Communication Systems in Africa Flashcards
African Communication and Cultural Heritage
Africa possesses a long-standing, formal, and distinctive mode of social interaction. Indigenous communication systems have continuously operated to dialogue, inform, educate, and resolve social conflicts.
Modern scholars and experts confirm that rural populations—who form the majority of the continent's population—rely on traditional communication modes to disseminate information:
Town criers walk through villages at night, striking gongs to summon citizens to community labor or meetings.
Specific drum rhythms communicate events such as death, imminent war, invasion, or epidemic outbreaks.
Lyrics in publicly performed songs serve to reduce stress, critique social vices, and reinforce work ethics.
Archeological and historical evidence disproves Eurocentric assertions that pre-colonial Africa lacked organized history or valid communication systems:
The Nok Culture (): The oldest known producers of terra cotta sculptures in sub-Saharan Africa, rediscovered by archaeologists in .
Benin Bronzes: A sophisticated artistic and communicative tradition flourishing from the until its destruction by British forces in .
Olduvai Gorge Excavations: Conducted by the Leakey family in East Africa, revealing human remains that indicate Africa as the cradle of human existence.
Igbo-Ukwu Metal Culture: Dated between and .
Ancient Monuments of Zimbabwe: Stone structures demonstrating advanced architectural and organizational capacity.
Writing and paper technologies have deep African roots:
Writing climaxed around with papyrus (manufactured from rolled-up plant stems), the direct forerunner of modern books and scrolls.
Paper technology was utilized in China by the , mastered in the Arab world, and introduced to Europe via Spain by the Moors in the .
Egyptian hieroglyphics represent one of humanity's earliest documented writing symbol systems.
Definition of Traditional African Communication (Oramedia / Indigenous Media):
Refers to modes of meaning exchange rooted in a culture that originated in the preliterate and pre-modern eras, encompassing a community's total way of life.
It forms a synthesis of community customs, harmony, discord, affinities, disparities, and culture-specific values.
Channels include oral traditions (mythology, storytelling, folktales, proverbs, riddles, jokes, poetry), performing arts (dance, drama, masquerades, rituals), and physical artifacts/abstractions capturing factual, symbolic, and cosmological existence from birth to death and beyond.
Imperative for Studying African Communication Systems:
Western mass media (newspapers, magazines, television) remain highly elitist, requiring Western literacy, high financial costs, and advanced infrastructure (electricity, telecommunications).
Rural populations require communication systems they understand and identify with; messages packaged in indigenous traditional channels yield significantly higher resonance, fidelity, and behavioral adoption.
Studying African traditional communication preserves cultural heritage and ensures that indigenous values direct technical and developmental progress.
Verbal Traditional Communication Media
Traditional African communication is broadly categorized into two major divisions: Verbal Media and Non-Verbal Media.
Major Verbal Media Channels:
The Family:
Socialization begins within the nuclear and extended family via oral traditions.
W.I. King's social framework outlines that an individual is an integral part of a family and community whose continuity encompasses the living, the dead, and the unborn, with the land acting as the principal bond of unity.
The United Nations designated as the International Day of the Family () and as the International Year of the Family, validating the family as society's basic nucleus.
The Market Place:
Serves as a periodic gathering site (e.g., operating on a two-day or four-day cycle in rural areas) for trading goods and services.
Functions as an integrative communication hub and a confluence of diverse communication streams where public announcements, gossip, and formal denouncements (such as retracting false accusations) occur.
The Town Crier (Village Announcer / Gong-Man / Oma Ekwe / Oku Ogene / Alagogo):
Functions as the public relations and information officer for traditional rulers or specialized groups (men, women, youth).
Employs an Attention Directing Device (ADD)—such as a wooden gong (Ekwe) or metal gong (Ogene)—to command silence before delivering announcements.
Possesses high empathy, centrality, and credibility with the target audience, allowing immediate face-to-face feedback.
Broadcasts are strategically scheduled for early mornings or late evenings when environmental noise is at its lowest.
Modern adaptations include using megaphones or public address systems mounted on motorcycles or cars.
Visits:
Interpersonal visits foster goodwill and social cohesion; information exchange occurs systematically during dialogue accompanied by the presentation of kola nuts or palm wine.
Religious Associations:
Churches and mosques function as primary communication centers where officiating priests/pastors disseminate announcements, reinforce social norms, and shape community attitudes.
Village Square:
The central venue for civic assembly, judicial trials, festivities, and leisure, shaded by large trees equipped with log seating.
Specific Verbal Communication Modes:
Songs:
Palace or Title Songs: Rendered during chieftaincy or Ozo title-taking installations to convey loyalty, prestige, and respect.
