Teenage sexuality and media practice: Factoring in the influences of family, friends, and school

Pg 331 – “The study was guided by the premise that if we can figure out how adolescents with different personal and social identities and sociocultural backgrounds select, interact, and apply media matter in their everyday lives, we will be able to do a better job of reaching them with media messages that they will listen to and act on.”

~ Basis of study/article.

Pg 331 – “…Many teens draw heavily from media images and storylines as they wrestle with who they are and where they fit in the world.”

~ So media plays a role in identity development and socialization. But only comes into context in terms of being something that throws dissonance into a teen’s life.

Pg 334 – “The media components of the model were defined as follows: (a) Selection: the act of choosing among media-related alternatives; (b) Interaction: the cognitive, affective, and/or behavioral engagement with media that produces cultural meanings; and (c) Application: the ways in which teens make media active in their everyday lives.”

~ I really think these three things are the basis for which all pieces of our identity are formed. We select which cultures we enter, we interact in different ways in them (physical or behavioral), and then we apply what we know in different ways. The selection focuses on culture, the interaction focuses on our personal history, and the application focuses on formation of our identity. Love this!

Pg 335 – “Teens’ selectivity in making media choices (selection), their creative interpretations of media content (Interaction), and the varied ways they actively use media in their everyday lives (Application) are the essential elements of media practice.”

~ How the author really uses the information.

Pg 335 – “Whereas 50 years ago a teen’s family, friends, school, and church were the primary influences on his or her attitudes, values, and beliefs about sexuality, today’s teens have access to a fifth powerful influence – the ubiquitous mass media.”

~ Some of the main forces that cause cognitive dissonance in teens.

Pg 336 – “Historically, American researchers have seen exposure, a term used to indicate time [spent] with media, as the key to media effects. This is problematic, however, because measures of exposure tell us nothing about the context of viewing/listening or the amount of attention paid to the sexual components of media content. Close examination in this study of teens’ engagement with media produced an understanding that posits a syncretic and holistic definition of Interaction, one that includes emotional, psychological, and physical dimensions.”

~ This is true of cultures, too. It is not the cultures we are exposed to that are the key to our identity, but he amount of viewing/listening time to cultures and our engagement with them that affects our personal histories and identities.

Pg 337 – “The other type of application takes the form of resistance, teens’ practice of using media to open up a space for combating the status quo. Teens who feel marginalized, a category that can include ethnic minorities, lesbians, gays, nerds, drug users, and school leavers, frequently seeks out media and story lines that glamorize the very things mainstream society frowns upon. Black teens’ enthusiastic embrace of rap music is a familiar example of teens using media to fight what they perceive to be the wrongs of the dominant culture.”

~ So people in certain cultures look for things that reinforce their views. People want to have coordinating identities, not ones at odds with one another.

Pg 338 – “The gratifications teens seek when they select different media (Motivation) have a major impact on Application. If a teenager is looking for sexual information to apply in everyday situations, chances are good that the sexual information he or she finds will be “incorporated” in exactly this way.”

~ Coordinating identities kind of deals with gratification, too.

Pg 338-339 – “Recent work on teen vulnerability and resiliency (Cairns & Cairns, 1994; Resnick et al., 1997) suggests that strong or close family ties are one predictor of a teen’s ability to get through adolescence without siring a child, landing in jail, developing a drug habit, or dropping out of school.”

~ So personal history (the planet idea) can have a huge affect on the cultures and identities one grows into through development.
Steele, J. R. (1999). Teenage sexuality and media practice: Factoring in the influences of family, friends, and school. The Journal of Sex Research, 36(4). Retrieved November 9, 2008, from JSTOR database.