The role of the media as an instrument of cultural policy, an inter-level

facilitator and image promoter

The media are one of the fore champions for the formation of cultural

policies in a world where everything including our very own culture seems to be

extinct. It is not rare to see young men and women, exact formal greeting to each

other in English or even call their elder ones (Father or mother) by name. This is

due to the extinction of our cultural value and our social system which was

hitherto now embedded in our upbringing. The media has sold different versions

of why this seems to be happening but none can be further than the fact that a

country as great as Nigeria has lost its focus and currently has little or no cultural

policies in place to ensure the longevity of our multivariate cultures.

From broadcast media to the print, a seemingly fascist ideal is being

painted where our indigenous ideologies are seen as somewhat archaic and are

replace with those from the western countries which are termed as the proper

way of doing things. For instance, a person offering greeting and prostrating in

modern day Nigeria is somewhat seen as a disgrace to the person being offered

the greeting, young men and women can even offer their hand in exchange for a

handshake from an elder one whereas this was not so before.

Also, the development of several folktales into the childrens growing

process was a choice time for parents in the former times as this allowed them

communicate some of these folks to their children in a language that they can

understand (their mother tongue), yet stories these days are told to children in

English and other easier to comprehend languages giving the children the notion

that they can communicate with same with their parents without first learning their

mother tongue. Furthermore, events that have cultural and traditional

significance, in various ethnicities have been forgotten or abandoned totally.

These are some of the problems that necessitate the furtherance of a cultural

policy in a nation.
 Cultural policies are designed by the government to ensure the continuity

of cultures existent in a country. These cultures policies are formulated to ensure

that certain aspects of these cultures are propagated through programmes

created by the government to foster the participation of indigents under the same.

Some of these cultural policies have over time proved useful as they have ensure

that certain culture which are near extinction receive the necessary publicity to

raise them out of extinction. One of such notable cultural policies, is that of the

argungu fishing festival in kebbi state

Before discussing the role of the media as an instrument of cultural policy,

it becomes pertinent that, broadly speaking, the relationship between culture and

the media is one of inclusion. Culture, defined in the widest sense, incorporates

all articulated symbolic practices (hence a culture of dressing or a culture of

everyday life). Contemporary theory (primarily in the field of cultural studies) puts

forward a social definition of culture, as the description of a separate way of life in

which specific meanings and values are not only expressed in the arts and

education, but also in institutions and everyday behaviour (Williams, 1965:58). In

this sense, culture also incorporates the media: the media are a particular form of

cultural practice, which have experienced a remarkable development in

contemporary society, assuming an increasingly large number of active social

roles.

On the other hand, when speaking of cultural policy that focuses on

specific areas of culture(among them basic cultural heritage, cultural activity, the

culture industry), the media become a intermediary betweento use the

traditional termsculture and society, meaning that they mediate in a process of

conveying cultural products from the producers to the consumers. In this capacity,

the media are always, even implicitly, instruments of cultural policy.

negative image, one which encompasses villages, half naked people, old earthen

houses, and most basically the dark ages, where everything was done in a

medieval way. This has been the perception of Nigerians as they strive towards

modernization. The mass migration and exodus of young teeming individuals

from the rural communities to urban centers are examples of the battered images

which the rural areas have continued to thrive upon over the years.

The government have in these areas not helped matters as the necessary

developmental projects that need to be carried out to uplift the perception of the

indigents from such places about their place of domicile is not carried out and in a

bid to make it or free them self from such archaic mentality, the migrate leaving

such placed underdeveloped and also destroying the altered image of the

community. These same migrants are the ones who take the stories of how the

rural centers are; basically underdeveloped and backward in civilization.

The media also have created a faade of ill-truths such that people want to

no longer return from such places where they originally came from. Pictures of

witchcraft, ritual killings, exorcisms, and basically mundane practices are the

levels of images that the media project about these rural centers. It is herein that

cultural policies play a vital role. The task of formulating cultural policy would then

involve a clarification of the role of the media in promoting the objectives of that

cultural policy.

Objectives of the study

1. To discuss extensively role of the mass media in promoting cultural policies

in Nigeria

2. To discuss the efforts of the media towards promoting cultural policies

policies.

4. To Proffer meaningful recommendations as to how the nations cultural

image can be repositioned

The Media and Cultural Policy: Central Issues

The first set of problems stems from the general relationship between

policyand thus cultural policy as welland the media. Although it is impossible

to provide a uniform description of the status of the media in transition countries,

certain common features become apparent. There are two key issues in this field:

the issue of media ownership (private or public/state) and, in the case of state

ownership, the official management structures and the practical ways in which

political forces influence the media.