Birth Songs: Exclamations heralding a newborn. Example from Nkerewe Local Government Area, Imo State, Nigeria: > "Oh wel! Oh woo! On wooooooh! > Omuru gini ooo? > Omuru nwoke ooh! (ma o bu Nwanyi ooh!) > Ya zirikwe nobi! > Ya nunu kwa ooh! > Ob wel!" (Line 1: Joyful exclamation; Line 2: Questioning child's gender; Line 3: Answering male or female; Lines 4–5: Pronouncing blessings of survival and peace; Line 6: Closing exclamation. Accompanied by gunshots fired by the father, dancing by women, and gifts of palm wine, money, dry meat, and kola nuts. Re-enacted in later years to celebrate extraordinary adult achievements).
Work Songs: Sung rhythmically to the rhythm of physical labor tools (machetes, cutlasses, saws) to boost morale, endurance, and dignity of labor.
War Songs: Used to arouse valor and hostile sentiment during war or emergencies, mobilized by the heavy beating of the Ikoro gong and flutes. Example war song: > "Onye akola nwa agu aka na odu > Ma obu onye nwuru anwu > Me e nwuru anwu > Anyi azaba Umuofia > Ka Umuofia ike eke nwe ohia > Onye kpara nku abuhu > Osi ngwere biara ya oriri > Umuofia akpotuba nwa agu n' ura > Ha agahi ahuhu ura ma ncha > Ezunike alaa." (Meaning: Warning against fiddling with a lion's tail whether dead or alive; marching to Umuofia to demonstrate the power of the forest python; gathering ant-infested firewood invites lizards; waking the sleeping lion forfeits sleep and peace).
Proverbs and Riddles:
Proverbs: Concise, witty expressions conveying seasoned cultural wisdom and moral lessons indirectly. Chinua Achebe observed that "proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten."
Riddles: Expressions structured as a proposition and an answer that test memory, wit, and environmental perception. Example: "Gwa mu ihe eze jiri nacha ntu?" Answer: "Ube" (Pear roasted in hot ash).
Narratives:
Encompasses myths, legends (Akuko ala), and folktales (Akuko ifo / moonlight stories).
Folktales feature personified animal characters (e.g., the cunning tortoise, the valorous hare) to instill moral virtues in children.
Akuko ala records historical human confrontations with the environment, highlighting heroic sacrifices, communal benchmarks, and sustaining Omena-ala (laws of customary conduct).
Highlights humans as Homo narrans (storytelling beings) alongside Homo ludens (tool-making beings).
Non-Verbal Traditional Communication Media
Non-verbal communication systems encompass seven distinct operational modes:
Instrumental Mode of Communication:
Idiophones (Self-sounding instruments where sound emanates from the material body itself): Includes Ekwe (small wooden slit drum or bead-woven calabash), metal gongs (Ogene), bells, rattles, and Ikoro (giant sacred wooden gong). The Ikoro acts as a traditional telegraph; it is communally owned, sounded only for major emergencies, monthly sightings, or war, and is strictly inaccessible to uninitiated persons.
Membranophones (Sound produced via vibrating stretched animal membranes/skins): Drums hit with hands or sticks (e.g., Ataba, Kalangu, Iya Ilu, Iya Ibo, Iya Agba, Igba, Udu water pot drum, talking drums). Used for speech surrogate signaling, praise singing, work mobilization, and dance.
Aerophones (Sound produced via vibrating air columns): Includes vertical flutes (Oja), whistles, horns (antelope horns for mobilizing youth for communal work; elephant tusks/horns blown exclusively by titled, wealthy men during festivals to display status), Agala.
Chordophones (Sound produced via vibrating stretched strings): Includes the Zither (Ubo-akwara in Igbo), Musical Bow (Une or Une-aku in Igbo; Midade, Uruk, or Odong in Ibibio/Efik; Pomom in Jukun; Inene in Idoma), and Lutes (Goge-goge, Garaya, Kuntigi, Gurmi, Molo in Hausa).
Symbolography:
The use of cryptic pseudo-writing representations carved or drawn on hard or soft surfaces (bamboo rind, walls, ground, skin).
The primary historical African example is the Nsibidi graphic writing system, traditionally utilized across Akwa Ibom, Abia, Anambra, Cross River, Imo, and Enugu States in Nigeria.
Demonstrative Mode of Communication:
Signals: Gestural sound actions. Gunshots communicate deaths, corpse arrivals, interments, VIP arrivals, or official divorce (when fired behind a wife being escorted back to her father's compound). Cannons (buried underground explosives) announce the death of prominent male citizens.
Music & Sonic Codes: Non-literary auditory codes transmitted to dispersed audiences to trigger psychological and physiological management of stress, religious reverence, or spontaneous activity.
Dance: Structured physical movement communicating social status, gender roles, and historical narratives. Rules regarding body contact, energy expenditure, floor/aerial space, and age qualifications enforce communal moral codes.
Symbolic Displays: Kinesic body movements including shoulder shrugging (agreement), smiling (happiness), winking (admiration/love), leering (sexual/unpleasant intent), and finger snapping.
Other Visual Communication (Colors and Body Adornment):
Black: Represents grief, death, and widowhood mourning (modern Christianity introduced white for widows).
