CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
In this section, the study reviewed concepts and theories relating to the problem of study. The
environment has a great deal of role in the sexual behaviour of youths. The inherent limitations
of passing large amount of digital information, phone lines have affected the type and quality of
media that can be used effectively as well as the nature of the interaction allowed by the web, as
it attracts positive and negative sexual behaviour among the youths.
It examined available literature which other authors have written about the problem of study. It
went on to cover literature from global perspective, Nigeria and African countries. The
literature was be reviewed and presented thematically according to research objectives.
2.2 Literature review
Social media platforms gives its users an opportunity to create their own personal profile with
the choice of their own list of users and thereby connect with them in an altogether public forum
that provides them with features such as chatting, blogging, video calling, mobile connectivity
and video/photo sharing. People spend more than usual hours on social media platforms to
download pictures, browse through updates seek entertainment and chat around with friends to
keep themselves connected to one another. It is evident that there exists a relationship between
social media and the role it has on the sexual behavior of youths as it has been noted that, the
young generation is growing up having easier ways to stay connected with their loved ones.
Today, young generations grow having great behavioural change as their social and sexual
lifestyle is affected due to the contact with different kinds of social media. This digital literacy
they acquire, reflects drastically in their sexual behaviour. We live in a digital world where adults
are only ‘naturalized citizen’.
Tapscott(1998), talks of growing up in a digital environment, referring to the youths as the ‘Net
Generation’. The main characteristics of the “Net Generation” culture are Independence,
emotional and intellectual openness. In inclusion, are free expression and strong views
innovative, preoccupation with maturity, sexual pleasurable effects by investigation, immediacy
and sensitivity to corporate interests, authentication and trust (Tapscott, 1998 pp.62-69).

Anxieties about the safety, health and balanced use of social media are not emphasized when it
applies to the youths. No worries about the exposition to unwanted materials, adult materials,
online victimization and the practice of dangerous online behaviours. (Questions arises on our
minds such as), what activities do youths do online? With whom do y establish relationships?
How much time do youths invest on online activities and virtual streamings? What is the extent
of videos and pictures are displayed on adult sites? The accessibilities of these sites with due
restrictions or warnings, what are the moral messages or decadence caused by these erotic tales
and romance scenes? What sexual behaviour do youths imitates and demonstrates from the
social media? What is the role of online interaction on the sexual lifestyle of youths? What are
the effects of sexual behavioural change on youth development?

Therefore, this study is based on the theoretical approach that considers that youths are active
agents who can manipulate , adapt, create and disseminate ideas and habitual concepts through
communication technologies(Berson and berson 2005). The anxieties about the solitary sexual
nature of new media use is contracted by worries about lost community tradition and values”
(Livestone and Bober, 2005).

2.2.1 History of New Media

New media refers to the type of media that one can gain access to content at anytime, anywhere
on any smart garget, can provide an interactive user feedback forum, creative and active
participation and allows for creation of a community around its contents. Most of the
technologies categorized as the new media are digital and have the ability to be influential,
networkable, impenetrable, compressible, and interactive. Until the 1980s media relied on print
and analog broadcast models like radio and television. For the last 25 years the media have
witnessed the migration of the media from analog to digital, just a few years back Zambia also
joined the rest of the world in the migration.

Scholar Andrew L. Shapiro (1999) argued that with these new digital technologies
signals a potentially major shift of who is in control of information, experience and resources
(Shapiro cited in Croteau and Hoynes 2003). W. Russell Neuman (1991) suggested that
whilst the new media have technical capabilities to pull in one direction, economic and social
forces pull back in the opposite direction. According to Neuman, “We are witnessing the
evolution of a universal interconnected network of audio, video, and electronic text
communications that will blur the distinction between interpersonal and mass communication
and between public and private communication” (Neuman cited in Croteau and Hoynes 2003).

2.2.2 About Social Network Sites

Social network sites across the world are growing at a rapid rate, a July 2010 report in the New
York Times indicated that Facebook had grown its online population from 200 million to
nearly 500 million users in a short period of 15 months. Available evidence suggests that most
internet users probably visit social network sites daily or at least every other day (Ofcom,
2008), and youths lead the pack.
As defined by Boyd and Ellison (2007), social network sites are web-based services that allow
individuals to:
 Construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system.
 Have a list of other users with whom they share a connection.
 View and go through their list of connections and those made by others within the
system.

The nature and jargon of these connections may vary from site to site. These researchers go on
to emphasize that while the terms "social network site" and "social networking sites" often are
used interchangeably, they differ in emphasis and scope. They stress that: social network
emphasizes relationship initiation, often between strangers, while social networking is possible
on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many of them, nor is it what differentiates them
from other forms of computer-mediated communication. What makes social network sites
unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users
to be expressive and make visible their social networks. This can result in connections
between individuals that would not otherwise be made, but that is often not the goal. On many
of the large social network sites, participants are not necessarily networking or looking to meet
new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of
their extended social network. An example of social networking sites is Facebook and an
example of a social network site is WhatsApp.

Social media and Sexual Behaviour of Youths

More specifically in relation to the effects of sexual behaviour of youths, the intensive or high
level of online participation or internet use has been asocial with online risks, but the simple use
of internet cannot predict risks. Youths are consumed with roles it plays in the risky sexual
behaviors like nudes, indecent dress modes, seductions, sexual models and assaults,
impersonation and drug use like libido boosters and psychological causalities incurred from
undue choices of random sexual partners. Many of these sexual behaviours are encouraged or
reinforced by the very structural characteristics of the virtual space. And sometimes the
manifestation of certain behaviour is necessary in order to participate with others in cyberspace
and the full benefits of online applications(I.e publish photos in social networks, chats, interacts
or build associations or groups with strangers both in videogames and forums with no exception
and restriction paid on the purposes and implications.

