INTRODUCTION
The society places a higher status on work done by men
than women who often do things like caring for children, cooking and the likes.
There is a high level of violence against women in all countries of the world.
There is also discrimination against women in areas of family law, inheritance,
property and land ownership. In Nigeria, women are not well represented at all
levels of decision making in the society, though they are a significant 48
percent of Nigeria’s population according to the National Population Census in
2006 (Oluniyi 2006).
The
situation however is not peculiar to Nigeria. It is a global issue, and Nigeria
is one of the countries that make up the world. For example, women who choose
to go into politics are often sidelined by their male counterparts. In the
society, some see them as irresponsible women because it is assumed that they
will not have time for their children and other responsibilities at home. Also
when they go for political rallies or meeting and do not come back home on the
same day, it is assumed that it is an opportunity for them to flirt with other
men.
It can not be concluded, however, that nothing has been
done in this area. It has got international concern, such that one of the
Millennium Development Goal is promoting gender equality and women empowerment.
Though, the equality of women and men has been accepted as a fundamental human
right since the adoption of the United Nations Charter in 1945, yet discrimination
against women in Nigeria still persist. Many international agreements such as
the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women
(1979), the World Conference on Human Rights (1993), and the Millennium
Development Goals (2000) have all highlighted the need for countries to take
action against discriminatory practices.
Some of the reasons why there is gender inequality and
low women empowerment include; poverty, cultural and religious
misinterpretation, early marriage and teenage pregnancy. It can be said that
wrong information and orientation have contributed in no small amount to this
problem. This paper is not an attempt to promote non submissiveness of wives to
their husbands in the name of equality. It is, but an attempt to promote
equality of opportunities given to both genders, to succeed at whatever good
cause they choose in the society.
This
paper was informed by the gender disparity that is apparent in the Nigerian
society. Also, enough has not been done in the constant use of the mass media
to facilitate the achievement of gender equality and women empowerment.
OPERATIONAL
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Mass
media: This can be defined as any channel of communication
that has the ability to reach a widely dispersed, heterogeneous audience.
Gender
equality: According to
Global Education (2011):
Gender equality refers to the equal valuing of the
roles of women and men. It works to overcome the barriers of stereotypes and prejudices
so that both sexes are able to equally contribute to, and benefit from
economic, social, cultural and political developments within society.
Millennium Development Goals: According to the
United Nations (2000):
The millennium development goals are eight
international development goals that all 192 United Nations member States and
at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year
2015.
The
Millennium Development Goals according to the United Nations (2000) includes,
Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, Achieving universal primary education,
Promoting gender equality and empowering women, Reducing child mortality rate,
improving maternal health, Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases,
Ensuring environmental sustainability, and Developing a global partnership for
development. The third goal is our concern here, and it is ‘to promote gender
equality and empower women.’ The target is to eliminate gender disparity in
primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
The yardstick for measuring success includes; ratio of boys in primary,
secondary and tertiary institution, Share of women in wage and employment in
non-agricultural sector, and Proportion of seats held by women in national
parliament.
THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK
Since almost all issues in the
communication field can be located in one or more existing theories, no matter
how remotely connected, the use of the mass media in the achievement of gender
equality and women empowerment as a Millennium Development Goal can be located
in the following overlapping mass communication theories; The Agenda Setting
Theory, The Gatekeeping Theory, and Value Change Theory.
Agenda Setting Theory: According
to Folarin (2002: 75), “Agenda Setting implies that the mass media predetermine
what issues are regarded as important at a given time in a given society.” He
further observed that certain elements are involved in the Agenda Setting Theory.
They include, the quality or frequency of reporting, prominence given to the
reports through headline casting, pictures and layout in newspapers and other
print media or timing on radio and television, the degree of conflict generated
in reports, and cumulative media-specific effects over time. This paper fall
into the framework of this theory because one of the intentions of this paper
is to bring to the fore, the possibility of using the mass media to create what
people constantly think about.
Gatekeeping Theory: According
to Ekeli, as cited by Folarin(2002: 96):
Gatekeeping is nothing but volountary
self-censorship performed by the media themselves. Gatekeeping emanates from
the understanding by journalists that apart from legal restrictions on what is
to be published, including photographs, journalists have a moral duty to be
socially responsible to their readers in whatever materials they package for
them.
It must, however, be noted that
gatekeeping is not done only in the print media as Ekeli suggested. It is done
as well in broadcast media. The ‘self-censorship’ is not only about determining
what is reported, but by inclusion of the Agenda Setting Theory, how much it is
reported. The ‘media or internal gatekeepers’ include the reporter who decides
on what to report and how to report it, sub-editors, editors, even the owner of
the media house and every other people involved in the process of getting news
or issues to the audience.
