Teen pregnancy has been a prevalent topic over many decades. It has primarily been viewed as a problem with a need to control it. Even though pregnancy rates have dropped dramatically since the start of this problem, many people look for answers as to why this phenomenon still occurs. Many factors play a role in the development of teen pregnancy such as social interaction, family life, etc. But many researchers point to mass media as the main cause of the problem. Mass media creates a sense of romanticism in the minds of adolescents which leads to carelessness and a false sense of adulthood. One survey studied the mass media diets of middle school students, focusing on how much sexual activity they are exposed to through various ways including …show more content…
It seems that more and more girls boast about their unplanned pregnancies. They are extremely eager to share their “baby bump” pictures on social media every single day. They pretend that there are absolutely no consequences to their actions, and believe that everything will fall into place the exact way they want it to be. They act in the same way as if a married, educated, well-off woman in her early 30’s just announced her first pregnancy. It does not help that our society has become victimized and babied to the point that our generation is not held responsibility for our own actions. I see too many instances where the mother of the pregnant teenager becomes the sole provider for the child and the teenager returns to a normal life after the baby is born. This is where adoption plays a role, and I do not understand why most mothers do not take that route if they are not able to care for the child. I believe that mass media is playing a large role in the romanticism of teenage pregnancy, especially through social media. When a person receives over 200 “likes”(a feature that allows users to show their support for specific comments, pictures, wall posts, statuses, or fan pages) and numerous comments on pictures of their “3 week baby bump”, it creates a sensation of positive attention that teenagers like. They start to view an unplanned pregnancy as a normal phenomenon. On the surface, everything looks as if it is falling into place, but the underlying reality is not shared with the
Studies show that within the last seven years there has been a dramatic drop in the number of teen pregnancies. Teen pregnancy is best known as, the act of getting pregnant between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Teen pregnancy does not come with much of a history. In the past, (mostly in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s) it was common for girls to be married between the ages of fourteen and sixteen and give birth not long after. Some girls were having babies as young as thirteen and fourteen years old! During the times that young girls would bear children and be married so young, college and education was not an important factor. As a young girl you learned how to take care of your house, farm, laundry, crops, animals, husband, and children. The father was your main source of income. Obviously things in our time are very different. Over the years a growing importance for education and making a living on your own has become crucial to many women. It was no longer important to have children so soon, but to learn to be a strong, educated, and independent woman. Even now as time has gone by, the image of being a pregnant teenage girl has been glorified solely by media. It becomes less important to get an education so you can get a good job and be able to raise a child and give them a good life, and more important to get pregnant and get a chance to be worshiped nationally on t.v. for being pregnant and making all of your money through fame.
For example, Aubrey, Behm-Morawitz and Kim state, “Girls who watched "16 and Pregnant,"… reported a lower perception of their own risk for pregnancy and a greater perception that the benefits of teen pregnancy outweigh the risks” (qtd. in Lori Harwood). In other words, due to the fanciful perception this program transmits,
Somers, C. L., & Tynan, J. J. (2006). CONSUMPTION OF SEXUAL DIALOGUE AND CONTENT ON TELEVISION AND ADOLESCENT SEXUAL OUTCOMES: MULTIETHNIC FINDINGS. Adolescence, 41(161), 15-38. Retrieved from Http://search.proquest.com/docview/195945519?accountid=46992
16 & Pregnant is a TV show aired on MTV that as the name suggests, focuses on the lives of various teens who are pregnant whilst still in high school; each tells a different story. In these episodes, viewers are able to observe the struggles these teens face as a result of pregnancy during pubescent development. Controversy has been made as a result of the release of this show; this left viewers torn between whether 16 & Pregnant discourages teen pregnancy or shrouds it within curiosity. There is more than sufficient evidence to say that 16 & Pregnant, does in fact discourage teen pregnancy for various reasons. According to the New York Times report, the National Bureau of Economic Research compared Nielsen television ratings to birth records, and concluded that in areas where teens viewed MTV more after the debut of 16 & Pregnant, there was a rapid decline of teen pregnancy rates when compared to other areas that viewed it less frequently although some believe the show glamorizes the subject matter. Some also believe that it encourages the teens to disrespect their parents in every way possible; quite to the contrary, watching 16 & Pregnant is very beneficial to discouraging teen pregnancy and family problems by displaying the hardships these teens face, teaching the importance of completing high school and encouraging viewers to use various contraceptives methods or practice abstinence.
...ers, Kim. Sexual Teens, Sexual Media: Investigating Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexuality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002.
