Influence of AKBC Anti-Vice Messages on Youths in Uyo Urban
ABSTRACT
The Mass Media power lies in the fact
that they have the capacity to shape what we think about the world. This paper
was aimed at identifying the influence of AKBC anti-vice message on Uyo urban
youths. Copies of the questionnaire were administered to 399 youths in Uyo
urban, representing 40% of the total population of Uyo urban, but data analysis
was from 380 copies of the questionnaire which were found useful. From the
study, it was revealed that 48% of 189 youths who were engaged in vices before
exposure to AKBC anti-vice messages confessed to their lives being transformed
after exposure to the messages. The paper recommends that AKBC should subsequently
carry out audience research on the impact of anti-vice messages on their youth
audience in order to identify the factors responsible for non-transformation of
the other youths and (52%) the way forward.
Key
words: Mass Media, Anti-vice Messages, Youths, Influence, Attitudinal Change.
Introduction
The society and communication are two inseparable phenomena which ensure the wellbeing of human evidence. While society cannot function without communication, communication on the other hand cannot function without the society. Udoakah (2000, p. 27) asserts that “communication is to the society what a skeleton is to human body. This is in confirmation of the fact that the society depends on communication for optimum success. It is through communication that human beings mould and control the society. The mass media play significant roles in transmitting attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and values; and under certain conditions they may determine the attitudes of young people (Curtis, 2012).
The society and communication are two inseparable phenomena which ensure the wellbeing of human evidence. While society cannot function without communication, communication on the other hand cannot function without the society. Udoakah (2000, p. 27) asserts that “communication is to the society what a skeleton is to human body. This is in confirmation of the fact that the society depends on communication for optimum success. It is through communication that human beings mould and control the society. The mass media play significant roles in transmitting attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and values; and under certain conditions they may determine the attitudes of young people (Curtis, 2012).
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Although the mass media may influence
the shaping of stereotypical images, they also have the power to change such
stereotyped youngsters, who are heavy users and display a pattern of belief and
perception consistent with media portrayal (Mulghal, 2014). Statistics show
that there are a few things which influence the young human mind more than the
mass media. The counsels of parent’s teachers and relatives may fall on deaf
ears, but the mass media hold them spell hound.
In our contemporary society, many
youths have increasingly become promiscuous as well as engaged in the ever-increasing
wave of other vices such as armed robbery, kidnapping, burglary, smoking, rape,
terrorism, cultism, indecent dressing, alcoholism, pre-marital sex etc. This
places a great responsibility on the media to feature messages, programmes, and
carry out campaigns, against these vices which stem from moral decadence. Mboho
and Iwokwagh (2007) share that the mass media have the capacity to bring to the
public issues they consider worthy of attention and the influence any medium
has on the society, especially the youths, depends on the way that particular
medium represents the society. When the youths pay attention to understand and
remember messages with reference to past experiences and predispositions the
results are; attitude formation, enlargement of belief system and alteration of
values.
The mass media are powerful agents of
social changes who feature and transmit sponsored anti-vice messages and
programmes, specifically packaged to suit the youths. Such sponsors include;
National Orientation Agency (NOA), Economic Financial and Crime Commission
(EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), State Security Service
(SSS) and Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN). However, they sometimes transmit
violence, vulgarity and obscene images which corrupt the minds, especially of
the youths.
Statement of the Problem
One of the social problems facing
human development in this century in Nigeria and Uyo in particular is the
menace of youth vices which have assumed an alarming rate in terms of murder,
robbery, rage, riot, terrorism, cultism, alcoholism, drug abuse, kidnapping,
vandalism etc. The consequences of these vices manifest in wanton destruction
of life and property with devastating effects on human development. The mass
media are seen to affect many aspects of human life, for example; the rating
process, lifestyle such as fashion, eating habits, study, work, relaxation etc.
The main power of the media lies in the fact that they can shape what we know
about the world and can be the main sources of ideas and opinions as they
influence the way we think or act.
The Akwa Ibom Broadcasting Corporation
(AKBC) Radio and Television anti-vice messages are intended, perhaps, to
emphasize the dangers and consequences of social vices and also to dissuade the
youths, especially, from indulging in them. With this in mind, the question is;
to what extent have the youths in Uyo urban been influenced by the anti-vices
messages of AKBC (Radio and Television).
Research Questions
The paper has the following research
questions.
1. Which
AKBC medium are youths in Uyo urban more exposed to?