Therefore, the social media has role on the sexual behaviour of youths in various ways. For
instance, with regards to exposure to problematic materials , the internet has changed the way
the consumption of pornography takes place. People have greater possibility to access
pornography through their own initiatives or accidentally. Research has revealed that the 57
percent of 16 to 25 years old have into ays of creating new languages and practicing
multicultural values.
Youths’ sexual cultures are increasingly intertwined with social media. Rapidly becoming more
pervasive, personal, and mobile (Livingstone, Mascheroni, & Staksrud, 2015), sexualities are
shaped by the material and symbolic forms of social media. Material forms are social media’s
socio-technological forces that can be seen as organizing sexual institutions, practices, and
desires, continuously nego tiated by people’s uses (van Dijck & Poell, 2013). Social media’s
symbolic forms refer to how such platforms are dis- cursively constructing meanings to sociality
(e.g., “popular ity,” “reputation,” and “authenticity”), which are then appropriated, circulating in
culture and society, affecting the conventions of different “spheres” such as sexuality. This article
explores how youths are making sense of sexuality in the context of social media; the context
of social media means considering social media’s material as well as symbolic operations.
Drawing on focus group interviews, the research of this article is informed by youths’
discussions, meanings, values, and norms on sexuality and social media; “sexuality” or “sexual”
refers to any kind of discursive practice having a sexual connotation (e.g., uploading a sexy
picture on social media). Sexuality is seen as intertwined with gender, desires (sexual
attraction), and intimacies (e.g., courtship). The research presented in this article is situated
within the con- text of Dutch-speaking Belgium; in Belgium, pedagogies and parenting styles
tend to focus more on risks than on the opportunities of the Internet (Haddon & Livingstone,
2012), and also news media are reporting regularly on the dangers of social media and
unwanted sexual solicitations. Generally, there is a tendency to support online risk avoidance
culture, in which youths are pointed toward their individual responsibilities, explaining
strategies to manage reputations and online identities (Walrave & Van Ouytsel, 2014).
Previous research on youth, social media, and sexuality has focused on the gendered
dimensions of self-representations (e.g., sexy pictures) and communicative interactions (e.g.,
“sexting”), investigating both the incorporation and resistance to particular gender and sexual
ideologies (Ringrose, Harvey, Gill, & Livingstone, 2013; Siibak & Hernwall, 2011). Other
research has focused on how social media supports sexual developmental tasks, inquiring
about both the risks and opportunities related to individual (e.g., demographics and skills) and
contextual (e.g., education) factors (Hatchel & Subrahmanyam, 2016). However, there is a need
for more in-depth engagements with youths’ voices when researching sexuality and social
media (Livingstone & Mason, 2015). In the last decade, research exploring the changing
dynamics of youths’ sexuali- ties described how individualization, risk, and resistance are
central features to understand the nature of the changing con- ditions of sexuality in
contemporary Western youth culture (Johansson, 2007; Kehily, 2011; Weeks, 2007); it is crucial
to understand both theoretically and empirically social media’s increasingly dominant role in
the shaping of sexual culture.

This article explores youths’ sense making on sexuality and social media by critically drawing on
the notion of sexual value. According to Adrienne Rich, “Modern Western societies appraise sex
acts according to a hierarchical system of sexual value” (Rich, 1993, p. 150). Making distinctions
between “good” and “bad” sexualities, according to Rich, maintained through an ideology
praising sexual- ity that is “‘good’, ‘normal’, and ‘natural’ [and] should ideally be heterosexual,
marital, monogamous, reproductive, and non-commercial” (Rich, 1993, p. 152). The results dis-
cussed in this article will demonstrate how notions of sexual value are strongly reproduced by
the participants. Drawing on both the material and symbolical contexts in which social media are
organizing sexualities, it is further shown how social media are shaping sexual norms. The logic
in which social media are operating and social media’s symbolic constructions of notions such as
popularity and reputation have been appropriated by youths in ways that allow them to make
sense of sexual norms.
This article argues that we need to understand how rapid, continuously transforming media
technologies, such as social media, may be overwhelming for (young) people (Livingstone &
Sefton-Green, 2016). Social media could be overwhelming because they demand rapid
adaptation (e.g., to a new interface, to a new way of organizing interaction, and to a new way
for being “popular’), so that there remains little space for negotiating, questioning, or
resisting the ways of being with social media. As such, social media may con- tribute to
bringing the dynamics of social life beyond some of the features of early late modernity
(Bauman, 2005). Early late modernity, where youth culture has been thought of as a
continuous struggle between the incorporation of and resistance to dominant ideologies
(Clarke, Hall, Jefferson, & Roberts, 1976), may now be making room for a status quo, a new
conservatism. This article points to a sexual conservatism among youth when making sense
of sexuality in the context of social media.
Precisely because social media are experienced as over- whelming, they should be taken
seriously as battlegrounds where the politics of sexuality are being shaped in culture and
society. The continuous struggles over sexual value and norms are silencing important
societal discussions about sexual agency and ethics (Angelides, 2013; Hasinoff, 2016), such
as to what extent do social media allow youths to actively negotiate their sexual lives and to
what extent are youths discussing consent in the context of social media. These seem crucial
questions for deeply mediatized sexual lives. Drawing on how youths are making sense of
sexuality in the context of social media, this article explores how participants strongly
reproduced societal moral panics and pedagogical fears. Participants explained how to
manage risks, privacy, “good” sexual reputations, complex social media interfaces, and
dealing with control and surveillance.
2.2.3 Social Media Logic and Youths’ Sexualities
How media, as material forms, are shaping social fields was investigated by Altheide and
Snow (1979) through the concept of media logic. Altheide and Snow argued that media are
contributing to the shaping of the social order in modern societies. Media logic as a form of
communication “is a process through which media present and transmit information”
(Altheide & Snow, 1979, p. 10). Media Logic explored a number of strategies through which
media shape and construct reality. Such strategies, such as presenting events as “news
flows” by using familiar formats and routines, are used by media producers to increase
audience attention. As recently argued by van Dijck and Poell (2013), the concept of media
logic has been under-theorized in the context of growing social media platforms; social
media platforms are equally using different strategies to increase user attention and activity,
shaping the social order. Therefore, van Dijck and Poell refer to a social media logic, which is
the “processes, principles, and practices through which these plat- forms process
information, news, and communication, and more generally how they channel social traffic”
(van Dijck and Poell, 2013, p. 5). The concept of social media logic offers useful analytical
power with which to study how the material dimensions of media contribute to the shaping
and ordering of intimacies and sexualities in the everyday lives of people and lead to the
question: what happens when social media logic meets institutions (e.g., marriage and
relation- ships), identities, practices, and social forces that organize sexual practices and
desires? Van Dijck and Poell (2013, p. 5)
Because of the specific ways popular social media are being programmed, they are criticized for
steering users’ performances of gender and sexual identities into coherent, stable, and fixed
entities, rather than being open to the dynamic and diverse ways genders and sexual identities
are lived in everyday life (Cover, 2012). While many users may subvert or ignore essentialist
self-representational tools on social media platforms,1 Facebook’s “real and authentic identity
strategy,” the most popular social networking site (van Dijck, 2013), has become the dominant
model in which online iden tities are usually organized. Facebook’s strategy demands users to
only use names on the platform that are stated on official identification documents, which may
not always reflect how people identify in everyday life (MacAulay & Moldes, 2016). Because of
social media’s social and cultural significance, such logic may recirculate as a broader “popu- lar
desire to identify ‘real selves’ that are true, single, and consistent” (van Zoonen, 2012, p. 46).
Programming organizes people’s sexualities in a not so neutral way. The design choices of
platforms are not only technological or commer- cial, they are also morally supporting particular
ways to organize intimacy, indicating a status quo on sexual essen- tialism, circulating the idea of
an existing “natural” sexual self (Rahman & Jackson, 2010). As research showed, they are
redefining social concepts such as the practices, places, and scales on which youths make
intimate relation- ships public. Many social media are programmed to give a prominent place to
“officialise” and “institutionalize” intimate relationships (Ito et al., 2010, p. 123) which reinforces
normative cultural interests and breeds romantic and hetero- normative ideals (De Ridder & Van
Bauwel, 2013).
The second element of social media logic, popularity, refers to how mass media’s strategy of
increasing the popularity of certain people and issues has become entangled with social media.
Social media algorithms define popularity in a functional way through quantifying likes, most
viewed, scores, and so on. Social media users are expected to manip- ulate and influence their
popularity scores, which relate to a user’s reputation (van Dijck & Poell, 2013, p. 6).2 In many
ways, for everyday users of social media, the relation of what popular might mean is
paradoxically related to reputation. For example, research has described how young girls and
boys on social media, when talking about love or when post- ing sexy pictures, are using
resources (e.g., popular music, celebrity, and advertising culture) and strategies (e.g., irony,
parody, bricolage, and intersexuality) taken from popular culture (Bailey, Steeves, Burkell, &
Regan, 2013; De Ridder & Van Bauwel, 2015b; Manago, 2013). Such a strategy may gain them
visibility, romantic successes, and social capital. However, especially for young girls, employing
such popularity strategies is the equivalent of walking a tightrope; these strategies are often
seen as damaging the reputation because they could lead to the users being labeled as “too sexy”
or “too slutty” (Ringrose, 2011b). Popularity and reputation, as related to youths’ sexualities on
social media, can be seen as mechanisms of control, relying on the same-old-gendered double
standards in which some sexy practices are applauded, while others are rejected.
The third type of social media logic described by van Dijck and Poell (2013) is “connectivity,”
which is the primary goal with which social media platforms are advertising themselves,
connecting people in networked structures to other users, content, and advertisers. However,
among people who use them, they are also surveillance-to-control tools (Trotter & Lyon, 2012,
p. 91), in which people can watch each other without revealing that they are doing so. Such
social media voyeurism is a popular pastime for many youths (boyd, 2007), but it can also be
used to police sexual practices and identities. As I have argued elsewhere, youths tend to surveil
peers whom they suspect to be gay, for fun, but it may also lead to stigmatization. As such, non-
heterosexual youth may adjust themselves to act “normal,” because many eyes could be
watching (De Ridder & Van Bauwel, 2015a).
Finally, datafication is a not so visible process through which social media monitor and
research users and predict the needs of users (e.g., by showing them nearby people with the
same interests) often in “real time” (van Dijck & Poell, 2013, p. 9). Datafication allows “people
to directly connect to other people with whom they are involved in specialized relationships of
common interest” (van Dijck & Poell, 2013, p. 8). Datafication has changed social practices and
the ways in which many people look for love. Youths often show romantic interest through
social media by connecting to the person they are attracted to through mutual online friends
(Ito et al., 2010), which may be suggested to them by the social media platform. Dating apps
such as Tinder (Vanden Abeele, 2014) are built around connecting people by showing people
nearby in real time, which may change people’s dating practices or provide opportunities for
casual sex (Sumter, Vandenbosch, & Ligtenberg, 2017).

