Introduction

Communication is a purposeful activity of exchanging

information and meaning across space and time using various
technical or natural means, whichever is available or preferred.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (2013) stated that communication
requires a sender, a message, a medium and a recipient,
although the receiver does not have to be present or aware of
the

sender's

intent

to

communicate

at

the

time

of

communication; thus communication can occur across vast

distances in time and space. Communication requires that the
communicating

parties

share

an

area

of

communicative

commonality. The communication process is complete once the

receiver understands the sender's message (Adeletin and
Devis, 2000).
Two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in
which

participants

not

only

exchange

(encode-decode)

information, news, ideas and feelings but also create and share
meaning. In general, communication is a means of connecting
people or places. In business, it is a key
management--an

organization

cannot

function of

operate

without

communication between levels, departments and employees.

Effective communication is a basic prerequisite for the

attainment of organisational goals. No organisation, no group
can exist without communication. Co-ordination of work is
impossible and the organisation will collapse for lack of
communication. Co-operation also becomes impossible because
people cannot communicate their needs and feelings to others.
Every act of communication influences the organisation in
some way or other. It is a thread that holds the various
interdependent parts of an organisation together. When it
stops, organisation activity ceases to exist. An idea, however
great it is, is useless until it is transmitted and understood by
others.
The concept, Indigenous media varies as widely as there are schools as well as
scholars in the field of communication study, the world over. The classification of the
people and media into two broad categories- Indigenous and Indigenized used to
be based almost on the way people view understand and interpret the media and how
they put them into use. It is universally held that life is lived in the community. A
persons life has full meaning when he lives in the community (of other people)
because the identity and meaning of life is found in the community.
However, African communities lay emphasis on events rather than date. These
events and probably the date formed part of the culture. The culture of one community
differs from another. The meeting of two cultures often leads to cultural shock or what
the scholars termed clash of cultures. Among the causative factors is the media
used. Indigenous and Indigenized media are used by local people and non- indigenous
people respectively.
Indigenous Media Mix for Local People

Infrastructural considerations have to be made when choosing what media

channels to employ in a particular campaign for indigenous community
(Yarhere,2002). Power supply, for instance is of little or no use, whether stable or
erratic, when it comes to the application of indigenous. Among the Indigenous media
being exploited are the following:
A.

The Town-Crier
Soola (1999) describes the town-crier as a potent force in information
dissemination as it remains an authoritative voice of the traditional authority. The
town-crier is usually an eloquent fellow who understands the community and
wherever he beats his gong, heads turn and ears twitch (Soola, 1999). The people
recognized that the message must be important and urgent to warrant the dispatch of
the crier. Also, Nwuneli (1983) talked of the town-crier model that is used in many
West African communities as well as a number of East and Central African
communities as an all- purpose, general information disseminator. But the choice of
the hardware (drums, gongs, bells) for information dissemination often depends on
what has been previously agreed upon by the community. Thus, when a town-crier
makes an announcement, for instance, of the death of a traditional chief or an
important member of the community, the response or feedback from different villagecommunities to this message will invariably be the same grief, wailing, shock,
sorrow and mourning, among others.
B.

Oral Poetry/ Narrative

In many ways, the artiste controls society with the beauty of his language and

voice, the philosophical bent of his utterances and the overall relevance and aptness of
his art to life (Yarhere 2002). In fact, he cites instances where the artiste hypnotizes
and spellbinds his audience. Among the Yoruba tribe of southwestern Nigeria:
Ewi is often used to convey information, to eulogize achievements, to guide
individuals through the murky waters of the world hazardous terrain, to celebrate the
inexorable link between life and death, and to satirize unacceptable behaviors and
practices (Soola, 1999).

However, the banishment of poets by Plato from his court was unconsciously
intended to dismantle the psychological stranglehold of Homers and Hesiods orality
on the Greek mind (Amuka, 1992: 32).
C.

Festivals
Africans history is never complete without mentioning of their festivals.

Various festivals and carnivals are celebrated every year. Some are in tanderm with
universal celebration while some are unique and peculiar to the Africans. Christmas,
Easter, New Year, Sallah, Masquerades, City Carnivals and host of other similar
occasions call for outdoor activities of merry-making, and always include music, and
dance, with instrumentalists as well as dancers exhibiting their dexterity. Marriages,
naming, burial and chieftaincy titles are often a must-attend for Africans.
Masquerades, the sprits of the forefathers, parade in beautiful costumes to the
accompaniment of small instrumental groups. Dancing groups, both old and new of
men, women and excited children fill the streets and village squares. Awareness of
specific development programmes can be built and incorporated into local festivals
through the use of prize-awards.
D.

