An Integral Moral Formation of Children Through Oral Media
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Date
2009
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Publisher
Tangaza College
Abstract
Morality is one of the distinctive aspects of a human being. It plays a very important role
in society. Morality holds the society together and determines its destiny because it controls an
individual's understanding of life and affects the whole society. In the contemporary society, this
moral aspect is at times devalued. The traditional social order has been interfered with leading
many communities to experience moral deterioration.
The Mass media have been widely blamed for being a major contributor to this
deterioration because they have been the main avenue through which some of these negative
values have been transmitted. In reality, media per se are neutral. It is how one uses the media
that determine whether it promotes or devalues highly esteemed societal morals. Part of the
human society has recognized the power of media and has capitalized on its potentialities of
impacting on different aspects of people's lives. Regrettably, some media institutions, driven by
the desire of making profit have compromised traditional values for economic gains by
promoting contrary social values regardless of their influence to the society.
Among the most affected members of the society are children. Apart from being
neglected, they are exposed either directly or indirectly to different media messages. Some are
detrimental to their moral growth. This thesis proposes a children's radio programme that would
integrally form them morally. Through a case study, it tries to establish elements that can
effectively and efficiently carry out these important messages. It does this by making sample
programmes using some related communication theories and replaying them to children. The
programme primarily targets children as early as three years of age. This is because shaping
children early in life has a great impact in shaping their destiny. To use Saint Francis Xavier
expression, "give me the children until the age of seven and anyone may have them afterwards".
Applying different communication strategies, the project carefully combines the traditional
elements and contemporary ones to produce a hybrid programme that will reinstate the dying
moral values in the society. This thesis is in three parts. The first part explains relevant children
developmental theories and explores how they can be used in designing a radio programme. The
second part elaborates different research methods used to gather appropriate views for designing
the programme. The third chapter, using the research findings, comes up with a programme
design for integral moral formation of children.
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Keywords
Morality, Children, Media