Cultural Resistance

Cultural resistance and resilience amid imported TV programming in Nigeria.(Report)

This experimental study investigated the effects of American-produced entertainment programs on Nigerian audiences' knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and values, using the cultural-imperialism theory as a framework. The subject pool for the experiment consisted of 482 senior secondary-school boys and girls in Nigeria, who represent the three major ethnic-religious groups in the country. They were experimentally exposed to American TV programs for several days, while control-group participants were exposed to Nigerian programs only. The results showed that exposure to American TV programs affected the participants' knowledge--but their behaviors, beliefs, values and attitudes, remained unaffected.

Introduction

What are the effects of American-produced entertainment programs on the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and values of television viewers? Some studies suggest that these programs erode the traditional values of indigenous cultures; others argue that non-American audiences are not passive dupes of the American ideology, and are capable of negotiating the messages in American-produced media. The present study attempts to resolve these differences by focusing on the effects of American-produced programs on Nigerian youth.

Scholars have often attributed the erosion of native cultures in the third world to many factors. Globalization, for instance, a trend often cited in discussions of the effects of foreign media, may serve to explain the move toward a "global culture," but some critics (see Schiller 1991) are unswayed by arguments in favor of globalization, nor are they persuaded that recent developments in the third world are just a "consequence of modernity": such critics would prefer to look to the American-hegemony explanation instead. What effects may American entertainment programs have on the Nigerian audience? Can exposure to American-produced...