2. What
change have youths in Uyo urban experience as a result of their exposure to
AKBC anti-vice messages?
Operational Definitions
Influence:
The capacity or ability of the mass
media anti-vice messages to affect character development or behavior of youths
in Uyo urban.
Media: The electronic channels of mass
communicating anti-vice messages to the youths in Uyo urban.
Vice: A practice, behavior or habit
generally considered bad in Uyo urban.
Exposure: The act of listening to or viewing anti-vice
messages by youths in Uyo urban.
Youth: Human beings between the ages of 13 and 30
living within Uyo urban.
Related Literature Review
Communication:
It has been difficult defining this term and is even moreso now with emerging
trends in the world. Each definition keeps focusing on some unique attributes
of the term in relation to man and his circumstances, situations and conditions
of life.
Worthy of note is that of Unoh in
Samson (2017, p.14) as a “sharing of information, ideas, thoughts and emotions
between a source and a receiver for mutual understanding, the reduction of
uncertainties or for appropriate action. Akpan in Samson (2017, p.14) says,
Communication
is a process of interacting in which a sender selects a message that he encodes
into signals which are transmitted over a channel to a receiver who decodes
these signals into a message of his own which changes his consciousness and
behavior at least to the extent that he responds with feedback to the sender,
thus altering the consciousness and behavior of both.
Thus, the mass media disseminate
anti-vice messages to the youths in Uyo urban with the intent of consciously
and deliberately touching on their attitude to life and their unpleasant
behavior. Communication strengthens social intercourse and brings about
associating, cooperating and forming groups. Goals cannot be met and problems
cannot be solved without adequate communication of which ever form. In every
society, there are formal guidelines and principles that each member must
adhere to. These guidelines and principles are communicated in a bid to control
the behavior of members. This explains why anti-vices messages are communicated
by the mass media to residents of Uyo urban, especially to the youths.
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The Mass Media and the
Younger Generation
Crime, vandalism, drug, abuse,
alcoholism, illicit sex, teenage pregnancy, and the list goes on. Where do
these rebellious attitudes stem from? The obvious answer would be from parental
up-brining of the youths, but the mass media also play a substantial role in
the attitudes, behavior and physical aspects of youths today. Beresin (2010).
They are constantly being bombarded by the media with advertising, pinions,
images and stories which appear to be forcing us to conform to specific images
of how we are supposed to be. The media strongly influences the youth culture
though media executives, sometimes, are quick to defend their role in youth
violence and bullying while gaining millions of naira in advertisements focused
on the youths. However, it is a common saying that everything has its
advantages and disadvantages. And so do the media.
The mass media play very significant
roles in creations awareness on certain issues which remained mentionable by
the adults untouchable among youngsters such as sex education, peer pressure
etc. As the media provide information regarding such topics and many more, the
youths are guided in their thinking and decision making. The positive as well
as the negative messages from the media attract the attention of the youths but
a life has to be drawn between the positive and the negative messages of the
media in the interest of the younger generation. Hamadi (2015).
The mass media serve the basic
functions of informing, educating, entertaining and correlating of the
environment. In line with these, it is expected that the lives of the audience
should be influenced by the contents that lend credence to the preservation of
the culture and intrinsic values of the society positively. It is in the
character of the mass media to help in the development of culture by awakening
and stimulating the imagination and aesthetic creativity of the audience. The
mass media in some ways influence the audience negatively by promoting crime
through television violence, gender inequality, sex and pornography, drugs and
alcoholism. It is obvious that viewers of television programmes are emotionally,
psychologically, culturally and intellectually different. These differences
determine the extent of exposure an individual gives to particular television
programmes; and their perception and retention of the content, and their level
of recall when necessary.
Silverman
and Sacco (2014) in a research on crime prevention through mass media sought to
ascertain the extent of crime prevention in Alberta province as a result of the
respondents’ exposure to the mass media crime prevention campaign messages,
during the period of study. despite the fact that 80% of the respondents to the
post-intervention survey were familiar with the “let’s not give crime a chance”
slogan, the various measures of effect employed in the study (before – after
comparisons, investigation of relationship between campaign exposure and
preventive behavior and examination of police data) did not suggest that the
campaign had a great deal of impact. The apparent failure of this campaign to
produce significant and widespread of attitudinal and behavioural changes
towards involvement in crime prevention does not suggest that campaigns are
ineffective but, rather that widespread exposure of the campaign message does
not in itself make such changes likely.
