Charles Okigbo

Leveraging acculturation through action research A case study of refugee and immigrant women in the United States

The demographic changes in contemporary American society portend serious consequences with far-reaching implications for the future development of the country. One of the more serious challenges is in the influx of refugees and new immigrants many of whom are not acculturating as easily as in the past. Unfortunately, the use of conventional research methods in studying acculturation has not yielded many actionable solutions to the adaptation problems, nor have newcomers been engaged as co-researchers. In this longitudinal study, action research approaches of participatory and community action research as well as action inquiry were used to identify the most pressing acculturation problems and also to engage the subjects (co-researchers) in proffering practical solutions to these problems. The results provide lessons for newcomers and resettlement agencies that are interested in promoting successful integration. The use of a variety of action research approaches for each of the three phases of this project illustrates the versatility of action research in different social contexts, especially in evolving situations with different social groups.

Our ads 'R US: an exploratory content analysis of American advertisements

Purpose – To describe contemporary US society based on the dominant themes featured in magazine advertisements.Design/methodology/approach – From eight general circulation magazines, 2,158 full‐page advertisements are examined using content analysis. The analysis includes the examination of ad characteristics, creative strategies and a critical literary analysis.Findings – The results show evidence that US cultural values are embedded in popular magazine advertisements. In particular, individualism, low context communication patterns and action/achievement values are most common.Research limitations/implications – This study represents a snapshot in time. Neither culture nor media options are static. As a result, future work in this area should examine these changes.Practical implications – Since only a few cultural dimensions are dominant in the sample, the results suggest that advertisers need not embed all social values in ads.Originality/value – This paper provides evidence that an adaptive advertisin...

The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in African American Communities Lessons From UNAIDS and Africa

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has afflicted Africa more than any other region of the world. In the United States, the AIDS scourge has disproportionately affected African American communities. In their tragic experiences with HIV/AIDS, both African states and African American communities can benefit from the new communication framework that the United Nations Global AIDS Programme and the Pennsylvania State University have developed to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The framework contains five universal values that are recommended for AIDS intervention programs across the world. The five values are incorporation of government policies, socioeconomic status, culture, gender issues, and spirituality. There are six additional values, two of which apply uniquely to each of the three world regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For Africa, the two unique values are community-based approaches and regional cooperation. The situation in Africa presents valuable lessons for African Americans in the United States.

Strategic Communication Campaigns

One of the best ways to promote good health in society is through the use of communication campaigns to inform and educate the public about healthy habits and good health care. Although the importance of mass communication in promoting health is widely acknowledged, creating effective communication campaigns can be a complex process. Health messages have a variety of characteristics that differentiate them from other types of mediated messages. Among these are the sensitivity of health issues, the fear that some health messages evoke, the attendant feelings of resistance to some health messages, and the complex nature of many health problems. Many health messages focus on sensitive and personal issues such as sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and addiction, abortion, and mental illness. Because these subjects are difficult and emotional for many audience members, they can be especially challenging to develop effective communication campaigns to check.

Nigerian radio news and the new information order

One of the current issues in international communication and diplomacy is the debate on the flow of international news. The charge is that the developed countries of the world control both the quantity and direction of international news flow. Quantitatively, the developed countries dominate the international news picture, and qualitatively, most news about the Third World is usually about conflicts, catastrophe, coups, controversy and crime. In addition to the quantitative and qualitative aspects of international news flow, there is the question of directionality, whereby news flows mostly from the north to the south. As de Sola Pool put it, ’The developed countries, and particularly the U.S.A., export messages; the LDCs import them.&dquo; Third World accusations that the developed countries give short shrift to events and affairs of the developing countries have crystallised in UNESCO’s call for a new world order of information and communication. The establishment of the new order is expected to ’bring major transformations in national as

Strategic Political Communication in Africa

Politics in Africa is often believed to be a foreign import because of the popular association with colonial influences and western democracies. Contemporary African communication encapsulates traditional methods, the modern mass media, and the new social media, all of which have important roles in the purposive uses of communication in politics. Using communication to achieve political objectives requires astute strategies that are best realized through purposive planning, careful implementation, and systematic evaluation which are the hallmarks of strategic communication. This chapter explains strategic communication against a backdrop of African communication to offer five fundamental concepts that constitute the essence of strategic political communication. These five key concepts which are election campaigns, governance and government policies, internal cohesion, public opinion, and crisis management are explained to show their relevance in contemporary Africa. The conclusion shows that although strategic communication has not become a distinct profession yet in Africa, the prospects are good for its wider adoption in both business and politics. More professionalization of strategic communication in Africa will lead to better uses of traditional and new forms of communication to achieve desirable preplanned outcomes that will contribute significantly to Africa’s political and economic development.

