CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
To fully comprehend the research topic, it is important to know and fully appreciate the power of television and films as media used to disseminate information. Television is virtually seen in almost every household. It was introduced to the masses at the New York World‟s fair in 1939.
Jeffery Schrank (1985:21), says television is the greatest invention of the twentieth century. Some on the contrary, see it as a vast wasteland that steals time and turns viewers into couch potatoes. All the same, television is the most competent, involuntary, electronic message carrier of our time. It brings to millions of heterogeneous viewer‟s door steps, live or recorded events. Most Nigerians today, educated or not, have unknowingly, conferred on television and films, the status of baby sitter in their homes. 3
Film is a study recorded as a set of moving pictures to be shown on the television or at the cinema. It is also a roll on sheet of thus flexible plastic that is sensitive to light for the use in photography. Film also known as movie or motion pictures is a series of still moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. It is considered to be an important form, a source of popular entertainment, a powerful method for educating or indoctrinating people especially children and youths.
Balogun F:(1987) classified film into European film, American film, Chinese film, Nigerian film, lengthy feature films among others. All these classifications can produce violent films, comic films, entertainment film, romance etc. But of these types of films, this study is on Action Films which can be classified under violent films and its impact on the social behavioural pattern of undergraduate students.
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats extended fights and frantic chases. It tends to feature a resourceful character struggling against incredible odds, which include life threatening situations, a villain, or a pursuit which generally concludes in victory for the hero. Advancements in CGI (Computer Generated Imargery) have made it cheaper and easier to create action sequence and other visual effects that required the efforts of professional stunt crews in the past. However, reactions to action films containing significant amounts of CGI have been mixed as films that use computer animations to create unrealistic highly unbelievable events which are often met with criticism. Action has long been an element of films, the “action film” as a genre of its own began to develop in the 1970s. The genre is closely linked with the thriller and adventure film, and it may sometimes have elements of spy fiction and espionage. Action film have traditionally been a  reliable source of revenue for film studios, relatively few action films garner critical praise. Action film have traditionally been aimed at the male audience from the early teens to the mid-30s, many action film makers from the 1990s and 2000s added female heroine in response to the expanding social conception of gender glorifying the strong female archetype.
According to American academy of pediatrics (AAP) 2005 „„Children are influenced by media, they learn by observing, imitating and making behaviour their own”. It is quite depressing to note that since the inception of action films, there have been increase incidents of violent behaviours in youths.