An Evaluation of Media Use of Indigenous Languages in Cameroon


Keyword : Indigenous languages, media houses, Northwest, Cameroon


Author(s) : CHEO Victor Ngu, PhD; CHIE Esther Phubon, PhD & MENGUIE Yollande

Abstract :   

Indigenous languages are indispensable cultural legacies integral to human development. Hence individuals cannot develop educationally, politically, culturally, and socio-economically through interaction with information dissemination organs, which make use of indigenous languages such as the media. This research, therefore, attempts an evaluation of the effective use of indigenous languages on the audio-visual media in Cameroon, their usefulness to the population, and whether indigenous language training programmes and the editorial policy of the media houses are geared towards effective communication and indigenous language development respectively. Primary as well as secondary sources of data were employed for the study. The research implored a combination of survey and historical methods to elicit data from five audiovisual media houses in the North West Region which harbour the highest number of media organs. The audio-visual media include; Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV), Dan Broadcasting System (DBS), Hot Cocoa, Afrique Nouvelle and Abakwa F.M. Since this study adopted a combination of methods, two sampling techniques were used in selecting the samples for this work. The purposive sampling technique was used to get data from media workers and language policymakers. The respondents from the community were on the other hand-selected based on random sampling. In so doing, everybody was given a fair chance of being selected without discrimination and those selected represented the population under study. A major finding, which emanated from the study is the fact that even though audio-visual media makes use of indigenous languages, the media editorial policies do not.

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