distinctive contribution of this research lies in the argument that despite the debates and discourses on social media perceptions as a platform for fake news, it is invariably true that social media is also moving towards an institutionalized body of the traditional media in Zambia and Tanzania. Just 10 years after the Arab uprisings, social media platforms have become indispensable parts of professional journalistic routines, with various ways to save various purposes. As the field seeks to move towards data journalism and artificial intelligence, there is a need to equally embrace and institutionalize social media usage among journalists.

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Adolescent Girls Communicating About Their Menstrual Experiences in the Kibera Slums of Kenya

Stella Jerop Chebii

Abstract

In most African and Asian cultures, menstruation is a taboo subject. Because of this, it invariably receives regulated talk or is totally ignored within families, at school and in the society. The purpose of the study was to explore the menstrual communication of adolescent girls with parents, guardians, teachers, siblings and friends at school and at home in an urban informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Its main focus was to examine adolescent girls’ experiences in communicating their menstruation-related concerns. The study adopted a qualitative approach to explore the meanings and interpretations of menstruation from 22 adolescent girls aged between 15 and 17 years through journaling, body mapping, focus group discussions (FGDs) and individual interviews. Based on these findings, the study concluded that the adolescent girls’ lived experiences, together with the socially-constructed meanings of menstruation, ultimately shapes their communicative experiences. In order to assist girls in effectively managing menstruation, there is need to create a supportive environment, work with their communities to de-stigmatize menstruation and sensitize parents and males around them about the need to offer support to girls undergoing menstruation. Lastly, give a voice to the girls to speak out their concerns.

Keywords: Adolescent girls, communicative experiences, menstruation, informal settlements

Stella Chebii

Dr. Stella Jerop Chebii is a lecturer of Gender and Communication at the department of Publishing, Journalism and Communication Studies at Moi University, Eldoret in Kenya. She can be reached through the email address [email protected]

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Introduction Most African and Asian cultures prohibit discussions about menstruation. According to Kirk and Sommer (2006), the culture of silence with which this process is treated, makes it perceived as dirty and embarrassing and has to be concealed. Furthermore, being specific to women and girls, the menstrual process is branded a women’s weakness (Chebii, 2012). These discourses of secrecy and shame lead to a need for a language to hide menstrual related talk in dominant societal discourse. Further, issues of blood are considered a social taboo in most societies in the world because blood has always been equated to injury and sickness (Agnew, 2012). Consequently, euphemisms have been adopted by many communities to describe menstruation. For example, the phrase ‘going to the moon’ in its many variations, has been adopted to refer to this biological event. This language serves to hide the fact that there is lack of menstrual knowledge in most communities (Kirk & Sommer, 2006).

Further, cultures such as the Hindu community consider menstruation a contaminating process that necessitates restrictions within both public and private space. Considered impure and untouchable, interpersonal and group space is adjusted. The girls in this society learn from a very early age that space is adjusted at these moments of their menstrual cycle (Kirk & Sommer, 2006).

In Nepal, exclusion and seclusion as stipulated by local cultural expectations require that menstruating women do not occupy public space, which has led to female teachers abstaining from attending classes for several days when menstruating. Those who do not conform are criticized by the community, which not only disrupts learning in the school system but also sends negative messages about adolescent girls and women (Kirk & Sommer, 2006). In a study on Ghanaian adolescent girls, restrictions abound, based on the taboo systems, where menstruating girls are prohibited from entering into religious spaces, such as mosques, shrines and churches. At home the family kitchen space is prohibited because menstruating women are considered to be dirty (Kotoh, 2008).

The costs of sanitary supplies in low-income settings make it challenging for girls from poor families to access sanitary towels. Coupled with men controlling the household budgets, insufficient sanitary protection leads to Ugandan adolescent girls absenting themselves from school to manage their menstrual cycle (Kirk & Sommer, 2006). In such circumstances, adolescent girls are hesitant to ask for money from their fathers, yet coming from poor neighborhoods their mothers may not have money as well.

In Kenya, some adolescent girls excuse themselves from school every three to four days of the month, as they negotiate their menstrual cycle to avoid possibilities of embarrassment (Chebii, 2012). Adolescent girls begin a process of withdrawal from education by first excluding themselves from activities at school, such as sporting and class activities, and then absenting themselves altogether, which is later followed by dropping out of school permanently. Often this is caused by boys who tease girls about menstrual blood stains on uniforms. Girls in school face stigma and marginalization, insufficient toilet facilities and menstrual supplies at school, teenage pregnancy and early marriages (Kirk & Sommer, 2006).

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Study findings by (Chebii, 2012) indicate that in most African communities, girls are not allowed into the kitchen to cook nor participate in play with other children when menstruating. These beliefs create a stigma and a perception that menstruation is shameful and that menstrual blood is harmful. The restrictions on females during the menses were to avoid cooking for men, having sex during menses, visiting holy places and fasting. The restrictions also showed that the girls were mature and could get pregnant if they had sex and evil would befall the family of anyone who broke these taboos (Chebii, 2012).

Methods This study was conducted in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study on communication of menstrual experiences among adolescent girls from an urban informal settlement was subjective. The meanings the participants gave to their menstrual experiences were also unique to each of them. This depended on how they perceived their menstrual experiences, and how they experienced them in their particular cultural and social contexts – such as at school and at home.

The study adopted a qualitative approach to generate knowledge from the participants’ meanings of menstruation as constructed by each participant from journals, FGDs and interviews. Prioritizing menstruation, a body process that affects adolescent girls’ daily practices, I sought to understand what this process meant to adolescent girls who were attending school, and how they communicated their experiences.

Sampling The study’s population was adolescent girls in day school and residing in an informal settlement in Nairobi County. Girls in a mixed day school were targeted because the study intended to explore how they negotiated menstruation at home and school. To understand their communicative challenges in relation to menstruation, the study targeted older girls who had menstruated for a longer period, girls of 15 to 17 years, from Kibera the largest informal settlement in Kenya. The research site was purposively sampled from 62 schools in Nairobi County because it is located in an informal settlement. This school was then assigned a pseudo-name, Elimu. In addition, the secondary school, being a mixed (boys and girls) day school, offered possibilities of rich data as well because there were opportunities to understand how they communicated their menstrual related issues with members of the opposite sex at home and at school.

At the time of the study this was the only school that was both mixed and day, therefore it met the criteria. Further, one class was purposively sampled from the Form Three classes in the four-streamed school, but the researcher could not choose the exact class because the gatekeeper (head teacher) allocated the particular Form Three class with 22 girls. All the 22 adolescent girls came from the informal settlement and met the criteria. All the girls in the class were willing to participate in the study.

Negotiating access to research site and participants Data generation involved, first, negotiating access to the participants and research location. This began with requesting a research permit from the National Council of Science and Technology (NCST). Then, authorization was sought from the Institutional Research and Ethics Board. Third, authorization was sought from the District Commissioner of the

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district where the research was conducted. Upon receiving a letter of authorization from the District Commissioner, I sought another authorization from the District Education Officer of the same district. I was provided with a letter from each officer directing the chief in the location and the head teachers of the school to allow me to conduct research in their areas of jurisdiction. After informing the chief about the impending research in his location, I requested permission from the gatekeeper, the head teacher of the mixed day secondary school. Lastly, I sought written consent from the parents and guardians of the participants as well as the participants.

Data Generation The study employed journals, FGDs and individual interviews to generate data. To break the ice and create a rapport, participants engaged in body mapping. This entailed the adolescent girls drawing outlines of their bodies on large sheets of paper. In pairs, the participants took turns tracing each other’s front and back body outlines on the Manila paper, using felt pens. During this part of the activity, the girls felt free with each other and expressed themselves on the maps. During this session the shy girls became more confident, bonding with other girls. They then labelled the parts of the bodies that felt tense or painful during menstruation by writing on the paper. In the third step, questions were asked about menstruation based on the research questions and labels on their body maps. These questions were designed to encourage the girls to reflect and think deeper into the phenomenon and their experiences.

By the end of the three-phase body mapping activity, the girls had established bonds and commonalities through their menstrual experiences. At the same time, trust had been built between the researcher and the girls. Gradually, the girls allowed the researcher into their world and did not view the situation as a participant-researcher environment, but as one they were able to trust. In such an environment, they became relaxed and enjoyed the exercise. Body mapping was a participatory technique to stimulate dialogue among the participants based on deep introspection and self-reflection.

To generate data from FGDs, the adolescent girls were divided into three groups of between six and seven participants. Following a semi-structured guide, the sessions began with introductory questions meant to encourage conversation. These questions were about their bodies termed as ‘body questions’ – and were intended to guide the participants into embodied experiences, before the sensitive menstrual questions were posed, leading to a gradual engagement. The strength of the 45-minute focus group discussion was its ability to gain insight into the participants’ inter-subjective experiences. At the same time, all 22 participants were offered journals to make entries on their experiences of menstruation for a period of six months. The participants were asked to make entries in English, since they had already been taught how to make journal entries in English language at Form Two. During the FGDs, some participants mentioned some sensitive issues, but did not feel comfortable discussing them in the group setting. To probe further, these participants were interviewed in a private setting, where they felt comfortable enough to give the details of those experiences. The interviews took place in a small room in the school; a more private place than the venues used earlier for the FGDs.

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To analyze the data, FGDs and interviews were first transcribed, and then coded. Similar statements were grouped into clusters, to avoiding repetition. The journal entries were already in English and therefore did not need transcription so the data was coded and categorized. Once the coding categories had been made, units of significant meaning were generated. By the end of this phase, more redundancies had been removed and any overlapping units of significant meaning and clusters had been identified.

The third coding phase, referred to as selective coding, is the final stage in analyzing qualitative data. At this stage, categories were grouped into themes (clusters of meaning). The remaining data that did not fit into the themes or codes, were banked. This stage involved examining the themes formed by the clusters, to make sure that no central theme had been left out.

Results Adolescent girls have several menstrual related needs that should be communicated to parents, teachers, peers and friends to find a solution. Some of these problems are the need for medicine to treat menstrual discomforts or pains, need for permission to leave class to change, to access menstrual health information and sanitary towels. For adolescent girls to go through their menstrual process successfully, adolescent communication is crucial in meeting their needs. In this paper, adolescent girls’ communication with family members, teachers and their peers at home and at school is discussed.

Interpersonal and group communication The findings of the study revealed that adolescent girls did not discuss their menstrual related concerns with their fathers or their male guardians. The majority of the girls had never discussed menstruation related issues with their fathers, male guardians, cousins nor brothers. They felt that men lacked knowledge and advice about the menstrual process because they do not experience it. Another reason was the taboo system of their society which prohibited discussing such matters with men. In various societies gender differences are learned through social interactions, and how members are socialized. Members are socialized as male or female with the expectations of each gender inculcated early in life as cited by a participant: Father is of the opposite sex so I can only tell mum because we are of the same sex (FGD 6). I usually find it hard because he is a man and I will have difficulty explaining it to him (Pat, Interview). This indicated a maintained interpersonal space between the male and female gender during menstruation. This space communicates gender relations and expectations of males and females in Kenyan society.

When the adolescent girls needed sanitary towels and medication, especially when their mothers were away, the girls came up with strategies to access money indirectly from their fathers to purchase these items. The strategies included faking debt and giving excuses to justify the need for money. Feigning debts was preferred than openly telling her father what the money was actually meant for, for example:

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In such Even when left alone with father in the house, and you need pads you ask for a hundred shillings feigning debt that you need to pay or say there is something you have seen and want to buy (FGD 2).

In such situations, their intentions were not to deceive their fathers or male guardians, but an indirect way to get money to purchase sanitary towels. The majority of the participants indicated that since fathers were of the opposite sex, this prohibited them from knowing the menstrual statuses of their daughters.

Metaphoric Communication on Menstruation Adolescent girls have difficulties communicating about their experiences in their environments. There are reasons that make the participants uncomfortable talking about their menstrual related needs openly. These barriers include being teased by boys, embarrassment and taboo. Therefore, to communicate about their menstrual related issues, the girls were forced to be creative and adopt a language that could not be understood by the members of the opposite sex. Challenges in communication for adolescent girls include instances where they are asking for sanitary towels or money to buy them and seeking permission to attend to their menstrual issues.

The use of metaphorical communication was one of the strategies used by the girls. In this study, metaphorical language was used to obscure meaning from the other members of society and allowed only girls to make and share that meaning. Metaphorical language was used in reference to menstruation and sanitary towels. The metaphor alluded to how the participants perceived the phenomenon (menstruation), such that the various metaphors used were related to their social construction of menstruation and their social contexts.

One of the participants referred to menses as ‘rangi’, loosely translated to mean color, probably alluding to the color red. The term was used in a derogative way, in reference to the menstrual blood being a stain. Alongside this, is that blood stains can cover a large area, alluding to staining of the girls’ uniform. Other metaphorical words alluded to by the respondents included ‘mashiro’ and ‘kunyesha’, which mean ‘to rain’, comparing the heavy flow of menses to rain. Others were ‘am flowing’ and ‘rolling’ which expressed the intensity of their menstrual flow and ‘unavuja’ directly translated meant leaking. Other metaphors used were as summarized in the table below.

