Do you see what I see? A character analysis of health risk behaviors in television shows popular with Black adolescents in the US

ABSTRACT

Adolescents spend many hours per day watching television, and there are racial differences in time spent watching television and in show preferences. Prior research suggests there are also differential associations in how exposure to media content affects adolescent behavior. This study examines the demographic representation of main characters and health risk behaviors (i.e., sex, alcohol use, violence, bullying, and their combinations) portrayed in television content popular with Black and non-Black adolescents. A content analysis of television show characters (n = 377) from the 2014–2015 season was conducted on shows popular with 14–17-year old adolescent audiences in the United States. Group popularity was determined by Nielsen ratings segmented by Black and non-Black (primarily White) adolescents. Results suggest that character representation varies by whether shows were popular with Blacks or others, and that risk portrayals are common in all popular content with few group differences. Implications for adolescent behavior are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• content analysis
• television
• risk behavior
• sex
• alcohol
• violence
• race differences

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the coders and managers for their contributions to this project: Anna Rose Bedrosian, Sebastian Lemus Camacho, Anna Jose, Mia Leyland, Rachel MacDonald, Haley Mankin, and Jaléssa Mungin.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this paper, we use the term “non-Black” for consistency with how Nielsen categorized audience race for the purposes of our ratings report. “Non-Black” primarily consists of White adolescents, but includes a slim percentage of other races that may have been sampled.

2. According to Nielsen, non-syndication means the original network is airing the repeats, and syndication means they are airing on a different network.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under Grant Number [1R21HD079615]. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NICHD.

Notes on contributors

Amy Bleakley

Dr Amy Bleakley is a senior research scientist at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She investigates the mechanisms through which media influence adolescent health and risk behaviors with an emphasis on racial differences in adolescent media use and effects. Her research also includes the development and testing of theory-based persuasive health messaging.

Morgan E. Ellithorpe

Dr Morgan E. Ellithorpe is an assistant professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at Michigan State University. Her research interests include media psychology and media effects in the contexts of adolescent health and risk, as well as in racial differences in media representation and effects.

Lisa Prince

Dr Lisa Prince is a research analyst at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. Her research focuses on television exposure in the new media environment, and the impact of exposure on audience beliefs and attitudes. Her research interests also include cultivation analysis, content studies, and cognitive aspects of media use.

Michael Hennessy

Dr Michael Hennessy is a researcher at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are the combination of structural equation modeling and intervention program/behavioral theory, growth curve analysis of longitudinal data, and using factorial surveys to design effective behavioral intervention programs.

Atika Khurana

Dr Atika Khurana is an associate professor at the University of Oregon. She uses a developmental-ecological approach to understanding and preventing unhealthy risk behavior outcomes in adolescence with an emphasis on the neuropsychological predictors of adolescent risk-taking including executive control and reward sensitivity.

Patrick E. Jamieson

Dr Patrick E. Jamieson is the director of the Adolescent Health and Risk Communication Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He conducts research using surveys, content analyses, and statistics to study the intersection of health risk and pro-social media portrayal, the exposure of such, and subsequent changes in attitudes and behavior. He coedited The Changing Portrayal of Adolescents in the Media since 1950 (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Ilana Weitz

Ms Ilana Weitz is a coding research manager and analyst for the Adolescent Health and Risk Communication Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Master of Public Administration degree at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania.