REALITY TELEVISION: DIALECTICS OF CULTURE AND AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF BIG BROTHER NAIJA

Abstract

The Big Brother reality television show is a cultural product created out of Anglo- American economics from the global Big brother international and was adapted by most African countries including Nigeria. The Nigeria’s format took its debut from the Big brother Africa and took its form as the Big brother Naija. The show has raised debates around cultural values, diversity and homogenization against indigenous cultures, hence its dialectics on culture.  This study therefore tries to find out the cultural adaptations in the Big brother Naija format that violate Nigerian’s cultural values and the audiences’ interpretation of the contents. The study’s population comprises of 16,395,555 residents of the South East States of Nigeria following the projected 2006 National census. Using Cochran formular, a sample size of 588 respondents was drawn and selected by cluster sampling procedure which is a type of probability sampling technique. The study adopted quantitative survey method. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire using close ended questions to solicit responses from the respondents. Data presentation was done by statistical tables generated from SPSS while analysis was done by simple percentages. A theoretical perspective to the study was established around reception theories of the mass media. Findings show that the Big brother Naija show is packed with cultural contents that violates Nigeria’s cultural values and therefore recommends that the producers of the show redirect the program to reflect the realities of the Nigerian cultural values.