ATTITUDINAL CHANGE
INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW
Since the collapse of the soviet Union and emergence of a new international democratic order. The concept of revolution has become very Unfashonable. The Fanonian thesis is confirmed by Oswald Spengler’s theory of the mathematical periodicity of war according to which no nation can exist for twenty five years without a major riot, revolt, rebellion or revolution.
Even on this line, am American diplomat teaches that those who makes peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable. From these, we learn that revolution is about change. People all over the world agree on the need for change but disagree generally on how to achieve it.
Expectedly, people theorize on different types of revolution but Martin Elechi’s ethical revolution and the politics of attitudinal change. The critics of mass radical change also point to such obstacles to change as poverty, ignorance and diseases of the citizenship, bribery and corruption in the civil service and agreed of the political class- all of which were originally designed to stimulate, instigate or lead the movement for attitudinal change.
We learn from the history that attitudinal change becomes an imperative category when the government in power becomes totally useless when inflicted by a permanent credibility crises. Here, attitudinal change could be as sudden as when water reaches boiling point and turns into steam. Attitudinal change also becomes inevitable when unity of the elite also becomes inevitable when unit of the elite in power is fractured by mutual hatred and suspicion and when the indignation of the large majority of the people threatens the complacent few in power.
According to Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, according to him. “a body remains in a permanent state of inertia l compelled into motion by an external force.
The change in context is basically ethical and attitudinal involving a revolution of disciplined motivations transforming the people’s cognitive map of reality and world to and expectations from partisan political life. This accounts for why the Governor of the state, Martin N. Elechi policy designed in democratic governance is attitudinal change involving national re-orientation, at all tiers of government. Elechi’s thematic universe for change without violence is the major focus on how attitudinal change could be brought about by altering the value system especially the people’s motivation to and expectation from living together in society and integrity in governance.
Attitude Change
Attitudes are the evaluation and associated beliefs and behaviorus towards some project.
* They are not stable and because of the communication and behaviour of other people, are subject to change by social influences as well as an individual’s motivation to maintain cognitive consistency when cognitive dissonance occurs——– when two attitudes or when attitude and behaviour conflict.
Attitudes and attitude objects are functions of affective and cognitive components.
It has been suggested that the inter- structural composition of an associative network can be altered by the activation of a single mode.
Thus, by activating an affective or emotion mode, attitude change may be possible, though affective and cognitive components tend to be intertwined.
BASES FOR ATTITUDE CHANGE
There are three bases for attitude change which includes: Compliance, identification and internalization.
These three processes represent the different levels of attitude change.
COMPLIANCE: This refers to a change in behaviour based on consequences, such as an individual’s hope to gain rewards or avoid punishment from another group or person. The individual does not necessarily experience changes in beliefs or evaluation towards an attitude object, but rather is influenced by the social outcomes of adapting a change in behaviour. The individual is also often aware that he or she is being urged to respond in a certain way.
IDENTIFICATION: Identification explains one’s change of beliefs and affects in order to be similar to someone who one admires or likes. In this case, the individual adopts the new attitude, not due to the specific content of the attitude object, but more so because it is associated with the desired relationship.
INTERNALIZATION: This refers to the change in beliefs and affect when one finds the content of the attitude to be intrinsically rewarding, and thus leading to actual change in beliefs or evaluation towards an attitude object. The behaviour adopted through internalization are due to the content to the attitude object.
Conceptual Clarification
- Role: The way in which someone or something is involved in an activity or situation and how much influence they have on it.
- Actualizing: Used when you are telling or asking someone what the real and exact truth of a situation, is as opposed to what people may imagine.
- Radio: Is the wireless transmission of signals through free space by electromagnetic radiation of a frequency significantly below that of visible light in the radio frequency range, from about 30KHZ to a 300 GHZ
- Attitudinal: Refers to solving a problem or resolving a conflict by bringing about an attitude change. Attitude refers to the manner of approach, way of thinking or behaving.
- Change: An event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another.
- Campaign: Is a series of planned activities that are intended to achieve a particular social, commercial or political aim an advertising campaign.
- Ebonyi State: (Igbo speaking state) a state located in the south- eastern part of Nigeria which shares a border with Benue State to the North, Enugu state to the West, Imo and Abia states to the south and Cross River state to the east.