2.2.4 Sexual Cultures, Youth, and Social Media

While understanding the material dimensions of social media has analytical value with which to
understand the shaping of sexuality in everyday life, it also opens the door to much more
complex questions about sexual cultures, youth, and social media. Rather than a unitary logic of
social media working by itself (Hepp, 2012, p. 46), many actors and processes of social
transformation are involved. While social media logic may penetrate many different practices
and domains of sexuality, social media logic may be supported or at the same time disrupted in
many ways. Indeed, while social media logic may explore how people negotiate the affordances
of social media platforms, it cannot explain the many messy and contradictory ways youths and
soci ety make sense of intimate and sexual social media practices. Altheide and Snow’s (1979, p.
15) vision on how media are functioning is therefore too limited. It is not so, as Altheide and
Snow argued, that institutions and social practices simply conform to media’s “dominant force.”
Rather, a more open-ended approach to media culture promises to be better at understanding
media’s role in youths sexual cultures (Couldry, 2012, pp. 159-160). Such an open-ended
approach to media culture and processes of change, which is referred to as mediatization
(Hepp, 2012), needs to be situated within specific spaces, times, and practices.
Youths’ sexual cultures are historically, in many ways, related to media and more recently social
media. Media showing sexual images to youths have been central to many debates on the risks of
bad media influences (Buckingham & Bragg, 2004). Given that social media are now
infrastructures through which youths live their intimate and sexual lives, such risk discourses are
omnipresent in talk about youths and social media. Social media are seen as risky for youths’
sexual lives because of possible online predators and stranger dangers, sexualization of young
girls’ bodies, potential loss of sexual reputation, and so on (Livingstone & Mason, 2015).3
Associated with risk discourses, there is a strong reliance on individual responsibilities; society
manages such risks by arguing that youths should be trained as rational actors to make safe
choices in social media that maximize their online opportunities and help them avoid (sexual)
risks (Ringrose, 2011b, pp. 122-123). Both risk and individualization are central to how sexual
knowledge is constructed in youth cultures where social media are omnipresent. Discourses on
youths’ uses of social media are one of the many significant battlegrounds where sexual cultures
are negotiated, where “sexual values and norms are struggled over” (Attwood & Smith, 2011, p.
237).
Such processes of social transformation, where youths’ sexualities are seen as risky and
individualized, have a history. Before the emergence of social media, modern Western societies
attached huge symbolic weight to sexuality. Sex, per se, is seen as harmful to the young. As such,
this symbolic weight has “chiselled into extensive social and legal structures designed to insulate
minors from sexual knowledge and experience” (Rubin, 1993, p. 144). While the democratization
of sexuality, from the 1960 onwards, has liberalized sexual mores, for the young such societal
anxieties still pose challenges when they do not comply with the ideal of the “innocent child”
(Jackson & Scott, 2015). Moreover, as Weeks (2007) argues, since the 1990s, a new
individualism of sexuality has made it increasingly difficult to know what an “ideal” sexuality
might be. Multiple sites of authority are each speaking their own truth; there is no one way to
make sense of “good” sexual values. Dominant dis- courses on sexuality steered by particular
institutions (e.g., religious) have been replaced by many more voices speaking “truths” about
sexuality. Rather than obvious rights or wrongs, there are endless flows of “sexual stories”
shaping meanings and politics about sexuality associated with self- making and self-invention
(Plummer, 1995). Sexual practices and lifestyles have therefore become increasingly risky at the
same time; a moral choice is yours to make. Such ten sions are clearly reflected in research
exploring youths’ sexualities. Youths are shifting between “new types of sexual patterns and
falling into traditional forms” (Johansson, 2007, p. 102), meaning that youths may seem more
sexually liberated than previous generations, but youths themselves are applying stricter self-
guiding morals at the same time. These morals are based on traditional gendered orders,
heterosexual identities, and family values. Buckingham and Bragg (2004, p. 245) concluded their
study of youths’ sexuality and media by refer- ring to the same tensions, which they described as
a “regulated freedom.” “Youths today have been bound to become self-regulating media
consumers.” When they encounter sexual material in the media, youths express many moral
concerns about such content, while equally valuing sex in the media as source of information and
learning.
While youths’ sexual cultures may have some dominant features, sexual cultures are always far
from mono- lithic (Attwood & Smith, 2011). Public discourses framing youths’ intimate and
sexual social media practices as risky while emphasizing youths’ individual responsibilities may
be renegotiated and resisted in everyday uses of social media by youths themselves. While
youths’ sexual cultures are shaped by societal norms and adults, research demonstrates how
youth may use sexuality to chal lenge adults in response to those dominant norms (Kehily,
2011). Social media offer many opportunity structures for youths to participate in their own
sexual cultures beyond the control of adults. This has been illustrated by a number of studies on
youths’ self-representations and interactions on popular social media (De Ridder & Van Bauwel,
2013; Ringrose, 2011a; Siibak, 2010; Siibak & Hernwall, 2011). Also, youths have been
successfully engaged in producing popular online stories (e.g., creating a YouTube channel) in
which they, for example, championed for the acceptance of non-normative sexual and
transgender identities (O’Neill, 2014). While many of these studies have observed how youths
are (re)producing sexual cultures online, research is scarce on how youths them- selves give
meaning to their sexual cultures and social media, specifically related to how they negotiate
social media logic and the shaping of sexuality within the context of social and cultural dynamics
such as risk and resistance, individualization, and mediatization (Livingstone & Mason, 2015).
Social media transform continuously, as well as youths’ uses of social media (Livingstone et al.,
2015). As such, it is far from clear how these material and symbolic transformations are shaping
youths’ sexual cultures in the context of social media. For example, media literacy programs and
schools have acted on the challenge of guiding youths about sexuality and social media by
explaining that it is important to monitor their online identities; these programs emphasized the
importance of “protecting” and “managing” reputations (Van Ouytsel, Walrave, & Ponnet, 2014).
Nowadays, youths are increasingly becoming bored with such serious platform policies and
media literacies. This is illustrated by the decreasing popularity of Facebook, a platform many
youths have become to see as a source for news rather than an exciting tool with which to
connect with friends (Luckerson, 2013). Nowadays, youths consume much more picture-based,
ephemeral, smartphone social media-like Snapchat.4 Snapchat is about playful communication
with trusted ties, and its communications are more spontaneous, more intimate, more private,
and may be flirtier (Bayer, Ellison, Schoenebeck, & Falk, 2016). Exploring how youths are making
sense of doing sexuality in the context of rapidly evolving social media, the knowledge they
produce while negotiating social media logic, social media culture, and public dis- courses on
risk and individualization can teach us about how sexual cultures are made sense of by Western
youths.

