The Role of Media in Perpetuating The 'Pop Culture' Among Kenyan Youth
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Date
2006-06
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
This research is aimed at identifying the cause of the different changes occurring within
the youth living in Westlands a cosmopolitan area with a variety of people. For
sometime, I have had the opportunity to see for myself the transformation the people of
Westlands Division here in Kenya have gone under. It has been very interesting. This has
drawn my interest and my curiosity into an in-depth analysis of it. These transformations
are in the form of image and style of dressing, language and social behaviour. According
to me, the influence in these changes come through the media especially the Western
media because a high percentage of the television content in our Kenyan TVs is Western.
In the past, different cultures were formed because they had different political opinions
and needed a route to air them. ..Popular culture is perceived to be a political arena, a
place where certain ideas are advocated and others are condemned." Within today's
culture from the West the values are not of political motives but are influential in the
social aspect of the Kenyan youth. This type of culture is defined as •lpopular culture", so
vast an area that, we can only focus on certain aspects. In so doing, we hope to analyse
how media has perpetuated Western culture in Kenya today. According to Edward Taylor. a British anthropologist. "culture is that complex whole, which includes
knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laxks. customs and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as members of society.-2 This is seen in the detailed descriptions of the
traditional culture in Africa. "Geertz defined culture as historically transmitted patterns of
meaning embodied in symbols by means of which men and women communicate,
perpetuate and develop their knowledge about an attitude to life
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Keywords
Media, Pop Culture', Kenyan Youth