Red: Symbolizes danger, war, or extreme solemnity.
White: Denotes purity, innocence, victory, and peace.
Institutional Mode of Communication:
The symbolic deployment of established social institutions to transmit values, news, and societal expectations.
Includes masquerade cults, secret societies, traditional chieftaincies, age grades, marriage institutions, shrines, social clubs, sports groups, town unions, and traders' associations.
Iconographic Communication:
The communicative use of specific physical objects and floral vegetation (Floral Media):
Objects: Presentation of kola nut bowls (hospitality/covenant), charcoal, white pigeons/fowls (purification), cowries, eggs, feathers, and mimosa.
Uri (Body Cosmetic Dye): Used by young unmarried women who decorate their supple bodies and display themselves uncovered at market square festivals for three days to signal readiness for marriage proposals (common in Udi, Nnewi, Nimo, Njikoka).
Nzu (Native White Chalk): Symbolizes peace, ritual purity, oracular authority (rubbed on native doctors' foreheads), and hospitality. Placed outside a compound following childbirth; visitors rub Nzu on their right arm for a male child and left arm for a female child.
Omu (Young Yellow Palm Fronds): Universal symbol of sacredness, peace, and emergency. Tying Omu around land signifies it is out-of-bounds/in dispute; placing Omu in a person's mouth mandates absolute silence; tying Omu to a vehicle indicates it is transporting a corpse.
Extra-Mundane Communication:
Trans-level communication between the living and the dead, ancestral spirits, or supernatural deities.
Takes the form of incantations, spiritual chants, invocations, sacrifices, trances, and libations (igo oji over kola nuts or pouring palm wine on the earth).
Feedback is delayed and non-immediate, manifesting through physical revelations, dreams, magical signs, or posthumous human artifacts (obituaries, in memoriam notices, tombstone inscriptions).
Applications, Attributes, and Functions of Traditional Media
Functional Applications:
Directives: Executive orders and public announcements concerning communal labor, developmental levies, security notices, or new customary laws.
News: Timely updates regarding community events, deaths of dignitaries, and impending emergencies.
Advertising and Promotion: Public displays of goods on elevated tables/flagpoles; street hawkers utilizing specialized promotional singsongs; olfactory promotion (fragrance/aroma of cooking foods); peripatetic drum-and-theatre troupes.
Public Relations: Praise singing to enhance individual or corporate prestige; host-guest entertaining during status-related tasks (house clearing, yam harvesting, weddings, title ceremonies).
Entertainment: Music, oral literature, masquerade displays, and village theatre.
Education: Informal and semi-formal cultural instruction via age grades, folklore, and socio-cultural societies.
Traditional Governance and Gatekeeping:
Governance is executed by the Chief-in-Council (Council of Elders). Formal communications rely on official palace messengers, intelligence officers (Ilari in the Oyo Empire), and town criers.
The traditional council acts as an editorial board. Information flows to the council, which filters, verifies, and packages the news before instructing the town crier to broadcast the final decision to the public. The town crier cannot alter message meaning.
System Characteristics:
Source-Related: Authoritative (legitimized by socio-political structures) and Credible (trusted implicitly by rural citizens).
Message-Related: Transactional (dynamic two-way exchange), Integrative (stabilizes social order), Non-alienating (uses familiar cultural codes), Definitive (explanatory and contextualized), and Adaptable.
Channel-Related: Customary (deeply rooted in tradition), Ubiquitous (available everywhere), Low-cost (uses cheap, locally sourced instruments with unpaid personnel), Time-honoured, and Popular.
Core Functions:
Grassroots mobilization for community and national development.
Maintenance of social stability, cohesion, and law enforcement.
Individual and collective education, cultural preservation, and entertainment.
Inter-cultural fertilization and unity (e.g., multi-community attendance at New Yam Festivals).
Advantages:
High credibility, minimal operational costs, immediate face-to-face feedback, absolute linguistic and cultural fidelity, and high entertainment value.
Limitations:
Absence of uniform language across Africa, making code standardization difficult.
Inability to transmit complex technical data across vast geographic distances quickly.
Lack of institutionalized academic curricula to teach non-indigenes traditional communication operations.
Susceptibility to acoustic physical noise pollution (modern vehicles, heavy machinery, high-volume audio systems).
Trado-Modern Communication Systems
Concept and Necessity:
Modern mass media (radio, TV, newspapers) in Africa are predominantly urban-centric, unidirectional, elitist, expensive, and structurally alienated from rural reality.
Traditional media are hyper-credible and integrative but limited in geographic reach and technical precision.
Trado-Modern Communication represents the systematic integration (media mix) of traditional media structures with modern electronic/print technologies to achieve effective communication, especially for rural development campaigns (health, census, agriculture, voter education).