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Table 1: Metaphors used in Reference to Menstruation Name Meanings To moon/moon/yellow moon Alluding to the moon and the menstrual cycle Ps, Abbreviation of periods To rain/kunyesha Referring to rain, thus alluding to heavy menstrual flow End month/on days Alludes to the menstrual cycle Check check Borrowed from a sanitary towel advertisement on Kenyan TV An in the house/being in the house Alluding to isolation or confinement Mr. Red running Personification of periods, reflecting leaking of menstrual blood A visitor in Jerusalem/a visitor The transition to womanhood, probably womanhood is the Jerusalem Crossing the red sea Going through the process of menstruation and the transition from childhood to womanhood Member of parliament/Raila and Kibaki M.P (monthly periods), same acronym with Member of Parliament Safisha mwezi Wash the month/moon (menstruation cycle as a monthly event) Source: (Chebii, 2013)

Another participant referred to her menses as ‘Mr. Red’, thus personifying the phenomenon so that when one mentioned ‘Mr’ and ‘running’ it could suggest a negative attitude towards the experience, probably insinuating leaking through the sanitary towel and the heavy flow that girls sometimes experience. In her journal she wrote: The second day of Mr. Red, it was still a boring day, and I was moody, my moods change all the time, sometimes I am happy and times bored. I didn’t feel happy sometimes I am bored. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone but at least I talked to my friend who cheered me up. It was also a cold day that made Mr. Red to run very quickly and light (Purple Diva, Journal). The use of figurative language alluded to the adjusting of space. The use of figure of speech such as ‘being in the house’ to depict seclusion or staying indoors was common. Visitor or ‘…a visitor in Jerusalem’ meant being new to menstruation. Others referred to the process as ‘crossing the red sea’ depicting the transition from childhood to womanhood. These were presented in the following responses:

Yes that you have become a woman. They sing and dance, surrounding the hut when you are a visitor to the process (FGD 4). I am raining, ‘niko mashiro’, [I am on my periods] it is a season we use things that boys cannot know that we are having our monthly periods (m.ps) (Sheila, interview). The following were some of the metaphors used to refer to sanitary towels:

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Table 2: Adolescent Girls’ Language in Reference to Sanitary Towels Metaphor Meaning Mkate/Chapo tasteless/women’s bread May be alluding to sanitary towels being a basic need for women and girls just like food Doll house May be the womb alluding to maturity and fertility Daps Reverse for pads, to obscure meaning Pampers, free Pampers, Pads in boys’ language, alluding to Umbrella the protection from leaking just like Pampers for babies Source: (Chebii, 2013)

Discussion Study findings indicated that adolescent girls found it difficult to communicate about their menstrual related issues with the male members of society. Further, the study established that cultural norms and expectations governed the cross-gender communication. The study indicated that this communication was restricted between men and women. According to Gamble and Gamble (2003), societal communication is structured depicting communication expectations of each gender. At the same time, society tries to convince its members that those views are the norms of how men and women are supposed to communicate. Moreover, in families, parents socialize their children to adopt certain behaviours in speech that conform to societal expectations. This behaviour is further endorsed socially by institutions such as school and family. These institutions come up with these gendered cultural norms, endorse and spread them, becoming established in the society as the norm (Gamble & Gamble, 2003).

In relation to this study’s findings, the society has expectations on communication between men and women. For example, girls are expected not to talk about their menstrual related issues with their fathers, uncles, male cousins and brothers. At school, talk on this subject was unacceptable with male teachers and boys because of the gender difference; menstrual communication becomes a communication taboo.

The findings of this study are similar to Fingerson’s (2006) suggestion that gender is both a social institution and social construction that emerges when members of the society interact. She explains further that gender appropriate behaviours are constructions of society and individuals in the society interpret other members’ actions based on their gender and the behaviour that they feel is appropriate for the given gender. This construction of gender being a societal construct is also propagated by the members of the society. According to Kotoh (2008), traditional menstrual practices flourish through culture that reinforces what it terms as ‘culture appropriate’ or what the culture perceives as a wrong or right as known by the society’s members.

In reference to language, human being’s express meanings in varied ways; it could be a code, symbol or using language, although language is fundamental to communication (Given, 2008). Interpretive phenomenology highlights the significance of interpretation and understanding, because human beings understand the world through language. Moreover,

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Ricoeur and Gadamer, as cited by Mulwo, 2008, underscore the importance of language in understanding, accentuating that meaning is carried from one person to another through language (Mulwo, 2008).

In addition, hermeneutics also emphasizes the significance of language to interpretation. The significance of language in communicating experiences was advanced by Gadamer (as cited by Mulwo,2008) who argued that “language (and other symbolic meaning systems) mediates people’s experiences of the world” (Given, 2008, p.388). Language use in its varied forms, whether symbolic or verbal, is determined by the social contexts of the individuals. The participants’ culture, content and experiences determine the language used to communicate their experiences.

With this regard, language was significant in adolescent girls’ communication of their experience. However, the language used with such a taboo topic was not the common language used for other communications. The use of metaphor, personification and figurative language was crucial in the process of constructing the social reality of menstruation. As a result of the discomfort with menstrual talk, the girls used metaphorical language in reference to the phenomenon of menstruation and their sanitary towels. In this study, communication involved the use of metaphors to communicate information that would otherwise be challenging to communicate directly.

Conclusion Discussions bordering sexuality matters are tabooed for members of the opposite sex. This study draws this conclusion from the fact that fathers were prohibited from engaging in any talk about menstruation with their daughters. In such circumstances, the taboo system of the society had to be respected because breaking it was punishable. At the same time, parents did not present a favorable environment for their adolescent girls to share their menstrual related issues with them.

The adolescent girls were creative in their language use, in reference to their menstrual experiences and needs. This study concluded that the use of metaphorical language and figurative speech helped obscure meanings, to avoid embarrassment, during their communication. The use of metaphor served to maintain menstrual etiquette in communication.

Recommendations There is a need to sensitize parents to create a strong relationship with their daughter even before the onset of puberty to create an enabling environment to share issues on pubertal changes. Parents should understand that it is the responsibility of both fathers and mothers to provide a healthy development for their adolescent children. Parents should therefore acquire factual knowledge on reproductive health and adolescent development, to avoid passing on information in the form of negative cultural views that may be harmful to the adolescent girls.

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Campaigns to demystify menstruation should be rolled out in the urban informal settlements to sensitize the communities. Through advocacy and these campaigns, the silence on menstruation and sexual maturation will be broken allowing such matters to enter into societal dominant discourses. If reality is constructed in the thoughts and actions of members of the society, and also maintained, then the same society can change their social constructions of menstruation. Therefore, it would be important for policy makers to engage the society in a process of socially reconstructing the process of menstruation as a normal body process.

References

Agnew, C. (2012). The Discursive Construction of Menstruation within Puberty Education (M.A. Thesis). University of Otago College of Education. Dunedin: New Zealand.

Chebii, S. J. (2012). Menstruation and Education: How a Lack of Sanitary Towels Reduces School Attendance in Kenyan Slums. Buwa! Sex and Health. A Journal on African Women’s Experiences, 2(1), 27-31.

Chebii, S. J. (2013). Adolescent Girls’ Communicative Experiences in Negotiating Issues Relating to Menstruation at an Informal Settlement in Nairobi, Kenya (PhD Thesis). Moi University: Eldoret.

Fingerson, L. (2006). Girls in Power: Gender, Body, and Menstruation in Adolescence. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Given, L. M. (Ed.). (2008). The SAGE Encyclopaedia of Qualitative Research Methods. California: SAGE Publications.

Kirk, J., & Sommer, M. (2006). Menstruation and Body Awareness: Linking girls’ Health with Girls’ Education. Retrieved August 3, 2011 from http://www.indiasanitationportal.org

Kotoh, A. M. (2008). Traditional Menstrual Practices: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Gender implications for Adolescent Girls. Institute of African Studies Research ReviewNS24.1:1. Retrieved August 23, 2012 from

Mulwo, A. K. (2008). An Analysis of Students’ Responses to ABC and VCT Messages at Three Universities in KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa (Unpublished Doctoral thesis). University of KwaZulu-Natal: South Africa.

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Roundtable Dialogue and its Inherent Complexities: Learning from the Accounts of the Less Influential Dialoguers in Geita, Tanzania

Albert Tibaijuka

Abstract

Various studies purport stakeholder dialogue as a suitable platform for settling differences and increasing cooperation among the differing groups. However, efforts in capturing the viewpoints of the actors in a dialogue, particularly those less influential, in order to understand the underlying intricacies of the exercise, are not many. Drawing from the ongoing dialogue between a mining company operating in the vicinity of Lake Victoria in Tanzania, and the community neighboring its concession, this study examines the viewpoints, and involvement, of the less influential actors in the stated dialogue, to illustrate the ways in which the embedded difficulties of the exercise, emerge. Given the understanding that many multinational mining companies currently seem to recognize local communities as their stakeholders, therefore inviting them for dialogue as a means to improve CSR practices, the observed complexities in the exercise are puzzling. Thus, by using Bridging Social Capital (BSC) theorization, semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis tools, this study uses the narrated dialogic experiences of the locals in Geita, to demonstrate how their perceptions, and participation in the exercise, inform us of the shortcomings situated in those negotiation processes – largely happening because GGM officials are far detached from the life experiences of the community members.

Albert Tibaijuka

Albert Tibaijuka received his PhD in African Studies from the University of Basel, Switzerland and he is now a lecturer at the St. Augustine University of Tanzania, serving the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communications.

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Introduction: Geita Gold Mine (GGM), found in the Geita region in Tanzania, is the largest open- pit mine in East Africa, established in 1999, under a 50/50 venture between AngloGold Limited of South Africa and Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited of the United Kingdom (Later named as AngloGold Ashanti – AGA). GGM's gold resources are estimated at 16.95 million ounces, with a projected annual output of 560,000 ounces and an estimated lifespan of 15 to 20 years (van Campenhout 2002, Yager 2003). The mining firm is operating under the Special Mineral License (SML) issued by the government of the United Republic of Tanzania (URT). The license allows GGM the use of an area covering 196.27 km square (196,000 hectares). At its main entrance, GGM has placed three big iron placards with messages reading as follows: "We respect the environment", "We want the communities and societies in which we operate to be better off for AngloGold Ashanti having been there" and "We are accountable for our actions and undertake to deliver on our commitments". Moreover, in its 2007 country report, the company claims to have been engaged with "international advocacy and voluntary bodies such as the International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to develop standards and best practice." Also, that it is "supportive of and has participated in discussion and programs initiated by the Council for Responsible Jewelry Practice, the World Gold Council, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance and the Communities and Small-scale Mining (CASM) initiative" (22), all geared towards responsible practices. In the same year (2007), the company established a Community Relations and Sustainable Development (CRSD) department which is in charge of the firm’s CSR projects. Since its inception, the department claims to have been implementing CSR projects based on what it calls ‘specific needs’ pointed out by communities. This was stated by the officials from the department during the interview of the present study, and they maintained that GGM continually strives to maintain good relationships with the neighboring communities. In its several society reports, AGA also states that GGM has consulted the communities close to its concession, as well as district authorities in the formulation and implementation of development projects. In addition, the company states that it is committed to working in an environmentally responsible way, and that it is an important contributor to the economical, ecological and social health of the community. The reports also document that GGM’s CSR projects are mainly discharged through dialogue with the firm's stakeholders which include members from the neighboring villages. The firm contends that the intention of communicating with the villagers is to listen to their views, problems, grievances and find ways of establishing mutual understanding (the present study considers such attempt as an effort in bridging social capital1). During the interviews of the present

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study, the firm’s officials from the CRSD department, indicated that the company has created a dialogue with community members in order to know their priorities. This also the intention of communicating with the villagers is to listen to their views, problems, grievances and find ways of establishing mutual understanding (the such attempt as an effort in bridging social capital2). During the interviews of the present study, the firm’s officials from the CRSD department, indicated that the company has created a dialogue with community members in order to know their priorities. This also includes knowing their Local Development Plans (LDP) so that they can find a way to incorporate them in GGM's own Community Development Plan (CDP). The officials stated that dialogue between the two parties is used as a platform for interaction, hence getting a chance to know the thoughts of community members and agree on which community priorities to address first and (probably) how to address it.

The form of the dialogue in question is that of ‘roundtable’ meetings between GGM and the representatives of the villages. As per Tanzanian set up, in each village there is a Village Executive Council (VEC) formed by leaders of the hamlets found in the village. Every single village has several hamlets depending on the size of the village. A leader elected from a particular hamlet joins colleagues from other hamlets in the village, plus the Village Chairman (VC), to form the VEC. The VEC elects a chairman for this council (like an assembly). Moreover, the secretary of this council is appointed from the district level by the District Executive Director (DED) and becomes the Village Executive Officer (VEO). According to GGM's official from the CRSD department, the plan of the company is to meet every VEC once a month. The official points out that because of the population in the villages, it is unlikely that the company can convene a meeting that involves every member in the village. Therefore, village leaders appear in the meetings as the representatives, assumed to have already sought opinions, expectations, problems, grievances and many other issues, from village members, which are to be addressed in the meetings. They (village leaders) are thereafter expected to convene meetings in their respective villages and hamlets to give feedback of what transpires during the meetings. In that sense, the VEO comes to these meetings as the representative of the government at the district level.

Although this general information about the ongoing dialogue between GGM and VEOs creates an impression of a constructive exercise, the reality - particularly from the voices of the members who are represented in the dialogue - requires scholarly attention. Despite the impression that GGM cultivates good relations with community members through dialogue, the accounts (and reactions) of those represented do not seem to communicate the same. It is this state of affairs that led this study to investigate the

1,2 Bridging Social Capital (BSC), a concept attributed to Robert Putnam (2000), relates to the bonds of connectedness that are formed across diverse social groups; "social networks that bring together people who are unlike one another” (Putnam 2000:22). “To build bridging social capital requires that we transcend our social and political and professional identities to connect with people unlike ourselves" (Putnam 2000:411). In this respect, bridging social capital is understood as a resource found in a social network which ties actors who are different in various degrees. Such a capital is understood to be of paramount importance in building and upholding good relationships, mutual understanding and cooperation among different societal groups. 51

perspectives of each participant in the dialogue – particularly those with marginal positions – in order to offer a deeper insight into the issues surrounding the roundtable dialogue technique in this practice.

