Influence of Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood Films and Music Videos on the Nature of Parent-teen Communication on Sexuality: A Study of Day Secondary Schools in Eldoret Municipality, Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

Hollywood movies and western music videos have for a long time blatantly portrayed sexual scenes, nudity, obscenity, vulgar language curses, indecent dressing, rape, sexual molestation and harassment and this has had adverse effect on the behaviours of African youths. There has been a dramatic rise in risky teenage sexual activities ‘deemed as cool' and the ‘in thing' which have led to many negative adolescent outcomes. Bollywood and even Nollywood films for years were acceptable as they were seen to have culture and offered an alternative style of romance that Kenyan youth could follow without being said to have become ‘too western,' but their style over the last few years has changed. Contemporary films have become just as sexually explicit as the Western ones. What the youth learn about sexual issues from these programs is mostly misleading as it does not portray reality as far as sexual issues are concerned. This research sought to find out how these foreign entertainment programs influence teenagers sexual behaviour as well as parent-teen communication on sexuality.The study employed a mixed approach utilizing surveys of 240 and 120 parents and case studies of participants recruited from the survey sample. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed separately with statistical analysis and thematic analysis, respectively. This study found   that foreign TV entertainment programs are changing the minds and beliefs of the youth as regards to matters sexual. However, some of the information transmitted is inaccurateand misleading, it is therefore the duty of parents (beingthe primary source of information to their children about sexual issues)to ensure their children are guided and equipped with the right information as regards sexual issues so they can be able to make wise choices on what is true and can be emulated and what is untrue. This is especially so, as this study also found that TV programs trigger parent-teen communication on sexuality.Future research is needed however, to look into how media can be used to complement parents' efforts in communicating sexual issues with teenagers.