Practical Example: In , a nationwide polio vaccination drive failed completely in Northern Nigeria due to local skepticism toward Western broadcast messages; the campaign only succeeded after traditional rulers were engaged to use traditional oral channels to assure mothers of vaccine safety.
Five Strategies for Combining Traditional and Modern Media:
Incorporating indigenous cultural codes and local languages into modern broadcast programming (e.g., family planning radio drama in local dialects).
Incorporating traditional attention-directing instruments (flutes, gongs) into radio and television commercial jingles.
Mandating that indigenous cultural content constitute at least of total media programming.
Expanding government media infrastructure to enhance rural reach, physical media access, and exposure.
Utilizing modern mass media for initial broad-spectrum coverage while simultaneously deploying town criers and village theater for local interpersonal reinforcement.
Key Trado-Modern Formats:
Town Crier as Intermediary: Modern town criers act as village-level information brokers, translating government broadcast messages, explaining TV telecasts, and serving as news sources for urban journalists.
Community Viewing / Listening Centres: Public structures established in rural villages equipped with TV/radio sets to foster communal viewing, collective discussion, and localized feedback.
Forum Theatre (Interactive / Popular Theatre): Participatory two-way dramatic performances widely used across West Africa and Kenya. Actors present social dilemmas (e.g., HIV/AIDS, nutrition, sanitation) and invite audience members onto the stage to act out solutions, fostering behavioral internalization.
Colonialism in Africa: Prelude to Poverty and Underdevelopment
Historical Trajectory of Colonial Conquest:
The Berlin Conference (): European powers partitioned Africa among Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, and Spain to avoid inter-European military conflict.
Pre-Berlin and Post-Berlin Conquest Dates: French invasion of Algeria (); French protectorate over Tunisia (); British occupation of Egypt () and defeat of the Mahdi in Sudan; French control of Morocco (); Italian invasion of Libya ().
World War I () Impact:
Africans were conscripted into European colonial regiments: Royal West African Frontier Force (British), Tirailleurs (French), Schutztruppen (German), Force Publique (Belgian).
Over 300\{,}000 African lives were lost. Post-war conditions introduced severe rural depopulation, epidemics, widespread hunger, and squeezed indigenous merchant classes out of export-import trade.
Mechanisms of Exploitation:
Forced Labor: Highly destructive method used to build railways and clear plantations (ended in in French colonies, later in Portuguese territories).
Taxation and Crop Restrictions: Forced Africans into European wage labor. In Kenya, Africans were legally prohibited from growing cash crops on their own land until to enforce reliance on European farm wages.
Wage-Earning Class Creation: Mining operations transformed independent peasants into wage laborers (e.g., Jos tin mines in Nigeria employed 15\{,}000 workers by and 40\{,}000 workers across companies by ).
Emergence of Nationalism and Pan-Africanism:
Independent African Churches: Founded as ideological resistance centers based on Psalm 68:31 ("Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God").
Pan-African Congresses:
First Pan-African Congress held in London in to protest racist policies in South Africa and Rhodesia (hailed by Lagos Standard editors George Alfred Williams and S.H. Pearce).
Sixth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester (), crystallizing demands for complete African independence.
National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA): Founded in Accra in March by lawyer-merchants led by J. Ayodele Langley; unified nationalist demands across Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and Gambia (opposed by conservative elites like Sir Kitoye Ajasa).
Colonial Administrative Models: British Indirect Rule (ruling through native chiefs) vs. French Assimilation (attempting to turn Africans into French citizens).
World War II () as Independence Catalyst:
African troops served extensively in Asia and East Africa (e.g., defeat of Italian fascist forces in Somalia/Ethiopia by Gold Coast, Nigerian, and East African Brigades).
Post-war returning soldiers demanded political liberty. Ideological catalysts included the Atlantic Charter ()—wherein Roosevelt and Churchill affirmed the right of all peoples to choose their form of government—and the establishment of the United Nations ().
Ethnic progressive unions formed national political bases: Igbo Union (), Egbe Omo Oduduwa (, founded by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, which birthed the Action Group political party).
Major Political Parties: Nigerian Youth Movement (, issued its epoch Self-Government Charter in ), Gold Coast Youth Conference (), West African Youth League (, founded by I.T.A. Wallace Johnson), National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (, led by Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe).
Neo-Colonial Economic Dragnet:
Realizing political exit was inevitable, European powers entrenched economic domination by establishing multinational/transnational corporations and entrenching political regionalism/ethnic divisions.
Apartheid South Africa:
Union of South Africa created in ; declared a Republic in . The Afrikaaner National Party institutionalized Apartheid in .
Pass Laws, racial spatial segregation, and forced relocations were enforced. Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd () attempted to create an economic South African Common Market.
Sharpeville Massacre (): Police fired on peaceful Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) anti-pass protesters, killing people and injuring .
Resistance movements: African National Congress (ANC), PAC, South African Indian Congress (SAIC). Key figures like Nelson Mandela were imprisoned for life.
External support from frontline states (Angola, Mozambique independent in ; Zimbabwe in ; Nigeria under President Shehu Shagari pledging anti-apartheid funds in ).
Demise of Apartheid: ANC won democratic elections in under Nelson Mandela; Namibia achieved independence in (admitted to Commonwealth at Harare CHOGM).
Post-Independence Cultural Revolution and Early Journalism:
Resurgence of African wood/stone sculpture, drama, sign writing, truck painting, wall decoration, and published literature ().
Early Indigenous Journalism Press History:
Sierra Leone had its first indigenous African owner-editor in (The Era, published by Lt. Col. Stephen Hill).
Gold Coast had Charles Bannerman in (Accra Herald).
By the , Anglophone West Africa possessed daily newspapers, weeklies, periodicals, radio transmitting stations, 700\{,}000 radio receivers, and television stations (Jones-Quartey).
Aftermath of Colonialism: Media and Cultural Imperialism
Cultural Schizophrenia:
Colonial acculturation stripped Africa of a unified worldview. Illustrated by Cameroon, where Western Cameroon exhibits proclivity toward British-style media, while the rest of the country remains oriented toward French/German models, causing complete neglect of indigenous Oramedia.
Conceptualizing Culture and Development:
Culture: The sum total of ways man adds to nature; encompasses ideology, philosophy, worldviews, values, material artifacts, and institutional practices (McBride et al. ).
Development: A participatory process of social and material advancement—granting humans greater freedom, self-discipline, skills, and control over their environment (Rodney ; Rogers & Shoemaker ).
Carl Rainer's Framework of Cultural Phenomena:
Cultural phenomena are collective products that strongly influence individual psychological functioning. Rainer classifies five core kinds:
Cultural Activities: Institutionalized survival/development practices (producing goods, raising/educating children, enforcing laws, healthcare).
Cultural Values and Meanings: Collective concepts regarding age, gender, bodily features, wealth, nature, and time.
Physical Artifacts: Tools, books, weapons, clothing, architecture, monuments.
Psychological Phenomena: Subjective conscious/unconscious motivations, emotions, and shared psychological dispositions.
Internalized Phenomena: Internalization of cultural practices by human society (Azarov).
Cultural Norms Theory:
States that mass media select, emphasize, and hype specific themes, creating the impression among audiences that these portrayals represent actual cultural norms, thereby causing citizens to pattern their dress, dietary habits, and lifestyles after media models.
Imperialism and Media Imperialism:
Imperialism: A state establishing political, economic, or cultural dominance over external territories.
Media Imperialism (Boyd-Barrett): The process whereby the ownership, structure, distribution, or content of the media in any one country are subject to substantial external pressures from media interests of another country without proportionate reciprocation.
News Flow Patterns and Global Imbalances:
Quantitative Imbalance: Masmoudi () notes that of global news flow originates from major Western transnational news agencies, which allocate only to of coverage to developing nations (representing of world population). Developed states control of the global radio frequency spectrum.
Qualitative Imbalance: Okigbo () notes that international news coverage of Africa focuses overwhelmingly on negative, catastrophic events—military coups, wars, epidemics, famines, and socio-political corruption.
Opportunities for Development and Change
Strategic Imperatives:
Kwame Gyekye calls for Africa to "turn inwards" and purposively study indigenous cultures, philosophies, and oral literatures to enter the global village as distinct cultural contributors.
Opubor warns African governments against adopting short-sighted, top-down, manipulative communication strategies, advocating instead for open, collaborative, participatory models.
Development Communication & Communication Development:
Development Communication: Orienting media planning and content directly toward achieving national economic, social, and human growth goals.
Communication Development: Enhancing the technical quality, infrastructure, and independence of media systems (Lindsay ; Udoakah ; Nwosu ).
Third World nations import over of their TV programming from the US and UK (Abel urges self-production as the only route to independence).
Africa Independent Television (AIT) praised for cultural promotion via programs like College Africa and Kakaki.
Mbonu Ojike's nationalist admonition: "Boycott all boycottables."
Broadcast Research Requirements (UNESCO ; Ume-Nwagbo ):
Must cover primary areas: quantitative/qualitative audience metrics, transmitter coverage patterns, broadcast performance evaluation, program planning, consumer market reports, program ratings, content analysis, and audience effect analysis.
The Video Option (Nollywood Home Video):
Odokamaya () showed theatrical film share in Nigeria was dominated by Oriental films () and Western films, with Nigerian films holding only .
Introduction of home video technology in the revolutionized domestic media consumption.
Odukomaiya () Lagos audience study results:
Demographics: male, female; age ; watched evening TV daily.
Preferred viewing content: Nigerian movies (), News (), Foreign movies (), Sports, Musicals, and Religious content ( each).
Producers must export culturally rich African narratives globally while avoiding excessive focus on mysticism/rituals.
Rural Reporting and Vernacular Press:
Rural reporters must integrate into local communities, collaborate with traditional opinion leaders, and utilize traditional structures (age grades, town unions, Emirs, Igwes).
