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Unraveling success stories in media: An exploration of their manifestations in popular (social) media and their effects on adolescent development
Boek - Dissertatie
The prevailing belief in Western societies is that anyone can succeed given effort and hard work. Therefore, everyone should be able to reach the top and live a successful life. Such an emphasis on achievement seems to affect people's cognitions about success, especially those of adolescents. As adolescents are in the process of developing their identities, they often look to cultural beliefs and behaviors to know how to think and behave themselves. Thus, they presumably form their identity and their cognitions about success according to prevailing Western ideas about success.
One of the reasons why success is increasingly important to today's youth could be attributed to the media, which is considered a constant source of success stories. Such stories would reflect society's conceptions of what success is and how it can be achieved. Since young people claim to consume media on a regular basis, it makes sense that they would be constantly exposed to media success stories. Despite previous suggestions by researchers that both traditional and social media disseminate success stories and as such promote prevailing Western conceptions of success, systematic research on how success stories are presented in the media and how this might affect young people is lacking.
This dissertation addresses these shortcomings by examining both the short- and long-term relationships between exposure to success stories and teens' cognitions and well-being regarding success using a multi-method approach. The findings imply that success stories are common in traditional and social media, but in a more complex way than previous studies have suggested. Only a small percentage of stories in TV dramas appear to include newly acquired achievements and failures, but when such events occur, they are almost always accompanied by a narrative that emphasizes that success is a personal responsibility. This dissertation found that framing techniques were widely used to portray one's triumphs on
social media explicitly, further demonstrating the prominent focus on success.
Exposure to success stories was found to have an impact on adolescents' beliefs and conceptions of success. Adolescents were more likely to feel that success was malleable and thus the result of their own efforts if they were more frequently exposed to success stories in both traditional and social media. In addition, they also believed more in their own abilities to succeed.
Some adolescents seemed to benefit from these perceptions and felt more confident and driven to achieve their goals. In contrast, other adolescents seemed to have difficulty with this success-oriented mindset, as it made them feel constantly pressured to do well and always improve. Thus, while mediated success stories appeared to be encouraging and reinforcing for some adolescents, they had significant negative effects for others.
Jaar van publicatie:2022
Toegankelijkheid:Closed