Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

School of Journalism and Mass Communications

Sub-Department

Journalism

First Advisor

August E. Grant

Abstract

Parental mediation of media use by children has been studied extensively as it applies to television and children 12 years old and younger. This study expands the scope of Parental Mediation Theory by applying it to adolescents (age 13-17 years old) and movie viewing. The results of this study show overall parental mediation of adolescent movie viewing is negatively associated with the age of the child. The results show that among parents who mediate movie viewing, restrictive, instructive and social co-viewing mediation strategies are negatively correlated with the age of the adolescent. Third Person Effect is also examined as parental perception of the effect of inappropriate content such as violence, profanity, sexual references and activity, nudity, and alcohol, tobacco and drug use, on their children versus other adolescents. The results show a significant number of parents perceive a greater negative effect of inappropriate content on other adolescents compared to the negative effect on their own children. Third Person Effect as it relates to one’s child is also found to have an effect on the decision to mediate and mediation strategies used by the parent.

Rights

© 2014, Larry James Webster Jr.

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