NEW MEDIA  CONTRIBUTION TO CULTURAL IMPERIALISM IN  AFRICA KENYA IN
PARTICULAR

New Media has contributed to the evolution of culture  in our county Kenya in various ways.  We have become victims of change in our society which is considered as adhering to technological changes.

We are living in a society that has seen us viewing more of the western movies and music. Most of us will tend to embrace western culture way of life. Many people tend to lose their way of life in order to be cool and conversant with  the new trend .For instance the latest dressing code which will make them to dress in the recent trends even if they don’t really match up to our culture. Women will wear the short tight and exposing clothes in order to impress other people. Men are also adapting the modern trend that is sagging at times, dyeing hair and wearing the slim trousers that are tight like the ones that ladies wear. Most of them will get these ideas from the movies and music that they watch.

Our culture is slowly fading away due to the influence of media in our society. The new media is slowly controlling and taking over our culture.The worst bit is that ladies are even bleaching themselves. They want to look like the people that they see in the television, Kenyan culture  is slowly being eroded by the new ideas that we are getting from the media. Our culture that spells it out that as Africans we have the dark complexion is being eroded away as people slowly start using the chemicals that change their complexion.

In our media society information from the west is actually dominating in our media world.  Most of our radio stations play western music and run western programmes as the 'in thing'.In our magazines and periodicals what will they mostly concentrate on, western stuff.  The western culture is slowly taking away and eroding our own culture. We are becoming victims of change of our own culture once we start valuing foreign culture more than our own culture. It is very rare to find for instance the Maasai people and their culture being a topic of discussion in our media world for instance in a magazine. But it is not once or twice that they will feature celebrities from the west or even music from the west.

By Jiljane Wawira Njiru