PART ONE: Chapters 1-4

PART ONE: Chapters 1-4. Introduction, Methodology, review of relevant literature, and a conceptual framing of the problem and relevant issues. 1 CHAPTER ONE 1.1 Introduction: Most theories of mass communication up to recent times have concerned themselves with intended or unintended effects of the media on its audience. Accordingly, both early and more recent empirical research have cast doubts on generally accepted notions concerning the powerful effects of the mass media, arguing that a good deal of media content is potentially informative rather than persuasive. (McQuail & Windahl, 1981: 56) One model of mass communication effects, the agenda-setting theory, offers a way of connection, between information and a possible opinion effect. The agenda-setting hypothesis as an effects theory of mass communication has not only survived its critics (see 3.4: A critique of the Theory) but also continues to flourish in its position that by simply paying attention to some issues at the expense of others, the media affects public opinion. Indeed, the above is a proposition of great utility. However, this study takes the view that opinions, attitudes and behaviors of people may change or even be altered not necessarily because the media has caused an issue to be elevated in importance to the public; but rather, people, that is media or message sources, it can be argued, manipulate the media (media content) selectively for “a plurality of individual needs 2 and dispositions” (Langer, 1998:12). The above, I suggest, may be what interpretive experts of the expansive days of the media’s stimulus-response theory interpret variously as media influence on its audience - attitude, behavior or opinion change (see Curran, Gurevitch & Woollacott 1982; McQuail 1969). Another source of concern to this researcher is the fact that the agenda-setting process is said to have begun with the media without clarifying who sets the media agenda. Severin & Tankard, (2001:231) corroborate the above concern as they posit that researchers have sometimes ignored the important question of “who sets the media agenda?” But, there are also alternative perspectives that insist that actors and institutions of power and resources (political, social and economic), that is, people with intimate knowledge of the workings of the news media and the political environment do influence the media agenda. This alternative perspective also points to personal attributes, organizational influences and attributes as well as the news media’s inextricable reliance on individual/institutional news sources as effective influences on the ‘mass media’s’ media agenda (see:Weaver & Elliot, 1985; Hess, 1986; Turk, 1986; Gurevitch etal, 1986; Hale, 1978; Jamieson & Campbell, 1988; and Megwa and Barber 1990). 3 Again, it is possible that an agenda is already in existence before the media agenda. Griffin (1991) suggests that it is possible, that media coverage is simply a reflection of public concerns that already exist; and Hoyer, (1991:29) observes that, “what was lacking specifically was a realistic account of what went on before the individual at the end of the media channel received the message----”. So whose agenda is the media agenda? This researcher attempts an answer, taking cues from amongst others, political economy of the media, structures of community and personal experiences of the individual – i.e. information and experiences drawn from our day-to-day lives that create meanings for issues as they relate to our daily lives. This thesis therefore focuses in part, on what this study proposes as the other neglected agents of power, that is, some specific tools/devices of propaganda such as rumour, gossip, language, religion, name-calling and testimonial effects with a view to ascertain their specific role in setting the media as well as the territorial agenda. The rational here, include the assessment of the influence of interpersonal communication in rural Nigeria. Rural Nigeria can be understood as broadly typical of rural sub –Saharan tropical settings (Mphahlele & Maepe 2003), that is, sparsely populated areas in which people are generally farmers or fishermen and depend on natural resources. Rural areas are made up of villages, small towns as well as large settlements; they are usually poor, isolated and insulated from the city-centres and they lack the basic requirements of modernity vis-à-vis the effect of rumor, gossip and other constituents 4 of community life such as, religion (as in information from the church/mosque or other places of worship) in setting the media-agenda. This we propose allows for greater clarity in an issue being a rumor, commonplace gossip, up to when it becomes the media agenda. This is the perspective that considers the possibility of a media agenda that is urban, but equally complemented by other variables. On the other hand, we insist as our major thrust of argument that, considering rural Africa’s isolation and insulation from mainstream and conventional media, the generalized capabilities