2.2.5 Social Media and the Shaping of Sexual Norms

This part will elaborate on the material and symbolic ways in which social media are shaping
sexual norms. Youths use self-guiding moral judgments as strategies to make sense of and
evaluate (sexual) behavior in the context of social media. Also, such self-disciplining relates
to youths’ knowledge about social media being surveillance-to-control tools.
Overwhelming social media. When I asked youths about everyday intimate and sexual practices
on social media, they usually talked about related risks and how to avoid them. Whether we
talked about a relationship status on Facebook, posting or sending sexy pictures, looking for
dates, or sending sexual messages, they found it smart to see sexuality as mostly private matters
intended for outside of social media. As Sofie (girl, 17, 2012) explained when talking about
pictures on Facebook, “I do not see why everyone should see you kissing your lover.” Even when
using more private interpersonal com- munication tools to chat or snap, trying to keep such
content from the public is, as explained by Bas (boy, 17, 2015) “doomed to fail”; everything could
be shared or taken out of context by capturing screenshots. Many of the discussions revolved
about defining what is too private to share or what is simply “bad” and inacceptable. As Tom
(boy, 16, 2015) explained, “Some people really go over the top, they take a picture of the boy and
girl in bed under the sheets, I mean.”
Defining what is too private or what is inacceptable seemed far from clear, but was determined
by individual moral judgments. The gendered and essentialist discourses on sexuality, which
continuously valued sexualities as either good or bad, were dubiously translated when
participants reflected on more concrete behavior. For example, while Eva (girl, 14, 2012) argued
that pictures need to be “natural” and not “slutty” in order to attract “the right guy,” Leen (girl,
14, 2012) and Jan (boy, 14, 2012) expected pictures to be “beautiful” to be socially or
romantically successful. This raises the question, when is something too slutty, too ordinary, or
too sexy? There were no consistent social norms, but there was continuous judgment.
Consequently, youths themselves define “sexual risk” as coming from their own peer groups and
rarely as coming from “outside,” such as from “online predators.” They described feeling fear
over not behaving “right,” anxiety over losing their reputation, the need to avoid failing,6 and the
possibility of being shamed or bullied.
Annabel (girl, 17, 2015) told a story about a boy at her school who “took a picture of himself
semi-naked.” By mis take, he shared it with all his contacts on Snapchat, and many people took
screenshots, sharing it widely in the school discussion groups on Facebook Messenger. “I don’t
think that boy feels good right now,” Annabel explained. While Annabel showed compassion, she
told that other people at school did not; the boy failed to behave appropriately and therefore
deserved to be shamed. Moreover, he failed to manage Snapchat’s complex interface
appropriately as he shared the picture by mistake.
Many of the participants’ stories showed that “managing” social media use, as well as making
sense of sexual value and the ambiguous social norms, was overwhelming at times. Managing
sexuality revealed to be a highly individualized responsibility, positioning every single individual
as the only arbiter of moral authority. As such, there was not one dominant way to understand
good sexual practices in social media; rather, there was a disciplining by peer control. While such
a condition of uncertainty and ambiguity may refer to broader transformations in youths’
sexual cultures, social media pushes this condition forward. Participants in 2012 discussed what
is appropriate to share on social media; participants in 2015 had to make choices between many
more platforms and mobile applications discussing what should be shared on which social media
platform. Social media’s programmability allows rapid reorganizations of people’s intimacies.
Social media and particularly Facebook’s definition of popularity as reputation is dominant in
discursively constructing online ethics that demand participants are “your real self’ in order to
maintain popularity and reputation (Hoffmann, Proferes, & Zimmer, 2016). This makes it
difficult for people to maintain privacy and anonymity. As argued by Hatchel and Subrahmanyam
(2016), “[A]nonymity afforded by a digital platform may moderate youths’ disinhibition and self-
disclosure, key elements of youth identity and intimacy development” (p. 4). While anonymity
may play a significant role in intimacy development, users have been guided by social media
logic to morally disapprove of it. Although the popularity of Snapchat could be seen as
challenging this reputational, real-name culture by allowing more playful communication,
anonymity, and privacy, participants in 2015 (most of whom were Snapchat users) felt that
Snapchat had “a bad reputation.”7 Part of this reputation relates to their moral disapproval of
playfulness and anonymity, which illustrates how dominant this culture of reputation and
seriousness has become. Sarah (girl, 18, 2015) claimed, “If you are sending messages that are
somewhat sexual, while you are anonymous, then you are strange,” while Glenn (boy, 17, 2015)
argued, “Why would you want to be anonymous unless you’re saying bad things?” Tom (boy, 17,
2015) claimed that being anonymous online would make others suspicious that you were not
straight: “Everyone would think I’m gay.”
Both the material and symbolic aspects in which social media are organizing sexualities are
shaping sexual norms. The rapid ways social media are reorganizing sociality could be seen as
overwhelming for youths, complying with the moral order in which sexuality is organized in the
context of social media demands continuous adaptation.
Social media are shaping sexualities relates to broader symbolic dimensions; those are
connected to culture and society’s responses to social media transforming many aspects of
youths’ everyday lives. Being overwhelmed may be a way to describe how people feel, youths as
well as adults, about sexuality in the context of social media. As social media have become
intertwined with social life so rap- idly, and transform continuously, this may be so
overwhelming that it renders any opposition or resistance to social media’s material and
symbolic operations useless; one can only rapidly adapt. The overwhelming condition of social
media can be observed through how broader cultural narratives are speaking to youths.
Different societal actors such as media literacy, education, adults, and mass media are all taking
part in the mediatization of youths’ sexuali ties, telling them how to behave online, what it means
to have an online reputation, and so on. We should be aware that many of the discourses
participants reproduced echoed society’s moral panics.
Despite having the best intentions to guide youths online, society has introduced a rigorous
regime of control that is not based on sexual agency, or ethics. As argued by Attwood and Smith
(2011, p. 241), dealing with youths’ sexualities in a moralistic way is far from effective. For
example, media literacy that is based on efficient online identity and reputation management
reconstructs essential- ism, the idea of an existing real and natural self, rather than being open to
the multiple dynamic ways intimate identities are lived in everyday life. Such ethics of online
behavior work for social media, not for sexual agency, in the sense that a single identity is more
controllable for real-time data analysis. We must be aware that for youths who are exploring
their sexualities, social media logic could, at moments, fit rather uneasily with the messy and
contradictory ways intimate social lives are lived (Plummer, 2001).