The justification for the use of this
theory is to bring to the fore that media gatekeepers can set agenda or can be
used to set agenda. There are also external gatekeepers that include the
government, advertisers, opinion leaders, religious, ethnic, professional, and
political groups. To use the mass media effectively in achieving gender
equality and women empowerment as a Millennium Development Goal, the internal
and external gatekeepers identified are crucial.
Value Change Theory: Value
Change Theory is a sub-set of the psychodynamic model, which makes use of
‘comparative feedback’ to induce attitudinal change (Folarin 2002). Our belief
system, to a large extent constitutes what our value system is. Our value system
in turn influences what our attitudes are, and our attitudes dictate what our
behavior will be. The value change theory states that if an individual is made
to believe that his or her attitude and behavior compared to other peoples’
attitude and behavior is no longer sociable, a change will be triggered. The
justification for the location of this paper within this theory is the need to
effect a desired change in our belief system towards gender equality and women
empowerment in Nigeria.
Achievement of the Millennium Development
Goals of gender equality and women empowerment has had its drawbacks,
challenges and success which necessitated this paper. Therefore, we shall take
a brief look at them.
CHALLENGES AND SUCCESS OF ACHIEVING
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOAL 3
Without proper education for both
genders, there can be no gender equality because no right thinking nation today
will place her destiny in the hands of an uneducated person. Hence, education
forms part of the yardstick for measuring the achievement of gender equality
and women empowerment.
Christine and Njoku (2007), observed
that girls’ access to basic education in Nigeria, especially Northern states
have remained low. As few as 20 percent of women in the North West and North
East of the country are literate and have attended school. The 2006 National
School Census (NSC) revealed a Net Enrollment Ratio of 80.6 percent, suggesting
that a substantial proportion or 19 percent of primary school age population
(6-11 years) is not enrolled in primary schools nationwide. This represents
about 5 million Nigerian children aged 6-11 years that do not go to school. The
Net Attendance ratio is put at 60.1 percent, translating into about 40 percent
level of non-attendance among primary school age children.
The efforts put into achieving
gender equality and women empowerment by the government are acknowledged.
Though the success is not yet at the level it is supposed to be if it is to be
realized by 2015, they must not go unmentioned. The Federal Government of
Nigeria, during the tenure of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) launched the
National Economic Development Strategy (NEEDS). The State governments did same thing
by establishing the state Economic Development Strategy (SEEDS). The local
governments also followed suit through the Local Government Economic
Development Strategy (LEEDS). The Federal Government then, raised a committee
on the Millennium Development Goals that guides the Nation in their attainment.
The late President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007 launched the 7 point agenda, with the
Millennium Development Goals at its centre, which further reinforced
government’s commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
The
government also has policies to help in achieving the Millennium Development
Goals of gender equality and women empowerment. Such policies include putting
in place the process for passing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) bill. Convention on the rights of the
girl-child guideline, has been ratified and passed in 18 states. There is also
the development of National Gender Policy. The Girl Education Project (GEP) was
undertaken as a joint project by the Federal Government of Nigeria, the
Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Nations Children
Education Fund (UNICEF).
On
women empowerment, wives of Nigeria’s past Presidents have shown some level of
concern about women empowerment. One notable effort that made use of the mass
media extensively and effectively was the ‘Better Life Programme for Rural
Women’ which was founded in 1987 by the late Maryam Babangida. This programme
prompted wives of President after her, wives of State Governors and their local
government counterparts to float their own programmes under different names but
with the same objectives about women. Mrs. Maryam Abacha founded the Family
Support Programme. Mrs. Fati Abubakar’s Women’s Right Advancement and
Protection Alternative (WRAPA) still exists today as a non-governmental
organization. Hajia Turai Yar’Adua founded Women and Youth Empowerment
Foundation (WAYEF). Now, Mrs. Dame Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s present First
lady has established Women for Change Initiative.
According
to the Millennium Development Goals 2010 report in Nigeria, a gradual
improvement in the proportion of girls enrolled in primary school, though
noteworthy, is not yet enough to meet the target. There are signs of
backsliding in tertiary education. Although few women currently hold political
positions, the new policy framework is encouraging. Regional variations in the
determinants of gender inequality means that state and local governments’
efforts will be critical to the achievement of the goal. The statistics are
presented below:
Figure
1: Actual and projected proportion of pupils starting Primary 1 who reach
Primary 5 as at 2008
Projected (5 year): Linear projection based on
average change over previous 5 years
Figure
3: Actual and projected proportion of seats held by women in the National
Parliament
as at 2009
Figure
2: Actual and projected ratio of girls to boys in secondary education as at
2008
Projected (5 year): Linear projection based on average change over previous 5 years
Projected (5 year): Linear projection based on average
change over previous 5 years
Apart
from the report itself agreeing that progress achieved so far “is not yet
enough to meet the target”, there is still discrimination against women in
areas of inheritance, property, land ownership, and other related issues. This
justifies the need to use the mass media effectively to push for gender
equality and women empowerment as a Millennium Development Goal.
