Ghanaian Hiplife Music Videos-A Negative Influence

The media as the fourth estate of the realm in their quest to fulfill their responsibility of entertaining the masses as well as catching in on more viewership,they do so turning a blind eye to the effects of hiplife music videos they scream especially in todays growing levels of moral decadance and negative vices among the youth.

These American hiphop –like videos features ladies in skimpy and other revealing costumes which are usually in vogue in the “craze” of a video shoot.They engage in acts of brief nudity by way of wriggling of their waist,exposing their bare back and sections of their breast knowingly on camera.This infact constitute what i will say the “visual nuisance”.

Apparently this situation is in strong contradiction to Dr.Nkrumah’s inaugural address in 1965 of Ghana Television as he stressed on the uses on the medium for “the education and edification,enjoyment and entertainment of our people”.Again he made it clear that “it would not cater for cheap entertainment nor commercialism.It’s paramount object would be the education in the broadest and purest sense”

With this,it is disheartening that nation television(GTV) guided by this principle and should be the pace setter is guilty as well as other big players in the industry.Eventhough there are equally educative programmes on TV,the sreening of these videos leaves much to be desired,thus erodes the purpose of educative programmes.The arguement is also that,what would be of the youth and the under aged if they are continuously expose to these sexually explicit motion content? I believe the answer is left to the conscious mind to answer.

On another level is the role of the media in the society,if the media in being a “watch dog” of the society shows such unhealthy content,this means there is compromise on the gate keeping function.This in effect means tat the media is not being socially responsible.Also is what the Natioal Media Commission,MUSIGA,and Censorship Board ought to be doing by way of screening or better still rating them so as to control their viewership.

Consequentely and compounding the problem is that the accompanying soundtrack are usually of strong language and profanity contrary to entrenched Ghanaian culture .Not to mention some up and well doing artiste guilty of this.I would like to resound the bell of duty and responsibility of both the media and other related organisations to step up effort to sieve and scrutinise what is”fed” to the information “hungry” masses or even a strict ban on the screening of hiplife music videos that are not acceptable value.A move which will go a long way to reform the production of these videos. The answers are not far-fetched,they lye within our arms reached .It’s time for action. KELVIN DEY-SADIKA. GHANA INSTITUTE OF JOURNALISM