ABSTRACT
This
study investigated the influence of televised aggression and pornography on adolescents
in secondary schools in Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State.
A sample of 120 students randomly
selected from 4 senior secondary school children in public schools were used.
They were made up of 60 boys and 60 girls.
A
well constructed instrument, a questionnaire was used to elicit responses from
the subjects.
Four
hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance using
one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA and independent t-test.
Based
on the analysis of the data, the following findings were made:
1.
There is a
significant influence of violent television programmes on students’ social
adjustment. Thus null hypothesis one was rejected.
2.
There is no
significant effect of violent television programmes on aggressive behaviour of
students, thus null hypothesis two was accepted.
3.
There is gender
difference in the aggressive behaviour of student’ due to violent television
programmes, thus null hypothesis three was rejected.
4.
There is
significant influence of pornographic film viewing on the social adjustment of
students in schools and so, null hypothesis four was rejected.
From
these findings, the onus is on all stakeholders especially parents and the
educational sectors to give proper and adequate guidance and counselling to
school children so they can invest their time on worthwhile pastimes rather
than viewing programmes that could derail and frustrate their existence.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgement iv
Abstract v
Table of contents vi
List of tables vii
CHAPTER ONE:
Introduction 1
Background to Problem 1
Statement of Problem 5
Purpose of Study 6
Research Questions 6
Research Hypothesis 7
Significance of Study 8
Definition of Terms 9
CHAPTER TWO:
Literature Review 11
Concept of Aggression 11
Concept and Nature of Pornography 13
Causes of Aggressive Behaviour 16
Theories of Aggression 17
The Effects of Pornography on Adolescents 20
Television Violence and Aggressive Behaviour of
Children 25
Television Violence and Sex of the Child 35
Summary of Review 37
CHAPTER THREE: Research Methodology 38
Introduction 38
Research Design 38
Population 39
Sampling Technique 39
Sample Size 39
Research Instrument 40
Validity and Reliability of Instrument 40
Procedure for Data Collection 41
Data Analysis 41
CHAPTER FOUR: Results 42
Introduction 42
Hypotheses Testing and Interpretation of Results 42
Hypothesis One 42
Hypothesis Two 43
Hypothesis Three 45
Hypothesis Four 47
Summary of Findings 48
CHAPTER FIVE: Discussion, Summary,
Conclusion
and Recommendations 49
Introduction 49
Discussion of Findings 49
Summary of Findings 55
Conclusions 57
Implication for Guidance and Counselling 58
Recommendations 59
Suggestion for Further Study 60
References 61
Appendix 64
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: One-way
Anova on effect of violent television
programmes on social adjustment 43
Table 2: One-way
Anova of the effect of violent
television programmes on aggressive behaviour 44
Table 3: Two-way
Anova testing effect of gender and
violent TV viewing on aggressive behaviour 46
Table 4: Independent
t-test analysis on pornographic
film viewing and social adjustment 47
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Problem
The
introduction of the mass media into the everyday lives of children and the
increase of televised violence have brought about rapid changes on their social
orientation both in school and at home. It is not surprising that speculations
about violent behaviour have been prevalent in the society since motion
pictures showing violent acts were first distributed with the advent of the
television in the early 1950s.
Violence
surrounds us not only in real life but also in our entertainment as films and
movies.
With
improved technology, television, both in its news reports and entertainment
provides a steady show of violence e.g. riots, wars, terrorism, raids, rapes,
etc, which has affected all parts of our daily lives especially adolescents in
our school system.
Stein
and Fredrick (1999) described television as a dominating, powerful drug on the
minds of children, as a conveyor of cultural values, attitudes and beliefs as
it serves as an agent of socialization along side with the family, school and
peer groups. Yet, television has not received much attention in terms of
research as other agents of socialization especially in the developing
countries such as Nigeria, hence the reason for this study.
The
research on the influence of televised violence on the social orientation of
adolescents in secondary schools has been a great concern in the minds of
educationists since the television is a powerful tool that is capable of
affecting the behaviour of the youths. The effects of television violent
programme on the lives of our youths and even the adults cannot be
over-emphasized. More often than not, it has a negative impact on the behaviour
of the adolescents due to weird and violent programmes that are shown on
television. For example, when one tunes on the television, what one sees are
violent programmes like wrestling, violent movies, rituals in terms of home
videos or films and other extremely vicious and horrible acts which affect the
minds and behaviours of the viewers especially the youths, even the adult members
of the society. These violent programmes have affected the social orientation
of the adolescents so much that they have emulated what they view on television
and this has caused them to be maladjusted in their general behaviour.
Many
youths today have become bullies, aggressive fellows, fighters, armed robbers,
heady, obstinate, corrupt and vicious as a result of what they have viewed on
violent television programmes, films, internet etc. Many children have formed
the habit of opening to corrupt or pornographic sites on the internet and glue
themselves to these immoral pictures, taking in every inch of what they see and
arousing otherwise dormant sexual instincts. This has caused many of our youths
to turn to promiscuous and harlotic lives. Rapes and sexual harassment,
seductive display of body parts, indecent dressing abound every where in our
nation and these have affected the good norms of our society.
The
nation’s television stations are not helping matters because they are in the
habit of showing programmes in which people are shot, stabbed, beaten up,
poisoned, rapped, robbed, harassed etc. They also show cartoons in which
animals or animated characters inflict injuries on one another in many ways.
Television
has been criticized for showing foreign films which propagate the culture of
immorality, thus brutalizing the highly impressionable minds of our children.
