CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background to the Study

Communication is a vital tool for human survival, without efficient information services no society, organization, clubs, institutions etc. can function properly because they all depend on communication for their existence. To cope with rapid change in the world communication has continued to change the society. This has ensured a constant exchange of knowledge and ideas to improve our ability to receive and assimilate information about our surroundings.

Today, advancement in science and information technology have given rise to more complex means of communication whereby information and events are simultaneously disseminated to a dispersed and heterogeneous audience through the electromagnetic spectrum or airwave.

This development has reduced independently functional societies to a mass unit otherwise referred to as a global village. Thus, the term mass media has become a household word. However, mass media refer to the organs of mass communication usually categorized into a print and electronic media.

The electronic media comprise among others, cinematography, radio and television. The television which forms the focus of this study is defined by Tucker (2000). As the art of instantaneously producing at a distance, a translent visible image of an actual or recorded scene by means of an electrical system or telecommunication.

The ability of this medium to combine sound vision and motion makes it a more influential of social change as opposed to the radio and printed word. Because of these appeals, planning and packaging of television programmes, therefore become a process of careful manipulation and segmentation of broadcast time to suit and cater for its diverse tastes and convenience. Among these various programmes, are those designed to cater for the social needs of youth. However, some youth programmes may not fully achieve their desires objectives because of any combination of some problems faced by Nigerian television operators. These problems range from lack of fund, technical adequate production facilities and skilled problems.  youth programmes should aim at inculcating in youth, those social, cultural and moral values that will enable them function as effective members of their society.

According to MacBride et al (2001). Television has a powerful socializing effect that it could tell its audiences how to think and behave. It has the capacity not only to reflect but also to shape opinion and to play a part in forming attitudes.

This reason prompt the decision to study youth Rendezvous co-operation (AKBC) channel 45 with a  view to ascertaining the extent to which they have helped in shaping the characters of youths in Uyo metropolis to conform with societal approved way of behaviour.

According to Mboho (2002:102) television in Nigerian is expected to aim at presenting the types of programmes that would help create awareness especially in youths and promote expression and mastery of skills.

This view must stemmed form understanding of the importance of youths in any given society and the need to direct their affairs in a way that will be beneficial to the society. This is because as John Denvey rightly states in Vol. 33 of journalism educator. In directing the activities of the youth, society determines its own future. Since the youth at a given time will as some later date compose the society of that period.

This means that youth programmes should be capable of shaping youths into responsible and patristic leaders who can steer the affairs of their societies in the right direction.

• Statement of the Problem

Television as a socializing tool of mass communication cannot by itself bring people to think and behave according to society’s dictates unless such mediating factors as selective exposure and crebility of communicators are taken cognizance of. Therefore in order that the television can play a role in shaping the characters of youths and other values in the society, television operators have to understand the make-up of the societies in which they find themselves as well as the specific need of youths in that society. This will help them know how to go about satisfying those needs through careful designing and packaging of youth programmes, need not be designed or package in a hurry or produced as a routine everyday practice rather they should involve  deep-rooted research and analysis of the sociological and psychological demands of the youths,  what society expect of them and how society goes about satisfying their needs.         In designing  and packaging these youth programmes, producer are constrained  to follow what is legally acceptable as entrenched in the constitution as well as other socio-cultural and ethnical behavioral norms that gives people within culture. but much as youth programmes try to inculcate  moral and ethnical values ion youths, they should be equally entertaining so as to sustain the interest of youths, but often, youth programmes are merely entertainment oriented. And at other times, they tend to be merely informative tools. One them wonders if the provision of entertainment and informative are sufficient assistance towards the moulding of youth characters.