Abstract

This study strived to extricate the significance of managing popular entertainment for national identity and nation building. It observed that popular entertainment stems from the culture of a people as social, political, economic and technological experiences and could be in form of carnival, storytelling, ritual performance, dance, music, drama, magical feat as well as reflects other values and norms of the people. The social, political, economic and technological influence on popular entertainment is the essence of managing it. It becomes imperative for any nation to take cognizance of its popular entertainment with a view to manage it and enable it contributes to its national identity and nation building within its boundary. It further noted that the contributions and aesthetics of popular entertainment differ from nation to nation when trans-valued-when compared with others. Thus, when popular entertainment meets the taste of its people of origin and beyond it contributes to nation building because the people of its origin and others are parts of the nation whose culture encapsulated popular entertainment which contributes to national identity of the nation through the participation of the people. Therefore, one of the contributions of popular entertainment of a people is by satisfying the entertainment taste of the people. It therefore evolve the need to manage popular entertainment through viable policy that will allocate resources towards the enhancement of popular entertainment as an essential part of a people’s culture which contributes to national identity and nation building.

Key words: Popular entertainment, culture, policy, arts, importance, social-economic, political, managing.