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

Abstract

This multi‐method, qualitative study addresses the question: How do mass media images and messages about love, sex and relationships interact with what teens learn about sexuality at home, in school, and from their friends? Using the Adolescents’ Media Practice Model introduced by Steele & Brown (1995) as a starting point, this study seeks to extend our understanding of the media's role in shaping adolescents’ values, attitudes, and beliefs about sex by factoring in some of the contexts that intersect with media practice. Data generated through focus groups, media journals, room tours, and in‐depth interviews with middle school and high school teens suggest that ethnicity, gender, class status, and developmental stage influence media practices in important ways. Identity—teens’ sense of themselves and others—affects the media they like best, how they interact with that media, and how they apply media matter in their everyday lives.