CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
The mass media, most especially television have gradually become a part of daily lives, and sources of information, education and entertainment have been described as the primary functions of the media. Folarin (2005) assigned three functions to the media: Surveillance of the Environment (the news function), correlation of the different parts of the Environment (the editorial function) and transmission of the cultural heritage from one generation to the other (the cultural transmission function).
Film was introduced into Nigeria in the 1900’s by the British colonialist who used it for propaganda purposes, while the church used it to spread the Gospel, The Colonial Administration and the Church saw film not only as a medium of entertainment but as an effective medium of communication (Akpabio, 2003). The British colonialist with the Christian missionaries used film amongst other media to persuade Nigerians to accept Christianity, education and the western culture.
On Monday, August 12, 1903, the first motion picture was shown in Nigeria at the Glover Memorial hall in Lagos by Mr. Balboa of Barcelona, Spain, under the management of a Nigerian, Herbert Macaulay, who later closed his exhibition in Lagos and left to continue showing films in other West African countries. After his departure, an enterprising European merchant, Stanley Jones, began to show films in the same Glover Memorial Hall, and he showed his first films in November 1903.Mgbejume, (1989) said gradually it grew and became popular in the 1960’s. The Nigeria Home Movie industry thus, began from there.
Childhood development can be a frustrating and a worrying time for the young people. Apart from changes that occur in their interest and moral interaction, defining them and describing their position in the changing world, these changes increase their self-awareness, self- identity and their moral recognition apprehension, (Block and Robins, 2009).
Childhood development stages are noticeable by relentless psychological and emotional stresses (Armett, 2008). As they develop from childhood to adulthood they tend to explore more and new ideas. These changes normally occur in both boys and girls; however, Randy (2011) found that more difficult experiences in transition are seen by girls and boys. This implies that television is one of the tools that help in establishing the adolescent behaviour and their opinions and moral interaction (Bryant, 2011). Television enables children to gain perspective to the liberal moral world. Children watch television to describe effective roles and behaviour of people in the society. Robert (1982) observed that television portrays girls as more passive than boys. In most cases, they are mostly concern with grooming and dating. Programmes on television such as soap operas reveal women as being mostly acted upon as compared to men (Caplovitz, 2002).
Early research on the effects of viewing violence on television especially among children found a desensitizing effect and the potential for aggression. Virtually since the dawn of television, parents, teachers, legislators and mental health professionals who wanted to understand the impact of television programs, particularly on children. As a result of 15years of consistently disturbing finds about the violent content of children‘s programs, The Surgeon General Scientific Adversary Committee on Television and moral behavior was found in 1969 to assess the impact of violence on the attitude, values, and behaviour of viewers. Onokome (2004) stated that violence is one of the effects of home video. Children who watch a lot of violent films are prone to violent acts. There is the belief that people often accept the fictional representation in the media for their vivid and demonstrative relay of pictures. The Home-video is popularly considered by many people as a school of violence as it has the ability to hold its audience better than any conventional school. Ekwuazi (2001) opined that when children identify themselves with admired aggressive heroes and heroines in the home videos and copy their behavior whenever a relevant situation arises, the child is most likely to perceive a particular link between media mediated fantasy and concrete reality.
Films were made for the viewing pleasure of Nigerians with messages to inspire, motivate, reprove, and correct anomalies especially in the political and moral systems, to eschew violence and all forms of evil. Home video viewing, however, provides an accessible domestic venue that extends the movie market to diverse mainstream audiences in cities and rural villages. Televisions are now common, and the homes of television owners often become crowded with extended family and friends gathered for an evening of watching movies. It is worthy of note that people as well as students have a more lasting impression of what they see and experience less difficulty in recalling. Home video has remained an instrument of entertainment, information and education. Omojuwa et al., (2009) opined that video programmes are not deliberately designed for instruction but for entertainment. Hence, the use of the film for academic instructions could affect school performance positively in acquisition and retention but there is no gain saying that the type of Yoruba home video films currently produced in Nigeria are not educational and therefore not motivating and beneficial to academic performance of secondary school students. It is with the foregoing background that this study set out to view the influence of home video watching on the moral behaviours of junior secondary school students in Adamawa State.