Attitudinal change in Ebonyi State
It started as a self- imposed assignment to Governor, Chief Martin .N. Elechi in his native Ebonyi State. Troubled by the glaring indiscipline in the society and the apathy with which many people approach public work, and decide to bring a final solution to the societal problems.
In 2007, when he came on board, he looked at the public civil servant, looked at the economy, and discovered that the society could not grow or develop without having fundamental overhauling of the entire system. He realized that the attitude of our people generally was no longer that of patriotism in terms of service delivery. He looked at it and saw that there was no way he would achieve his dream for Ebonyi State without work on the behaviour of the people.
As we progress from our former primitive and subsistence life pattern to the modern technological society we must be wary of the accompanying challenges. According to Mahatma Ghandi “A technological society has two choices. First, it can wait until catastrophic failures expose systematic deficiencies, distortions and self- deceptions second; a culture can provide social checks and balances to correct for systemic distortions prior to catastrophic failures.”
It is instructive and satisfying that Ebonyi State under the leadership of His Excellency Chief Martin .N. Elechi has chosen the later. His attitudinal change philosophy is a new acculturation that will ultimately provide social checks and balances to correct incessant abuse and disregard for environmental quality.
The role of the Radio in actualizing attitudinal change campaign in Ebonyi State
The radio plays a vital role in actualizing attitudinal change Ebonyi state through projecting the state image both within and outside.
The radio play significant role in actualizing attitudinal change both within and outside Ebonyi State. The Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) uses its jingles to disseminate the attitudinal change messages across the state and beyond.
Similarly, the Ebonyi State Broadcast Corporation (EBBC) uses its drama. to disseminate the attitudinal change jingles/ messages across to its audiences; showcasing the good moral attitudes people should abide by and the rich cultural heritage of the state to the outside state both within and outside the state. The Radio uses its drama geared towards change citizen’s negative attitudes. Radio plays a complementary role in disseminating the jingles/ messages both within and across the state. The objectives of attitudinal change campaign in Ebonyi State were well articulated and heralded through the radio media. The radio can be used to correct some misconceptions in the society.
Here, the powers and influence of the medium was felted through its continued bombarded jingles and messages on radio disseminated both within the state and beyond telling the entire world that the incidence of Abdulmutallab’s was an aberration. Through this way the radio was used positively to correct such negative perception.
The role of the radio in attitudinal change campaign project of the Ebonyi State government of Nigeria cannot be over emphasized. Their pervasive and persuasive nature/ role cannot be quantified. This lies in its ability to reach out to large, scattered and heterogeneous audiences that cut across different races, sexes, cultural backgrounds religions etc.
Radio also helped in making the attitudinal change campaign a success. Radio has up to 80 percent role in actualizing attitudinal change because the campaign is a gospel, a message, its evangelism, its marketing of ideas and radio has helped tremendously in disseminating the message to the Ebonyi publics.
Environmental sustainability and Attitudinal Change:
The issues of attitudinal change in Ebonyi State is very topical because man’s quests for industrial and economic superiority are pursed to the detriment of his environment. The last four decades witnessed a tremendous effort by man to build a global economy. Rather than leading to economic benefits for all people, this has brought the planet to the brink of environmental catastrophe, unprecedented social unrest, destroyed the economies of most countries leading to increase in poverty, hunger landlessness, desertification, flooding, migration and social dislocation. In an attempt to dominate and subdue the earth (Gen 1:28), man has been ruthless and selfish and is fast ruining the earth at his peril. These are the common environmental challenges. Industrial waste, Fossils fuel emission,
Agricultural practices
Infrastructure and Household waste.
Individual as well as public economic and political decisions are building around our world view and our ethics. Regardless of what we say we believe, how we act or what we do reveals our true beliefs.
Two major attitudes that contribute largely to environmental degradation in Ebonyi State:
(1) The NIMBY (not in my Backyard/ dilemma)
With increasing urbanization, consumerism and population explosion we continue to produce rubbish in ever increasing quantities. Most household and industrial rubbish is an unwholesome mixture of different materials, from harmless organic matter to highly polluting plastics and poisons. Collecting and disposing these waste is a major economic tragedy in our society.
However, there is a global convention today overcomes by developed countries that the refuse must not be in ones backyard.
(2) Tragedy of the Common
This is the depletion or degradation of a public good. Public good is an economic good that cannot be divided and sold in units, is owned by nobody in particular and can be enjoyed free by any body with unmanaged access.
