TRADITIONAL WAYS OF COMMUNICATION

 There have always been various ways of communicating in what we can call the traditional days. But not only that, these traditional methods synergies with the very modern means of communication.

So, traditional communication has to do with those communication routes that used to be and still exist in rural regions. It usually involves verbal media more than any other medium. Of course, modern communication is more concerned with the use of machines and technology to affect communication.

To share ideas, the people of the past would usually do engage in conflict resolutions, cultural festivities and didactic artistry like oral literature that incorporates mystical rituals, folktales, drama, dance and the likes.

Through the intertwining of these methods, a message receives amplification in the clearest form possible.

You would agree that this, in a way, bears similarity with the methods through which the modern people communicate. To pass information, people take to the social media platforms with posts that give information as well as entertain. In fact, everybody goes to these platforms for various reasons. While some just want to have fun, others take to telling people about what to do. But hey, one thing stands certain- creativity and entertainment drive information to the fore.

Just like we have in the modern communication arena, there were also various platforms through which messages were passed traditionally.

The market square: Apart from the original purport of buying and selling, the market square serves well as a communication arena. Women who have picked information from various places spread it around with the word of mouth.

Town criers: This has always been a veritable way of communicating in the past.

Social Functions: Through social functions, information is easily passed around.

There are also non-verbal ways of passing information traditionally. For example, we have the idiophones which have to do with high sounding instruments that produce their own messages just by beating. The Yoruba talking drum, the Igbo Ikoro, Ogene and Ekwe are examples of these. Symbolic displays and gestures are also traditional non-verbal ways of communication.

It’s good to reminisce about how the past traditional ways of communication. But it is evident that the world has since moved from these methods to a modern means.

culled from www.vtpass.com