2.2.6 Current Study

The current study aims to fill the deficit in the research regarding sexual content in social media
specifically. By knowing how sexual messaging can potentially influence attitudes of Youths
taking Federal College of Education AKOKA.
However, some of the online behaviors by students categorized as risky behaviors should be
better categorized as online challenging behaviors, since these online behaviors are commonly
practiced by students of today and in the most cases these behaviors are not always associated
with negative consequences, many of these behaviors are encouraged or reinforced by the very
structural characteristics of the virtual space, and sometimes the manifestation of certain
behaviors is necessary in order to participate with others in cyberspace and enjoy the full
benefits of online applications (i.e., publish photos in social networks, chat, interact or build
associations or groups with strangers). Social media has an impact on students in various ways.
For instance, with regard to exposure to obscene materials, the Internet has changed the way
the consumption of pornography takes place, people have greater possibility to access
pornography through their own initiative or accidentally.
Research has revealed that 57% of social media users have come into contact with online
pornography, their encounters with pornography happened in different ways; the most
common was in pop-up advert, open porn site accidentally when clicking on what they want
and another window opens up instead. Also 22% of the daily and weekly users have
accidentally ended up on a site with violent or gruesome pictures and 9% on a site that is
hostile or hateful to a group of people (Livingstone and Bober, 2005). Additionally, a survey of
risk, impact and prevention found that using the internet all the time, taking risks online, going
to chat rooms, and using other people’s phones or computers are the most predictive
behaviors associated with exposure to sexual material on the internet. In addition, exposition to
advertising and consumption of virtual items is also on the rise. Hence, we find that every social
media users are in constant exposure to obscene materials when they just log on to the
internet.
Over the past two decades, social media has gained so much popularity worldwide to the point
where many researchers have become interested in learning a bit more about these platforms
and what effects they have on their communities. Despite the fact that almost everyone is
connected to at least one type of social media platform, students are the ones leading and are
the most funs of social media to a point that they use these platforms in class or even in church,
it is to this light that researchers have found that these social sites impact or influence the lives
of students in society at a great deal in terms of morals, behavior, and even education wise.
These platforms have held an addiction wherein they find it difficult to concentrate on their
work and prefer logging in and jumping across one site to another. Some have derived benefit
out of these platforms whereas some have become academically challenged by the use of these
websites, other individuals have set their own limits as to when and when not to access these
websites but very few out of the lot are witnessed to not access or make use of the platforms at
all, these platforms have also brought about online sexual victimization not only on students
but every user.
The Youth Internet Safety Survey, conducted by Crimes Against Youths Research Center at the
University of New Hampshire interviewed 1,501 individuals aged 16 to 25 years that
frequently use the internet and found that the 19% of them have received an unwanted sexual
solicitation via the internet of which 77% were 14 years or older. Only 24% of these told a
parent about the solicitation, 29% told a peer; and 75% of them were not worried by the
sexual online solicitation, as a result, harassment among peers has become unlimited thanks to
the easy access to the modern technologies, things like bullying has occurred in a new territory,
online (Li, 2006). This technology has also resulted in the development of dangerous online
behavior. Thus, not only the exhibition to unwanted material has been considered as a serious
risk, but also the participation and the facility to become a member of controversial groups.
Some students may identify strongly with this sort of material and they may feel validated and
encouraged to practice it (Wolak, et al., 2003).
According to Ybarra et al., (2007) engaging in online risky behavior takes place while an
individual is using the internet with friends or peers 40%, other forms of dangerous online
behavior include bullying. Studies have often found an overlap between cyber bullying
offenders and victims. Although, it is recognized that adults bulled minors, it is not precisely
known how common it is (Wolak et al, 2006). Other studies point out that minors are
usually harassed by people of their same age (Hinduja and Patchin, 2009 in Enhancing Child
Safety & Online Technologies, 2008 for Internet & Society at Harvard). It is obvious that social
media has led to increased online socialization among students, and such connections have
paved a way for establishing new relationships and strengthening old ones. Chats, forums, web
pages and the most recent web 2.0 technologies allow people to interchange information and
socialize in very creative ways.
Evaluating the amount of research that surrounds the usage of social media in the education
system, it is important to determine whether or not, have these platforms lead to any role on
student engagement and achievement. This paper will therefore be able to review the available
literature to study and present both the positive and negative impacts of social media on
students sexual behavior. The researcher tried to portray, social media platforms such as
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are gaining popularity with the pace of time and due to
their attractive features students are fascinated towards them.

2.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This study uses three communication theories: the Magic Bullet Theory, the Uses and
Gratification Theory and the Technological Determinism Theory.
2.3.1 The Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT)
This theory emphasizes that people use media to gratify specific wants and needs, unlike these
other types of media theories that view media users as passive; UGT instead sees users as active
agents who are able to control their media consumption. The key takeaways from this theory
are that;
 It characterizes people as active and motivated in selecting the media they
choose to consume.
 It relies on two principles; media users are active in their selection of the media
they consume, and they are very much aware of their reasons for selecting the
different media options.
 The greater control and choice brought about by the new media has opened up
new avenues of this theory, research has led to new discovery of new gratifications,
especially in regards to social media
2.3.2 Assumptions of the Theory:
 The audience is active and its media use is goal oriented
 The initiative in linking need gratification to a specific medium choice rests with the
audience member
 The media compete with other resources for need satisfaction
 People have enough self-awareness of their media use, interests, and motives to be able to
provide researchers with an accurate picture of that use.
 Value judgments of media content can only be assessed by the audience.