In all cases, governments must:

a) Collectively strive to guard democratic society from excessive

concentrations of private media ownership (Mundy, 2000:89);

b) Create programming standards and diverse audience participation (state-

owned radio and television, state-owned press);

c) safeguard the public right to access to national, cultural and linguistic

minorities;

d) resist pressures from all bodies towards the commercialization of all

cultural heritages.

e) Contribute to the development of cultural integrity of minor ethnicities

The majority of these tasks (b, and in particular, c and e) are normally the

direct responsibility of the national Ministry of Culture. As a specific example, the

new law on public-owned radio and television, drafted by the Ministry of Culture of
the Republic of Croatia in 2002, as well as a series of successful measures it

launched with the purpose of protecting non-profit cultural activities (e.g.

publishing).

The second set of problems stems from the types of media and their

diverse roles. When cultural policy is used to set down measures in relation to the

media, it must be done on the basis of an analysis (however simple) of the media

situation in a given country (or region). Such an analysis of types of media

includes the following elements:

a) question of ownership (private, public, mixed);

b) broadcast range and audience; percentage of viewers, listeners, readers;

c) type of media (broadcasting: television, radio; the press; new

technologies);

d) degree of specialty (news and general media; media specialising in culture

or specific fields of culture).

The most vital point in formulating a cultural policy of conduct towards the

media is the obvious gaping crevasse between the various types of media: those

which have high-circulation (a large number of viewers/listeners) but are not

primarily interested in culture, and those which have low-circulation (a small

audience/readership) but higher standards and more exacting criteria in

portraying cultural themes. The principal characteristic of high-circulation media is

their treatment of culture as a separate field, as something of a ghetto,

dedicating separate broadcasts or special sections to it. These contributions

(broadcasts or printed features) are regularly placed at the periphery of central

topics (with precedence over sport and weather reports, but second to local

crime, tabloidesque news and human interest pieces), and according to surveys

of viewers/readers they have a much lower priority than central news broadcasts.
Specialised broadcasts on television dealing with culture and the arts (fine arts,

literature, and so forth) are normally at the bottom of the viewer ratings and are

scheduled in unattractive time-slots: either early in the afternoon, combined with

educational broadcasts, or late at night. In my opinion, the fundamental reason for

this in transition countries is that, lacking a comprehensive cultural policy and

cultural development strategy during the 1990s, these countries inherited the

practice of treating culture as something separate from the social context, and

above it. Although this separation is often explained as elitism, as a sign of

high culture, I believe that it brought about a series of negative consequences,

the most fundamental of which, bases cultural practice on the principle of

exclusion (cultural is for the above average) rather than inclusion (lets secure

the conditions for transmitting culture to the largest possible number of people) .

The political heritage of transitional countries, as typically centralised states,

includes the notion of culture as an activity representing the state. In media

practice, this means that the major media promote for the most part those cultural

activities which directly represent the state, most often on the back of the idea of

national cultural identity: staging historical themes in which the national and

cultural are unified, representative exhibitions, neo -conservatism, favouring a

concern for heritage over the promotion of contemporary cultural products.

Objectives of Cultural Policy Toward the Media

When considering the relationship between cultural policy and the media, the

following primary themes should be taken into account:

a) bridging the gap between high and low culture, between elite and pop

culture;

b) creating a strategy of media openness to new segments of the public rather

than closing in to narrow specialist groups (which, according to available

transition countries);

c) creating a strategy of improved criteria and raised standards in promoting

cultural content in high-circulation media and news broadcasts which

include culture reports;

d) supporting cultural projects which have no recognisable commercial value;

refusing to engage in futile competitions with the commercial market;

e) promoting a dimension of the new in culture in relation to existing culture.

Cultural Administration and Cultural Institutions in relation to the Media

Administration in the field of culture in transition countries (at national and local

levels and in individual cultural institutions) does not make use of professionally

trained staff, qualified to communicate with the media. While a feature of political

structures is that they are, in principle, still closed to the media, showing a certain

apprehension and passivity towards them, cultural institutions generally employ

inadequately trained staff who simultaneously perform marketing, advertising and

public relations functions. Cultural policy vis--vis the media should be based

primarily on the perception that the media are allies in the promotion of cultural

values and objectives, and that those working in the cultural field should have a

proactive stance toward the mediain short that they should offer content to the

media on a continual basis for promotion, in a form which the media can

understand, and in which they can convey the message as mediators. Cultural

administration charged with the task of communicating with the media must learn

the language of the media (media discourse) and their rules of behaviour, rather

than remain closed to the media on the feeble pretext that the media are

politicised, scandalous or kitschy. Whatever the character of the media in a

given area, cultural administration at the municipal, regional or national level

can only accept the rules of the game as they are presented on the media scene

and transmit its own, high-quality media-suited messages.

Promotion of Cultural Objectives

Every cultural administration or cultural institution needs to have a strategy for

media actions. Such a strategy should include:

a) regular information on the routine cultural activities of individual institutions

(press conferences, bulletins, websites);

b) formulation of media strategies for each individual cultural event, from

advanced promotional activities to concluding assessments;

c) selecting and maintaining links with permanent media patrons who also

assist in sponsorship initiatives;

d) varied means of contact with reporters: press screenings and productions,

informal communications.

