World Communication Day

Reporter: Scholastica Ugwuoke

Today is world Communication Day also known as world Day of Social Communication.

It is a day established by Pope Paul the Six in 1967 as an annual celebration that encourages people to reflect on the opportunities and challenges that the modern means of social communication, the press, motion pictures, radio, television and the internet afford the Church to communicate the gospel message.

It is always the Sunday before Pentecost.

This year is the 60th World Day of Social Communication with the theme “Preserving human voices and faces” as chosen by Pope Leo XIV, which focuses on keeping humanity at the center of communication in an AI-driven world.

Reflecting on the theme, Pope LEO XIV explained that human faces and voices are unique, with distinctive features of every person, and they reveal a person’s own unrepeatable identity, as well as defines elements of every encounter with others.

He observed that faces and voices are sacred and God who created Man in his image and likeness gave them to him when He called Man to life so that Man can make use of it judiciously.

According to him, God imprinted on human faces a reflection of divine love so that Man may fully live his humanity through love.

In an interview, the Director Social Communications Commission, Catholic Diocese of Nsukka, the Reverend Father Emmanuel Asadu stated that technology especially Artificial Intelligence ( AI) in today’s world can imitate human faces and voices but they can never replace human presence and stressed the need for people to use AI responsibly so that it doesn’t replace the God given gift.

According to the Man of God, the Church is pushing for Media and Artificial Intelligence Literacy in education so people, especially youth can think critically.

He called on the people to be real as too much filtering makes people look as if they are not proud of themselves.

In another interview, a Journalist and Public Affairs Analyst, Mr Chijioke Attah defines communication as empathing and exchanging information by speaking, writing or using other medium to put across ideas information, and emotions among others.

Mr Attah expressed worry that people no longer get to talk and every activity done with human interaction is now being done through technology innovations which would not give empathy in human communication.

According to Mr Attah, the Church is warning against the risk of AI including the creation of harmful fake content, which does not represent the true situation of things that can violate people’s privacy.

He encouraged the masses to put in more efforts to communicate directly as it sends messages across, reflecting emotions among others.