Nollywood Nigeria Africa video film hot and cool media media environment

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1 This article examines how Nollywood video films impact Nigerian and other African cultures and environments by connecting an oral culture such as Nigeria quickly through the literate phase to membership in the global village. It also contributes to McLuhan s hot cool model by applying it to Nollywood video films, which is complex because the term video film connotes a combination of cool (i.e., television) and hot (i.e., cinema) media. Applying the hot cool model to Nollywood productions suggests that quick and cheap productions are likely to distort African environments and cultures negatively, unlike the well-planned and larger budget productions that are likely to be made on celluloid. Finally, this article explicates two Nollywood video films in order to ascertain how the Nigerian and other African environments and cultures are impacted in light of the complexity of hot and cool media. The article concludes that quick productions are better viewed and decoded via a cool medium, while well-planned productions are better viewed and decoded via either a hot or a cool medium. Nollywood Nigeria Africa video film hot and cool media media environment

2 The aim of this article is twofold: first, to synthesize Marshall McLuhan s controversial hot cool concept with Nollywood video film productions in order to ascertain how Nigerian and other African environments and cultures are encoded and decoded; and second, to examine a video film s impact on Nigerian and on general African environments and cultures. The term video film is the outcome of combining television and cinema (Haynes 2005). Extending Haynes s definition, Onuzulike deems the term video film as any movie or motion picture produced mainly in video format while adhering to particular cinematic values and conventions (2010: 2). Video films have transformed how contemporary African film-makers tell their stories. These film-makers use video films as a secondary orality to represent evolving African environments. Secondary orality, coined by Walter J. Ong (1982), is essentially voice-centered productions of communication enabled by technologies based in literacy (Lambke 2012: 209). Basically, Nollywood video film stories are deeply rooted in Nigerian cultural traditions and social texts that focus on Nigerian community life [the stories] are told using African idioms, proverbs, costumes, artifacts, cultural display, and the imagery of Africa (Onuzulike 2007: 233). Although Nollywood showcases Nigerian and African environments (McCall 2004; Okome 2007; Omoera 2009; Alamu 2010), recently it has been incorporating and emulating western culture in its productions (Abah 2008). As a part of communication theory, media ecology can help one to understand the environment portrayed in Nollywood movies in which Africans, African ideas and African cultures are (re)presented. Nollywood video films have transformed Nigerian and other African traditions into an element of art through the lens of media environments. This transformation points to the value of juxtaposing media ecology and Nollywood video films. To take on this challenge, this article offers an overview of Nollywood; addresses Marshall McLuhan s understanding of media; explores the hot cool model in relation to Nollywood; examines the impact of video films on the environment, culture and viewers; highlights the analytical approach and film selection; and analyses and interprets two Nollywood video films within the context of the Nigerian environment as well as of hot and cool media, before concluding. Since 1903, when the first screening of a film took place at Glover Memorial Hall, in Lagos, cinema has evolved through the colonial era, the independence era, the indigenization era and the Nollywood period (Mgbejume 1989; Okon 1990; Onuzulike 2010). A major event shaping the Nigerian film industry was the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) Nigeria went through during the 1980s; the SAPs impoverished many Nigerians (Ogundimu 2009; Olayiwola 2007). With celluloid being very expensive, film-makers had to rely on other formats to tell their stories. An important event that paved the way for Nollywood was the traditional Yoruba Travelling Theatre movement of the 1980s, pioneered by director Chief Hubert Ogunde and his contemporary Ola Balogun (McCall 2002; Onuzulike 2010). There are close links between the Yoruba Travelling Theatre and cinema in Nigeria. In 1992, Kenneth Nnebue used cassettes imported from Taiwan to dub Living in Bondage, which was produced by

