Abstract
This article examined the impact of participatory video (PV) technique in (re)educating rural dwellers on Corona virus (COVID-19) at Iva-Valley Forestry Hill Camp 1, Southeast Nigeria, with a view to generating data that could be tested or extrapolated elsewhere. It used historical-analytic, key informant interview (KII) and direct observation methods to argue that the COVID-19 pandemic/period has exposed weaknesses immanent in human institutions globally. One of such exposed interstitial gaps is the seeming weak media-link in the rural areas. This situation results from lack of electricity, non-access to reliable locally-generated news by resident community members and the lack of know-how to use mobile phones to generate media contents. Rural dwellers constitute 49.66 percent of the total Nigerian population (National Population Commission [NPC], 2018), yet media focus in Nigeria is mostly urban-driven. Having interacted and co-created a video script in Igbo with the community members through PV to determine the level of (mis)information that has permeated the community and (re)educated the rural dwellers on Corona virus and strategies to prevent its spread, the study canvassed the use of indigenous languages, diversification of media and PV techniques in the dissemination of credible information on COVID-19 in Nigeria, particularly at the grassroots
Highlights
This study examined the impact of participatory video (PV) technique, as a form of digital media production, ineducating rural dwellers on the new Corona virus (COVID-19), using Iva-Valley Forestry Hill Camp 1 in Enugu, Southeast Nigeria as a swivel of discussion and analysis
Conflicts resulting in wanton destruction of lives and properties and social dislocations such as the Liberian Civil War; the Boko Haram crises in parts of Nigeria, Cameroun, and Niger Republic; the conflagrations in the Congo; the Rwandan genocide and its remediation; Arab Spring uprisings that resulted in the removal of corrupt and dictatorial regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya; the South-Sudan/Sudan political imbroglio and its resolution, the Ebola disease crisis and its attenuation in Sierra Leone and Nigeria, were to a large extent orchestrated by broadcast, print and social media
The mainstream media channels beam messages at the urban populace to the marginalization of the rural dwellers that constitute a greater number of the Nigerian population but largely uneducated or uninformed about current issues including COVID-19
Summary
This study examined the impact of participatory video (PV) technique, as a form of digital media production, in (re)educating rural dwellers on the new Corona virus (COVID-19), using Iva-Valley Forestry Hill Camp 1 in Enugu, Southeast Nigeria as a swivel of discussion and analysis. Wenger quoted in Sánchez and Domínguez (2015: 4) claims that in theorizing PV, the concept of “community of practice should at least have a domain (defined shared interest), a community (engagement in joint activities and discussion) and a practice (activities which require learning)” often interact to underscore the PV mythos It is within this kind of arrangement that marginalized voices in a community are given opportunity to express themselves; the idea behind making a video can bring people together, explore issues and articulate a creative story from the people’s perspective. Using the PV technique to document the problem in the Niger Delta communities where the inhabitants re-echoed the horrid effects of degradations on land and sea by oil exploration provided a visual context for dialogue with government and other critical stakeholders This provoked serious discourse on how to chart ways of ameliorating the situation. As a preventive measure through the creation of awareness to curb the spread of the dreaded virus, the participatory video (PV) technique was used to engage the populace in a rural community in Enugu, Southeast Nigeria
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