Influence of LGBTQ Social Media Contents on Cultural Representation of Young Abia Residents

Abstract

Social media platforms have become central to how young people encounter, interpret, and negotiate ideas about identity, sexuality, and belonging, and this is particularly true in societies where such conversations are restricted offline. This study examined how LGBTQ-related contents on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and WhatsApp influences the cultural representation of young people in Abia State, Nigeria. Anchored on Bandura's Social Learning Theory, the study adopted a survey research design and drew a sample of 384 respondents through multi-stage sampling across the three senatorial districts of Abia State. A structured questionnaire captured respondents' exposure to LGBTQ contents across the four platforms, their attitudes toward diverse sexual orientations, the extent to which their cultural representation had shifted following exposure, and the factors that motivate such shifts where they occur. Findings show that exposure to LGBTQ contents is high across all four platforms, though it is unevenly distributed, with video-based and image-based contents on YouTube and Instagram driving most of the engagement. Attitudes toward diverse sexual orientations remained largely unfavourable, and while exposure encouraged reflection and broadened respondents' understanding of the range of identities that exist, it rarely translated into a shift in personal cultural representation. Where representational change did occur, it was more often linked to relatable influencer contents and peer discussion within closed groups than to formal advocacy messaging. The study concludes that religious conviction, family expectation, and the criminalised legal status of same-sex relationships in Nigeria continue to mediate whatever influence social media exposure might otherwise carry, and recommends that digital literacy interventions in the region be designed with this mediating context in mind rather than assuming that exposure alone will shift attitudes.