Abstract

This research project will conduct focus groups of teen parents in Ohio who have been shown samples of popular television series and youth-produced media that primarily portray teen parenting. An overview of trends in past literature about relationships between teens and media, including parasocial interaction, and statistical data about teen birthrates and teen media consumption in the United States calls for new research about how teen parents relate to these media sample and whether/how media like these samples can have positive effects on teen parents.

Description

How do teen parents feel about narrative media portrayals of teen parenting? In the past couple of years teen parenting has the subject of several reality and fictional television series broadcast in the United States, e.g. 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In a related direction, youth-produced media is a growing non-profit field for educators, media makers and activists who want youth to create media about their lives, especially around sexual health issues.

An internet search of "teen mom" or even "teen parent" prioritizes pages about the series Teen Mom among and even ahead of research and news about teen parenting. This overlap between the title of a television series and the title of a complex demographic and hotly debated social issue points to the show's success, but it also reveals that Teen Mom the brand and "teen mom" the person need to be examined in relation to each other. The price of ignoring their connection could render teen moms more invisible than they already are.

Through focus group research with current teen parents in Cuyahoga County, Ohio who will view and discuss samples of the above-described media, my project will examine how teen parents relate to the sampled teen parent characters. My project will also question whether current and future media about teen parenting may be useful in reducing certain common negative consequences of teen parenting, such as dropping out of school and giving birth to more children while still a teen. If we can understand what teen parents feel about media representations of them, and if we can learn how teen parents would like to be represented in media, we may be able to develop better tools to create stronger media programming for teen parents that can actually support them and help them improve their lives.

The purpose of this project is to explore how teenage parents relate to media that contains narratives about teenage parenting. I believe that exploring how teen parents relate to various narratives about teen parenting could yield the following results:

· We will learn which of the sample media most accurately and effectively portrays positive and negative consequences of teen parenting

· We will better understand how actual teen parents identify with teen parent characters in the sample media and how teen parents would like to be represented

· We will uncover new potential for current and future media about teen parenting to combat some common negative consequences of teen parenting

Rationale

There are two key facts that precede this research project about how teen parents relate to teen parents represented in media. First, teen pregnancy in the United States is on the rise for the first time since 2000, and most U.S. pregnant teens give birth and parent instead of having an abortion (Guttmacher Institute 2010). Second, a recent Nielsen study demonstrates that U.S. and international teens consume more media today than ever before, and television is still the most popular medium, well above internet activity (2009). The continued prevalence of teen parenting in the U.S. and ever increasing rates of teen consumption of media make ongoing research about relationships between teen media consumption and teen lives relevant and necessary.

The core concept underpinning my project is that people interact with the characters they see in media, a behavior known as parasocial interaction. While my project is not a psychological study nor an examination of parasocial interaction, my research questions stem from parasocial interaction as it explores how viewers respond to narratives (and messages contained therein) based on how they relate to characters and use media to fulfill personal needs (Moyer-Guse and Nabi 2009).

One central assumption behind this project is that teen parents—especially teen mothers—may exhibit parasocial interaction at a high rate because they are often isolated from “real” interaction with peers and adults normally obtained through school or work. If I am correct, this isolation factor makes teen parents both more vulnerable to negative/inaccurate portrayals of teen parenting and more available to positive programming.

Having worked at Planned Parenthood in Colorado and at Scenarios USA in New York—a non-profit that asks teens from around the country to write short films about sexual health issues—I know first-hand about the national fears surrounding teen parenting as well as the significant impact of youth interaction with media especially when it comes to media about teens and sexual health issues. The convergence of these professional experiences gives me a unique inspiration and approach to my research topic.

Literature Review

Plenty of recent research has been done on how sexual content in media (television, movies, video games, music lyrics and music videos) may impact teen sexuality (Adams and Fuller 2006; Chandra et al. 2008). Chandra's ground-breaking study identifies, for arguably the first time, a strong positive correlation between heavy teen television viewing habits and increased incidence of teen pregnancy. Far less research exists about media that intend to depict possible consequences of teen sex, such as teenage parenting. I was unable to find literature focused specifically on how teen parents may interact with media portraying consequences of teen sex or portraying teen parenting.

In comparing teen response to “reality” characters and fictional characters dealing with teen pregnancy, one study found that teens identified better with the fictional characters than with the real-life pregnant teens (Moyer-Guse and Nabi 2009). This result both suggests that fictional programming could have more impact on teen parents than reality programming and calls for more exploration of how media can be intentionally constructed to connect with and impact teen parents. It has also been argued that teens identify media as a significant source of sexual health information (Somers and Surmann 2005), a point that requires further examination of what kind of media teen parents may consider to be a valuable source of information. Other research about what factors influence how teen parents envision their future “selves” and their aspirations and fears for their futures do not examine media portrayals of teen parenting as an influencing factor (Klaw 2008).

