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Project

Sexualisation in and by children's media. The content, use, and impact of sexualizing messages among 10- to 12-year olds.

The applicants propose to fill a critical gap of scholarly knowledge on the concept of sexualisation of children. This concept refers to a process in which young people are drawn in and socialized by a culture that attaches great importance to physical appearance, heterosexual attraction, and romantic and sexual success. Contemporary media are believed to play a central role in this process. However, studies to date have not systematically looked at (1) the nature and prevalence of sexualizing messages in children’s media, nor have they described (2) children’s reception and interpretation of such messages, or explored (3) their impact on children’s attitudes and perspectives (e.g., self-sexualisation) as well as on their mental well-being (e.g., selfesteem). Therefore, we aim to run a content analysis, qualitative reception analysis, and longitudinal survey in order to observe the content, use, and effect of sexualizing media with 9- to 12-year-olds. The key innovations of this project lie in its combination of different (social scientific, social-psychological and cultural studies’ interpretative) paradigms and different methodological tools, in its systematic data gathering on this issue, and in its focus on the understudied age group of ‘preteens’.

Date:1 Jan 2013 →  31 Dec 2016
Keywords:Seksualisering, Kindermedia, 10 tot 12 jarigen
Disciplines:Applied sociology, Policy and administration, Social psychology, Social stratification, Social theory and sociological methods, Sociology of life course, family and health, Other sociology and anthropology