Stakeholder Dialogue Defined: The definition of dialogue, within and beyond the borders of CSR, has been contested and peppered with uncertainty (see Senge 1990, Cheney & Christensen 2001, Gao & Zhang, 2001). Several relevant points have been central to the debate, with far-reaching outcomes on researching and engaging in dialogue. Some of the points which draw attention of scholars studying Stakeholder Dialogue (SD) include those considering dialogue as a philosophical and abstract concept, a quality of relationship and a continuous ethical roundtable meeting. For the sake of brevity, this study is more interested in the third aspect (ethical roundtable meetings).

The view that dialogue is a continuous ethical roundtable meeting is frequently discussed in literature (see Pedersen 2006, Kent & Taylor 2002, Theunissen & Wan Noordin 2012). This approach to dialogue is perhaps the most accepted understanding among scholars studying the concept. Scholars who conceptualize dialogue as a 'talk in a meeting', have distinguished dialogue from other forms of talks by developing a number of ideals which, according to them, heightens dialogue into a level of 'ethical meetings'. Some of the features developed and suggested to dialogue participants to differentiate between them and those in mere sit-downs, include Pedersen's 2006 model that serves as a frame of reference for a ‘participatory and inclusive’ SD. It embraces five key terms: inclusion, openness, tolerance, empowerment and transparency (pp.140-142). Pedersen argues that a failure to abide by these terms will bring hierarchy and exclusion during dialogue (see also Senge 1990; Simpson et al 2004:49).

In short, what is clear following the reference to dialogue as ‘ethical meetings’ is that scholars speak of the strengths of SD when participants hold each other in high regard and talk humanely, as they attempt to forge a positive relationship. This general view of SD is shared by a number of scholars in the field of CSR, and in a way, it has been instrumental in addressing the misunderstandings encountered by organization-stakeholder relations. However, it is also understood that such efforts do not happen without faults. Among the widely noted faults is the one which interests this study – i.e., a disregard of some participants in the dialogue (those looked upon as less influential). Various studies which have addressed this fault, reflect on the reasons and effects of such inattention without a closer follow-up of the accounts of the individuals who are neglected in the dialogue (and those who neglect them). This study is interested in following the accounts of those who are ignored in order to further the understanding of the integral complexities of roundtable meetings.

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Research Methodology: The above stated efforts to examine and represent the views and perspectives of communities as organizations' stakeholders in a dialogue, demanded a particular methodological approach. This methodological requirement by employing qualitative research methods, such as a case study approach and discourse analysis as a tool to analyze the accounts, views and perspectives of the community members. This research approach was employed in order to make sense of what these social actors express in relation to the outcome of SD practices. Therefore, this study considers local communities’ accounts on the outcome of the ongoing roundtable dialogue between their leaders and the officials from GGM as a 'single instrumental case' (Creswell 2007: 74-75). The aim here is to study the accounts of community members in order to bring forth the shared norms and values, the way these people make sense of the world they are in and thus be able to show how their opinions towards roundtable dialogue inform us of the inherent complexities of the exercise.

In order to capture an understanding of the communities’ social habits, the study used multiple sources of information. This consisted of semi-structured interviews, observation, secondary sources, informal conversation and minutes of roundtable meetings. From the semi-structured interviews, the researcher ensured they grasped the views, intentions, feelings and actions of the participants in relation to the outcome of the mentioned roundtable dialogue. The observation helped to (dis)confirm views, claims, complaints and activities mentioned by the participants. More so, the study used secondary sources to get other relevant information, for instance, statistical reports and other information on GGM's operations in the area, as well as the socio-economic profile of Geita. Informal conversation was conducted to get additional information and viewpoints from other stakeholders who are directly or indirectly involved in the dialogic practices of the two parties. Minutes of the roundtable meetings were specifically collected to ascertain the agenda, discussion, decisions and agreements made during this practice. The documents served well in confirming how roundtable dialogue is conducted.

The need to capture the views and perspectives of the participants is what necessitated the use of discourse analysis as a tool for data interpretation. In essence, the study dealt with the data collected through a holistic analysis of the complexities embedded in the dialogic practices between GGM and its neighboring communities. The researcher followed Gee's (2011) discourse analysis, as it focuses on studying how language can be used to do things in the world. Gee provides five theoretical tools that inform discourse analysis from a linguistic perspective. These tools are, (a) situated meaning, (b) social languages, (c) figured worlds, (d) intertextuality, and (e) 'Big D' discourse. In this case, the study was specifically interested with the social languages. It employed the tools particularly because they offered a unique chance to use the accounts made by the research participants to show how they use words, phrases and statements to explain their realities and/or social worlds. In other words, the tools enabled the study to demonstrate how villagers use their expressions to show their identities and make sense of their actions. The analysis focused on these identities, and actions, to unveil the underlying practical faults of roundtable meetings between GGM and communities in Geita, Tanzania.

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Findings and discussion: In regard to Gee's (2011) social languages, the findings and discussion on this section go through the expressions of the community members, to illustrate the applicability and inapplicability of the meetings between the two parties. What the study seeks to demonstrate is that despite being a dominant approach cherished in CSR (and even public relations) practices, roundtable dialogue – at times – falls short of attaining its intended purposes due to the lack of attention paid to the interests of the less influential stakeholders. Thus, drawing from the accounts made by community members, as well as a few officials from GGM, the study attempts to highlight the suitability and unsuitability of the practice. Specifically, the analysis presents statements made by officials from GGM’s CRSD department, village leaders, and a section of community members, in order to show how the social languages drawn from them, demonstrate the shortcomings of the practice. Particularly, this is done in reference to the established ways of genuine SD and BSC employed by this study.

GGM Officials Starting with the social languages drawn from the expressions of GGM officials, it is clear that the ongoing dialogue in Geita leaves much to be desired. There are a number of statements from these officials which mark them as a group that considers itself to be influential. This is portrayed by their use of certain statements to explain the reasons for engaging in the dialogue and how they describe the dialogue processes. The statement: “we meet with the representatives of Community members to know their priorities and see how to incorporate them in our own community development plans” suggests that GGM officials position themselves in the dialogue, as benefactors, philanthropists, or maybe good Samaritans – i.e., as people who help or sponsor, and not of seeking what Crane & Livesey (2003) call ‘mutual education’. This involves learning from each other, as equal partners join to solve problems. It is also contrary to Putnam’s (2000) suggestion of Bridging Social Capital being able to “transcend social and/or professional identities to connect with people unlike ourselves” – to appreciate that shared meanings can be resourceful in improving social relations.

Likewise, the following statement from GGM officials explaining the reasons for engaging in dialogue also identifies them as those who facilitate or control the exercise: “We meet with representatives of the communities to improve relations and promote understanding of the mine’s business”. While it is understandable that these officials consider dialogue as a CSR and public relations attempt to create goodwill by promoting the benefits of the company to its stakeholders, the statement seems to communicate a message beyond this notion. It depicts GGM officials to engage in a dialogue with a predetermined outcome – or rather already having the agenda at hand and thinking that relations will be improved by promoting an understanding of how the mining business can benefit societies.

This statement portrays GGM officials to have control of the practice, yet are unaware of the advice that they “are supposed to be prepared to change” (Theunissen & Wan Noordin 2012) before entering into a dialogue. Dialogue is a platform expected to be “a powerful catalyst for change” (WBCSD, 2001), offering each participant the chance to hear and be heard, and not to be influenced by those enjoying a dominant position in the practice.

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The same message is communicated by the statement “Our CSR policies are tailor made within the NSGPR” (National Strategies for Growth and Poverty Reduction). This statement reveals that GGM officials consider dialogue as a means to deliver certain goals (i.e., facilitating the NSGPR through CSR, and dialogue being a channel for this), and not of meeting community members as equal partners in order to learn from them and discover important issues. The statement communicates the message that GGM officials enter into the dialogue with the assumption that community members expect the facilitation of NSGPR from them. Such circumstances can hardly provide a space for an effective stakeholder dialogue practice, but will rather become a confirmation of what Yankelovich (1999: 14-15) terms as the “polite of superficialities”, i.e., claiming to have a duty or obligation to society, while practically implementing CSR to achieve publicity and impress shareholders as well as government officials.

In fact, there are several statements which signify GGM officials as those who seek publicity or try to impress shareholders and government officials. This can be confirmed by counterstatements made by the villagers. GGM officials made statements like “Our plan is to meet every single VEC once a month”. This was not only mentioned during field interviews, but is also stated in several country reports published by the mother company, AngloGold Ashanti. Such a statement offers a good impression, but the reality on the ground is different. Accounts made by village leaders refute this claim. They say meetings are convened on an ad hoc basis, and sometimes can take up to four or five months to happen. Another statement of this nature is “Formerly we did not base on thorough community impact studies and consultation, currently we are sending officials from our department to meet village leaders regularly”. In this regard, GGM officials portray themselves to be concerned about the well- being of community members and striving to know what should be done.

However, following the expressions made by the villagers, it is safe to say that such a statement was merely to manufacture a certain image, i.e., the officials are concerned about community members’ ways of living and finding appropriate ways of collaborating. As hinted above, the villagers state that these officials are rarely seen in the village. The village leaders have even observed that the company invites them for meetings mostly when it needs their help after encountering security-related problems. This reflects Leeper’s (1996) theory that CSR attempts can be cosmetic and designed to make an organization look better without substantially affecting the way it acts. Despite acknowledging the importance of dialogue with the community members, GGM does not assume a proactive role. When explaining the processes of conducting this dialogue, several statements from GGM officials also seem to identify them as controllers or decision-makers in the exercise.

Claims such as “We do not convene a political rally; we meet representatives of community members” convey this sense quite plausibly. Apart from indicating that GGM officials are the ones deciding who should participate in the dialogue, the statement also reveals how GGM officials regard community members. While the assertion highlights the impossibility to include everyone in roundtable dialogue (which is logically correct), the use of the phrase ‘a political rally’ conveys a sense that GGM officials do not consider community members as equal partners. In a way, this suggests they regard them as unable to

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make a tangible contribution to the process, and therefore selecting a few is already a favor. This point serves as an important explanation as to why community members in Nyakabale feel less influential. It brings two issues to the table: first, by having a mandate to decide who should participate in the dialogue, GGM is likely to choose people who will support its interests. Second, with such a reference to community members, the mining firm is likely to neglect the interests of these individuals.

Likewise, the use of statements such as “We convene meetings by calling the VEO or sending letters of invitation to the village's office” and “Sometimes village leaders ask for meetings” also identifies GGM officials to have control of the dialogue. The statements directly imply that it is GGM officials who have the mandate to convene the meetings. The use of the words “by calling the VEO or sending an invitation letter” is quite telling. People from the village are called or invited for a meeting. This statement also substantiates the assertion that GGM officials are in control. They meet village leaders when circumstances compel them to do so. This is cemented by the fact “sometimes village leaders ask for meetings”. The use of the words ‘sometimes’ and ‘ask’ in this statement clearly indicate GGM’s dominance in the dialogue. It communicates a sense that, most often, it is GGM officials who convene meetings. Village leaders only do that ‘sometimes’, and because they are less influential, they cannot invite, but must ask for a meeting. It therefore depends on GGM’s discretion to accept or ignore the request. Contrary to GGM’s assertions that it engages in dialogue with community members in order to listen to their views, problems and grievances and find ways to establish mutual understanding, the accounts presented in this section draw a different picture.

Expressions from GGM officials discussed here frame an image that the company’s involvement in roundtable dialogue with community members is not centred around building mutual understanding and improving relations. This is in opposition to the ideals of stakeholder dialogue, which requires commitment and sincere efforts in building good relationships, something done by extending contact beyond members of the organization, and consequentially producing collective action as the product of bridging social capital. By doing the opposite, GGM actions seem to affirm the contention made in the study that community members feel neglected by the mining firm.

Village Leaders in Nyakabale Like the accounts made by GGM officials, statements from village leaders in Nyakabale disclose a particular social language which is quite indicative in terms of revealing the shortcomings of roundtable dialogue. Several statements from these village leaders characterize themselves as a group of officials with a marginal position in the ongoing dialogue. This stands out when they expressed their participation in the practice. The expressions such as “watu wa mgodi hawaweki wazi mipango yao” (people from the mine are not disclosing their plans) and “tunajadili na kukubaliana mengi lakini hawatekelezi” (we discuss and agree on many issues but they don’t implement them) were made when village leaders explained their disappointment at GGM’s lack of transparency as well as its hesitation to fulfil promises. Apart from conveying a message that these village leaders participate in the dialogue without a clear-cut understanding of what lies behind GGM’s participation, the statements also reveal that village leaders are unable to hold the

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firm accountable. It is the mining firm that decides whether to disclose information or not and whether to fulfil promises or ignore them. Such a situation speaks volumes about the discrepancies of roundtable dialogue. It points to Saunders’ (1999) observation that a successful dialogue is likely only if “participants share their deepest hopes, interests and fears”, something which does not seem to happen in these villages.

