Dr. Adeyemi who was speaking at the 2013 Departmental Seminar Series of the school averred that it was imperative for the students to concentrate on developing themselves with the requisite knowledge and skills, even as they will soon join the league of practitioners already in the media industry.
He said; “It has become imperative for you students, who aim to end up in the media industry to solely concentrate on developing yourselves with the requisite knowledge, skills and technical-know-how that will see you through when you get there. While still in school today, if you fail to acquire the requisite skills, but see material gains as priority, you will end up becoming half-baked graduates,” he warned.
Earlier, there were paper presentations by the duo of Dr. Akin Sofoluwe (PhD), former Head, Department of Broadcasting, LASUAASOC and Dr. Yinka Alawode, Ag. Head, Department of Broadcasting, LASUAASOC. While Dr. Sofoluwe presented a paper titled The Brotherhood of Language: We are One, Dr. Alawode’s paper was titled Home Video and Advertising: Two Sides of the Nigerian Coin.
While taking a look at the history of the multi-diversity of languages, Sofoluwe traced it to the Biblical passage of Genesis 11vs. 1, where God Almighty confused the early men, with varying languages, as they were building a tower, whose height will reach heaven.
According to the ace broadcaster and film producer, there are plethora of languages in the world over, but each has no meaning itself, except the shared meanings given it among a set of people.
Stating that the multi-diversity of languages has over the years led to ethnic differences and chaos, he however, opined that “just as the world was at peace with one language at the early beginning, the world is today heading towards having one common language again. This one common language is the digital language,” he held,adding, “There’s no language today that will be inputed into the computer system that can’t be translated into English language.”
In his own paper, Dr. Alawode lauded the Nigerian Home Video and Advertising industry for providing massive employment opportunities for teeming Nigerian youths. He, however, pleaded with pundits, who see nothing good with the movie industry in terms of promoting Nigeria’s rich cultural heritage through contents, to be patient.
His words; “Even though I concur that the Nigerian Home Video industry has its odd sides when it comes to quality of content, I plead that the industry should be allowed to grow steadily. It’s just about 30 years old, when compared with the American Hollywood or the Indian Bollywood that are over 100 years in existence.”
Meanwhile, the don averred that the lack of interest of members of the academia in supporting the movie industry in terms of intellectual inputs, may spell doom for the sector.
He said; “It has over the years been observed that our academics, who are well grounded in film and media studies do not show interest in contributing to the movie industry, in terms of shaping its quality content. This has ironically given rise to a situation where businessmen flood the industry as producers, directors and marketers, all in the name of making money.”