3 Okechukwu Ogunjiofor, directed by Victor Mordi and marketed by Nnebue. Many have credited Living in Bondage for ushering in the name Nollywood (Abah 2008; Haynes 2000, 2005). Nollywood, which mirrors the names of Hollywood and Bollywood, is the name of the Nigerian movie industry. Despite the fact that Nigeria had been producing movies since the colonial period, the movie Living in Bondage (1992), which sold over 750,000 copies, is typically credited with ushering in Nollywood films (The Economist 2006). A 2006 survey conducted by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) classified Nollywood as the secondlargest film producer in the world, only behind Bollywood. Hollywood was ranked third. The survey found that Bollywood produced 1,091 featurelength films, Nollywood produced 872 (all in video format) while Hollywood released 485 major film productions (UNESCO Press 2009). These statistics are relevant because it is often assumed that Hollywood makes more movies since it is more popular and has significantly higher marketing budgets. Conversely, while Nollywood s marketing budget is minimal, the distribution of video films is cheaper and has wider appeal, in part because it is relatively easy for consumers to access video films. The industries also diverge in that Hollywood predominantly portrays the western world while Nollywood depicts the African world. There are positive and negative aspects to the Nollywood phenomenon. Some of the benefits are that it has provided a platform for Africans to tell their own stories, and it makes employment options available to many individuals. The industry employs about one million people in Nigeria, which makes it the second-largest employer in Nigeria after the agriculture sector (The Economist 2006). The National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) estimates that the industry generates sales of between $200 million and $300 million per year, and provides substantial revenue to the government. Nollywood also creates venues for minorities and the voices of non-dominant ideologies to be heard, in part because it is not uniformly constructed or influenced by corporations. As a by-product for Africans, Nollywood serves as a source of cultural preservation. The negative aspects of Nollywood include that it continues to depict some stereotypes that were originally formulated and perpetuated by the West. Nevertheless, video films have created an avenue for Africans to tell their own stories as opposed to receiving western versions. McCall argues that the Nigerian video industry, however, has changed [the West s telling of African stories and values] forever. In market stalls and corner stores across Nigeria, and increasingly in cities and towns across Africa [and even in the US], these market-driven movies have become the engine of distinctively African popular culture. (2004: 99) This emerging industry has revealed the uniqueness of video films as popular culture, which has impacted Nigerian and other African cultures, the viewers and the content. What makes a video film distinct from other media is that it is so cheap and readily available that any group, society or individual can use it to tell their story, in contrast to celluloid films, which are much more expensive to make. Regardless of the medium, whether video film or celluloid, the medium is the message (McLuhan 1964).

4 Marshall McLuhan s work, which is closely associated with media ecology, can be used to understand and interpret the impact of Nollywood video films. In his book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McLuhan articulates The medium is the message means, in terms of the electronic age, that a totally new environment has been created. The content of this new environment is the old mechanized environment of the industrial age. The new environment reprocesses the old one as radically as TV is reprocessing the film. For the content of TV is the movie. TV is environmental and imperceptible, like all environments. When machine production was new, it gradually created an environment whose content was the old environment of agrarian life and the arts and crafts. This older environment was elevated to an art form by the new mechanical environment. The machine turned Nature into art form. ([1964] 2003: 13) McLuhan writes about the influence of technologies such as clocks, televisions, radios, movies, telephones and games on the world as a global unit. The global village is a condition created by electronic technology. It is a world of intensified economic, social and cultural relations. The concept of the global village helps media ecologists understand the representation of Nigeria s culture and environment, and Nollywood films. TV penetration in Nigeria has steadily increased. In the latest reported estimate done by Media Planning Services (MPS), Odufwa noted that in 2010 there were up to 170 local television stations with the viewers consisting of 78 per cent of Nigerians. MPS also approximates that there are 21.3m TV sets in households, with a typical household consisting of 6 individuals. The main influences on these usage levels are the high imports of fairly used TV sets, the large number of local stations and the increasing growth in TV applications. (Odufwa 2011: 6 7) The current Nigerian population stands at 140 million people (Odufwa 2011). The increased number of TV sets in Nigeria is expected to impact the ideological environment. As Dowd posits, the very act of turning on a television, downloading music, listening to a podcast, or checking our , etc., is the performance of a ritual, through which cultural ideologies are understood and believed (2006: 29). In conjunction with the high TV penetration numbers, this statement suggests that the media is ever-present in daily Nigerian life. Video film reproduces Nigerian and other African as well as ideologies through the media of film and television as implicated in McLuhan s hot or cool media concept. McLuhan wrote that a hot medium permits less participation than a cool one, and conceptualized the hot and cool model. He wrote There is a basic principle that distinguishes a hot medium like radio from a cool one like the telephone, or a hot medium like the movie