As hinted above, the language drawn from village leaders’ statements identifies them as less influential in the dialogue. Here is another example: “tunaitwa pale wanapotaka tuwasaidie kutatua matatizo yao” (we are called when they want us to help them solve their problems). This statement is quite telling regarding how these leaders consider their participation in the dialogue. They do not feel important because they believe the mining firm only considers them useful when it encounters problems. Perhaps this serves as an explanation for the above-mentioned delays or GGM’s hesitance to fulfil agreements and promises made in the dialogue; it is likely that the mining firm acts this way because of its dominance in the dialogue. The same statement also attests that GGM officials convene these meetings by merely calling village leaders to their offices, and questions GGM’s readiness to interact with community members. Here is another example: “zaidi tunatekeleza maoni yao sababu wanakuwa wameshakubaliana na viongozi wa wilaya” (in most cases we take their opinion because they agree with the District officials first). This statement was made when village leaders were explaining their inability to defend the interests of their village in the dialogue. Apparently, they are made to accept suggestions and decisions made by GGM because sometimes orders come from district officials.

The statement brings to light two important issues: first is the sense that GGM’s viewpoints and decisions prevail the dialogue, this is because they are backed by government officials at the district. Second, it points to participants’ unequal leverage in making decisions – village leaders have little control over what takes place in the dialogue, making them a stamping device of what is already decided by the mine and district officials. This point largely offers reasons as to why community members render the ongoing dialogue impractical. Pedersen (2006) asserts that “dialogue is about inclusion, openness, tolerance, empowerment and transparency” (pp. 140-142). A failure to create such dialogue brings hierarchy and exclusion, as seems to be happening in Geita. Just as above, the statement “tunajaribu kuwakumbusha makubaliano yetu lakini kila mara wanasema masuala hayo yanashughulikiwa wilayani” (we try to remind them about our agreements but they always say that the matters are addressed at the district), uncovers the identity of village leaders. This statement refers to instances where village leaders demanded explanations on GGM’s unfulfilled promises. Apparently GGM’s response has always been one of blaming district officials. During field interviews, GGM officials mentioned that the company involves district officials in most of its CSR projects because they are required by the country’s law to do so (this is largely because the mentioned CSR projects aim to provide social services, which is the government’s responsibility).

Nonetheless, this statement gives the impression that there are hierarchies in this dialogic practice, and village leaders serve in the lower capacities. “Hawatakiwi kutumia sheria kufanya kila maamuzi, mambo mengine yanahitaji utu” (they are not supposed to use laws in making every decision, some issues require a humanitarian approach).

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This is another statement that identifies village leaders as participants with a marginal position in the dialogue. The expression was used when village leaders explained their misgivings on GGM’s decisions to forbid them to use the untouched land for grazing cattle or collecting stones that supposedly contain gold nuggets. They believed that GGM should reconsider its decisions and start allowing cattle keepers to use part of its untouched land, as well as unload some of the stones in the village, so that the villagers could reprocess them. What comes to the fore from this statement is that village leaders do not agree with some of the decisions made in the dialogues in which they participate. This means that such decisions are made against their wishes and they cannot decide otherwise. This demonstrates that GGM officials do not consider what Heath, et al. (2006) identified as one of the key elements of a genuine dialogue: “respect and implicit tolerance of difference”. The statement conveys the sense that GGM officials do not acknowledge the viewpoints of village leaders, but are more interested in protecting or promoting the interests of the mine.

This observation reiterates that village leaders are not influential in the practice and explains why the dialogue is not appreciated by community members. In the same manner, the statements “baadhi ya wanakijiji hawatuelewi, wanadhani tunashirikiana na mgodi” (some of the villagers do not understand us, they think we are conspiring with the mine), and “wakati mwingine tunaona ni bora mgodi ukutane na wanakijiji moja kwa moja” (sometimes we think it’s better if the mine meets the villagers directly), identify village leaders as the less powerful participants in the dialogue. The comments also confirm community members’ displeasure at the practice. These examples are from when village leaders tried to defend themselves against community members’ accusations that they collude with GGM officials to make unfavorable decisions. The use of these statements demonstrates three issues that also verify the shortcomings of roundtable dialogue between GGM and village leaders. First, village leaders seem to agree that there is something wrong with roundtable dialogue and they do not want to be associated with it. This is attested by the sentence “they don't understand us; they think we are conspiring with the mine.” Second, the statements candidly disclose that the villagers are dissatisfied with the dialogic practice, and to a certain degree, are suspicious of those participating in it. Third, which is more pertinent to this section, these statements admit that village leaders have not been instrumental in the ongoing dialogue and would prefer to see the mining firm meet the villagers directly.

The above point is further conveyed by statements such as “hata mikutano ya kijiji tunashindwa kuitisha sababu hatujui tuwaambie nini” (we can’t even convene village meetings because we don’t know what to tell them) and “kwakuwa mgodi ndio unagharimia mikutano yote, basi safari hii waje kijijini” (since the mine is the one paying for all these meetings, let them come to the village). These comments were made when village leaders tried to distance themselves from the outcomes of the ongoing dialogue, essentially admitting that things were not working out as they had expected, and therefore it was becoming difficult for them to explain these issues to the villagers. They believe a possible solution to this is for GGM to come to the village and talk to community members. These statements also seem to communicate three issues which could affirm the shortcomings of roundtable dialogue. First, the use of: “let them come to the village” reaffirms that meetings are not convened in the village, but rather village leaders are called to attend meetings at GGM’s offices. In other words, confirming claims from the villagers that officials from the

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mine have no interest in interacting with them because they are rarely seen in the village. Second, “the mine is the one paying for the meetings” speaks volumes about GGM’s influence on the dialogue. Third, the last point highlights the village leaders’ inability to defend community interests in the dialogue. Village leaders indirectly admit that they are caught in-between trying to work for the interests of the villagers and following directives coming from the mine and their bosses at the district level. Recalling the accounts from community members, it is such instances which make them consider ongoing dialogue unfavorable.

Community Members Apart from the above identities, unfolded through the social languages emerging from dialogue participants’ expressions, the language from community members’ accounts portrays to be uncomfortable with what takes place in the ongoing dialogue. Several statements can testify to this point. For instance, “hakuna aliyewahi kuja hapa kuulizia maoni yangu” (no one has ever been here to seek for my opinion), and “hawatuhusishi kwa lolote, nitajuaje kinachoendelea huko?” (they don’t involve us in anything, how would I know what is going on there?). These statements refute GGM’s claims that village leaders seek community members’ opinions before participating in dialogue. There are also statements such as “sijawahi kusikia wameitisha mkutano wa kijiji” (I never heard them convening a village meeting) and “hata wanayokubaliana hawaji kutuambia” (they don’t even come to tell us what they agree on), which counters GGM’s claim that village leaders give feedback to villagers. Looking at these statements, it comes out that community members were not only expressing their dissatisfaction at the way roundtable dialogue is conducted, but they were also sending a message that they need information, i.e., they wish to know what is going on in the dialogue.

To put the matter into perspective, here community members affirm their feelings of being less influential in the ongoing dialogue. This exclusion is also evidenced by: “hawa watu sio wawazi” (these people are not transparent) and “wanachofanya ni kubandika matangazo machache ofisini” (what they do is to put a few announcements in the village’s office). During the interviews, community members mentioned that the practice of displaying information on the office’s noticeboard causes them to miss important information, particularly about donations and temporary employment from GGM. They say it is only a few who are informed and think this is done on purpose to avoid enquiries if village leaders were to convene meetings to give feedback. Some even say that such meetings are of no use: “hata wakiitisha mkutano leo hatutaenda” (even if they convened a meeting today, we would not go); “itakuwa ni kupoteza muda tu, wataendelea kutupa ahadi zisizoisha” (it will be a waste of time because they will keep on giving us empty promises). These statements are straightforward. They bear witness that community members regard the roundtable dialogue to lack what Bruning & Ledingham (1999) consider central in organizations’ relationships with stakeholders: “building trust, mutual satisfaction, and mutual understanding” (p.160).

In view of the above, it is beyond doubt that community members are dissatisfied by the outcome of roundtable dialogue and are skeptical of GGM’s commitment to the practice, as demonstrated by their statements. For example, when community members expressed

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their views on the role of village leaders in the dialogue, they said “tunawaelewa viongozi wetu” (we understand our leaders); “hawawezi kuitisha mkutano kwasababu ni wazi kuwa mambo hayaeleweki” (they can’t convene meetings because it is obvious things are uncertain); “kuitisha mikutano itamaanisha kuja kutuambia uongo, GGM hawaeleweki” (convening meetings will mean telling us lies, GGM is unpredictable). Apart from expressing their concern that village leaders are submissive in the dialogue, these statements – particularly the use of the word “unpredictable” – strongly validate villagers’ suspicions towards GGM’s commitment. It also insinuates complacency with the situation, which is similar to the statement “We can't rely on them anymore, we have to handle the situation on our own”. A testimony to the claim that GGM does not understand the villagers’ realities, and indeed that agreements made in the roundtable dialogue are far removed from villagers’ situations, can be drawn from accounts such as “GGM wanatuzuia kufuata mawe lakini hawajui hata baadhi ya viongozi wa kijiji tunaendanao huko” (GGM officials forbid us from collecting the stones, but they don’t know that we even go there with some of our leaders).

This is interesting because it highlights that the villagers plainly ridicule the ongoing dialogue, insisting that it is out of context and that, despite disregarding them, GGM officials are out of touch. This sense is communicated by their claim that even some of the village leaders sneak into GGM’s area to collect the forbidden stones – these are the leaders who appear at the roundtable dialogue and are part of the team which restricts villagers from entering the mine’s concession. The comment clearly illustrates the shortcomings of the practice. As Saunders (1999) asserts, the purpose of dialogue is to provide an openness for people to meet, listen to, and understand each other neutrally, with a willingness to change. Thus, by implying that GGM does not realize the significance of the stones to the villagers and does not understand the interests of their fellow participants in the dialogue (village officials), the villagers suggest that GGM’s approach to the dialogue is unacceptable – they have failed to understand each other and that therefore the exercise has lost its meaning.

Perhaps this is why statements like “bora tukutane na mzungu” (it’s better to meet the white man), and “labda tukiongea na mzungu uso kwa uso atatuelewa” (perhaps if we talk face to face with the white man he will understand us) were used by a number of community members. The wish to meet the “mzungu” gives the impression that the villagers are suspicious and not trusting of the participants in the ongoing dialogue, who happen not to be wazungu (white men), but indeed village leaders and their fellow Tanzanians from GGM’s CRSD department. Apart from portraying community members as a group of individuals that renders roundtable dialogue unrealistic, this desire to meet the “mzungu” also suggests the villagers remain hopeful that there are still chances to improve relationships and gain mutual understanding. In more specific terms, it identifies these villagers as people who are ready to meet people who are unlike themselves and try to improve social relations. Agnitsch et al., (2006) consider this to be an important resource. Therefore, the statement affirms the villagers’ continuing desire to bridge social capital.

Nonetheless, taking into account what GGM officials explained as challenges facing the ongoing dialogue, villagers’ attainment of their wish to meet the “mzungu” would probably not be helpful. Accounts made by one GGM official from the CRSD department in

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reference to the impediments to dialogue practices, seemed to identify the “mzungu” as the reason behind the challenges facing the dialogue. The official referred to “cultural differences between officials in the CRSD department and their bosses from abroad” as one of the factors delaying the realization of agreements made in the practice. “The priorities of our bosses from abroad are far much different from those of the community members”. This statement from GGM officials is very direct and indicates that community members wish to meet ‘the white man’ directly, this is another sign of the shortcomings in the ongoing dialogue. The exercise has not enabled participants to reveal what Theunissen & Wan Noordin (2012) call their true self: villagers cannot tell exactly who is not being attentive to their demands and expectations. This feeds into their claims that they are rarely involved or informed about the proceedings of their village leaders’ meetings with GGM.

There are other statements from GGM officials that depict the participants in ongoing dialogue as individuals unable to understand each other, something which is supposed to be of primary concern in any effort towards building favourable relationships. For example, the mine officials refer to the improvement of relations between community members and GGM as the main duty of the CRSD department. At the same time, they consider the “increasing security problems in the area, a setback of their relationship with community members”. What is at issue in this statement is that GGM officials seem to miss the connection between what they call “security problems” and what they refer to as “a setback of their relationship”. From the accounts made by community members, it is clear that the factor behind what GGM refers to as ‘security problems’ is the villagers’ displeasure at how GGM relates to them.

Perhaps a suitable point to cement this argument is the account made by one villager during the interviews, who stated “kama tuna mahusiano mazuri na mgodi, kwanini wanaongeza ulinzi katika mipaka yao?” (if we have a good relationship, why is the mine mounting security on its borders?). What this statement seems to communicate is that a good relationship between the two parties is measured in terms of allowing cattle keepers, stone collectors and small-scale miners to continue using GGM’s lease area for their livelihood. It verifies one or both of the two contentions made by the villagers: that GGM has been ignoring them, and has failed to understand their real-life situations.