THE USE OF THE MASS MEDIA TO ACHIEVE MILLENNIUM
DEVELOPMENT
GOAL
3
In
achieving the Millennium Development Goal of gender equality and women
empowerment, the sustained use of
Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) coupled with the use of ‘Mass
Media Integration Concept’ (MMIC), will a create an effective synergy.Boone and
Kurtz (2004:496), defines Integrated Marketing Communication as the
“combination of all promotional activities to produce a unified,
customer-focused promotional message.” This means that a singular message
should be used in all the elements of marketing communication, which include,
advertising, public relations, publicity, and other persuasive marketing
communication. Mass Media Integration Concept is the use of two or more types
of mass media simultaneously to achieve the same objective.
When
you switch on your television set for example, and you get the message ‘Be
gender sensitive in all you do’, you switch on your radio and get the same
message, you open the newspaper and you still find the same message, the idea
unconsciously starts to settle in the mind. Keeping a lasting impression on the
mind of your target audience involves using the same slogan in all the
integrated media. This was successfully done with the initiative of the former
Minister of Information, Professor (Mrs.) Dora Akunyili in her effort at
rebranding Nigeria with the slogan: Nigeria; Good People, Great Nation. The 7
point agenda of the late President Yar’Adua became a creed of sorts through the
use of the Mass Media Integration Concept.
As
an agenda setting theory-related issue, it can not be over-emphasized that the
media has an important role to play by laying emphasis on gender equality and
women empowerment, since the focus of this paper is to make use of the media to
achieve the set goal. An issue which this paper does not intend to delve into,
but which provides a good scenario is the focus of the Nigerian Press on
political and government related issues at the detriment of developmental
issues such as technology and industrialization. The news on an aircraft
assembly plant which is to be situated in Nigeria is an economic development
issue that is supposed to be ‘played up.’ It is sound to reason that this will
create more job opportunities. Though the headline “Investors Plan Aircraft
Assembly Plant in Nigeria” was on the bottom right corner of the front page of
the Punch Newspaper edition of 7th March, 2011, the body of the news
itself is on page 20. The newspaper has not made any follow-up report since
then.
The
mass media can play up an issue and can as well do otherwise. The mass media
can shift the attention of the nation away from government and
politics-centered reporting to economic-centered
reporting. This brings us to the gatekeeping theory which is closely related to
agenda setting theory. The style and size of the headline, the page where it is
reported, the length of airtime allotted, and the frequency of its reportage
will be made possible by the fusion of agenda setting theory and gatekeeping
theory.
A
change can be brought about in gender equality and women empowerment which
hitherto has been a source of concern in Nigeria when the attention of the
country is continually drawn to it. An example can be drawn from the Freedom of
Information bill recently passed by the House of Representatives. Though the
bill has not been passed by the Senate, it can be said that media gatekeepers
at the Punch Newspaper are busy setting an agendum with the frequency and
manner of reportage. In the 26th February, 2011 edition of the same
paper, on page 8 is this headline, “NPAN hails Reps for passing FOI bill… urges
Senate, Jonathan on assent.”Page 9 of the same edition reads, “FOI: Senate
awaits committee on information.” On the 2nd March 2011 edition of
the same paper, the page 2 reads, “FOI: Jonathan’s adviser, Abba-Aji under fire
over comments.” On the 4th March 2011, the same newspaper on page 7
has this headline, “Catholic Knights urge senate to pass FOI bill.” On page 10
of the edition is this headline, “Why I oppose FOI bill –Abba-Aji.” On page 11
of the same edition is this headline, “FOI bill: Media owners demand Senate
passage within two weeks… Mark assures on early passage.” That was not all. The
editorial of the same edition on page 14 reads, “As FOI bill goes to Senate.”
On page 10 of the 10th March 2011 edition of the same newspaper is
this headline, “FOI bill will strengthen journalism –Jakande.”
With
the examples given above about the Freedom of Information bill, it could be
observed that the media gatekeepers are setting an agendum. The agendum is the
passage of the Freedom of Information bill. The frequency of the reportage can
be observed. Another important thing to note is that all the headlines and news
concerning the Freedom of Information bill comes in the first fourteen pages.
