CULTURAL IMPERIALISM IN NIGERIAN MEDIA/FILM Cultural imperialism is the aftermath of culture contact whereby the values and codes of an alien culture dominates and permeates all aspects of a recipient culture. It refers to the systematic imposition and subsequent dominance of an alien culture over a local one. In Potter & Valdivia’s (2018) interest, it is better understood as the employment of cultural means to facilitate the extension of economic and political power via subtle means devoid of coercion or violence. Cultural imperialism is a phenomenon that characterized the imperialist administration of post-colonial societies and it was facilitated to a very large extent by propaganda. Propaganda, in Ellul’s (1965, p.62) perception involves the techniques of influence employed by a government, party, administration or group with the primary aim of altering the behaviour of the subject or public. In the formulation and implementation of propaganda, the methods employed are premeditated and a clear-cut goal is pre-conceived. Ellul (1965) notes that propaganda is sub-divisible into two broad categories: political and social where political propaganda is formulated to keep the populace docile, compliant and repressed while sociological propaganda comprises the means by which any society embarks on the acculturation of members of another society into its own lifestyle. Through sociological propaganda, societies induct outgroups by imposing their belief system and lifestyle practices on them. Social propaganda is very relevant to the interest of this essay and will feature more in the discussion of cultural imperialism in Nigerian film and media. This essay holds the premise that sociological propaganda lies at the epicentre of cultural imperialism in Nigerian film and media. In a bid to drive home this point, Chomsky’s discussions on the manipulative effects of media in Media Control and Ellul’s exposition of Integration propaganda and agitation propaganda will be drawn upon. Chomsky addresses the rationale, aims and purpose of staging political propaganda from production point to the point of reception. Chomsky starts off on the note that political propaganda is a significant feature of democratic societies that extol liberalism. Hence, it is the flipside of the bludgeon that the military adopts. In this sense, political propaganda is a mind control measure. The focus of the present discourse is not political propaganda per se, but the sociological aspects of propaganda and its effect on minds, acts and practices of those who interact with media and film productions. Cultural imperialism in the Nigerian society is a concrete evidence of colonial vestiges that has permeated virtually all areas of the nation: education, religion, economy as well as the media and communication industry. In the colonial times, the colonial government and missionaries utilised film to create both political, and social propaganda. On the political divide, the Colonial Film Unit served propagandist purposes by screening films, newsreels and documentaries that portray and promote the English culture (Azeez, 2019). This was caried out to ensure that the people remain repressed and do not see any reason to agitate or rebel against the imperialist administration. On the other hand, social propaganda provided the leverage for imperialist to spread its lifestyle to its colonies. The reason for applying social propaganda is twofold: first, it was meant to facilitate social acceptance of colonial values and practices. Second, it was designed to acculturate Africans into British values, civility and norms (Husseini & Sunday 2019). The colonialists were very much interested in serenading the populace with film entertainments and documentaries that showcase the splendor of the British empire and film and media provided the means to achieve that. Social propaganda was facilitated to a very large extent by the Christian missionaries. Missionaries utilised film to pursue the imposition of Christian religious dogmas and ideologies by screening movies with Biblical storylines. The sociological propaganda that was spread at the time bothered on the importance of converting from idolatry and heathenism to Christianity. Also, the movie narratives reiteratively portrayed the devil and Judas Iscariot as ‘evil’ and ‘blackcomplexioned’ (Azzez, 2019). In the end, the manipulative effects of the socio-religious propaganda began to manifest as people became integrated into the new religion and saw their own cultures as less ideal when compared with the British lifestyle. Till date, the widespread acceptance of Christianity remains one major vestige of colonialism. The conversion rhetoric and demonic exorcism that constituted the socio-religious propaganda of the missionaries is still present in the Nigerian film industry today, especially with the creation of the Christian film genre whose contents are based on Biblical ethos exclusively. Ellul (1965) equally notes that the propaganda of Christianity in the middle ages is another salient instance of sociological propaganda (p.63). The success of this strategy during the colonial times can be better understood in the context of Ellul’s dichotomy between agitation propaganda and integration propaganda. Concerning agitation propaganda, Ellul notes that the less intelligent or enlightened a people are, the easier it is to make them subservient to the statusquo as long as there is an entity that is branded the enemy of state. This type of propaganda was peddled by the Colonial Film Unit who screened newsreels and documentaries that led the Nigerian people to perceive the Germans as a common enemy of the British empire. It worked at the time and the people were led to believe that colonialism was a legitimate enterprise and the imperialists were simply defending the empire. Furthermore, the Colonial Film Unit’s screening of British films and documentaries propelled integration propaganda as it made the people admire and conform to British lifestyle. Integration propaganda is more subtle, systematic and appears to be the most relevant to the phenomenon of cultural imperialism in Nigerian media. The effects of acculturation into British norms and values are visible in the media sector. The adoption of the English language as official language, the standard code that serves news dissemination purposes represents a vital component of integration propaganda and cultural imperialism. In Nigeria, the continued relay of media contents using the English language implies that foreign contents will feature consistently in mass media thereby disconnecting the people who consume these foreign contents from their culture. This is more understandable in the context of Chomsky’s ‘manufacturing consent’ as many media outlets deride the possibility of irritating the educated and corporate class who provide most of the funding that propel the industry. In a bid to explain the scope and extent of social propaganda in the film industry today, an understanding of the phrase ‘manufacturing consent’ and how it applies to the film industry, its main preoccupation and artistic production will suffice. Chomsky’s elaboration of the term ‘manufacturing consent’ is very much applicable to the scenario that played out at the inception of Nigerian film and media. The media phenomenon alludes to mass media’s allegiance to a dominant class that wield all the wealth, power and influence to alter the news. The media’s role in society are precise. It is the role of media to inform, entertain, promote social values and behavioral codes and educate. However, the informing role appears to be the most sophisticated. Media serves as outlet for the top social hierarchies to inculcate their ideals into the proletariat, and it is at this realm that propaganda is concocted and transmitted. The concept of ‘manufacturing consent’ portrays media as subservient to a statusquo that must be shielded from public criticism or uproar. To this end, media manufactures propaganda that influences the proletariat to accept their position at the bottom of the social stratum. The propaganda theory developed by Chomsky postulates five general classes of filters that ascertains the type of media contents that gets to the public as: ownership, income sourcing, media elite, flak and common enemy. These classes of filters capture in detail the pressures that drive media to publish propaganda for the top echelons of the society. In a country such as Nigeria where funding for film production is limited and the government assumes monopoly of power by legislation or veto, it naturally follows that media functions to serve the interest of the rich and affluent class. For instance, the financial power and influence that businessmen and movie marketers wielded over film producers at the onset of the Nollywood era in 1992 implied that movie advertisements, film production, marketing and film distribution networks became monopolised by the rich class. Cultural imperialism became proliferate in the movie productions during this period as movie storylines portrayed modernization as bequeathed by the British while serving the interest of the rich and affluent class. Husseini and Sunday (2019) reiterate this point by stating that film productions were lacking in aesthetics because the ownership of the movies were profit-oriented. It is this inequality in wealth and power between filmmakers and their sponsors as well as its attendant effects on filmmakers’ interests and choices that underlines the expression of cultural imperialism in the Nigerian film industry. The mere fact that mass media in Nigeria have always been financially constrained shows that the money and power wielders are able to filter media productions that by their own standards, are fit for public consumption. By filtering media productions, the dominant class utilises the five interconnected components of Chomsky’s propaganda model: media ownership, income sourcing, media elitism, flak and fear as control mechanism. The first component which bother on media ownership explains the effect of owner wealth and profit orientation on news dissemination. Maintaining a political and economic condition that will boost profitability forms the modus