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When I was in high school a lot of the poplar kids smoked and dranked. I felt that I had to do the same to be able to fit in because that was the vibe that we were getting from the movies that we were watching. So in order to be seen with the popular kids that’s what you needed to do. It was consider cool to have a pack of cigarettes in your purse.
In this presentation, I will explore an academic Journal article by Susannah Stern about Messages from Teens on the Big Screen: Smoking, Drinking, and Drug use in Teen-Centered Films, that was published in Journal of Health Communication.
First I will discuss the article and its findings. Next, I examine the relationship between the article and our understanding of communication. And finally, I will offer my reflections on the research. Let’s start by discussing the article and it’s findings.
A study by the Institute for Adolescent Risk Communication (2002), for instance, found that young people (ages 12-22) are more likely to associate smoking cigarettes or pot and drinking alcohol with “popular” peers, rather than “unpopular” peers. A quarter of high school students believe that people who smoke pot are more interesting and more independent people (Bachman, Johnston, & O’Malley, 2001) “The studies also showed that half of the young people used marijuana, just one-tenth reported ever having used cocaine, and approximately 3% reported heroin.” They also studied substance use in films. “Although 12-17 year olds compose only 11% of the U.S. population, they account for 10% of total movie theater admissions. Study shown that it’s an instant in every movie where a person is smoking.” We could expect that teen viewer’s beliefs and attitudes about substance use may be impacted by images of similarly-aged (teen) characters in films. Some of the movies that were viewed in these studies were American Pie, Varsity Blues, Scary movie 1 & 2, and Not Another Teen Movie. Experiment with 9th...