Ndwiga (2014) in a study to ascertain
the role of the mass media in control of drug abuse among the youths submits
that majority of youths are exposed to use of drugs as they watch actors and
musicians abusing drugs. In the study, all the respondents (100%) indicated
that the media enhanced their level of drug awareness and (80%0 admitted that
youths lose values as they tend to copy what they see in the media. As a result
of drug abuse, some of them have dropped out of school.
Theoretical Framework
Theories
adopted for this study are the Agenda setting theory, consistency theories and
the behaviour theory.
The Agenda-Setting Theory
The
Agenda-Setting Theory as propounded by Maxwell McCombs and Donald L. Shaw in
1973.
McCombs
and Shaw as stated by Griffin (2000) postulate that the mass media have a large
influence on audiences by their choice of what stories to consider news worthy
and how much prominence and space to give them. The theory lays emphasis on
salience transfer, salience transfer refer to the ability of the mass media to
transfer agenda from the media to public agenda, it further explains that the
media are responsible for the “pictures in our head” by telling people what to
think about. The theory also explains the correlation between the rate at which
the mass media cover stories and the extent to which people think that the
stories are important.
Consistency Theories
The
theory was propounded by Festinger in the 1950s. These theories assume that
media messages must work in line with the pro-existing attitudes of the
audience before they can have direct effect on them. I he messages must be
consistent with the needs, interest, beliefs, attitudes of the audience, if
they must have direct effect on them. The theories hold that the audience is
made up of different people with their different characteristics. Festinger in Asemah
(2011).
People
selectively expose themselves to media messages. This screening aspect depends
on many factors such as reach of media, accessibility, age, cultural
acceptability, taboos etc. People deliberately seek for information that
address their interests conforms to their values and beliefs. The individuals,
as a matter of preference, selectively determines the medium to which he wants
to be exposed to and the contents too.
Therefore, what an individual decides
to be exposed to; his perception attention to, and retention of, is determined
by the persons interest, needs, values and beliefs among others.
This
process explains that youths in Uyo urban may tend to subconsciously erase from
their memories anti-vice messages they do not like, while selecting,
remembering (retaining) and recalling those messages or aspects of them which
they want to remember. This psychological forgetfulness goes a long way in
determining how people react to mass media messages and what effect the mass
media could have on them. No individual possesses the capacity to retain all
the stimuli from the media. The choice is open to all the media audience
members to select those stimuli that reinforce their ego or those that are not
at variance with their purpose for living.
Research Methodology, Population
and Sample
The research method for this study is
the survey which Kothari (2014, p. 89) see as “the method of securing
information concerning a phenomenon under study from all or a selected number
of respondents of the concerned universe”.
The population of the study comprised
of youths residing in Uyo urban. Data provided by the National Population
Commission (NPC) state that the projected figure for Uyo urban is 399,789 and
40% of the population is made up of youths. Therefore the total number of
youths in Uyo urban is 159,915. Taro Yamane’s formula for sample selection was
applied and the sample size for youths in Uyo urban was 398.9 
399, representing 2.5% of the entire youth
population. The respondents were chosen using the cluster sampling of six
clusters based on the major roads found in Uyo urban (Nwaniba, Wellington
Bassey, Oron, Ikot Ekpene, Abak and Aka Roads). The purposive sampling was
adopted in selecting respondents from each of the major roads in Uyo urban
based on their exposure and awareness of anti-vice messages on AKBC
Radio/Television. Data collected from the available sample, by use of
questionnaire, were used to assess the respondents in each of the major roads.
399, representing 2.5% of the entire youth
population. The respondents were chosen using the cluster sampling of six
clusters based on the major roads found in Uyo urban (Nwaniba, Wellington
Bassey, Oron, Ikot Ekpene, Abak and Aka Roads). The purposive sampling was
adopted in selecting respondents from each of the major roads in Uyo urban
based on their exposure and awareness of anti-vice messages on AKBC
Radio/Television. Data collected from the available sample, by use of
questionnaire, were used to assess the respondents in each of the major roads.
Analysis of Questionnaire Data
Data were collected through the
administering of questionnaire on the sample respondents. Out of 399 copies
distributed, 380 copies of the questionnaire returned were found useful for the
analysis.
Table
1: Uyo Urban Youth Exposure to
anti-vice messages on AKBC Radio and Television
AKBC Media
|
Number of Respondents
|
Percentage
|
Radio
|
220
|
58
|
Television
|
160
|
42
|
Total
|
380
|
100
|
More
of the Uyo urban youths became aware of the anti-voice messages of AKBC through
the Radio arm of the corporation.