Folklore
Folklores are used to teach morals, create amusement and laughter, expose the

follies of people and extol their virtues (Okonkwo 1984). Folktales are also referred to
in literature as oral narratives or oral performances, for example, the Gerros in
Senegal. Folktales by its nature, involves face-to-face interaction. Both the narrator
and his audience are in close contact and in constant interaction. This close contact
tends to enhance the source credibility of the source and makes the content of the
story very real.

Music/Lyrics
Music and lyrics constitute essential aspects of socio-cultural and religious life
in Africa. Developmental messages, when incorporated into songs, can be used to
create awareness and educate rural dwellers on various issues.

Music springs from the life of the society and is normally performed to express
shared values on a number of ritual and social occasions. The venues of performance,
as well as the genres of the music performed by the musicians are prescribed or some
how determined by the norms of the particular society (Washington, 1992: 21). Music,
when performed in its rightful context, nearly always carries information which is for
the most part, intended to elicit some form of response from listeners, among whom or
to whom it is performed.
Drama
Local drama groups provide opportunities for local expressions on human scale
likely interest a wider range of individual. A radical change in thinking, on a subject
matter, brought to reality, through drama, is expected to occur when the individual or
the group visualizes the outcome of behaving in a particular way. Drama arouses deep
psychological and cultural emotions. The use of well-known and popular actors and
stars in local community programmes has continued to prove a successful strategy
almost everywhere it is used. Actual behavioural change almost always requires
personal touch, maybe through influential members of the community or someone
who has experience.
Centrality of Indigenous Media in Communication
Indigenous language media has been proved to be very potent in creating a
critical mass of real communication for substantial change (Burnay, 1997). Fafunwa,
cited in Adekunle (1995:61) also notes that indigenous media can be used to raise the
standard of living in the rural areas by using them in adult education programmes to
teach basic health habits and technology. Folarin and Mohammed (1996:110) also
called attention to the fact that indigenous language press can be a veritable
instrument in mobilizing the vast majority, who are unlettered in English language, to
be involved in the political process.
Several other scholars have called attention to the importance of indigenous
language in mobilization for development. Soola (1998:97) while discussing the
family planning information dissemination methods notes that the success of such
messages will be determined by the extent to which such communication is
predicated on an understanding of the societys culture, its peculiar system of values

and attitudes. It then follows that indigenous media, being a part and carrier of
culture is best suited for communicating development messages.
Wallace (1996) emphasizes that native media, when used for local people, in
arts, writing and verbal messages, is powerful in bringing about desired changes in the
lives of people. He asserts further that cultural context and intimacy with a culture will
give a deeper meaning to the understanding of language through appropriate media
and the circumstances in which it occurs will determine believability or sense of
realism. Of all the media of mass communication available in Africa, indigenous
media is significantly suitable for the continent. The potentials of traditional or
oramedia could be harnessed to bring about change and development. The traditional
media are grounded in Indigenous culture, produced and consumed by grassroots
members of traditional societies. According to Ugboajah (1989:233), they reinforce
the values of the society. They are visible cultural features often quite strictly
conventional, by which social relationships and a world view are maintained and
defined.
As underscored by FAO (1998:8), traditional folk media are cultural resources
that accumulate indigenous knowledge, experience and expression passed down from
generation to generation. Woven into proverbs and poems, songs and dances, puppet
plays and stories rhythms and beats, they are embedded with a strong sense of cultural
identity, which can be a potent force for development. In many cases, these media are
the traditional conducts of indigenous knowledge, experience and culture. When they
are creatively used, these cultural resources can be a subtle and effective way of
introducing development ideas and messages.
Drama, folk-tales, oral poetry and music when aired, laden with rich
development messages and ideas have great possibilities to mobilize people for
development. Soola (1999) points out that: The theatre as an interactive, participating
tool in development constitutes an asset in mobilizing and galvanizing people into
action for sustainable environment. Using local language or even preferably its dialect
variant, idioms and symbolism, popular theatre laden with environmental awareness
messages can be used to enlist the local/community people in theatrical performance
(Soola, 1999:35).

