THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY TELEVISION ON THE DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION IN IDIDEP LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA
CHAPTER ONE
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
1.1 Introduction
This research project is studying the community television as a local medium for information reception. This will disclose peoples view about community viewing centre were people come together to watch television in this out contemporary age. It is true that community television attract people from far and wide to get information in other to educate and inspire people in the society. These are some other medium of information reception but my main concern in this project will practically centre on “community Television”. This research project will make findings on how public television view in our local community affects the people of Ididep Local Government Area.
It will help them process data that answers questions reduce uncertainty and inform or educate the people of Ididep if the government can make available a perfect “Information Reception”, it will influence either positively or negatively the minds of Ididep People. This research work would help us understand the effect and see if we can solve the problem once and for all.
1.2 Television as a Medium of Information
By general agreement, television has been hailed as the most powerful of all existing media of mass communication. Its advantage over the print media and radio are obvious because of its ability to communicate through both sound and vision, the impression it makes is deeper and more lasting and even the illiterate can use it effectively. This is why the government of even poorest developing countries as well as those of the developed nations go a great expense and efforts to install television facilities in their various communities so that the people may be properly informed, educated and entertained. It is important for any nations that the actions of government and other things going on in the nations of government and other things going on in the nations be thoroughly learned and understood by the people. For a developing nation when the people must be properly informed about better approaches to agriculture, health, environmental and social problem. It is even more important that facilities are made available for communication between the people and their rul. For all such purposes, no other medium has a greater potential or can be more effective than television.
1.3 The need for Community Centre
The problems of making television facilities available to all who need them are also well known. There is the problem of power. Television, unlike radio and newspapers can only function where there is adequate electric power. Apart from this, television sets are so expensive that they are not what everyone can afford. These problems become present difficulties when it comes to poor developing countries where television is needed perhaps even more than in already developed countries. It is perhaps because of these problems that, in order to bring television to as many persons as possible in the rural communities at the lowest possible cost, the governments of Nigeria working through their proper agencies decides to create television centre as a public facilities in as many rural areas as possible so that as many persons as possible could congregate round a single television set to watch programmes and become informed and educated. Thus community viewing centers came in to being.
All one needs is hall where hundreds of people can sit in comfort, a television set installed in such a way that the screen can be seen by all power to light the hall and work the set, and may be a care taker with these facilities, community viewing become cheaply available to hundreds of people in such a community. In Akwa Ibom State, the best known community viewing center is at Ikot Akpaden in Mkpat Enin Local government Area, and in Cross Rivers State, there is one at Ikot Omin, a few kilometers from the Calabar metropolis. Both are rural agricultural communities with dense populations, where the literary rate is perhaps lower than 40%, but these communities are progressive and eager to modernize, hence the need for television.
This study is concerned mostly with community viewing center at Ididep. Unfortunately, at the time of this study the centre at Ididep had temporarily ceased to function. The set had gone bad and had not yet been repaired or replaced and the hall was in the state of disuse.
1.4 The Ididep Centre
Ididep is a Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State. Its people are Ibibio and are mostly involved in agriculture producing such as cash crops as oil palm and rubber and such food crops as cassava, yam, maize and plantain. Some of the male populations are involved in farming. The population of the Local government is about thirteen thousand and the community has produced highly rated educators, civil servants, and businessmen. The literacy rate may be as high as 60% among youths, but it is not so high among the older generation. The people are generally aware of the changes far on around them and are eager to keep up with these changes. Perhaps these are the things that make Ididep a good choice of a place to install a community viewing centre.
The Ididep Community viewing centre of the Federal governments, acting through the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) was built in 1984 and serves the hundreds of local people who cannot afford to install, very persons in Ididep do have personal sets, because apart from the lost of TV set, one needs to have a private electric generator to produce the power to work the set.
1.5 Statement of Problem
As much as it is known to the researcher no study has ever been done to assess the extent of use of the Ididep Community viewing centre by the people of that community, nor the impact of that facility on the lives and concerns of the local population. In other words, they have been no study as much as it is know, which has tried to assess whether the goals for which the community viewing centre at Ididep was established have been achieved. This basically is the problem of the study seeks to examine the way the Ididep community viewing centre functions as a local medium for information reception. In other words to what extent the community viewing centre at has Ididep serve to as information reception for the people.
1.6 Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study are as follows:
- To assess the extent of usage of Ididep community viewing centre as an information reception center.
- To determine whether the centre has influenced the social and economic activities of the people.
- To find out the type of programmes the people find most useful and less useful.
- To assess the overall impact of the centre on the lives of the people.
- To ascertain whether the centre fulfils the information of the people.
1.7 Research Questions
The research Questions were formulated as follows:
- To what extent has Ididep community viewing centre been used as an information reception centre?
- What are the types of programme the people find most useful and least useful?
- To what extent has the centre fulfill its goal as an information reception centre?
- What is the overall impact of the centre on the lives of the people?
- To what extent has the centre inference the social economic activities of the people?
1.8 Limitation of the Study
Time and money will be very necessary for this project and this study is limited to media houses in Ididep Local Government Area excluding other local governments such that in every project work, some aspect are so significant such the research problem and solution.
This research work is limited to Ididep Local Government Area assists study in order to make the project more simple précised, controlled and easy to make findings and also build focus in the area of concentration within the Community Viewing Centre (C.V.C) over there. It will also save time and money this is due to the specific project topic given to me by my eminent lecturer.
1.9 Definition of Terms
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