Urban Youth and Entertainment Television in Kenya: a Survey of Youth in Universities in Nairobi County
Abstract
Majority of entertainment television programmes offered by local stations in the country
target the youth. They are conceived by media managers with information from
advertising and marketing research findings, executed for the main purpose of generating
revenue for the media houses. However, the media houses do not seek to find out what
the youth think or even feel about the entertainment programmes being aired on
television targeted to them.
The overall objective of this study was to explore the views of urban youth on the content
of entertainment television programmes for the youth in Kenya today. The study had four
specific objectives which were; to investigate the kind of entertainment programmes
offered by TV stations in Kenya today, to establish the roles of the TV programmes
targeting the youth, to explore the views of the urban youth towards the TV programmes
and to establish the impact of the TV entertainment programmes on the youth.
The study used both qualitative and quantitative research methods which included;
Survey, Key informants and Focus group discussion to collect data. The study was
limited to the selected universities located in Nairobi County. The population for this
study was all youth between the ages 18-35 years in the five selected universities. The
study targeted 120 respondents who were selected using convenient sampling. A total of
24 students were sampled from each university. Questionnaires were prepared and used
to collect data which was then analyzed using descriptive statistics. This study was
guided by three major theories; uses and gratification, cultivation and hegemony theories.
The study found out that the entertainment programmes offered to the youth in Kenya
today include; music and dance (Tusker project Fame, Sakata, Coke studio), musical
programmes (Mseto East Africa, Straight Up show, The beat) and reality television (Soap
Operas, Tujuane and Churchill live).The study also found that the role of these
programmes was entertainment, creating information, and creating awareness on fashion
and trends. The findings also showed that the youth view these programmes as
informative, educative and mostly entertaining.
The study concluded that the youth are not involved in the concerving of youth
entertainment programmes offered to them on television. The study recommended that
the producers should involve the youth ideas when coming up with entertainment
programmes to be aired on television.
Citation
Masters of arts in ComunicationPublisher
University of Nairobi