Nigerian Rural Communities and Media Marginalization on COVID-19: Perspectives on Participatory Video

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.


INTRODUCTION
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 , using Iva-Valley Forestry Hill Camp 1 in Enugu, Southeast Nigeria as a swivel of discussion and analysis. Before the advent of digital/social media, the arts and traditional media of radio and television served variously as watchdogs, sentinels, checks, socializers, mobilizers, connectors, entertainers, innovators, manipulators, advertisers, co-creators and educators in human societies (McLuhan 1965;Baran and Davis 1995;Dominick 1996;Adeseye and Ibagere 1999;Omoera 2006;Baran 2006;Omoera and Awosola 2008;Ekwuazi 2008;Awosola and Omoera 2008;Ibagere 2009 information. This has equally affected media productions and the society in other diverse ways as many broadcast outfits have now introduced programmes such as eye-witness report, I-report, citizen journalism, among others, to generate news content for societal consumption. These programmes are aimed at having the populace report what is happening in their communities. Such innovative means have been adjudged as efficient because of their presumed raw and undiluted content in reporting (Monovich 2003).
In the same way, popular arts such as the theatre have in no small measure contributed to the dissemination of information and education of masses on important matters in contemporary society (Omoera 2010d). In fact, "theatre is increasingly becoming a predominant tool for sensitization and mobilization of local communities for economic, political and environmental development" (Inyang 2016). As a performative art in which human characters interact, and cocreate in the form of drama, dance, music, pantomime, opera, among others, the theatre animates the social, political, economic, religious and cultural priorities of the people. Prentki and Lacey assert that the theatre can break through language and cultural barriers and is an extremely useful communication tool (Prentki and Lacey 2004). They further posit that theatre does not only use words; it can also communicate effectively using mime, dance, images, local idioms and iconic cultural materials. This is ostensibly because theatre does not require much literacy skills or clever speaking to be effective. In fact, many local communities in Nigeria have engaged in community media or theatre activities through which they lent their voices in shaping government policies for the benefit of the generality of the people (Omoera and Obekpa 2020). Theatre, particularly in its applied form of theatre for development (TfD) engages the attention of people through a dramatic presentation of problems. It makes the audience see their problems in fresh and critical ways (Chukwukelue 2014). Apart from serving as entertainment, its focal trajectory has always been on information dissemination, mobilization, education and sensitization. To make the theatre achieve the abovementioned objectives, the people must be involved. Unearthing the people's challenges means engaging them to solve those identified issues in their communities. It is in this connection that TfD comes handy as a reliable tool in the re-storying or re-narrating of community challenges and setting pathways for development. Prior to digitalization, TfD was the most popular participatory theatre programme that was used to engage the masses at least in Africa; equipping them with information and strategies on how to address issues of botheration in their various localities.
Many theatre professionals and development agents now adopt digitalization/ICTs' enabled techniques such as PV to communicate, among other things, cultural identity and indigenousness, health and wellness and set development agendas for communities. White and Averson affirm that the video medium like film or TfD programme, when properly vested with seriousness of theme, could exert enormous persuasive power over an audience or even a community to achieve set deliverables (White and Averson 1969). In Video in the Villages (1989), The Spirit of TV (1990) and  Usually, the process is more important than the product as PV methodology breaks with the traditional filmmaking hierarchical relationship between active observer and passive subject. Lunch and Lunch (2006b) analysed Don Snowden's activities in Fogo Island, with small fishing communities off the eastern coast of Newfoundland and reports that as a result of watching each other's films, the different villagers on the island came to realise that they shared many of the same problems and that by working together they could solve some of them. The films were also shown to politicians who lived too far away and were too busy to actually visit the island. As a result of this dialogue, government policies and actions were changed. The techniques developed by Snowden became known as the Fogo process (Lunch and Lunch 2006b: 11). Indeed, PV has been adopted for different purposes such as data collection, reflexive filmmaking in the form of experiential filmmaking, collaborative community appraisal, needs assessment, awareness creation, health education, community mobilization and agit-prop. It is a subversion of what Jean Rouch describes as "a conversation of "us" with "us" about "them"; a conversation in which "them" is silenced; them always stand on the other side of the hill, naked and speechless, barely present in its absence (Garrette 2010). A kind of bottom-up approach to developing media stories that allows participants to "articulate, in their own words, what they wish to have conveyed and, ideally, take control of the production process from the researcher. It is an inversion of the top-down approach used by the 'big daddies' media to glare on communities in Africa. For Africans, the offshoot and deployment of participatory video (PV) is borne out of the quest to correct the misrepresentation of communities used by many big media corporations and give insights for community development.
As a development tool, PV technique has been used to address diverse issues of health, environment, agriculture, crises and risk communication. The Infrastructure and services such as electricity, functional hospitals, access roads, potable water supply, conventional media such as radio and television stations, among others, are a rarity in this community. The indigenes rely heavily on face-to-face interactions, rumour-mills and occasional access to social media (when an individual is able to acquire a smart phone and buy data to browse the internet), which is prone to manipulation, miscommunication and disinformation

