Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu Holds Eight Inaugural Lecture
As media convergence continues to gain momentum, there is growing apprehension from both the academic and professional circles that the new media has created deep disruption and altered the nobility of the conventional system of communication.
The argument is that the new media has grown uncontrollably powerful, slowly discrediting the authenticity and hitherto dominance of the conventional media.
At the Eight Inaugural Lecture of Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu experts were of the agreement that while the new media has come to stay, the conventional media must sit up and reclaim its place while the global audience awaits future technological steps to regulate what people read, watch or hear.
Correspondent Daniel Ezeigwe reports that the theme of the inaugural lecture was, “Mediated Convergences, Cosmo-philosophical Ideologies and the Building of a Modern Nigeria”.
The inaugural lecturer, a professor of Mass Communication and immediate-past Acting Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, Professor Armstrong Aduku Idachaba, in his presentation , said that by gaining intrusive power, the new media has distorted the news process by eliminating the valued conventions of veracity, balance, decency and respect for choice.
The foremost playwright, also stated that even though the disruptiveness of the converged media could hardly be controlled owing to its complex design, the ethos, sacredness and credibility that defined the conventional media must be rediscovered quickly to save it from total collapse.
A former Dean of the Faculty of Social Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Professor Stella Okunna, who participated in the inaugural lecture, believes that it is not a negative story for the converged media since it has availed people the opportunity to source for news at their convenience, and reduced monopoly of the airwaves.
Professor Okunna who is the first female Professor of Mass Communication in Nigeria, also noted that though the threat is increasingly huge, the conventional media still has its audience and retains a certain level of relevance that can hardly be gotten rid of.
The Vice-Chancellor of Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu, Reverend Father Christian Anneke, had, before the lecture, listed the achievements of the institution, which was founded in 2009.
The Chairman of the Inaugural Lecture Committee, Professor Romanus Igudu, in his speech, praised the effort by Professor Idachaba to come out with the academic research and pointed out that it was left for a deliberate approach to be taken to adjust the trend.
Source: abs News
