Media influence and awareness of children’s rights at Makindye division in Kampala Uganda A Thesis Presented to the School of Postgraduate Studies and Research Kampala International University Kampala, Uganda In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Masters of Arts in Human Rights and Development September, 2012

Abstract

The background of the study explains the history of mass media back beyond the dawns of recorded history to the people that figured out that they could reach audience through painting picture on cave walls. Research objectives was(i) to identify demographic characteristics of the respondents (ii) to identify the level of media influence on children (iii) to identify the level of awareness of children’s rights(iv) to establish if there is a significance relation on independent variable and dependent variable(v) to establish if there is a significant difference in IV and DV. The geographical scope was Makindye Division a Kampala suburb. The researcher’s area of interest was to test theoretical perspective. Cultivation theory by George Gerbner in 1976, was used ad validated, it argues that Television has long term effects which are small, gradual, indirect but cumulative and significant. The study employed descriptive survey design which was used to discover casual relationships between the two variables. Sloven’s formula was used to arrive at the sample size. To ensure validity of instruments, content validity index was used and reliability of the instrument was established by corn-bachs coefficient alpha variable. Data gathering procedure before and after administration of questionnaires was followed to the letter. To ensure confidentiality of data collected ethical consideration were put in place Data presentation, analysis and interpretation was tabulated using spss Method, this included the analysis of demographic characteristics of respondents, the IV (Media influence) and DV (Awareness of children’s rights) whose summary was done in terms of mean. The hypothesis was accepted on both correlation and regression hence significant effect on two variables. The researcher found out non~violent and collaborative ways was not supposed to be used as a viable option and he did recommends diplomatic ways of solving problems to be used, ie dialogue.