Intriguingly, the mismatch of perspectives is further projected by what GGM officials refer to as “a major weak point of villagers” in efforts towards building a favorable relationship. They claim “kutokuelewana kunasababishwa na matarajio makubwa walionayo wanakijiji”(misunderstandings happen because the villagers have high expectations);“ndio maana hawathamini miradi yetu ya kusaidia jamii” (that is why they devalue our CSR projects); and “hawafahamu gharama kubwa za uendeshaji zinazotukabili”(they are not aware of the high operational costs we encounter). This explains the inherent problems of roundtable dialogue; problems viewed by this study as the principle shortcoming of the practice. From these statements, two things can be inferred: first, the three statements

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suggest that GGM officials admit there are misunderstandings between them and community members, and that a lack of appreciation or disregard of GGM’s support to the villages (CSR projects) is what maintains the problem. This lack of appreciation or disregard is a result of community members’ lack of awareness of the mining business. In other words, GGM officials seem to regard community members as ungrateful and that this state of affairs disappoints them because they care for their well-being. Although officials do not directly admit that the villagers’ lack of awareness about the ‘costly’ mining business is a result of GGM’s dialogic shortcomings, this can be deduced from the above statements. Their commitment to create a dialogue that promotes an understanding of GGM has not succeeded. Therefore, this validates the community members’ claims that they are excluded and confirms the above reiteration that roundtable dialogue is unrealistic. Second, by using these statements, GGM officials are more or less confirming the observation that they consider their role in the dialogue to be of sponsoring or helping the villagers.

More importantly (in terms of putting this point in perspective), the statements appear to say that GGM officials regard material contribution through CSR, as well as other financial support, to be the determining factor of building good relationships with community members. This set of circumstances provides sustenance of the claim made here that the roundtable dialogue has not been able to understand (or has probably ignored) the priorities and viewpoints of community members. To put it differently, GGM officials are far detached from the life experiences of the community members. They have either ignored or failed to establish that material support is not the pressing need of the villagers. What the villagers consider significant in their lives, and this is validated by their own statements analyzed in this study, is access to the land that has been taken away, the land that enables them to continue pursuing their livelihood, to exercise free movement, and to access an adequate water supply. If the roundtable dialogue, CSR projects and other financial support fails to capture this important aspect (at least from the perspective of community members), then it will be rendered impracticable.

Conclusion: This study considered the accounts made by GGM officials, village leaders and community members, to illustrate how the social languages drawn from their expressions describe the nature, setbacks and outcomes of the roundtable dialogue. In more specific terms, the study depicted how certain socially-situated identities and activities, derived from statements made by these individuals, highlight the shortcomings of the roundtable dialogue between GGM and the villages close to its concession. What is conveyed by these socially- situated identities is that GGM officials (and those from the district administrative levels) fall short in abiding by the principles of a genuine stakeholder dialogue as discussed in this study. This is mainly due to the scant attention paid to the role of village leaders in roundtable dialogue. As the village leaders’ roles are ignored, voices of community members go unheard. This, in turn, results in meetings that make decisions and agreements upon issues which do not uphold the priorities of the villagers. Consequently, the meetings become less meaningful, hence unproductive.

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Public Meetings and Citizen Participation in Rural Development Programs in Ethiopia

Hagos Nigussie

Abstract

This paper examines public meetings and their role for citizen participation in rural development programs in eastern Tigray, Ethiopia. In rural areas, public meetings are the primary forms of communication organized by government representatives. The main reason to rely on public meetings as rural development communication strategies is based on the assumption that it will help rural people to discuss their concerns collectively. Despite the government’s recurring use of public meetings to communicate rural development programs, evidence shows that these communication forms remained ineffective to connect rural people to development programs. There are different reasons for the ineffectiveness of public meetings as rural development communication strategies. First, rural development messages are addressed orally, and people forget what they have been told. There are neither any specific methods outlined to examine the extent to which people have understood development messages, nor are there follow-up visits to inspect the implementation of these programs. Additionally, claiming to the urgency of government plans, most public meetings entertain three to five different programs in a single session. However, rural people remain confused as to which program they are required to focus on. Finally, in public meetings, rural development program-related decisions are made by a quorum, which might not necessarily embrace representative groups for rural people.

Keywords: Public meetings, citizen participation, rural development, Ethiopia

Hagos Nigussie Dr Hagos Nigussie is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Journalism and Communication, Mekelle University, Ethiopia. Hagos has received his PhD in Communication for Development and Media Studies from the University of Queensland, Australia. Hagos has participated in different research projects related to Communication for Development and Media Studies. Currently, Hagos is a Postgraduate program coordinator at the Department of Journalism and Communication, Mekelle University and teaches Communication for Development and Media Studies related courses both at the undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

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Introduction Out of the total 4.3 million people in the Tigray region, northern Ethiopia, 80.5% lives in rural areas (Central Statistical Agency, 2007). Development programs in rural areas such as eastern Tigray mostly focus on rural poverty alleviation. Poverty levels in Ethiopia remain high, the country was ranked 174th out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index, and much of the population remain dependent on some form of food aid (United Nations Development Programme, 2011). The perseverance of poverty in rural areas of the country is evident. More than 58% of the total population in the Tigray region live in absolute poverty, which makes the region's situation more perilous compared to the national average of 44.4%. The Ethiopian government has introduced different policies and strategies to alleviate rural poverty. One of these policies was promoting Agricultural Development-Led Industrialisation (ADLI) as “guiding economic development strategy” (European Economic Area, 2011, p. 27), and a fundamental basis for industrialization in the country. This shows that agriculture is taken as the main strategy for rural development and industrialization in the country.

Rural development, however, is a contested concept referring to different programs in each development setting. Cleaver (1997), for instance, relates rural development to the improvement of the economic and social well-being of populations. It is also associated with the transformation of rural areas and the broader economy, that is, rural transformation and structural transformation (International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2016). Behera (2006) argues that rural development predominantly focuses on rural poverty in its approach and content. Based on this, it provides attention to rural people because without their contribution, the intended development initiatives cannot be attained and self- sustained (Zalanga, 2014). So, rural development can be taken as a holistic project that examines a variety of interconnected issues that are fundamental to improving the living standards of rural people. Due to vulnerability to natural shocks, erratic rain and unproductive farms, the Tigray region has always been at the center of attention from different donors and development partners.

However, donors and development partners mostly focus on their ready-made proposals that rarely address the expectations of people at the grassroots. Hence, most of the rural development interventions in rural areas such as eastern Tigray still appear inadequate. Critics argue that failure to achieve rural development programs mostly results either from inconsistent policies and implementation procedures, or inappropriate communication strategies. Mostly, the communication strategies applied to take these strategies to rural communities have not been effective. In a related view, Mushengyezi (2003, p.107) argues that “African governments and their development partners often tend to extrapolate communication models from the developed world and apply them wholesale in local environments in Africa”. Such development strategies could not materialize due to centralized and top-down communication approaches. This is because “communication facilitated by outsiders does not necessarily accommodate cultural diversity” (Bicker, Pottier & Sillitoe, 2002, p.19). Consequently, the dominantly applied top-down and expert- led communication strategies are not contextualized to local needs and do not materialize due to these reasons.

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Thus, the success of development and social change in a given context depends on the “knowledge of the socio-cultural and structural environments of the target social system” (Moemeka, 2000, p.4). However, a lack of understanding of the context would neither “take the people into confidence; nor attempt to learn from them” (ibid), implying that the “problems of communities can never be isolated nor understood without first understanding their context” (Maser, 1997, p.92). These concepts, therefore, highlight the need for employing appropriate communication strategies that are congruent with the knowledge and skills of rural people. Despite limited practices in most development contexts, “communication is building its personality as a discipline for development” (Dagron, 2009, p.69).

Communication for development The term ‘communication for development’ was used as a title in the first World Congress on Communication for Development (WCCD). It was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Communication Initiative and the World Bank in 2006, in Rome. The purpose of the Congress was to demonstrate the vital role of communication for development in addressing the most pressing development concerns of our time. Moreover, it was meant to “formulate ways to integrate it into development policy directions” (World Bank, 2007, p.4). Thus, the broader significance of communication for development is that communication is understood as a two-way relationship that not only acknowledges the right of people to be heard, but includes prioritizing effective listening, and recognizing and respecting alternative forms of knowledge is needed to achieve this (Quarry & Ramirez, 2009; Servaes, 2008; Tacchi, 2012). The terms ‘listening’ and ‘alternative knowledge’ highlight the fundamental roles of individuals at the grassroots level who could add up to the fulfilment of development efforts. This helps to promote dialogue as a “key ingredient in building trust, sharing knowledge and ensuring mutual understanding” (Mefalopulos, 2008, p.8). Different scholars, practitioners and organizations have acknowledged the vital role of communication for development, and believe that communication should be harnessed for development to involve and give voice to people at all levels (Dagron, 2003, 2009; McCall, 2011; Mefalopulos, 2008; Quarry & Ramirez, 2009; Servaes, 2003, 2007; Servaes & Malikhao, 2007; UNFPA, 2001; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2007; World Bank, 2007).

Communication for development is associated with seeking change at different levels including listening, building trust, sharing knowledge and skills, building policies, debating and learning for sustained and meaningful change (Dagron, 2009). Communication for development is equated with stakeholders’ participation to meaningfully exercise their power in decision-making to address their needs and priorities (Arnstein, 1969; Dutta, 2011; Cornwall, 2008; Carpentier, 2011; Huesca, 2008). Stakeholder participation becomes vital as it may increase public trust in decisions and civil society if participatory processes are perceived to be transparent and consider conflicting claims and views (Richards et al., 2004). It is a key input and the result of the communication process, which is conceived as horizontal and democratic to strengthen collective voices (Dagron, 2006). Participation is often associated with the power given to individuals (Arnstein, 1969) to help them actively participate in the planning and implementation of development programs.

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Therefore, the success of communication for development and social change relies on the social context and its effectiveness to reach stakeholders at each level, and that each can understand the proposed social change and get actively involved in assessing it. Social context in this part does not mean “a fixed set of surrounding conditions but a wider dynamical process of which the cognition of an individual is only a part” (Hutchins, 1995, p. xiii). Therefore, based on the specific context, different communication forms can be used as strategies to mobilize people to rural development programs. In the Ethiopian context, communication for development relies highly on oral communication. Public meetings are the most commonly practiced forms of oral communication to mobilize people to rural development programs in eastern Tigray, Ethiopia.

Public meetings for rural development communication and public participation

Public meeting broadly describes any organized social gathering of three or more people, open to any person to attend often to discuss issues, providing information, reviewing projects, and seeking input among others (Adams, 2004; McComas, 2003a; McComas, Besley & Trumbo, 2006). Public meetings are categorized into voluntary public meetings and government-sponsored public meetings. Voluntary public meetings are informal in nature and are organized based on the disposition of community members. Voluntary meetings, locally called ‘Agle’ or ‘Akebba’, are initiated by community elders who are held in high regard by their respective community members with authority to decide on issues of priority concern.3 They have been in use from the time immemorial to discuss issues that require collective decision-making.

However, government-sponsored public meetings are highly formal in that attendance of participants remains obligatory. Studies have shown that public meetings can play a vital role by providing opportunities for participants to achieve their political goals to enhance government accountability and responsiveness (Adams, 2004; McComas, 2001a; 2003a). They are useful due to their openness to the public and agencies, to reach a broad audience with crucial information while simultaneously accessing a varied range of knowledge and experience (McComas, Besley & Trumbo, 2006). McComas (2001a) citing Sinclair (1977) argues that public meetings may seem relatively quick, simple, and of low- cost to involve the public or to collect information for decision-making.

Other studies found that public meetings provide forums for organizations and their publics to engage in meaningful, open discussion about related interests (Adams, 2004; McComas, 2001a). Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to identify the role of public meetings for citizen participation in rural development programs in eastern Tigray, Ethiopia. Specifically, it examines:  the effectiveness of public meetings to inform rural people about development programs  the role of public meetings to empower citizens to participate in the strategy design and implementation of rural development programs

.3 They have been in use from the time immemorial to discuss issues that require collective decision-making.

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 the limitations of public meetings as communication strategies for rural development programs

Methods and data collection This study employed an ethnographic research design. Ethnography is a “description based on intimate, long-term reflexive encounters between scholars and the peoples they are studying” (Peterson, 2003, p.8 cited in Thomsen, 2014, p.4). The relevance of ethnography to this study is that it helps to “critically analyse interconnected socio- cultural issues” in a given social context (Sarantakos, 2013, p.182). Interconnected socio- cultural issues in this study represent the norms, values and meanings people attach to their lives, and how they can understand them and the government’s rural development programs. Ethnography becomes useful as it “gives voice to people in their local context, typically relying on verbatim quotations and “thick” description of events" (Fetterman, 2010, p.1). It facilitates our understanding of the social and cultural views from the insider’s perspectives (Fetterman, 2010; Sharkey & Larsen, 2005).

The ethnographic research employs a blend of techniques to comprehend a given situation more completely (Angrosino, 2005; Daly, 2007; Murchison, 2010; O’Reilly, 2012). This paper employs a combination of different data collection techniques such as participant observation, in-depth individual interviews, focus group discussions and document reviews. The rationale to employ a mix of techniques was to enrich individual research methods as each data collection technique has its strengths and weaknesses. Data analysis was made qualitatively using constructivist and interpretive techniques. O’Reilly (2012, p.180) argues that ethnographic research is “iterative-inductive” in nature in that data collection, analysis and writing up processes are inextricably linked. This implies that ethnographic data analysis is characterised by a detailed description and interpretation of issues under inquiry. Denzin (2001) refers to this as “thick description that gives rigor to qualitative analysis” and “presents detail, context, emotion, and the webs of social relationships that join persons to one another” (p. 83).

