Entertainment Media Outlets as Predictors of Sexualization among Female Senior Secondary School Students in Rivers State, Nigeria

Ugwu Chinelo.J.^1, and Onukwufor Jonathan.N.¹

¹Department of Educational Psychology, Guidance and Counselling, Faculty of Education, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Cite this paper:
Ugwu Chinelo.J. and Onukwufor Jonathan.N.. Entertainment Media Outlets as Predictors of Sexualization among Female Senior Secondary School Students in Rivers State, Nigeria. American Journal of Applied Psychology. 2018; 6(1):8-13. doi: 10.12691/ajap-6-1-2

Abstract

Adolescents’ use of media has been on the increase and most homes have televisions. The increased sexualization of women and girls in the media outlets in the 21^st century has become a source of concern to counsellors and academics in Nigerian Secondary Schools. The study investigated the predictive power of entertainment media outlets on sexualization of female senior secondary school students in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, of Rivers State, Nigeria. The population comprised all female senior secondary class 3 students in the area of the study. Three research questions and three corresponding hypotheses tested at 0.05 alpha levels guided the study. A sample of 312 female adolescents in senior secondary school 3 from 10 public schools was purposively and randomly drawn. The instrument used for data collection was a self-structured three sub-sections questionnaire titled: Media Outlets and Sexualization Questionnaire (MOSQ). The instrument yielded the reliability coefficient of 0.82, 0.87, and 0.88 for the three subsections respectively using Cronbach-Alpha Method. The instrument was administered and data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Multiple regression coefficients were used to answer research question one, while research questions two and three were answered using beta value associated with multiple regression. For the three hypotheses, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used for hypothesis one while hypotheses two and three were tested using t-values associated with multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed that entertainment outlets significantly have a joint prediction on sexualization ofl female senior secondary school students. It is recommended that media industries should be checked and guided by government to know the type of programmes they showcase for the adolescents. Counsellors and parents should pay close attention to sexualization risk of female studentss.

Keywords:
entertainment media outlets sexualization and self-objectification

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Broadcasting Board of Governors (2014). Contemporary media use in Nigeria. Retrieved from http://www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2014/nigeria-research-brief.pdf.
[2]	Laferla, R. (2003, October 26). Underdressed and hot: Dolls mons don’t love. The New York Times; section 9, P. 1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/fashion/26DOLL.html
[3]	Cookson, S. (2001). Living dolls: The making of a child beauty queen. In L. Otto (producer), American undercover [HBO documentary]. New York: Home Box Office.
[4]	Attwood, F. (2010). Introduction: porn studies from social problem to cultural practice. In Feona Attwood (ed) porn.com: Making Sense Online Pornography. Oxford; Peter Lang.
[5]	Gwen, D. (2010). The sexualization of girl is the popular culture harming our kids? Retrieved from http// www.parentingscience.com/sexualization.
[6]	American Psychological Association (2007). Task force report on the sexualization of girls. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualizationrep.pdf.
[7]	McDade-Montez, E. 2017. New Media, Old Themes: Sexualization in Children’s TV Shows. Retrieved from http www.etr.org/blog/research -children-media retrieved 16/05/2017.
[8]	Dalton, P. (2005, November 20). What’s wrong with this outfit, morn? The Washington Post, P. B01. Retrieved from www.washington.com.
[9]	Gapinski, K. D., Brownul, K. D., & LaFrance, M., (2003). Body objectification and fat talk: Effects on emotion, motivation and cognitive performance. Sex Roles, 48, 59-78.
[10]	Lacroix, C. (2004). Images of animated others: The orientation of Disney’s catoon heroines from the Little Mermaid of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Popular Communication, 2, 213-229.
[11]	Lamb, S., & Brown, L.M. (2006). Packaging girlhood: Rescuing our daughters from marketers’ schemes. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
[12]	American Society of Plastic Surgeons (2006). 2005 cosmetic surgery age distributions 18 or younger. Retrieved from http://www.plasticsurgery.org/public_education/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&pageID=17849.
[13]	Bakula, D. (2012). The music industry: A mid-year glance. New York: Nielsen Holdings.
[14]	Zurbriggen, E. L., & Morgan, E. M. (2006). Who wants to marry a millionaire? Reality dating television programs, attitudes toward sex, and sexual behaviours. Sex Roles, 54, 245-255.
[15]	Vincent, R., C., Davis, D. K, & Borusizkowski, L. A. (1987). Sexism on MTV: The portrayal of women in rock videos. Journalism Quarterly, 64, 750-755.
[16]	Arnett, J. J. (2002). The sounds of sex: sex in teens’ music and music videos. In J. Brown K. Walsh-Childers, & J. Steele (Eds), Sexual Teens, Sexual Media pp. 253-264. Hillsadale, NJ: Erlbaum.
[17]	Gow, J. (1996). Reconsidering gender roles on MTV Depictions in the most popular music videos of the early 1990s. Communication Reports, 9(2), 151-161.
[18]	Ward, L. M. (2002). Does television exposure affect emerging adults’ attitudes and assumptions about sexual relationships? Correlational and experimental confirmation. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 311, 1-15.
[19]	Ward, L. M., Marriwether, A., & Caruthers, A. (2006). Media use gender beliefs about women’s bodies. Paper presented at the biennial Gender Development conference, San Francisco. 18th, October
[20]	Sommers-Flanagan, R., Sommers-Flanagan, J. & Davis, B. (1993). What’s happening on music television? A gender role content analysis. Sex Roles, 28 (11): 745-753.
[21]	Vandenbosch, L., & Eggermount, S. (2013). Media exposure and boy’s internalization of appearance ideals, self-objectification and body surveillance. Sage Journals, 16, (3), 283-306.
[22]	Tolman, D. L., Impett, E. A., Tracy, A. J., & Michael, A., (2006). Looking good, sounding good: Feminity ideology and adolescent girls’ mental health. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 85-95.
[23]	Harrison, K., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2003). Women’s sport media, self-objectification and mental health on black and white adolescent females. Journal of Communication, 53, (2), 216-232.
[24]	Gordon, M. (2004). Media images of woman and African American girls’ sense of self. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California.
[25]	Triggerman, M., & Slater, A. (2003). Thin ideals in music television: A source of social comparism and body dissatisfaction. International Journal of Early Disorders, 35, 48-58.
[26]	Collins, R. L., Elliot, M., Berry, S., Kanouse D. E., & Hunter, S (2003). Entertainment television as a healthy sex-educator: The impact of condom – efficacy information in an episode of “Friends”. Pediatrics, 112, 1115-1121.
[27]	Shewmaker, J. W. (2015). Sexualized media messages and our children: Teaching kids to be smart critics and consumers. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44, 2381-2383.
[28]	Bandura, A. (2009). Social cognitive theory of mass communication. In J. Bryant & M. Oliver (Eds): Media effects 3rd edition. New York: Roultedge.
[29]	Green, S. & Pritchard, M. (2003). Preditors of body image dissatisfaction in adult men and women. International journal Social behavior and personality, 31, 215-222.
[30]	Ward, M.L. (2015). Media and Sexualization: State of Empirical Research, 1995-2015. The Journal of Sex Research, 53, (4), 560-577.