The society is made up of clustered sectors pulled together to foster development in a way that ensures humans survival on earth. over the years certain innovative ideas has been put in place to ensure we humans remain at the top of our game, being the sole driver and engineer of matters that concerns the earth.
Being empowered by this dutifully responsibility as one of the most highly intellectual species on earth surviving solely on the information at hand. in this dire times of human development the circulation and reportage of information as never been more critical. An indispensable role that lies on the shoulder of informed individuals known as the communicators, existing under the umbrella of an organisation called the mass media. quite a responsibility but what happens when the mighty drivers of dissemination of information can't handle the wheels?
As a fellow whose area of specialisation borders around Mass communication and other related field of study, I have always considered it as a personal and public duty to ensure the members of society stay informed about the society by all legal means possible. As Joseph Klapper once stated in his deduction about the roles of mass media in the society which stated that Only informed citizens of a state are capable of making informed choices" I was born patriotic and passionate about the affairs of my nation, knowing how important information is in fostering progressive growth among the members of the public.
Over the years the world Has seen rise and fall of different media industry but despite their fading existence the world can't deny their contribution in fostering growth and development in the society. Due to the capacity of the mass media in creating salience for matters involving the affairs of the people, serving as a watchdog for the people to ensure governmental affairs is kept in check, the media is considered the fourth arm of government.
This indispensable duty allows the media to ensure sustainable development which means the process of development that involves the ability of populace of a geographical entity or government to maintain the stability of infrastructure, economical and financial growth of a particular country or nation for the advantage and benefits of the coming generation. in a simpler sense, for a country or nation to claim to be developing or engage in development, such country or nation has to maintain a standard growth procedure that doesn't jeopardise the safety of the next generation.
An Independent fourth arm of government is what the mass media is called but what happens when it lacks the necessary tools to discharge its duties and role in the society, it makes you wonder about the possibilities of some intervening factors capable of hindering the mass media from performing there duties which is quite obvious considering recent activities of the media industries. Are they truly the watchdog or a tool the government uses against its own people. How else can you explain why the narrative of the mass media industry is being dictated not by factuality but by the opinionated perspective of the elite that controls the governing power of a nation.
Through careful deliberation based on research and experience of how the mass media operates, the diversion of mass media from its primary duties can be traced to the rate of unprofessionalism in the mass media industry.
- 1)Academic institutions
- 2)Ownership control
- 3)Governmental regulations and policies
This is the foundation of acquisition of formal knowledge, an avenue created specifically to train young inspired and passionate individuals who aspire to become professionals in various fields of study. Among many other objectives of the basis of creating academic institutions, the sole aim is to ensure students are equipped with knowledge and tools to perform extraordinarily in their chosen profession. Quite a noble role, if you me but then it all comes down to the ability of these established institutions to discharge their duties.
Going through this so called academic institutions I came up with a term called institutional hypocrisy. The term refers to an illusion created by academic professionals who have managed to establish a cover story for the activities that goes on with in the academic grounds. you might wonder what is the meaning of this? it is quite simple.
During my days in school as a mass communication student, As a broadcast student I was privileged to work in the school broadcast radio. I was good enough to be in charge of collation of news bulletin but the funny aspect of this is that the school dictates the kind of news story that should be broadcasted.
There was a time I did a broadcast documentary and I was opportune to dig up some stuff about the school, knowing I wouldn't be able to make use of it in the studio, I gave it out to a student in print with a condition that my name must appear in the byline since I owned the story.
A picture of the news story
I succeeded, the news story was published in the school newspaper called MAPECHO NEWSPAPER but what came after was not rosy. the school management believed the news story defamed the institution, the story was traced back to me but since all my source of information were stated and it was authentic, they could not take any legal actions against me instead I was suspended from the studio. I could have pushed further but I knew I stand no chance against them, the outcome of my educational career depends on them.
They taught us how to speak up against injustice in theory but whenever the students rise up to speak against corrupt practices within the institution our voices were Silenced by different kind of threat from the management of the institution. If the objective of the institution is to create formidable mass communication student who are capable of standing their ground if eventually they decide to become journalist, Editors, reporters e.t.c wouldn't the institution allow the emerging communicators to spread their wings and express their libertarian right but when academic institutions have chose to silence the voices of the communicators from the on set, how then do you expect them to perform their duties when they are employed by media industries.
If by any means necessary they choose to differ from their outlined duties in creating enlightened media practitioners, in so doing they end up populating the earth with a load of educated illiterates in the field of mass communication.
In Most democratic state, the right to own media organisation is both given to the private and public sector which seems quite normal on paper. the issue with this is that, since the funding of a media organisation mostly comes from the private funds of the owners this gives them the right to influence the narrative of every news story published or broadcasted by their media industry. this might seem normal but in such a media organisation there can never be objectivity because the news disseminated my such media organisation is subjective to the perspective of the owners. this occurs both in private and government owned media outlets.
There is a commission in charge of licencing and regulating broadcast media affairs in Nigeria, it is called National broadcast commission (NBC). There is a cognitive dissonance in the understanding of the establishment of this commission, sometimes it is called an independent body charged with the duty of monitoring broadcast media affairs and sometimes it is called a governmental established commission empowered by the government to monitor................... which is quite contradictive when you think of it.
Can an institution be considered independent when it source of funding depends on governmental grants. Over time political elites occupying executive offices have used the authority of the national broadcast commission to force both private and public owned media organisation into silence by threatening to revoke their licences and impose outrageous fines. An example of this was during the endsars protest. some media organisation took it upon themselves to report the incident which the government was not so happy about. Most of this media outlets end up paying large sum of money, while some cease to exist till today.
For a media organisation struggling to survive, it would not be a wise choice to go against the government policies despite being the right thing to do. in so doing, despite the fact that this media outlets are aware of the atrocities committed by governmental officials they chose to turn a blind eye.
If media practitioners are being cajoled by manipulative policies, deceptive owners of media outlets and silenced by academic institutions, can they still be regarded as professionals?
This write-up was inspired by
dreemport challenge WK3 in collaboration with CWH community.
Cover image - 𝖣𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗀𝗇𝖾𝖽 𝗎𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖼𝖺𝗇𝗏𝖺