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Influence Of Violent Films On Adolescent Social Behaviour
[A CASE STUDY OF OSISATECH BOYS’ SECONDARY SCHOOL AMORJI-NIKE ENUGU]
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Historical background of films in Nigerian experience
The first
motion picture was screened in Nigeria on Monday August 12, 1903. It was
shown to an exciting Nigeria audience at Glover Merumorial Halliri
Lagos. As Lagos standard announced “The cinematographs exhibition which
is made at the Glove Memorial Hall from Monday night and is to continue
for the nights is the talk of the townâ€.
The film was shown by
Messri’s Balboa of Barcelona, Spain under management of the Nigerian
Herbert Macaulay. Although ticket buyers considered the gate fee of
three shillings high, it was discovered after the first night at the
film was worth the price.
The standard later suggested lowering the
price so that everybody in Lagos may see for herself, by middle of
September 1903, Mrs Balboa closed her exhibition in Lagos and left to
continue showing in other west African countries. On her departure, an
enterprising European merchant, Stanley Jones, began to show films in
the same Glover Memorial Hall, Lagos. He showed his first film in
November 1903. One of the most thrilling films Stanley showed was about
Alake of Abeokuta, a famous Nigerian ruler.
After the independence,
the film unit became a division of federal ministry of information with
the main objectives of producing and exhibiting documentaries. The
Nigerian rural film unit experiment was carried by the Colonial film
unit propaganda section in 1952. Therefore, it is emphatically clear
that the type of media content (video film) that are exposed to the
adolescent will also affect their sense of reasoning and action. The
film being audio visual in nature have immense role to play in moulding
the behaviours of the adolescent.
1.2 Statement of the problem
Over
the years, people have been joining the film making business, either
because of money or they want to gain popularity. Films are veritable
tools of mass communication which cut across national and cultural
boundaries with wide and fast distributing network internationally.
There
are two important factors that must be included in the discussion of
influence of violent films on adolescent. One factor is media literacy
which was addressed by Renn Hobbs. It contended that “Just because our
children can use media and technology doesn’t mean they are effective at
actually analysing and evaluating the message they receive.
Children need a set of skills to ask important question about what they watch, see, listen to and read about.
The
second factor that can affect how children are influenced by violent
film is the amount of parental involvement in suspending media exposure
of children. Studies show that increasing guidance from parents at least
as important as reducing media violence. Video films are the mirror
through which the society is viewed as it is the most popular medium of
entertainment in Nigeria which is suitable to a large audience. With the
production of lot of interesting Nigerian films in both vernacular and
English language, there is a great constancy with which the audience
always sticks to the front of the screen. Therefore, the central problem
to be investigated in this study is To what extent have violent films
influenced the adolescent social behaviour? This is the question this
study is out to address. 5
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