Adolescents’ Modern Media Use and Beliefs About Masculine Gender Roles and Norms
Abstract
In the current study, cultivation theory is used to examine associations among amount of time spent with television (including Netflix or other streaming services), video games, and YouTube and beliefs about masculine roles and norms within a diverse sample of 307 13- to 18-year-olds from the United States. Heavy users of television, video games, and YouTube outscored lighter users on endorsement of views of masculinity that favor emotional detachment, dominance, toughness, and/or avoidance of femininity among boys and girls in the sample. For boys only, heavy exposure to violence in favorite games also played a role.
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Biographies
Erica Scharrer (PhD, Syracuse University), professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, studies media content, opinions of media, media effects, and media literacy. She is the first author of Quantitative Research Methods in Communication: The Power of Numbers for Social Justice (Routledge, 2021) and associate editor of the International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020). Her recent research on masculinity and media has appeared in Sex Roles and Mass Communication and Society.
Stephen Warren (MA, Syracuse University) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He studies media psychology and entertainment theories primarily concerning streaming and digital media and sports communication. He has published research in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Psychology of Popular Media, and the Journal of Children and Media, and has contributed to Video Game Influences on Aggression, Cognition, and Attention (Springer, 2018) and the International Encyclopedia of Media (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020).
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Article first published online: August 5, 2021
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