2.4.3 Modern-Day Applications of Uses & Gratifications Research

Today UGT has more relevance than ever as a tool for understanding how we as individuals
connect with the technologies around us. These technologies have turned everything around
in the way that we communicate, disseminate and get information.
2.4.3.1 Internet Usage
Modern communication scholars such as Tomas E. Ruggiero, highlight the necessity of UGT in
understanding the production and success of computer-mediated communication forms.
Ruggiero states that UGT provides a “cutting-edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of
each new mass communications medium: newspapers, radio and television, and now the
Internet”.
New Media Examples of UGT: The application of New Media to the Uses and Gratifications
Theory has been positive. The introduction of the Internet, social media and technological
advances has provided another outlet for people to use and seek gratification through those
sources. Based on the models developed by Katz, Blumler, Gurevitch and Lasswell, individuals
can choose to seek out media in one outlet, all falling within the forbidden categories of need.
The only difference now, is that the audience does not have to go to multiple media outlets to
fulfill each of their needs.
2.3 Hypodermic Needle theory
The hypodermic needle model (also known as the hypodermic-syringe model, transmission-
belt model, or magic bullet theory) suggests that an intended message is directly received and
wholly accepted by the receiver. The model is rooted in 1930s behaviorism and is largely
considered obsolete today.
2.3.1 Concept
The "Magic Bullet" or "Hypodermic Needle Theory" of direct influence effects was not as widely
accepted by scholars as indicated. The magic bullet theory was not based on empirical findings
from research but rather on assumptions of the time about human nature. People were
assumed to be "uniformly controlled by their biologically based 'instincts' and those they react
more or less uniformly to whatever 'stimuli' came along" (Lowery & De Fleur, 1995). The
"Magic Bullet" theory assumes that the media's message is a bullet fired from the "media
gun" into the viewer's "head" (Berger 1995). Similarly, the "Hypodermic Needle Model"
suggests that the media injects its messages straight into the passive audience (Croteau,
Hoynes 1997). This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. The public
essentially cannot escape from the media's influence, and is therefore considered a "sitting
duck" (Croteau, Hoynes 1997). Both models suggest that the public is vulnerable to the
messages shot at them because of the limited communication tools and the studies of the
media's effects on the masses at the time (Davis, Baron 1981).
2.4.2 Later developments
The phrasing “hypodermic needle” is meant to give a mental image of the direct, strategic, and
planned infusion of a message into an individual. But as research methodology became more
highly developed, it became apparent that the media had selective influences on people.
Lazarsfeld disproved the "Magic Bullet" theory and “Hypodermic Needle Model Theory”,
through elections studies in “The People's Choice” (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, Gaudet 1944/1968)
Lazarsfeld concluded that the effects of the campaign were not all powerful to the point where
they completely persuaded “helpless audiences”, a claim that the Magic Bullet, Hypodermic
Needle Model, and Lasswell asserted.
These new findings also suggested that the public can select which messages affect and don't
affect them. Lazarsfeld’s debunking of these models of communication provided the way for
new ideas regarding the media’s effects on the public. Lazarsfeld introduced the idea of the two
step flow model of communication in 1944. Elihu Katz contributed to the model in 1955
through studies and publications (Katz, Lazarsfeld 1955). The two step flow model assumes
that ideas flow from the mass media to opinion leaders and then to the greater public (Katz,
Lazarsfeld 1955). They believed the message of the media to be transferred to the masses via
this opinion leadership.
Opinion leaders are categorized as individuals with the best understanding of media content
and the most accessibility to the media as well. These leaders essentially take in the media's
information, and explain and spread the media’s messages to others (Katz, 1957). Thus, the two
step flow model and other communication theories suggest that the media does not directly
have an influence on viewers anymore. Instead, interpersonal connections and even selective
exposure play a larger role in influencing the public in the modern age (Severin, Tankard 1979).

2.3 Technological Determinism Theory

Technological Determinism state that media technology shapes how we as individuals in a
society think, feel, act, and how the society operates as we move from one technological age to
another (Tribal- Literate- Print- Electronic- Social media).
2.3.1 Concept
The theory was developed by Marshall Mcluhan in 1962.It explains that individuals learn and
feel and think the way we do because of the messages they receive through the current
technology that is available. The radio which was the example used required people to listen
and develop a sense of hearing. Television engages both hearing and visual senses. We then
transfer those developed senses into our everyday lives and we want to use them again. The
medium is then our message. Social media brought about by emerging technology requires
people to listen and engaged often. People then interpret the messages sent to them from social
media in their everyday life.
Humans do not have much free will at all. Whatever society as a whole is using to communicate,
they too will use to communicate. Therefore they will adapt to the medium they are using so
that they can send and receive messages like everyone else. We know that there is one truth by
observing what has happened over time. As the medium changes so does society's way of
communicating. People can only use the medium for which it was created (phone for talking
over lines or electronic mail for talking via computer). If the medium is impersonal (mobile
phone) then the message too is impersonal. This theory is objective in that everyone will act
and feel the same no matter what the medium they are using provided that they are using the
same medium. Values are not involved because evidence is seen strictly through observation.
The theory explains that when new systems of technology are developed, the culture or society
is immediately changed to reflect the senses needed to use the new technology. The theory
predicts that with every new system of media technology, society will change and adapt to that
technology. It explains that there is a simple cause and effect analysis between the introduction
of new technology and the changes in society's way of thinking, feeling, acting, or believing.
2.4 Klapper Reinforcement or Limited Effects Theory
In 1960 Joseph Klapper at Colombia University was concerned that average people exaggerated
the power of media. He introduced what he called phenominist theory. With this theory he
argued that media rarely have any direct effects and are relatively powerless when compared
with other social and psychological factors such as social status, group membership, strongly
held attitudes, education and so forth.
2.6.1 Concept
His theory is often referred to now as reinforcement theory because a key assertion is that the
primary influence of media is to reinforce (not change) existing attitudes and behaviors. Instead
of disrupting society and creating unexpected social change, media generally serve as agents of
the status quo, giving people more reasons to go on believing and acting as they already do. He
argued that there simply are too many barriers to media influence for drastic changes to occur
except under very unusual circumstances.
Klapper‘s theory insists that ordinarily media does not serve as a necessary and sufficient cause
of audience effects, but rather functions among and through a link of mediating factors and
influences. He also explains that these mediating factors are such that they typically render
mass communication a contributory agent, but not as the sole cause in a process of reinforcing
the existing conditions. Regardless of the condition in question and regardless of whether the
effect in question, be social or individual, the media are more likely to reinforce than to change.
Klapper‘s theory also assumes that mass communication does function in the service of
change; one of the two following conditions is likely to exist. The mediating factors he says
will be found to be inoperative and the effect of the media will be found to be direct; or the
mediating factors, which normally favor reinforcement, will be found to be impelling toward
change. Klapper did not exclude that media could have direct effects on audience. There are
certain residual situations in which mass communication seems to produce direct effects, or
directly and of itself to serve certain psychophysical functions.
2.3 Relevance of the Theories to the Study
The theories describe the framework under which the media is supposed to operate. They
explore the similarities between social media and the audience‘s perception and opinion. The
theories study seeks to determine the connection between the students and their daily usage of
the internet, as well as bring out the effects experienced. This will determine the suitability of
the models to the effects of using social media in either during lectures or church. The theories
try to explain how students have developed and what they have changed, these theories
provide a way to see why this has happened. The theories explain the simple cause and effect
analysis between the introduction of new technology and the changes in the student's way of
thinking, feeling, acting, or believing.

