الاستراتيجية/مؤسسة ويكيميديا/2017/توثيق/مغامرات أفريقيا وعشاء ويكيميديا حول مستقبل المعرفة الحُرّة، اليوم الأول
الحضور
- آيوديجي روتنوا - This Day
- أولانيا شولا - مجموعة مستخدمي ويكيميديا نيجريا
- جايد تايو - The NET Ng / BHM Group
- فانيسا بانيغو - Guardian Nigeria
- فكتور أوهاي - منتج
- سوب مارتنز - Smooth Fm
- توكيني بيترسايد - Art X Lagos
- Olatunde Isaac – Wikimedia User Group, Nigeria
الفريق: جاك رباح، زاك ماكون، أوزودينما إويلا، إدور ناكبوديا، كارانجا دانييل، ديفيد أديليك
ما هي التحديات التي يواجهها وسط الإعلام والمعرفة في نيجيريا؟
بدأت جلسة المناقشة بتحضير كلّ واحدٍ من الحاضرين لقائمةٍ طويلةٍ بالتحديات التي يواجهها الوسط الإعلامي في نيجيريا الآن، وصُنِّفت كلُّ واحدةٍ منها ضمن فئاتٍ مُعيّنة.
الفئة: سياسات الحكومة والمشكلات الثقافية
لدينا ضمنَ هذه الفئة:
ثمَّة افتقارٌ لحريَّة المعلومة، فضلاً عن مشكلات الرقابة ومضايقة الصحفيِّين.
سرقة الملكية الفكرية: يواجه الناس نقصاً في التوعية حول قوانين الملكية الفكرية، ممَّا يجعلُ حماية الأعمال الإبداعية صعبة. فعلى سبيل المثال، يعرف المصورون الذين يرفعون صورهم على مواقعٍ مثل فليكر أنَّ هذا يوفّر عليهم المتاعب القانونية، لأنه - في حال سرقة أحدٍ للصور - فإنَّ موقع فليكر سيأخذُ عنهُم طائل الملاحقة القانونية.
الملكية: لأن الإنترنت عالمٌ واسع جداً، فإنَّ من الصعب تقصِّي ملكية المحتوى والمواد والأفكار.
البيئة القانونية وضعفُ القضاء: النظام القضائي في نجيريا هشّ جداً، ممَّا يسمحُ ويُشجّع على سرقة الملكية الفكرية دون خوفٍ من طائلة القانون.
إساءة التعامل مع العادات الثقافية: ثمَّة اهتمامٌ زائدٌ بالأعراف الثقافية، التي منها التقدير الشديد لكبار السنّ الذين يشغلون مناصب مهمَّة في نيجريا، وهذا يجعلُ من الصعب الطَّعن بقراراتهم وسلطاتهم عندما يتّخذون أفعالاً خاطئة. كما أنَّ ثمة تخوّفاً عاماً من طرح أسئلة حادَّة وغير متوقّعة، ممَّا يقودُ - بأسلوبٍ غير مباشر - لعدم تحفيز التفكير النقديّ بين الجمهور. لذا فالسؤال هو، كيف يمكننا تجاوزُ هذه التحديات لإصلاح الأوضاع؟
الفئة: القوى العاملة
Competency: As a result of the poor quality of education around the country, we have poorly trained journalists and media professionals who are often not competent to carry out their jobs effectively.
And because of poverty the journalists only want to report what they can get paid for. They dish these paid stories to the audience, and there is no drive to explore for something original and more thought provoking. So there is no challenge and growth.
Lack of Volunteer culture: There is a general lack of volunteer culture in Nigeria, where people are not very interested in causes that do not directly profit them.
Category: Audience relationship
Audience behaviour: The current audience behaviour is far from ideal. How do we grab and sustain the attention of an audience with a short attention span, that is barely interested in content that requires deep interaction?
Bias and lack of trust: The media and civil society in Nigeria are heavily compromised so news is consumed according to people’s perceptions. The news they consume then molds the way they see the world and increasingly solidifies their cognitive biases.
There are also Communication barriers and as a result low levels of awareness.
Market access or networking: There is a disconnect between content providers and knowledge platforms and their target audience. What the audience wants is oftentimes very different from the content being produced.
Category: Infrastructural issues
Limited internet access and speed
Logistics or mobility problems
Poor power supply
Equipment
Lack of archival information or verifiable data
Poor data management
Category: Funding
With less funding, journalists have less covering power. Narrow funding limits the journalist’s ability to explore stories and investigate. The wider the funding base, the more power journalists have to assert themselves and preserve their professional integrity.
However, external sources of funding (eg private organisations) could also lead to a conflict of interests. Since the media house/ journalist feels indebted to the organisation, this could censor what a news platform could explore.
What does the ideal media space look like? (Breakout session)
We all split up into three groups. Each group was expected to discuss and come up with ideas for what the media would look like in an ideal world.
Group 1
In an ideal world:
- Journalists travel more often around the country, experience more cultures and understand different voices. They can use this exposure to affect biases about certain areas.
- Build an Uber for creatives, a community with people from the highly experienced to the freshman, the skilled to the unskilled, the writer, the film person to the photographer. A place where people can be trained, they can standardise professionalism and skill, earn standard income and share ideas.
- A glassdoor rating for media companies.
- There are policies to protect journalists. Policies and laws protecting the rule of law should be written in ley terms so they can be easy to understand.
- Young people are engaged in the news cycle and provided with mentorship opportunities.
- More people are aware of volunteering opportunities.
Free internet for everyone.
Group 2
The theme for the ideas of this group was ‘Culture Unlimited’.
- Restore missing archives of culture and make them accessible.
- Give people unlimited and unfettered access to the internet.
- Encourage ubiquitous participation in media.
- Media should be more responsive and should echo and reflect the experiences of the populace to break divides.
Group 3
- Free WiFi in public places like train stations, university libraries, bus stops. The free WiFi will be powered by renewable energy and public/private partnerships.
- Crowdfunding for particular stories to create communities around them and ensure accountability of the journalist to the people.
- Mandatory technology training as a basis for online learning. Instead of compulsory skills acquisition workshops, young people should be taught how to use computers and the internet, that way, they can go on and learn anything online by themselves.
- There should be an information authority. That is, a body that rates and audits news platforms and the authenticity of their stories monthly. If there were such a body, fake news platforms can then be reported and identified quickly.
Conclusion
The Media discussions were more technical with a lot of focus on the quality of knowledge, how it is produced, how it is disseminated and how the audience react to it. A key factor is that quality and access to knowledge cannot be compromised; they are very essential to move forward in media, and these can be addressed with a community of creatives, awareness, right policies and of course access to internet amongst other things.