Varsity teacher urges media practitioners to stick to ethics

A Professor of Broadcast Journalism, Ayodele Odunlami, has urged media practitioners to embrace the ethics of the profession so as not to fall victim to the pitfalls of numerous disruptive technologies.

Odunlami disclosed this on Tuesday while delivering the 119th inaugural lecture of the Olabisi Onabanjo University held at the OGD Lecture Theatre.

The professor of broadcast journalism spoke on the title; “(Re)moving The Ancient Landmarks? How Technology Deconstructs The Mass Media”.
He warned that accepting these new modern technologies hook, line, and sinker  poses the risk of what he called “media imperialism or second slavery”

He said that media practitioners must be able to employ these modern technologies and use them in such a way that it will reflect the peculiar African settings and not just as someone who is forever tied to the aprons of the Western world.

Odunlami said that the improvement in technology is no doubt a welcome development bringing about media convergence, giving people varied choices, expanding access to information, fast-tracking the evolution of citizens’ Journalism, and colourful visuals among others.

He said that with these technologies also came a dying reading culture with many newspapers folding up due to lack of patronage, the albatross of fake news, loss of jobs, and negative impact on socialisation and family ties among others.

He said, “What we are saying is that to maintain a balance, we must go back to the ancient landmarks which are the ethical guidelines, that are the basis of our calling as journalists. Many of us don’t even know that there are rules guiding us anymore, we see people doing things and we follow them to do the same thing.

“We have forgotten that everything we do in Mass Media is predicated upon certain values, norms that have been time tested. We need to go back to those old ways of our values system, our ethics, theories such that we won’t lose our sense of direction and steam.”

“Technology and Mass Media may be inseparable, however, if we continue with the catch-up game of technology, we won’t get there because there is no way we can catch up with the developed countries.

“As we are trying to catch up and adjust to one technology, another one is being discovered or upgraded and this keeps us in a state of perpetual Media imperialism because we keep on depending on them which is not good for us.

“But what we are saying is that even with the coming of this technological advancement, we should contextualise it in terms of African values, in terms of our language and culture. We should be able to inject into them those things that are germane to our conditions,” he added.

The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof Ayodeji Agboola described Odunlami as a God-fearing, enterprising, and brilliant scholar urging him to continue to use his fountain of knowledge to expand the frontier of humanity and academic excellence.