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

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 21st 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.