5 from a cool one like TV. A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in high definition. High definition is the state of being well filled with data. A photograph is, visually, high definition. A cartoon is low definition, simply because very little visual information is provided. Telephone is a cool medium, or one of low definition, because the ear is given a meager amount of information. And speech is a cool medium of low definition, because so little is given and so much has to be filled by the listener. On the other hand, hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot media are, therefore, low in participation, and cool media are high in participation or completion by the audience. Naturally, therefore, a hot medium like radio has very different effects on the user from a cool medium like the telephone. (1964: 22 23) Hot refers to hot media where the participant does not struggle to decode the message because it contains enough data or information. Cool denotes media forms where fewer data are provided; as a result, the audience needs to engage with the medium in order to decode the message and fill the gap. For a hot medium example, in order for participants to read a book or go to the theatre, they do not need to be actively engaged with the medium because enough data are provided. Another example of a hot medium, the viewing of Snow White in a movie theatre, does not require the viewer to make certain connections and logical assumptions about the movie because a lot of data are provided: images, characters and the storyline. On the other hand, examples of cool media are television, telephones and speech. These media require that the audience fill the gap because of insufficient data. As an example, with television, a participant would not actively engage with the content because fewer data are given and the participant would need to add to the content given in order to make sense of it. Many scholars have noted the ambiguity of McLuhan s hot and cool media (Logan 2010; Fishman 2006; Neill 1993; Sparks 2001). Vivian s work helps illuminate McLuhan s hot and cool model in relation to Nollywood. Vivian notes that hot media are those that do not require a high degree of thinking to use them (2003: 7), such as books, radio, movies, magazines and newspapers. To read a book, for instance, one ought to be engaged to gain from it. The individual must concentrate and tune out distractions. The relationship between you and the medium is intense or hot (Vivian 2003: 7). These hot media demand the full attention of the engager in the communication process. On the contrary, cool media, such as television, telephones and speech, permit the audience to be casually engaged while filling the gap. Television demands less intellectual involvement, unlike hot media (Vivian 2003). Therefore, television does not demand intimate engagement from the audience. He further claims that cartoons are low definition simply because very little visual information is provided. Telephone is also low definition, in the sense that information is only provided for the ear. Video films, as stated before, are something between television and cinema (Haynes 2000: 1). Video films are both hot and cool; film is a hot medium that requires audience attention while television allows passive participation from the audience. Using Vivian s analogy, in reference to whether movies are hot

6 or cool, he says that [i]n some ways, movies are like television, with simultaneous visual and audio components, but there are vital distinctions. Movies engage the audience fully. Huge screens command the viewers full attention, and sealed, darkened movie-house auditoriums shut out distractions. On a hot-cool continuum, movies are hot. What about a movie played at home on television? Cool (Vivian 2003: 7). Following Vivian s assertion, a video film is hot when it is viewed in a cinema hall and cool when it is viewed at home on television. There are similar analyses and debates over hot and cool media in relation to a medium that encompasses both. One example is the use of computers (Logan 2010: 366). Given that the video environment is cool, the information on the monitor is cool but the same information on the paper is hot, so the question is: Is the computer hot or cool? He notes that savvy computer users do not predominantly read on the screen; rather, they print and read afterwards, forcing the information into a hot medium. Sharing the following synopsis of the Nigerian theatre helps situate video films within the Nigerian context. For many years, in Lagos, Nigeria, cinema theatres were disappearing or converted to warehouses, markets, restaurants, residences, nightclubs, or churches, and even demolished (Haynes 2007; Onuzulike 2013; Ryan 2013). Nowadays, with the presence of Nollywood, along with Silver Bird cinemas, nightlife has returned (Onuzulike 2012, par. 4). As of 2013, there are six cinemas in Lagos, and with the six or seven cinemas across the south that premier or screen Nollywood films, a producer can never make significant box office revenue. Cinema remains an unreliable distribution platform that cannot yet supplant the marketplace-based distribution of home video. According to the Silverbird Cinemas website, it is currently the largest cinema chain in West Africa with over 50 screens in Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt, Uyo and Accra, [and in] Ghana. Ben Murray-Bruce, a businessman, media mogul and politician, owns the chain, which was founded in Positioning the (re)emergence of theatre in Nigeria within the context of video film impacts the Nigerian environment. The effective environment for Nigerians, other Africans and other people of African descent is being constructed, reprocessed and shared through Nollywood video films. Effective environment, according to David Altheide (1997), is how people actually experience their social and physical surroundings. Altheide s concept suggests that video technologies and their format facilitate (re)structuring Nigerian and other familiar African traditions in terms of how they are perceived and portrayed, how they ultimately influence their environments, and how their environments experience exchange through globalization the influence and imitation of western culture. For Strate, these environments comprise techniques as well as technologies, symbols as well as tools, information systems as well as machines. They are made up of modes of communication as well as what is commonly thought of as media even though the word media is utilized to cover all these elements (2006: 17 18). Based on Strate s assertion, this article posits that the Nigerian environment represented in such films encompasses these elements technologies and information systems which help reveal the Nigerian culture or environment.

7 Ecological reproduction is apparent in Nollywood video films, and these movies are constantly reproduced while African cultures evolve. As Alamu notes, movies engage our mental picture, ideas and thoughts. He notes that by capitalizing on the power of the medium to capture the environment and reality, many producers create structured experiences that involve us deeply and sometimes change our perceptions or feelings about our lives or the things around us (2010: 165). In Nollywood, marketers, financiers, stakeholders and producers are creating an effective environment based on their ideological concepts. At the onset of the Nollywood era, television content was reprocessed on video film. McLuhan notes that when the production was new, it gradually created an environment whose content was the old environment of agrarian life and the art and crafts (1964: 13). According to McLuhan, what was old becomes new again. Since the emergence of the video film phenomenon with Nollywood, there has been a return to its constructing content of folklore, life and the accompanying arts and skills of Nigerian culture. With the accessibility of video, Nigerian and other African video filmmakers have been able to (re)create the old environment as they desire via video format. In fact, by utilizing McLuhan s concept, it can be argued that this older environment (television and specifically film) has been elevated to an art form by the recent mechanical environment (video film). In Nollywood, video films have demonstrated Nigerian and other African traditions as a legitimate element of art. The use of video films has influenced Africa in several ways economically, religiously, culturally and socially (Amanor 2010; Onuzulike 2007). As stated previously, video has influenced the economics of Nigeria. Similarly, video influenced the portrayal of religious themes in the Nigerian media environment; it also increased the exploration of witchcraft and the supernatural (Haynes 2007; Eghagha 2007). Aside from religion, Nollywood video films tend to influence how Nigerians dress, particularly in terms of contemporary fashion. In addition, some other people of African countries emulate Nigerians in certain ways for example, in dress and diction due to Nollywood movies (Adejunmobi 2007; Omoera 2009). As opposed to celluloid, the medium of video is much less expensive and viable and promotes cultural integration. Just as Nigerian video films influence other African cultures, collaborations between Nigerians and other Africans influence Nigerian culture. Of course, co-production can also have negative effects on cultures, societies and economies. According to Baltruschat, Co-production therefore entails the dichotomy of culture and economics, which inevitably lies at the core of film and television as artistic, cultural, educational and informative media, on the one hand, and industries, on the other. Yet, cultural and economic values are not necessarily conterminous. On the contrary, even through film and television are ideal media for the expression of collective experiences through local and global stories, self-reflection and historical memory laissez-faire economics, in addition to uneven, global flows of cinematic and

