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Home / Mass Communication / 640218pw/ Chapter One

  • Influence Of Nigerian Hip Hop Music Videos On The Moral Behavior Of The Adolescents Of Caleb British International School

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    • CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 1]

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    • 1.1. Background to the Study
      Adolescence is a period when young people experience significant changes and youths experience series of modifications in their emotional, mental and physical maturity. It is a phase or stage when a youth meets externally influencing factors that is capable of affecting his or her mental inclinations and actions. 
      They adapt to the trends visible in their social environment which adulates youthful adventures and exuberance. As such, one external factor that has proven to have an indelible effect on the youth is hip hop music videos that are released daily on the internet and projected on TV cable stations. 
      Over the years, Psychologists have conducted series of studies with the intention of ascertaining the role that music has to play in forming the identity and mindset of the adolescents during their formative years (Zillman & Gan, 1997; Tarrant, North & Hargreaves, 2001; Iwamoto, Creswell & Caldwell, 2007).
      Music has always been very important in the lives of people throughout all ages and it has been opined that adolescents are particularly fond of listening to music probably more than any other age grade or category. Christensen and Roberts (1998), posit that music is more crucial in the lives of Adolescents than others. 
      Halle (2003), argues that as a result of the emotional conflict and unrest caused by the developmental challenges of adolescence, there is an increased demand for mood regulation by the adolescent. The importance of music at this stage is that it is not only a mood regulator but is readily and easily available, (Schwartz and Fouts, 2009). 
      Nigerian adolescents, like their counterparts all over the world spend a lot of time watching music videos, particularly popular music called hip hop which mostlyexpresses obscenity and vulgar lyrics that affects moral behavior. Most of them come in contact with this art every day on Internet and TV station cables.
      In an age and society where aggressive material culture is invading every segment of the society, the manifold problems and ills in the society is seen in the general moral decadence and escalating crime- rates. Unfortunately, musical videos of the hip-hop genre, constitutes part of the medium through which many of these concepts and values are expressed and disseminated. 

      This is seen in the existence of deviant musical video contents where drugs, promiscuity, hooliganism, violence and defiance to constituted authority are being celebrated. As a result of the fact that adolescents spend a lot of time watching and listening to music videos, they invariably come in contact with music of this nature, through which these deviant values and concepts are expressed and propagated. 
      In Sierra Leone, Fofana (2010) believes that hip hop musicians provide incitement for street gangsters which fuel drugs and violence in the streets of Freetown through the lyrics and content of their music. According to Schwartz and Fouts (2009) and Morre and Baker (2009), a correlation exists between musical preferences and behavioral patterns in people as well as  among adolescents, in European and North American societies. 
      It is believed that the encompassing effect that hip hop music video have on its consumer is directly dependent on its content. Television remains the most referred media channel or platform that adolescents use the most. It accounts for 4.5 hours out of the 11 hours that they spend daily viewing media content. (Rideout, Foehr,Roberts, 2010). 

      Today, Television content is garnished with a lot of decadent and sexual content some of which are packaged in hip hop music videos. The typical Nigerian hip hop music video devalues the human person rather than seeking to educate or entertain its viewers hence it creates thestrong potential for similar traits to be observed in the teenagers that view them. 
      Strong sexual content is deliberately packaged into various hip hop music videos which when eventually showcased on television show a strong relationship with the negative adolescent behaviors that are prevalent amongst today’s youth. Such behaviors account for the reasons why there is a high rise in adolescent pregnancy, drug abuse, and alcohol abuse, use of explicit language among youths, sexually transmitted diseases and infections like AIDS. 
      The United Nations (UN) labeled (AIDS) as a major global threat facing the human race and adopted stopping and mitigating the further spread of the HIV/AIDS Virus as one of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (UNAIDS, 2002). But this has not done much in limiting the spread of the menace. Therefore, adolescents are in danger of contracting the disease through exposure to hip hop music.
      The effects of Nigerian hip hop music videos on youths has become such an essential societal issue that can no longer be over looked or treated with levity; not just because of how easily widespread the effects can be on adolescents but because of its obvious impact on the behavior of today’s youth  (Gbadeyan, 2008).
      Today’s communication technology aids Nigerians to gain access to the internet by use of satellite television and mobile technology (social media). Nigerian teenagers have access to these communication devices and technology and as a result of incessant exposure to the media accessed from these devices, they are easily influenced in multifarious ways which includes how they behave, dress and communicate. 
      Hip hop Music videos introduces various fashion trends which are popular among adolescents in Nigeria such as immoral acts like sagging, piercing, wearing tattered and unclad cloths.

