Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has commended a student from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Isah Nasidi, for developing a model that will tackle fake news.

The model, the Source, Agent, Message, Channel, Audience and Victim (SAMCAV), is the first of its kind to study information disorder. It also discovers the fourth typology of information disorder, which Mr Nasidi called dil-information.

Mr Ganduje, in a statement issued by his chief press secretary, Abba Anwar, on Sunday, said, ”As a young man who achieved this level in communication study, an indigene of Kano state and a PhD student of Mass Communication, from the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN).”

He added, “I am pleased to, on behalf of the government and people of the state, congratulate Nasidi. The young researcher developed what is needed the most in this era of information distortions for personal benefits or other reasons.”

Mr Gabnduje also praised the Nigerian media for popularising the author of the new communication model.

“It clearly indicates that Nigerian media practitioners are very much concerned about the raging fake news in the public domain,” he added.

The research resulted from the six-month research fellowship of the Kwame Kari-Kari Fact-checking and Research Fellowship, which selected 17 researchers from four West African countries to research information disorders.

The researcher, the secretary of the Communication History Division of the International Communication Association (U.S.), said the SAMCAV model linked six elements of information disorder (source, agent, message, channel, audience and victim.

These elements are involved in the production, distribution and consumption of information disorder. Each element plays a vital role in polluting information, making it unsafe for consumption.

He added the model would help researchers and policymakers to know how disordered information flows and the effects it causes in society.

“Conventional communication models such as Harold Lasswell depict communication as Who says What to Whom with what Effect,” explained Mr Nasidi. “However, as abnormal as it is, the information disorder model depicts the flow as who says what with what Intent through who and what channel to whom with what effect.”

(NAN)