Scripting Adolescent Romance: Adolescents Talk about Romantic Relationships and Media's Sexual Scripts

Today's adolescents and emerging adults spend seven hours daily attending to media, which often presents relationships between men and women as a game or competition. Scripting Adolescent Romance provides a rare view inside youths' private spaces through in-depth interviews and focus groups with 16 high school and young college students. Findings reveal how they understand and navigate virginity, romantic relationships, sexual situations, and interpersonal violence. This book is a must-read for parents and classes about media effects, adolescent development, gender roles, and sexual health.

Format: Hardback
Length: 246 pages
Publication date: 16 February 2018
Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing Inc

Today's adolescents and emerging adults devote an estimated seven hours per day to media consumption. The media that teenagers consume frequently portrays relationships between men and women as a game or competition, in which women use their physical attractiveness to seduce and men's masculinity is defined by sexual conquest. A growing body of research indicates that exposure to sexualized media may influence adolescents and emerging adults' understanding of and behaviors in romantic and sexual relationships.

Drawing from social cognitive theory of gender development, scripting theory, and heterosexual script theory, Scripting Adolescent Romance offers methods and analyses of data from in-depth interviews with 16 high school and young college students, as well as focus groups with over 100 individuals in this age group. The findings provide a rare glimpse into the private spaces of youths, including their bedrooms and social media platforms. In often deeply personal conversations, youth share detailed insights into how they comprehend and navigate virginity, romantic relationships, sexual situations, and interpersonal violence. Their discussions of Netflix and chill, Facebook stalking, and the scorecard script shed light on aspects of romance and sex that may be particularly characteristic of today's young people.

This book is a valuable resource for parents of adolescents, and it is also an engaging and informative text for courses on media effects, adolescent development, gender roles, and sexual health.

Weight: 472g
Dimension: 155 x 229 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781433146817
Edition number: New ed