Between literature about the impact of sexual content on teen viewers; literature about how teens relate to fictional/reality characters dealing with teen pregnancy; and literature about non-media based factors that influence how teen parents envision their goals and worries for their futures, the impact of teen parenting represented in media programming on actual teen parents in real life has not yet been directly explored.

While there is a dearth of research on how teens relate to youth-produced media, literature about media education does provide a promising and distinctly positive framework for encouraging and exploring teen participation with media, especially media which is about teens. One tenet of media education is the concept of "participatory culture" which describes how youth do and should critique, deconstruct, reconstruct and create media in order to share information and connect with others (Jenkins 2009). That premise opens the door for this project.

Methodology

I selected Cuyahoga County in Ohio for several reasons. Ohio in general bears teen parenting statistics, sex education standards and teen health services access that are not dramatically higher or lower than national (Guttmacher Institute 2010). I also have personal and professional support in Cuyahoga County because Scenarios USA has a local office and relationships with schools and non-school based youth organizations.

Focus groups will be composed of teen parents of mixed ages 16-19. Each group (3 total groups) will be 5-7 subjects in size and will be sex-segregated, two female and one male group. Segregating groups by sex may encourage more dialogue, especially if both the teen mother and father participate. Groups will view samples of each of the following three programs about teen parenting:

· Teen Mom: a reality television series originally broadcast on MTV

· The Secret Life of the American Teenager: a fictional television series originally broadcast on ABC Family Channel

· Two Scenarios USA youth-produced films, one fictional and one documentary, broadcast on cable channels such as BET and HBO but mostly through school systems/programs and non-school based youth outreach programs

Each group will view sample episodes over three sessions spaced one week apart: Teen Mom in one session, followed one week later by episodes of The Secret Life of the American Teenager in the second session, and the two youth-produced films in the third session. This viewing structure may reduce undue pressure to compare and contrast different programs within one session.

Each session will culminate in a discussion of the viewed samples prompted by some of the following questions:

1. If you were describing these characters to someone else, what descriptive words or personal qualities would you use?

2. Have you experienced problems as a teen parent like what the characters experience?

3. Are there things you wish the characters had done differently?

4. Did the characters do things you would like to do as a teen parent?

5. Is the character doing well as a teen parent?

6. Do you want people who are not teen parents to watch this program?

7. If you had been asked to work on this program when it was being made, what could you have done differently?

Each subject will be given a journal in case he or she thinks of answers or other questions in the two weeks in between sessions, or in case he or she did not want to share with the group. Journals will be collected at the end of the last focus group session unless a subject wants to submit one earlier.

Because of scheduling difficulties some subjects may face related to school, work or childcare, consistent attendance will be challenging and therefore the research plan contains proposed ideas to encourage complete attendance. Completion incentives will only be provided to participants who attend all three sessions unless individual screenings and interviews are arranged to make up for the missed group session.

Because the Ohio office of Scenarios USA will be crucial in recruiting teen parents through the Cuyahoga County school system and supplying group screening/interview space, it is likely that subjects will feel pressured while evaluating the selected Scenarios USA films. This will be offset by a clear explanation that I do not work for Scenariosa USA and that the project is intended for my research purposes.

Research Plan

Literature Review : In addition to past research and rhetoric around teens and media, sufficient literature review will include viewings and selection of the sample episodes or films participants will view during the focus groups. Six weeks is estimated.

Pre-Focus Group planning:

· Week 1: Develop screening questionnaire for focus group selection. Develop discussion questions for focus groups. Prepare application to interview human subjects for the New School University Institutional Review Board.

· Weeks 2-3 (to commence after IRB approval): Work on-site with Cuyahoga County Scenarios USA staff to identify and connect to sources for teen parent participants. Schedule screening and interview space within Scenarios USA facilities or off-site facilities if available. Identify non-Scenariosa USA co-moderator for focus group sessions.

Focus Group Schedule:

· Week 4: Conduct screening questionnaire to confirm eligible participants. Determine groups based on sex and availability. Each focus group session for the same program will take place within the same week.

· Week 5-7: Conduct focus group sessions. Schedule make-up screening/interviews for any participants who miss a session. Provide information to participants on how they can access results.

· Week 8: Return to New York City to begin results evaluation.

