LAGOS CINEMA AUDIENCE AND FILM CONTENT PREFERENCES: A USES AND GRATIFICATION APPROACH

Digitalized film houses are located in some parts of Lagos but that does not mean that all film viewers go as far as watching film content in cinemas and film theatres. Some are satisfied with viewing film on portable devices and on television. There is the need to know the cinema going members of the Lagos film audience as well as their film content preferences. Literature review dwelt on the theory, concept and context of Uses and Gratification. The theory thus becomes the underpinning force in this work. The Descriptive Survey research design was adopted, using structured questionnaires to elicit useful data from a sample population determined purposively. Items in the instrument were framed to garner information on key demographics of respondents, cinema going habits as well as their film content preferences. Collection of data was essentially primary and was directly undertaken by the investigator in the immediate pre-Covid 19 environment.Modern day digital cinema houses in Maryland, Ikeja, Surulere, Lagos Island and Victoria Island provided hubs for the clusters of respondents used in the study.Data was analyzed with the use of simple descriptive statistics, while presentation was in tables, frequencies and percentages. Results and findings would reveal that the cinema going film audience in Lagos comprise mainly young persons aged 18 to 40 who are students of tertiary institutions and employees in organizations around the city. These persons reside mostly on the Islands, Lagos Mainland and Ikeja, in that order. Furthermore, film content preferences range from Storyline, to Moral Lesson, to the quality of Acting, in that order. The research has succeeded in answering two burning questions as far as film viewing and cinema going in Lagos is concerned.