8 televisual content, affect diversity of expression due to corporatization and globalization. (2010: 25) This assertion suggests that, even though co-productions via the media can create oneness, they also produce divisions in the context of culture and economics. It shows that the expansion of capitalism and the forces of globalization obstruct cultural uniqueness and identity. Utilization of video technology in movie-making has influenced the content of Nollywood movies in terms of both storylines and quality. In Nigerian cinema, professional film-makers historically did shooting on celluloid. However, shooting on video created possibilities for unskilled and untrained amateurs to join the profession. The Nigerian film industry has expanded and now includes people who basically produce movies for commercial purposes only, which affects and influences the content of the messages. In Nollywood, for instance, it is not unusual for a film to be made in less than two weeks, which influences the content because there is little formal rehearsal. Movies are often hurriedly made in order to hit the market sooner. Sometimes, actors and actresses juggle between two shooting venues because they have signed contracts to participate in different movies that are being made simultaneously. As a result, the content of the movies is compromised because the video film-makers may not be able to achieve a true portrayal of cultural history, or the intended messages to be conveyed in the film might be misconstrued. In other words, these quick productions may create a false environment through the content of the video films. Despite deteriorating production values due to these cost pressures, Nollywood videos command mass audiences all over Africa and, in some instances, have replaced regular television watching for some people (Abah 2008: 336). Nollywood movies have displaced other entertainment media in Nigeria and these movies have an impact on audiences minds. In terms of the impact on viewers, video (re)creates the environment that the video film-makers, actors, stakeholders and financiers want the audiences to see. Those viewers are themselves being constructed and fashioned based on the video film-makers ideology and through the use of video technology. Nollywood video films depict Nigerians in general African environments to different degrees as exemplified in the films Osuofia in London (Ogoro, 2003, 2004) and End of the Wicked (Benson, 1999). This article briefly highlights two Nollywood video films Osuofia in London and End of the Wicked in relation to hot and cool media as well as the Nigerian environment. The rationale for selecting Osuofia in London, produced by Kingsley Ogoro, is because it is the best selling and most popular Nollywood film of all time. The latter is chosen because it is one of the most controversial films ever made in Nigeria. End of the Wicked, written and sponsored by Helen Ukpabio of the Liberty Gospel Foundation, has been cited as an influence on some parents who accuse their children of practising witchcraft. Even though in 1999 the NFVCB banned this film (primarily for depicting a woman with a large penis), Ukpabio defiantly marketed her film and there have been no

9 consequences or sanctions against her to this day (Okome 2007). The film, like several African films, employs tales from Nigeria s traditional oral heritage to evaluate current neocolonial religious politics (Okuyade 2011: 5), as well as their impact on the children. To narrow the discussion, I specifically focus on the theme of gender relations in Osuofia in London in the context of the environment, while in the End of the Wicked I focus on the theme of children s portrayal as witches in the context of the environment. I peruse this article by identifying and evaluating the two salient themes that specifically affect the environment. There are other themes, but for the purpose of this study I concentrated on the theme of gender (Okuyade 2011) and children accused of practising witchcraft (Cadogan-Poole 2013; Kumwenda 2007; Onuzulike 2013), which have been controversial topics among many scholars. In order to situate the films in the context of Nigerian and other African environments, as well as in the context of the hotcool model, I highlight some of the scenes that are relevant to this article. Both films connect the tribal /oral culture of Nigeria, which quickly sped through the individual/literate phases, only to end up in global village/second orality. In other words, Nollywood stakeholders (re)tell and make ethnic stories available to the world/video films. Ong articulates that, [through] telephone, radio, television and various kinds of sound tape, electronic technology [such as video film] has brought us into the age of secondary orality (1982: 136). He further argues that this secondary orality is communal in nature. Osuofia in London is a video film comedy about Osuofia, Nigerian hunter who is married, with five daughters. His life changes when he receives a message that his brother, Donatus, who resided in London, has died. As the inheritor of Donatus fortune, Osuofia has to sign the papers for the inheritance to be released. When he arrives in London, he experiences culture shock. Samantha, Donatus fiancée, agrees to marry Osuofia while