 " Are images of party girl celebrities like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan harmful to young girls?
In a recent Newsweek poll, 77 percent of respondents said that these celebrities and others have too much influence on young girls. Eight-four percent of those polled said sexuality plays a bigger role in American popular culture than it did 20 or 30 years ago and 70 percent say this is more of a bad influence on young people today than a good influence." - (CBS) Read more of the story here.  | Television is the largest media base for young teens. (McChesney) It’s most popular channels are the very networks that are self-promoting sexual content. Channels like MTV at one time promoted music. Now, the network has changed to trashy reality shows. On these shows, one can find underage drinking and sexual activities between strangers. These two images are seen throughout the teen world as cool. As a teenager, I’ve heard handfuls of kids saying they’re going to be on Real World some day or they would die to be on Tila Tequila. In a recent study done by the Television Bureau of Advertising, 98.2% of U.S households own a television set and more then 80% of children live in a home that has cable or satellite. Children and teens are being exposed to some of these horrible television programs. There is however something to help parents stop their kids from watching these sexually explicit shows. The FCC has required all television that have a screen bigger then 13 inches to have a V Chip installed. The V Chip is a devise used to help monitor television shows on TV by their rating. In the same study done by the Television Bureau of Advertising, 80% of parents knew what the V Chip was but only 12% used it. When parents refuse to use these rating programs, they set their children up for the consequences of being exposed. Commercials also have a heavy influence on the teenage population. The main goal for a corporation is to sell their product. The use of sex appeal in commercials dates to the dawn of advertising. (Trachtenberg) Sex sells, it’s been proven over and over again in ad campaigns since the 1930’s. Teens who are a younger demographic are persuaded to buy because of benefits to their beauty and popularity. Commercials like Trim Spa, a weight supplement, demonstrate the popularity and sex appeal that the actress Anne Nicole Smith had after she used the product. Commercials like these make the teen mind believe to get popular you must be skinny and sexually active. |