Resource Needs:

· Focus group space, furniture and screening equipment will be provided by Scenarios USA

· Digital Video Recorder to record focus group sessions: to be rented through New School

· Computer/hard drive to upload digital video: personally provided

· Ohio accommodations: provided by personal friend

· Airfare: TBD

· Living expenses for 7 weeks in Ohio: TBD

Works Cited

Adams, Terri M., and Douglas B. Fuller. "The Words Have Changed but the Ideology

Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music." Journal of Black Studies 36, no. 6 (2006): 938-57.

Chandra, Anita, Martino, Steven C., Collins, Rebecca L., Elliott, Marc N., Berry, Sandra H., Kanouse, David E., Miu, Angela. “Does Watching Sex on Television Predict Teen Pregnancy? Findings From a National Longitudinal Survey of Youth” Pediatrics 122.5 (2008): 1047-1054.

Jenkins, Henry et al. Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: media education for the 21st century. Massachussets Institute of Technology, 2009.

Klaw, Elena. "Understanding Urban Adolescent Mothers' Visions of the Future in Terms

of Possible Selves." Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 18.4 (2008): 441-61.

Kost K., Henshaw S. and Carlin L. U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and

Abortions: National and State Trends and Trends by Race and Ethnicity. New York, NY: Guttmacher Institute (2010).

Jaworski, Beth K. "Reproductive justice and media framing: a case-study analysis of problematic frames in the popular media." Sex Education 9.1 (2009): 105-121.

Moyer-Gusé, Emily, and Robin L. Nabi. "Explaining the Effects of Narrative in an Entertainment Television Program: Overcoming Resistance to Persuasion." Human Communication Research 36.1 (2010): 26-52.

The Nielsen Company. How Teens Use Media: a Nielsen report on the myths and

realities of teen media trends. New York, NY: The Nielson Company (2009).

Somers, Cheryl L., and Amy T. Surmann. "Sources and timing of sex education: relations with American adolescent sexual attitudes and behavior" Educational Review 57.1 (2005): 37-54.

Media Cited

16 and Pregnant. Prod by Morgan J. Freeman. MTV. 11 June 2009.

Teen Mom. Prod by Morgan J. Freeman. MTV. 1 December 2009.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Prod. By Brenda Hampton. ABC Family. 1 July 2008.

Literature about American teens and media tend to focus on how mass-produced media may impact so-called risky teen behavior, such as sex and specifically sex that leads to pregnancy. There is also plenty of literature about sex education strategies and what has and has not worked. Newer literature has only begun to assess emerging youth-produced media as a sex education tool that could take advantage of lessons learned from how media impacts teen sexual behavior and what sex education approaches engage teens the most. However, the literature reviewed provides significant groundwork to launch future research on using youth-produced media to improve outcomes for American teen sexual behavior.

Teens and Sexual Content on TV

It is much easier to find literature depicting strong correlations between television viewing and teen smoking, obesity and violence than between television viewing and sexual behavior. In “Media and Risky Behaviors”, the most common model for understanding how television content impacts teen bad behavior is whether increased viewing of, for example, smoking, leads to increased teen smoking (Escobar-Chaves and Anderson, 2008). When it comes to determining links between teens watching sexual content and teen “early sexual initiation”, the links are not as clear for several reasons.

One reason is studies often mention how sexual content on television probably impacts teens and their sexual behavior differently according to race and class (Solderman et al, 1988; Chandra et al, 2008), yet fail to elaborate on these differences in a cohesive manner. Additionally, they do not examine cross-sections of race and class, such as how wealthy black teens select and use media with sexual content differently from poor black teens.

Also, mass media, including television with sexual content, has a reflexive relationship with popular opinion and therefore re-calibrates itself constantly, both to keep up with what viewers—especially young viewers—want and to prevent policy intervention (Jordan, 2008). This is an extremely important point to consider because it gives agency to teen viewers as opposed to understanding them as passive blank slates. Using that point, literature that discusses specific content is likely to be dated because media makers evolve their content to stay current and to steer clear of anger from adults like parents, educators and policy-makers. In “Children’s Media Policy” Jordan discusses mostly how these adults impact media content but does not sufficiently address how youth feedback changes media content.

Literature on the phenomenon of para-social interaction offers another level of understanding of how teens interact with media and use it to form identities. In “Loneliness, Gender, and Parasocial Interaction: A Uses and Gratifications Approach”, Wang et al. demonstrate how men and women use media differently to alleviate loneliness (2008). Sexual content was not defined in the study and the population they studied was by far mostly white and also college-age youth, neither of which offers insight as to how non-white poor teens interact with television characters. Such an examination is approached in the now outdated “Television and Movie Behaviors of Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Adolescents” (Solderman, 1988), however that study focuses on revealing that black teens watch far more sexual content than white teens in general.