scheming to obtain his inheritance. They flee to Africa, where she marries Osuofia, but friction develops among the two of them, Osuofia s Nigerian wife, and their children. End of the Wicked is a Nollywood film that depicts children in the form of animals including owls, snakes, dogs and cats. The film focuses on Chris Amadi s family, showing how his children and his mother torment him through witchcraft. After Chris s supernatural death, his widow is forced to drink the water that is used at his funeral to wash his corpse. Pastor Priscilla, played by Helen Ukpabio, comes to her rescue by demanding to be given some days to pray in order to reveal what killed him. Priscilla s final day of prayer causes Chris s mother to confess among other things that she is a witch who initiated Chris s children into witchcraft and supernaturally killed her son. As a result, the mob starts to hit Chris s mother with various items; she falls down, and she bleeds while she continues to shout the confession, I am a witch! Then she starts to hyperventilate and transforms into a dog. She explodes as the film ends. In Osuofia in London, Osuofia exemplifies himself as maintaining traditional Igbo gender roles (Igbo is one of many cultures within Nigeria), and specifically polygamy, when he takes Samantha as his second wife. Even

10 though this tradition has weakened among the Igbo, the video film reminds us of it by reproducing what many Igbo would consider an old environment. Also exemplified is the gender norm that wives are expected to be excellent cooks. Osuofia frequently requests food from his first wife, Urenma. Relatedly, in one scene he tells his new bride, Samantha, that the best way to a man s heart is through his stomach by preparing delicious food. The film reproduces gender ideology that is still popular among many traditional Africans and some of their contemporary counterparts. A part of the evolving culture is the breadwinning in families. Osuofia tells Urenma that all the animals disappeared whenever he shot at them. Nevertheless, he still demands some meat in the soup Urenma prepares. She calls him a lazy hunter, slighting his performance in the traditional male role of breadwinner. In these ways, the film makes what is old new again by reinforcing traditional gender roles, albeit in a modern setting that makes clear the role of globalization, in part by including London in the film but more importantly by using English instead of the traditional Igbo language for the main dialogue. End of the Wicked has affected the environment in which children dwell. Many critics cite the film for orchestrating and perpetrating recent accusations of children practising witchcraft. The video film has brought the intertwinement of folk belief systems and Christian dogma together, and End of the Wicked was one result. Applying the hot cool model, if End of the Wicked is viewed in a theatre, it likely would not have a huge negative impact on the environment because the data have been provided; therefore, there is nothing to be added. But since it is basically video on TV, the audience members have to add their own interpretations to make use of the limited data that have been provided, as a result distorting the environment this time, the environment for many children. Onuzulike s (2013) study of the news media analysis of children accused of practising witchcraft in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, found that physical harm or violence aimed directly at them includes burning the children, pouring acid on them, and sometimes killing them. Sahara Reporters wrote that Bishop Samuel Okon William was charged for apparently confessing to the killing of over 100 child witches in a documentary aired on BBC Channel 4 (2011, par. 15). A brief report posted on the website of the Institute for Ethnic & Emerging Technologies linked witchcraft accusations to the film. Consequently, when a Nollywood video film or a movie is viewed in a theatre, it becomes hot and demands less participation because the data on the cinema screen are sufficient it needs less of the participant s interpretation. Video films shown in the cinema make the reception of the film-maker s ideology more effective because it demands less audience participation. By implication, because it is a hot medium, audiences are more likely to accept the image and ideology without being critical. On the other hand, a cool medium demands positive representations when people are watching video films on home TV it requires more participation since it is cool. When watching through a cool medium, the audience participates more in the interpretation of the video film because they are given less information. In this respect, the film-maker s ideology is less effective because the audience is allowed to decode or critically analyse the video film since fewer data are provided. Nonetheless, the video film phenomenon has created an environment in which Nigerian and other African cultural contexts can be reproduced. These reproductions, whether considered hot or cool, need to be analysed in terms of the positive reproduction of Nigerian culture. Consideration of

