COMMENTARY MEDIA AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN GAMBIAResponsible information sharing By Sarjo Bayang, United Kingdom
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December 10, 2005
Information is a product of enterprise. The new millennium is more readily set for the business of information in unprecedented variety. Like any other product of enterprise, information is being used to persuade, educate, and some times deceive the wider user public. It can be information about products and services. It can be information about people and places. It can also be information about ideas and processes. Television, print media, and in recent times Internet becomes the most widely available instrument being used to trade information. Whatever the means and methods employed, people in the information industry have their purpose and targets readily set. It is easier to cast misleading information than it is to retrieve it. When for instance TV stations and newspapers release stories and images about far away people and places, a type of impression is given. What lies beyond the screen and the script can be a different thing. Not only that, but no condition remains the same
all the time.
There is need for responsible dealing when it comes to information. How far will it take society if on each and every day we get information people and their actions without the next level of using that information to advance our livelihood? A platform for responsible information exchange is just one of those things to keep civil society and the media in mutual interplay. Responsible media work goes beyond reports about what public personalities do or say. That is enough to be a news slot for one reason that the people need knowing how those they choose to keep watch over the public good are going about the task. When information is all about keeping track of where public personalities go and what they do, wider people needs picking up issues that have bearing on the movement and conduct of public personalities.
In Gambia, flow of public information runs on the line of events about personalities. It can be taken beyond that into what there is to make issues out of. Certainly, even the normal conducts of ordinary people have some issue base. What is not happening in Gambia is to subject events to analytical processes. In such a process, people's receptive capacity and their levels of critical issue focus will become enhanced. Information becomes both input and output. Whatever information obtains from the media or from the undercurrents of the social rumour sources will be subject to value assessment. If such information has nothing or little to advance the course of social debate, it does not get going for long. Present trends are that waves of information overflow in revolving currency. Information is exchanged on the basis of how much it gratifies people's desire for what is the hottest on public lips. Even though there may be issue value ingredients in what the rumour says or what comes
on TV or radio, such issues are not picked on. This can go for generations without adding potency to the people's level of sophistication in using information as instrument for social advancement. Public personalities often exploit the information environment of the social system by many ways. When they command the mass media that is the most ready instrument at their use. They do one thing and it is reported at least five times in the week. Over TV, radio, and the print media outlets, one event is featured more than what it deserves to be. Often there is no feedback process. So it all looks normal. To generate another event for media publicity public personalities keep themselves busy for attention. Radio stations sing the news in their version while the television paints the picture in colourful portions. This goes on day after day, week after week, year in, year out. When will society advance with such blend of news that is not addressing mind building needs of the audience? In
the environment of media and civil society partnership, information serves a development use rather than being generated for sensational journalistic desires. Those who choose to deliver information for the sake of it will not continue to keep their place in the market. It may take little time to get the public tuned up to the use of critically issue-focused information. The people become choosers of what their information desires dictate. It does not matter what levels of literacy the audience is. This is not about addressing just the literate populace. Once a source is identified for producing issue driven information, even those who don't read will find out from those who read. In the case of radio or TV stations that carry issue driven news, they become winners. The era of sensational journalism will eventually fade away. Of course there is a sector of society who simply feed on rumours and sensational news. They will still be there.
Partnership of the media and civil society in Gambia is a conscious drive people of shared values. The media with its varied instruments of communication is able to take lead by creating a blend of information that is inviting the occasion for a reflective and critically focused information exchange. Taking chance of the people's information discrepancies is not being fair to the wider public. But who will take this lead? Those with the capability to identify latent opportunities for the supply of issue driven information will find no trouble to start it all. It has to be sooner than later. The world is moving, and so people and their minds have it to move too. If there is a competition to win in the information arena, the winners to take it all will be those who persist of providing the most needed information that stimulates progressive exchange between civil society and media, and between one media outlet and another.
The business of information by the media to civil society deserves to advance. The relation in perspective is no defiance to traditional news delivery processes. Breaking News and other forms of information will still find place. If there is news about a bridge collapsing under the pressure of a heavily loaded truck, this is enough breaking news. Some potential issues that may emerge from this relate to the negligence over a whole period during which the bridge has been in a delicate state without due attention by responsible authorities. There may be similar happenings in society that need attention and yet being left as they do. The worst that ever happen to people in a society is the sit and wait situation that creeps to destroy with nobody bothered about until the damage is done. Unfortunately, this is common for societies the world over. There is no society in the world where signals have not been ignored until damage is done. There are perhaps more societies suffering from this
than one is able to imagine. Even more advanced societies are not free from this. Wrong timing and wrong course of action are common occasions in many situations. This affects various sectors of the social order.
Civil society is capable of directing social progress using information as medium of socialisation in a people's organisational process. When people assume responsibility in the use of information for enlightenment, it becomes a mode of social interaction. Each person takes the social dialogue to the next higher level of exchange. What is the issue at hand becomes everyone's concern. Media establishments will continue to perform their role, being more responsive to prevailing social demands. Together, media and civil society pave broader avenues, using information as a vehicle for awareness creation and social advancement.
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