Recent literature does illustrate increased negative sexual outcomes, like teen pregnancy, related to increased teen consumption of sexual content on television, such as Chandra et al’s “Does Watching Sex on Television Predict Teen Pregnancy?” (2008). Chandra points out that inaccurate portrayals of risks and consequences of most sexual content on television is the bigger problem than the abundance of and teen exposure to sexual content alone. This point of view is echoed by Jaworski’s “Reproductive justice and media framing” (2009) and in several news and magazine articles crying out for better media portrayals of safe sex and negative sex consequences, especially pregnancy (Wallis, 2005; Navarro, 2007; Kliff, 2008).

In general, literature thoroughly supports that complex and evolving reflexive relationships exist between teens and sexual content on television. A common sentiment expressed in literature about teen exposure to sexual content and increase in pregnancy is that media makers should be held responsible and should change their programming to better inform teen audiences about risks of sexual activity. What lacks overall in much literature about sexual content and teens—in addition to consistent focused specification about differences among races and classes and recognition of teens’ agency as non-passive viewers—is a) any differentiation or qualification of what kind of “sexual content” leads to worse outcomes; and b) discussions of how media created by teens measures up to mass media in terms of sexual content and messaging.

Possible Reception and Effects of Mediated Sex Education

Despite literature that draws connections between teen consumption of sexual content and teen sexual behavior, when it comes to teens actively seeking sex education some literature argues that while media is a source of information they would rather go to their trusted adults. In “Sources and Timing of Sex Education” (2005) and “Adolescents’ Preference for Source of Sex Education” (2004) Somers and Surmann evaluate where teens go to get accurate sex education and where they want to get accurate sex education, respectively. Considering how much teens consume sexual content on television, it is an important assertion that when teens want proper sex education they would prefer to speak with an adult than watch television and that they do not consider mass media to be a significant source of their information about sex. Somers and Surmann do not, however, sufficiently qualify the type of “media” that ranks low on teens’ preferred sex education sources or specify whether media designed specifically for sex education is appealing for teens. Furthermore, other research routinely contends that teens do consider media to be an important source of sex education, regardless of whether it is ranked above parents and peers (Brown and Keller, 2000; Pinkleton and Austin et al., 2008).

Considering current/recent television programs like “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” (MTV, 2009-present) and “The Baby Borrowers” (NBC, 2008), which blend voyeuristic reality entertainment with equally devastating and hope-giving portrayals of teen pregnancy and parenting, it seems wrong to cluster all media as being not useful and not appealing to teen audiences for sex education purposes. Although formal academic research has not been conducted on the impact of these latest television series and would be greatly useful, the series have quickly generated news items such as “Test-Driving Parenthood is a Teenage Wake-up Call” (Bellafonte, 2008) and “’16 and Pregnant’ Deftly Plumbs the Parent Trap” (Shales, 2009).

Both articles praise “16 and Pregnant” and “The Baby Borrowers” for depicting teen parenting—and parenting in general—as an immense struggle with a focus on the negative impact that parenting has on the teens’ romantic and familial relationships and their future goals for education. The articles are also written from adult spectator perspectives with no discussion of how these shows could be employed as teaching tools for teens regarding sexual behavior. Furthermore, these shows depict teens but are produced and distributed by adults, both of which may impact how teens seek them out and respond to them as potential teaching tools.

A more technical term for mediated education is “entertainment-education” as noted in Moyer-Guse and Nabi’s “Explaining the Effects of Narrative in an Entertainment Television Program” (2009). Moyer-Guse and Nabi showed teens narrative and non-narrative television programs about teens facing an unplanned pregnancy. The narrative television example shown to teens was one episode of “The OC” (Fox, 2003-2007) and the non-narrative was a news piece produced by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Questionnaires showed that teens felt less persuaded and felt more similar to characters on “The OC” than with the real-life, really pregnant teens. Para-social interaction at least temporarily inspired the teens to claim they would have safer sex in the future because of the narrative they had viewed, which did not happen nearly as strongly for the teens who viewed the non-narrative news piece. The accumulative effects that narratives about teen pregnancy may have on teens deciding to have safer sex (which was one temporary outcome of this particular study) would require further research with more media samples and a longitudinal study.