It has been argued that local films do not have anything to offer other than
showing violence, ritual killings, notorious acts and murder as rightly
reported by Amata (Guardian, Saturday, December 16, 2000).
Some
of the evils in our society these days are perpetrated by the adolescents who
have watched one bad film or violent television programme or the other. Today,
youths engage in immoral, wicked, and aggressive acts because they are
constantly exposed to television programmes that affect the behaviour of the
individual negatively. Children in the urban cities are the most affected
because of the diverse social problems in the cities and their exposure to
television viewing, internet browsing where they unhibitedly watch all kinds of
pornographic films, listen to the radio and have access to different junk
newspapers and obscene magazines and other aspects of the media that sway the
mind and influence the psyche of the budding individual child negatively. In
the rural areas, though the world is said to be a global village, these things
are not readily available and rampart. No wonder, there are aggressive children
these days mostly in the urban cities than in the rural areas and in the olden
days when television aggressive programmes were not rampant as they are today.
Statement of the Problem
The
introduction of the mass media and the incessant display of television violence
have to a great extent brought rapid changes on their social orientation in
school, home and society at large. It is therefore not surprising that
aggressive behaviours are prevalent in the society since the motion pictures
displaying violent acts were first introduced.
Many
youths today have become aggressive, bullies, fighters, armed robbers, heady,
obstinate, showing unrestrained disrespect to parents, teachers and elders both
at home and school. Many adolescents these days are corrupt, wicked and immoral
as a result of what they watch and learn from corrupt television programmes,
films, movies and on the internet.
Children
these days watch more pornographic films on the internet than they study their
books. This results in their becoming prostitutes, rapers, sexual abusers and
harassers, deprived and perverted individuals. Some become rascals, radicals,
weird in their dressing and appearances and maladjusted to the social norms of
the larger society.
It
is as a result of these social vices in the society that prompted this research
which aims at carrying out a study to examine the influence of televised
aggression and pornography on the social adjustment of students.
Purpose of Study
The
purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of televised aggression
and pornography on the social adjustment of students.
The
specific objectives of the study are as follow:
(1)
To find out
whether there will be any significant effect of violent television programmes
on social adjustment.
(2)
To find out
whether there is a significant effect of violent television programmes on
aggressive behaviour of adolescents in schools.
(3)
Whether there is
a significant gender difference in the aggressive behaviour of students due to
television viewing.
(4)
Whether there
will be a significant influence of pornographic films on the social adjustment
of adolescents in school.
Research Questions
The
following research questions are raised to conduct this study:
1.
Will there by
any significant effect of violent television programmes on the social
adjustment of students?
2.
Will there be
any significant effect of aggressive television programmes on students’ violent
behaviour in society?
3.
Will there be
any significant gender difference in the aggressive behaviour of students due
to viewing violent television programmes?
4.
Will there be
any significant influence of pornographic films on the social adjustments of
adolescents in schools?
Research Hypothesis
1.
There
will be no significant effect of violent television programmes on students
social adjustment.
2.
There
will be no significant effect of violent television programmes on the
aggressive behaviour of students.
3.
There
will be no significant gender difference in the aggressive behaviour of
students due to violent television programmes.
4.
There
will be no significant influence of pornographic films viewing on the social
adjustment of students in schools.
Significance of Study
It
is unarguably clear that violent television programmes influence the behaviour
of the child either directly or indirectly. This study will therefore enable
children to be more focused on their academic works than watching more
television programme. It will also help children to realize that all what they
see on television are mostly film ticks, make-beliefs and embellishments and
they ought not to imitate them.
The study will be significant to educators because
the information gathered can help them to develop educational theories which
could help or be useful in guiding adolescents in their social development.
The study is significant to parents
in that they will be able to control and monitor the type of programmes their
children watch on television and the time to watch them through the
recommendations of this study.
Producers of television programmes will be
encouraged to produce more informative and educative programmes which will help
in the children’s academic performance and social adjustment.
Definition of
Terms
The key words that would be defined here are
Aggression, Pornography and Social Adjustment. They would be defined in the context
of the study.
Aggression: Is a deliberate unprovoked attack by a person or
group on another. It is an energetic activity of the mind or body, whether
innate or a product of frustration, and either healthily expressed as proper
self-assertion or in the use and perfecting of skills etc, or morbidly
expressed in bullying, masochism, destructiveness etc or sublimated in play.
Televised
Aggression: Is that which holds a
reward, either direct or indirect (in the form of observation of models). These
rewards are, the influencing factors in aggression. It relates to the effect of
glamorized violent role-models such as those in the media, on computer games,
in cyberspace and in music. The issue to be addressed is whether people,
especially children can tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
Research on human aggression has progressed to a
point at which a unifying framework is needed. All violence is aggression, but
no all aggression is violent. Intimidation for instance is a case of
non-violent aggression.
Pornography: Is an obscene literature, photograph or painting
intended to cause sexual excitement. Pornography from the Greek word “Porneia”
means “Prostitution”. In general usage today, it refers to literature, films
and so on, that are sexually arousing. Soft-core pornography refers to
pornography that is suggestive rather than explicit. Hard-core pornography in
contrast, is explicit in that it shows actual sexual acts and photographs of
the genitals. Generally, it is the explicit representation of sexual behaviour
verbal or pictorial which degrades or demeans humans especially women.
Social
Adjustment: It is the adaptation
of a person to his social environment. Adaptation may take place by adapting
self to the environment or by changing the environment. Generally, it is a
relationship which involves the accommodation of the individual to
circumstances in his social environment for the satisfaction of his needs and
motives. It is the ability of the individual to integrate successfully with
others to perform his social functions accordingly.
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