Vernacular newspapers in Nigeria: By , out of newspapers were published in local languages (e.g., M.K.O. Abiola's community papers, though mostly urban-based).
Historical precedent: Chinese mass mobilization via wall newspapers and reading groups in the (Yu ).
Existing Nigerian rural/regional publications: Nigerian Mirror, Confidence, Ebonyi Times, Evening Times, Oriwu Sun, Ikorodu News, Lagos Rovers, Idemili Voice, Village News, Gaskiya Tafi Kwabo.
Mass Media in the African Setting
Historical Evolution of Newspapers:
Colonial Gazettes: Established to counter African nationalism and inform colonial settlers. Includes Cape Town Gazette (), Royal Gazette of Sierra Leone (), Royal Gold Coast Gazette ().
Early Indigenous Newspapers: The Era (, Sierra Leone, published by Lt. Col. Stephen Hill); Liberia Herald (edited by Charles Bannerman); Le Réveil du Sénégalais (Senegal); Iwe Irohin ( context in Nigeria text).
Radio Broadcasting History:
Takeoff dates: South Africa (), Egypt (), Morocco (), Tunisia (), Madagascar (), Zimbabwe (), Nigeria ().
Sydney Head's thesis: "Islam and broadcasting seem made for each other" due to social taboos restricting public female mixing and alcohol usage.
Wired-radio rediffusion systems pioneered in West Africa and Liberia.
Militant political radio in North Africa: Frantz Fanon (A Dying Colonialism) documented how "This is the Voice of Algeria" operated as an underground liberation weapon. Cairo's Voice of the Arabs under Gamal Abdel Nasser served as an anti-colonial inspirational beacon.
Apartheid South Africa utilized a tightly controlled Frequency Modulation (FM) network to isolate black populations geographically from external international shortwave broadcasts.
Television Systems and Historical Phases:
Launched first in Western Nigeria ().
Four Historical TV Phases (Okigbo ):
Colonial Phase: Propaganda tool for colonial rulers.
Early Independence Phase: Monopolized by ruling political parties in capital cities.
Military Era Phase: Used to announce coups, legitimize illegal regimes, and broadcast military decrees.
Democratic / Pluralistic Phase: Characterized by deregulation, market competition, private proliferation, and financial challenges.
Cameroon: Delayed TV until ; first private TV station launched in ( receiving sets initially).
South Africa: Delayed open-air television until due to political fear of Western cultural influence on the Afrikaans language and black political empowerment (Posts Minister Albert Hertzog labeled TV "the evil box"). South Africa launched the continent's first 24-hour news channel in June .
Anglophone vs. Francophone Media Comparison:
Anglophone media developed faster, possessed greater financial independence, and exhibited higher press militancy due to earlier mass education, commercial activity, and pioneering journalists (Increase Coker, Horatio Jackson, Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Anthony Enahoro, John Payne Jackson, David Edeani).
Francophone media were tightly bound to centralized French administrative policies; many French colonies lacked a single native newspaper by .
International and National News Agencies
Definition: Wire services/extenders that collect, process, and transmit news dispatches to media subscriber organizations.
Transnational (World) News Agencies:
Reuters:
Founded by Paul Julius Reuter in Aachen () using telegraph lines and pigeons, then moved to London (); incorporated as Reuter's Telegram Company in .
Products: Equities 2000 (), Dealing 2000-2 (), Business Briefing (), 3000 Series (), 3000 Xtra (), Reuters Market Light ( mobile service for Indian farmers).
African footprint: Reuters South African News Agency (); first West African client was Nnamdi Azikiwe ( for The West African Pilot), who was also a Reuters stringer.
Agence France-Presse (AFP):
Oldest news agency in the world, founded in by Charles-Louis Havas (Agence Havas).
Decentralized into autonomous regional centers () in Hong Kong, Washington, Nicosia, and Montevideo. Major African bureaus in Johannesburg and Algiers.
Associated Press (AP):
Formed in May by Moses Yale Beach (New York Sun) and four other New York papers (Journal of Commerce, Courier and Enquirer, Herald, Express) to pool telegraph costs covering the Mexican-American War.
Operates news bureaus serving countries and over 1\{,}700 newspaper subscribers.
United Press International (UPI):
Founded by the Scripps family as an independent commercial service; declined following bankruptcies and acquisition by News World Communications.
ITAR-TASS:
Russian state agency; maintains correspondents across African nations.
Regional and Non-Aligned Agencies:
Pan African News Agency (PANA):
Established in April in Addis Ababa by OAU Information Ministers; commenced operation May , ; headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, to counter Western media bias.
Non-Aligned News Pool:
Established in in New Delhi. Operates self-financed redistribution centers including Prensa Latina (Havana), Tanjug (Belgrade), MENA (Cairo), Iraqi News Agency, Press Trust of India (PTI), and Antara (Jakarta).