of the media in structuring issues, with particular reference to rural Africa, lacks impetus. The argument here is that agenda-setting deals with how the media and the public perceive the importance of an issue (salience); but there is a difference in the way rural Africans perceive and process information. The source of perception or what influences the rural dweller we argue is not main-stream media but largely people; fellow rural dwellers and put simply, the “established structures of community”. The rationale of ‘mass’ and ‘public’ as they relate to the agenda-setting process is scrutinized and that informs our initial point of departure that ‘mass’ and 'public' as ideas are rather loose. Citing Baker (1990:168), Price (1992:2) observes that in conferring the title ‘public’ on opinion, enlightenment thinkers implied universality, objectivity and rationality; but 5 Inglis, (1990:113) puts it bluntly as: “ there are no masses; only varying sizes of overlapping minorities”. Thus this researcher takes the view that what may constitute a 'mass' or ‘public’ in a highly media accessible Chapel Hill, may be a group of nomads somewhere around the Numan County in Adamawa state (Northern Nigeria); or simply represent “varying sizes of overlapping minorities” in any of the oil producing Niger Delta states of Nigeria. These groups of ‘nomads’ and the ‘varying sizes of overlapping minorities’ often makeup a majority of the people, who are concerned more with where the next meal will come from in their thoroughly shortchanged environment; rather than spare a thought for media influences that seem largely alien to their existence. Thus agenda setting by the media as it is originally conceptualized and measured carries with it, conceptual and methodological implications when it comes to agenda-setting effects in the media dense west as against effects in rural Africa. For many in the rural areas of Africa, exposure to modern media could be described as limited and perhaps non- existent. Megwa (2002:8) confirms that, the more powerful media institutions become, generating more and more information as part of the world-wide information network, the less diverse and increasingly inaccessible they become to the ordinary people who constitute majority citizens in Africa. 6 The above view reinforces the argument that an urban public could be different from a rural public in different ways and further steer the discussion beyond the notion that media agenda-setting effect is universal or given; especially with regards to rural Africa. The media effect on a people set in their rural ways may not be the same as most urban dwellers whose opinions may be subjected to cumulative exposure to mainstream media. Even if the above be the case, some experts have argued that media coverage is possibly a reflection of public concerns that already exist. For example, in South Africa, the death of Chris Hani (a major participant in the struggle for the emergence of a democratic South Africa) became a major political issue every election year and continues to be mentioned from time-to-time. According to gossips and the rumor mill, the killers of Chris Hani are yet to be arrested. Gossips say the president may know a thing or two about the killing. In the same breadth, some other high-ranking members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) have been accused of plotting to kill the president. On the surface, the accusation and counter – accusations point to leadership conflict within the ANC; but in the context of setting the political agenda, one is tempted to ask: is agenda-setting not a two-way street that ends at the cross roads of public opinion? In other words, these accusations and counter accusations seem to be public concerns that already do exist and hence they re-echo every other election year. 7 However, our main concern here is the media’s agenda-setting capabilities in Africa, especially rural Africa. The point of our final departure here therefore, is the establishment of a working symbiosis between the “established structures of community” i.e. - (Rumor, Gossip - oral tradition etc) and the media as an urban phenomenon on the one hand; and rural Africa (where the oral tradition still holds sway) and its set ways, partly due to its isolation from and insulation by modern media, setting its territorial agenda on the other. We are saying that, orality as an established structure of African community seem to lend credence to rumour or gossip as a fact of life in rural Africa. Indeed rural Africans may trust sources of rumour and gossip more than they trusts modern media and even their politicians when it comes to the political issue of who and what to vote for. For example, in Nigeria, when the strong pull to break away from the constraints of colonialism became manifest and self-rule as an idea became ripe for diffusion, oral tradition dominated other sources of information exchange and rural Africa has not changed remarkably from its colonial days.

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