Media’s effect on teen behavior debated
By AMANDA SMITH-TEUTSCH / Tribune ChronicleCountry songs talk about teenagers having sex as a rite of passage. Rap songs, highly popular with teenage listeners, talk about sex in violent and degrading terms. Rock songs extoll the excitement of young love.
"We were barely 17 and we were barely dressed," goes the Meatloaf song Paradise by the dashboard light.
"Strawberry wine and seventeen / The hot July moon saw everything / My first taste of love oh bittersweet," sings country star Deana Carter.
So when TV celebrities like Jamie Lynn Spears give birth at age 17, and movies like "Juno" frankly discuss teen pregnancy, many parents get nervous about signals their children are receiving, and some blame the media culture for teen sexual activity.
Sex sells, said one of the people in Trumbull County trying to combat teen pregnancy.
"Media, entertainment - it's a business, and they're selling sex to target their audience," said Lea Dotson, a member of Grace A.M.E. in Warren and volunteer for the church's new sexuality program. The Church, with the help of the Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, started a sexuality-based approach for talking to young congregants about sex, relationships and growing up in a modern world. Sex, Dotson said, is everywhere.
''For example, we watched music videos and critiqued what those videos are really selling," she said. Much time during the eight-week session was spent discussing images of sex in different media, such as movies, TV, music and the Internet.
Dr. Steven Martino, led a study on the effect of sexually explicit rap music on teenage listeners. Published in the August 2006 edition of the journal 'Pediatrics,' Martino wrote "sexually degrading lyrics" - graphic and filled with obscenities - caused changes in adolescents' sexual behavior. In the study, he wrote, "These lyrics depict men as sexually insatiable, women as sexual objects, and sexual intercourse as inconsequential."
Still, said Stan Wearden, director of the School of Communications Studies at Kent State University, it's hard to measure the impact of media on behavior.
"People can learn things from media, and it can shape their world view," said Wearden, who holds a doctoral degree in mass communication research. He said he doubted a movie about a teenage mother would inspire girls to get pregnant, as was the case at Gloucester High School. The Massachusetts community first blamed an increase in teen pregnancy on a pact by the girls to get pregnant and later on glamorization of pregnancy in the media. Lack of money for sex education programs also was cited in the media reports.
Wearden said he doubted one movie would convince girls that getting pregnant was funny and acceptable.
"People are resilient to that kind of thing," said Wearden. "There is a misconception that it's on TV or in a movie, then people will imitate that. I think people are being a bit alarmist ... The idea that teens were directly impacted by the movie is unlikely."
He liked the "Juno" effect to the release of the movie "Deer Hunter" in 1978. The movie contains a depiction of Russian Roulette.
"After the movie, there were small instances of a few deaths from Russian Roulette," the professor said. "But those people were likely risk takers" who were liable to take part in dangerous activities with little help from the movie, he said.
People are more likely to be influenced by repetitive exposure to ideas, he said, over vast periods of time. He is more concerned with violence in media than in portrayals of sex.
"I watched 'Juno' with my three sons," Wearden said. He then talked to his teenage sons about safe sex, sexual diseases and unintended pregnancy.
"It was a good conversation opener," he said. "It stimulates people to discuss teen pregnancy and think about it in a different light."
