Media

Media messages have a significant impact on all of our lives. They have the power to influence who we vote for, what kind of products we buy, which values we adopt and how we view ourselves and others.

Media can have an even more significant impact on youth. As the predominant users of technology, youth are undoubtedly influenced and persuaded by various forms of media: music, radio, videos, television shows, commercials, the internet, video games, movies, magazines, and advertisements. The list is practically endless. In fact, current research indicates that many media messages are marketed directly towards teens.

A September 2000 Federal Trade Commission report showed that 80% of R rated movies, 70% of restricted video games, and 100% of music with “explicit content” warning labels were being marketed to children under 17.

An April 2007 follow-up review reported that entertainment industries continue to market some R-rated movies, M-rated video games, and explicit-content recordings on television shows and Web sites with substantial teen audiences.

Adolescence is a time of self discovery; teenagers are attempting to establish their character and personality. During this time they are often easily influenced by the norms of the culture around them. The messages that they receive can have an affect on their knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and beliefs about health, gender, race, ethnicity, relationships, violence, etc. And while media messages can have a positive effect on youths’ development of self, they often provide unhealthy, false or negative messages.

Research from the Teen Relationship Project indicates that:

97% of students think that teens have attitudes, beliefs, and values that are similar to the music they listen to, the TV shows and movies they watch, the magazines they read, the video games they play, and the websites they visit.

71% of students agree that they identified with the image, style, and behavior of their favorite musicians, main characters in their favorite television show, and main characters in their favorite movie.
76% of students say that their favorite music, television shows, movies, magazines, video games and websites contained aggressive or violent content.

52% of students believe that teens are influenced by the media in their dating and sexual relationships.

Furthermore, The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes exposure to violence in media, including television, movies, music, and video games, as a significant risk to the health of children and adolescents. Extensive research evidence indicates that media violence can contribute to aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, nightmares, and fear of being harmed.

Read the full report from the American Academy of Pediatrics

Take Action

Parents can help off-set the negative effects of media messages by encouraging their youth to learn how to:

Recognize how media messages have the ability to influence and persuade
Think critically about media messages—to uncover hidden messages and values
Understand how things we see and hear can lead to stereotyping, desensitization and objectification

Stereotyping is the process of attaching a generalized, incomplete and inaccurate label to a person, group of people, idea, etc. Stereotypes can be positive or negative. Stereotypes affect what a person thinks and believes about others, as well as how she/he behaves toward them. For example, media messages often contain a distorted and unequal view of certain groups of people and as a result youth may learn that some groups of people are more important than others.

Desensitization refers to the normalization of something. Seeing and hearing things over and over again can affect our attitudes and behaviors. For example, long-term exposure to media violence often leads people to be more acceptance of violence and less concern about victims of violence. By adolescence, the average young person will have been exposed to thousands of violent acts in the media which are often presented as effective, commonplace and justified.

Objectification occurs when we view people as objects and not as whole human beings; by doing so we are more likely to treat them as if they are just an object. The media frequently portrays people as objects by focusing on their body parts instead of the whole person. This makes us more likely to dehumanize others by treating them like that object rather than treating them like a whole person who has thoughts and feelings. Sexual attitudes and behaviors portrayed by the media can have a negative impact on youth, as people, especially women, are often portrayed as sexual objects.

Media Literacy is the ability to read, understand and deconstruct media images and messages. The 5 key concepts are:

All media messages are "constructed."
Each form of media has different characteristics, strengths, and a unique "language" of construction.
Different people experience and interpret the same media message in different ways.
Media messages are produced for particular purposes, including profit, persuasion, education, artistic expression and to gain power.
Media have embedded values and points of view.

The following is a list of questions from the New Mexico Literacy Project you can use to critically assess a media message.

Who paid for the media and why?
Who is the audience being targeted by this media message?
What messages and values are expressed by the media message?
What kind of lifestyle is presented in the message, and is this lifestyle glamorized? If the lifestyle is glamorized, how?
What is the text of the media message and is there a subtext to the message?
What tools or techniques of persuasion are used?
In what ways is this a healthy and/or unhealthy example of the media?

Check out the Media Tips for the Home from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Media Sharp Project. By following the steps listed, your family can practice thinking about and questioning the media messages you receive.

Useful Links

http://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/
PBS Parent’s Guide to Children and Media offers concrete strategies for parents to use with your child, pre-teen or teenager to develop media-literacy, specifically with respect to TV, movies, advertising, computers and video games. The site also provides information about how these forms of medica can shape your child's development and what you can do about it.

http://www.medialit.org
Center for Media Literacy: Parents, Kids and Media provides a wealth of resources to learn and practice new ways of helping kids interact with these powerful media influences in their lives.

http://www.ciconline.org/media-smart
Cable in the Classroom: Media Smart asks "How media smart are you? How about your children or students?" The site teaches media literacy, citing it as a key 21st century skill that provides a framework and method to think critically about the media you consume and create.

http://actagainstviolence.apa.org/mediaviolence/index.html
Adults and Children Together Against Violence is a website created by the American Psychological Association for parents. This site offers parents information on raising safe kids, teaching media literacy at home and at school, information on managing anger and healthy ways of resolving conflicts.

http://www.packaginggirlhood.com
Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes is a new book by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown that helps guide parents through attempts to claim them by marketers and the media.

http://www.mediaed.org
The Media Education Foundation offers a variety of documentary films and other educational resources "to inspire critical reflection on the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media." One of their documentaries entitled "Tough Guise" systematically examines the relationship between imagery in pop-culture and the social construction of masculine identities in the U.S. at the dawn of the 21st century.

View clip of the documentary on youtube.com

For more information about the video Click Here