Essay Example on Media's Role in Sexual Socialization of Adolescents

Media are often known to be significant agents of the sexual socialization of adolescents since they are the majority users of media. However, the media they frequently utilize usually involve sexual content and, as a result, get exposed to numerous sexual content in the movies, television, internet, and magazines that have prompted several researchers to question what the influence of such exposure could be (Scull & Malik, 2019).

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Indeed, sexual socialization is a process through which knowledge, values, and attitudes are acquired through it physically begins at adolescence. The conceptualization of sexual socialization could be realized through five components of the process of development, including the development of gender roles, sexual skills, values and knowledge acquisition, sex-object preferences, development of sexual attitude, and sexual identity.

A better understanding of sexual content presented in the media has made researchers conduct content analyses of consistently used media like the internet and television. For instance, the content analyses in the US showed that at least two-thirds of the television programs far from sports, Children's programs, and news possess some sexual content. In contrast, only one percent of these particular programs emphasize sexual responsibilities or risks. Hence, the presentation of sex through media viewed to increase the behavior of sexual danger in youths. Indeed, empirical studies have suggested that the content of sexual media can lead to the early beginnings of sexual practices. For example, according to Aubrey,Yan and Roberts(2019), these could include unprotected sex and objectification of females (Aubrey et al., 2019).

However, most of the sexuality education takes place through sexual socialization processes where youths can get ideas, attitudes, patterns, and values pertaining sexuality through observation and interaction with peers, family members and the rest of the community members through utilization of electronic and print entertainments, public information, advertising and news with implicit or explicit content.

According to the US general surgeon (2001), one of the crucial problems affecting youths in the US today is the acknowledgment of their sexuality. Knowledge concerning issues related to sex establishes the foundation for attitudes and beliefs about sex, which can touch on the life of every individual's sexual behavior pattern. Therefore peers, parents, and schools perform a crucial role in the process of sexual socialization. However, mass media, most specifically television, is an essential element likely to further the sexual development of young people in the United States (Aubrey et al., 2019).

Adolescence can sometimes be of significant change in sexual emphasis since the youths undergo cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and moral transformations. During this process, they encounter several developmental activities such as the establishment of their sexual identity, control of their early sexual and romantic relationships. Hence, television acts as a vital source of information on sexual socialization, thus helping the young people to handle their developmental challenges.

Many people have termed media as "super-peer" due to its critical function in the creation of sexual expectations and norms for young people. Moreover, several teens endorse television to be their most fertile source of information about contraception, birth control, and prevention of pregnancy, as well as providing them with the knowledge on how to communicate with their opposite partners concerning sexual issues, romantic and sexual scripts, and various norms surrounding sex (Scull et al., 2019).

Over the years, the treatment of television on sexual content has increasingly and frequently become prominent, thus raising societal concerns, especially when the decisions about sexual behaviors inevitably attract public health-related issues. Every year in the US, at least one-quarter of sexually active youths is transmitted with STD, and approximately nineteen million are diagnosed yearly. Additionally, since the 1960s, 34 percent of the young women get pregnant once before their twentieth birthdays (Wright & Tokunaga, 2018).

The recent statistics and facts suggest that young people in the US spend considerable time with the television as compared to the rest of the media. It is even surprising that the impact of television on sexual socialization attracted an absolute number of policymakers and researchers. Over the previous years, there has been vast knowledge advancement concerning the impact of sexual content streamed on the television over adolescents (Scull et al., 2019).

Researchers have indicated that the subjection of young people to sexual content on televisions is linked to increased comprehension and learning of sexual data. For instance, a recent televised episode showed a case of friends where condom failure was tackled and was discovered to have resulted in increased knowledge on the use of condoms. About 17 percent of young people aged 12 to 17 watched the episode, and ten percent of the adolescents were reported discussing with older adults about the efficacy of condom having watched the episode over the television.Most importantly, the subjection to sexual content on television has been discovered to be the chances of an increase in recreational attitudes about sex (Wright & Tokunaga, 2018).

References

Aubrey, J. S., Yan, K., Teran, L., & Roberts, L. (2019). The Heterosexual Script on Tween, Teen, and Young-Adult Television Programs: A Content Analytic Update and Extension. The Journal of Sex Research, 1-12. oi.org/10.1080/00224499.2019.1699895

Scull, T. M., & Malik, C. V. (2019). Role of entertainment media in sexual socialization. The international encyclopedia of media literacy,111.11.doi.org/10.1002/9781118978238.ieml0214

Scull, T. M., Malik, C. V., Keefe, E. M., & Schoemann, A. (2019). Evaluating the short-term Impact of Media Aware Parent, a web-based program for parents with the goal of adolescent sexual health promotion. Journal of youth and adolescence, 48(9), 1686-1706. Accessed: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-019-01077-0

Wright, P. J., & Tokunaga, R. S. (2018). Pornography consumption, sexual liberalism, and support for abortion in the United States: Aggregate results from two national panel studies. Media Psychology, 21(1), 75-92. doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2016.1267646