Hon. Chinyere Emmanuel Igwe PhD representing Port Harcourt 2 federal constitutuency
PREPARATION BY HON. CHINYERE IGWE PhD AT THE KADUNA
INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ON 25/8/2020.
TOPIC: HOW PEACE DEVELOPMENT CAN BE ACHIEVED THROUGH
ENTERTAINMENT.
Peace entails mutual respect, co-habitation, understanding, cordial and
cozy relationship amongst one another. It is a duty owed one another,
just as it is the duty of care owed the citizenry by government through
it’s legislative, executive and judicial actions. The totality of our 1999
constitution as amended is anchored towards ensuring peaceful Nigeria.
It therefore connotes that every aspect and sector of our social,
economic, political, cultural activities must geared towards promotion
of peace. It is in this context that we must use entertainment to not only
promote peaceful development but achievement. Entertainment as a
bye-product of the creative industry is the remaining threshold in
Nigeria that has not been eaten up by the super- structures of
corruption, nepotism, religious fanaticism, political manipulation,
bureaucratic bottleneck, estheticism and what have you.
Information is power and entertainment is the leeway to achieving peace and
development.
Perceptions can be changed by access to media entertainment
but such access should be monitored when been used by minors. Different
types of media entertainments are globally used in the dissemination of
knowledge. The mass media as a veritable tool in achieving peace and
development, needs Freedom of expression as it is not only the grund norm
of the media but also an inalienable and fundamental human right which is vital for the sustenance of peace and development in the
society.
It stands for freedom of speech, the right to information and the
representation of different opinions in the society. Not giving people the
possibility of political participation and not allowing them to express
themselves freely is a major cause of conflict. The United Nations Millennium
Declaration stressed the need “to ensure the freedom of the media to
perform their essential role and the right of the public to have access to
information.
The Entertainment media are significant tools for relaxing and refreshing from
depressions even as Entertainments are also considered to be instruments for
developing society or tool to bringing social change. Presently, a number of
activities is considered to be able to entertain people, such as magazines,
television programs, comics, games, radio channels and movies.
In times past,
entertainment medium has had its limitations especially in terms of
distribution or broadcasting. In this regard, the number of people who could
access the entertainment media was lower than what is presently obtained.
The effective factor enabling entertainment media to be accessible the world
over is the communication technology.
Entertainment media is different and unique from the others because what
they present can be rooted in the consumers’ mind. If an idea presented
through entertainment media is repeatedly watched by audiences, it will be
absorbed by them even without enough media literacy especially when the
entertainment media are available nationwide. It is also worrisome that bad
situations may emerge if people consume it without the requisite knowledge
and or appropriate understanding. Some of these stories cause people to
migrate to cities in search of greener pastures with many ending up being
victims of human-trafficking, terrorism, banditry and many more.
There are a number of entertainments that provides violent scenes and plots
in which such violence can be both visible and invisible wherein audiences
watching it without enough media literacy may have misunderstanding on
how to deal with the conflict and problems.
In protecting young ones and the vulnerable from not ending up as problems
to their Communities and families, it is encouraged that family members play
a significant and vital role in educating people on Entertainment Media with
media literacy.
However, such process may not be achieved where
behaviours which were supposed to be role models are in conflict with
instructions to their children. The idea of enthroning peace and development
can be achieved from the family.
Using mass entertainment media for changing social norms and behavioural
shift which is mostly referred to as “edu-tainment”, for entertainmenteducation cannot be over emphasized.
The World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) group programme;
the World Bank’s Narrating Behavioural Change program of the Development
Impact Evaluation department (DIME-NBC) is measuring the effectiveness of
these approaches through control trials in the International entertainment
industries and Nollywood.
In Nigeria, DIME found that “MTV Shuga, a TV drama broadcast in all Sub
Saharan countries, improved viewers’ HIV knowledge and attitudes towards
HIV+ people after eight months of watching this show. Moreso, the show
doubled HIV testing rates and reduced sexual violence”.
Victor Orozco, lead of the DIME-NBC program and Principal Investigator of
the Shuga study with Eliana La Ferrara and Abhijit Banerjee (2020 Nobel
Laureate in Economics) found that the high impact of these pilots were
greatest for viewers who have identified with the characters.
Indeed, mass entertainment media seem to be the most effective means of
promoting peace and development in the society through its very rich
content. The media used to engage at large scales includes television, movies,
radio, social media and videogames, concerts, peagents and reality shows.
Media can be used in both positive and negative potentials and to achieve
peace, it needs to be aware of conflict resolution theories. Media refers to
both the traditional mass media such as Newspaper, TV, Radio and Social
Media that is centred around blogs, facebook, whatsapp among others. Both
traditional mass media and social media have become an intimately
intertwined media. Journalism and entertainment among others should be
understood to be part of a broader communication ecology that includes a
wide range stakeholders and practices.
The power of entertainment in the achievement of peace can be inferred
from the notion that Entertainment in itself is a self fulfilling phenomenon. As
such, from entertainment comes the reconciliation of man within his
environment, himself and others.
Because Entertainment has so many socio-psychological great effects on the
people, perceptions can be changed by access to media entertainment and as
such, entertainment is a result of considerable intellectual, artistic, cultural,
technological and economic breadth that can be used as a tool in advancing
development in a given society.
Different types of media including Tales by Moonlight is all used in
information dissemination. And peace and development can only be achieved
where there is adequate dissemination of information and such brings about
lasting peace in the society.
Some development commentators, analysts as well as psychologists have
wondered whether entertainment has any significant influence on some of
the biological, social or psychological factors that compose human nature and
to engender development and the answer seem to be yes.
If entertainment is properly equipped and utilized, they can facilitate the flow
of such kind of information which improperly harnessed, will enable the
people form intelligent opinion on National issues and will participate
meaningfully in its actualization.
For as Harrisson have asserted, human creativity is at the heart of
development; entertainment is an embodiment of creativity at various levels
and stages. This will ultimately transform into development if properly harnessed. For example, carrying a whole area of human habitation of film
making can bring about economic activities that can translate into social and
political wellbeing of the people of that area.
Entertainment has social effects which are so noticeable. It has many
different functions in human life, nearly all of which are essentially social.
Thank you.
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