Discussion and analysis of results Effectiveness of public meetings to educate people about rural development programs Public meetings are the most commonly practiced forms of communication to convey development messages in rural areas of eastern Tigray, Ethiopia. About the significance of public meetings to reach rural people, a development agent in the Irob district contends that “…we organise public meetings whenever there is any government agenda the people need to know including development programs such as rural food security packages”. However, rural people are uncertain about the importance of the recurrent public meetings to address rural development programs in their villages. In a related view, a male household in Alitena village states that: We regularly attend meetings about development programs. In these meetings, the government officials and development agents prompt us to take loans to improve our food security. However, we do not know to what levels this would change our living standards. Nevertheless, as community members, we are not consulted and our concerns about the implementation of the development programs are rarely appreciated.

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Hence, as the regularly practiced forms of rural development communication strategies, how effective are public meetings to connect rural people in eastern Tigray to the government’s development programs? Effectiveness, in this part, refers to the extent public meetings help to develop the awareness of rural people about the nature, relevance and implementation procedures of rural development projects. Thus, the effectiveness of public meetings to successfully communicate rural development programs was analyzed based on the following points: how people realize the role of public meetings for rural development communication, the level of people’s participation in public meetings, and the reliability of messages discussed through public meetings. To evaluate this, rural development Program Implementation Manuals were consulted. However, these manuals do not explicitly state any specific rural development communication strategy. Due to the lack of a coherent outline of rural development communication strategies, it is challenging to set indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of public meetings as communication strategies for rural development programs. In eastern Tigray, public meetings are organized through the ‘Wudabe’4 system. Evidence shows that in the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) controlled sub-districts in the region, separate associations for women, men, and young people were established to raise consciousness about the TPLF’s ideology and policies (Vaughan & Tronvoll, 2003; Young, 2006). Government representatives and rural development agents believe that Wudabe helps people to voice their concerns collectively. A development agent in the Irob district equates Wudabe with a collective power of the people and states that “…if people join the Wudabe, it gives them opportunities to enlighten their concerns collectively”.

Wudabe leaders are distinguished from opinion leaders. They are designated to leadership roles for their active participation in the government’s political system as registered members of the ruling party. They are blamed for their curiosity to promote the government’s propaganda and glorify its rural development policies, rather than addressing the deep-rooted socioeconomic problems of the people. Under each Wudabe, there are ‘Gujule Lim’aat’ groups (farmer development groups), who are responsible for mobilizing their fellow members to rural development programs. The role of farmer development groups is to improve the transfer of knowledge on modern agricultural techniques and technologies to and among farmers through a small number of trained contact farmers (Segers et al., 2009). Results of this study show that both the Gujule Lim’aat and Wudabe leaders do not receive a substantial amount of formal training about modern agricultural techniques and new technologies. Instead, they might have the exposure that traverses a variety of zones and villages within the region. Results show that rural people in eastern Tigray do not trust both the Gujule Lim’aat and Wudabe leaders. About this, an interviewee in Aiga village in the Irob district reveals the following saying, “You, deceitful member of the ruling party, what do you want to tell us again?”. The mistrust and criticisms are emanating from the fact that the Wudabe and the Gujule Lim’aat leaders are not working to address the needs of communities. These uncertainties, therefore, have affected the mutual

4 Wudabe refers to the associations of people based on their age and gender, which is established primarily for the political motives of the government. Wudabe as a system glorifies the government’s propaganda to maintain its political ideology and solidarity. In rural areas of eastern Tigray and other parts of Ethiopia, except for the elderly and children, it is compulsory for people to get assigned to their respective Wudabe groups.

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understanding between rural people, development agents, and the government representatives. Overall, the results of this study show that there are compelling reasons to show the ineffectiveness of public meetings for rural development communication. First, rural development program messages are communicated orally and people forget what they have been told. There are neither any specific methods outlined to examine what levels people have understood the food security messages nor are there follow-up visits to inspect the implementation of the programs. Second, claiming to the urgency of government plans, most public meetings entertain three to five different programs in a single session. However, rural people remain doubtful as to which program they are required to focus on. The third factor that affects the effectiveness of public meetings is the lack of access to public transportation across rural villages. Rural people in eastern Tigray do not have access to public transportation across sub-districts and need to travel long distances to attend public meetings. Mostly, they are late for public meetings in most cases and are keen to leave immediately to engage in agricultural activities or taking care of their herds. This distracts attendees and the communication flow in public meetings. Fourth, in public meetings, rural development program-related decisions are made on quorum, which might not necessarily include representative groups of rural people in eastern Tigray.

Public meetings and citizen participation in rural development programs In eastern Tigray, rural development programs are administered by the Office of Agriculture and Rural Development. This office hires development agents also called development brokers (Bierschenk et al., 2002; Olivier de Sardan, 2005; Mosse & Lewis; 2006), intermediaries (FAO, 2011), and change agents (Rogers, 1995; 2003) who work with rural people. Their role is to help people to make the right decisions by communicating with them and providing them with the information that they need (van den Ban & Hawkins, 1996). Therefore, the success of rural development programs depends on the active participation of people in the strategy design and implementation of rural development programs. The next sections discuss the levels of people’s participation in the strategy design and strategy implementation of rural development programs in eastern Tigray.

Strategy design Participation of people in the strategy design remains fundamental as “it helps to secure the ownership and commitment of the communities involved” (Tufte & Mefalopulos, 2009, p. 6). Development agents in eastern Tigray argue that rural people are well communicated to about rural development programs and are encouraged to participate in the strategy design. The findings of this study, however, show that public meetings are used only to inform rural people about development programs rather than encouraging them to participate in the strategy design of these programs. In a related view, a male household from Awo Village in the Irob district states that “…whenever we raise our concerns about the development programs in the meeting, we are considered as if we oppose to their plans”. These views highlight the limited roles of people in the strategy design in rural development programs. This is in line with other studies about the impediments of public meetings affecting people’s wishes to take part in decision-making processes (McComas, Besley & Trumbo, 2006). Thus, it is not uncommon for rural development experts to focus on useful information dissemination rather than effective communication (Mefalopulos, 2008).

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My fieldwork observation shows that public meetings are not entirely organized for rural development programs. Instead, rural development programs are communicated in public meetings organized for the government’s political programs. I noticed that rural people were only informed about the programs regardless of individual preferences. The next step was casting votes to identify who wants to participate in the programs. Nevertheless, there were no votes against even if there were participants who did not vote. Only a few of the participants expressed their views. Others were echoing the views of government representatives rather than personal opinions about the feasibility of the programs. Hence, the role of attendees in these meetings was merely to confirm the decisions already made by the government. In such cases, people’s participation is viewed from what Tufte and Mefalopulos (2009, p.6) call passive participation…where people’s participation is assessed through methods like head counting and contribution to the discussion (sometimes referred to as participation by information) Also, based on Arnstein’s (1969) ‘A Ladder of Citizen Participation,’ the above approach constitutes ‘informing,’ in that “people have little opportunity to influence the program designed for their benefit”. (Moemeka, 2000, p.9). Overall, results showed that the role of public meetings to promote citizen participation in the strategy design for rural development programs in eastern Tigray is negligible.

Strategy implementation Tufte and Mefalopulos (2009, p.6) argue that stakeholders’ participation in the strategy implementation stage enhances the “success of the intended intervention as it increases commitment, relevance and sustainability”. Stakeholder participation can promote public trust in decisions and civil society if participatory processes are perceived to be transparent (Richards et al., 2004). Despite the importance of stakeholder participation in the strategy implementation, results in eastern Tigray show that different factors are affecting the participation of rural people in the strategy implementation of rural development programs. First, results show that public meetings for rural development programs focus on persuasive communication that limits feedback from participants. Second, rural people in eastern Tigray lack interest towards public meetings and do not believe that public meetings can address their deep-rooted social and economic problems. Third, there are concerns about the competency of development agents to undertake their responsibilities proficiently. Rural people believed that some of the development agents are incompetent to undertake their responsibilities effectively. Belay and Abebaw (2004) in their study found that development agents lack practical and communication skills that constrained their capacity to undertake agricultural extension duties. Overall, it can be argued that public meetings dominated by development agents and government representatives have failed to address people’s needs, in that rural people do not have any control over the development programs.5 Mostly public meetings occur late in the decision-making process, which can limit public involvement by providing government agencies with a convenient way to minimize the public impact on agency decisions (Berry et al., 1984). So, rural people are uncertain whether their deep-rooted socio-economic problems can be resolved through recurrent public meetings. This has eroded

5A practical example about the lack of engaging rural people in strategy design and implementation of development projects in eastern Tigray is justified with the reported 12.7 Million USD irrigation project dam built in Daya Village in the Irob district. Local people were not informed about the project site in advance nor did project experts visit the site to evaluate its feasibility. This dam was built without any preliminary feasibility assessments, reportedly in an area of zero hectare of irrigate land. People in Daya Village believe that this dam will not help them for any irrigation purposes but a place for mosquitoes to grow.

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the trust and mutual understanding between people, development agents and the government representatives. Accordingly, the rural development communication in itself is becoming a barrier to mutual understanding rather than a solution to alleviate rural poverty in eastern Tigray.

Limitation of public meetings as communication strategies for rural development programs As it has been stated in the previous sections, public meetings are the primary forms of rural development communication strategies in eastern Tigray, rural Ethiopia. However, public meetings are criticized for being instruments to glorify government propaganda rather than addressing people’s needs. In light of this, people lack trust towards public meetings. In a related view, a male household in the Irob district states that “…as to me meetings are not a solution to our problems. What do we benefit from it? We attend and listen to what they tell us…nothing else”. Related studies elsewhere have shown that the efficacy of public meetings is affected by the credibility of information sources, that is, the belief in the ability or competency of institutions to carry out their responsibilities (Freudenburg, 1993; McComas, 2001a). Thus, whether public meetings offer substantial opportunities for participation and provide significant impact is still an open question (Adams 2004; Baker et al., 2005; McComas, 2001a). Also, public meetings are criticized due to a lack of representation of attendees (McComas, 2001a). Representation is a crucial criterion to evaluate fairness in decision-making (Renn et al., 1995; Renn et al, 1996). Besides, participation in public meetings may not influence the decisions already made by government officials (McComas, Besley & Trumbo, 2006; Molutsi & Holm, 1990; McComas, 2003b). The other limitation of public meetings is that they are dominated by the views and interests of a select few. Molutsi and Holm (1990) examining the ‘Kgotla’ in Botswana (a venue for meeting for political participation) found that the chief of the meeting is accompanied by his advisors and relatives who often set the agenda of the meetings. They found that neither disapproval to the proposed agenda nor comments are appreciated at the meetings. Molutsi and Holm further indicated that people lack opportunities to express their voice, notably, women are mostly excluded. Assessing public meetings held between members of the Aboriginal Council of Papunya and Pintupi Aborigines in Australia, Myers (1986) concludes that Pintupi meetings rarely resulted in decisions or plans for concerted action. These findings from different scholars are consistent with the study findings in eastern Tigray. Thus, it can be argued that public meetings remain ineffective to convey rural development messages, and to promote citizen participation in the strategy design and implementation of rural development programs. The most challenging part of public meetings is that participants are apprehensive about trusting public officials (Webler & Renn, 1995) who oversee public meetings.

Conclusion

This paper has examined the role of public meetings for citizen participation in rural development programs in eastern Tigray, Ethiopia. Government representatives and development agents believe that public meetings have the potential to communicate rural development programs effectively. Nonetheless, rural people criticize public meetings for

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their focus on the propaganda of the government, rather than addressing the deep-rooted social problems and rural poverty. The limitation of public meetings for rural development communication and citizen participation is that they are unable to inform the public about the rural development programs. This has left rural people uninformed about the nature, relevance, and implementation procedures of each of the rural development projects. Moreover, rural people are not encouraged to participate in the strategy design and implementation of these programs, which has put them as end users rather than active actors in the development processes. Several studies in Tigray have shown that most of the rural development programs in the region have failed to materialize due to lack of meaningful participation of rural households (Segers et al., 2008; Bewket, 2007; Aberra, 2004).

Though the Ethiopian government has introduced various development programs in rural areas, it seems that little has been achieved and people’s lives remain unchanged. Therefore, policymakers, government officials, and rural development experts are required to formulate context-based communication strategies to encourage people’s participation in the strategy design and implementation of rural development programs. The knowledge, values, and communication forms of the people should be at the center of the development processes. This suggests that development agents, planners, and local authorities should be viewed as “communication equals” in the development processes for mutual understanding and concerted action (Del Castello & Braun, 2006, p.3). However, failure to recognize this will not only affect the successful implementation of rural development programs but also erodes public trust towards rural development experts and the development programs at large.

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AFRICA COMMUNICATION RESEARCH VOL 9 No 1 (2020) Cultural Elements in a Selected Reality Television Program in Nigeria

Alex Eloho Umuerri

Abstract

Reality television programs vary in content, style and scope. One of such entertainment programs selected for this study is Big Brother Naija (BBN), in which a group of people are brought together and isolated in a house, with the dictator ‘Biggie’ watching and presiding over their activities. In the reality television show, the contestants compete to avoid eviction in order to win the prize money. This article problematizes the uses of cultural elements in the entertainment genre to Nigerian audiences. Through quantitative and qualitative research methods of survey and focus group discussion/in-depth interview of selected Nigerian students, the paper questions the use of some cultural elements in the show. It posits that the idealized notion of Nigeria’s culture as untainted, should guide the producers to deliberately make attempts to tinker with some of the alien cultural elements in order to suit local interest. Also, there is the need to ensure that subsequent editions, beginning with Season Four of the show, should reflect this new thinking.