As we progress from our former primitive and subsistence life pattern to the modern technological society we must wary accompanying challenges. Attitudinal change philosophy in Ebonyi State is a new acculturation that will ultimately provide social checks and balances to correct abuse and disregard for environmental quality.
Attitudinal Change and rebranding
The attitudinal change campaign in Ebonyi State and the Rebranding Nigeria campaign project of the Federal Ministry of Information which like many ill- conceived projects has gone into oblivion. We need attitudinal change in this country. It is a revolution that towards at the root of our being. It is rudinmentary to our character as a people and in defined by our understanding of whom we are. Attitudinal change is reorientation, it is rediscovery, it is dynamic, it is progressive, it is fulfilling.
Rebranding is a public relation practices that merely repackages what is unchanged. Human character cannot be rebranded but you rebrand products, Nigerian’s citizens are not products; we are humans, with sense of value, with character, with hope, and with aspiration; we desire a change in attitude, “acceptable behavioural patterns commensurate with the visions and dreams of the founding fathers of the Ebonyi State”. According to Martin .N. Elechi
“Our problem is two fold: To change our attitude towards work and to establish durable structures infrastrneturally”.
The rebanding project unfortunately ended up a still born. These experiences should be a pointer to the fact that for a revolution to succeed it, must be husbanded by men or women of ideas and characters rather than by the cacophony of political sloganeering and mass hysteria
Engine of change
The conquest of fear is the beginning of wisdom. Invariably, the human engine of attitudinal change are the intellectuals, a new qualitatively different educational system a youth that is clinically sanitized in mentality and behaviour and a new crop of leadership guided by Russell’s seven laws of success, “Education conquers fear because an educated man is a man who has least to get everything he needs without violating the rights of his fellow man”.
Attitudinal change is designed to create a relationship between man, the mind and God because what conquers is the mind not power.
Educational reorientation,
The concept of educational reorientation as an instrument of attitudinal change emanates from three related idioms that the youth is the foundation of any nation, that the future of a nation depends on the education of the youths, and that young people are like a twig which, if bent early in life, through cultural reorientation follows the direction it is bent. Education is the training of the mind, the moral and mental discipline gained by study and maturation and “the instruction and guidance of men and their innate faculties.
According to mark twain’s hypothesis that you cannot build a nation without first and foremost building the man. Qualitative education is that which changes the man as precondition for building the nation.
Invariably ethical revolution and attitudinal change relates character-building to true education. The emphasis here is on character development, especially in children, students and youths. This is so because any hope for the future rests squarely in their hands. We needs to induce them with faith and moral courage to resist all forms corruption, indecency and lawlessness, or Ebonyi state would crumble from within like Roman Emptive. Like men nations too can commit suicide and die. When a nation surrenders its moral ideas, it dies spiritually & what remains of such a nation is its corpse for burial
Age on attitudinal change
Age is the length of time that a person has lived or a thing has existed. But the issue here is that age does not constitute an obstacle to change. What matters most is the mentality and clarity of vision of the individual. Age is not the issue in this concept of attitudinal change, the energy of youth and its spirit of adventure are basic factors in cultural changes.
Example: Christopher Columbus was twenty five when his discovery of America and was recorded as the most puzzling feat in world history. By age twenty seven, Milbert Swalzer had bagged three Ph. Ds in music social science and medicine.
Government efforts to actualize attitudinal change in Ebonyi state
The state government had made several efforts in the past to actualize, attitudinal change in Ebonyi state. For instance, the programme of attitudinal change was launched in Ebonyi in 2007 when the Elecchi mounted the saddle as governor and two yeas letter, he formally created a directorate in the governor’s office to anchor the programme. Elechi teaches that to enforce the educational reorientation of the youth in society. Governments must purse a deliberate policy of using institutional agencies to achieve attitudinal change. At the national level, such Agencies as national reorientation Agency structured to redefine the objective principles of state policy and the duties of citizenship to the state based on a new Nigerian consciousness that teaches John F. Kennedy’s theory which stats “do not think only of what your country can do for you, you should also think of what you can do for your country.
We also have other agencies like movement for social mobilization and reorientation to change the mentality of the energetic population both Ebonyi men and women. We also think that the national youth service scheme also designed to work on and change the psyche of fresh graduates and to re-empower them with new skills and ideals aimed at national authenticity.
The proliferation of non governmental organization (NGOS) in civil society across African today is to some extent a positive development
Youth and attitudinal change
The future belongs to the youth who will have the remedy and panacea for societal problems they are the future and it belongs to them they can make or mar it.