11 whether a medium is hot or cool helps communication theory to question the environments presented in these media. This study contributes to media ecology studies by applying McLuhan s hotcool model in terms of the Nollywood video film phenomenon as it relates to Nigerian and other African cultures and environments. The potential impact of these video films depends on whether it is viewed through a hot or a cool medium. By applying McLuhan s concept of hot and cool media, the presentation is more persuasive when viewed through a hot medium as opposed to a cool medium because enough data are given through the hot medium, which demands concentration, whereas a cool medium presentation allows the audience to be passive and to fill gaps in the film. This logic suggests that the filmmakers ideology is more pervasive when viewed in a public theatre compared to a home-based television set. The fact that Nigeria is saturated with TVs, VCDs, and DVDs increases the reach of Nollywood films to the people. The popular quick and cheap productions are likely to lead Nollywood movie-makers and stakeholders to distort and romanticize African cultures and environments, as well as presenting them negatively. Hence, there are some low-budget video films that portray a positive Nigerian environment. On the other hand, when Nollywood movie-makers are working with larger budgets, so the films are likely to be made on celluloid, they tend to more accurately depict Nigerian and other African cultures and environments, as evidenced in The Amazing Grace (Amata, 2006) and Half of a Yellow Sun (Bandele, 2013). By applying McLuhan s hot cool model to Nollywood video film ( secondary orality ) productions, it is reasonable to conclude that viewers of Nollywood movies would be better off seeing the hastily made video films in the theatre (low in participation) than on home television (high in participation), because video films can be hot or cool depending on whether they are viewed on home television or in the theatre. The larger budget or celluloid productions could be viewed both on televisions in homes or in the theatre because they are more than likely to portray African cultures and environments in a positive way. Given that the video environment is cool and film environment is hot, this article adds to media ecology studies by suggesting that the positive representation of Nigerian and other African environments depends upon how Nollywood film-makers encode movies as well as whether the audience decodes a movie via a hot or a cool medium. Equally, there is significant cultural value in the promotion of diversity within film studies. The contribution of this analysis to our overall understanding of Nollywood films lies in part in demonstrating that Nollywood films are reshaping and adding to the global film discussion. Even though it aspires to attain Hollywood levels of production, Nollywood inevitably retains some of its unique cultural identity and production style, which brings diversity to film studies. Video film as a secondary orality within the context of media environments is a prevailing tool for transmitting African cultural values. Abah, A. L. (2008), One step forward, two steps backward: African women in Nigerian video-film, Communication, Culture & Critique, 1:4, pp Adejunmobi, M. A. (2007), Nigerian video film as minor transnational practice, Postcolonial Text, 3:2, pp

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14 Ryan, C. (2013), Finding Nollywood: Two Fulbright Fellows explore the Nigerian video film industry, Accessed 1 March Sahara Reporters (2011), Akpabio s arraigns Ikpe-Itauma, child rights activist, over witchcraft accusations, 11 January, Accessed 17 March Silverbird Cinemas (2013), About Silverbird group, Accessed 20 February Sparks, G. G. (2001), Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Strate, L. (2006), Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study, Cresskill: Hampton Press. UNESCO Press (2009), Nollywood rivals Bollywood in film/video production, Accessed 20 May Vivian, J. (2003), The Media of Mass Communication, 6th ed., Boston: Allyn and Bacon. William, Cottrell and Hand, David (1937), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs United States: Walt Disney. Onuzulike, U. (2014), Nollywood video film s impact on Nigerian and other African environments and cultures, Explorations in Media Ecology 13: 3+4, pp , doi: /eme _1 Uchenna Onuzulike (Ph.D., Howard University) is an adjunct instructor of communication at Howard University and Pepperdine University s Washington D.C. Program. His research interests revolve around the construction and negotiation of ethnic, transnational, and diasporic identities within the contexts of social media, language, religion, and Nollywood. His 2014 dissertation, Ethnic and Transnational Identities in the Diaspora: A Phenomenological Study of Second-Generation Igbo-American Young Adults, won the Outstanding Dissertation Award of the National Communication Association s African American Communication and Culture Division and the Black Caucus. Contact: Howard University Department of Strategic, Legal & Management Communication, 525 Bryant Street, NW, Room C-206, Washington, DC 20059, USA. uchenna.a.onuzulike@bison.howard.edu Uchenna Onuzulike has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.