Growing Up in a Mediated World: The Mass Media and Adolescents’ Health

Jane D. Brown
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Abstract
Adolescents spend more time with some form of media (television, music, movies, magazines, videogames, the Internet) each day than they do in school or with their parents. For many adolescents, time spent with the media has become the equivalent of a part-time job. Media frequently are used by teens as a source of norms and expectations, and help shape as well as signal their developing identities. The images, sounds and messages that surround adolescents also frequently promote unhealthy behaviors, including interpersonal aggression, early and unprotected sex, body dissatisfaction and eating disorders, and substance use. In this presentation, current research findings on how adolescents use the media and the effects of the media on adolescents’ health will be reviewed with an eye to future research needs. The potential of media literacy education to help adolescents use media in healthier ways also will be addressed.

Biography
Jane D. Brown, Ph.D., (Wisconsin-Madison, 1977) is the James L. Knight Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill where she teaches courses in health communication methods and theory. She is an expert on how the media are used by and influence adolescents’ and young adults’ health. Her studies of the effects of the media on adolescents’ tobacco and alcohol use, aggressive, and sexual behavior have been published in communication, adolescent, and public health journals. Brown is the co-editor of The Media, Social Science and Social Policy for Children (1985), and Sexual Teens, Sexual Media (2002). At UNC-CH, she is a fellow in the Carolina Population Center, served as chair of the UNC-CH Faculty Council (1994-97), and was associate director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities Academic Leadership Program (2002-07). She received the General Alumni Association’s Faculty Service Award in 2006. She currently serves on the research advisory committee for The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the Trojan Sexual Health Advisory Council, and is a member of the Steering committee for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s (NIAAA) Initiative on Underage Drinking.