INFORMATION IMBALANCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON THIRD WORLD NATIONS

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

The debate on information imbalance and its implication on the third world nations have been controversial as well as perplexing and intriguing.

In the last one decade in particular, whatever hopes raised by some initiatives aimed at mitigating the African and the third world under development have dwindled to the very last as the world emerged from the cold war into a more problematic concept called globalization – Lamido (2001:50).

The national liberation movements of various African nations have yielded political independence for most African countries is undoubted. Ironically, however the grip of the erstwhile dominant nations on the neck of their former colonies on areas of economy information and technology is still palpable several years after political independence.

The political independence that does not liberate the nations from the tutelage of economic communication, cultural and technological dependency only translates into a mockery of the semantic expression “independence”.

According to W.A Hatchens (2004:40) for a hundred young states that came into existence after the World War II. The end of our century marks a new stage in the fight for a real independence new stage in the fight for a real independence political field, but also in the spheres of economy information and culture.

Consequently, innovations in the technological, social, political and economic sphere in our contemporary world have lent credence to the symbols of logo of the limited nations depicts humanity from the world globe has been derived the phenomenon globalization, which explicitly connotes a world without (national) border hence, the initiator of the concept, Marshall (2002; 15) refers the world as a global village where time cease to exist and boundaries have collapsed.

In the global village where the dominant west is the head, there has emerged the struggle for a new independence by the les powerful nations in recent times. First, the third world demanded for a new international economic order, which was followed by the new world information and communication order. When the global economic and information structure was unfavourable to the third world, there was no option but to become apprehensive, the reality of the growing imbalance has given rise to considerable apprehension about their fate in the new millennium. This is justified sufficient by Lamide (2001:10) as being:

‘A natural occurrence given that the past millennium was far most of these countries characterized by extreme poverty heavy indebtedness was of attrition and the resultant mass ordeal and anguish both for it's immediate and distant victims, absolute vulnerability to epidemics, the rage of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the scourge of natural disasters, serious technological backwardness, profound economic decline and infrastructural decay (the punch September 26, 2000 page 34).'

With this arrangement, the third world are getting increasingly weary of the information available to their citizen, the treatment of such information and how events about them are being reported to the outside world it was based on this spirit that the third world countries called for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). The thrust of NWICO is hinged on two propositions.

1. That communication has become an exchange between two unequal protagonist without necessity lowing to compete but instead allows the predominance of the powerful, the richer and the better equipped to continue to monopolies, the flow of communication” consequently , what is known, as information is infact a one way flow rather than a genuine exchange of information between two
2. That the quantity of new about developing countries carried by developed countries is then and of negative quality. It is this monopoly and imbalance of information and communication flow and s orders perpetuates by western powers that P.O.J. Umechukwu (2000:5) termed information imbalance, which interestedly has grievous information imbalance for the third world.

The big news agencies that are at the vanguard of the perpetration of information imbalance below to the western countries. These media are agency France press (A.F.P) of France, Reuters of Britain, associated press (AP) and united pres international (UPI) of the United States. Western nations, through the activities of these bys big four, have turned third world nations into a “media colony”.

According to R.L Bishop (200:62) “the four are a tightly knit group of professional so to speak at their mercy and can direct if no manipulate them at will.

On the other hand, Africa has been in the force of the agitation to redress the unfortunate imbalance. She has been aided by the privilege of having had four representatives out of the sixteen members' commission for the study of international communication problems. She also used the advantages of her size under then forum of the non aligned nations to draw the world's attention to the imbalance cause. These have been remarkable additions to her efforts in making the subject a prime issue of concern to UNESCO.

Among Africa nations Nigeria's position is that of an Iroko in Savannah forest in the regions many voices of protest against the domination of international news flow by the developed nations. In translating their desires into a meaningful programme, the government of Nigeria established the news agency of Nigeria (NAN) S.A Ekwelie (2000:23) in supporting this development, points out that… inspire of the confrontations and clashes here and there the establishment of NAN will remain memorable as one of the seemingly positive development affecting the media in Nigeria.

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1.2 Statement of the Problems

For some decades new, so much heat has been generated by developing countries (Nigeria) on the ground that the western media coverage on them the developing countries has been terribly inadequate. Worst still, the little coverage done on these developing countries by the western media has often been observed to be done hot on good light. They include such reports on famine, drought, war, violence, outbreak of epidemic and crisis etc, as if some thing good never ever happened in developing country of Nigeria, down here in Africa, which constitutes the main component of some of the developing countries the same disturbing mode of western media coverage is what is equally exhibited by the western media.

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1.3 Objective of the Study

Immediate causes of the information imbalance controversy and brings into light the perspective of both poles involved in the debate.

1. It will also afford one of the opportunity of grasping authoritatively the implications one way information flow on the socio- cult, political, economic and religions development of third world country especially Nigeria as well as it's implication on the free flow of information concept as argued by the western world led by the united states and Britain.
2. The study is aimed at collecting and collating the various views and perspectives, professional, government and non- government organization and agencies on the information flow and controversy as well as the views of individuals.
3. It will also enable one to understand whether focus on international news flow imbalance is on television, radio and satellite transmission excluding the studying and research on the impact of videos and films in the cult third world countries.

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1.4 Significance of the Study

At the end of the study, we would be in a better position to contribute to the debate on broader perspectives, proffering, suggestions and solution to the controversial information imbalance debate and the need for a new world information and communication order (NWICO).

This work is the contribution of the researcher in the correction of news flow imbalance and will be an added impetus in the struggle for the emergency of solution to the great debate.

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1.5 Research Questions

The basic research questions are;

• Does there really exist information imbalance in the world?
• What are the implications of this imbalance on the third world countries?
• What are the third worlds efforts at correcting?
• Are the arguments on information imbalance a gross negation of free flow of information concept?

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1.6 Scope / Delimitation of the Study

The study “the role of effective communication in assessment of imbalance information” is centered only in Imo State environmental protection agency in Owerri.

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1.7 Limitation of the Study

Time:

In research of this types, a lot of time by given the short time allowed for this study' it was not possible to do all that was required.

Resources:

For the reason that I have no source of my own income where to obtain funds, collect enough data but the research, work will be at normal.

Location:

These were a very big problem due to some certain factors, like moving from the company to the communication.

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1.8 Assumptions

The basic assumption is that apparent extremist and parallel nature of the western and third world perspectives on the global information flow controversy, as well as most of the issues involved makes it unrealistic for us to believe that we can remove the obvious and seemingly natural bipolarize in world information flow without affecting some change in the current international political arrangement.

The existence of information imbalance as argued by the third world countries are real and that the new world information and communication order as requested by the third world will affect some free flow of information concept as argued by the west.

The socio- cultural, political, religious and economic independence of the third world countries is highly jeopardized b the news and information emanating from the highly technological advanced media of the western world.

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1.9 Definition of Terms

Assessment:

This is an opinion or a judgment about something that has been thought about very carefully.

Operational Meaning:

It also means to evaluate the value of something.

Imbalance:

A situation in which two or more things are not the same size.

Operational Meaning:

It means when something lack balance.

Third World:

This simply refers to the poor or developing countries of Africa.

Operational Meaning:

It is those countries or nation that are not dependent but with the assistance of other country for survival.

Implication:

A possible effect or result of an action or a decision. It also means the end result or the outcome of any thing.

Information:

Sending, giving or exchange of ideas.