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Young people are increasingly turning to social media for health-related information in areas such as physical activity, diet/nutrition and body image. Yet, there are few robust empirical accounts of the content and form of the health-related material young people access and attend to, or the health-related content they create and share. Furthermore, there is little guidance from research or policy on young people's engagement with health-related social media. This leaves many relevant adults ill-equipped to protect young people from the negative influences of social media and to optimize the potential of social media as a medium for health promotion. This article presents new evidence on young people's engagement with social media and the influences they report on their health-related behaviors. The research was undertaken with 1296 young people (age 13–18) using a participatory mixed methods design. Initially, a public pedagogy [Giroux, 2004. Public pedagogy and the politics of neo-liberalism: Making the political more pedagogical. Policy Futures in Education, 2, 494–503] theoretical framework was used to guide data analysis but this was found to be limiting. An adapted framework was developed, therefore, drawing on Miller et al. [2016. How the world changed social media. London: UCL Press] and Lomborg [2011. Social media as communicative genres. Journal of Media and Communication Research, 51, 55–71] to account for the unique ways in which pedagogy operates in a social media context. Young people accessed and used a range of health-related information on body transformations, diet/nutritional supplements or recipes and workouts/exercises, albeit in different ways. Moreover, young people identified five forms of content that influenced their understandings and behaviours: (i) automatically sourced content; (ii) suggested or recommended content; (iii) peer content; (iv) likes; (v) reputable content. The findings also suggest that relevant adults can reduce risk and realize more of the positive impacts of social media for young people by focusing on content, and the ways in which content is shaped in the interplay between interactive functionalities of social media (e.g. likes and followers) and young people's social uses of social media (e.g. friends, information). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyze television series '30 Rock,' 'The Delinquents,' and magazine 'Twenty-First Century Teenage Monsters: Representations of Coming of Age on the Fringes of America' is presented. Author investigates teenager's fantasy genre within a history of American teen cinema and reflects shifting modes of films and television productions including dominant ideologies of race, class, and gender by utilizing place and social aspect of homogeneity and heterogeneity are also presented.

Across the developed world, pregnant and mothering teenagers are the subject of public concern and debate. Initiatives which target these young women, such as the UK's ten-year national campaign to reduce teenage conceptions and increase participation in education, employment and training (Social Exclusion Unit [SEU] 1999), has ensured that they have remained high on the policy agenda and consequently, also in public consciousness. Alongside this, sensationalised media coverage of exceptional cases, as illustrated above, also ensures their high visibility. This paper challenges common perceptions about teenage motherhood by highlighting important aspects of young mothers' experiences that are marginalised within dominant representations. Drawing on the experiences of a small group of teenage mothers in England we examine how they responded to dominant discourses about teenage motherhood and what impact it had on their day-to-day lives. We reveal how their motherhood experiences were made more difficult because of these stigmatised representations. We show that they are not the feckless, unmotivated young women that they are portrayed to be but rather, are often doing the best they can in circumstances that are far from ideal. We use the notion of discourse to situate our argument and we begin by briefly outlining how we use this term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined aspects of adolescent girls’ parasocial interactions in the context of typical development. Parasocial interactions are defined as symbolic, one-sided quasi-interactions between a viewer and a media figure. In total, 107 adolescent girls were examined; 94% reported engaging in parasocial interactions to some degree. Preoccupied attachment style predicted the degree of involvement in and emotional intensity of parasocial interactions. Results suggest that parasocial interactions are characteristic of girls with preoccupied attachment, but are also part of normative development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the influence of mass media as agent of social control on gender relations in adolescent peer groups. Sociology of the mass media; Production of culture approach; Sociolinguistic analysis; Production and reproduction of gender idealogy; Ethnographic case studies of peer interactions in middle school.

The article discusses the prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) depicted in the media and the role that the media plays in creating a social contagion related to NSSI. The prevalence of representations of NSSI in the media have increased since the early 1980's and the incidence of NSSI among adolescents has similarly increased over time. According to the authors studies have shown that the media can have an influence on behaviors such as aggression, suicidal behavior and eating disorders and that adolescents are particularly susceptible. The authors argue that NSSI has been increasingly depicted as a common, effective coping mechanism for dealing with life stressors and that rarely are the lasting consequences of such behavior examined.