CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION 1. 1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In contemporary Africa, one of the greatest pastimes is the video film. It has become a newfound love for the African mind. This is largely due to its accessibility to huge audience including children and adolescents as compared to an older form of media
production like the cinema. Larkin (2002:14) says: African video films refer to the rise of filmmaking in Nigeria that is shot straight on video, but still referred to locally as “films”. These films are not the art cinema more usually seen in African film festivals, but truly popular, meaning not only that they command huge African audience, but also their production and financing is dependent entirely on how well they perform in the market place. Along with the rise of video film many people (Africans and non-Africans) especially Nigeria are beginning to worry about our home movies and films: How and what the actors and actresses are acting. Modern Man lives under the shadow of an ever-present threat of self annihilation; “advances in technology have equipped mankind with that much at least. The much sought for technology has become something akin to the Frankenstein Monster”. (Wollstonecraft 1931:10) Nowhere is this more apparent than in the mass media that it has left concerned persons with many questions. Felid (1991:10) argues that: The media has been said to be very powerful in moudling and shaping popular opinion because a single message is transmitted simultaneously to missions of people. Their effects are personal, dramatic and mmediate.The fears articulated by Field are not unfounded when one sees the monumental transformations that information technology has wrought in the world within the second half of the twentieth century. It is currently being speculated that information technology replicates every three years. As it grows so it influences. Mba E; The Director General; National film and video