Strategy: What It Is

Strategy is one of those common everyday words and concepts that we understand so well and use even appropriately, but still find difficult to define and explain in precise terms. However, once we define and explain them, they become permanently embedded in our minds and we see their applications all around us. Strategy has been used implicitly in different ways, but formally seen as the art of planning and implementing with considerate care to achieve predetermined objectives. Strategy derives from the Greek where it has clearly military references as “office of general, commander, leader and to lead.” In this military sense, strategy refers to a broad plan of action designed to achieve a predetermined objective. In this sense, strategy or grand strategy refers to high levels of engagement distinct from operations and tactics, which are concerned with the specific conduct of an engagement. Having a good strategy which leads to effective operations and tactics is a sine qua non for successful engagements in many spheres of life, especially in business, communication, corporate affairs, health management and politics, among other areas.

Sex in the Newsroom: Male-Female Differences in Perceptions of Media Professionalism

Summary It is generally believed that the mass media are biased against women in terms of employment and news treatment. The roots of such bias are historical, and its effects arc felt in both the developed and developing countries. But this bias notwithstanding, are women journalists different from their men counterparts with respect to their views on media professionalism? To answer this question, data were collected from men and women Nigerian journalists who were asked their views on various aspects of media professionalism. The analysis of the data showed no significant differences between men and women journalists with respect to perceptions of media professionalism. This paper provides empirical support for equal treatment of the sexes in journalism. Résumé En général, on croit qu’il existe dans les média une prévention contre les femmes en ce qui concerne l’emploi et la dissemination d’information. Cette prévention remonte loin dans l’histoire et se manifeste aussi bien dans les pays développés que dans les pays en voie de développement. On se demande si les idées des journalistes femmes sur la pratique du joumalisme sont essentiellement différentes de celles des hommes dans la même profession. Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons mené une enquête auprès de journalistes (hommes et femmes) sur les différents aspects du journalisme. A la lumière de quelques données, notre étude appuie l’égalité des deux sexes dans la profession. Zusammenfassung Eine allgemeine Auffassung besagt, daß die Massenmedien gegen Frauen voreingenommen sind, in bezug auf Arbeitsplätze und auch in der Bearbeitung von Nachrichten. Die Wurzeln dieses Vorurteils sind historisch, und seine Wirkungen sind in entwickelten und sich entwickelnden Ländern gleichermaßen spürbar. Trotz dieses Vorurteils: Sind weibliche Journalisten wirklich anders als ihre männlichen Kollegen in der Beurteilung ihrer beruflichen Aufgaben? Um diese Frage zu beantworten, wurden Daten von nigerianischen Journalisten und Journalistinnen erhoben, die nach ihrer Meinung Uber die unterschiedlichen Aspekte ihres Berufs befragt wurden. Die Analyse dieser Daten zeigte keine signifikanten Unterschiede in den Berufsbildern männlicher und weiblicher Journalisten. Dieser Artikel erstellt eine statistische Grundlage für eine gleiche Behandlung der Geschlechter in den journalistischen Berufen.

Nigerian High School Students Evaluate Journalism Careers

cation from those silent editors there is no way of knowing. When a Sunday supplement stonewalls and fails to print a correction of an obvious factual error, an aggrieved party may have certain remedies such as libel action. The court system provides the maligned person a pathway, albeit a slow and dreadfully expensive one. But what of the reader’s “right to know”? It is claimed as their primary raison d’etre by most newspapers, yet the exercise detailed above has raised in hundreds of cases the question of a misalignment between intentions and performance. If a supplement refuses to make a correction, the reader may try the letter-to-the-editor route. That is both tedious and expensive and the prospect of a low return should discourage all but perennial optimists. The 14% response indicates that not many of the 364 editors felt it necessary to extend their realm of responsibility to serious errors appearing in supplements distributed by those papers. To this observer, the situation is a journalistic Kitty Genovese-but with a complicating factor. While it would appear that the majority of the editors prefer “not to get involved” in uncorrected errors in a supplement, they do have an apparently unrecognized responsibility because they have introduced the malefactor into the home of their readers. If their guest does not behave, should they not feel some moral-or ethical-or at least civil-obligation to correct such behavior? A further step would be to study why 308 papers (apparently) failed to respond in any way. Was that lack of response caused by sloth and disinterest or was it indicative of an integrity gap? If it was the former, there is a significant problem. If it was the latter, the problem facing journalism is monumental. Nigerian High School Students Evaluate Journalism Careers