Effective communication in the pursuit of human rights in Nigeria
By Obo Effanga
Communication is at the centre of the propagation of human rights. It is through communication that the society can be informed about what amounts to human rights, when such rights have been breached, by whom, when, how, and what needs to be done to remedy such. It is similarly through communication that society can be informed about what to do to prevent human rights abuses.
The idea of human rights is as old as human existence, even if they were not scientifically identified, defined, and clearly understood as we have them today. The specific rights at the beginning of time were not also as many and expanded as they are today, with many ‘new’ human rights identified and framed. (E.g. the right to vote).
There is agreement that human beings, by the mere fact of their being humans, are entitled to some rights, as a natural requirement to the fulfillment of their potential as humans. However, agreeing on all that amounts to human rights is a subject of controversy itself. Thus, the answer to the question “how many human rights are there?” is very fluid, leading to some people attempting to further qualify these rights as basic, or fundamental rights as opposed to human rights generally.
Thus, while some will look at human rights in their very basic forms such as the right to life and personal liberty, equality of the human person, non-discrimination, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work, right to food and right to education, human rights can be expanded beyond those.
One view classifies human rights into 10 fundamental human rights: right to life; freedom from torture; right to liberty and security; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; freedom of opinion and expression; right to work and education; right to privacy; right to participate in government; freedom of movement; and right to equality before the law.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights lists up to 30 rights, including seemingly ‘obscure’ rights like rights to rest and leisure; the right to social security; the right to freedom of movement, within and outside one’s country as well as the right to asylum in a foreign country.
In Finland, since 2010, the right to internet access has been established as part of human rights. I daresay some of these human rights would look outlandish for some people, depending on their station in life, influenced by geography, exposure, and personal capacity.
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No matter how robust human rights are in any country, they require the agency of communication to give them life. One communications theory states that ‘if an iroko tree falls in the forest, it is no news unless the report of such a fall is made’. It seems also that human rights are no human rights if the duty bearers and the rights holders are not even aware of it. This is where communication is important. Apart from communication being a vehicle to promote human rights, the same communication is itself a human right, captured under the freedom of thought, conscience as well as freedom of opinion and expression.
We must note however that every right has a limit and could be qualified to protect the rights of others or promote the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality, or public health.
We must further note that a lot has happened to communication these days, such that the present state of communication has become both positive and negative in support of human rights. We have a multiplicity of channels of communication today, different from what used to be the traditional means of word of mouth; print (newspapers and magazines) and broadcast (radio and television). Back in the days, it was easy to manage what was communicated and to even indoctrinate people one way or another. But internet communication has changed all that. The field of communication is now like an ocean of information of unimaginable and unmanageable proportions.
Communications ordinarily should help in the advancement of human rights through various means such as information, education, enlightenment, mobilisation of citizens but also in the demand from duty bearers to act.
However, there are some issues with this. The above would be effective if the communication is truthful, factual, and honest. Another point to add is that communication should also be responsible, and this is subject to more debates. These seem to be highly lacking in today’s communications where anybody with access to a smartphone and internet connection (a.k.a data) is a reporter, editor, and publisher on the go and could become unmanageable.
Today, social media remains the most effective, instantaneous, and widest means of communication. It leads the rest of the media in information and communication. The regular media have come to this realization and have therefore created the social media arm of their operations. These social media outlets of regular news media now compete with the largely unprofessional, untrained, and highly ignorant army of bloggers and social media influencers in breaking ‘news’, whether or not verifiable, just to chase clout or pull traffic and maintain a large followership base. The followership base often translates to opportunities for advertisement and endorsements and such interest has supplanted the greater goal of the media to inform, educate and entertain.
Quite often, when many who indulge in the creation and circulation of fake information are caught in their web of lies, they often claim to have merely shared as received or done so, to use the Nigerian slang, ‘to catch cruise’, which simply means having fun, not minding that such comes at the detriment or expense of some other person’s integrity and thus a breach of another person’s human rights.
The effect of the above abuse of communication rights sometimes seeps into the reportage by regular media who allow their focus to be driven by discussions on social media. This has embarrassingly led to some situations where false information circulated on social media has become the basis of discussions and commentaries on the regular media, especially the ubiquitous phone-in programmes on radio and television, programme segments I consider very low-hanging in quality and professionalism.
The problem of deliberately promoting false information in the body of communication is today given a fillip by technology, the latest one being artificial intelligence (AI). Here is the world where humans interact with a non-human entity that mimics human actions which are easily passed off as reality. This has created such problems as deep fakes (or cheap fakes to quote the US White House), which could easily mislead society, leading to negative consequences, including human rights abuses.
This conference on Communication needs to pay some attention to the best way to handle some of the issues that come with the use and abuse of social media and AI in communication while taking advantage of the positives of both in pushing human rights.
While the misuse and abuse of social media and AI technology in communication could lead to a breach of human rights, the responsible use of both could also help push the frontiers of human rights. Responsible use of both will ensure reaching a wider audience and building up awareness of human rights early in humans. It will also open up discussion on new areas of rights to push for, to reflect the changes in human dynamics.
Ultimately, effective communication in the promotion of human rights requires that we take steps to:
1. Communicate only verified and verifiable information
2. Identify likely fake information and deal with them
3. Not become a source or conduit for misinformation
4. Take responsibility for what we publish
5. Stay on an issue to its logical conclusion
6. Carry out self-censorship before the state does that
7. Address what to do with purveyors of falsehood
I believe that if the participants at this conference pay attention to the above, we would collectively help to advance communication and human rights in our various areas of work.
(Being a keynote address to the International Communication Association (ICA) Calabar Hub Opening & ICA Nigeria 6th Quarterly Seminar Series held in Calabar on June 20, 2024)_
- Effanga is the Resident Electoral Commissioner at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Bayelsa State, Nigeria.