The editorial, which is the official opinion of the newspaper, also harped on
the need for the quick passage of the bill.
The
Nigerian mass media advocated for democracy in the country and it was achieved.
The Nigerian mass media has done it before and can still do it again. The
Nigerian mass media can be used to set the agenda for gender equality and women
empowerment as a Millennium Development Goal and it can be achieved as well.
In
measuring the success of the use of the mass media in promoting gender equality
and women empowerment as a Millennium Development Goal, a yearly appraisal
should be carried out using certain criteria, some of which are suggested here.
The increase or decrease in the number of female enrollment in schools from
primary to tertiary institutions should be measured. The percentage of women
involved in decision making at the top level against the proportion required by
Millennium Development Goal agreement. The level of reduction in poverty among women,
most especially in the rural areas should also be measured. The valuing of work
done by female in terms of remuneration compared to their male counterparts.
The level of attitudinal change towards women in terms of violence and so on
should also be measured.
This
evaluation will show the effectiveness of using the mass media as a tool for
achieving gender equality and women empowerment as a Millennium Development
Goal. However, the application of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)
coupled with what this writer of this paper term as ‘Mass Media Integration
Concept’ (MMIC) must be sustained in order to achieve maximum result.
CONCLUSION
This paper has taken a look at the
use of the mass media to achieve gender equality and women empowerment as a Millennium
Development Goal. The mass media has been used to effect change in the past and
can still be used. If the mass media can be integrated and marketing
communication integrated as well with the same message, gender equality and
women empowerment will be achieved. It must, however, be stressed that since
the change will be gradual, the use of the mass media must be sustained.
REFERENCE
Attaran,
A (2005). “An Immeasurable Crisis: A Criticism of the Millennium Development
Goals
and Why They Cannot be Measured” PLOS Medicine. Vol. 2, No 10 page 318
Boone,
L. and Kurtz, D (2004). Contemporary
Marketing 11th edition. Ohio: Thomas Learning.
Christine,
J and Njoku, G (2007). “Nigeria’s Fact Sheets on Girls Education”
2007]
Dawuda,
G (2011). “National Census Analysis”
www .nigeriamasterweb.com/blog/index.php/2011/01/13/2006_national_census_ analysis_the_women [Accessed
2nd March, 2011]
Folarin,
B. (2002). Theories of Mass
Communication: An introductory text 2nd edition.
Abeokuta: Link Publications.
Ogbemudia,
O (2010). “MDGs Presented by Fernhill Management Services”
Oxford
English Minidictionary (1999). “Equal.” New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
Laninhun,
B. A (2002). “Communication for Development Purposes: A Gender Perspective” In
Soola,
E. O (ed) Communicating for Development
Purposes. Ibadan: Kraft Books Limited
pp.
73-86
[Accessed 3rd March, 2011]
Oluniyi, D. A
(2006). “Nigeria’s Official Population”
Saturday Punch
Newspaper (2011). “NPAN hails Reps for passing FOI bill… urges Senate,
Jonathan
on assent.” Lagos: Punch (Nig.) Limited. Vol. 691, No 1521 page 8
The Punch
Newspaper (2011). “FOI: Senate awaits committee on information.” Lagos:
Punch
(Nig.)
Limited. Vol. 691, No 1521 page 9
The Punch
Newspaper (2011). “FOI: Jonathan’s adviser, Abba-Aji under fire over comments.”
Lagos:
Punch (Nig.) Limited. Vol. 17, No 20830 page 2
The Punch Newspaper
(2011). “Catholic Knights urge senate to pass FOI bill.” Lagos: Punch
(Nig.)
Limited. Vol. 17, No 20, 832 page 7
The Punch
Newspaper (2011). “Why I oppose FOI bill –Abba-Aji.” Lagos: Punch (Nig.)
Limited. Vol. 17, No 20, 832 page 10
The Punch
Newspaper (2011). “FOI bill: Media owners demand Senate passage within two
weeks… Mark assures on early passage.” Lagos:
Punch (Nig.) Limited. Vol. 17, No 20832
page 11
The Punch
Newspaper (2011). “As FOI bill goes to Senate.” Lagos: Punch (Nig.) Limited.
Vol. 17, No 20, 832 page 14
The Punch
Newspaper (2011). “FOI bill will strengthen journalism –Jakande.” Lagos: Punch
(Nig.) Limited. Vol. 17, No 20, 833
page 10
The Punch
Newspaper (2011). “Investors Plan Aircraft Assembly Plant in Nigeria” Lagos:
Punch (Nig.) Limited. Vol. 17, No 20, 833 page
1
No comments:
Post a Comment