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in a post factual society (Hossová 2018). Therefore, the residents are virtually On the issue of government palliatives, some of them said they heard that they were giving the youths tricycles (keke) as a means of livelihood but never received any. Although some of them were sceptical about the video recording but seeing people from their community participating in the project, they gave in and accepted the team's recording. The PV engagement was handled by members of the community that collaborated with us. While the interview sessions were handled by the team, the engaged community members handled the recording with the mobile smart phones provided for them. The team streamed the video shots as recorded by the group and showed the interviewees' involvement in the process as captured real-time. The team members retired to Enugu City to rest and analyze the events of the day. A script for a drama skit was developed and read for the community members on Friday 22nd May, 2020. The interview guide was written in Igbo language and translated to English for analysis. The PV can be accessed at: https://youtu.be/JGDNPUpgr_0.
The team successfully drafted a short, direct and lesson-impact video script with the elderly people and read same before them to ensure that it captures all that they had shared. The video aimed at retracing the steps of the misinformed members of the community about the virus ravaging the world as well as engaging them to proffering home-made possible solutions. Excerpts of the play skit as developed

Action
Ebuka is seen clapping and jumping while singing an unpopular yet, popular(to him) song about coronavirus. He wears a face mask and approaching him is his wife Nkechi, and friend, Vivian. : N i g e r i a n R u r a l C o m m u n i t i e s a n d  M e d i a M a r g i n a l i z a t i o n o n C O V I D -1 9 :  P e r s p e c t i v e s o n P a r t i c i p a t o r y V i d

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After reading the play excerpts to members of the community engaged in the project, the team and the community group agreed on the play title -Njigidesie Ike which means sustainability. The choice of this title is that since Corona virus is a global phenomenon, there is need to uphold the safety measures as prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The performance generated a lot of feedback which was engaged by the team to record the level of impact the project had on the people.
As an action research, the intention of this project is meant for a variety of purposes such as; Advocacy, Raising awareness, Sharing of knowledge, Evaluation and consultation among others.
The third phase of the project was the film editing stage. Here, the team collated all the shoots and sent to an editor who arranged it professionally to capture the real essence of the project. This included the detailed pictures of "Corona virus", an aerial view of rural communities, press briefing by the Nigerian minister of health and pictures of the COVID-19 pandemic with health workers across the globe. Lastly, the need for communication strategy for sharing of the videos was ignited. To do this, the team made use of YouTube, WhatsApp, and Facebook channels, etc., to share the film and generate comments that can help policymakers and the rural dwellers to prevent contracting COVID-19 or (un)consciously spreading it in their community.
This study has portrayed the experiences of socially excluded Nigerians even in the new normal period of COVID-19. Its findings indicate that many of the residents of Iva-Valley Forestry Hill Camp 1 had a lot of .misconceptions about the origin, spread and prevention strategies on COVID-19. This is likely so because they have no access to regular sources of reliable information on COVID-19 and related health matters. The mainstream media of radio and television through which relevant government and nongovernmental agencies issued up-tothe-minute advisories on how to avoid being infected or prevent community transmission were virtually absent in the area. This is coupled with the fact that electricity is a rarity in the largely poor and far-flung community. Hence, the dwellers mostly depended on rumours and third-party opinions that might not be reliable. These issues constituted the crux of the experimental participatory videos that emanated from the researchers' engagement with people in the community under investigation. At any rate, the technique of participatory video (PV) for development and social change continues to gain popularity and success stories around the world.
Separating PV from traditional documentaries is the absolute involvement with the community to create their own film, from the content to the actual filmmaking.
It is an effective way to bring people together to discuss issues and voice concerns. The process is intended to be empowering at the local level which ideally will lead to the community solving their own problems, communicating their ideas to other communities or to decision makers to facilitate change (Doran 2008). It is on the basis of the foregoing that this study suggests the use of PV in communicating development, including health matters in other rural communities in Nigeria where the residents are media marginalized and largely cut-off from the mainstream of governance or government activities. It is germane to note too that with the increasing morbidity and mortality rate in different parts of the world occasioned by the COVID-10 pandemic, there is the need for relevant authorities to pay attention to those that are socially excluded by no fault of theirs, especially at the grassroots.

CONCLUSION
The COVID-19 appears to be an issue that will be with humanity for a long time if the experiences of other pandemics such as cholera, polio, and Ebola that the world is still battling with are anything to go by. This is more so in Africa, particularly Nigeria where health facilities, medical supplies and personnel are in short supply and the media of radio and television are mainly urban based. The mainstream media channels beam messages at the urban populace to the marginalization of the rural dwellers that constitute a greater number of the to be performed by and for the rural dwellers in their homesteads to convince them on the existence of the virus and the need to prevent its spread.