This research is an attempt to determine the traditional media that satisfy the general communication needs of Bille people and to identify amongst them, the practices within the community.

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Introduction

This chapter contains the summary of findings, conclusion and recommendations of the study.

5.2Summary of Findings

This research is an attempt to determine the traditional media that satisfy the general communication needs of Bille people and to identify amongst them, the practices within the community. The extents of use of these media by government and development agencies towards health programmes and projects as well as the constraints on their adoption to encourage health development practices in the community were examined.

The findings indicate that the Town crier, Traditional Rulers Council, the Community Development committee, Market place Discussions, Women Groups, Places of Worship and Age Grades are the traditional communication media in Bille community. To encourage health development practices, the Town Crier, Traditional Rulers Council, Community Development Committees, Age gradeand Women Association were found to be particularly useful. Of all these media, the town crier was found to be outstanding in mobilizing the Bille people for health projects and programmes. Findings also revealed that in spite of the utility of these communication media in the health development of Bille community, government and development agencies do not adequately employ them to intimately communicate health development initiatives with the people of the community.

However, the adoption of these particular media for development of the community was found to be constrained amongst other factors, by the lack of salaries and respect and the unreliability of the traditional communication system for consistent and unbiased message dissemination in the community.

5.3   Conclusion

Government’s development efforts in rural areas do not produce desired results due to application of unfamiliar message dissemination processes that end up evoking in the people, a feeling of estrangement fromhealth programmes that are supposed to serve their interests. The situations necessitate the use of an integrative communication process that incorporates the needs, aspirations and desires of the rural people, to get their co-operation.
This work has attempted to show that purposeful and inclusive adoption of traditional media in the communication mechanism would contribute not only to participatory development of Bille and other rural communities in Nigeria but also ensure the right kind of communication system and rapid development.
5.4   Recommendation

A.        Government and development agencies should always identify and employ appropriate traditional media to communicate development messages with rural dwellers.

B.         Owing to the entertainment value rural people identify with the broadcast media, local content development programmes should be devised and inserted in radio and television broadcast contents for the consumption of rural dwellers to complement the traditional media.

C.         Traditional media practitioners should be trained on requisite skills in development information management and gainfully employed like their counterparts in the mass media.

D.        Government should encourage the sustenance of traditional media of communication by initiating and funding researches aimed at enhancing their productive capacity in line with evolving societal trends.

E.         Sensitization campaigns should be carried out to highlight the essence of traditional communication to societal development and to improve the status of traditional media practitioners in the society.

F.          Owing to their closeness to rural people in terms of ownership, programming and philosophy, community radio stations using traditional media of communication should be established to enhance development messages diffusion in Billecommunity.

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