The promotion of cultural events and cultural products is most effective

through the promotion of personsthose, that is, who produce culture. The

personalization of culture and cultural events, rather like the notion of

individualised reception (creating the feeling in the consumer that a cultural

product is intended specifically for him/her), are the fundamental principles of

cultural strategy towards the media.

Cultural policy must additionally be tailored to the needs of its various

fields. The cultural heritage, contemporary cultural activities and the culture

industry all require different media strategies. The cultural heritage is an

exceptionally difficult challenge for media promotion, as certain procedures need

cultural heritage can be conducted with the help of the third sectorwith links to

tourism promotion, and of the public media in the field of educational

broadcasting. On the other hand, the culture industry (motion pictures, music,

and, to a certain extent, publishing) has its own media promotion mechanisms

in the sense of promotion in the culture market. Here cultural policy measures

must be reduced to a minimum. Finally, the real challenge for cultural policy in

relation to the media is the production of contemporary art, which demands

proactive, contextualized activity at the local level. The local media, with their

more focused outreach can be most effective in the promotion of contemporary

artists and their products.

Providing information through the media implies first and foremost an

awareness of communication through the media. This means institutions must

obtain feedback on the effect of their media messages as well as on the forms of

direct communication with the public (open mailboxes, open telephone lines,

open office hours).

Formation of Media Identities and Roles

In the last quarter-century, the idea of cultural identity has been replaced

with that of national identity. In my opinion, cultural identity is not based on

national identity in the sense of ethnicity. Media promotion of the idea of cultural

identity must not portray it as the result of unification processes nor of reduction

of differences. On the contrary, cultural identity must be promoted in the plural, as

a network of cultural identities which emerge through the blend of linguistic,

poetic, aesthetic and cultural differences which interact and coexist. The idea of

multiculturalism must also be promoted as a means of cultural communication in

Multiculturalism preserved within the borders of one nationally and culturally

dominant region (e.g. concern for the local customs of minorities in a limited area)

is not productive; what should instead be supported is multiculturalism as a form

of intra-regional communication and cooperation. Cultural and sub-cultural

identities, local, national and regional identities, should be promoted as

simultaneously existing identities, which are complementary rather than mutually

exclusive. In this vein, I believe that it is exceptionally important to promote intra-

regional projects that bring countries together based on the logic of cultural rather

than ethnic identity. Good examples of this are cultural projects associated with

the courses of individual rivers, such as the Danube or the Sava, which create a

common cultural sphere regardless of geopolitical borders.

Taken as a whole, the region of South- east Europe does not have a

currently formulated cultural identity: even todays image of South-east Europe is

based on nineteenth century notions that Western Europe has created of the

other, personified in the stereotype of the barbaric Balkans. The question of the

possibility of forming a cultural identity for the region through media promotion

immediately confronts the problem of a deficit in the common media scene.

Whether in broadcasting or the press, the South-eastern European region lacks

media mechanisms that could function to form a cultural identity and to ensure its

media promotion, both within the region or outside of it. In the promotion of their

own cultural values, countries in the region must insist on internal diversity and

individuality, on images of themselves as new and culturally productive

communities that transform over time, to replace the foreign media promotion of

Balkan countries as fossilized by the preservation of their traditionally and

nationally grounded heritage, as has generally been the case so far. The nature
of the media as the scene of communication must contribute to mutual knowledge

and recognition, the exchange of programmes and content, and the sharing of

experiences and links in similar cultural and social contexts.

Conclusions

Having identified the central issues to be addressed, further action needs to be

developed and pursued in two main areas:

Education and Training

Two types of programmes should be considered in the formulation of cultural

policy in relation to the media, with the objective of finding concrete mechanisms

for promotion in individual fields and through different types of media, based on

an awareness of the medias role in the promotion of cultural values and goods.

1. Educational programmes concerned with the training of administrative and

management staff in culture, in the field of public relations and media

communication, promotion and marketing;

2. Educational programmes aimed at specialised supplementary training for

reporters and other media professionals who are involved in specific cultural

fields.

Research

Special research should trace the relationship between culture and the media by

analysing the results of media actions, promotional programmes and media

sponsorships. This means it should monitor the effects of the role of media

promotion in the formation of public perceptions of individual cultural products or

events. The monitoring of the results of media actions and cultural activities
should become an ongoing commitment, in statistical analysis of the numbers of

visitors, as well as analysis of the financial impact of individual cultural events.

In a theoretical way, cultural studies should also deal with the general role of the

media in the formation of ideas on culture in contemporary society, particularly

the complex relations that emerge in the confrontation between the traditionally

imposed elitist representative culture and various forms of sub-cultures and pop

culture.
 Reference

Eagleton, Terry: The Idea of Culture, Blackwells 2000.

Graziani, Serge; La communication culturelle de ltat, Presses universitaires de

France, Paris 2000.

Lloyd, David & Thomas, Paul: Culture and the State, Routledge, London 1998

Mundy, Simon: Cultural Policy, A short guide, Council of Europe 2000. Williams,

Raymond: The Long Revolution, Penguin 1965.