CHAPTER TWO: METHOD

Participants and Procedures

Data for the current study will come from a recent study conducted at the University of
Central Florida (UCF) via the Sona System. Participants in the original study took 32.50
minutes to complete the online questionnaire and received class credit or extra credit for
their participation. A total of 1,013 college students participated in the original study. A total
of 111 participants were deleted from the study because their responses indicated that they
were not involved with the survey or they did not answer important questions in the study,
leaving a total sample size of 902. The majority of participants were female (n = 647, 71.7%)
 and identified as White (n = 613, 68%). The age of students ranged from 18 to 59 (M =
21.58).
Measures
Demographic questionnaire. Participants answered four questions related to their current
age, race/ethnicity, and gender.
Sexual Cognitions. Participants answered a total of 88 questions to assess their sexual
cognitions. These questions were used to assess particular themes of sexual cognitions found in
previous research. Seven questions derived from Ward (2002) and ter Bogot et al. (2010) were
used to assess the cognition that dating is a game or recreational sport (alpha = .70), eight
questions (Ward, 2002) were used to assess the cognition that men are sex driven (alpha = .77),
twelve questions (ter Bogot et al., 2010; Ward, 2002) were used to assess the cognition that
women are sex objects (alpha = .73), four questions (ter Bogot et al., 2010) were used to assess
the cognition that men are tough (alpha = .64), sixteen questions modified from Ward,
Handbrough, and Walker (2005) were used to assess participants feminine and masculine
ideals
21
22
(alpha = .85), fourteen questions (Ward et al., 2005) were used to assess participants
sexual stereotypes (alpha = .83), nine questions (Burt, 1980) were used to assess
participants sex role stereotyping (alpha = .80), nine questions (Burt, 1980) were used to
assess participants adversarial sexual beliefs (alpha = .80), and an additional twelve
questions (Burt, 1980; Ward, 2011) were asked to determine participants sexual
conservatism (alpha = .81). Participants responded to all questions using a 6-point Likert
type scale (strongly disagree, disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, agree, strongly
agree). The complete list of questions can be found in Appendix A.
Exposure to sexual content in music. Participants rated the top 55 music artists from the
top-40 charts on how much they liked the artist with response options ranging from 1 (I
don’t know this artist) to 8 (extremely like). Participants also rated artists on how much
they listened to the artists’ music, watched the artists’ videos, and how often they read
about the artist via the internet and social media outlets, with responses ranging from 1
(never) to 5 (daily).
Exposure to sexual content in music lyrics and corresponding videos were based on
measures of content analysis using the frequency method for the most current popular
songs performed by the top 20 rated artists by participants using two independent
raters. Artists not rated in the top 20 by participants were not analyzed in the current
study. Songs for each artist were selected from the top-40 charts that had been given air
play on radio stations and music television. Top songs included songs from artists’ most
recent albums as well as songs from previous albums because radio stations and music
television often play current and previous songs and fans often listen to current and
previous songs of artists they prefer (Wright & Qureshi, 2015).

23
Exposure to music artist social media sexual content were based on measures of content
analysis using the frequency method for four consecutive months of social media posts by
music artists on both Twitter and Facebook. The top 20 rated artists by participants were
followed on both social media outlets from January, 2014 to April, 2014. Posts were then
assessed using two independent raters. Artists not rated in the top 20 by participants were
not analyzed in the current study.
As in previous research (Wright, 2013; Wright & Brandt, 2015; Wright & Qureshi, 2015),
raters coded for the frequency of the following sexual references: (a) sexual behavior and
body language (e.g., intimate touch, hand gestures to sexual acts), (b) sexual language (e.g.,
talk about sexual encounters, advice regarding sex), and (c) demeaning messages (e.g.,
objectification of women, sexual violence). This technique was modified from a similar
method implemented by Collins, Martino, Elliot, and Miu (2011) in an examination of
exposure to sexual content on television. This technique has also been used to examine
content within current popular music and its relation to sexual behaviors as well as
retrospective behaviors that occurred within the past ten years (Wright, 2013; Wright &
Qureshi, 2015). Inter-rater reliability for the current study was good for lyrical content, r
(221) = .95, p < .001, video content, r (221) = .87, p < .001, and social media content, r (256)
= .95, p < .001.
The top artists rated by participants, popular songs selected for each artist, and the
average sexual content in both lyrics and videos for selected songs can be found in
Table 1. Table 2 contains the sexual content in social media posts.
Exposure variables were then created for exposure to sexual references via lyrics and
videos by multiplying self-reported listening and viewing habits of each of the top rated
artists

24
by the average content contained in song lyrics and music videos. Comparably, exposure
variables for exposure to sexual content in social media were created by multiplying self-
reported exposure by the content contained in social media outlets. This technique, too, was
modified from that used by Collins et al. (2011) and was recently used to assess sexual
content in music (Wright, 2013; 2014; Wright & Qureshi, 2015). Participants in the current
study reported listening to a variety of music genres. Therefore, exposure variables for
music lyrics, videos, and social media were grouped by genre (Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, Rock,
Dance, and Country). The total exposure variables for music lyrics, videos, and social media
will be used in analysis.

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 CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Method
The intent of this section was to describe the methodology dimensions that were proposed to
be used to determine the impact of social media on student’s behavior in universities. This
chapter will therefore discuss the following: research design, target population, sampling
strategy, data collection instruments and process and analysis of the data. This study will be
conducted in four selected universities within Lusaka.
Included in the section was to give a description of the following components in the context
of the study setting of this research proposal such as; the research design, data collection
constituting of sources of data, the sampling plan, data collection tools, the sample size, data
analysis and ethical consideration.
3.2 Research Design
The researcher proposed to use the descriptive survey design to gather data relating to the
impact of social media on student’s behavior, attitude and perception.
3.3 Rationale for Choice of Methodology
The use of the descriptive methodology for this study allowed the researcher to gather data
directly from the students in their natural environment for the purpose of studying their
attitudes, views and comments about their day to day interactions with social media. The
researcher was afforded the opportunity to view occurrences through the eyes of their
subjects in appropriate social contexts through in-depth questions. The explorative nature of
the research demanded that the participant’s knowledge, views, understandings,
interpretations, experiences and interactions were considered in order to construct
situational knowledge of the impacts of social media on behavior change, attitude and
perceptions. Hence, within this context, the choice of qualitative research was