Table
2: Responses on Frequency of Exposure
of Uyo Urban Youths to Anti-vice Messages on AKBC Radio and Television
Frequency
|
Number of Respondents
|
Percentage
|
Rarely
|
55
|
14
|
Sometimes
|
189
|
50
|
Always
|
136
|
36
|
Total
|
380
|
100
|
All the respondents are exposed to the
anti-vice messages, though at varying frequencies.
Table
3: Responses on Respondents
Engagement in Vices before Exposure to Anti-vice Messages
Response
|
Number of Respondents
|
Percentage
|
Yes
|
189
|
49
|
No
|
105
|
28
|
I
can’t tell
|
86
|
23
|
Total
|
380
|
100
|
The
table above shows that 49% of the respondents were engaged in vice before their
exposure to anti-vice messages on AKBC.
Table
4: Responses on the influence of
anti-vice messages on Respondents who Engaged in Vices before Exposure to the
AKBC Anti-vice messages
Response
|
Number of Respondents
|
Percentage
|
None
|
70
|
37
|
Negative
|
29
|
15
|
Positive
|
90
|
48
|
Total
|
189
|
100
|
Table
3 reveals that the respondents yet to be influenced by the anti-vice messages are
more than those influenced.
Discussion of Findings
How exposed are youths in Uyo urban to
the anti-vice messages on AKBC (Radio and Television)?
The data in Table 1 show that all the
respondents (100%) are exposed to the anti-vice messages-58% via the radio arm
of AKBC while 42% via the television arm. Scholars such as McCombs and Shaw
cited by Griffin (2000) have agreed that the mass media have the ability and
capacity to transfer salient items on their news agenda to public agenda. Also
the audience judge as important what the media consistently transmit and pay
more attention to information coming from the media. Youths in Uyo urban are
not left out in this. The frequency of exposure as recorded in Table 2
indicates that majority of the respondents (64%) do not expose themselves
regularly to anti-vice messages on AKBC (radio and television). This is
dependent on the level of respondents’ interest in the messages, predetermined
by their perceptions, values, beliefs, attitudes and decisions. The mass media
as vehicles of mass communication have a special place in their lives today,
individually and/or collectively. They serve the needs of the various youths
who have specific preferences. Furthermore, Festinger in his consistency theory
as cited by Asemah (2011) states that people selectively expose themselves to
media messages. They select information to pay attention to at a given time.
What
change have youths in Uyo urban experienced as a result of exposure to the
anti-vice messages from AKBC (Radio and Television)?
Data in Table 3 show that 49% of the
respondents had been engaged in vices before exposure to anti-vice messages.
From Table 4, it can be observed that though the respondents have received
awareness and knowledge of vices and their attendant consequences, the number
who have been influenced by the anti-vice messages resulting in transformation
of their life is negligible (48%). This leaves much to be desired of the
messages which are for campaigns against vices in the society. Noar (2006) submits
that the utmost expectation of a campaign is to get to the target audience with
the intention of creating impact in the life of the audience. But then the
frequency of exposure does not equal the influence. Cacioppo, Richard and
Stephen (2014) confirm this in that they do not view attitude change as the
consequence of the externally provided information per-se, but rather as the
consequence of thoughts, ideas and arguments that the recipients themselves
generate; and as a result of a person’s careful and thoughtful considerations
of the merits of the information presented in support of an advocacy. This
explains the apparent failure of anti-vice messages on AKBC Radio and Tv. to
provide significant and widespread influence on youths in Uyo urban as seen in
the negligible percentage of respondents influenced by the anti-vice messages.
Conclusion
From
the findings from this study, it is evident that all the respondents sampled
were fully aware and knowledgeable of anti-vice messages on AKBC (Radio and
Television), but regrettably, only a minimal percentage claimed they have been
influenced by these messages.
Recommendations
This study recommends that;
1. AKBC
(radio and television) should subsequently conduct research on the impact of
anti-vice messages on youths in Uyo urban in order to ascertain those factors
that can motivate the youths to accept anti-vice messages; and be mindful of
such factors as part of the message contents, presentation and delivery.
2. A
combination of media techniques should be used in sensitizing the youths in Uyo
urban on the menace of vices.
3. Feedback
monitoring strategies should be put in place to help know immediate audience
reactions and perceptions of anti-vice messages.
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