Exposure to Sexual Content on Television and Youth Perceptions of Sexuality in Technical Training Institutions in Kenya

Abstract

Youth in Kenya are increasing accessing television which has become more saturated with sexual content. The content rarely includes messages on safe sex or consequences of engaging in premarital sexual behaviour. This exposure may influence the behaviour and attitudes of the youth negatively leading to them to engage in premarital sexual behaviour leading to unwanted pregnancies among other effects. The current study sough t to establish the sexual behaviour of the youth in technical training institutions, the extent to which the youth are exposed to sexual content and the effect of the exposure on the sexual behaviour of the youth. A descriptive survey design was adopted to generate data from the respondents of the study. Focus group discussions, key informant interviews and participant observation were used to generate additional data for the purpose of validating and supplementing survey information. A total of 420 questionnaires were administered to the respondents selected through stratified random sampling technique. From the study findings, it was established that majority of the youth  were sexually active and that they had multiple sexual partners. The study further established that the youth are exposed to sexual content on television and that they perceive the content they watch to have a negative effect on their behaviour. From the study findings, it was concluded that there exists a relationship between exposure to sexual content on television and the sexual behaviour of the youth. The study therefore recommends that media literacy as a skill needs to be improved to enable the youth to interpret media content correctly in order to avoid the possible effects that are sometimes not intended by the media practitioners.

Keywords: Influence, Exposure, Sexual Content, Television, Sexuality, Youth, Institutions, Kenya