This paper seeks to examine the relationship between media and personal Identity: specifically
to find out how exposure to media has brought about an identity crisis among young African
people in a media environment dominated by western culture. The research predicts that young
African people today are facing an identity crisis, owing to the fact that they are largely exposed
to a media environment that is dominated by western culture. Researchers confirm that the ages
between 1year to 6 years are very key in character building and identity. Therefore in a society where both
parents are breadwinners, children have been left in the hands of the media to answer their
questions on identity. The Agenda Setting theory by Maxwell Mc Combs and Donald L.Shaw
will be utilized to support this hypothesis along with the Social Cognitive theory by Albert
Bandura. As the two theories illustrate, media content is produced with an agenda to serve the
interests of the stakeholders which can be political, religious, social etc. More to that, the
environment one is exposed to contributes to behaviour, and cognition respectively. Furthermore,
this paper seeks to provide insight into how parents can be more intentional in their parenting
styles to specifically ground their children character-wise and provide them with clear
perspectives on their culture and heritage.

In light of this, we reach an important conclusion that it is necessary to take serious measures
from the family and stakeholders in care for adolescents. To help them overcome the negative
effects of social media as well as work to encourage them to ration out their time equally to
productive media use and other activities that broaden their cultural experience.
In addition to that, parents ought to be trained to help their children to make the best use of
these media sites and equip them with skills that enable them to navigate the challenges that
arise while using the media, especially for young adults.
Hence the following recommendations;
❖ Urge parents to follow up, and have age-appropriate parental control guides for children
and guide them in the use of social networking sites.
❖ Educating children about the need to ensure the privacy of their information and details so that it’s not accessible to everyone, including strangers.
❖ Cautioning them not to accept video conversations or written conversations or requests
for friendship from strangers.
❖ Training adolescents to selectively expose themselves to content that is productive and
acknowledge that not all media content is a full representation of reality.
❖ Urge children to inform their parents of any threat or blackmail they may face from anyone on the internet.
❖ Urge parents to have a well-balanced schedule for leisure time.
❖ It is important to expose children to various aspects of their culture like language, family
gatherings, traditional ceremonies, norms and customs.
❖ To encourage stakeholders to create more African content to even out the field and give
the African children content that is relatable.
❖ Urge parents to establish a bridge of communication between them and their children
with persuasion instead of intimidation, when guiding their children’s behaviour on the
internet.

By; Kaddu Marvian -Journalism Media and Communication

The writer is an Honours College Aluma.