operandi of the media firms and they are unlikely to take a critical stance against policies that boost financial turnovers. The second filter which is income sourcing alludes to the pull that advertising wields. Advertising is the major source of income for media firms and there is every tendency that media firms would refrain from media productions that would deter advertisers and sponsors. The third filter which is media elitism refers to the influence that wealthy owners of mass media wield over news dissemination. The fourth filter, flak refers to strategies that the ruling elite employ to punish media outlets that do not serve their interests. Finally, the fifth filter, fear refers to media framing of all events through the perspective of the battle between liberal democracy and communism. If is often deployed to whip emotions and keep citizens on the defensive. In the end, this filter yields an important result for the ruling echelons; one that bother on the foreign policy. Going by Chomsky’s explanations, whatever comes out published in the media must pass through successive filters before getting to the public, and it is during this process that media productions are stripped off whatever volume of information that appears detrimental to the dominant class’ interests. The dominant class moderate the premises of news discourse and propaganda and determine what is newsworthy or otherwise. This scenario aligns with Chomsky’s description of the Creel Commission that was set up during the Woodrow Wilson Administration in the USA, and the role it played in arousing the interest of a heretofore pacifistic population in the First World War. The Woodrow Wilson Administration, in a bid to align its interests in the war with that of the populace sought affirmation of support and solidarity from the people and went about achieving this aim by turning a population that seemed uninterested in the war and whatever its outcome is to a hysterical, warmongering population with an heightened hatred for the Germans within the space of six months. In a much similar manner to the role played by Creel Commission, Colonial Film Unit embarked on social propaganda and was largely successful in integrating the people into British lifestyle. Herein lies the power of propaganda. Media propaganda works on the mind of the populace by instilling fear and eliciting resistance, or in Chomsky’s own words ‘jingoist fanaticism’ against who and what the political class tags as ‘otherworldly’ or a ‘threat’ to unity and harmony. Chomsky (1997, p.9) notes that the society is stratified into the progressive intellectuals and the ‘bewildered herd.’ In between are the media and the corporate that further the interests of the few progressive intellectuals. Chomsky notes that controlling the minds of the intelligent members of the society, especially those that wield power to influence the populace is paramount to those who are hellbent on achieving absolute control over state affairs. Power wielders in the society such as the media are often controlled in as much the same way as the bewildered herd, and are often improvised as tool to, manipulate and distract the bewildered herd via dissemination of falsehood, fabrications, historical and factual distortions. CONCLUSION This essay has addressed the phenomenon of cultural imperialism in the Nigerian film/media. It has argued that throughout the history of Nollywood from the pre-colonial to post-colonial period, the dissemination of sociological propaganda underlined cultural imperialism in Nigerian media. Chomsky’s Media Control and his exposition of the concept ‘manufacturing consent’ helped the understanding of the pressures that drive mass media to further the interests of the top echelons of society and its manifestation in the Nigerian media context. Furthermore, Ellul’s discussions on agitation propaganda and integration propaganda in Propaganda: the formation of men’s attitudes provided the theoretical ideas for discussing the rationale behind the dissemination of integration propaganda in media productions for the purpose of achieving lifestyle changes in the public. This essay has shown that the continued production and proliferation of foreign films that showcase alien cultures, and in a foreign code aside the indigenous are evidences of neocolonialism and cultural imperialism in the Nigerian media. REFERENCES Azeez, A. (2019) History and evolution of Nollywood: A look at early and late influences. In: Musa, B. Nollywood in Glocal Perspective. Switzerland: Palgrave. pp.3-24. Chomsky, N. (1997) Media control: the spectacular achievements of propaganda. 1st ed. New York: Seven Stories Press. Ellul, J. (1965) Propaganda: the formation of men’s attitudes. New York: Vintage Books. Husseini, S. & Sunday, O. (2019) From Nigeria film industry to Nollywood: landmarking the growth of the new wave cinema. In: Musa, B. Nollywood in Glocal Perspective, Palgrave Switzerland, pp. 25-43. Potter, R. & Valdivia, A. (2018) Cultural imperialism theories. In: Kim, Y. & McKaySemmler, K. The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication. pp.1-9.