National Agencies:
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN): Established via Decree No. 19 on , ; commenced operations October , . Operates zonal headquarters in Benin, Enugu, Ibadan, Kaduna, and Bauchi.
Ghana News Agency (GNA).
The Internet Challenge to News Agencies:
Digital multi-media networks end wire service monopolies by enabling direct, decentralized global publishing of text, audio, and video by individuals and organizations.
Media Ownership and Control Systems in Africa
Osmo Wico's Typology of Media Ownership and Control ():
Type A: Decentralized control, public ownership (e.g., BBC in UK; France, Denmark, Italy).
Type B: Centralized control, public ownership (Communist/Socialist states, defunct USSR).
Type C: Decentralized control, private ownership (United States, commercial Western Europe).
Type D: Centralized control, private ownership (Developing nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America).
Third World Systems and the Nigerian Experience:
Dual ownership structure (Government and Private). Government exercises heavy legal control.
Freedom of Information Bill (FOIB): Submitted in , rejected by the House of Representatives in May , and finally enacted into law in .
Co-optation of Journalists: Critical journalists are co-opted into state positions (e.g., Tony Iredia was moved from hosting Point Blank on NTA to Executive Director of NOA, then Director-General of NTA).
National Broadcasting Commission (NBC — Decree/Act 38 of ):
Possesses power to grant or revoke licenses. Arbitrarily sealed Africa Independent Television (AIT) premises in October following its Bellview plane crash reporting.
In May , State Security Service (SSS) raided AIT and confiscated equipment over its live broadcast of National Assembly debates regarding President Obasanjo's Third Term constitutional amendment bid (Sen. Uche Chukwumerije condemned the raid).
Economic Threats to Private Broadcasting in Nigeria:
Private stations pay a mandatory gross annual revenue tax to the NBC.
NBC license renewal fees were raised from N400\{,}000 to for Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Kaduna operators.
State-funded NTA and FRCN receive massive government budget allocations ( in ; in ) while competing directly with private stations for commercial ad revenues.
Severe private sector debt: Channels TV, DBN, and AIT/Ray Power incurred staff layoffs; Daar Communications was temporarily shut down by banks over an unpaid loan.
Central African Media Environment:
Cameroon: Strict political censorship; private broadcasting was prohibited until . License application fees set at an exorbitant 15\{,}400\,\text{USD} (where civil servant monthly salaries average ).
Chad: Gilbert Maoundodji (Director of FM Liberté). Chad has only private radio stations compared to Mali's . In Eastern DRC, Radio Mungano's transmitter was confiscated and moved to Uganda in under pretext of repairs; RTKM closed in 2000$.\n - *Gabon*: Army tanks destroyed Radio Liberté facilities on February 221994 (President Omar Bongo declared it *"the devil's radio"*).\n- **Routes of Indirect Media Control (Sandman et al. 1977)**:\n 1. *Source Control*: Secrecy, classification of documents (1\%5\% sensitive), procedural delays, technical jargon limits, Executive Privilege, and *trial balloons* (leaking controversial ideas to test public reaction).\n 2. *Selection of Reporters*: Selective briefing access. **Nigerian Press Council Amendment Decree (1999250\,\text{USD}3\text{ years}1000\,\text{USD} fine for failure to submit annual performance reports.\n 3. *Self-Censorship / Chilling Effect*: Verbal threats or legal persecution intimidate reporters (illustrated by President Olusegun Obasanjo's 2004 confrontation with a *Guardian* reporter during an NTA broadcast regarding the Anambra State crisis).\n\n# Press Freedom Concepts and Conditions\n\n- **Conflicting Philosophical Meanings**:\n - *Western Concept*: Charles Beard defines press freedom as the absolute right to be partisan or non-partisan, true or false, free from external governmental coercion. Hocking emphasizes reasonable access to information sources and technical resources.\n - *Communist Concept*: Views press freedom as an instrument exclusively for class struggle and socialist worker organization under direct party leadership; explicitly rejects objective neutrality as a bourgeois illusion.\n - *African Reality*: Mostly partially closed, single-party or dominant-party states resistant to press criticism. Nigeria possesses a unique, highly resilient press tradition that has survived military decrees, proscriptions, and civilian harassment.\n- **Ten Conditions Facilitating Genuine Freedom of Information**:\n 1. Complete absence of pre-publication and post-publication censorship (except during legal national war/disaster emergencies).\n 2. Absence of unwarranted legal and para-legal inhibitions.\n 3. Freedom to constructively critique government policies.\n 4. Absence of relentless proscription decrees, arbitrary circulation laws, and closure of press houses.\n 5. Complete freedom from arbitrary dictatorial control by media owners and state officials.\n 6. Maintenance of healthy economic competition within the media industry.\n 7. Independence from total control by publicists and advertisers.\n 8. Unhindered access to public information sources.\n 9. Freedom to objectively process and disseminate news without fear of official reprisal.\n 10. Institutional independence, high professional skill, and personal moral courage among practicing journalists.