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The Mass Media in the mission of cultural promotion: the

African Identity question, by NWOSU RAPHAEL ccE.

MASS MEDIA AND REALITY

One of the obvious truths that are told currently is that the mass media has witnessed a

tremendous advancement especially in this 21st century. With the aid of the techno-scientific

aided globalised networking, there results an indescribable rate of cross fertilization of ideas andideologies through the exhibitions and disseminations of books and news papers around the

globe, the surging of TV local and international broadcasting stations, the banalisation ofInternetand mobile TVs. Magazine publishers promoted digitaleditions; and the popularity ofe-

books appeared to be on the rise.

These usually gain high and significant influence in the social environment in affirming attitudes

and opinions of the people.The news media focus the public's attention on certainpersonalities and issues, leading many people to form opinions about them. It

reinforces latent attitudes and activates them, prompting people to takeaction. It can even mutilate peoples ways of life.This is where loose cultures loose their boundaries; where liberal cultures are de-isolated.

Cultures unavoidably eat into themselves as people are able to gain assess to other peoples

cultures. Civilizations of higher economic communities dominate and lord themselves over lowerones. There emerge a danger of submersion and annihilation of cultural elements of lower

communities and societies. People who are less economically influential are suppressed with

their cultures and have foreign cultures imposed directly or indirectly upon them.One of the areas where this cultural neo-colonization manifests is the media. This work therefore

is a direct assessment of the media in its sensitive identity role in the West African context. How

does the African print and electronic media, promote the African cultures?

MASS MEDIA AND CULTURAL PROMOTION

The mass media plays another important role by letting individuals know what other people think

in their different domains of existence. By its very function, it represents each given culture in

the global village of multiple cultures. Beyond representation, it is capable of advertising andsailing each culture beyond its shores. It really can enhance an envious opinion of a given culture

to encompass large number of individuals and wide geographic areas. The growth or

depreciation of a particular culture can heavily depend on the media. A country or a culture thatdoes not sale itself through the media in this 21 st century is moving down to oblivion. The media

helps therefore in the promotion and acceptance of a particular culture by the diverse people who

have contact to it. It was because of the mass exposure of American and European cultures bythe series of their TV and Radio stations, the explosive spread of their (Fox and Hollywood)Movie industrial entertainment Films and theircable news (American-CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC;European BBC), and sports channels and because of their involvement of the internet in

advertising their cultures, that the naive African today tends to Americanism and Europeanism

than Africanism by imitating their intonation, dressing, food, music, dances, humor, costumes,paintings, designs, architecture, etc. Therefore, how long and how rich, a particular culture stays

and develops depends on how serious and how important it is to the media. Hence, J.S., Leela

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Joseph concludes that whatever the media popularize is accepted by the people and becomes

part of their culture and life-style (Media Education, Pauline Press, 2002)

MASS MEDIA IN AFRICA AND THE IDENTITY QUESTION

The very important point that confronts any serious minded social anthropologist who is

conversant with the electronic media programmes on the African Television and Radio stationsis that they have awoken from their inferiority-complex slumber. At the inception of some of the

African televisions like the Ghanaian Broadcasting corporation (GBC), Nigerian Television

Authority (NTA), and Radios like Radio Nigeria, etc., part of the very raison dtre of theirestablishment is to restore the African-ness of the culturally robbed Africans who were

beginning to submit to the western life patterns. At this time, books were written by the elites

like My Oddesy of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, Consciencism, Philosophy and Ideology of

Kwameh Nkrumah of Ghana, Things Fall Apartof Chinua Achebe, Myth, Literature and the

African worldof Wole Soyinka, My Africa of Mbonu Ojike and the pro-African ideologies of

pan-africanism of Julius Nyerere, Negritude of Leopold Sedar Seghor, and African

communalism (Ujamaah) of J. Nyerere again, were extolled and projected so that the culturally

alienated Africans could regain confidence in the African cultural values. This movementseemed to be working as the television and radio stations exhibited certain pro-African

programmes and movies to burst confidence in the African man of the 1960s and 70s. In the1980s and 90s, the search for greener pasture resulted to urbanization which exposed African

youths to western life-style. To worsen this situation, the explosion and spread of the American

and European action movies infiltrated the African system and reached a point where 60% of the

African children became favorites of these shows. The advent of the Nigerian Nollywood andPMAN in the 20s added to the problem. Today, one wonders where we are going. Our home

movie industries are uncontrollably becoming more western than westerners thereby seducing

our youth off our cultural track and realities. The timely and numerical crimes committed bymost youths today, are learnt on-screens and carried out in western styles and strategies. The

unfathomable scandal of the television and radio broadcasters, who sometimes make a showbiz

of great and masterly possession of European and American tongue and fashions, is a betrayal ofour Fatherland. These do not mean that the local media of this age is not making effort. My

target is simply to call them from what they neglect back to order.

THE WAY AHEAD

The African culture defines the African man. Every aspect of the African man should therefore

reflect his/her Africanity. The function of the local media is therefore not to annihilate or confuse

but to promote the African culture; to fulfill the desire of the founding fathers towards achievingthe partially or totally lost identity of the African man through strange and foreign ideological

and cultural invaders. They must use every acceptable means to achieve this. They must be true

to their AFRICAN IDENTITY.