CHAPTER
ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
TO THE STUDY
The
effects of who wants to be a millionaire on its viewing audience are diverse
and it has attracted or resulted to this research.
Television
as a means of communication is widely believed to be the most persuasive and
effective medium. This is
facilitated by the unique features of television which is the combination of
sight, sound and motion. These
features account for the diverse viewer ship.
Robert
Reed (1994), defines television according to the federal communications
commission as the synchronous transmission of visual and aural signals. The picture phase is accomplished by
sending or rapid succession of electronic impulses which the receiver
transforms into scenes and images.
Television
audience ranging from teenagers, adults,
older people, elites, literates and even illiterates have come to be acquainted
with this popular game show on television. All these categories of people enjoy
the programme “who wants to be a millionaire” with its unique features as it is
quite different from all other television reality show.
There
seem to be a general consensus by many programme analysts towards the reality
game show tremendous impact on its viewing audience as it regards its
educating, informating and entertaining features attesting to the impact of
television.
Gerbner
(1971), in his book “Television impact”, said that television has effectively
taken the place of tribal elders of origin, religion, and even formal education
in its role of myth telling. Common
rituals and methodologies are crucial for society because they function as
agencies of symbolic socialization and as such demonstrate how society works by
dramatizing its norms and values.
For some
years now, research has focused on the question of whether or not watching a
certain type of television programme produces certain effect. Experiments, have concentrated on
observing and measuring behaviour in viewers after they have seen a single
programme. One of such laboratory experiments carried out by Liebert and Baron
(1972) shows that there is a positive casual relationship between watching the
portrayals on television and levels of aggressiveness in individual viewers.
A cursory
look at different studies done in this areas revealed that the researcher have
entirely centered on the negative aspects and effects of television on its
audience. But this
researcher has decided to carry out this study looking at the Sunnyside of the
television programming with a focus on “who wants to be a millionaire”
1.2 STATEMENT
OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
The
researcher will like this research to tackle the following problems.
Reasons
why television programmes are seen to be of negative influence.
To
find out ways of convincing the audience on the importance of television
progammes especially “who wants to be a millionaire” why youth pay attention to
television programmes. To find out how the audience perceive the programme.
1.3 OBJECTIVES
OF THE STUDY
i.
To know whether who wants
to be a millionaire influences the youth?
ii.
To examine if the
audiences find the programme educating.
iii.
To know whether viewers
believe what they see on the TV show.
iv.
To know how regularly do
people watch the programme.
v.
To study whether the
programme influence youth towards money making.
vi.
vi. To know if exposure to television
affect education and social life of the youth.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
i.
Does the programme “who
wants to be a millionaire” influence the audience?
ii.
Do the audiences find the
programme educating?
iii.
Do viewers believe what
they see on the TV show?
iv.
How regularly do people
watch the programme?
v.
Does the programme
influence the youth to get money by whatever means?
vi.
Does exposure to
television affect education and social life of the youth?
vii.
Does the programme
influence the choice of peer group of youth?
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Chukwuemeka
(2002), contributed that the significance of the study contains the benefits or
values of the study contains the benefits, or values of the various groups that
would come into contact with it.
This
research will reveal whether the programme has more negative effects than
positive one on its viewers. It will enable the organizers of the show to know
how the people see the programme and also help them to know if their aim of
organizing the programme is met.
Students,
the media, researchers, scholars, audience, MTN Company, and the society at
large stand to benefit a lot from the finding, of this study.
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Nwaorgu
(1991) said that the scope of study refers to all those aspects of the study
the researcher deliberately eliminated off the study due to certain reasons. It has to do with the content areas
coverage of the study, not the geographical areas coverage. This researcher set out to discover
the influence of TV programme “who wants to be a millionaire” on youth social
behaviour using youth in Uyo Metropolis as a cases study. This researcher chose this scope in
order to allow the researcher do an in-depth research in one aspect of the TV
programmes “who wants to be a millionaire”
1.7 LIMITATION OF THE
STUDY
Wide
research of this nature cannot be carried out without some constrains, this
constrains pose a lot of limitations to this work.
Time: Duration for the
research work is relative1y short while stress emanated from other academic
activities is also another constrain.
Material: Little materials are
also available because the work is relatively new.
Financial: Financial constrain
poses another challenges as most of information are gathered through newspapers
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Effects: The influence of who
wants to be a millionaire on audience.
Social Behaviour: The behaviour and attitude of youth
Youths: These are set of young people between the age of 16-39
Uyo Metropolis: This is the city of Uyo which is the capital of Akwa Ibom State
Programming: The airing or
broadcasting of who wants to be a millionaire for audience viewership.
Audience: This refers to the
people who watch the programme “who wants to be a millionaire” on television at
different places.
Participation: This refers to how
the audience participates in the programme in different ways.
Millionaire: This is someone who
participates in the game and wins money that amount to a million naira or above
it.
Who wants to be a Millionaire: This is a programme sponsored by MTN showcase on NTA, STV, AIT.
