Cultural Resistance and Resilience amid Imported TV Programming in Nigeria

This experimental study investigated the effects of American-produced entertainment programs on Nigerian audiences' knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and values, using the cultural-imperialism theory as a framework. The subject pool for the experiment consisted of 482 senior secondary-school boys and girls in Nigeria, who represent the three major ethnic-religious groups in the country. They were experimentally exposed to American TV programs for several days, while control-group participants were exposed to Nigerian programs only. The results showed that exposure to American TV programs affected the participants' knowledge—but their behaviors, beliefs, values and attitudes, remained unaffected.