Dependency and Adolescents' Perceived Usefulness of Information on Sexuality: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Interpersonal Sources, Professional Sources and the Mass Media

Abstract

Media system dependency theory is employed to examine the usefulness of information on sexuality in the eyes of Israeli Jewish and Arab adolescents. Arabs perceive most of the information sources as more useful than Jews do. In comparison with males, females perceive their parents as more useful and the electronic media as less useful, but there is no gender-ethnicity interaction and no clear-cut relationship between the adolescents' own sexual experience and their perception of the usefulness of information on sex. The results partly replicate the findings of American studies; however they are not strongly supportive of media system dependency theory.

The author would like to thank Communication Reports Editor Tadasu Todd Imahori and three anonymous reviewers for the good advice and the helpful comments on an earlier draft.

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Amir Hetsroni

Amir Hetsroni (PhD, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication, at Yezreel Valley College.