       Sexual and violence related contents of Nigeria musical videos of hip hop genre that attracts are viewed mostly via mobile communication devices connected to the internet, cable and satellite television. The incessant interaction of adolescents with the media is indeed more widespread in today’s youths than it has ever been in time past.
       Seiter (2005), opined that though the internet provides unlimited access to information which in turn makes the 21st century youth more informed and exposed, however its disadvantages has made the researcher question if internet exposure to the youth is actually a blessing or a curse to their developmental process. 
      The demerits of the hip hop music videos have outweighed its advantages as parents and families were neither prepared for the massive changes it brought to the society nor ‘taught’ how to prepare for the advent of satellite television and the effects that it would have on their families. 
      Children who are usually extremely fascinated by the exciting programs and the picturesque quality of the foreign programs shows on satellite television have been innocently exposed to raunchy music videos with the first flip of the remote into a musical television station. 
      With a compendium of music channels whose content seems to be dominated by hip hop music videos, channels like Trace, MTV and Channel O has become the primary agent of socialization because parents unassumingly allowed mobile and satellite technology into their homes without understanding the power of hip hop music video content that the children view through them. While they sat next to their children guarding them from physical intruders who never walk into the doors of the home to influence their children they underestimated the power and potency of the media. Little did they know that right before their watchful eyes, the claws of digital media has stolen the minds of the resulting to developing new habits and learning new cultures.    
      Formatively, youthfulness is an opportunity to try out new personalities picked up from public figures and role models found outside the youth's immediate environment, i.e. guardians and family. By using hip-hop culture as their tool of evangelism, these role models frequently depicted in prevalent media sell their philosophies and ideologies through melodic recordings from the hip-hop scenes that contain verses embedded with brutality, curse language and imagery that supports debasement of ladies. 
      The Hip hop music genre is a major style of music dominant in music culture especially among adolescents. Since the approach of the music video in 1981, music and music recordings have gone as an inseparable unit, and the impacts of music recordings on youth have consistently been a subject of research and discussion. The rational explanation for the consistent relevance of this topic has been rightly explained by Arnett (2002), who noted that: 
      A typical music video ... features one or more men performing while beautiful, scantily clad young women dance and writhe lasciviously. Often the men dance, too, but the women always have fewer clothes on. The women are mostly just props. ...They appear for a fraction of a second, long enough to shake their butts a couple of times, and then the camera moves on

      This portrayal is especially appropriate for hip-hop music and there has been an expanding worry that the Nigerian hip-hop culture has turned out to be an intensely powerful force on youngsters' perspectives of sexuality (Jones, 1997; Larson, 1998). 
      Truth be told, the worry about standard hip-hop music and music videos sexualized portrayals of scantily clothed ladies specifically is ubiquitous to the point that the U.S. Congress held a unique hearing in September 2007 tending to the issue (Abrams, 2007). The Kaiser Family Foundation (2001) has it that teenagers chief source of obtaining information about sexuality and sexual health is chiefly from the entertainment media. 
      Unfortunately, majority of previous researches have focused more on sexually explicit music videos and its effects on Nigerian or African adolescents with the intention to compare and determine if this phenomenon reported by scholars in Europe and America applies to Nigerian adolescents and if so then to what extent.  
      It is against this backdrop therefore, that this study intends to investigate the effects of hip hop music on the moral behavior of adolescents using Caleb British International School Lagos State as a case study. 

