UTILIZATION OF TRADITIONAL MODES OF COMMUNICATION BY COMMUNITY BASED INSTITUTIONS IN BENDE LGA, ABIA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated Utilization of Traditional Modes of Communication by Community Based Institutions in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria. The research sought to investigate the utilization of the six major traditional modes of communication mainly used in rural areas such as the gong, drama presentation, folktales/proverbs and storytelling, dances and songs, town crier and talking drum and how these traditional modes of communication are jointly utilized in dissemination of information to rural populace in the communities under study. The exploratory survey research design was adopted because of the nature of the research. The instrument for data collection was a modified likert form questionnaire with twenty six (29) question items divided into sections A and B. A total of 450 copies of questionnaire were distributed three communities studied, which are Igbere community (150), Item Community (150) and Alayi Community (150). Four hundred and twenty (420) copies were returned; however, three hundred and ninety-six (396) were duly completed and found to be usable for this study, and thus, this amounted to 85.8% response rate. Data analysis was done with mean scores drawn from Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) with 2.5 mean score as the significant level. The study reveals that traditional modes of communication are positively used by community based institutions as they find it very appeasing, mostly for the fact that it enables them in the delivery of fast and efficient communication. It is also easy to understand. The research recommends among other things that the traditional modes of communication need to be maintained as they are part of our identity in rural information service delivery, other ways of communication might be introduced, such as using public address system, this culture needs to be maintained as it is necessary for so many cultural orientations of the rural communities, town criers should be trained to be able to use modern techniques of information delivery for effective rural information service delivery.