The Use Condom campaign and its implications for graphic communication in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper focuses on „The Use Condom‟ campaign and its implications for graphic communication in support of development programmes in Nigeria. In order to achieve this, a triangulation of in-depth interviews and content analysis were employed to assess the roles/activities of the media team in the media production process and the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials used for the campaign respectively. The paper introduces the reader to the use of graphic language/communication for development purposes and the use condom campaign. Also, it examines the role/activities of the media team in the media production process of the graphic communication campaign with particular emphasis on the Topic-study, Pre-testing, Evaluation, Function, Modality and Targets that are crucial to achieving success. Moreover, the IEC materials were analysed on the basis of aesthetic, pragmatic, semantic, syntactic and technical resolution of uncertainties introduced during the graphic encoding process. Furthermore, the implications of the outcome of the campaign for graphic communication in Nigeria are considered. The paper ends with the need to adopt communication practices that would involve the graphic encoder at all levels of the media production process, which is indispensable to producing effective graphic messages that facilitate the rapid adoption and utilization of development ideas.