The influence of Media Violence on Aggressive Behaviour among Adolescents in Selected Secondary Schools in Ogbomoso, Nigeria

The incidence of media violence on aggressive behaviour among adolescents has become a serious physiological, emotional and psychological issue. This study investigated the influence of media violence on aggressive behaviour among adolescents in secondary Schools in Ogbomoso. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study. The target population for the study was made up of all secondary school adolescents in Ogbomoso zone. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the six secondary schools from the forty public secondary schools, while two private schools were selected from the twelve viable ones. Total of 400 respondents were selected for the research work. Influence of Media Violence on Aggressive Behaviour Questionnaire (IMVABQ) was administered. The questionnaire contained twenty-five items with reliability co-efficient of 0.72. Three null hypotheses were generated and tested at 0.05 alpha level of significant. Descriptive, t-test, ANOVA and Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) were the statistical tools used to analyze the data generated. The major findings indicated that there was no significant influence of media violence on aggressive behaviour on the basis of gender. The findings further showed that there was a significant influence of media violence on aggressive behaviour on the basis of age. While the result of the third hypothesis indicated that there was significant influence of media violence on aggressive behaviour on the basis of School type (private or public schools). Based on these findings, recommendations were made which include the need for professional counsellors to intensify effort in organizing counselling programmes for the adolescents on the evil of their exposure to violent media programme. Both parents and government should set up modalities to reduce the in flock of violent media programme in both private and national television stations. Again, there is the need for parents to be more vigilant in helping and censoring their adolescents 'consumption of violent media programmes.