They are destined to succeed the present crop leaders that are bound to retire. The youth are the major drive of the inevitable revolution that is not bloody or violent but ethical in its reorientation of the polity.
It is a call to ethical reorientation and change of attitude especially in the youths. The youth will begin to refuse to be deceived by irresponsible leadership. Historical teaches that the youths are the arrow-head in any movement for social change yet they cannot do it alone. They need the assistance of elders who are honest, transparent, committed, sincere and dedicated.
We achieve in the combination of the old and the young, the common denomination being the sincere belief in God and service to man and humanity. According to mother Theresa, “if you cannot love man who you see, how may you love God who you cannot see”
We need the wisdom, experience and maturity of the old as well as the dynamism, radicalism and exuberance of the young.
According to Elechi He says:
My optimism is that in spite of the ugly picture often painted of Nigeria, I believe we can still change things for the better. But to achieve this, the good old people must join hands with the good young people in an ethical revolution and politics of attitudinal change to move the nation forward”.
The non-Governmental organizations such as Clamour for continuity initiative (C4C), Ochudo youth league and Ebonyi youth Assembly all these non-governmental organization and others who are determined to have continued process of development have cited Elechi’s attitudinal change campaign programme as reason for the Clamour for his second term in office. slogan: ONE GOOD TERM DESERVES ANOTHER
SUMMARY
This research work is aimed at Role of Radio in Actualizing attitudinal change campaign project of Ebonyi state government and this research work was limited to the medium of radio only.
The strategic role radio plays in actualizing attitudinal change campaign project cannot be over emphasis. This can be contributed due to the fact that most people have radio sets in their homes. It is through this broadcast media we projects who we are to the world. it is an effective weapon which is used to correct the faulty perception of Ebonyi state and Nigeria at large by the foreign countries.
It is also evident that the attitudinal change jingles/messages and objectives were well articulated and herald through the radio broadcast media. It pervasive and persuasive nature role makes it an indispensable tool for actualizing attitudinal change campaign project.
CONCLUSION
The role of radio in actualizing the attitudinal change campaign project in the radio medium cannot be over stated. Their pervasive and persuasive natural role are strongly felted though their programme its powers and influence hinged on its ability to reach out a large searttered, heterogeneous audience that cuts across different races, sexes, colours, religious, economic, political cultural, educational, ethnic linguistic and social background simultaneously.
According to Ikpe (2009:22) states that it is a commendable and practical task to sustain a country’s image than to attempt to polish it where it has been battered as a result of corruption and other image problems, radio medium can still contribute immensely to the promotion of Ebonyi state’s battered image before various publics. It is only by this that the accurate vision behind the attitudinal change projects can be realized until the individual Ebonyian on his own decides to do away with these negative vestige for which Ebonyians were accused.
Indeed this quality makes the radio medium to be a effective tool for actualizing attitudinal change campaign project because it is through it we can project and promote our image both home and abroad.
RECOMMENDATION
Following the outcome of this intensive research work; the ideas of giving Ebonyi state a new image or attitude change is solely the responsibility of radio medium. Based on the findings therefore, the following recommendations are made:
(1) That a centre for democratic studies be established by the central government for all states in the federation to teach both practicing and aspiring politicians, the qualities of leadership and democratic ideals necessary for good governance and to imbibe godly ethics.
(2) Ebonyi state should provide social cheeks and balances to correct incessant abuse and disregard for environmental quality by making harmful actions illegal, penalize harmful actions, market pollution rights and resources, use rights and reward beneficial actions in order to reduce damage through optimized usage.
(3) The attitudinal change jingles/messages should be produced in the major Ebonyi indigenous language for easy understanding and transmit any music that touches on the reputation of the state negatively.
(4) The ministry of information and orientation should engage the services of media experts who will design a new attitude change programme for the state putting into consideration how the government will engage that messes interest and also cites the opinion of Ebonyians in the programme.
(5) The ministry should employ the services of professional media praefitioners who would serve as advisers to them. This will ensure that the initiators of the attitudinal change campaign are guided in their quest to bring a change in attitude and to Ebonyi environment, and it will ensure in time of contingency, Radio stands to effect reactive solution to crisis.
All these are the recommendations which the researcher made which if well followed will take the attitudinal change campaign project to a great height tomorrow.
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good work