26
particularly important for this investigation as it attempted to explore a relatively unknown
area of study.
This rationale is confirmed by Denscombe (2003), when he states that qualitative research
should be favored when a topic of interest has been relatively ignored in the literature or has
been given superficial attention. Moreover, the generation of descriptions, generalizations,
themes and relationships from the data in the study could possibly contribute towards the
policy development in the educational sector especially in the universities.
3.4 Target Population
The target population for this study included university students in 4 selected universities in
Lusaka city.
3.4.1 Target Groups
I would have loved to make all universities in Lusaka and out of Lusaka to be my target
population. However, for the purpose of this research my Target Groups were divided into
four groups; Group A was drawn from final year students, group B was drawn from third year
students, group C was drawn from second year students and group D was drawn first year
students. These groups comprised of 15 students from the four universities, who were
randomly sampled in order to give each member an equal chance of being selected. This was
so because they were the main purpose and targets for this study and was representing
students from each year of study. The findings of the study were generalized on an estimated
total number of the targeted population of over 35 private universities and 7 public
universities in Zambia. The target population of 60 students was targeted for this study
research.
3.5 Sampling Size and Techniques
The study proposed to use probability sampling, this method was used because it produces
unbiased estimates with measurable precision that requires relatively little knowledge about
the population. Due to time and cost constraints, the sample was purposively drawn from in
the urban areas of Lusaka. Lusaka has been preferred because they have the highest number
of public and private universities. A total of 15 students from each selected university were
issued with a questionnaire to fill in for the study. The sample size was in keeping with the
qualitative research which emphasizes depth of focus instead of quantity of information.

27
 3.6 Data Collection
There are numerous ways of collecting data and these depend on the purpose and aims of the
research. In this study data was collected by means of questionnaires and interviews. Data
collection involved contacting the members of the population was sampled so as to collect the
required information about the study. The researcher employed the services of research
assistants who were given a time frame for collection of the data for analysis.
3. 6 Sources of Data
The study decided to use both primary and secondary sources of data to be utilized in this
study. Primary data is data that is gathered from interviews, questionnaire, observations,
survey and other direct observations which is from the respondent(s). In this study primary
data were tailored to the questions to produce the data to help in the study. The Primary data
was sourced to provide fresh and up to date information about the study.
The purpose of collecting secondary data was to compare what the previous studies on the
topic discovered thereby comparing and contrasting them with the primary data. Both
primary and secondary data have their pros and cons. Primary data offers tailored
information though it takes a much longer time to process. Secondary data on the other hand
is usually inexpensive to obtain and can be analyzed easily because it was already gathered
for other purposes.
3.6.1.1 Primary Data
This study was mainly dependent on the primary information that was obtained from the
field. This information provided was aimed at bridging the gaps and weakness of the
secondary data and was the actual answer to the objectives of the study. The information
from the primary data contributed to the theory, practice and policy which justify the reason
for this research. The information was collected from the field and it was unprocessed data.
3.6.1.2 Secondary Data
Potential sources from which secondary data was obtained included articles, journals and
research materials. This data was obtained from records and institutions, the Cavendish
university library, previous research done by other students and the internet. The data was
collected so as to provide a framework upon which to base the research and also as a means
of guidance in the course of the research. Collection of secondary data also helps to avoid
duplication of the work. It further helps to establish weaknesses in the past researches
conducted in relation to the topic thereby calling for

28
further research on the topic and in the process providing new insight of information. It
therefore, goes to say that collection of secondary data helped in justifying the need to
carry out this research.
3.7 Data Analysis and Presentation
Data analysis consists of the examining, categorizing, arranging or otherwise recombining
the evidence to address the initial intentions of the study. The data obtained from the
questionnaires were analyzed using a technique called "open coding". This enables the
researcher to classify and categorize and be to draw patterns and draw conclusion. The
researcher made up codes as she progressed through the data. In this way the researcher
searches for common dominant themes that appear in the transcripts of the data. Once
codes are awarded to different segments, the researcher groups and categorize related
codes. The categories are named, using the codes as a guide. The categories begin to show
themes that can be used in the discussion of the inquiry (Denscombe, 2003; Leedy, 1993).
Once the researcher has saturated themes that have emerged from the analysis, these
themes become a basis for discussion. Descriptive statistics will be used in analysis of the
data and this will be presented in frequencies and percentages.
3.8 Validity and Reliability of Research Instruments
3.8.1 : Validity
The validity of research instrument is the extent to which such an instrument is able to
measure what it is supposed to measure. In this research, the instruments used were
validated in terms of content validity. The content related technique measured the degree
to which the question items reflect the specific areas covered.
3.8.2 : Reliability
To test the reliability of research instruments used, test and re-test techniques were be
used. The reliability of the questionnaire were computed using SPSS to determine
Cronbach‘s reliability coefficient. A correlation coefficient greater or equal to 5 was
treated as being acceptable (Fraser et al., 2012).
3.9 Ethical Considerations
In conducting this research, efforts were made to observe the research ethics, the
researcher ensured that the research questions were treated as of secondary importance,
if there was any need in this regard to choose between violating set ethical principles and
carrying out a research, it was the research that was going to be sacrificed. Ethical issues
that were put into consideration in this research include among others: seeking consent,
maintaining confidentiality, avoiding causing harm to participants, and avoiding biasness.
Seeking Informed Consent: In accomplishing this research ethic, participants were
informed beforehand on what the research was all about and what was involved so that
they could decide in a conscious and deliberate way whether they wanted to participate in
the research or not. “This implies that potential participants, no matter how suitable, are
not obliged to participate in the study but informing them will ensure that information is
collected only from people that are willing to participate”. This also helped in ensuring
that valid data was collected.
Maintaining Confidentiality: There is need to draw a boundary between probing and
infringing on participants’ privacy since qualitative research by nature, involves a close
relationship between the researcher and the researched. To maintain confidentiality, the
researcher attempted not to review the information collected from the respondents to any
other people. The researcher made it clear to the participants that information collected
from them was purely for academic purposes and that anonymity was be created.
Furthermore, the researcher avoided interviewing participants from public places when
dealing with personal issues. The questionnaires were formulated in such a way that

29
there was no need for participants to write their names.
Avoiding Causing Harm to Participants: It is unfortunate to note that some research
methods may cause harm to research participants. In this study therefore, it was the
responsibility of the researcher to ensure that whatever research methodology was
adopted did not cause harm to the participants in any way such as invasion of privacy,
harassment, anxiety, and discomfort among others.
Avoiding biasness: In the carrying out of this research, the researcher at all cost avoided
discriminating against participants by choosing those that they liked because the findings
of such a study would not reflect the real situation on the ground.
The researcher was not looking out only for those people that are readily available or
those that could easily be manipulated. It was therefore always important that
participants were selected using scientific methodology. There was also need to ensure
that the findings from the research were reported objectively.

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Understanding: It was ensured that participants understood what was been explained and
were given the opportunity to ask questions and have them answered by the researcher. The
informed consent document was written in lay language, avoiding any technical jargon. In
this regard, the researcher ensured that this rule was abided by.
Voluntariness: The researcher ensured that participant's consent to participate in the
research was voluntary, free of any pressure or promises of benefits unlikely to result from
participation
3.10 Limitations of the study
The study was limited by time. Since few similar studies have been done especially in
institutions of higher learning, there is limited empirical literature on the area of impacts of
social media on behavior change especially in the context of Zambia. Another expected
limitation was that some students failed to give correct information on the basis of invasion
of their privacy. The researcher explained to them that the study was purely for academic
purposes and not motivated by any other interests whatsoever.

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