Shows like “16 and Pregnant” and “The Baby Borrowers” may not then, as the above literature suggests, fare well with teens if they feel preached to or manipulated. This result suggests both an enormous hurdle and an enormous insight for sex educators desiring to use media to their advantage. Somers and Surmann’s work and Moyer-Guse and Nabi’s work may form a tentative cohesive vision of what kind of mediated sex education may prove useful in future endeavors to create mediated sex education tools.

More literature is needed about what kind of television programs directed at teens could yield positive effects on teen sexual behavior such as pregnancy. From the above literature, television programs that use fictional narratives and characters that a) engenders strong para-social interaction among teens; b) do not cause teens to perceive persuasion; and c) that teens can trust as a legitimate source because the programs are at least guided adults like educators and parents may strike the delicate balance apparently needed to both attract teen viewership and inspire more positive sexual behaviors.

Peer-led Sex Education and Youth-Produced Media

As media tools become cheaper, simpler and more accessible to more populations, youth-produced media has grown into an important branch of sex education in the form of non-profits (e.g. Scenarios USA, Conscious Youth Media Crew, Global Action Project), school-based media literacy programs and even special programs designed by mass media companies (e.g. PBS’ Listen Up!).

Research of one peer-led media literacy workshop proposes that teens may trust and value sex education led by peers about sexual content in television (Pinkleton and Austin et al., 2008). Pinkleton and Austin et al. determined that teens trusted and valued the peer-led media literacy program and that the teens’ attitudes about sexual activity improved. The results did not assess actual sexual behavior after the study was complete, which was attributed to lack of approval from the Institutional Review Board. The program described in this study was designed, as most media literacy programs presumably would be, by adults hoping to reduce negative sexual outcomes such as pregnancy and the program was also constricted by both state and federal requirements requiring abstinence-based education. Nonetheless Pinkleton and Austin’s preliminary findings that teens do trust and value peer-led sex education and are receptive to developing a critical, engaged mind regarding media and sexual messaging provide a springboard for examining contemporary youth-produced media and related rhetoric.

At this point rhetoric about youth-produced media and its potential impact on teens and their sexual health is largely limited to institutional data provided by the youth-produced media organizations themselves; articles detailing the challenges faced by youth-produced media organizations (Donnelly, 2010); and non-critical organizational descriptions written by advocates to promote the programs (Sweeney, 2005), while quantitative non-anecdotal research on its effectiveness appears to be lagging.

What is so exciting about the impact potential of youth-produced media—and what remains to be researched—is that it combines peer-led sex education, para-social interaction, and tentatively trustworthy adult supervision to ensure teens feel confident in the sex education they may take from it. The four examples of youth-produced media programs listed earlier all exist in large urban centers and target teens of color for participation. Narrative styles include fiction, performance and documentary around issues related to teens and especially sexual health issues, and the level of adult participation and structuring surely varies between organizations and programs.

Future Research to Evaluate and Improve Youth-Produced Media

A rather large area of concern that requires more literature is how adult prerogatives, assumptions and agendas can override and manipulate youth creativity during the process of creating, producing and distributing youth-produced media. Adults are presumably needed to design, fund, and execute any youth-produced media program because teens are not independently wealthy. Also, as we have seen demonstrated in other literature, teens do seek out and respond well to adult involvement around sexual health issues, so adult involvement in youth-produced media may be significant for that reason. However, a rather old examination of one playwriting program designed for teen mothers illustrates well the negative impacts adult supervisors can inflict upon youth creativity (Kelly, 1997).

In the playwriting program, teens expected to create their own messages based on complex emotions and experience related to becoming young parents, yet the adults directing the program and the adult members of the audience at the final production could not help but reflect their own values and agendas. This frustrated the teen mothers as they too had important messages, one of which was the perspective that teen motherhood can be extremely rewarding and positive as well as extremely tough. Kelly proposes that the lesson here may be that open communication must be established and goals negotiated between adults and teens to avoid unintentional abuse or manipulation.

Since adult involvement is needed for a variety of reasons in youth-produced media, especially broadcast media, future research that evaluates adult involvement in youth-produced media is necessary.

In terms of youth-produced media, future research that evaluates impacts on participating teens, participating adults, and of course on reducing negative sexual outcomes like teen pregnancy is also needed to ensure the evolving quality of the media produced and to ensure its very future through private and even government funding. What may be useful is to consider having teens help design the terms by which to measure the effectiveness of youth-produced media. So much of what we as adults hope for when we examine any program aimed at improving teenage sexual behavior is to find ways to make teens not get pregnant and, consequently, not become parents. While there is no defensible reason to use youth-produced media to encourage teens to become parents, future research about youth-produced media could be structured to assess more robust outcomes from teens participating in and consuming youth-produced media, beyond reduced teen pregnancy.