The media and African child formation: An ethical reflection

Abstract

The child occupies a very crucial place in every family, community and the entire human society. Among the cardinal African values, the child is highly ranked. Thus, offspring remains an essential aspect of African marriages. As the primary agent of socialization, the family plays a pivotal role in child formation. Apart from the general educational contents, African child formation importantly involves the inculcation of the effective African values that aid individual and societal integral developments. Within the platforms of both informal and formal education, the reality and place of the media in child formation is indubitable. As an important vehicle of information transmission, the media is pivotally positioned to provide platforms of exposures. Thus, with the activities of the media, the child is exposed to information that could add either positive or negative values to his/her process of formation. In the contemporary age of Information Communication Technology (ICT), the African child is faced with media realities that pose greater challenges to his/her human formation. The present piece approaches the place of the media in African child formation from the ethical perspective with a view to determining the moral problems and prospects therein. With the philosophical tools of exposition, critical analysis and appraisal, it could be submitted that African child formation is both advanced and hampered by the recent media activities, thereby eliciting measures towards promoting the advantages and disparaging the disadvantages.