THE INFLUENCE OF MUSIC VIDEO/POPULAR CULTURE ON YOUTH SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Electronic media is playing a strong role in construction, reconstruction of ideas, opinion and reframing the various understandings of every individual throughout life. Every passing day the world is socially revolutionized. Individuals have great influences from different sources of communication, performing a very strong role not only in the development of mature persons' thinking but also in youngsters. A majority of people watch TV, use internet, and listen to radio and get exposure. The same case is with youth/youngsters, who accept more influence – negative or positive. However, there exist a considerable number of young people who draw inspiration from the contents of media material (Curtis, 2012). Mass media as an agent of socialization has a deep effect on viewers of all ages. In support of this, Miles (2000) opined that regardless of the actual time young people spend in watching television and using other media, there is no doubt that the mass media have played and will continue to play an important role in structuring young people's lives in some shape and form in a period of rapid social change. According to Getalem and Armaye (2015) the influence of the media has resulted to the extent that all countries are inevitably experiencing greater informational and cultural exchange with the rest of the world and therefore subjecting themselves to foreign influences. As stated by Roberts and Christensen (2012), local traditions are joined by a host of additional cultural forms from abroad, presenting people with a confusing array of lifestyle options from which to choose. Established identities and ways of life are giving way to new forms of hybrid 'identity' composed of elements from contrasting cultural sources.

The above noted, have been attributed by many scholars as the influence of over watching of music videos. According to Muhammad and Bushra (2015), music plays an important role in the socialization of youth. They further noted that listening to popular music is considered by society to be a part of growing up experiences. Leming (2010) added that music provides entertainment and distraction from problems and serves as a way to relieve tension and boredom. Some studies have reported that adolescents use popular music to deal with loneliness and to take control of their emotional status or mood (North, Hargreaves and O'Neill, 2013). Nonetheless, American Academy of Pediatrics (1996) asserted that a handful of experimental studies indicate that music videos may have a significant behavioral impact by desensitizing viewers to violence and by making youth more likely to approve of premarital sex. Thus, there is a great negative impact of music videos in Nigeria and their effects are personal, dramatic and somehow immediate (Fisher, 2009).

Further, Took and Weiss (2010) observed that lyrics have become more explicit in youth references to drugs, sex, and violence over the years. They performed a content analysis of the top 10 CDs performed by theNational Instituteon Media in 2009 and it revealed that each of these CDs included at least one song with sexual content. Forty-two percent of the songs on these CDs contained very explicit sexual content. Lyrics of some music genres, such as rock, heavy metal, rap, and new emerging genres such as reggaeton, have been found to revolve around topics such as tautology, death, homicide, suicide, and substance abuse. 

However, looking at the situation today one can suggests that the plight of the music video and popular culture of the westerners is on invasion in our religious and social structures. The held cultural values and norms seem to be disappearing due to the import of popular cultures which often are learned through foreign music videos. Therefore, the focus of this research study is on the influence of music video/popular culture on youth’s social behaviour in Nigeria, using the students of Godfrey Okoye University Thinkers Corner Emene Enugu state as focus group for this study since majority of the students are youth.  

Statement of the Problem

McCarthy, et al. (1999), stated that the time between the dependence of childhood and the responsibility of adulthood is a unique life stage in which youth attempt to gain autonomy and at the same time belong to a group. As adolescents struggle to find identity, popular music saturates mass media and "helps to cement a larger social constellation linking media images of stars and celebrities and particular musical genres to specific peer groups, cliques, or gangs. They further noted that youth find expression through their group identification and their popular culture choices. Popular music culture, in every genre, offers a set of dress, speech and social behavior patterns of which to emulate. The side effect of this is that it has great tendency to mould their behaviour in the wrong pattern. Recently, Nigerian music videos and the popular culture which youths are exposed have been accused of portraying violence and its adverse effect on the behaviors of Nigerian youths and the society at large can be devastating.

Some explicit images in the music videos include: Sex scenes, nudity, obscenity, vulgar language, indecent dresses, killings, murder, beating up women, smoking, molestation and harassment (Muhammad and Bushra, 2015). These are self-injurious in nature, and may have strong influence on the youths. Further, a worrisome aspect of these music videos is that none of the music stars actively canvasses for the discouragement of the negative tendencies acted out on the screen. And the failure by government and its agency to totally bound music videos that promotes social ills and violence (Suleimanu and Nnamdi, 2011).

Also, it has been observed that youth who are addicted to watching of foreign music videos most times showcase foreign culture and behaviours without knowing. Nigeria was not known before as a nation prone to suicide tendency, but since foreign music videos started finding their way to Nigeria soil the rate of suicide tendency have increased due some suggestions made by this foreign singers and some of the terrific graphic images their videos showcase (Muhammad & Bushra, 2015). Thus, this research study focused on the influence of music video/popular culture on youth’s social behaviour in Nigeria.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

This research is aimed at investigating the influence of music video/popular culture on youth’s social behaviour in Nigeria. The major task is to establish the different effect of music videos on youth or how popular culture causes a behavioural change among the Nigerian youth. Specific to this purpose then are:        

1.   To examine the influence of music videos to increase of violence among Nigerian youth.

2.   To ascertain the influence of music videos in increasing crime rate in Nigeria.

3.   To examine the influence of music videos on the socio-cultural behavior of Nigerian youths.

4.   To determine factors encouraging negativity in the Nigeria music video industry. 

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.   To what extent is the influence of music videos to increase of violence among Nigerian youth?

2.   To what extent is the influence of music videos in increasing crime rate in Nigeria?

3.   To what extent is the influence of music videos on the socio-cultural behavior of Nigerian youths?

4.   What are the factors encouraging negativity in the Nigeria music video industry? 

 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This work will concentrate on the entire activities of music video industry in Nigeria, the socio-moral and behavioural influence on Nigerian youths and the focus of the study will be the Godfrey Okoye University Thinkers Corner Emene Enugu state. 

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

          This study is relevance to the government, the music industry in Nigeria, the media, and general public and prospective researchers.

Government will benefits from the findings and recommendations made in this work because it will enlighten them more on the consequences of explicit violence and sexual content and their effect in the lives of its citizens and will further guide them in policy formulation.

The Nigerian music industry will benefits from the research work as it will stand as a comprehensive tool to enlighten the members of the industry on their responsibility to the molding of better behaviours in the society.

Nigeria media houses will benefits from the findings and recommendations stated in this work as it will help them to know the kind of music and culture they are to promote. 

The information provided in this work will be of use not only to the general public, but also for posterity. As the public will be enlighten well on the influence of music to behaviour levels in the society.

Also, prospective researchers will find this work very relevant as it will serve as a guide line in developing something more similar to this work.

OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

·         Influence: The capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions of others.

·         Culture: Culture is the arts, customs, lifestyles, background and habits that characterize a particular society or nation.

·         Popular culture: Popular culture or pop culture is the entirety of attitudes, ideas, images, perspectives, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid-20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society. The most common pop culture categories are: entertainment (movies, music, television, games), sports, news (as in people/places in news), politics, fashion/clothes, technology, and slang.

·         Negativity: Negativity is a tendency to be downbeat, disagreeable, and skeptical. It's a pessimistic attitude that always expects the worst.

·         Music: Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time. The common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics (loudness and softness), and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture (which are sometimes termed the "color" of a musical sound).

·         Behaviour: Behaviour is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with themselves or their environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the (inanimate) physical environment. It is the response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary.