AFRICAN INDIGENOUS MASS MEDIA: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE
Communication is as essential to human beings as air and water. Human beings cannot but communicate. Even when one decides not to communicate the person is implicitly communicating for such is itself a kind of communication. Beside communication at intrapersonal level, human beings are capable of interpersonal, group and mass communication. Each species of communication has certain means of disseminating it. For intrapersonal, interpersonal and group communication the means can be through body language of all kinds. Likewise, mass communication can take the form of traditional and modern/digital means of communication. Nonetheless, the focus of this research is on African indigenous mass media. It investigates the various media systems used in the traditional African society. It does this study against the backdrop of the digital system in vogue now. So this research attempts to unravel the fate of the African indigenous mass media in the face of technological changes in the world today. It raises questions concerning the possible effects of this African indigenous mass media today vis-à-vis the contemporary urge to abandon the past. The work, thus, argues that though digitalized mass media system is a welcome development, yet, African indigenous mass media still hold sway. Beside informative and archival roles, they also perform entertainment, religio-cultural, socio-political and philosophical functions.
Keywords: african, change, continuity, indigenous, mass, media