      1.2. Statement of Problem
      As of late, there has been a gigantic worry over the moral decadence in Nigeria which seems to be common among average Nigeria teenagers and youth. Trends and patterns of culture found in Nigerian hip hop music videos seem to have emerged in their self-expression and appearance, method of dressing and sexual orientations that isn't steady with known Nigerian cultural practices.  Indigenous or traditional values that were intended to mold and shape the total conduct of the Nigerian teenagers and youth are being abandoned for western culture that hold no semblance to ours and seems to erode the last fiber of morality left in our youth. 
      With the fame and success in the Nigerian music industry, the number of Nigerian Hip hop music videos seems to be exponentially increasing on music channels like MTV base, Trace Naija and Sound City. 
      The concern is that these music videos are churned out in the most creatively artistic way possible but the imagery seems to have a morally denting effect on the fragile mind of the Nigerian adolescent who is quick to learn, imbibe and copy things they see in Nigerian hip hop music videos because they believe it’s the new 'cool'. A good example is the very short and skimpy under pants that the females put on these days because they would like to be termed as 'hot and sexy’. 
      Many believe that such trend started from the music video watchers who copy the style of dressing they see on their screens and set the agenda for their friends and peers. If this is true then the dancers seen in Nigerian music videos may have contributed immensely to the expanded rate of foul dressing common among adolescents in Nigeria but also to other aspect of their behavioral patterns especially fashion and sexual behavior.
      The impact of Nigeria hip hop music video among adolescents have given rise to a myriad of habits which are nothing but sexual perversions that have been directly learned from media content displayed on television. Such habits include profane language, sensual and arousing gesticulations, masturbation, homosexuality and incest. 
      According to Johnson, Cohen, Smailes, Kasen and brook (1999), the average adolescent spends more time engaging with mobile and technological devices that shows entertainment media such as hip hop music videos. Television has the possibility of producing both positive and negative impacts Dietz and Strasburger (1991). 
      In Nigeria today, the youths have been brain washed to think more of other peoples’ culture of music aired on various satellite media that are produced overseas. About 97 percent of such foreign music has violent and romantic content. Many Nigerian youth get their phones and other personal digital assistants (PDAs) like MP3, Ipad loaded with thousands of Nigerian hip hop music which might contain harsh and brutal languages like “fuck you”, son of bitch,  kiss my ass among others. 
      This research however, aims to examine the influence of Nigerian hip hop music videos on the moral behavior of adolescents using Caleb British International School as a case study.

      1.3. Research Objectives
      The broad objective of this study is to examine the influence of Nigeria Hip-Hop music video on the moral behavior of adolescents using Caleb Secondary School Lagos State as a case study. The specific objectives are to: 
      1. Identify the main source(s) of exposure of Nigerian hip hop musical video to adolescents in Nigeria
      2. Investigate the influence of Nigerian hip hop musical video on the moral behaviors of adolescent in Nigeria
      3. Explain the aspects of adolescent moral behavior that are most affected by Nigerian hip hop music video contents 

      1.4. Research Questions
      1. What are the main source(s) of exposure of Nigerian hip hop musical video to adolescents in Nigeria
      2. What are the effects of Nigeria hip hop musical video on the moral behaviours of adolescent in Nigeria?
      3. Which areas of adolescent behavior are most affected by the Nigeria hip hop musical video contents?
      1.5. Significance of the Study
      This study will be a significant endeavor to music researchers, as well as individuals or non-governmental organizations seeking evidence based research and analysis for proper upbringing of adolescent. 
      The outcome of the research will also add to the insufficient studies on the influence of Nigerian Hip hop music videos and adolescent moral behaviors. It will also serve as a baseline study for future researchers and students who are interested in this particular area of research. 

      1.6. Scope of the study 
      This study was carried out among adolescents in Caleb British International School (CBIS), Lagos State in Southwestern Nigeria to know the role of Nigeria Hip-Hop music video on their moral behavior. How the adolescents in CBIS are influenced by Hip hop content generated by the Nigerian media industry. 
      The prime focus of this research are children within the ages of 10 to 19.

      1.7. Operational Definition Terms
      Within the context of this research, the following terms are defined as follows;
      Nigerian Hip-Hop: A style of popular music of US black and Hispanic origin adopted by Nigeria musicians, featuring rap with an electronic backing.
      Music: Vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.
      Video: The recording, reproducing, or broadcasting of moving visual images.
      Music/musical video: 
      Behavior: The way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others.
      Adolescent:  Is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority).

    • CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 1]

    Page 1 of 1

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