Is Your Teen at Risk? Discourses of adolescent sexting in United States television news

Abstract

“Sexting” is the term commonly used to refer to the transfer of nude or semi-nude pictures or videos between mobile devices. This paper contextualizes the reaction to the practice of sexting among adolescents by exploring legal responses and reviewing the literature on teens and cell phone use. The purpose of the paper is to identify, explore and analyze the key themes emerging from the coverage of teen sexting by television news in the United States. The author explores three primary themes that emerge from the broadcast discourse: preference for technologically deterministic explanations; reliance on gender-differentiated scenarios; and, a preference for solutions involving surveillance. This paper further explores whether the discourse around sexting can be understood using media panic theory. Noting the problematic conflation of risk and harm in the discourse, the author concludes by suggesting avenues for future research regarding the creation and transmission of sexual images using digital devices.

Keywords:

• adolescents
• cell phone
• media panic
• sexting
• digital media
• gender
• surveillance

Acknowledgements

This paper was originally presented in 2010 at the conference e-Youth: Balancing Between Opportunities and Risks and benefited from participant and moderator comments. The author would also like to thank Deborah Linebarger, Amy Jordan, the editor of this journal and three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.

Notes

^1. “Cell phone" is the term most commonly used in North American to refer to mobile phone devices. It is used here to refer broadly to phones with basic features—including text messaging (SMS) and photo and video messaging (MMS)—and those with more advanced computing functions known as “smart phones”.

^2. Video clips of the broadcasts were initially sought for analysis. However, only select segments were available. Rather than using written transcripts for some networks and video broadcasts for others, the decision was made to use transcripts exclusively to maintain consistency. The use of written text to analyze content that was initially presented audio-visually is not ideal and represents a potential weakness in this study.

^3. Searches using alternative search terms—including “sex AND text message" and “sex AND cell phone"—failed to uncover more or different broadcasts.

^4. There is some evidence that frequent use of cell phones is correlated with sexual activity in teens. Two studies using data collected in Norway suggest mobile phone use—both voice and text—is correlated with increased sexual activity for teens between 13 and 19 (Ling, 2005; Pederson & Samuelsen, 2003). While these studies do not suggest causation, they do suggest cell phones may play a role in teenage experimentation with social boundaries.

^5. For further discussion on female agency and sexting see Hasinhoff (2010).