Abstract

Sociological functions of poetry, as a genre of folk-media and as a channel of popular culture, are well-entrenched in the history of Islamic scholarship in pre-colonial northern Nigeria. As the  oral-medium of the Dan-Fodio’s Jihad era, poetry in Hausa, Fulfulde, and Arabic did not only serve as the purveyor of good and bad news, but it was also on ground to depict the world as it changed with diverse events,  informing, educating, and entertaining  audiences as well as shaping, raising, and maintaining their consciousness on salient issues .  The oral transmitting system endowed the tribes with positive changes in their community life, fitting into   McLuhan’s observation that the core significance of any medium is the change it can trigger in human affairs. Theoretically situated within the stream of cultural studies, this study examined folkmedia poetry of Northern Nigeria in the pre-colonial era. It specifically examined the cultural and media artifacts within the social and ideological context in which the texts were produced, distributed, and consumed. The textual analysis method was used to unravel the compositional set-up and inter-texuality of the overall selected verses which were produced in the identified era of study.

Key Words: Folkmedia, Popular Culture, Cultural Identity, Cultural Consciousness, Cultural Transmission.

^JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 6, No. 2, October  2014, 59 – 72

©Delmas Communications Ltd.

About the authors

Dr. Murtada Busair Ahmad, Ph.D., lectures at the Department of Mass Communication, College of Information and Communication Technology, Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria.

⃰ ⃰ Kamaldin Abdulsalam Babatunde is a lecturer in the Department Mass Communication, College of Information and Communication Technology, at Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria.

⃰  ⃰  ⃰ Dr. Tajudeen Adebayo, Ph.D., is a Chief Producer and Head of Arabic Unit, Voice of Nigeria (VON).

****Ibrahim Salihu is in the Department Mass Communication, College of Information and Communication Technology, at Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria. 

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