The media has changed significantly over the past decades. Technology has modified our abilities to expand our communication network, and it allows companies to spread their commercials over many different continents. Research done by Roberts (1993) shows that adolescent and children are often very influenced by media that involves sexual or violent conduct. This research is based on media involving children and adolescents, however this does not eliminate the effect media has on adults (Singer & Singer, 2001, p. 269).
Research Questions and/or Hypotheses The research question and basis of the study can be summarized as whether or not the exposure to sexual concepts through the media have significant influences on the sexual practices of teenagers. Similarly, it is proposed that, if proven to be accurate, media can be used in similar formats to encourage safe sex and preventative sexual health practices. The use of focus groups, journal writings, room tours, and interviews allowed teens the opportunity to discuss sexuality which was operationalized as teen views on love, sex, and relationships. Steele, 1999, p. 334.
Different texts, stories, documentaries and videos all display teenage pregnancy as wrong and irresponsible because the parents of the baby are either in financial difficultly, socially disadvantaged or are simply too undeveloped to carry and hold a baby. For my two texts I am comparing a newspaper article from the Daily Telegraph written by Clare Masters and a video I found on you-tube originally from the website “hey-babe”. The video was created from the company “hey-babe” and was found and released late in 2009. The article is from December 14 back in 2008.
The concept of comprehensive social intervention has been defined as the process of identifying social problems in an attempt to eradicate them. In looking at the broad range of social characteristics and the behavior associated with teen pregnancy, it is obvious that the emphases placed on the effort to recognize and alleviate teen pregnancy can be celebrated through the effectiveness of education, family planning, and abstinence. However, the attempt to analyze and deal with the cause-and-effect relationship with teen pregnancy is an attempt in understanding the social world itself. In 2006, statistics show that there was a significant increase in teen pregnancy after a decade long decrease. The potential for understanding this increase motivates us to look beyond simple explanations for cause-and-effect behavior and to look at what interactions may be occurring between variables that result in specific behaviors or social conditions. What is it that influences behavior? In looking at teen pregnancy in the realm of the family, it is evident that a large number of family structures have evolved, or perhaps devolved, into a variety of combinations which challenge responsible parents to consistently expose their children to the role models and the types of behaviors that are important for their children to emulate as they mature. People are molded by circumstances and experiences, all of which can positively or negatively influence our behavior.
Being a teenager means that you are just starting life. Teenager’s role is to study, to play, to make friends and to enjoy the beautiful things in life. However, this joyful and happy life just needs a single mistake to be changed radically; this mistake is to become a teenage mother. For example, every four of 10 teenage girls in the United States get pregnant before the age of 20 (Hillis, Anda, Dube, Felitti & al, 2004). In Teenage Pregnancy a Theoretical Analysis of a Social Problem, Davis (1989) stated “In teenage pregnancy we have a problem about which everyone has an opinion, but apparently no one has a solution” (p. 20). More and more teenage girls are getting pregnant around the world and this significant
Thesis Statement: Within America, there is a teen pregnancy epidemic across all socioeconomic backgrounds, presenting commonalities as to the causes and ramifications of adolescents emerging as a growing parental population.
“In 2012, there were 29.4 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 305,420 babies born to females in this age group” (Hamilton). Teenage pregnancies were once regarded as normal. Women were once expected to be married and have a family at a young age to ensure lifelong stability. In modern times, teenage pregnancy is considered a taboo subject. MTV began a reality television show in 2009 that popularized pregnancy amongst adolescent females. There are many factors that add to the risk of becoming pregnant during adolescent years, but glamorizing the subject has shown to be the top reason.
The problem with teenage pregnancy is it requires intervention from society. This debate is from the perspective of teens, and absent from the medical, ethical, and political views on teen pregnancy. According to Jewell, Tacchi, & Donovan, (2000), teen pregnancy is not a problem for teens themselves but more of a problem for society. The large numbers of unintended pregnancies are among unmarried teens.
Sexually active youths tend to be more exposure to media than any other members of society. The reason behind that is because they are in charge of their own time without much interference from their parents and burdensome responsibilities. This, combined with the fact that both implicit and explicit sexual content and crime in the mass media has grown over time predisposes youths to premarital sex (Rosengren, 2000).
Today in this society many teenagers are having sex and not realizing what could happened after they have done it. Parents and teachers aren’t teaching their children proper information about sex. Teenagers believe nothing can happen and that sex isn’t a probable cause. Unfortunately, there are many risks that come along with teen pregnancy many of those include a life surrounded by poverty, medical and health issues, less schooling along with more dropout rates, and lower career ambitions. Teen pregnancy has many causes such as no access to protection, wanting to tie down a guy, Missing love or attention from parents, peer pressure mixed with "trends”, and sadly teenagers most common, lack of knowledge.