Welcome Address by Professor Lai Oso at the 4th Annual Conference

Welcome Address by Professor Lai Oso, President, Association of Communication Scholars & Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN) at the 4th Annual Conference of the Association held at Bayero University Kano (BUK), Kano State, Nigeria from 6th–7th, September, 2017.

Love them or hate them, the media of mass communication have become a central institution in our contemporary society. The media provide the oxygen of publicity and visibility for social and political actors and the issues they engage in. Citizens and electorates experience politics through how issues are presented in the media.

Apart from voting, many people get involved in the political process through the mass media. In all spheres of our individual and social lives, the media play crucial roles as spaces of social and identity construction, discussion and debates, information and knowledge acquisition and other elements and ingredients for democracy and national development. The narratives in the media however inaccurate or biased continue to furnish the citizens with the information and knowledge they draw from to participate in the political and democratic processes.

I doubt if there is any social or political actor who now subscribes to the old maxim that power flows from the barrel of the gun. In this age, power now flows from the contents of the mass media. The media provides publicity, not just to terrorists as the late British Prime Minister, Margret Thatcher would like us to believe, but to politicians and other social actors.

It is in response to the critical role of media in societies that the theme of this – 4th Annual Conference of the Association of Communication Scholars & Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN), “Communication, Democracy and Governance” becomes relevant.

The centrality of these media continues to widen as technologies transform the ecology of the media and communications in general. It is difficult, if not impossible, to talk of politics or democracy without an established system of communication. The democratic space, its configuration and practices are also impacted by the transformation in media environment. For instance, new technologies have greatly influenced citizen participation and engagement with politics. The voices in the public sphere have multiplied, simultaneously raising hope and fear.

The hopes relate to the normative ideals of the media. In the Nigerian context, we expect the media to be agents of development. According to the Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution, the media are expected to monitor and hold government accountable. The question is, how far are our media fulfilling these hopes and expectations?

On the other hand, it appears that of recent, at least in our country, the fear seems to have overtaken the historical salutary contributions of the Nigerian media to the country’s development. This relates to the issue of hate speech and fake news. Many have attributed this to the proliferation of new media and the easy access to them both to create and consume without any professional processing and filtering. The fear of their likely effect on the society, especially in a fragile and fractious polity like ours, has led to the various calls for government intervention in terms of policy and legal regulation. While we cannot ignore the concerns, it seems that some of the suggestions are informed by panic. While the debates on media effect is not firmly settled, it is now accepted among scholars that the media audiences are no dupes that can just accept and believe whatever they read or hear from the media.

We also need to be careful and tread softly because we may be laying landmines on the field of our individual and collective freedom. As UNESCO has rightly observed, “hate speech lies in a complex nexus with freedom of expression, individual, group and minority rights, and concept of dignity, equality, and safety of persons.” These are important issues in any society that lays any claim to democracy. The dangerous increase in the generation of hate speech, fake news and disinformation in the country stems from the real and perceived widening of the fault lines in the polity, the stiff competition for power and social inequality among other various factors. A “knee- jerk reaction” based on moral and political panic and our current challenges can lead to dire consequences which may affect our nascent democracy. As we strive to tame the spread of hate speech and fake news, we must ensure that we protect the freedom of expression and of the press.

We need to take serious, the critical issue of media and information literacy. Nigerians must be taught how to analyse and deconstruct media messages based on a sound knowledge of the country’s history, politics, sociology and developmental challenges. If Nigerians are to properly and meaningfully “double check information from the social media” as canvassed by the Honourable Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, they must be well equipped with the literacy skills and knowledge required for such. Producers of messages in our media and in the entire culture industry, journalists, musicians, filmmakers, writers and academics must realise that the news is not just about fact and the music or Nollywood film is not just for fun or entertainment.

Any cultural/media product has meaning, contains some hidden values and some will say ideology. In this regard, our concern is how to ensure that all forms of public communication contribute to building acceptable democratic practices, promote national unity and integration. While the freedom of the press is sacrosanct, the Nigerian media must continue to serve as both agenda setters, agents of development and consensus- building in our society.

The Association of Communication Scholars & Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN) is committed to these values. We have made significant progress in mainstreaming the issues that will define the future of media and communication scholarship and practice in Nigeria. To this end, we are calling on you all to join hands with us in this noble enterprise.

We appreciate the Kano State government and the Vice Chancellor, Bayero University, Kano, Prof. Yahuza for their support. We thank the Honourable minister, Alhaji Lai Muhammed for his presence. This has greatly encouraged us. To our elder state man, Prof Jibri Aminu, we say thank you.

Thank you.