Media Portrayals of Online Youth

1
Media Portrayals of Online Youth

• What they are and what to do about it
• L.Kris Gowen
• Portland State University

2
Teen Internet Use

• 93 of teens 12-17 use the internet at least
  occasionally
• 55 of online teens use social networking sites
• Pew 2007

3
Question

• Given how commonplace it is, how does the media
  portray internet usage by teens?

4
Methods

• Seven Major Newspapers
• January 1 2007-June 30, 2007
• Articles from the search teens OR youth AND
  online OR internet (Lexus Nexus)
• Teens 13-19 or high school
• Omitted announcements

5
Methods

• Articles needed to actually portray teens going
  online
• 2 independent raters, consensus
• N86
• Content analysis

6
Results

• Themes
• Teens as victims
• Of adult perpetrators
• Of each other (teens as aggressors)
• Of the medium
• Risky Behaviors
• Teens as marketing targets

7
Results

• Themes
• Positive online experiences
• Available to youth
• Youth generated

8
Teens as victims of adult perpetrators

• Two types of stories
• Actual incident Mother of the Teen Met Online by
  the Texas Resident Tells of the Pain
• Policy/law States Fault MySpace on Predator
  Issues
• N 17

9
Teens as victims of each other/aggressors

• Cyberbullying
• Girls Charged in Threats to 2 Teens in Online
  Chat
• N 5

10
Teens as victims of the medium

• Information about a person online can lead to
  trouble
• From Facebook to a Yearbook Privacy Lesson in
  Bethesda
• Teen Becomes Victim of Unwanted Attention After
  Photo is Posted on Sports Blog
• N 7

11
Risky Behaviors

• Teens do bad/risky things, internet exacerbates
  this
• Teenagers Misbehaving for All Online to Watch
• Young people accessing drugs online
• A new risky behavior Internet addiction
• N 18

12
Teens as marketing targets

• N 20
• Business section
• Web sites designed for teens
• Advertising needs to reach teens where they are
  online
• Sprite, MTV

13
The research gap

• Over-reporting of adult perpetration
• 2/1500 youth in a survey stated that they were
  sexually victimized by someone they met online
• 7 of statutory rape cases were
  internet-initiated 95 of them were
  non-forcible
• 500 arrests for internet-initiated sex crimes in
  July 2000-June 2001
• To Catch a Predator effect
• only 5 percent of offenders pretended to be teens
  when trying to meet potential victims online
• (Wolak, et al, 2003, 2004).

14
The research gap

• Cyberbullying low representation
• 1/3 of teens experience cyberbullying (Pew, 2007)
• Marketing impact?

15
Positive portrayals of teens online

• Opportunities/Resources (3)
• Love of Learning Propels Gifted Students from
  Around the World at Stanfords Online High
• Job hunting
• Teens do good (4)
• Entrepreneurship political involvement
• Identity Aware Most teens protecting themselves
  online (2)

16
Next Steps (research)

• Comparative analyses
• Geographic differences
• Newspaper size
• Between different media outlets
• Featured experts
• Framing of the issue (i.e., responsibility)

17
Take Action!

• Make yourself available to media outlets
• Media Bistro
• Press releases
• Letters to the editor
• Presentations to the community