According to Oyero (2002), the use of indigenous media is very significant

because it gives the people better understanding and meaning of messages. He affirms
that majority of the people understand messages better through their own native media
like oral tradition.
Indigenous language media is highly preferred by even literate audience
members as they prefer listening and expressing themselves in their mother tongue
(Oyero 2002). Besides, it was discovered that indigenous language media will, largely,
enhance community development by promoting the economy, good moral values,
culture, agriculture, political development and news dissemination.
Socio-cultural Advantages of Traditional Media
The perceptible advantages which folk or traditional media have over modern
mass media in promoting development obviously constitute reasons why media have
widespread use in development campaigns. Compared with modern mass media, the
folk media are more familiar and closer to the people at the grassroots level and this
fact would seem to make them more effective channels through which the ordinary
folk can be presented with new and development ideas such as modern family
planning. Being personal forms of entertainment as well as channels of
communication, the folk media such as traditional drama, story telling and folk
singing are effective parts of the way of life of the people and thus provide fruitful
means of disseminating ideas to them.
Again, being grassroots entertainment media, they cover primary and intimate
social groups and any messages they carry reach such groups and any messages they
carry reach such groups and therefore reach the well-established communication
network of any community.
Traditional modes of communication deal with the values and beliefs of the
people and this would seem to make them useful means through which social
engineers can bring about behaviourial changes in people such as adopting family
planning practices. This is because peoples value and beliefs play vital role in their
acceptance or rejection of such innovation as modern family planning.

Unlike modern mass programmes, which are usually produced for large,
heterogeneous and diverse audiences, the folk media can use local dialects to
disseminate ideas in a most intimate and down-to-earth way at the village level in
rural areas.
Traditional Media of Communication
African communication scholars put more emphasis on the study of the modern
media of communication which include the radio, television, internet, billboard etc.
The rural dwellers of which development messages are meant, to some extent, may
not be familiar with the modern media.
McDonald and Hearle (1984), define traditional channels of communication as
those communication methods which have been used for centuries in rural areas. Such
as songs, plays, stories, puppet shows etc. They are often neglected, though in many
societies, they may be most powerful ways of communicating.
Ugboajah (1980) views traditional media or oramedia as a means of
communication in the villages and rural communities from time immemorial which
are still relevant in modern times despite the advent of mass media.
The traditional or oramedia may be classified into formal transference media
and informal transference media. The formal transference media are oragnised and
more systematized dissemination of information not between person and person but
between the government and the people. According to Omu (1978:3) the tools
employed were recognised officials and recognizable sounds, signs and symbols, chief
of which are the town criers. Town crier is the gong man or the bell-man who being in
the market places and different parts of the town and villages to announce the
promulgation of laws and regulations, meetings, arrangements for communal work
and generally spread "official" information in the community.
The use of talking drums such as Gangan, Dundun, Gbedu, Bata, Omele and
other drums in South-West Nigeria to announce the appearance and departure of
important persons, and producing music for dancing at social gatherings.
The booming of guns also falls under formal transference media. The booming
of guns is used to announce the death of important personalities and to warn of
imminent danger. The trumpet is used to praise the king, to inform the king about the

arrival of important personalities, an impending invasion or danger at the palace, and

related information.
However, the informal transference media of the oramedia are operated through
informal contact between individuals and person and messages, information, media
rumours and unofficial information are disseminated within the community chief of
which are family visitations, death and burial ceremonies, village festivals, marriage
ceremonies, circumcision feast. These contacts provide a platform through which
people share and exchange information.
The Oral Nature of Traditional Communication
Oral communication remains vital in Africa today. The oral tradition persists
because Africans are still largely illiterate and, in the words of Obeichina (1975), most
live in traditional and culturally and linguistically homogeneous village settings which
foster oral culture. Laye (1984:26) puts it well in his book Guardian of the word
when he says: We touch upon one of the fundamental aspects of the African soul: the
word, the love of palaver and dialogue, the rhythm of talk, that love of speech that can
keep the old men a whole month under the palaver tree, settling some disputes-that is
what really characterizes the African peoples.
This love of words and speech manifests itself in many ways in Africa. In most
African countries, there is an aesthetic and a respect for speech that is embedded in the
culture. The art of rhetoric remains one of the artistic forms most appreciated in the
tradition.
Griots (praise-singers and story tellers have for centuries transmitted news and
information and have influence and importance. They are valued and create systems of
discourse which instruct and entertain.
Griots also keep records, detailing birth, deaths and the history of social,
political and economic relationship within and outside the community. In his or her
stories and tales, the griots use many proverbs, idioms, wise-sayings to form important
part of the common collective consciousness. Siqwana-Ndulo (1989:22) writes that
the proverb validates and augments a trend of argumentation, affirming to the

discourse participants that the speakers view-point has the blessings of an

unquestionable truism.
Ong (1982) considers that people in oral cultures learn by apprenticeship, by
listening and repeating what they hear, by mastering proverbs and ways of combining
and recombining them, by assimilating other formulary materials, and by participating
in a kind of corporate retrospection. In an oral culture, conceptualized knowledge
needs to be repeated often or often or it vanishes. Ong (1982:41) feels that this needs
established a highly traditionalist or conservative mind-set that with good reason
inhibits intellectual experimentation. However, when attempting to bring new ideas
to rural cultures, the stored knowledge is being added to or adjusted; this needs to be
done incrementally. However, (Morrison 1991) observes that this way of learning
orally and incrementally is not understood by Western Communication Scholars,
whose own theories of learning and media effects may be different.
Taxonomies or Categories of Traditional Media
The traditional media have been categorized into ten areas. According to
Wilson (1999) they are:
Idiophones: These are self-sounding instruments which produce sound without the
addition or use of an intermediary medium. They provide sound when shaken,
scratched pricked and so on. Examples are the gong, wood, lock bells, rattle, and
wooden drum. This is in agreement with position of Ibagere (1994:91) who stresses
that idiophones are "self sounding instruments which produce sound when they are
struck, scratched or shaken". And in her own position, Ogweezy (2008:97) says that,
idiophones are percussion instruments capable of producing sound by themselves
(self-sounding instruments). The objects could be struck, pricked, pulled, or pressed
with sizes and shapes.
Membranophones: They are the media on which the sound is produced through the
vibration of membranes, such as all varieties of skin or leather drums. Examples
include the Yoruba talking drams, Dundun, Gangan, Bata, Omele, Sakara, lyalu and
others.
Aerophones: These are the media which produce sounds as a result of a column of air.
They include the flute, whistle, reed pipes, horns, and trumpets. However, Akpabio

(2003) list other aerophones as horns, ivory tusks, ground or reed pipes.
Symbolography: These are symbolic writings or representatives used to communicate
or convey some meanings within a society. The display of fresh palm fronds at
entrance of a farm means that people should keep off, and the passerby will regret the
wrath of the gods if they bypass.
Signals: These are items that give signals or covey a message when used or applied.
Examples include: cannon or gunshots used to announce the death of a king, the
funeral of high chief of important personality. Besides; gunshots are used to announce
the arrival of a king or high chief or great personality to a town, ceremony or function.
Objectifics: These are items which when used or presented convey specific
contextual meanings. This involves the presentation of flower to someone or
personality on arrival to a community to signify love and good affection.
Colour Schemes: This is the use of combination of type of colours to convey some
meanings or send messages. According to Osho (2003:237-288), emotional qualities
of colours and their meanings at white symbolize light, purity and gaiety. This is the
colour of Obatala worshipers. Black represents emotion of mourning and death,
spreads gloom. Red symbolizes excitement, aggressive, danger signal and
friendliness. This is the colour of Ogun worshippers.
Music: Represents folksongs which are produced as satirical songs, praise songs or
generally to praise goods of individuals or criticize wrong doing of individuals in a
society. Music as inspiring, work of arts are emotional in nature through expert
combination of drums, oral renditions, and other musical instruments like trumpet,
gong, rattle and other Africa is very rich in musical arts. The traditional African music
can be classified into the following in the South-West Nigeria: Weere, Apala, Sakara,
Dundun, Dadakuada, Waka, Awurebe, Agidigbo, Fuji, Bata, Juju, Ere-Ijala ode, Ewi
etc.
Extra-mundane Communication: This is the mode of communication between the
living and the dead, the supernatural or super-human being. It is usually done through
incantations, invocations, libation, incense, oath-taking, command of word, witchcraft
etc.

Symbolic displays: These are gestures, signs and physical expression which
symbolize a message. They include sticking out of the tongue, facial expressions,
hands in the pocket, standing akimbo.
The Gradual Move of Nigerian Indigenous Languages into Extinction
We do not begin to consider promoting a course if we cannot identify its
importance and have not been able to evaluate its present state.
Having identified the important connection of indigenous language to the
socio- cultural development of a society, we can go further to evaluate the present
state of our indigenous languages.
According to Ojebode (2012:32), to die, a language moves from being safe, to
being endangered, to being moribund and then to being extinct. Many Nigerian
languages are already moving towards extinction.
The above linguistic situation in Nigeria and in fact Africa in general makes the
newer approaches to development, which all seem to put indigenous African peoples
at the center of the development process, almost unrealistic and impossible in Africa.
For, according to Bodomo (1996; 40), how could we harness indigenous knowledge,
how could we generate local initiative and mass participation in the development
discourse if the elites in Africa continue to use languages that are not the languages of
the indigenous people?
Prah (1993: 50) as cited by Bodomo (1996) puts things in perspective with the
following: The dilemma in Africa with regards to language and development is
that...the elite which is entrusted with the leadership in the development endeavor is
created in, and trapped by the culture of western society, and favors the reproduction
of entire western images in African development. The elites in effect see Africa from
outside, in the language, idioms, images, and experience of the outsider, in as far as
the African mind is concerned. It is unable to relate its knowledge to the realities of
African society. It is estranged from the culture of the masses, but realizes almost as
an afterthought, that development as a simple replication of the western experience is
mission impossible.

The above makes it clear that if Africa does not have to revise its newest
approaches to development within a very short tune again, then the language question
must be causally tied to African development thinking.

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