\n\n# Ideological Perspectives on Mass Media Systems\n\n- **Classical Theories of the Press (Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm 1956/1979)**:\n - **Authoritarian Theory (17\text{th century})**:\n - Rooted in the doctrine of the divine right of kings. The monarch/state holds absolute truth. Printing requires state licensing; censorship is enforced to eliminate seditious or heretical publications.\n - **Libertarian Theory (Free Press Theory)**:\n - Evolved during the Enlightenment, Protestant Reformation, and industrial revolution. Assumes humans are rational beings capable of discerning truth from falsehood in an open marketplace of ideas.\n - Key advocates: John Milton (*Areopagitica*, 1644) and Thomas Jefferson (*"If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be"*).\n - **Totalitarian / Soviet Communist Theory (1917)**:\n - Birthed by the Russian Revolution. State/Party owns all mass media completely. Media operate as an official arm of government to advance working-class/party interests (e.g., *Pravda* and *Izvestia* directors were state functionaries).\n - **Social Responsibility Theory**:\n - Formulated by the **Hutchins Commission (1947)** (*American Commission on Freedom of the Press*; Robert Maynard Hutchins' *Freedom of the Press: A Framework of Principles*).\n - Assumes press freedom carries mandatory public obligations. Outlines four key requirements:\n 1. Provide a truthful, comprehensive, intelligent account of the day's events in a context that gives them meaning (separating fact from opinion).\n 2. Serve as a common forum for exchange of comment and criticism, presenting opposing viewpoints.\n 3. Project a representative picture of constituent groups in society without stereotyping.\n 4. Present and clarify the goals, values, and aspirations of society.\n- **Development Media Theory (McQuail 1987)**:\n - Holds that mass media must align their operations with state-defined socio-economic and development priorities.\n - Key tenets: Citizens have a right to communicate; media must prioritize national culture, local languages, and regional Third World news; the state has a legal right to intervene, subsidize, or censor media in the explicit interest of national development.\n- **Democratic-Participant Theory (McQuail 19871991)**:\n - Opposes centralized, bureaucratic, commercialized, or elite-controlled media monopolies.\n - Favors localized, small-scale, multi-way, interactive, and participatory media platforms owned and operated directly by civil society groups.\n\n# African Communication within the Global System\n\n- **The Global Village Context**:\n - Coined by Marshall McLuhan. Advanced satellite telecommunications, digitized networks, and the Internet have eliminated national media borders, creating a global information marketplace.\n- **Global Disparities and Negative Framing**:\n - Okigbo (2002) notes that Africa's presence in global media coverage is overwhelmingly negative—focusing on Ebola, volcanic eruptions, famine, civil war, and political collapse in Somalia.\n - Information flow remains a one-way street, with Western conglomerates setting the international news agenda.\n- **The International Digital Divide**:\n - Disparity metrics:\n - The entire continent of Africa possesses roughly 14\,\text{million} fixed telephone lines—fewer than either Tokyo or Manhattan alone.\n - Wealthy nations represent 16\%90\% of global Internet host computers.\n - 60\%5\% of world population).\n - 1\text{ in } 21\text{ in } 250 Africans (Nkrumah).\n- **Core Definitions**:\n - *Information Technology (IT)*: The study and application of processes involved in acquiring, processing, storing, retrieving, and exchanging digital data.\n - *Digital Divide*: The gap between individuals, households, and nations with effective access to ICT and those without.\n - *Communication Globalization*: Worldwide interdependence in information exchange crossing physical national boundaries via satellites and computer networks.\n - *Electronic Publishing Production*: Computerized pre-press operations (typesetting, digital page layout, image editing).\n - *Electronic Publishing Distribution*: Transmitting print/text media via electronic digital networks (teletext, videotext, online web databases).\n- **Web Opportunities and African Modernization**:\n - South Africa leads African computing infrastructure with over 800{,}000 host computers (Renaud & Brosso 1996).\n - Web technology allows cultural preservation (e.g., Niger established a server showcasing archaeological sites; Benin Republic established a voodoo cultural server).\n - Nigerian press digital adoption: Major dailies (*The Guardian*, *Daily Times*, *Champion*, *Punch*, *Newswatch*) utilize satellite links, digital page layout, and online web publishing.\n - Infrastructure deficit: Eddie Iroh and *IT/Telecom Digest* noted Nigeria had fewer than 0.1010005001000 people in the USA.\n- **Global Capitalism and Policy Protectionism**:\n - Global media mergers have created oligopolistic transnational cartels. International trade rulings challenge national sovereignty (e.g., 19971998$$ Australian High Court ruling striking down domestic media content quotas).
Sovereign protection models: Nations like Norway, Denmark, Spain, Mexico, South Africa, and South Korea provide state subsidies to sustain domestic film and media industries against Hollywood dominance. African states must formulate clear, protective national communication policies to safeguard local cultural identity.