Key Words: Reality Television, Programs, Culture, Audiences, Elements

Alex Umuerri Alex Eloho Umuerri, Ph.D is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mass Communication, Benson Idahosa University Benin, Edo State, Nigeria. Prior to his academic career, he practiced journalism in a number of media organisations in Nigeria, and he is a member of the African Council for Communication Education and other academic and professional bodies. (Corresponding author: [email protected]) Alex Eloho Umuerri obtained his doctoral degree in communication from the Department of Communication and Language Arts University of Ibadan Nigeria in 2016 where he specialized in Development Communication with emphasis in Print Journalism. His other research interests are government and media relations, and broadcasting. (Corresponding Author: [email protected])

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Introduction In recent times, the contents of entertainment television show have taken the form of what is now commonly known as “reality television”. However, before the advent of this fad on screen, programs were broadcast for entertainment, information and education, which were subsumed in live and recorded programs, dramas, sporting events, cartoons, quizzes, and political programs amongst others. These broadcast items were generated from the various departments of news and current affairs, commercial, and in addition, other departments that ensured smooth running of television stations such as administration and engineering. The various departments have a number of staff who are charged with the responsibility of producing these programs: for instance, the news and current affairs division has reporters, editors, newscasters, and commentators, just as the programs division has producers, directors, designers, technical staff and, cast and crew members.

On a general note, programs serve to attract both our eyes and ears, and enjoy characteristics of mobility as an entertaining outlet, which offers dramatic impact. The resultant effect is that the broadcast of these items on television provided a platform to influence viewers. However, as time went on, producers in television stations began to think differently, particularly on how to reflect changes in the content of programs that would interest and appeal to viewers. This led to the new form of broadcasting referred to as reality television programs. This new genre is gradually becoming a household name in all parts of the world. It is a communication genre that has become the latest fan favorite as acknowledged by Sack (2003), Frisby (2004), and Howley (2004).

This genre of television broadcast, though universal in appeal because of its entertainment and attractive value, is often associated with the people of a particular age group. The age group referred to here is the category of 18–25 years old (Baumgardner, 2003; Chikafa & Mateveke, 2012; Hiltbrand, 2004). However, this study is interested in expanding the scope of age range because the definition of youths is not restricted to the aforementioned ages. A youth, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010, p. 1730), is “the time of life when a person is young …; The quality or state of being young …; a young man …; young people considered as a group: … the youth of today”. Borrowing from this definition, a youth for this study is a person between the ages of 16–39 years old. It is also important to assert that some participants in the reality television genre mostly fall within the range mentioned above. For instance, this is evidenced by the housemates in seasons one, two and three of BBN. A major reason for this is that the fads are tailored towards entertaining those in the youth category. It has also been observed that adults do not watch reality television fads (although there is no empirical evidence to substantiate this claim).

Concepts of Reality Television Program There are a number of definitions of reality television programs. Reality television programs reflect true life situations of individuals on screen. Roscoe (2001) and Malekolf (2005) posit that reality television is a genre where real people are often placed in extraordinary situations, where their every movement is recorded as they react to their surroundings. Laitto (2015) has noted that it is a genre of television programming that documents unscripted situations and actual occurrences, and often features a previously

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unknown cast. Reality television highlights personal drama and conflict to a much greater extent than other unscripted television programs. Also, reality television is intentionally designed by the producers to compel participants to bring out their true characters. It is meant to portray the real identity of the participants in the program. Arising from the above, it is obvious that this new fad is gradually permeating society, and Nigeria is not excluded. There are a number of cultural elements in Big Brother Naija. The reasons for the inclusion of Big Brother Naija in the study will be discussed in the section on methodology.

A lot has been said by scholars about the fact that reality television programs portray scenes of sex, and culture that do not reflect the Nigerian/African identity and Endong, 2018) This study, however, set out to investigate the dimensions of cultural elements in a selected reality television program in Nigeria – Big Brother Naija. In this study, only seasons two and three (broadcast in 2017 and 2018), and titled Big Brother Naija, were used. The following research questions were employed: 1. What is the awareness and viewership of Nigerian undergraduates about BBN? 2. What cultural elements does the reality television program BBN portray the most?

Historical Antecedent of Reality Television and Big Brother Naija It was in 1948 that Alan Funt initiated reality show in the form of television series called Candid Camera (Bressi, 2005) This initial idea was launched as a radio show. Later, Alan Funt came up with the first reality show which appeared on screen (ABC Channel) on August 10, 1948. The contents of the show placed people in situations. Following these initial efforts, others tried similar approaches. For instance, Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, all in 1948. These signaled the ideas of Talent Shows with amateur contestants and it introduced the concept of Audience Voting. The 1950s featured game shows, for example Beat the Clock and Truth which involved contestants in competitions and jokes. During 1950–1959, a new type of series called You Asked for It had some elements of audience participation that viewers were given certain freedom to see what they wished to see on television.

Modern reality shows were produced during the 1970s Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) series. For example, An American Family which featured the daily times of the Loud family, and then the Reality Soap Genre in which the story lines shaped the real-life subjects into reality-show characters. In the 1990s, reality shows which grouped strangers for a certain period of time in a certain environment and the drama that followed originated in the form of series Number 28. It was on Dutch television in 1991. This show used computer based non-linear editing systems which enabled quick editing of hours of video footage into a usable form (Punathambekar, 2010).

The end of 90s and the beginning of the 2000s saw an unprecedented popularity of reality shows that were blunt, witty, serious, sensationalist and glamorous and the emotions of viewers. Survivor, a show that was originally named Expedition Robinson, first appeared on the Swedish public service network SVT in 1997. Then Big Brother, first televised in the Netherlands on the Veronica TV channel in 1999, became a worldwide sensation.

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Culture and Reality Television An important aspect of this study is to identify the gap of knowledge in the area of culture in reality television. Therefore, a discussion about the meaning of culture is a pertinent starting point. There are a number of ways to approach a discussion about culture. It could be viewed as a way of life of a people living in a geographical entity. It might also refer to the overall way of life of people and societies, which guides their social interactions. Culture might be defined as a system of knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that were acquired, shared and used by members of a society in their daily living (Gamble & Gamble, 2001). Scholars, such as Pearson et al. (2008) have said that culture is “a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and rituals that the members of a society use to cope with one another and with their world.” Culture is present in music, literature, painting and sculpture, theatre and film, to name but a few. Moreover, some people identify culture in terms of consumption and consumer goods (as in high culture, low culture, folk culture and popular culture) (Forsberg, 2006). From the definitions above, culture is expressed in different forms ranging from beliefs, symbols, language, values, customs, traditions, folk culture and popular culture. Folk culture, for instance, is found in specific geographical locations where people behave in particular ways and, it, not only refers to behavior, but also how social groups cling to such behaviors. From the discussion so far, it is clear that ideas about culture vary from society to society; in other words, the cultural values of the advanced world are not the same as those of the developing countries or societies, including in Nigeria. However, this fact should not be overemphasized as there are always points of convergence in some cultures, as discussed by (McQuail (2010, p. 113).

There are a number of cultural elements that are easily identifiable in a typical reality television program and BBN in particular. These cultural elements are explained below and form the gap of knowledge for investigation in this study: 1. Language: There are different definitions of language. “It is a purely human and non- instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols” (Sapir, 1921, p. 8). Okolo and Ezikeojiaku, (1999, p. 14), citing Lado (1957, p. 4), say “Language is primarily an instrument of communication among human beings in a community”, while Halliday et al (1964, p.4) say, “Language is regarded as a form of activity. Specifically, it is a form of activity of human beings in societies”. Okolo and Ezikeojiaku (1999, p. 9) posit that, “language is used in modern times not only for natural languages like Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Edo, English, or French, but also for a variety of other systems of communication, notation, or calculation, such as computer language and other artificial languages that are constructed to meet particular needs. On his part, Masagbor, (2012, p. 5) claims that language is a major purveyor of culture is a marker of variety of culture”. However, spoken language can be used for negative purposes: to abuse, insult and terrorize an individual or people. But it can be used positively to praise and say generally good things that are pleasant to the ear. Language therefore has a number of characteristics, according to Okolo and Ezikeojiaku (1999, p. 73) and these are: duality, productivity, arbitrariness, discreteness, and prevarication. Therefore, the gap in

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knowledge in this study is to identify the languages used in the reality television program BBN, in order to find out whether the languages were used positively or negatively and to suit the average Nigerian viewer.

2. Dress/Attires: Dress according to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (1999, p. 446) “are clothes for either men or women to wear, casual/formal dress”. As a culture, the act of wearing clothes can be viewed from two perspectives. It is said that a dress worn by someone is good when it properly covers all areas of the body and thus confers respect and dignity on the person from onlookers. Such dressing can be seen on people who attend conferences, workshops, those in offices, meetings etc. On the other hand, dressing is seen as bad by the onlooker when the breast and buttocks, are exposed. Dresses of this nature are usually worn by the youths and some of these dresses can be offensive to the elderly people who frown at such dresses. Therefore, how has the reality television show BBN portrayed clothes worn by housemates to the outside world in relation to the Nigerian culture? What has been the level of involvement by the housemates and organizers of the genre in this regard? 3. Hard work: This is a quality and virtue in human beings with universal appeal and acceptance in all cultures of the world. However, it is normal for people of a certain culture or race to be classified as hardworking, while some others are regarded as lazy. Hard work begets glory, hence acceptance by people and society, and also progress in the life of the hard worker; this is possibly why sometimes striving for development and growth is often identified with hard work and those who are hardworking. Conversely, it is the lazy person or those who do not believe that hard work begets success who indulge in idleness and have a lackadaisical attitude to work. In what ways has the reality television program highlighted the cultural element of hard work in BBN? 4. Relationship/Sexual Appeal: An essential cultural element in BBN Season Three is relationships among the housemates. A relationship can be on a casual and/or intimate basis. When it is casual, the individuals are on greetings terms, but when it is on an intimate keel, the individuals are said to be very close. However, it is often said that close relationships with the opposite sex sooner or later develop into affairs that sometimes border on sexual appeal; therefore, how has this culture been expressed by organizers of the program in BBN reality television show?

Media Theorizing Big Brother Naija Audiences Various theories of mass communication have been found to be useful in discussing reality television programs and in relation to cultural issues. There are two mass communication theories in this study to explain the cultural reality of BBN program. The first is the Cultural Norms Theory, which according to Folarin (2005, p. 97), is that “through selective presentation and tendentious emphasis on certain themes the mass media created the impression among their audiences that such themes were part of the structure or clearly defined cultural norms of society”. As a result, impressionable members of the public tend to pattern their own behavior along the lines of such media presentations. Furthermore, Baran and Davis (2003) cite DeFleur & Dennis (1994) as describing cultural norms thus: “the

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mass media through selective presentations and the emphasis of certain themes, create impressions and their audiences that common cultural norms concerning the emphasized topics are structured or defined in some specific way. The theory is relevant to BBN reality television show as BBN broadcasts items of culture which members of the public or audience would tend to imitate. The other media theory relevant to this discourse is the Commodification of Culture Theory. This is what happens when culture is mass produced and distributed in direct competition with locally based or community-based culture (Baran and Davis, 2003, p. 331). This theory posits that the mass media produce and distribute cultural items. Because the mass media and foreign countries/advanced world are recognized and are technology-laden, they are able to displace the local producers of culture at the detriment of the people. Folarin (2005, p. 184) has noted that the people are made to subsidize subversion of their own everyday culture. This is done through westernized and hybridized folk music, television programs and movies. The use and relevance of this theory to the study is that through the BBN program, which is a creation of foreign ideas, Nigerian youths may tend to imitate/copy situations depicted in the reality program as the Nigerian housemates portrayed foreign cultures in the entertainment genre.

Method of Research This study employed the quantitative and qualitative research methods of Survey and Focus Group Discussion/In-depth interview. The study used two institutions in the Uvwie Local government area of Delta State with a literate population of 140,872 (2006 National Population Census) for the study.

Survey, according to Wimmer and Dominick (2003), is flexible and popular among media researchers. The reason for choosing surveys is that it is a research design used in eliciting data from large groups of respondents. Babbie (2005), Mitchell and Jolley (2004), Baxter and Babbie (2004) say it is an excellent method used in a large population. In this study, the target group for the survey were students of Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) Effurun Warri, while the study population comprised young people/students of the institution who are between the ages of 16 and 39 years. A total of 300 samples were drawn from the population. The purposive sampling technique was adopted and 245 respondents, representing 81.66%, were drawn as this number of respondents returned their questionnaires. The respondents in PTI were used for a number of reasons. First, respondents have access to television; second, they are literate, and sufficiently primed to make an informed decision. PTI is easily accessible and the sample size can be obtained from the population. The Focus Group Discussion (FGD)/In-depth interview method was adopted because it is “a tool for studying what underpins a decision reached, attitude and behavior and meaning people attach to an experience and circumstance (Ritchie, 2010). It is also a form of qualitative research design used in gathering information that explains how people in everyday natural setting create meanings and interpret events of their world (Berg, 2006). For this study, 18 undergraduates of the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun (FUPRE), Warri, were purposively selected for the FGD because the participants are

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students, have access to television, have access to GoTv and DSTV and have knowledge of BBN or any reality television genre. The basis of the selection process was because their age group watch the program, are from the educated classes and have intellectual potential.

Research Instruments For the survey, the questionnaire pertained to awareness, viewership and cultural elements in BBN. There were seven questions in the questionnaire. The first section was on demographic data of respondents, the second was on awareness and viewership of BBN by students, and the third section pertained to the cultural elements of BBN. The questions in the questionnaire, which were closed, were administered to the students by a research assistant. FGD provided the platform for the researcher to have a deep insight and probe into the motives of selected students of FUPRE on the cultural elements in BBN. This afforded the researcher the opportunity to compare the submissions of respondents in the survey to the motives of participants in the FGD on the cultural elements.

