Fake News worries FG, prepares IOs

ITRealms:

The Federal Government is seemingly worried over the menace of fake news, and is preparing the Information Officers (IOs) on how to effectively counter this effect with fact-based narratives, reports ITRealms.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, made this disclosure in Abuja Wednesday in his key note address at a capacity building Workshop for Strategic Communication Liaison Officers, with the theme "Mainstreaming Strategic Communication Across Government for National Security."

He said though the Social Media has proved to be a powerful tool of public communication, it is plagued with challenges, particularly the prevalence of fake news which makes it imperative for Information Officers to brace up and overcome the challenge.

''Faced with the prevalence of fake news, we took action by preparing Information Officers with the skills to identify and counter such fake news through engagement and counter narrative. Information Officers are assigned to monitor both online and offline news media to identify such fake news and develop timely and credible counter narratives to respond to such fake news,'' Alhaji Mohammed said.

He said the Federal Government is also implementing a robust strategic communication framework, with feedback mechanism, to interface with Nigerians on the policies and programmes of government.

"For example, we engage through Town Hall Meetings across the six geo-political zones to inform Nigerians and the international community about our programmes and to listen to criticism, feedback and advice from the citizens.

''Through these meetings, we are able to shape policy and improve on delivering our promises to the people. The town hall meetings, undoubtedly, have yielded positive results with the kind of direct feedback we received from Nigerians. These interactions with Nigerians underscore the importance this administration attaches to the people in carrying them along in the task of governance," the Minister said.

He underscored the critical role of Information Officers in strengthening government communication to achieve national strategic objectives, particularly in managing the image, reputation and promoting the cultures of the people of Nigeria through a dynamic public information system.

He said because of the dynamics of public communication, ''the ministry is leveraging on various Social Media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, Twitter and Instagram to reach our audiences, especially the youths. These Social Media platforms also provide unique opportunity for the Ministry to aggregate and gauge public opinions and perceptions of government."

The National Security Adviser, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Special Services, Ambassador Aminu Nabegu, challenged participants to come up with a strategic communication plan to counter the propaganda and negative narratives by terror and anti-state groups.

He said the present administration has eliminated inter-agency rivalry in order to achieve seamless and coordinated approach to effective communication.

The Workshop was organized by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP) to build the capacity of Strategic Communication Liaison Officers (SC/LO) across Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs),

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Scientists effectively tune the brain to alleviate pain

ITRealms:

A set of scientists at The University of Manchester, United Kingdom, have shown for the first time that if the brain is ‘tuned-in’ to a particular frequency, pain could be alleviated, reports ITRealms.

Experts, ITRealms gathered defined chronic pain as pain which lasts for more than six months; is a real problem for many people, with 20-50 per cent of the general population estimated to suffer from it, comprising 20 per cent of consultations in general practice.

According to these scientists, it is a much greater problem in the elderly with 62 per cent of the United Kingdom (UK) population over 75 year’s old suffering from it.

“Chronic pain is often a mixture of recurrent acute pains and chronic persistent pain. Unfortunately there are very few treatments available that are completely safe, particularly in the elderly,” says Dr Kathy Ecsy, the lead scientist of this project.

Nerve cells, she explained on the surface of the brain are co-ordinated with each other at a particular frequency depending on the state of the brain. Alpha waves, she said, are tuned at 9-12 cycles per second have been recently associated with enabling parts of the brain concerned with higher control to influence other parts of the brain. 

For instance researchers at the Human Pain Research Group at The University of Manchester found that alpha waves from the front of the brain, the forebrain, are associated with placebo analgesia and may be influencing how other parts of the brain process pain.

This, the team of scientist said, led to the idea that if man could ‘tune’ the brain to express more alpha waves, perhaps we can reduce pain experienced by people with certain conditions.

ITRealms reports that Dr Kathy Ecsy and her colleagues in The University of Manchester’s Human Pain Research Group have shown that this can be done by providing volunteers with goggles that flash light in the alpha range or by sound stimulation in both ears phased to provide the same stimulus frequency.  They found that both visual and auditory stimulation significantly reduced the intensity of pain induced by laser-heat repeatedly shone on the back of the arm.

Professor Anthony Jones is the director of the Manchester Pain Consortium which is focused on improving the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. 

“This is very exciting because it provides a potentially new, simple and safe therapy that can now be trialled in patients,” he said.

At recent public engagements events, ITRealms gathered that showed they had a lot of enthusiasm from patients for this kind of neuro-therapeutic approach.

Further studies, ITRealms gathered are required to test the effectiveness in patients with different pain conditions but the simplicity and low cost of the technology should facilitate such clinical studies.

Dr Chris Brown, who is a Lecturer in Psychology at The University of Liverpool, who was involved in the research while working in Manchester, said: “It is interesting that similar results were obtained with visual and auditory stimulation, which will provide some flexibility when taking this technology into patient studies.  For instance this might be particularly useful for patients having difficulty sleeping because of recurrent pain at night.”

A video interview with Professor Jones is available here: https://youtu.be/vFf_jJHYr6g

The paper, ‘Alpha-Range Visual and Auditory Stimulation reduces the Perception of Pain’, will be published in the European Journal of Pain.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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