The FGD had two items. It started with warm-up questions, which focused on the participants’ awareness of BBN generally and later concentrated on the subject matter of cultural elements of BBN. Participants were informed of the four cultural elements for discussions in BBN these are: Language, clothes worn/Dress/Dressing, sex appeal, hard work, and tolerance/patience. Participants were therefore asked to comment freely on any one of their choice, either in positive or negative form, and whether they thought BBN promoted foreign culture over Nigerian culture.

Method of Coding for FGD: This took the form of manual coding by way of categorizing them in order to sort out units of data with regards to pattern they have in common, (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011). Frequency count and Simple percentage was used in analyzing data for the study The selection of Big Brother Naija was made from a handful of the following reality television entertainment programs: Airtel’s, The Voice Nigeria, Mobile Telephone Network (MTN) Nigeria’s Project Fame, Nigeria’s Got Talent, The Gulder Ultimate Search, Glo Naija Sings, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and Nigerian Idol.

First, the reasons for the choice of BBN include the content, style and scope of BBN on content. The entertainment genre combines and features all the elements of an entertainment program, such as drama, conflict, songs, suspense, singing, and above all, the true characters of the contestants. This is at variance with some of the above-mentioned programs, which are mainly to source talents through singing alone. Second, the style of presentation embraces the idea from the producers, to bring together experts in lighting, camera use and other technical expertise of the technical crew, to be able to beam signals twenty-four hours to the audiences. This might be compared to the other programs in which the technical crew are not engaged 24 hours endlessly for about three months. Third, the scope of the program covers all forms of life as can be seen from the revelation of discussion by housemates in the program. Their discussions range from topics

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such as politics and religion to commerce. As such, there is a clear departure from the other programs that are more limited in scope.

Audiences’ Views on Cultural Elements in BBN In this part of the work the tables pertaining to the results are presented followed by discussions.

Table 1: Demographic Data of Respondents: Respondents Age SN Ages Frequency Percentage 1 16-20 160 65.30% 2 21-25 75 30.61% 3 26-30 07 2.87% 4 31-35 3 1.22%

Total 245 100%

Results from table one above indicate that the highest percentage of sixty-five (n=160) or (65.30%) respondents were from the ages of 16-20 years. This was followed by respondents between ages 21-25 who were thirty percent (n=75) or (30.61%), followed by two percent (n=07) or 2.87%) of respondents who were between the ages of 26-30.

Table 2: Awareness of BBN by Respondents SN Respondents Frequency Percentage

1 Yes 203 82.6%

2 No 32 13.06%

3 Not sure 10 4.08%

Total 245 100%

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First, the study sought to find out the awareness and perception of BBN. From the survey research carried out, results from Table 2 indicated a high awareness of eighty-two percent (n=203) or (82.86%, n=203) of respondents sampled for the study, while thirteen percent (n=32) or 13.06%, (n=32) of respondents affirmed that they were not aware of BBN, and four percent (n=10) or (4.08%, n=10) of respondents claimed they were not sure if they were aware of the program or not.

Table 3: Respondents Who Watched BBN SN Respondents Frequency Percentage 1 Yes 199 98.02%

2 No 3 1.48% 3 Not Sure 1 0.50% Total 203 100%

In Table 3, from the 203 respondents who claimed they were aware of BBN, ninety- eight percent (n=199) or (98.02%, n=199) affirmed that they watched the show, one percent (n=3) or (1.47%) of respondents said they did not watch the program, while zero percent (n=1) or (0.49%, n=1) of respondents were not sure if they watched BBN or not.

Table 4: Why Respondents Watched BBN SN Reasons for Watching Total No Frequency Percentage % BBN

1 For Entertainment 178 89.44%

2 To Escape Boredom 10 5.02%

3 Relaxation 6 3.01% 4 Education 5 2.52% Total 199 100%

For the 199 respondents who watched BBN, a further enquiry was to find out why they did so. Results from Table 4 indicated that majority, eight-nine percent (n=178) or (89.4%, n=178) of respondents watched the program for entertainment, five percent (n=10) or

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(5.02%, n=10) of respondents claimed they watched the genre to escape boredom, three percent (n=6) or (3.01%, n=6) of respondents said they watched the program for relaxation, while two percent (n=5) or (2.51%, n=5) of respondents said they did so because it was educative.

Table 5: Does BBN Promote Foreign Culture Over Nigerian Culture SN Respondents Frequency Percentage

1 Yes 130 65.32%

2 No 50 25.12%

3 Not Sure 19 9.55%

4 None of the above ______

TOTAL 199 100%

Secondly, the study focused on cultural elements in BBN and investigated whether it promoted foreign culture over Nigerian culture. Findings from Table 5 showed that sixty- five percent (n=130) or (65.32%, n=130) of respondents said BBN promoted foreign culture over Nigerian cultures, while twenty-five percent (n=50) or (25.12%, n=50) of respondents said BBN does not promote foreign culture over Nigerian culture. In addition, nine percent (n=19) or (9.54%, n=19) respondents said they were not sure if BBN promoted foreign culture over Nigerian culture.

Table 6: Respondents Rating of Cultural Elements in BBN SN Cultural Elements Frequency Percentage 1 Sex Appeal 106 53.26% 2 Indecent Dressing 71 35.68%

3 Language 19 9.55%

4 Hard work 3 1.51%

Total 199 100%

Respondents further agreed that BBN promoted sex appeal; fifty-three percent (n=106) or (53.26%, n=106) over indecent dressing which was thirty-five percent (n=71) or (35.67%, n=71) of respondents, nine percent (n=19) or (9.34% n=19) of respondents for vulgar language, and one percent (n=3) or (1.50%, n=3) for hard work.

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Indications from the results presented the fact that there was a high awareness of BBN; this is in tandem with the fact that the show is entertaining. Also, the high percentage of respondents who watched the program is a testimony of its popularity amongst students in Uvwie Local Government area of Delta State, Nigeria.

From the results, the majority of the respondents watched the genre for entertainment – this affirms the view that it has entertainment value. This result is in conformity with the findings of Chikafa and Mateveke (2012, p. 47) who affirmed in their study that the majority (66.60%) of respondents watched Big Brother Africa for entertainment reasons.

On the cultural elements of the reality television show, it was not surprising to observe that respondents confirmed the often-held view that BBN promotes foreign culture over Nigerian culture. To further buttress this claim, respondents agreed that sex appeal was promoted the most in the program. This cultural element, for example, in seasons three and four, required housemates to have a good relationship, but within a short period of time, what should have been ‘cordial’ relationships, developed into relationships that became sexual, in full view of those watching the program. Some of these relationships blossomed to the extent that the housemates were portraying their true/real characters, thus promoting sexual appeal. Some of the racier scenes feature prolonged kissing and sleeping together in the same bed for weeks. In fact, in BBN season three, the eventual winner, Miracle, slept in the same bed with one of the three favorites, Nina, for weeks, fueling speculations that they were having sexual relations in ‘Biggie’s’ house. In fact, Lolu, one of the housemates was heard telling the lovers that very soon, the result of their relationship will come to fruition with a baby.

Summary of Participants’ Position in the Focus Group Discussion/In-depth Interview on The Cultural Elements

The FGD was conducted at the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun (FUPRE) with 18 participants and the primary objective was to ascertain their position on the cultural elements in BBN Nigeria, to determine if these views correlate or differ from the views of respondents in the survey aspect of the study.

All the participants attested to the fact that they watch BBN from the answers they gave. Participants were informed of the five choices of cultural elements and were asked to freely speak on any of their choices. The views were transcribed by the researcher.

The 18 participants who took part in the FGD, presented divergent views; however, these were presented in order to decipher the various cultural leanings of the participants/pertaining to BBN. From the views of participants, four zones of cultural preference were visible: views on attire, sex appeal, language, and hard work. The session took place with the researcher moderating, and a note taker. The table below provided a summary of participants views about the cultural elements in BBN.

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Table 7: Participants Views on Cultural Elements in BBN Dimensions of SN Cultural Elements Frequency Percentage Context 1 Count Language 4 22.22 Negative

2 Count Sex Appeal 5 27.78% Negative

3 Count Dressing 5 27.78% Negative

4 Count Hard work 4 22.22% Positive

Total Count 18 100

1 Views About the Culture of Dresses worn The primary objective was to find out how participants felt about the attire worn by housemates in BBN and if the program promoted foreign culture over Nigerian culture. The highest percentage of twenty-seven percent (n=5) or (27.77%, n=5) participants on indecent dressing was recorded as cultural elements in BBN. The views below represent the views of five participants on the culture of dressing in BBN. The results of the analysis can be found in Table 7: Participant 4: The clothes worn by housemates can be offensive to the eyes. This is not our culture. Participant 10: Those who created this show did not take into consideration that the typical Nigerian lady dresses decently, instead of deliberately exposing parts of the body. From my answer you will agree with me that the program promotes foreign culture over Nigerian culture in the aspect of dressing. Participant 11: Generally, the bad dressing we see on BBN is what the producers want audiences to imitate. This is not our dressing culture. Participant 1: Sometimes, housemates are dressed fairly decently, but for most of the time, the dresses worn by housemates were not good, especially the ladies who open their breasts and move about in the house almost naked. I think the originators of this program are intentionally polluting our culture. Participant 15: I do not think the creators of this show mean well for Nigerian youths. If they do, they will reconsider the kinds of dresses they allow the housemates to wear on set. A show that celebrates indecent dressing will not help Nigerians, especially the youths. My verdict is that this program celebrates foreign culture of dressing.

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2 Views on Relationship/Sex Appeal: An important aspect of this study was to find out participants’ views on the culture of sex appeal amongst housemates. Participants’ views represented twenty-seven percent (n=5) who expressed disgust at the way the housemates carried on by expressing love scenes that portrayed sexual appeal. Here are the views of the participants: Participant 12: The way some of the housemates behaved especially with the opposite sex was not good. Some of the romantic scenes should not be shown on television as these can affect the lives of youths negatively. Participant 6: If the plan to entertain youths is to allow housemates to mix freely especially with the opposite sex without any form of restriction, then I do not think I like it. Participant 14: Why won’t the housemates engage in all sorts of sexual overtures when even ‘Biggie’ sometimes encourages kissing games in the show. Participant 18: I do not think anyone with fear of god will take part in this program, because at the end of the day, a housemate is likely going to be involved in unnecessary romantic scenes as we often see in BBN. Participant 8: Sometimes after watching the show I feel like I am in the mood to do as they do. If you ask me, I will say that some of the housemates are not acting but showing us their true characters, in other words, we are really watching what is real. But is it our culture for young male and female contestants/housemates to engage in offensive romantic attitude in the show without any form of restriction? This aspect of the program should be looked into as it is obvious that our culture does not permit such attitudes. 3 Views on languages: There was need to find out from participants if the languages used were representative of Nigeria’s culture or were vulgar languages. A total of twenty-two percent (n=4) or (16.66%, n=3) of the participants said that, although housemates freely used different languages, the percentage did not show any discernible pattern. Although the languages were sometimes vulgar. Participant 9: What I noticed is that housemates spoke a combination of different languages, from English to ‘pidgin’ English and native languages. Participant 3: Sometimes the languages are not refined as housemates used vulgar languages. Participant 7: The housemates mostly spoke in languages that were sometimes not pleasing to the ear especially during their interactions. This was actually not good. Participant 16: The use of languages was not well defined in this show. The creators of this program like it this way that is why housemates used different languages in communicating. I see it as part of the design by the producers to allow housemates to be themselves. 4 Views on Hard work: The culture of hard work is one that is acceptable by most societies in the world, including Nigeria. But it was important to determine how hard work was seen through the lens of the participants in the FGD. From the submission, twenty-two percent (n=4) of the participants presented their positions on hard work.

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Participant 2: The way I see it, I will say housemates were hardworking because each time they were given assignments they tried to finish them on time. Yes, the program portrayed elements of hard work as reflected in Nigerian culture, and to this extent I will not agree that the show promoted foreign culture over Nigerian culture. Participant 5: I will always refer to the different tasks given to housemates by ‘Big Brother’. I noticed that each time, the housemates were always eager and carried out assignments with all seriousness. In fact, this is typical Nigerian culture. Participant 10: The Friday Night ‘Payporte Arena Challenge’ is a good example that ‘Biggie’ is promoting the culture of hard work in Nigeria. Participant 13: This is one good thing that the organizers of the program have been able to show viewers, that housemates can be hardworking and therefore promoting the culture of hard work.

Conclusion It is obvious that the idea of globalization is gaining ground in all parts of the world. This is the reason why reality television programs, which debuted in the advanced world, have found their way to Africa and Nigeria. The advent of BBN is a good example of the Nigerian experience. While it is apparent that respondents in this study alluded to the fact that they were aware of the show, it clearly shows the high awareness and viewership of the genre. This study has further upheld the entertainment reason for the viewers’ interest in watching the program, just as it has confirmed the often held view that the genre promotes foreign culture aspects of sexual appeal and indecent dressing.

However, the negative aspects discussed by the research participants might encourage program makers to modify the existing format to suit local interests, so that its viewership will accommodate not only the youths, but elders in the Nigerian sphere. To achieve this, the producers of BBN should first ensure that the fad is produced within the country and not outside of it, as it is presently done. Secondly, the issue of content should be revisited as some of the more offensive cultural elements in the television reality genre should be modified to suit local interests.

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